Crimson Veil

I groaned, and so did Delilah and Camille.

Camille’s voice came over the phone. “Just what we need, but I have a nasty feeling you’re right. Okay, good to keep in mind. Don’t want to keep it in mind, but we have to be ready for anything at this point.”

And with that, I hung up and we drove on into the silent night.

When we reached home, we took a few minutes to clean up and the others grabbed snacks. Hanna had left a message for me—Roman needed to see me. I glanced at the clock. It was two in the morning.

Our rescued prisoners had all been cleaned and bathed and were huddled in the parlor under the watchful eyes of Nerissa, Vanzir, and Shade, who had been gathering as much information as they could without traumatizing them. We’d talk to them as soon as we put out whatever fire Trenyth had for us.

Camille slipped into the seat in front of the Whispering Mirror and activated it. A moment later, the mist cleared and a guard faced us.

“Allow me a moment and I’ll fetch Lord Trenyth.” His eyes were sober and clear, but something about his expression told me the elf had been through hell. He stood and disappeared to the right, out of our view. True to his word, a moment later, Trenyth slid into the vacant seat.

“I don’t have time to linger, girls. But I wanted to keep you updated. Trillian, are you there?” It was obvious that Trenyth hadn’t slept in days—deep lines underscored his eyes, and he yawned even as he spoke.

Trillian grunted. “Yes, I’m here.”

“The storm has rained its fury on Svartalfheim, I’m sorry to say. The sorcerers did their best to deflect it, and good thing, or the damage would have been worse. But the city is still a smoldering mess. Luckily, they took less damage than Elqaneve, but it’s still bad. Several thousand dead, we think. King Vodox managed to survive, but there is much damage.”

“And the storm?” I asked. “It is still raging?”

Trenyth let out a long sigh. “What mages survived our onslaught tell me they think it has weakened a bit, but yes, and it marches on toward Gylden, the city of the Goldunsan.”

Crap. Gylden was a relatively peaceful city of Fae who lived in the mountains. Reclusive, the Goldunsan were seldom found in cities other than their own. Golden-skinned, they were beautiful in ways that made most Fae glamour seem like a knockoff. But the fact that they had few dealings with outsiders meant they didn’t often form alliances. The storm could trash their city to the ground.

“We’ve alerted them, of course. But now we have a new worry.”

And it just kept coming.

“We’ve received a message from Ceredream stating that there’s some sort of activity happening on their borders. But they sat on the fence too long. We have no reserves left to send them at this point. King Gwyfn of the Nebulveori Mountains is closer; he is sending scouts to the City of the East to find out what they can.”

“So the dwarves are fully involved.” Delilah frowned. “I almost hate to ask but what’s happening in Y’Elestrial?”

“They are prepared—they have gathered every sorcerer and witch they can. They’re all working on war efforts, both in fortifying the city, and in discovering any weakness they can in Telazhar’s army. If we can discover where Telazhar himself is, we can attempt an assassination coup.” He paused. “Your cousin Shamas showed up. We’ve put him to work here—it’s too dangerous for him to attempt the roads to Svartalfheim right now.”

Camille winced, but said nothing.

“And Elqaneve?” I didn’t want to ask, but we had to know. “How are you doing? You look like crap, Trenyth.”

He smiled then, wearily, but it was a smile. “You think I don’t know that? Of course I do. I haven’t slept in days. I’ve been run ragged. Sharah looks just as tired as I am, but I’m making sure she gets as much rest as she can, given that she just had a baby. Is Chase there?”

“No.” Camille started to stand. “Do you need me to go get him? He’s probably asleep at Iris’s.”

“No, let him rest. Sharah misses him terribly. I have a feeling when this war is over, she’s going to drag Elqaneve in directions we have been resisting for years. The people love her—what better heroine than a woman who had to choose duty over the love of her life and her child?”

“Then she’s told your people?” Somehow I couldn’t imagine Sharah keeping her mouth shut.

“Oh, yes. Sharah has a backbone of steel, regardless of that quiet demeanor. Over the past few days, she’s made no bones about mentioning that she left her family back Earthside, and I guess that people here are just too shell-shocked to care if her family happens to be a mostly FBH and a half-breed child. I don’t know how they’ll work it out once the war is settled—may it be settled—but by then, I doubt if any of the former proscriptions regarding heritage will matter.” Trenyth looked both pleased and irritated.

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Good. And that’s the way it should be. We put up with enough crap as children because we were half-breeds. You have to know where our sympathies lie.”

He laughed in return. “Yes, I most certainly do. And trust me, I understand.” After a brief pause, he added, “Camille—Derisa wants to see you as soon as possible. I told her it might not be for a few days, considering what’s going on. She said she may make the trip Earthside, given how dangerous it is over here, now.”

Camille stared at the mirror, her expression blank. “We are in the middle of something big here. I can’t possibly come back right now.”

“Oh, she understands that. This war will not go away in the next day or two—whatever it is, it isn’t an emergency, though she did stress it’s important.” Another pause, and then, “And Trillian? We finally received word from Darynal. He and Taath survived, but Quall is dead. They can’t make it back to Elqaneve right now, given the chaos happening, so they’re headed toward Y’Elestrial.”

“From the desert?” Trillian gnawed on his lip. “That means they’ll have to travel through the Shadow Lands.”

Trenyth nodded, his look matching Trillian’s. “Yes. I know… but it’s the only way. There’s so much unrest in the Southern Wastes that they don’t dare stay there. If they tried to make it up to Nebulveori, chances are they’d be spotted on the way and killed. The goblins are up in arms, and so are the mountain bogies. The dwarves are picking them off right and left. That leaves the Shadow Lands, if they want to work their way back up north.”

“Darynal has family in Svartalfheim. He needs to find out if they are safe or if they perished.” Trillian slowly lowered himself to the sofa. “I have to do something.”

Camille paled. “But the Shadow Lands—you can’t go to the Shadow Lands. Damn it, you know what perils hide there.”

Trillian held her gaze. “Of course I know. But you also know that he is my lavoyda . . . my blood-oath brother. How can I turn my back on him when I know he’s in danger?”

“I do understand.” She stared back at him for a moment. “If you must go, you must. But remember: We need you here, too.”

Trenyth interrupted. “Trillian, listen to Camille. The Shadow Lands are deep and long with history—many who have attempted to pass through their borders are never seen again. For now, Darynal is safe, but if he chooses that route… there is a good chance he will never return. And if you go after him, you, too, may vanish.”

The Shadow Lands were a valley that separated the deserts of the Southern Wastes from the eastern lands. The valley had been the last refuge of those who fled the great forests destroyed during the Scorching Wars. They raced into the canyons, and there, Telazhar and his armies had hunted them down and slaughtered them en masse. The entire area, including the bordering Ranakwa Fens, were rife with the spirits of the dead—angry and frightened and still missing their homes.

Trillian fell silent, but by the look on his face, the wheels were turning fast and furious upstairs.

“How many sorcerers do you think that Telazhar has gathered, Trenyth?” It was a question we probably didn’t want the answer to, but it was important that we knew what we were up against.

“Last report I got from Darynal’s group before they disappeared was… well over three hundred. Telazhar swept through the Brotherhood of the Sun and gathered up the entire cult. And most of the guilds in the Southern Wastes threw their weight behind him. We’re talking an army of magic-wielding psychopaths twice as large as the one he commanded during the Scorching Wars. One sorcerer can destroy a village if he’s powerful enough. Three hundred—”

“Can rule the world, especially when they have an army of grunts behind them.” We all fell silent for a moment. All it took was one charismatic orator who held true power, and you had the makings for disaster. Put a Demon Lord at his back and a spirit seal around his neck and there was the beginning to the end.

“Right. I need to get back to matters at hand. I’m trying to find out how many villages in Elqaneve still stand, but the going is rough and gathering data is dangerous. There are so many dead here, girls. I don’t know… the Elfin race will rebuild but I don’t know if we’ll ever be the nation and people we were a week ago. Telazhar was trying for total annihilation, and he damned near achieved it.” And with that, he signed off before we could say any more.

I sat back, sighing. “I guess we should talk to Violet.”

Tanne, who had been watching silently, shook his head. “You really are up against the wall. For rescuing Violet… any time you need me? I’m ready and willing to go for it. All you have to do is ask.”

I realized that Tanne now knew far more about matters than we’d planned. But he seemed like an ally worth having.

“I’m surprised you aren’t in there, making sure she’s okay.” I cocked my head, wondering at how calm and pulled together he was.

“You know little about what I’ve faced, and the people I’ve lost. I’ve learned to focus on the matters at hand, to push everything else to the side, even when it’s ripping me up inside. I’ve learned how to separate my personal life from what needs done. My mother trained us well. The Hunter’s Glen Clan has a reputation of being the hope of last resort. People come to us who have tried every other outlet and failed. And we seldom fail.” He leaned back in his chair and a shock of his tousled blond hair fell in his eyes. He brushed it back, a faint, arrogant grin on his face. “Living in the Black Forest breeds strength.”

“We welcome your help.” I glanced at the others. I had a good feeling about Tanne. He was an oddball, but he was one of the good guys. “Before it gets much later, we should talk to Violet and the others. You know, of course, we can’t let them go home. We can’t chance Lowestar looking for them. He’d probably kill them outright, hoping to keep them from talking. Or out of spite.”

“That’s going to present its own problems. Where do they go?”

“We’ll decide that in a little while. Meanwhile, bring them in and let’s find out what we’re facing.”

By the looks of them, Nerissa had seen that they’d had showers and they were comfortably dressed in clean clothing that she’d scrounged up from our various wardrobes. By now, we were used to lending our clothes to stragglers who needed a change.

But the haunted looks in their eyes told me they’d been through hell. Violet started when she saw Tanne, and she broke into a run, racing into his arms. He held her tight, kissing her brow, kissing her lips, but then he gently disengaged her and pushed her to arm’s length.

“There will be time for us later,” he whispered. “Now we need to talk to you. To find out everything you know.”

Violet let out a long breath, sounding exhausted. “We’ve already talked to the dragon and Were. They know everything we know, and they wrote it down so we wouldn’t lose anything.” She turned to us, and a soft smile played over her lips. “Thank you. Thank you more than I can ever express. I didn’t think I’d ever make it out of there.”

Nerissa stepped forward. She gave me a light kiss before introducing the others. “You know Violet already. Meet Shay, Daisy, Fray, and this is Weaver.”

The four of them nodded, looking confused and more than a little dazed. Nerissa settled them onto the sofa, while the rest of us took the other chairs. Violet joined her comrades, looking a little less shell-shocked than the others.

Nerissa turned to us. “Shay was in there over a year. The others have been prisoners for between two and five months. Violet was the last one captured. They told us they’ve seen at least four Fae and two Weres come through the cells in the past five months. Shay doesn’t know how many were laundered through during the period between when she was captured and when Weaver was put in the cell next to her five months back.”

“So it’s not first in, first out.” I frowned. “I wonder what the criteria are.”

Weaver spoke up, his voice shaky. “I know. I managed to get one of the guards talking. He said that sometimes the transfer takes a while, and once in a while, a buyer reneges on the deal. Then they have to either find a new one, or they have to work out whatever the problem was.”

“The guards—were they all daemons?” Camille shifted to allow Hanna room to bring in a tea tray and some cookies. It was obvious that our housekeeper had been in bed; she was in a nightgown and her hair was braided back. But she never missed a beat—just like Iris, she was always on call.