Tempest of Bravoure Read online

  Luthan felt compelled to bow. “Haerlg’ da, Mauyra.”

  He had not seen her in so many years. Yet when he saw her now, he felt close to nothing. Not anger or joy. What had happened to this relieved feeling of home? It was not attached to Mauyra, that was sure. Maybe it was the reality that this place was not his home anymore. The Elvenqueen smiled, though. She approached him slowly. When she was in front of him, she brought her hand to his face and caressed it gently. Her eyes lit with surprise when she noticed how little the man she remembered had changed.

  “You’ve barely aged,” she observed. She paused to look into his emerald eyes. “It’s like you left yesterday.”

  Luthan forced a smile at Mauyra. “There’s a long story to explain that, tante.”

  “I have all day, nevo,” she said in her sweet familiar voice, the one he still remembered from his youth, from the stories she told him about her sister, his mother.

  The tall elf’s smile faded. Something more pressing, a more serious light appeared in his eyes. “I wish I did.”

  Mauyra took a step back, her blue eyes never leaving Luthan. “Bravoure is not doing so well. Are you returning for good?”

  He shook his head. “No.” He then paused, seeing the confusion grow in Mauyra’s gaze. “I need access to the canyon, the one that leads to the Sun Mountain.”

  Mauyra’s features narrowed. She squinted a little, analyzing her nephew. She was not really sure what to make of his request.

  “After all these years, Luthan...” Mauyra crossed her arms. “What do you need from the Sun Mountain?”

  “The Wayfinder,” he sternly replied, quickly, with no shred of hesitation.

  Luthan heard footsteps behind him. A sudden, aggravated voice addressed him. The voice of a man he recognized.

  “It’s been over two centuries, and you show your face here to ask for access to our Item of Power,” the man said.

  “Hello, brother,” Luthan could not even pronounce brother without a note of childish disdain. He paired it with an unpleasant crooked smile as he turned to face Duncan Hyehn, his little brother, who now looked about a hundred years older than him.

  Duncan’s malachite eyes widened upon seeing Luthan’s face. “By Ljos, you look exactly the same!” he exclaimed.

  He came to stand beside their aunt, his brown hair gathered at the nape of his neck. So Duncan joined the Norsika Guard, Luthan thought when he noticed his brother’s shiny armor. Duncan had been born without magic. Unlike Luthan, the titan blade had been his true calling.

  Luthan felt little to no joy seeing his family again. Perhaps a hint of wistfulness as he looked to his aunt, Mauyra, now bearing the title of Elvenqueen. He would have to inquire when that coronation had happened, but now was not the time. He most certainly could not be bothered with Duncan, that was sure. And he had his reasons.

  “May I remind you that you both cast me away,” he said with an accusatory grunt. “For marrying the woman I loved.”

  Duncan scoffed. “For marrying a dark elf, brother. The bane of our kin.”

  Luthan held in his anger. Two hundred and fifty years had passed; he still wanted to throw a fireball at his brother for the hatred of his wife, but he had to be ljosalfar about it, and now was not the place nor the time. His mission was too important. His thoughts briefly halted on Meriel. Ten years he had waited. He had waited for far too long to see her again.

  “Grant me access to the canyon, and you’ll never see or hear from me again,” Luthan declared, his eyes flaring with determination.

  Mauyra seemed troubled by Luthan’s words. There was something endearing in her gaze upon him. As if she had missed him dearly. She was about to speak again, but Duncan interrupted.

  “Mother died, and father followed soon after,” he said with anger in his throat, scowling at his older brother. “I sent word to your Bravan academy.” He pronounced academy with mirrored disdain. “I never heard from you. We haven’t heard from you since the dokkalfar invaded Bravoure.” Duncan paused for a second before continuing in a pitch full of spite. “How coincidental...you marry a dark elf, and soon after, the whole kingdom gets destroyed by her kin.”

  Enough.

  Luthan stepped into his brother’s personal space, towering over him with his more imposing size. “Bravoure fell and you did nothing! Fallvale did nothing! You stood there and watched when the Dark Lord came. Decades later, you did nothing when Bravan forces overran a people who had nothing better than wooden spears to defend themselves!” His eyes flared. He could have exploded right there, but he managed, with the greatest effort, to pull his fury back. “The canyon. One last time.”

  The tall elf felt a gentle hand land on his shoulder. Mauyra had tears in her eyes when he met her gaze. She gave him a wide nod before smiling at him, perhaps in an attempt to ease the mood.

  “I’m granting you access to Dawn’s Pass,” she softly declared. “There is a path there to the—”

  “I know,” Luthan cut. He did not have time for instructions. “Dawn’s Pass leads to the canyon. This is something I haven’t forgotten.”

  He wanted to leave. Enough with this reunion. He was not welcome here. He definitely did not feel as such. And, if he had to admit it to himself, it broke his heart as he was shunned once again. He was about to turn around and hasten to the limestone gate when Mauyra’s voice recalled him.

  “Will you stay?” she asked, hoping her nephew would say yes. “At least for some food or tea, or something...”

  Luthan’s posture relaxed. He looked to his brother, who remained silent, for now. He then glanced at his aunt and gave her a smile. Fine, he could do tea. But then he would have to go.

  When Ahna opened her eyes, she was surrounded by darkness. Total darkness. Dread is all she felt. This was familiar. This felt all too familiar.

  She had been here before.

  She remembered nothing yet everything about this place. She walked through this endless obscurity. It was like walking through water, yet she could breathe. Could she breathe?

  Once she could see her surroundings better, she noticed the color of the ground. White. Like clear sand. This was different, yet not particularly unusual. Ahna was certain she had been here before, but why could she see the ground when there was no flame, no source of light, no Sol? She looked up.

  Darkness.

  The sky was black. When Ahna’s eyes adjusted to this familiar yet foreign place, she could distinguish the meanders of this surface of white sand. It spread and stretched like a desert, with hills and slopes far in the distance. She looked to the ground again and behind her, only to notice the absence of footprints. Strange. She had been walking, so why were there no tracks?

  When she turned her head back, she froze. Instantly. Not because the darkness had grown, but because of the man who stood right in front of her. A ghost from her past. His leathers gave his identity away. Black leathers, like the light armor of the Shrike Wing of the Resistance. Then, she met his cerulean eyes, the eyes she had not seen in over two years. Seeing him again was like receiving a dagger to the heart. He smiled at her, and now, the dagger was fire. She wanted to take a step toward him. She wanted to jump in his arms and cherish this reunion. The sudden joy she felt upon seeing that look in his eyes. The look she remembered from a night under the Peak of Gal, high in Gurdal. Their first touch. Their last embrace. Their first kiss before she...lost him.

  This was not real.

  This could not be real. This man was gone, so why was he standing here, right in her reach?

  “It took you long enough,” he said, still with a smile.

  Ahna wanted to speak but no words formed. She wanted to move, but her legs refused to follow. She was frozen. Downright petrified.

  The man’s smile faded, and a dark veil now rested upon his face. “I’m lost, Ahna,” the man confessed. His tone was as dark as the night that surrounded them.

  “Cedric!” This time, her voice complied.

  “You remember my name,�
� the ghost observed.

  Ahna shook her head. Tears were gathering behind her eyes. “How can I forget?” she asked in consternation. “How can I forget you, Cedric?” She wanted to cry. Seeing him again reminded her of all she had lost. His image was linked to everything she had wanted to forget. Yet it felt so comforting, so soothing to see him. Cedric meant so much more than the memories of war. Cedric had given her so much more in such little time.

  “I haven’t seen you in…decades,” he said, in a way as though he, himself, was not sure how long ago he had seen her for the last time.

  With all her might, Ahna was able to rush closer to him. It had worked. She was unsure how she had moved, but it was not physically. She had not taken any steps. She had let her feelings, the strong emotions she felt, guide her to Cedric Rover.

  With a touch of her hand, she brushed against the side of his face, just to make sure he was real. And he was most definitely real. Ahna’s tears flourished and ran down her cheeks. Cedric noticed, and his eyes landed on her lips. He leaned in, slowly, as though he was careful not to alarm her. He wrapped his arms around her and pressed her closer, then kissed her. The sensation that overtook her was unreal. The burst of emotions that followed was something Ahna could not define. It spread from her heart into her veins to the rest of her entire soul.

  Ahna opened her mouth slightly to let him in further. But he did not take the invitation.

  Cedric released her. He turned around and walked away.

  Confused, lightheaded, and dizzy, all at once, Ahna tried to run after him. But she failed.

  “This isn’t real,” she heard him mumble.

  Ahna could not bear to let him go. Not again. “Cedric!” she called. He did not turn around. “Cedric, I’m here!” she called again—he kept on walking away. “Cedric!” No response. Her voice broke in the silent darkness, only the gasps of compulsive cries could be heard.

  Ahna emptied her eyes. That pain in her abdomen from hours of tears kept her clutched on herself.

  “Cedric, don’t go! Don’t go again!” she called one more time. He was now so far away she had almost lost sight of him. “Cedric!”

  She raised herself up to look at him better, squinting so as not to let him vanish. But the ache dimmed, and her resolve screamed louder than her cries. An intense feeling of hope engulfed her. Determination. “I’m coming to save you, Cedric!” she called out with a full voice. “I’m coming to save you!”

  The darkness around her had begun to whirl. The ground was no more. Ahna did her best to keep her eyes open, to keep the image of the captain of the shrikes alive. But the gloom glazed her eyes, and Ahna succumbed to a restless slumber.

  Jules handed Ahna a satchel with bread and a canteen of water. He sat on the bed they had just shared. Ahna had no place to sleep, so Jules had lent her half of his cot in the abandoned sewers of the Bravan Underground. He had done it in a heartbeat. For her, there was little he would not do. Jules had heard her cry in her sleep, which had awoken him briefly, but he had not hesitated to take her into the comfort of his arms. She had wept silently in the crook of his chest while he had stroked her hair. Ahna mumbled in her sleep, but that had not prevented him from falling back asleep again. For the rest of the night, he had slept soundly close to his best friend—no nightmares had visited him. Plus now, he could finally say he had slept with a woman, even if it had just been alongside her.

  Now, despite his advice against it, Ahna had decided to head in the direction of Mokvar, the harbor town right below the Antaris Woods.

  “I need to see it for myself,” she had said.

  “It’s too dangerous!” he had warned.

  But who was he kidding? Danger and fear were no valid excuses to back away for the elf. And danger would never dissuade her from a mission to save the world. Plus, Ahna being an archmage, there was nothing that could stop her.

  “I’ll get close to the darkness, and then I’ll return,” she had promised.

  Ahna still needed to process everything that she had been told last night, but keeping herself busy was one way to deal with it all. Sticking to a mission. Knowing Luthan was still around somewhere brought some sort of comfort, but he was not here now. Perhaps he was gone forever, perhaps he would never return from wherever he had gone to save this land. Ahna felt partly responsible for what Bravoure had become, even if it was out of her control. Had she been present all those years ago, maybe she could have changed something. Ahna had also convinced herself she needed to see what this whole undead problem was about. And if it involved...Cedric, perhaps she could do something about it. She hoped there was something she could do. Two years ago for her, almost two hundred for him, she had vowed she would.

  Her glance landed on the small table in the corner of Jules’s bedchamber. Sprawled out on the wood were an open holster and that strange weapon Cayne had carried the day before. Ahna pointed at it.

  “You also have one!” she exclaimed. Then she picked it up with care and ran her finger along the silver barrel. She could now see it clearly. The tubes were made of annealed moonstone, the same rock as in Skyshrine, on Luna. “What is it?” she asked Jules.

  Jules stood up and walked to her. He took the weapon from her hands and showed her how to hold it.

  “This, Ahnny, is an arcane pistol,” he disclosed. “It’s a prototype. This is the grip.” He clenched it the right way. “The energy gathers into the main barrel and is propelled into the tubes and out through the muzzle.” He raised it in the air and pointed away from them. “Then, you aim and shoot...by pressing here.” He had his finger on some sort of trigger.

  Upon touching the small hook, they heard the build-up of an amplifying vibration. Ahna figured this was the arcane part of the whole pistol idea. She was simply flabbergasted by the existence of such a modern weapon.

  “How did you get this? And when did they start making those?” she asked. She had more questions, but two were enough for now.

  Jules chuckled. “Cayne and her men stole a bunch from the Academy. Some kind of research project. It’s relatively stable, but sometimes the shots miss.” He pointed at the barrel. “And look, it’s made of moonstone. Lucky for us, they recharge in the sunlight—no need for ammo!” He handed Ahna the weapon and its holster. “Take it. It might come in handy.”

  Ahna instinctively seized the weapon in her hand. Since when did the Academy make weapons other than magical quarterstaffs? She looked at it, again, before slipping it into the holster made of tan leather.

  “Thank you,” she said as she smiled at Jules.

  The blond man returned her smile. He looked at her dearly, feeling the joy of being with his friend again. His life in this new Bravoure had been so surreal to him, even though rebellions were sort of his thing. Almost two hundred years later than planned—he still had trouble wrapping his head around that. Right now, Ahna was a spark of light in a large cloud of grey.

  “I’m just so glad to see you again,” Jules conceded. “Don’t get hurt, okay?”

  Ahna nodded once and adjusted her shirt, a piece of regular white linen Cayne had given her. She tucked it underneath a reinforced leather cuirass, stolen by the Wolf Pack from castle supplies. It was a bit large, but she could live with it. She had no idea what to expect from her upcoming journey, but she would be sure to take a sword or two. And her brown cloak.

  * * *

  Outside Jules’s dorm was a long corridor that led to the speakeasy, through a door where two large men were posted. Cayne was sitting at a table there, with some men and women in chainmail. They appeared to be in deep discussion. Ahna figured it was about the Wolf Pack’s next steps. Next to her, standing tall despite his small size, was Luky, the joyous sindur catling. When he saw Ahna, he immediately bounced up and hurried to her. Once he stood in front of her, he flapped his arms in enthusiasm.

  “I’m coming with you to Mokvar!” he exclaimed, a little too loud.

  Jules immediately intervened. “No, Councilor, there’s no way in
Hell I’m letting you wander the night.”

  “But the blue lady will protect me!” Luky cried, bobbing up and down to express his frustration.

  Ahna chuckled at the catling. Jules, on the other hand, was dead serious. He was not going to let this young man...tom visit a place where he had no idea what could even happen. A place apparently filled with monsters!

  “You’re staying here,” he reinforced, then picked up Luky and looped him over his shoulders.

  Luky struggled a little, throwing paws and claws in the air and at Jules’s back. Holding the agitated catling with one arm, Jules, laid his free hand on Ahna’s shoulder.

  “Best of luck, bahi,” he bid, then he led Luky into the corridor and took a corner, vanishing from Ahna’s vision.

  When Ahna turned around, Cayne was seeing her fighters out. She spotted the elf, greeted her with a wave of the hand, and walked to her.

  “These are some of the Wolves here, in Bravoure City,” Cayne explained. “They’ll be gathering the others. We need to gather as many as we can.”

  Ahna noticed the bags under Cayne’s copper eyes. “Have you slept?” she asked out of concern, knowing the answer was no.

  Cayne pursed her lips together, then blew air out through her closed mouth. “Tough life!” she eventually exclaimed.

  The elf remembered something Cayne had said the night prior, something about cultists of some sort. Ahna was ready to hear it now.

  “You mentioned something about cultists yesterday,” Ahna said. “Can you elaborate?”

  Cayne cleared her throat. “Some say they’re an urban legend, a conspiracy theory paranoid people like to believe in. But I know they exist.” Cayne looked around her as if to check whether somebody else was listening. “I’ve been tracking them down for years. I believe they were led by a sorcerer named Phorus Adal, an Academy renegade, but Adal vanished and hasn’t been seen again.”