Page 79 of Oaths & Vengeance (Realm of Zadrya #1)

Darrow

E very part of me ached as I fought to pull myself from a deep sleep.

There was something important I needed to do, but it felt like wading through sludge to try to remember.

Little by little, bits and pieces of memories surfaced.

I recalled the battle, seeing Aella repel the dark elf forces into the sea, and after that, my facing off with Lord Morgunn.

He had struck me with a spear of ice that had felt unbearably cold.

The last image I recalled was Aella being dragged into the portal ring, her face filled with fear and horror.

I sat straight up and opened my eyes. The muscles in my body protested loudly, but I didn’t care. My sister sat in a chair next to my bed, her feet propped up on the nightstand. A flash of relief crossed her gaze before it turned detached.

“About time you woke up,” she said, lowering her feet to the floor and flinging her long, brown-black hair behind her back. “The healer lifted the sleep spell two hours ago.”

Two hours? “How long have I been down?”

“About two and a half days.”

“Aella is in trouble, and you let me sleep that long?” I asked, furious.

She rolled her eyes. “You were at death’s door for most of it. Lord Morgunn does terrifying work with his ice magic, and it took that long for the healers to repair the damage to your skin and organs. At least now we know why we kept finding frozen victims every time we fought Therress.”

I lifted the blanket to check myself, realizing I was naked underneath, and noted the top layers of my skin were new and still raw from regrowth.

Perhaps it was best I hadn’t seen how bad I looked in those early hours after the battle.

My stomach still had a dark spot just below my navel from where the spear had impaled me.

If I were this bad… “What about Loden and the other two soldiers?”

“Loden was the least injured since the ice pierced him in the thigh first. He woke last night.” She paused and shook her head. “The others were struck higher in the chest and didn’t survive the first day.”

I closed my eyes, mourning their loss. They’d been good, loyal elves. Once I finished collecting myself, I looked at Faina again. “I need to rescue Aella before it’s too late.”

She frowned. “What do you mean? Surely, her uncle wouldn’t kill her.”

I relayed all that I could recall from that night. “He knows she betrayed him, and he’s undoubtedly punishing her as we speak.”

A deadly, cold calm took over Faina’s features. “Then you’ll find a way to rescue her.”

At that moment, Loden barged through the door. He was still pale like me from his injuries, but otherwise, he appeared fully recovered. “Good, you’re awake.”

“You know what I need to do.” He had been there for much of it, and I’d told him what happened between Aella and the dark elves before we tried to intercept Lord Morgunn.

He nodded. “Our spies reported that Aella was hauled away by her uncle and cousin soon after arriving at Ivory Castle keep, but they were unable to follow and find out what happened to her. Anyone who knows anything isn’t talking about it.

In anticipation of your waking, I sent one of your sebeskas out at dawn.

She should be approaching the castle soon.

We can’t formulate a plan until we have an idea of what is happening there. ”

Nameless ones bless him for thinking ahead as always. “Thank you. What is the status of Radoumar?”

“It’s a disaster,” Faina said, sighing. “After we sent you and the worst of the wounded here to Darynia, we had to track down the remaining dark elves that your frighteningly powerful wife missed. We also had to contain the fires, gather the dead, and set up tents for those who lost their homes, which was nearly two hundred. ”

She paused, and amusement lit in her gray eyes.

“More than once, we heard the story of a beautiful blonde lady in gray who stepped in to protect them from the horde of enemy soldiers. Father isn’t happy that Aella opened that portal for her uncle, but he recognizes that she mitigated the damage as much as she could. ”

“Yes, but she is undoubtedly paying for her selflessness now.”

My sister’s gaze turned haunted because she had suffered during our yearly trips to Karganoth as well.

They usually separated us, and like me, she never talked about her experiences.

I had no idea what had happened to her, but I suspected she faced circumstances similar to mine.

After seeing the evidence of what Lord Morgunn had done to Aella in the past, we could each imagine how much worse it might get for her.

“That’s why I had the healers concentrate more on you and Loden than the other injured,” she said, straightening her shoulders as she undoubtedly pushed old memories away. “We needed you back at full strength as soon as possible.”

“Thank you.”

She shook her head. “No need for that. I only wish I could come with you, but Father has insisted I head back to Radoumar in a few hours. He just returned from there and needs me to take over the cleanup. I only refused to leave until you woke.”

I could only imagine how much that task would annoy her, but she’d do as ordered.

Loden stepped closer to the bed. “The sebeska, Tullar, should be at the castle now.”

“Good.” That was the bird who had the strongest bond with me, which he knew. “I’ll mind link with her now.”

“Don’t use too much energy,” Faina warned, narrowing her eyes. “It’s going to take another day before you’re strong enough to go anywhere, but it will be even longer if you push yourself too hard.”

“I’ll take care,” I promised. There was no way I’d risk becoming too weak to save my wife. Even now, I could feel that I wasn’t back to full strength, but a short trip in the bird’s mind would only require a small measure of my power .

Lying back down on my large bed, I closed my eyes and focused on the sebeska.

A full minute passed before I penetrated the sebeska’s mind to see through her eyes and hear through her ears.

I allowed Tullar to maintain her autonomy in flight, as she was highly intelligent and understood her mission, but I would guide the bird as needed.

The Ivory Castle keep appeared below with a different range of colors than what my elf vision could discern.

It always took a moment to adjust to the change.

The walls appeared to have a slight yellow tinge to them through Tullar’s vision.

I first searched the area near the ring, followed by the training area, and finally Aella’s walled garden.

It caught me off guard at what I found there, and shock nearly paralyzed me.

Nearly a third of her plants lay in disarray across the central stone path, with some dead and already decaying.

Others struggled to recover from a brutality that could only come from sharp blades.

A few managed to extend a few roots into the nearby soil for much-needed nourishment, but their dull color wasn’t encouraging.

Dried violet, yellow, and pink petals lay scattered everywhere with blood and shriveled meat of some sort within some of the damaged bulbs.

Upon closer inspection, I counted five elven bodies with tractvines coiled tightly around them deeper within the garden beds.

Their skin was almost black from the toxins the species injected to break down their forms for easier consumption.

Lord Morgunn must have chosen to leave his people there because the only way to extract someone from the powerful plant was to hack the victim and vine to pieces.

My wife had a good heart, but she clearly had a dark side, as evidenced by her choice of plants and her ruthless use of them against her own people. That combination was one of her more endearing qualities.

The sebeska I inhabited was especially sensitive to moods within nature, and she sensed the sadness, despair, and worry coming from the surviving plants. As I looked through the bird’s eyes, a story began to form.

Aella must have escaped her uncle at some point, soon after returning from the battle, and fled to the garden to make her last stand—already injured.

She’d used her plants to help protect her based on the smeared blood that went down the walkway quite a distance and stopped just after the mess.

Her guardians had put up a good fight, but they must have become overwhelmed.

If five full bodies remained and various parts of others were strewn about everywhere, how many had Lord Morgunn ordered to invade the walled garden?

It could have been two dozen or more. He must have been determined and furious if he were willing to sacrifice that many soldiers to apprehend his niece.

The trail of destruction ended about halfway through the garden from the entry arch.

I had to assume that was how far Aella made it before stopping, but why didn’t she use the plant distraction to reach the ring in the back?

I studied all the evidence, trying to piece together the rest of the story.

Considering the smeared blood leading to a dried pool at the end, she must have been badly injured beyond the shoulder wound I knew about.

Holding a portal long enough for all the Therressian soldiers to escape must have been taxing as well.

Perhaps she simply didn’t have the strength to open another one so soon.

Her plants obviously did their best against overwhelming odds, but they couldn’t buy her enough time to escape.

Then, it occurred to me that her curse wouldn’t have allowed her to flee anyway.

She’d likely hoped her uncle wouldn’t have gone to such extremes to capture her.

Maybe if she’d had more time and fewer attackers, she could have regained enough strength to fight back and even kill Lord Morgunn.

Time hadn’t been on her side with an uncle who would stop at nothing to retrieve and punish her, though.