Borne Rising Page 10

Southwest. Or southeast. They settled on heading due south. At first, Will tried to make small talk, but it was apparent that Rienne was too taken with the world beyond the Sapholux to speak. So they stayed silent while the great stronghold of the Lightborne grew ever smaller behind them. Rienne walked upright and direct, her eyes set dead forward, never once looking back at the fortress she called home.

  Will’s mind wandered as he fell into the walking trance of travel, the sand and craggy rock beneath his feet so reminiscent of his previous travels in Aeril. There’s more to this place, isn’t there? More than just sand and desert? There had to be. The land around Undermyre had been lush and bordered the sea. What was across the sea, he wondered. What was across the desert? All this time here and I’ve seen so little, still know so little. All this time since I left home . . .

  Four years was his best guess. Four years since the death of his grandfather. He couldn’t say for certain; there were no calendars, no measurement of the passage of time as familiar and reliable as it had been in Cascania. Everything back home had been so straightforward, so simple. There was something about Aeril that didn’t quite add up. Unfinished. It seems like a work in progress. And for the four years he had spent in this world, what did he really know? He had traded one tunnel for another when he first arrived. He had traded a chamber in a tower for a dorm in a fortress. He’d crossed the vast wildlands, briefly, and a formidable desert. But really, all he had done was trade one desert for another, one confinement for another.

  Oppressive self-doubt crashed down upon him. What have I even accomplished? He had lost his brother, lost the calming Shadow he had set out to learn more about. In its place, he had discovered something destructive and foreign. He’d grown no closer to uncovering the truth of what din’Dael had done to him. The aggressive force of the Flare was far stronger than the Shade Will had known, but he did not feel like himself. He felt colder, disillusioned.

  Maybe I really am Noctis now.

  The thought disquieted him. Whatever din’Dael might think, might pronounce to the gods and the Lightborne, he was William Davis. Nothing could change that, could it?

  He glanced at Rienne, appearing so cool and collected when her own emotions must be a storm inside her. He wondered how he appeared. Perhaps I’m better at hiding all this than I think I am.

  “Rienne,” he said. His voice was cracked from the dry air and hours of disuse. “How are you holding up?”

  “I’m fine.” Her response was terse and quick. “It all looks the same as it did when peering from the windows of the Sapholux, so I don’t know what you’re expecting me to feel.”

  Her tone caught him off guard. “I just mean . . . I only asked because I know how rapid changes can be strange and . . .” Will trailed off.

  She snickered and gave him an eye that made him feel foolish. “Do you think that now you’re a Blade, you must take care of me? We are equals, Thorne. What makes you think that you are more equipped to handle the outside world than I?”

  “I only meant”—Will paused and considered—“I would understand if this all felt weird or uncomfortable.” Maybe some levity? He flashed a quick, forced smile. “At least you can admit that it seems like there’s more sky out here.”

  She snickered humorlessly. “Yes, Noctis, there does seem to be more sky.”

  This isn’t going well. Will searched for something to say and came up blank. “It’s a beautiful sky though.” He peered up. “I mean, even the crack is beautiful, in its own way.”

  “Yes.” Rienne smiled, softening a bit. “It is. Velier’s gift is a wonderful thing.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Velier’s gift? What does endless life have to do with the sky?”

  “The sky stretches on and on, limitless. Timeless. As the sky is above, so are those of us below.” The edge was gradually leaving her voice as she spoke. “I never lamented my time within the walls of the Sapholux because I always knew that time, like the sky, stretched far beyond the world I knew. There would always be a future, more time to come.”

  Will held his breath, not daring to speak. Not when she’s finally opening back up.

  “That is the beauty of what he gave us. There is time to explore the world. Time to do it however and whenever I please. Time to discover all things not yet discovered.” She shrugged and shifted her pack. “While this is not my expectation of how I would leave those I call family, I cannot say that I am not excited.”

  “Fair enough,” Will said softly. Before he could say anything more, however, a screech pierced the air. He glanced up right as Dahla flew into view. “I hope I don’t prove to be too boring company.”

  “Even if you are, I’m sure the bird will provide some kind of companionship.” She chuckled and turned back to him. Then her eyes fell to his knives. The smile left her face. Her expression turned cold once more. She snapped her head back around, mouth set in a thin line. “At the very least it won’t pester me with questions about how I’m feeling.”

  Will had no response for that. He wasn’t sure what he had said wrong, but it was apparent their final training session together had soured their previous friendship. That hurt. But I fixed it. I fixed everything.

  He watched as Rienne quickened her pace and distanced herself from him. Loneliness ached in his chest. At least, I thought I did.

  For the next few days, there was tense silence between the two of them. Every few hours they would be startled by a cry from Dahla. On some occasions, the great bird would swoop to the ground at blazing speed and soar past them. Quite the guide you picked for us, din’Dael, Will mused. But the bird kept them on course, he gathered, whatever that course might be.

  Will awoke on the morning of the fifth day with Dahla nowhere in sight. Nor had the bird returned to them the previous evening. Will remarked on it with little commentary from Rienne, but he saw the look of concern in her eyes. That damn bird built a pattern, got us into a routine. Of course she’d break it as soon as we got comfortable. Definitely din’Dael’s pet.

  They broke camp and set out, keeping as much to the same course as they had the previous day. Two hours later, far in the distance, Will made out a flickering shape circling the sky. There she is. Unexpected relief flooded him. Because of a big damn bird. He shook his head, chiding himself. No, it’s more than that. It means we’re traveling in the right direction.

  It also meant that, soon, there would be something to take his mind off his silent companion. Rienne had not spoken, not even glanced in his direction for some time. Perhaps whatever the bird found would lighten the mood.

  “Dahla,” Will said, pointing to the faraway form. “Looks like we’re still on course.”

  Rienne simply grunted.

  They crested a large dune, drawing close enough to the bird for Will to see she was circling a large grouping of rocks. Rienne drew a sharp breath. Will whirled, hands darting to his blades. Rienne’s attention was fixed on the rocks; however, her expression was one of reverent awe.

  “Is everything alright, Rienne?” Will asked uneasily.

  Her eyes briefly snapped back to him, then darted away, her mouth settling back into its grim line. “It’s fine.”

  Will studied the rocks. “What are they?”

  This time, the look on her face was one of pure incredulity. You would think I was asking her if water was wet. She stopped walking for a moment, eyes flicking to Will, then to the rocks, then back again. “You must be joking.”

  Finally, an opportunity to chat. He shook his head. “I’m not.”

  “Did they teach you nothing, Casc?”

  It did not sound like she intended an insult, but it still stung. “I don’t know who you’re referring to. But apparently no, they didn’t teach me anything.”

  That brought a smile. At least, the hint of one. “Velier and the Thorns of the Rose spent a year at sea searching for an answer to the end times,” Rienne said. “A year with no port in sight, no lands or isles, nothing.”

  Will knew the story.
“Right. It was like that until Velier ordered his men to sleep during the day and sail at night so they could follow the stars.”

  This time, Rienne’s smile was true. “Not the stars, Noctis. The Moon.”

  He shrugged. “Stars, a moon, whichever. They sailed”—he paused at the startled look on her face—“What? What’d I say?”

  “Not a moon, Noctis, the Moon.” Her eyes narrowed at whatever it was she saw on his face. “Wait, Noctis, all this time, you’ve thought that Velier followed just a glowing orb of rock in the sky?”

  Will nodded slowly. “I mean, that’s what a moon is. Unless it’s shadowed, of course; then it doesn’t glow. But . . .” He trailed off as her shocked smile spread into a wide grin. She began to laugh. “What?”

  “It’s a symbol, Noctis,” she said, shaking her head. “Calling it the moon. It’s an honor, a reminder. A way of paying tribute.”

  “To . . .?”

  “To the Moon. The guide from the heavens that saved Velier and the Thorns. The being that, ultimately, saved our entire plane. You’ve never heard of the Moon?”

  Will checked his memory and came up with a blank. “Not in this kind of context, no.”

  She closed her eyes and shook her head, then set off walking in the direction of the rocks again. “You have much to learn, Casc.”

  Will saw the opportunity and grinned sheepishly. “Well, Rienne, I’d love to learn more, and it looks like we’ll have plenty of time.”

  She said nothing, but her face was not as harsh as it had been. They continued toward the rocks, but even after ten minutes, they did not seem to be any closer. They must be massive. More than massive.

  He wanted to ask more about them, to have Rienne fill the gaps in his grandfather’s story. For all his teachings and tellings of The Veleriat, it was just one of Grandda’s stories. We didn’t know it was a real book. And, come to think of it, Will never read it. He’d meant to, time and time again when he’d been in the Nordoth, but Madigan had them focused on other aspects of Aeril, historical not literary. And now they’re intersecting. I’ll have to give him a hard time about it.

  “She saved them,” Rienne said after a moment. “The Moon, I mean. She gave Velier the tools to see in the night, to find the clear path through the darkness. She taught him to embrace it, the darkness.”

  “I’d heard that but, I don’t know, I always just thought it was allegory or something.”

  “The Moon guided him to a place where the seas dropped into a vast chasm, waterfalls into oblivion. Only a single, magical channel existed to bridge the chasm to the rocky island beyond.”

  “Right, the island that held the Heart of Eternity. Right?”

  “The Moon gave the heart to Velier so he could protect it, and in doing so, protect all things. When he removed the heart, the island imploded.”

  “And only a tower to the heavens remained of what had once been,” Will finished. He stared again at the large rocks. “Wait, Rienne, are you telling me that that is the Isle of Eternity?”

  She glanced over her shoulder and gave Will a playful wink. “Rumors said it was within a week’s journey of the Sapholux, if you knew the right path.”

  Will didn’t fight the nervous rush of awe. Velier and his companions were here, in this very space, ages ago. When he’d wandered into Aeril with Madigan, he’d been walking into one of his grandfather’s stories. But this? This was walking into ancient myth, the same as if he’d found the Trojan horse or Polyphemus’s cave. Morella was right about The Veleriat, too. Why doesn’t the rest of the world believe?

  While the gargantuan stones grew closer, the question replayed in Will’s mind. The Lightborne took The Veleriat as fact, an ancient truth. Morella had, too. But the Seekers—or at least Cephora—had scoffed at the notion, hadn’t she? No, she only said that the Relics themselves were better to have remained lost. This whole world, they knew it was real, and yet they shied away from the Relics themselves. Why?

  “Rienne,” Will said. “Why does Aeril deny the Relics of Antiquity?”

  For a moment, she showed no sign of having heard him. Her footsteps didn’t slow. She didn’t glance in his direction or speak. But Will saw the way her expression faltered, saw the annoyance that briefly clouded her features. Finally, she spoke.

  “Because they are fools.”

  A historian who is mocked for studying what is recognized as real history and a world of people who accept that history but deny that its traces linger. Now I start to see why Morella expected us to laugh at her when she told us her field. Maybe I didn’t give her enough credit.

  Rienne’s irritation was gone by the time they reached the stones. Now, she was nearly laughing. She raced ahead into a small crevice between the rocks and trailed her hands along the walls on either side like a child running through fields of tall wheat. Will couldn’t help but smile at the sight; she might have grown cold toward him, but no part of him bore her any ill will. Already, he had seen cracks in her frosty exterior and he was hopeful that their friendship could be salvaged.

  He followed her into the crevice, brushing his cloak back over his shoulders as he did so. He wanted quick access to his weapons, should the need arise. The gap was wide enough that he never had to squeeze through, but on multiple occasions he had to climb. Rienne was still ahead of him, he could just hear her, but it wasn’t like there was anywhere for her to veer off the path.

  After a few minutes, he finally caught a glimpse of her. They were deep within the forest of stone and Rienne had reached the end of the path. Or, at least, she had reached the end of the ground path. Will found her climbing a face of sheer rock, the barest hints of a goat path visible. He glanced up at the towering stone, stretching high into the air, higher than he had ever climbed freely before. Dahla appeared briefly, her wings arced as she circled.

  So, up then. His fingers twitched nervously. He hadn’t scaled anything since coming to Aeril, not since before his grandfather died. That day, the climb had rewarded him with truths and gifts. What might this climb bring?

  He removed his gloves and reached for the humming key at his chest, wrapping a hand around it. How much did you really know, Grandda? What did you intentionally leave out of the stories?

  There was no answer from the dead man, no answer from the strange voices that sometimes called to him or guided him. There was only the screeching bird and the climbing Lightborne who would barely look at him. Fine then.

  Will began to climb.

  9

  The Isle of Eternity

  The climb was long and exhausting. Will, once so nimble and quick, found that his years in the desert fortress had robbed him of much of his previous vigor and dexterity. More than once, he nearly lost his footing or his grip and thought he was sure to fall to his death. Velier’s gift, as the Aerillians called it, might extend life but did nothing against a violent end. He had no Shade to protect him this time, none of its restorative invigoration or protective strength. No, if he fell, he would die among the pillars of a myth and be quickly forgotten. The thought frightened him back into focusing.

  Time slipped away. When he finally reached the top, shaking and exhausted, the daylight was waning and the air had grown cool. His fingers were bleeding and cramped, his back muscles tight and strained. He very much wanted nothing more than to pass out and sleep for a full day. Instead, he gripped his blood fangs and guided the smallest traces of power to his split hands, knitting the flesh back together and easing the pain.

  Will sighed contentedly and flexed his hands. Good as new. Rienne was not far away, sitting against a large boulder with her head resting on her arms. She, too, was the worse for wear. He considered offering her the power of the blood fangs, but remembering her previous reaction, he thought better of it. She knows I’ve got them. If she wants it, she’ll let me know. He sheathed the fangs and drew his cloak back over them before calling out to her.

  “Hey,” he said tentatively as he approached. “You alright?”

&n
bsp; She lifted her head and gave a weak smile, then nodded. “It didn’t look quite so tall from the bottom.”

  Will chuckled. “No, it didn’t.”

  “I’ve never done that before, nothing like that.” She was shaking her head now, staring back at the ledge. “I don’t know what came over me but I just . . . I didn’t even question it. The trail ended, so I went up.”

  Will slid to the ground next to her, leaving enough space between them that he could stretch his arms out along the stone. “Discovering the myths you grew up on are grounded in reality is enough to make anyone do something crazy.” He chuckled. “Trust me, I know.”

  She glanced over at him. “You’ve done this before?” She gestured around her. “Not, not this, but things like it?”

  “I’m Casc, Rienne. I thought this whole damn world was a myth. A fun bedtime story from the overactive imagination of an old man.”

  She stared at him. “The Casc, they really don’t know? Not about any of this?”

  Will shook his head. “Not even the slightest. At least, none that I knew of. None that my grandfather ever spoke of. He closed the passage from the Ways and, unless people had gone before him, yeah, there was no one.”

  “What about the other Waygates?”

  Waygates? The question lingered on the air a moment before Will answered. “What do you mean?”

  “The other entrances to Cascania from the Ways. Did your grandfather close them all?”

  “Other entrances?” Will shook his head. “No, there’s only one to Cascania.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Come on, Noctis. There’s never only one.”

  There’s more? Somehow, Will had never considered this possibility. His grandfather always said he closed the Cascanian path; Will had just assumed that was all there was to it. Had he meant he’d closed them all? Had he even known there might have been more? Of course, Grandda knew all about that stuff. Why else would he have stuck so close to the Tunnels?