Chapter 11: Chapter 8: Downriver

The coming days and weeks melded together in my mind. It was nearly eight hundred miles from Orloth to the Elthysian border, and we spent the nights in taverns and barns, in forests and under the open sky. The further east we ventured, the sparser civilization became, and the more I learned about my companions.

My nightmares became worse, over time. Restless, I would lay awake into morning’s dim hours, drawing the things that tormented me alongside what brought me peace. I drew the faces of the men I’d killed, dirty and darkened by charcoal smudges. Some nights, I drew them bloody and dismembered, splattering crimson across the pages, bursting berries as ink. I drew Gath Levy dining with his wife and daughter, and couldn’t bear to look at it once it was done. That page, like so many others, burned in our nightly campfire.

Other nights, I drew my father. I drew the woman I’d seen in my dream after speaking with the Grandmasters. I drew the cottage I’d grown up in with its verdant hill, dark trees, and babbling brook. Goats, crops, the brilliant colors of sunset bleeding on the page.

I found equal peace, drawing the seven men and my father. Sometimes, if I could express my nightmares before falling asleep, they would not haunt me so terribly. Still, I slept little, catching more hours’ rest in the saddle than in my blankets.

Hemma became more accustomed to my company, and I began to enjoy her presence. At least, more than I’d enjoyed nearly any other human’s presence. I held her at arm’s length, and she respected my distance. We crossed blades many nights and many mornings, as she seemed determined to advance her swordplay, to learn the things I had from my father’s tutelage.

Luran was another story. He was attentive, always watching, but kept his distance from myself and Azareth. He and Hemma had a rapport, though he had few words to say to anyone else. There was one night where he and I spoke, a week or two after departing Orloth. It was, I think, the only time we spoke to each other while in Elthysia, except for the pleasantries when we first met.

That night, I woke in the middle of his watch with the cold sweat and aching teeth that accompanied my nightmares. I’d dreamt of blood and rain, steel and severed limbs, of my father’s shame and Azareth’s cold, unfeeling smile. Once I’d caught my breath, I’d curled by the fire, sketchbook in hand, frantically trying to vent the things that bothered me onto the paper.

Something cut through the quiet cry of night creatures and pierced the gentle sound of the wind. It was a voice, low but unwavering, and I found Luran staring me down from across the fire. He sat far enough back that its glow barely tickled his features, leaving him more in shadow than in light.

“Nightmares?”

He sounded casual, though his eyes held the same hardness they always did. I fixed my hair, pushing it back between my horns. “What do you care?”

He didn’t answer. He looked at me for a moment more, then returned to whatever task had him occupied. There was the subtle gleam of a knife and the cream color of whittled pine. He was carving something—a duck, by the looks of it.

I couldn’t return to sleep, so I forced myself to draw something, anything. In my mind, I still felt my nightmare’s curse, urging me to continue the bloodletting. So, to sate that twisted part of my mind, I started to draw Don Levy’s headless body, limp, leaking on the cobblestone streets.

“You’ve seen your share of death,” Luran said, his words startling me from my stupor. I looked at him, but all of his focus seemed to be on the carving. “Recently, too.”

I opened my mouth, but silence was my only answer. His icy eyes pierced me, then, like arrows.

“No shame in it,” he said, blowing shavings off the wood in his hand. He smoothed a finger over the curve of the beak. “I’ve seen a lot of people in your shoes before.”

“I’m not a mercenary, Luran.”

“Really? You look the part.”

I wiped my eyes. “I don’t think many Elthysians would trust me with their contracts.”

“I’ve worked with people shiftier than you.” He made a stroke. “By far.”

“That doesn’t matter. I’ve never wanted it. I’m just… a farmer.”

“Yeah,” he snorted. “A farmer who beat Hemma into the dirt. A Daughter of the Dawn. She was born with steel in hand, you know. More priestess than paladin, sure, but better trained than half the nobility’s knights.”

I held the silence for a moment, close to my chest. “She’s skilled.”

“In all your sparring, I haven’t seen her win even once.”

“Is there a question, here, Luran?”

He watched me for a long while. “You’re a warrior without a war. A veteran without any scars. Why?”

My back burned, as if in response to his statement. I tensed, then watched the fire. “My father trained me.”

“Why?”

“Because when you look like me, you have to know how to defend yourself. Because… the world can be harsh, and unkind. Because… I think he knew that one day, I would leave that farm of his far behind.”

He grunted. “He must’ve been quite the man.”

“He was. He is.”

Luran thought on that a moment, then pointed his knife in my direction. “That doesn’t quite answer why you’re with us. I get it, we’re going to Khaldara, we need a direling. But you aren’t… hired help.”

“This isn’t about money. I owe Azareth a debt.”

“He doesn’t strike me as the type of man you’d like to owe.”

“No.”

“Then what’s your due?”

I pawed at the dirt beneath me. I didn’t want to answer, but moved my tongue anyway. “He saved my life.”

“From… the bloodshed. Yeah?”

I curled my tail around my body, wincing as my scars flared up again. I looked at my open sketchbook and saw the horrible things that I had done. I felt the iron barbs ripping through my skin, blood pouring like sordid rain. I looked again at Luran, and saw that his expression had changed.

“In a way,” I muttered, but he frowned in turn.

“It’s not really my place to ask. But he… didn’t save you from an undead. Pull you from a fire.” His words were more statement than question.

“No. I was to be hanged.”

Luran looked at me with a certain understanding, then—not friendly, but not unfriendly. He simply… understood. I couldn’t decide if it rendered me comforted or unnerved. Then he shifted and blew more shavings from his duck.

“I stopped keeping track of my debts a long time ago,” he said, whittling again. “Blame, too. It’s all a burden. Someone told me that we owe the world nothing. And that the world owes us nothing back.”

I thought I remembered my father saying something similar, many years ago. But it seemed like Luran was making a different point with it. “What’s your point?”

“I don’t know. It’s one of those things people say.”

I didn’t want to read too far into his words. I returned my attention to the book in my lap, the image of a disembodied head rolling across the page. I added a few more details, but found it difficult to continue.

Luran whittled a while longer, then stood and slid his knife into its sheath. “I was about to wake you anyway,” he said, tossing the carving into the fire like any other piece of kindling. “Your turn for watch.”

He settled on his bedroll, just out of the firelight. I watched him uncertainly, then fixed my eyes on the glowing embers. Nestled amid the flames, his carving seemed to look at me, blackening and shriveling as it was claimed by the heat.

There was something about him, something about his stare. I often got the impression that he saw right through me—that he had a way of seeing through everyone. Even Azareth’s analytic stare or Gath Levy’s hateful look hadn’t bothered me as much. The two of them had been like so many other Elthysians, searching for weakness or itching for violence. Azareth was different in that he did so without prejudice, but Luran… his icy eyes made me feel naked and vulnerable. I didn’t know what kind of man was behind them. But I felt as though he knew exactly what kind of woman I was… better than I even knew myself.

I asked Hemma about it, nights later, between our sparring bouts. She wiped the sweat from her brow, laughed, then stepped closer to me before dropping her voice.

“He has that effect on almost everyone,” she said, smiling wide. “He sees past the lies and half-truths. He sees you for what you are. It’s one of the reasons I love him.”

I tilted my head. “Love him?”

“We’re married,” she replied, wiggling her fingers to show off her ring. “I know, I know. People think it’s strange when they first find out.”

“You seem to lack a certain… intimacy.”

“Love takes many forms, Valhera.” She sheathed her blade, looking back to camp where Luran and Azareth prepared the night’s rations. “It need not be physical.”

“How did you two meet?”

“A long story.” She trailed, pursing her lips. “But in short, it was in a tavern in the North. I was vulnerable, lost. Afraid. He showed me kindness. Unlike any I’d seen.”

I watched him as he cooked dinner. He caught me staring, and returned a look I couldn’t quite decipher. I wondered at the life he’d led before. He didn’t approach swordplay with the same passion as Hemma or I. Weapons always close, but also a world away. I knew Hemma was an exception—that most mercenaries chose their profession because they had no other prospects, not for a passion of the craft. Whenever I saw Luran whittling, he wielded his knife with an expert’s hand. But each carving, like the one that night, saw its end in the campfire’s flames.

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Eventually, we reached a small town set on Lesmyne’s western bank. This was the easternmost settlement in all of Elthysia, and it would have been completely unremarkable if not for that fact. Still, it had a tavern of decent size, where it seemed all the woodsmen from surrounding miles had gathered for the night. There, Azareth hired a courier to lead all of our horses back to Orloth. He told the boy that his black-as-night steed had the soul of an ancient warrior within it, and it would hold him accountable. The boy, of course, would not doubt a necromage’s word. He looked rather fearful when Azareth was done with him.

That night, I retreated to my room and quietly ate the food Azareth brought me. I ate as much as I could, knowing that food would be scarcer in Khaldara. Then, once Azareth took my cleared plates back to the dining room, I went outside and walked to the river, settling in so that the growing dark and tall grass hid my horns from any evening strollers.

Lesmyne’s water was vast. It was so far across that I couldn’t see the other side. The pink sky glistened off the rushing stream, and although I expected to hear a chorus of birds and insects, I only heard the stream’s gentle rush. I reclined on the bank, lowering my scarf and hood. Khaldara, the direling homeland, was nearly in view. It was just across this stream—close enough that I could almost feel it. I thought about the woman I’d been a mere month before… how drastically things had changed, and the burdens I now bore.

I’d killed seven men. That was unfathomable. And we were searching for the heart of the Dead God. That was equally unfathomable. Sometimes, I wondered if it was all a dream, but each time I started to forget, those scars of mine made their presence known. They were physical, tangible, visceral. They spoke of bloody rivers spilled, and the debt I had yet to pay.

I flipped through my sketchbook. There, on those pages, was the tangle of my twisted mind. Horrible bloodshed remembered in one image… the warmth of a father’s love in the next.

The evening breeze carried a certain bite, as late summer turned into early autumn. There were footsteps behind me, padding through the grass. Shutting my sketchbook, I turned and made to cover my horns, but found only Azareth. His dark robes swept in the wind, mirroring the tall grass. He wore his mask of a smile, but there was something… reverent about it, this time.

“The border between our two worlds,” he said, moving to stand beside me. “Hard to believe, isn’t it?”

“I suppose I expected… something more.”

“Then look not with living eyes. Your sight is not yet refined, but… you can feel it, if you open yourself to it.”

I thought on that for a while. Azareth seemed content to simply stand on the bank, letting the damp river air wash over his skin and blow at his hair. I felt something then, too. I hadn’t quite noticed it until Azareth had said something, but now I did. “The silence,” I trailed, and he watched me from the corners of his eyes. “It feels almost physical.”

He nodded briskly. “Lesmyne is no ordinary river. Legends tell of drowned hands rising from its depths, dragging down those who would cross with hatred in their hearts.”

“Very few are so pure.”

Azareth laughed. It was genuine—a rare thing for him. “The world is built on legends, Valhera. If they all were true, calamity would have befallen us centuries ago. The past, it… has a way of becoming whatever the living desire, or whatever they fear. The dead, however, speak with truth.”

“And what do they say?”

He turned to me. “That old tales are exaggerated. Our graves will not be cold and watery.”

I blinked, watching the depths. It was a while before Azareth spoke again, but when he did, he sounded pensive.

“Perhaps undead hands will not pull us down,” he started, folding his arms against the autumn chill. “But Lesmyne cannot be forded. It cannot be bridged. It is the great divide between our two halves of the world. Its currents may carry us into Khaldara, but return is… complicated. It is the Dead God’s blessing that runs through its waves, making Khaldara a sanctuary of sorts. The Rising Sun holds that only Elthys herself can permit wanderers to return upstream, but this, too, is exaggeration. It does not take a god… though it does require a particular sort.”

I picked at the dirt. “I doubt you’d cross if unable to return.”

He nodded slowly. “There are paths around the Dead God’s power, to those with eyes to see.” He craned his head and met my eyes. “Do you understand? There are few that could bring you back to this side of the river. Barring our success, I cannot guide you back to Elthysia.”

I shrugged. “So be it.”

“There is little in this land for you. For your kind.”

“A hard truth.”

“Indeed. Do you… think you’ll stay in Khaldara? Once all is said and done?”

It was something I hadn’t given much thought. In my heart, I wanted to see my father again. But whether such a thing was possible… I did not know. I didn’t want to return to Gazmere. The weight of my deeds… it would never fade, if I returned to the land haunted by my bloodshed.

My scars burned as I met Azareth’s stare. “That day, when you purged me from the town… I think you purged the town from me, too.”

His brows raised high. “Rather poetic.”

“Life and death have a certain poetry, it seems. Blood given, blood taken…”

His face grew more serious. “You speak like someone who has taken on the red.”

“I’m a direling. It’s my nature… isn’t it?”

“Yours is a people accustomed to the dark.”

I leaned back to lay in the grass once again. I watched the clouds against the reddening sky, thoughts wandering with them.

Khaldara. In some ways, my home. I wondered what it would be like to live in a place where my kin roamed free. Where horns and tails were a norm, not a stigma. I wondered if old tales about direlings held any truth—or if they were more similar to humans than humans cared to admit.

In time, Azareth muttered a farewell and moved toward his bed in the tavern. I listened to him walking away, then found myself alone on the bank, falling deep into memory. I lay in the grass, watching clouds overhead like I had on that hill where my father had built our cottage. Autumn winds blew, carrying the smell of the countryside… only this time, he was hundreds of miles away. Reaching at Elegy, I held it and wondered if he was closer, now, than first appeared.

I found comfort in the question, even unanswered. And, as shadows lengthened and the world gave way to dusk, I found my peace in thoughts of him.

* * *

The next morning, Hemma, Luran, and I followed Azareth to the riverbank. I carried my provisions in a sealed leather sack, tied to my back alongside my sword. We stood a quarter mile downstream from the town, so without any onlookers, I tied my scarf around my neck rather than my head. Luran and Hemma brought similar bags, holding only the essentials.

Azareth stood on the bank, watching the waters run. “Some call Lesmyne the river of regret,” he said. Crouching, he made to untie his boots. “It is a pathway to a realm made heavy by the past. A fallen kingdom, a dying empire. There is magic in the earth, the water, and the air. Remnants of things long gone… where the past can be seen as much as the present.”

He slipped his shoes from his feet and put them in his bag. Barefoot, he gestured for us to do the same. Then, he flexed his toes and dipped them into Lesmyne’s water, chills running up his spine. Not from the temperature, it seemed—more from excitement.

“To arrive, one must trust Lesmyne,” he said. He waded deeper, until the water ran up to his knees and swept the bottom part of his robes. “She will carry the wanderer downstream, if only they let her. Fight against her current, and you will find yourself more lost than before.”

The rest of us waded in after him. Once we were waist-deep, Azareth continued. “Follow my lead. Let it wash over you.”

He leaned back, easing himself into the water, looking solemn as it passed over his eyes. The river seemed to claim him, pulling him under and out of sight. He became invisible, floating downstream, though his course surely took him toward the eastern bank.

I hesitated. With Azareth floating away, there was nothing to stop me from leaving. But I thought about what my father had said that day—that I had a purpose far from Gazmere. My inner voice said that Khaldara was where I’d realize that purpose. The scars on my back whispered that this was my home, far from Elthysia’s shore.

So while Hemma trailed a doubting hand through the stream, while Luran watched the windswept trees, I bent my knees and took the plunge. Lesmyne’s water wasn’t warm, nor was it cold—sinking, I thought it lighter than air.

Water surged over my closed eyes, nulling physical senses. I stared into a void, but it was comfortable, somehow. I felt my body, drifting along, as if my spirit stood outside it. Sleep cradled my mind in a gentle embrace and carried me into dreams.

* * *

My eyes flitted as they opened, splitting the crust that had sealed them shut. Burning light pierced my pupils, and groaning, I rolled onto my back.

The noonday sun beat down from above, relentless rays pounding my half-asleep head. I lifted my hand to block it out, then eased myself into a sitting position. Sand shifted under my legs, spilling out of every cuff and sleeve of my clothing as the gnawing chill of cold water soaked me through. My hair hung in greasy strands, and my mouth was parched from laying on the sand. I blinked to orient myself, to shake the fog that clung to my brain.

In front of me, there was the gentle flow of Lesmyne. It seemed vast and boundless, like the glittering southern sea. I adjusted my shoulders, feeling the weight of my pack and sword pressing down. I loosened and removed each one, ensuring they were intact. Elegy was pristine as always, and the bag’s contents were dry as could be. I fished out my boots and made to put them on my freezing, bare feet. Brushing the sand from my face, I stood, looking up and down the bank.

Luran was asleep thirty feet upwind. His hands dug into the sand, feet dangling back in the water. Behind him, Hemma soundly snored, clutching her sword like a sleeping child clutching her toys. Turning, I sighted Azareth further up the bank. In front of him, there was the orange flicker of a fire, its heat drying out his sodden clothing. His attention was not on the flames, however, nor on me, but on the scenery Khaldara offered.

I walked up the rocky beach and took it in, too. Like tentacles from below, black trees grasped upward, branches weaving close enough to blot the sun. There was little grass on the forest floor, and the few visible patches were either sickly yellow or deadened gray. Overhead, the sky held a purplish tint, the sun a reddish hue, like the sky at dawn or dusk despite it being nearly noon. I tried to peer deeper into the darkened wood, but couldn’t see much detail between the slow, groaning sway of trees.

And I felt something. In the air. Impossible to pinpoint, to quite articulate, but… it felt similar to what I’d noticed on the opposite bank, though stronger. Tangible, visceral silence. The air felt… heavier. Walking forward, I drew Azareth’s attention, and he smiled through thinly-drawn lips, smoke pluming from the bowl of his pipe.

“Welcome to Khaldara, Valhera.”

Unconsciously, I itched the scars on my back. I cast my eyes over the black trees and purple sky, and rather than fear, felt a certain sort of reverence.

I settled by the fire and shed my gambeson, laying it to dry on a nearby rock. The flames’ warmth kissed my sodden skin, slowly taking over the water’s cold. I extended my hands as if to grasp more of its heat, and Azareth spoke again.

“Our companions dream, still. We will make our next heading once they are awake and dry.”

“And where is that?”

“There is a town, some miles to the northeast. Black Orchard. There, we are to meet our guide.”

“A direling?”

A smile crawled across his lips. “Why, yes, I believe so. We are in Khaldara, after all.”

“How long until the others wake?”

“They may be some time.” He took a long, thoughtful draw, smoke tumbling from his nose. “I imagine they found the journey taxing.”

“Mine was… calm.”

“I would think so. From a certain point of view, this is your home. As for our human companions… I doubt they have ever felt the Dead God’s power.”

The world grew quiet as we waited for Hemma and Luran to wake. I tended the fire while Azareth smoked, legs crossed, a pensive look forever on his face.

Luran woke first, within the second hour. He prodded Hemma’s sleeping form and pulled her up the bank, but Azareth discouraged him from any further action. Silent, he observed the purplish sky, the graying grass, then fixed his weary eyes on the small fire while he waited for his wife to wake. Azareth seemed intrigued by the man’s demeanor, but to me, it seemed ordinary.

Some time later, Hemma woke as well. She was sluggish and slow, dragging her things to the fireside before settling next to Luran. The two of them shared a look that was hard to decipher, but their similar energies led me to think that they’d dreamed in Lesmyne’s flow. A dream… maybe like my nightmares, or like the vision I’d had in the Order’s temple.

Azareth offered no questions to probe deeper. He merely smoked and observed, content to wait for sleep to fully depart our minds, for the fire to evaporate the damp that clung to us still.

Once we had our wits, he led us into the dark treeline.