Ignoring the pain in his chest, he reached for his long sword and found it gone, taken away at some point during his delirium. Wincing, he sat up, braced his boots, and pushed up on the old wall. His eyes darted wildly around for any sign of his companions or, he dreaded, the shaedlings. A stabbing pain accompanied each breath as he staggered forward, spotting his sword near Vaasurri’s pack. Gripping the cold hilt, he recalled a half-remembered dream of black wings and vicious flames, screams mingling with the recurring images of his old nightmare.
The silver ring sat secure upon his finger, though he wondered briefly if its magic had failed him, letting him sleep while the others fought.
At a slight noise he whirled, leveling his sword at the intruder, only to find Vaasurri staring at him curiously down the length of the blade. Breathing a sigh of relief, he lowered the weapon, as Brindani appeared in the killoren’s wake, confusion in the dark-ringed eyes of the half-elf. Vaasurri scanned the area swiftly, seeming alarmed before looking to Uthalion with a grim knowing stare.
“Where’s Ghaelya?” Brindani asked quietly.
Relief faded, and Uthalion stood with a groan, shouldering his pack and sheathing his sword. His body ached, feeling several seasons older than his modest thirty-six, but he was ready to move as Vaasurri studied the ground just outside the small circle of the makeshift camp.
“Vaas?” he asked as Brindani gathered his cloak, wringing the rain from it. Unsurprisingly, the killoren gestured south through the forest of vine-trees. Uthalion nodded. “Let’s go. If we’re lucky, I know where we’ll find her.”
“And if we’re not lucky?” Brindani mumbled.
“Same place,” Uthalion replied and followed the killoren into the thin, twitching forest of thorny trees. Though he held onto a moment of hope, suspecting they might stumble upon the genasi simply answering the call of nature, he quickly discarded the idea as time passed.
He grew accustomed to the popping and creaking of his aching joints, the growing knot of pain in his back from prowling stooped through the low branches of the vine-trees, but the constant stabbing pain in his chest was much harder to discount. The chalky, bitter taste of the wyrmwind filled each hacking cough, bringing with it memories of the ochre wave washing over and around him. It curled above him, breaking against the rocky wall of the cliff, blinding him, filling his lungs with burning, and somewhere deep inside he wondered if, just for a moment, he’d let it in.
Choking back another surge of bitter bile, he buried the morbid idea and focused on attempting to find Ghaelya’s path, though his skill at tracking was nothing compared to Vaasurri’s.
Breaking through the edge of the writhing grove, lightning illuminated the pale blue morning, flashing across a scattered collection of old, overgrown buildings. The barest thinning of tall grass outlined what had once been a well-used dirt road, now left to the inexorable crawl of the wild, nature reclaiming the temporary haunts of mortals.
Cautiously following the old road, Uthalion stared in wonder at the changes that all the time that had passed since he was last in Caidris created. The well ordered fields of the farmers were gone, gaping holes marked the roofs of buildings on the edge of collapse. The blood-soaked killing ground he’d left behind had produced at least one harvest, the fouled soil feeding people he’d once sworn to protect against the horde out of Tohrepur. He hadn’t acted out of honor or even pity. That the town had been here at all had been his only reason for making a stand, a tactical choice of a defensible position.
Several times after that night, though, he’d imagined himself as the man these people had seen, sword and shield against a horrid host.
“She’s here,” Vaasurri said, interrupting his thoughts, “But the weather obscures her tracks.”
Drawing his sword, Uthalion considered the town proper, where the majority of buildings centered around a common square. Standing in the old road, he looked to Brindani and wondered how much like mere ghosts they appeared, haunting an abandoned town beneath the dark clouds of the storm.
“You two stay together,” he said. “But call out if you find her.”
“Where are you going?” Brindani asked.
Uthalion strode through the tall grass wordlessly, weeds clinging to him as he passed. He did not answer the half-elf and knew he didn’t have to as he veered toward the looming silhouette of a large farmhouse just outside the center of town-Brindani knew the place well enough.
Like the lyrics of the nearly forgotten song from his wedding, he felt there was a poetry in returning to the abandoned home of Khault, a rhythmic melody in his decision that he was hesitant to trust at first. Lightning lit the shadowed porch, the house’s dark windows gaping like the sockets of a yellowed skull as Uthalion approached, somehow certain that Ghaelya would be inside, but also unable to turn away from the dark at the bottom of those stairs.
Much like the ethereal song that called to him in the night, he had to know, had to see what summoned him and haunted his nightmares. He twirled the silver ring on his finger nervously and placed a boot on the first, creaking step.
After six long years, he’d finally come back.
Ghaelya felt as if she were floating, the world racing by in a dark blue blur of clouds and lightning. She felt her arms and legs moving, knew she was following something important, but could not focus on the details. Thunder and singing filled her ears, the storm’s rhythm matching a soft, enthralling voice that sounded so much like her sister-save for a harsh undertone, an insistent, hidden melody that bent her will to its own. The inner fires that bonded her to Tessaeril grew stronger, hotter as she rushed to an unknown place, searching for what she must see, the sign that would shape her quest to find her twin.
Dark shapes prowled gracefully amid the straight-edged shadows of dark structures rising from the ground. Dim, glassy eyes watched her from afar, lightning dancing in the lidless discs as a second wave of thunder rumbled from thick throats. The beasts darted out of view like figments in a nightmare only to melt into a hazy background that rippled like water.
She drifted on the warm currents of dream and song, surrounded by lithe beasts and misty rain until a sudden darkness wrapped cold dusty folds around her body.
Her stomach lurched as she slowed and fell forward, stumbling as the song faded away. The dreaming sense, the detachment from her surroundings, was still strong and made her dizzy. Her boots skidded on a dusty floor, and she leaned against rough wood, splinters scratching at the backs of her arms as her pounding pulse filled the silence left by the singing. As she shivered, the scents of lavender and dust grew more pungent and overpowered her senses as she turned toward a tall rectangle of limitless black.
An old door stood open, and the first step of a stairway was illuminated by blue flashes of quiet lightning. A faint whispering drew her to the dark descent, and she stared into the shadowy depths, bleary-eyed and trying to focus as two pinpoints of deep red light flared to life at the bottom of the stairs. The crimson glow throbbed in time to her heartbeat; the whispers, though unintelligible, beckoned her down in pleading tones.
She took the steps one at a time, pausing at each to balance herself on damp walls of wood and soil. Trickles of water ran between her fingers, the swirling energy lines on her wrists flaring at the touch of her favored element. Flashes of light from the doorway shined like stars at the base of the step, reflecting on the still surface of a basement flooded by heavy rain.