and Vaasurri. He wondered what effects the song might have upon him, given enough timebut his thoughts soon turned to envy, coveting the song’s beauty for himself…
“No,” he whispered, taking hold of his emotions and shaking his head, fighting against the confusion of thoughts at war with one another.
Breathing deeply, he resolved to keep a cautious account of himself and a careful eye on the genasi and the half-elf. He made his pack ready for travel and waited patiently for the return of Vaasurri. It was a long time before he realized he hadn’t yet honestly thought about turning back to the Spur. Though the late evening breeze was not overly cool, he shivered anyway.
Ghaelya had lain down, staring up at the stars, dreading sleep and the dream almost as much she looked forward to it. Her eyes had grown heavy several times, but to no effect. The stars still remained before her, wheeling slowly in their endless circles.
Uthalion stood watch nearby, his blank eyes turning slowly from north to south in the moonlight. Turning over, she stared into the tall grass on her right, a newly made campfire warming her back. She wondered for a moment why Uthalion had changed his mind about keeping a cold camp. But the fire’s warmth soothed her aching muscles and made the thought of eventual slumber a bit more attainable.
The grass swayed in the evening breeze, disturbing tiny beetles that had gathered upon it. They crawled and massed together in frenzied clumps, the imperative of spring summoning them one to another. The buzz of floundering wings filled her ears, seeping in and gathering behind her tired eyes. Scrambling oh the ground, some of the insects rolled onto their backs, frantic struggles weakening as the singular missions of their brief lives were performed. Competition expended the last of what energy reserves they had, and they slowly died, small and unnoticed in the deep grass until morning brought birds to find them and carry them home.
Looking past the beetles, deeper in the fire-born shadows of the grass, Ghaelya watched a glimmer appear and grow closer. Two pinpoints of dancing flame spied upon her from their hiding place as the familiar whisper of a song began to form in the buzz of dying beetles. Alarmed, she tried to sit up, but found herself paralyzed, rooted to the ground. She tried to speak, but her voice was nothing but a dry hiss as the grass shifted and parted for the hidden watcher.
Long slender fingers pushed gently past the beetles, and they scurried away from the contact, climbing higher or flying away to settle elsewhere. The hands were pale and well formed. They parted the grass as the flickering pinpoints neared, half revealing a face in the firelight. The scent of her sisteralways a soft fragrance of lavender found her, and she tried to cry out, to reach for Tessaeril. But she could only watch.
The flames in Tessaeril’s eyes grew, consuming the familiar, crimson-tinted hazel that had differentiated her from her twin. The fire reflected in those eyes looked upon Ghaelya as well, a burning guilt from which she could not escape.
The pale hands pushed more grass and beetles aside, revealing the image of a small farmhouse, an illusion formed of twigs and dead grass, dirt and errant bugs. She could see inside the tiny windows, past the outstretched wing of a dying beetle, and saw movement, shadows on the walls in tiny candlelight. A half-ruined windmill stood nearby, torn fabric glistening as a patchwork of beetle wings stretched on sharp little legs.
The hands swiftly withdrew, and the farmhouse fell apart, dissolving back into the components that had constructed it. The whisper of the song faded, but the face of her sister pushed forward. The burning eyes turned a deep, velvety red. Little petals pushed from between the lids, slowly at first, but then bloomed from her sockets into blood red flowers. They opened wide as if to embrace the night sky, their petals pulsing like muscle tissue. Ghaelya stared into their depths, horror drawing her in to the squirming centers where miniature figures writhed in thick red nectara bloom and its blood.
Tessaeril’s mouth opened, and the song came screaming forth. The wind of it blew across Ghaelya’s face, and the sound of it sent Shockwaves through her body. A beautiful terror sank in her heart, sublime and enveloping, warming her soul in the wailing terror of her sister’s dreaming song. As tears sprang to her eyes and Tessaeril’s bloomed yet more of the flowers on long roping vines, she felt the ground give way beneath her and heard her own scream as it swallowed her.
Ghaelya awoke, slapping her hands on the ground and digging her fingers in the dirt for purchase.
The song was gone. The stars still turned overhead, and the grass showed no sign of being disturbed, though she could still smell the lavender scent of her sister. The campfire of the dream was gone, and she shivered as the sensation of the false warmth faded from her back. Sitting up and rubbing the smooth skin of her scalp, she fought to contain all that she’d seen, memorizing it before it could escape.
Quickly, she looked to Uthalion, who watched her in the moonlight, his eyes unreadable in the dark.
“Did you hear it?” she asked, finding her voice.
He stared at her for what seemed an eternity, as if he held an answer she was afraid to hear or one that perhaps he was afraid to say out loud for fear of believing it himself. But at length he blinked and turned back to his watch before answering.
“No. Haven’t heard a thing,” he said, then shouldered his pack. “Wake Brindani as well. We’ll be on the move again soon.”
Lowering her head into her hands, she sighed in frustration and relief. Though she hoped for validation of what she feared was some kind of madness, she was somehow happy that the truth of it was still her own, a secret thing that she didn’t yet have to share with anyone. She turned to Brindani and found a lazy spring-beetle crawling across his leg, its little wings fluttering as it attempted to fly, as though it no longer had the strength.
Picking it up, she cradled it in her hand, committing more of the dream to memory before releasing the insect in the grass. Far away howls interrupted her thoughts, and she shook Brindani, rousing him from sleep before readying herself for the day to come. The image of an old farmhouse was foremost in her mind.
Dawn did little to banish Ghaelya’s sense that she was still asleep, lying on the ground, dreaming of Tessaeril. Behind every white cloud and patch of blue sky, she imagined a night full of stars, still wheeling toward sunrise as her sister sang to her from the tall grass.
By mid morning they had reached the steep edge of the Wash, and by noon the broken lowland was all she could see to the south, a stilled ocean of ridges and valleys. Where water had once flowed across the Mere-That- Was, now the waves were stone and rock, a tide of browns and greens moving so slowly that only mountains might still see them crash upon a shore. Bright flowers topped the — frozen waves in light blues and whites, their scent heavy on the wind.
The land was cracked and shattered into a labyrinth of forested valleys and towering spires. Its only water fell from large forestmotes. The forked streams gathered into rivers, flowing west into the Lesser Mereall that remained of the vast inland sea.
Spiked formations of stone stood like mockeries of the towns and villages that had once dotted the shores of the mere. Ghaelya’s gaze sought the heart of every shadow among the valleys and the high grasslands between, and she listened for the call of birds, but found none. The silence of such a vibrant place was deafening and unreal, further keeping her mind in the state of dreaming wakefulness which kept her stride slow and uneven.
She fell back from the others though they didn’t seem to notice or care, still forging the path onward to the southwest. Uthalion kept the lead with the much-changed
Vaasurri at his side. There was a predatory look in his deep black eyes where once she had seen curiosity and understanding, but at least he was on their side. The human remained a mystery to her, personable one moment and cold the next, though it seemed he was getting colder as time passed.
Brindani, once constantly at her side, had grown distant’ since Uthalion had joined them, spending more time alone, lost in his own inscrutable thoughts. Ghaelya was curious about what had passed between him and the human and the secret they shared about Tohrepur, but she had not broached the subject with either of them just yet. She had hoped once they were closer to the place, one or the other might speak up, unburden himself of their past together. But the more she observed their silence, the more she suspected their secret would be tightly kept.
Her steps slowed as a deep droning buzz echoed through the shadowed valleys on her right. When the sound came again, starting and stopping quickly, a chill ran down her spine, bringing to mind the spring-beetles from her dream. She imagined them swarming over the rocks, building little houses with the empty shells of their dead among long ropes of pulsing red flowers.
