Daughter of Hope by Joanna Fay

Author:Joanna Fay
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Musa Publishing
Published: 2012-06-08T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Sier pushed back unconsciousness, white noise burring in his ears. His eyes focused on the four shapes diving into his wake. A woman with a delicate face, white as the snow of his mountains, plummeted into him with impudent grace, then wheeled away. His shields burned under the barrage of attacks from all sides. Carmine light blazed through the darkness. The half-Guardians fell back from sheets of fire.

“Ka’yadh.”

Vaen’s voice cracked the dark air. Icy wind roared into the void of his spell. The half-Guardian woman shuddered, her eyes rolling. The hands of her brothers fastened in a blur in front of her breast, deflecting the worst of the death-spell. Startlement lit four pairs of black eyes.

Malheren’s arrogant face twisted into a snarl, matching Vaen’s expression. “You’d do it, wouldn’t you?”

“The Aer don’t share the Hinir’s scruples. Don’t forget it,” Vaen flung back at him.

Clustered close together, the assailants dropped back into rolling shadows. Sier spoke a command, and the cloudbank began to shred. The stricken woman threw him a look of pure hatred, but Malheren’s gaze was still locked on Vaen.

No, we won’t forget. Consider yourself warned.

His hand lifted, and Sier tensed. Malheren swept him a short salute before the four fled south, chasing the cover of darkness. Beside him, Vaen’s face was creased into a tight sneer. When he turned back to Sier, his mood shifted.

“So, what do you think about letting the Hinir cross our boundaries now, Father?”

Sier didn’t answer, absorbing the speed of the Morraeth’s awareness—and of their retaliation. Just a warning, a small one. The next would be more severe. The gods wouldn’t tolerate the least act of reparation between their enemies—that had been made clear twenty millennia ago, with Ursen’s death. Sier didn’t really need reminders.

What am I doing? he thought. Is this what I want for my family, for Imlan? All the reasons why he’d kept his walls high—against his soft-hearted golden cousins, against the Morraeth—flooded into his mind.

Vaen’s intent stare tingled against the side of his face.

“Come on.” Sier pulled himself together and looked back along the trail. “We’d better mend the spell-wall. The gods only know what could slip through that hole.” He laid a hand on his son’s tight forearm. “And thanks, Va.”

Vaen nodded in silence before swinging in beside him, back toward Imlan’s coast.

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