AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Lucky win,” retorted Brand with a scowl. He rose to his feet and stomped off.
Aedon winked at Harper. “You’ll pick it up in no time. Ragnar, perhaps we have a future chatura mistress on our hands.”
Ragnar laughed. “Maybe if she learns from me. Definitely not if she learns from you.”
That night, Aedon let Harper keep his cloak and a pelt as bedding, and brushed off her thanks. She wrapped herself in the homely material, noting the faint smell of herbs and woodsmoke. As she lay down away from the others, who piled onto their bed of pelts, she could not sleep, despite her exhaustion.
It was difficult enough to explore the idea of travelling to a different country, but not being able to return home? What would Betta do without her? Then there was the small matter of the Dragonheart. And running with a band of outlaws, including the most wanted criminal in the kingdom. One who had her in a strange and annoying kind of flutter. Harper suppressed a groan.
Silence descended as her campmates drifted into slumber. Before long, Harper’s eyes slipped shut, despite the chaos of her mind. She fell asleep snuggled in the warmth of the cloak, the fire before her burning itself to glowing embers.
21
AEDON
Harper was a jewel in the darkness. Firelight threw an amber glow across her and against the stark obsidian of the trees behind. Her worried face was slack and peaceful in slumber, as though she were relieved from the many cares she carried, and her dark hair draped across her face and shoulders like a shroud. Harper was pretty when she did not have her back up, though she did not compare to the elven ladies at court. Mind, Aedon thought, she also has plentiful more attitude. Which he rather preferred.
The breeze grasped him, a cold edge on the air that told of summer’s demise. He looked at Harper’s small form just outside the warm glow of the fire and sighed. With a small mutter under his breath, he blew in her direction, sending warm air tumbling around her. At a second thought, he gathered up one of his furs and, placed it gingerly over her shoulders. She shifted slightly but did not wake.
Aedon stayed kneeling beside her for a long moment. Slowly, his hand rose. He hooked her silken curtain of hair in his finger and gently tucked it behind her slightly pointed ear. She appeared entirely innocent in sleep as he took in her features. The jutting curve of her gaunt cheek. The shadows under her eyes. The curve of her lips as the faintest flutter of breath escaped. He examined every inch of her, but there was hardly anything to be seen. She had tucked herself within the confines of his cloak in a futile attempt to break the wind that relentlessly slipped between the trees and through the canopy to bite at them. Only her hand had slipped free, resting under her head, though it made a poor pillow on the hard ground.
Brand sat up and silently motioned to the rest of the group. They rose like wraiths and stalked away in silence, leaving Harper slumbering by the fire, alone and unaware. Aedon sighed and started to rise, but froze as the charm upon her wrist glinted in the firelight. He cocked his head, bending closer for a better look. Worn leather. A roughly shaped silver disc stamped with… Aedon gaped.
A circle split by a line. The riven circle. The broken wheel. Saradon’s Mark. His stomach dropped, and an icy chill that had nothing to do with the night air speared through him. He scanned her again. Nothing untoward did he find, but she carried Saradon’s Mark upon her, and she had clearly shown how precious it was to her. Did she know what it was? he wondered. Did she hide darkness within her? Had he missed something? If so, she hid it well. He sensed nothing ill from her—and he was a master at reading others. Did that reassure or trouble him? Aedon could not be sure.
Troubled, he rose and backed away. His eyes lingered upon her, then her charm bracelet, then Erika. He joined the rest of the group, who stood across the fire at the edge of the clearing. He was still reeling that she had just casually pulled out a Dragonheart. He had not seen one for decades. Something deep within him cracked open and an old hurt ached in his chest. One that he could still not bear to face. Then there was the matter of the mark on her bracelet. It sent the pit of his stomach churning. That changed everything.
“She doesn’t appear to be lying, however impossible it seems that she has travelled from Caledan in a heartbeat,” Ragnar said, frowning. Aedon could hardly see him in the gloom. They carried no lights with them, just in case she awoke.
Aedon cleared his throat quietly. “No indeed. Magic works in mysterious ways. Yet what is a half-elf doing in the midst of Caledan, the kingdom where no elves live, where no magic runs through the veins of the earth?” The wind whistled around them, scattering their words into the trees.
“You’re sure she’s a half-elf?” Erika asked, her attention fixed upon their unexpected guest.
“I am,” replied Aedon. “One elf to another. I can sense the magic slumbering in her blood. She can be nothing else.” Of that, he was curious. Did she know? There was such a dearth of magic across the veil in Caledan. Widely travelled as his group was, he thought elves did not exist beyond it. How had she come to be there? And how—and why—had she returned? She was an enigma, and he wanted to unwrap every layer of her answers.
“I do not trust her.” Erika’s voice was as cold as the night.
“You do not trust anyone.” Brand’s statement was both criticism and praise. She glowered at him, and he smiled at her with predatory glee.
“I think she is as lost as us all,” Ragnar uttered, gazing at her.
“Yes, well,” Aedon trailed off, glancing across the fire to her.
“What is it?” Brand asked.
“Speak plainly, elf. It’s late, and I’m tired,” said Erika.
“She bears Saradon’s Mark on the charm on her bracelet,” he said quietly. “The thing she would not part with.” That she had claimed was nothing more than an old trinket of lost origins born from her homeland.
Erika’s hiss drowned the others’ murmured surprise. “Then we kill her, take the Dragonheart, and have done with it!”
“No!” Aedon threw out an arm to stop her. He swallowed as her wrath hit him, hatred brimming in every line of her face. Erika had more cause than anyone to care about what he had just found. Saradon had haunted her entire life. And even as Aedon watched the huntress take in their new companion with fresh awareness and a cold, calculating gaze, he saw how it unsettled her, for she subconsciously pressed a hand to her rough-hewn fringe, flattening it against her marred forehead.
“She bears his Mark—she is dangerous, no matter how useless and frail she appears. I will not risk us for a stranger.” Venom filled Erika’s voice.
“She hides no malice,” Aedon protested.
“How can you be sure?”
