Unfortunately, the answer was an easy one: the Blood Sorcerer had happened. This was what two decades of dark sorcery had done to his once-gorgeous kingdom, two decades of neglect. It had killed the land.
No. Heart sinking so hard his stomach hurt, Dayn took two stumbling steps, then went down on his knees beside a waist-high boulder, where there was a tiny scrap of green struggling to grow in the shade. It was an Elden gloryor it should have been. But instead of producing brilliant blue flowers the exact shade of Redas eyes, this one had only a single weak bloom in a pale, sad hue.
Im sorry. He didnt even realize he was crying until a drop hit the dirt. It dried quickly, sucked into the parched earth so suddenly that he might have thought he imagined it, save that he found moisture on his cheeks and felt the tears in his soul.
He didnt stay there long; he couldnt. But part of him wanted to.
Any faint hope he mightve had that this was a localized blight withered as he reached the edge of the forest and saw rolling hills of dusty brown leading to a yellow-hazed horizon, and his last few shreds of optimism died utterly when he hiked himself up into a nearby tree, climbing into the high, swaying branches to get a longer view.
From there, he could see other forests, scattered farms, several villagesthough fewer than he rememberedand a dark smudge where he judged Blood Lake to be. And throughout it all, there were patches of brown, green, black, even some furry-looking white and bilious yellow-green, as if the land had died and been taken over by mold and rot.
Gods help us, he whispered, soul going hollow at the confirmation that it wasnt just the forest that was blighted and dying. It was all of Elden.
And although he had already hated the Blood Sorcerer for the attack on the castle, now that rage dug deeper, grew hotter, became even more personal at the realization that the bastard hadnt just taken power, he had ruined the kingdom, leeching its energy to fuel his dark, twisted magic.
Dayns forests, his familys people, were suffering, and from the looks of it had been for some time, and he had let it happen. If he had known he would have The thought process ran aground there, because he couldnt have done anything differently, nothing that would have mattered to Elden. Hed had to wait for the magic to send his guide and bring him home.
Only this wasnt home. Home didnt exist anymore. Elden had become a war zone without a real war, a casualty of the royal familys abandonment, though they hadnt voluntarily abdicated.
On some level, he wished with all his heart that the spell hadnt been corrupted; that he and the others could have come together long before this to take their revenge, sparing the kingdom its torture. On another, though, he knew that it was pointless to wish history changed; he needed to deal with the matter at hand.
Right now, it wasnt about not looking back, wasnt about moving forward. It was about what happened next, about righting the course of an entire kingdom, gods willing. It wasnt about him, wasnt about the things hed wanted or the people hed lost.
He shimmied down the tree, feeling its inner rot in the faint slickness of its bark. Then, shouldering his rucksack once more, he hit the road.
And, as his feet carried him down the dusty track, he knew two things for certain. One, he would do whatever he could to set things right in the kingdom, even if that meant giving his life for it. And two, it was for the best that things had happened as they did in the wolfyn realm, because he never would have forgiven himself for dragging Reda into this horror, not just because there was no beauty or magic in his homeland anymore, but because there was no way he could be with her and be what he needed to be.
He couldnt be Dayn the man when Elden needed a prince so badly.
MORAGHS NEW GNOME, Destin, tapped on the door frame of the seedy room she had rented at a grubby inn on the shore of Blood Lake, preferring to not yet be under the sorcerers roof given that she hadnt yet told him about the possibilities of realm travel, instead keeping that gem to herself as both an exit strategy and a bargaining chip.
Mistress? he inquired softly.
Yes? she asked without moving, without even opening her eyes. It had taken her nearly an hour of careful preparation to get this far, and she didnt want to have to start over.
I have spread the word. If the prince returns
Hes already here. I can feel him. The spell had reactivated an hour earlier, warning that the wolfyn hadnt managed to take care of business. She hadnt really expected them to, though, not once she learned what Dayn had become, and saw how the archaic wolfyn society worked. They were hidebound, hampered by their own foolish traditions. She had used that to her advantage, though, coercing the pack into slowing down her prey, buying her the time to come back through the stones, recover the Book of Ilth and start making plans for his return.
And the plan she had was a damn good one. It wouldnt just take care of the prince, it would announce her new prowess far and wide. The scholars who had once laughed at her would bow in awe, and the sorcererwell, the delicious images made her smile and wet her lips with her tongue.
Shall I send to the castle and have the beast master ready your ettins?
No. Im not going out after him. Im going to let him come to me. The ugly rumors and hints of a bounty shed had Destin spread through his network of thieves and cutthroats might take care of the prince for her, but if not, it would slow him down long enough that she would be ready for him.
Will that be all for now, mistress?
Yes. No, wait. She drew satisfaction from his hiss of indrawn breath and the sudden tension in his stillness. But lately his struggles had diminished all too quickly, his revulsion dulling to a placid acceptance that flattened her pleasure to a mere glow. She had been planning an exciting new game to play with him, but now wasnt the timeshe needed raw blood energy and didnt want to have to work for it. Send to the dungeons for a prisoner, one that nobody will miss.
He exhaled softly. Yes, mistress.
When he was gone and the door closed, shutting out the stupidity prevalent in the corridors and common areas of any village inn, Moragh cleared her mind and cast about herself, checking the positions of the candles and lines drawn around her with a variety of powders and unguents. Then, satisfied that she was protected, she opened the Book of Ilth, turning past all the realmtravel spells to the final section, to a title page that bore a single word.
Feiynd.
DAYN REACHED THE VILLAGE of Einharr late in an afternoon grown gray from an incoming storm. The warm air was charged with thunder, heavy with moisture and felt strange on his skin after so long in the relatively dry and cold wolfyn realm. Or maybe the strangeness came from the lands sickness; he didnt know.
All he knew was that as he walked through the open gates of the heavy wooden palisade surrounding the village, his skin felt slick and oily, and his gut churned with the deep sorrow that had only grown through the day.
He had walked past roadside ditches filled with bones, most from livestock, but some human, and of the human skulls, a too-high proportion had worn secondary canines. He had been assuming his inability to connect to anyone through mindspeak meant that the wolfyn magic hed had thrust upon him had fouled some of his purely Elden powers. But the sight of the skull piles had made him consider that he might be the only mindspeaker in range. And that was a damned depressing thought.
He had walked past roadside ditches filled with bones, most from livestock, but some human, and of the human skulls, a too-high proportion had worn secondary canines. He had been assuming his inability to connect to anyone through mindspeak meant that the wolfyn magic hed had thrust upon him had fouled some of his purely Elden powers. But the sight of the skull piles had made him consider that he might be the only mindspeaker in range. And that was a damned depressing thought.
Hed passed deserted farms, some burned, others just sitting there, rife with signs of a hasty exit; he wanted to believe that the farming families had fled to other kingdoms, but didnt hold much hope of it. And as hed gotten in closer to the village proper, hed passed clusters of small houses and seen signs of habitation, but such poor signsa few weedy chickens scratching listlessly in the dirt, a thin dog slinking in the shadows, head down, ears flat to its skullthat his heart had hurt anew.
So now, as his boots scuffed the dirt track through the center of the village, raising no dust in the heavy air, he wasnt entirely surprised to see that Einharr, once a thriving community well known for its singing halls and honey beer, was a squalid and run-down version of its former self. Hollow-eyed children peered at him from behind doorways and around corners, flinching away when he made eye contact, and older men and women skulked in windows or on overhung porches, watching him with dull, uninterested eyes.
Twenty years ago, when last he had ridden through here as part of his parents retinue, the villagers had packed the main street, cheering and jostling to touch the horses and carriages. Now, as he made for the third block in, where the tavern district beganor used to begin, at any ratehis presence seemed to have gone entirely unnoticed. Seemed was the operative word, though, because as he continued onward, his nape prickled and his instincts said someone was watching him, that he needed to be careful. Which was a no-brainer, but he needed information, and there was no place better to get it than at the local watering hole.
Picking the one with the most worn-looking steps, as had been his habit when investigating as a Forestal, he stepped up onto the slatted porch, his boots ringing hollowly as he crossed to the heavy, windowless door.
Movement blurred in his peripheral vision; he spun in a crouch, lifting his short sword, but it was just a kid, a skinny, gray-eyed boy wearing ragged homespun and grime behind his ears where he had missed washing.
He didnt duck away like the others, but rather stopped dead, eyes widening in shock and fright.