Indarin’s arms tightened around her. “But I still need to be here. Until the end.”
“And I still need to go. But afterwards... come back to me.”
“I will, my Ariah. On my life.”
Jeren leaned in against Shan and he felt her relax. For the first time since he had returned it felt as if his wife stood at his side again.
“We should leave them.” Her only reply was a gentle nod and they slipped away in silence, hand in hand, to leave Indarin and Lara together at last.
Brightling’s Dale was as much a smudge on the landscape as Jeren remembered. The moment it came into view, Shan’s mood—poor already—darkened. Anala had died here, the brave wolf trying to save them both. Jeren thought of her pelt, stored now in the luggage her retinue pulled behind them. She wasn’t on horseback, for no lady of the Holtlands rode astride a beast and now she was back in the Holtlands, back to being the lady once more, even that small freedom was no longer allowed. She sat in an open wagon that they could pretend was a carriage. Shan sat less easy beside her. She reached out for him as often as she could, touching him for reassurance, to show her love, but she wasn’t sure it helped. He was like a caged animal, her wolf. Tense, angry, waiting.
Naul, on the other hand, stretched out at their feet, rolling on his back for attention. Jeren didn’t dare let the growing wolf roam free amid the camp for fear one of the Holtlanders might mistake him for a wild animal. When she tried to explain it to Shan, he all but growled himself.
“He is a wild animal.”
And so was Shan. Yet she kept him at her side like some kind of pet. The chains she bound him with were invisible, but they were chains nonetheless. Shame ground at her.
But at least now there was a kind of truce. It had been born of grief and bitter memories the moment they came in sight of the place.
“I never thought we’d come back here again,” Jeren whispered.
“Brightling’s Dale,” he whispered. It sounded like a curse.
“Yes. If there’s any chance of doing this peacefully, we have to start here.”
“But with me by your side? Jeren, they will never—”
She kissed him into silence and Shan—her beloved, stoic, determined Shan—let her. But he didn’t kiss her in return. That was unmistakeable. Anger worked both ways.
She’d caused this rift between them. It was all her fault, but it couldn’t be helped. Not if she was to do all the things that needed doing. She swallowed hard and looked away.
The once prosperous little garrison town was a shadow of its former self. As they approached Jeren noticed a dearth of traffic through its gates in either direction. Its lands were ill-tended and the walls unmanned.
Jeren called a halt to the procession, waiting, and eventually a somewhat furtive looking runner appeared. Vertigern and Elayne rode out to meet him, a formidable couple, towering over him on two bay mares. The messenger all but cowered.
Good, thought Jeren. She had no love for the place, or its people. All her memories of it were foul. But if she could win it, and win it without bloodshed... Gods, she hoped it could be without bloodshed.
Whatever was said didn’t suit Vertigern. He bore that fixed expression as he rode back to her. Elayne stayed put, watching the messenger.
Vertigern drew up alongside them in a flurry of jingling tack and the heaving breath of his horse. “They’ve sod all to offer. A lot of pleas to ride on and leave them be. They think they’re cursed, said there’s nothing left to take. They can’t offer troops and can barely feed themselves.”
“How are they cursed?” asked Shan.
“He wasn’t too specific on that,” Vertigern snorted. “Cursed, he said, shadows that come in the night and spirit folk away.”
Jeren clenched her teeth. “If the Fell are in collusion with my brother, why raid his lands? Why attack his people?”
“Exactly. They’re lying, but why?”
“For sympathy? To make us think—”
“Or perhaps,” Shan suggested in that calm, cool voice that drew everyone’s attention effortlessly, “he’s telling the truth and Brightling’s Dale isn’t as true to your brother as you believe. At least, not in his mind.”
And Gilliad’s mind had never been the most reliable. Jeren gazed across the open land to the messenger, who was staring up at Elayne in mute horror.
“Then why not welcome us?”
“Armed rebels turn up at your gates, looking for help against your ruler, who has already demonstrated an extremely heavy hand with treachery in the past,” Shan went on. “Would you offer them help and comfort? He’s terrified. Let me talk to him.”
Jeren’s frown deepened, almost turning into a dull headache now. “If he’s terrified now, Shan, I don’t think you are going to make it any better.” It came out more bitter and sniping than she intended.
Shan laughed his dourest laugh. “Of course not. But I can perhaps scare the truth out of him.”
Shan climbed down from the wagon and made his way towards Elayne and the messenger—his long gait covering the ground between them quickly, his head lifted high, his white-blond braids shining in the sunlight. He looked like a god, walking towards Brightling’s Dale. Jeren wished once more they’d never fought, that they were back in Sheninglas, just the two of them, before everything fell to pieces.
As Shan drew near, the messenger recoiled.
Elayne dismounted to greet the warrior, and there was no way to hear what she said, but the messenger’s eyes grew painfully wide and blood drained from his face. He dropped to his knees as Shan addressed him.
Did they know his name even here? Clearly. How many stories about Jeren, Scion of Jern and her wild Feyna husband had made it this far?
Total silence fell over the company—Feyna and Holter alike—as if everyone strained to hear what was said. Jeren knew better than to try. Shan would be using his calm, quiet voice that could still the world around him, reining in his temper to something close to a strained whisper.
Finally Shan turned back to her and made the return trip. Released from his attention, the messenger collapsed. By the time Elayne had helped him back to his feet and he had taken off for the town again, Shan stood next to the carriage. Naul scrambled to his feet, yapping for joy until Shan shushed him.
“The Fellna have been here, for certain. Shadows stalk the streets at night. No one can stray far from the town for fear of being spirited away like countless others. The garrison fled, or were recalled, or perhaps they too were taken. No one seems certain on that front. They took the strongest and the youngest first. A curse indeed, for which they blame Gilliad.”
“But why?”
The look he gave her said ‘why not?’ but he didn’t seem to have another answer.
“Strategically, this is the nearest point in River Holt’s lands to the pass which leads to Sheninglas,” said Vertigern. “If the Fellna are raiding here, if Brightling’s Dale has become their chief feeding ground, then they must have a nest nearby, true?”
He looked to Shan for confirmation, who nodded curtly. “That would make sense.”
“So clearly, they are here to bar our way, and better yet to stop us. They’re here to capture you as soon as you enter the Holtlands. They weren’t here when I last came this way.”
Which meant Vertigern had been raiding the lands hereabouts, despite his assurances to the contrary, stoking the fires of this war. She let it pass. What was the point now? Gilliad had fallen further than she thought imaginable. Part of her wanted to weep and howl. The rest wanted to bury a knife in his heart.