Brindani had turned away from the fire and stared out across the highland in troubled wonder. The thick veil of night retreated, drifting away from him to reveal gently swaying grasses and insects taking wing. As he traced the wandering path of a large moth, he shuddered and closed his eyes. He rubbed them fiercely, afraid to open them again lest they show him even more of what should be hidden by the dark. Even with his eyes shut he could hear the moth, rapidly beating its wings, swooping closer, and fluttering over his left shoulder as it was drawn to the fire.
He imagined that if he’d needed to, he could have deftly plucked it from the air without looking. Gingerly he opened his eyes, stared at his hands, and wondered what would become of himand what he was becoming.
The image of Sefir, writhing in the mud like a landed fish, gasping for air and gurgling as the wound in his lung denied him breath, was burned in Brindani’s mind. He recalled peculiar details the more he thought of itthe set of the singer’s jaw, the remaining pale eye and its dimmed blue iris, the smooth curve of an earlobe, and the tendons of Sefir’s throat, stretching taut above the hollow of a malformed collar bone. Despite the teeth and scars and squirming tentacles, Brindani could see the man within the beast.
A part of him wanted to dash out into the Akana, lose himself in the broken landscape, and just wither away, to find some end to the waking nightmare in which he found himself. It was the part of him that feared for the others more than he feared for himself, the nobler voice which he had always heard, but rarely acted upon.
The stronger part of him, however, kept him still, hugging his chest and clenching his cloak tight across his shoulders. Even as he clung to the hope that his addiction had led to delusion, that it lied to him, cajoled him into a fear that would lead him back to the silkroot, he knew the truth was nothing to do with a simple drughis need had been surpassed bv more dominant nnH mvatoriniio T1ooir. Tta
He could feel a gentle tug on his spirit, pulling him south and poisoning his reason. It itched across his skin like ants, though he refused to scratch for fear it would grow worse. It pained him like an aching tooth, swelled beneath his flesh like a cancer, and promised to end his misery if only he would follow its sweet song. The unbidden want to keep going, to find Tohrepur at all costs, needled at his every thought and Overrode his better instincts.
He glanced at Ghaelya and thought of warning her away, the words rushing to the tip of his tongue though his throat refused to give them voice. They fell apart, overtaken by a maddening, irrational panic.
Clasping his hands together, he laced his fingers over one another tightly, as if he could hold onto himself, keep his flesh from betraying him and melting away into something else. He might have prayed, but he had never given much thought to the godsthey’d never seemed to take any interest in him or his fortunes, unfortunate as they were. He considered his own sword and the release he might find upon its blade, but lacked the conviction and courage to take his own life.
Overcome by exhaustion, he leaned over and lay on his side. He hoped the morning light might spare him, awaken him to baseless fears and the long road ahead, nothing more. He closed his eyes, covered his ears against the thunderous crackling of the campfire, and quietly gasped as the whispering song came to him, keening softly as it slowly carried him to sleep.
He resisted for a moment, raising his suddenly heavy arm to grasp at a bending blade of grass as if it might anchor him, but the enchanting song was far stronger than his ability to defy its call.
It rolled through his body in ceaseless waves, soothing the itch upon his skin and the pulsing pressure in his muscles. He was drawn into a dark well of sweet oblivion, of haunting dreams where pain was a blessing and flesh was as malleable as clay, shaped to the will of an alien mind to which he was nothing more than a figment. Though he drowned in a thick blackness full of singing and shifting half-formed beasts, he breathed evenly and did not resist sinking further.
As he slept and gave himself over to the dreaming song, that nobler part of himself, a small and tinny echo in the endless black, wished that he would not wake up at all.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
10 Mirtul, the Year of the Ageless One (1479 DR) South of Caidris, Akanti.
Uthalion blinked.
He sat cross-legged on the curl of rock, his hands at his sides. A deep ringing filled his ears as he narrowed his eyes and tried to recall what he’d been doing. He had no measure of how much time had passed, though the campfire had burned itself down to a glowing pile of orange embers, casting the campsite below in an eerie light. Alarmed, he felt for the silver ring upon his finger, fearful that he’d lost it and fallen asleep while on watch. Though it remained, he was not reassured that all was well.
The night seemed frozen. The wind had stilled, and the whisper of waving grasses was gone, making the ringing that pounded in his skull all the more profound. Panicked, he rolled to his feet and drew his sword, searching for any sign of threat. Vaasurri was curled asleep near the dying fire as still as if he were dead. Brindani rolled and stirred just beyond the glowing embers, sleeping fitfully, but unharmed.
As Uthalion’s eyes turned to where he’d last seen Ghaelya, he caught the faint sound of a boot crunching down through long, crisp blades of grass. The genasi’s slender leg stepped beyond the circle of the dimmed fire, disappearing into the tall grass with a dreamlike grace.
Uthalion hesitated and ran a hand through his dark hair nervously. He tried frantically to recall the lost time, only remembering the bright flash of sun before it had disappeared in the west. Brindani moaned and mumbled incoherently in his sleep, breaking Uthalion’s line of thought and bringing him back to the present.
Leaping down from his perch, he glanced at Vaasurri and the half-elf, unsure if he should leave them alone, but already Ghaelya’s footsteps were retreating to the edge of his ability to hear. Quietly cursing, he rushed into the dark after the genasi, though the constant dull ring in his head seemed to grow louder the farther he progressed in Ghaelya’s wake.
Deep red lights drifted through the sky, islands of rock floating south out of the northbound storm, called storm-motes by the few who lived on the Akana. Their bulk was scored by strokes of lightning, and they trailed long plumes of white steam streaked with glowing bands of reflected crimson. He could make out the distant silhouette of Ghaelya, walking languidly through the grass, her fingertips brushing the stilled green tide that spread out around her. He almost called out to her, but stopped himself in mid-breath, struck by the dreamlike view and wondering again if he truly had somehow fallen asleep on watch.
Instead he remained quiet, keeping her in view as he
StPftlthilv fnllnwoH in fcKa thin twMiarh elm iaA moJa the grass. The ringing he heard changed in pitch and tone several times, but never left him, always rising when he thought it might fall, drawing him along despite the ache of pain it caused him. He wondered if it was the powerful song, reaching out to him in some new form the closer he traveled to Tohrepur.
“Is this how Ghaelya was drawn to Caidris?” he whispered, wondering if the genasi were even awake. She had left her sword behind and made no effort to hide herself, walking carelessly out in the open with an almost preternatural awareness of her surroundings.
The land rose slightly just ahead of her, and though there was no wind to speak of, the long, dark mass she approached writhed and twitched. Uthalion quickened his step, lengthening his stride through the grass, but Ghaelya disappeared, engulfed in a forest of animated foliage.
Uthalion stood at the edge of the thick grove, the whiplike vine-trees growing tight against one another. The sudden, swishing movement of one spread to all those around it, causing waves through the squirming trees like ripples that hissed for long breaths, then would grow suddenly silent before starting anew. Dark thorns dangled at the ends of roping branches, glowing with a thin crimson light from above. Uthalion knelt low and made his careful way into the grove.
The ringing in his ears was joined by the constant whispering of the vine-trees, and he found it hard to breathe, imagining himself underwater, with the way the trees swayed. He flinched as their narrow roots moved beneath his hands as he crawled, the soft soil parting easily for his weight. A thick carpet of dried insects crunched against his skin, churned through the dirt, and was joined every so often by a fluttering newcomer, struck from the sky by an accurately aimed thorn.
