“I don’t understand,” Naomi heard herself say. She felt detached from the moment, as if it were happening to somebody else. She wished it was happening to somebody else. “Why are you sending me away?”
“Oh, my dearest child,” Adibe whispered in her ear as behind him the street broke out into violence. “There is never enough time in this world, but know that this is done out of great love. Remember the stories I have told you, the lessons you have learned from this city, and follow Serenthel. Find strength in one another. Together you will find the answers. You must.”
“Answers to what?” Naomi meekly asked on a broken voice as her entire world began to crumble.
Adibe leaned back, wiped her tears away and smiled the saddest smile Naomi had ever seen. “Answers to questions of Ellium’s past, and hopefully, its future.”
In a haze of confusion and sorrow, she let Adibe guide her up to sit behind Serenthel, the pack of unknown contents pressed between them. Serenthel urged her to hold on, and she did, though she felt like everything else about her life was now slipping away. Murderous shouting erupted from the street. Esfir cried, Adibe smiled that sad smile, and Naomi buried her face in Serenthel’s cloak with a want to hide from it all.
“You remember the path Farrah showed you here?” Adibe asked, to which Serenthel confirmed. “Good. Take it back, but at the house with the blue door, go left instead of right onto a street with red stone curbs. Follow it all the way to the north gate. This madness should not have reached the Upper Clefts, yet, but be quick. There is a caravan leaving for Carnath. Follow it until Rajat’veshi, then head east. If they give you trouble at the gate, ask for Hisham, and tell him Adibe has called in his favor.”
“Understood.” Serenthel eased Forfoyln into a turn.
Naomi’s heart leapt into her throat as she finally regained the courage to look back at Adibe. “Can’t you come with us?”
“No, child.” Adibe’s solemn smile plucked a sting that resonated into Naomi’s soul and would forever be a part of her. “My story ends here, but yours is just beginning.”
Another explosion rumbled through the city, shaking the buildings and sending chunks of plaster to the street. Adibe swatted Forfolyn’s flank and the elk bolted, racing through the alleyway with hooves that clopped over cobblestones. Serenthel leaned forward and Naomi leaned with him, his cloak and the wind catching tears she once swore she would never let fall.
37
A sudden jolt broke the rhythmic rocking that had kept Dnara asleep within the wagon, nestled between tent poles and tarps with a sack of milled corn supporting her head. The sweet scent of the corn barely registered, and she opened her eyes to a world now fuzzy around the edges. She could feel her fingers and toes, but each flex felt like moving through mud. Even breathing came in slow, evenly paced intervals unhurried by an uncertainty about where she was and what had happened. In truth, she did not care. She did not care about anything.
“Miss?” Liam’s voice echoed strangely, as if he stood far from her with a thick barrier between them. His hand touched her shoulder then helped her sit up. He gave her a relieved smile, one that she couldn’t return. “Hold on a second,” he said then leaned out of the back of the wagon and loudly whistled before shouting. “Commander! She’s awake!”
After shouting the news, Liam sat down across from her, smiling. “You had us worried. Been asleep for nearly three whole days, you have.” He rifled through a sack, bringing a memory to Dnara’s mind, but it faded away into nothing before she could latch onto it. “It unsettled the commander so much, we doubled our pace from Haden’s Crossing. Never seen him unsettled like that.”
He paused in his rummaging. “But you didn’t hear that from me.” He gave her a sheepish grin then pulled something from the sack. “Unsettled all of us, if I’m being honest, even hard-headed me. Never seen a collar do that to a mageborne.” He offered her a waterskin and a corn cake. “Never seen the wind almost take out an entire squadron before, either.”
She stared at the offerings held out to her. Was she thirsty? Hungry? She didn’t know.
As the offering went untaken, Liam’s elation faltered. “Miss?” He waved a hand in front of her face.
She blinked and continued her steady breathing, her body calmly swaying along with the wagon’s bumpy ride. Horse hooves clopped in their approach and Liam gave another whistle with a beat of his fist to the sideboard. The wagon stopped after a gentle ‘whoa’ from the driver and Liam set aside his offerings to lower the back gate. Dnara remained unmoving within the fog surrounding her.
“Something’s wrong, Commander,” Liam said as he stepped out of the wagon and took the dark brown stallion’s reins from Aldric. “It’s like she’s awake, but there’s nobody home.”
“Thank you, Liam.” Aldric stepped up into the wagon and eyed Dnara. The wagon’s balance shifted with the commander’s bulk then settled as he sat across from her. His concerned expression registered in her mind but she felt unable to react to it. He too waved a hand before her eyes and she kept staring ahead, waiting to feel something.
With a deep breath raising his broad shoulders, Aldric turned back to Liam. “Ride ahead to the gate and inform them I wish to have an audience with the king upon our arrival, and perhaps a mage. It would do well to have a representative from the Red Conclave see her immediately. Maybe they can make sense of this.”
“Yes, sir!” Liam beat a fist to his heart and looked to the tall brown stallion before stopping short. “If
