“But that’s the way it’s working out, isn’t it? Who does she turn to for advice, or comfort? Them. It’s an enchantment. We’re losing her. We need to take her back.”
“Shan’s her husband,” Vertigern protested, but not too forcibly.
“Then perhaps he has to go.”
A threat? No one was going to part him from Jeren. On that Shan and his dark other agreed in a heartbeat. The slow, dark uncoiling welcomed it. A threat was also a challenge. Shan smiled as he welcomed it. Let them come. Drive him from her side? Kill him and make her their tool?
Let them try.
The road to River Holt wound through towns and villages, some deserted, some destroyed, and a few, just a precious few, sheltering terrified people. Jeren’s brother had rampaged through his own countryside, taking what he wanted—crops, army conscripts, and so many others. And where he went the Fell had followed.
Some of the survivors fled the moment Jeren’s troop approached, but others came out to greet friends and family thought lost forever. These reunions, some joyful, some tragic, were all that kept Jeren going on that dark journey home.
She didn’t ride in the wagon anymore. That was neither who she was or the image she wished to portray. She was Shistra-Phail. She wouldn’t hide it any longer for politics sake. She marched with the others, with Shan and Indarin at either side. Vertigern and the more affluent Holters still rode, but the people, her people walked. Her people. And no one could claim any of them slowed the pace of the mighty caravan.
It was a relief to lose herself in their ranks, but not so much to watch those ranks swell. Each evening more approached. They always tried to kneel before her from the first, some almost crawling into her presence. She told them to get up. To stand and hold their heads high.
“You’re a River Holter,” she said. “You kneel to no one.”
Nothing gave her so much joy as to see the spark of legendary River Holt stubbornness and pride rekindle in their eyes.
“Be careful.” Vertigern chuckled after the farmer had stammered out his oath of fealty and backed away. “That’s how legends get started. Not to mention revolutions.”
Jeren gave him her hardest glare. “Don’t make a joke of it. I’m serious. They’ve been treated like animals. Let’s try treating them like men and women for a change.”
He didn’t argue or make mock again as everywhere they went more flocked to join her. Women too, staring at her and Elayne as if they were incarnations of the goddess herself, Liath, come again in mortal form.
“You can train them,” Jeren said to Elayne, who pursed her lips but agreed. “They need someone like you to look up to.”
“Why, when they have you?”
“I can’t be that for them. Not as well as everything else.”
“You’re starting upheaval everywhere you go, you know that?” Elayne shook her head. “They won’t like it. The Holtlords.”
It tweaked Jeren’s sense of humour at last and it was a shock to discover she still had one. “They wanted me to start a revolution against my brother. They never told me where to stop. Not that I’d have listened.”
Jeren liked the looks the Holters cast Shan and Indarin less. None of them friendly. All the Feyna with her encountered hostility but it focused most keenly on her husband and his brother. It stung her to the soul.
They, of course, shook it off. “It’s to be expected,” Indarin assured her. “Pay it no mind. They know we can fight and that we fight for you. That will be enough.”
Jeren glanced at Shan, sullen and silent. How could it be enough for the two of them? If they were to have a future of any kind, how could tacit acceptance, begrudging resignation be enough?
When she kissed him, he kissed back, but something restrained him from giving his all. She sensed it rather than knew for sure, but it was always there, the nagging doubt. Their relationship had somehow changed. Or he had changed.
Just as the Enchassa promised.
But when she caught him watching her, adoration filled his eyes like unshed tears. But immediately after it came shame.
They were nearing the river itself when messages came in from the Ariah, borne by the swift wings of totem birds. Jeren watched them enviously and a lump of stone weighed her down, where her heart should be. Kiah would never fly to her again. Kiah was gone.
Indarin took his message first and pressed it to his chest, before withdrawing to read it in private.
She smiled, and relaxed just a little. “Anyone would think he was a boy with a love note.”
“Perhaps he is.” Shan grinned and threaded his fingers with hers. It was the most intimate thing he had done in days and they sat, side by side, just enjoying the moment. Sunlight fell on her face, but as she lifted her chin to enjoy it, clouds cut it off.
She gave a sigh of disappointment. “What’s to become of us, Shan?”
“There’s no way of knowing.”
“The first vision is coming true, isn’t it? Me, in River Holt, with another man’s child.”
His grip tightened. “I don’t—” He exhaled in frustration. “There must be another way, Jeren. There has to be. But I can’t see it.”
She rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes, pretending that they were just a boy and a girl, just two young people in love, just for a moment.
“Neither can I. It scares me.”
He pulled her closer, kissed the braids on top of her head. She tried to pretend again, just for a little longer, to cling to that dream. Then he spoke. “Me as well, Jeren. More than I can say.”
That night they camped alongside the riverbank. Jeren sank back into the darkness, welcoming sleep, letting her body finally relax again. It felt like falling, so fast, so sudden, that she inadvertently jerked awake.
There was a noise in the night, like a boot on stone, out of place in the silent camp. Beside her, Shan was already sitting up. She caught the ghost of movement as he pressed one long finger to his lips. Then he was gone.
Jeren’s hands closed on a knife among their clothes and she slowly got up to her knees. She couldn’t move like Shan, like the other Shistra-Phail, but she could be as quiet as any one of them. She slid forwards, pushing back the tent flaps, and made her way out into the night.
All was silent. Far too silent. She could make out the silhouettes of the sentries as dark shadows on the edge of the camp. They didn’t move. Asleep, she fervently hoped. If they were asleep, she’d tear through them in a moment, once she knew all was well. And that was nothing to what Shan would do. If all was well...
If not...
Well, she heaved in a ragged breath, calming her racing heart. If not, they at least were past caring what she thought. And Shan would mourn them too.
She swallowed down her fear, her nerves. Keep calm. Listen, she told herself, just as she would tell any of her trainees. Use whatever you have to your advantage.
The noise made her turn, a misplaced foot, the crack of a dry twig. Not Shan. He’d never make such a mistake. She turned rapidly. A blade flashed moonlight and she ducked just in time to avoid it.
He cursed—definitely a “he” from both voice and words—and came at her again, quick and fast, more irritated than angry.
Shan pitched into his side, taking the assailant down in a flurry of movement too fast to see. Like a dance, sweeping his opponent’s legs from under him, knocking the weapon aside, slamming his head down onto the stony ground.
That’s when she realised what she was holding—Shan’s knife. He wasn’t armed. She started to call his name, but her voice failed as she caught a glimpse of his face. It was barely him anymore.