The Chosen of Anthros Read online

  Abagail had the feeling that Rowan didn’t really trust anyone.

  Abagail sat up with a grumble and smoothed down the arrant locks of her short dark hair. Her hazel eyes took in the package Rowan had dropped beside her. In fact, it wasn’t a package at all, but a rough looking work glove, like the one she’d lost weeks before when she almost died at the hands of the nix.

  Abagail didn’t waste any time pulling the brown glove over her blackened hand, the hand corrupted with the shadow plague. This glove was better. It fit, and the tips of the fingers didn’t harbor any dirt and debris like her last one did.

  With the glove in place, Abagail felt freer. She didn’t have to constantly guard her hand from coming into contact with others. Another small victory, but this one made all the difference. Now she couldn’t accidentally infect someone.

  With her hand hidden, Abagail could pretend she didn’t have the shadow plague. She could imagine that she’d never caught it tending bees and that she was just another normal person in a world gone insane.

  But now she didn’t have to worry about that. Now she was with the harbingers of light and they would teach her how to control the plague. Soon she would be free of it, as soon as she could learn to keep her emotions in check.

  In fact, that’s what Rowan’s first lesson with her was.

  “Before we can go any further, you have to learn how to control your emotions,” Rowan had told her. Then she went on and did everything in her power to irritate Abagail. When Abagail finally got angry enough to say something, Rowan would chide her about giving in to her darker emotions.

  It was ironic to Abagail that Rowan was to be her mentor. A woman who claimed not to harbor any ill feelings for Abagail, yet clearly did. Forced to train with her on a daily basis it was hard to hide her true feelings from Abagail.

  Beside Abagail, her sister Leona stirred. Her hand was clutched around the hilt of the large hammer they’d gotten from their father. Initially their neighbor Rorick had been carrying it, but just a few nights before Leona had somehow activated it. Now she was the only one who could carry it.

  And she still sleeps with her hand locked around it, as if anyone can lift it let alone steal it, Abagail thought with a smile.

  She didn’t like how Leona was growing up. It reminded Abagail so much of how she’d been forced to grow up too soon. Leona was six years younger than Abagail and already she knew how to fight and had made the hard call to kill two people who threatened the life of her sister.

  Abagail frowned.

  “What’s got your pretty face in a tangle this morning?” Skye asked. The light elf crouched down beside her and tousled Leona’s hair. Her blonde sister grumbled and yanked the covers over her head. Skye laughed.

  “Well?” he asked again, turning his violet eyes on Abagail.

  She hated the way his smile made her heart hitch. Even worse, she hated that her hair was so wild every morning they’d traveled together.

  She pawed at her tangled locks, hoping he hadn’t seen the mess her hair was in. Abagail blushed.

  If he thinks this is pretty, maybe he needs his eyes checked, she thought.

  “Just thinking about the journey,” Abagail said. It was only partially a lie.

  “Well, tonight it will come to an end,” he told her, looking off to the south. “Tonight we will be in New Landanten, and you will be in the harbinger settlement.”

  “Does this place have a name?” Abagail asked. “No one has mentioned a name this entire time.”

  Skye shrugged, “I think they call it Haven or something. It doesn’t have an official name, no.”

  “How original,” Abagail said. She rolled her eyes.

  “They need to call it something.” Skye shrugged.

  “And then we will part ways?” Abagail asked, ignoring what he said. Her chest tightened at the thought. She blinked several times and looked away from the elf.

  “Going to miss me?” he smirked at her, his full pink lips curving up in a way that didn’t help her heart one bit.

  “That’s not what I said,” Abagail said. Yes, she thought. She could feel the heat rushing to her cheeks.

  Skye smiled again.

  Her blush deepened.

  “You can come to New Landanten any time you want. A lot of the younger harbingers like to come there for our festivities,” Skye said. “And I’m sure that I will stop in every now and then to see you.”

  “Festivities? You have festivals?”

  “Well, not really planned festivals, but there’s almost always a big gathering every night. The humans can’t handle our drink.” Skye laughed.

  Leona huffed and flipped the covers off herself. She made a spectacle of folding her blankets and jamming them into a pack the harbingers had provided them. Then she stomped away, the hammer held in her hand, to find breakfast.

  “I think she has the right idea,” Skye said. “You should get ready to go.”

  After the elf had left Abagail cleared up her bedding, depositing it in the pack Leona had used. Then she went to find some breakfast as well.

  Catching sight of Rorick, Abagail headed toward his fire.

  “You really need to trim your beard,” she said to him as she stepped up beside him.

  Rorick turned to her with a smile, stroking his beard that was now nearly down to his chest. His blond hair was dark with grease and in desperate need of washing. She imagined her hair didn’t look too clean either.

  “I could tell you the same thing,” he said to her.

  She jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow.

  “Easy now,” he laughed. “I just started healing up.”

  “Oh,” she winced. When they’d joined up with the harbingers, it was determined that Rorick had a broken rib from their run in with the foul darklings known as the elle folk. It was easy for her to forget that.

  “So what happens tonight?” he asked, taking a plate of food from the cook near the fire. Abagail accepted a plate as well, and together they went off toward where the horses were picketed.

  Abagail shrugged as she shoveled eggs into her mouth. “I haven’t really thought about it,” she lied. The truth was, she didn’t like thinking about what happened tonight because she couldn’t help remember what Celeste had told her. The light elf made it clear that there were people of mixed motives in New Landanten and the harbinger settlement. People fell on either side of the debate: leave the elve’s scepters closed, or open them in the Fey Forest where the veil was thinnest between the nine worlds and potentially destroy everything that ever existed.

  Leona was easily convinced, and Rorick fell on the side of total destruction.

  Honestly, there’s no real proof it will destroy everything if they open the scepters, she argued with herself. But that wasn’t a risk she was willing to take.

  “I guess we will be put into housing? You and Leona are going to be pretty bored while I’m taking classes,” Abagail said.

  Rorick nodded, “I’ve been thinking about that,” he said around a mouthful of food. “There really won’t be much for us to do once we get settled in. I mean getting you to Rowan was the reason we came to Agaranth after all.”

  “Yea,” Abagail said. She’d lost her appetite.

  “Maybe I will train as well. I know I can’t be a harbinger of light, but they can teach me to fight better. I could probably learn a lot from them.”

  Abagail liked the sounds of that. If she couldn’t watch Leona and Rorick, at least she liked thinking they would have something to keep them occupied while she couldn’t keep an eye on them.

  “Coming to check in on the horses?” Celeste said, stepping out from behind the line of horses. The elf didn’t look dirty in the least. Her white gown still gleamed as it had the first day Abagail had met her. Her long blond hair was as clean as if she’d just bathed. She carried in her hand a brush she’d been using on the horses.

  “Just trying to keep out of the way,” Abagail said.

  “Well, we will be he
ading out soon, so better finish up,” the elf said, going back to her tending of the horses.

  Abagail finished her breakfast and as she was climbing up onto her horse some time later, she couldn’t help but think of how much better she felt.

  Honestly, she thought. What did you think was going to happen? Rorick and Leona were going to turn into dark elves the moment they reached New Landanten?

  She couldn’t help but remember how quickly both of them had taken to Daniken though. She’d been a dark elf, and none too trustworthy and suddenly Rorick and Leona were going to go right along with everything she’d wanted.

  Abagail cast her gaze to her right where Rorick rode beside her. Daniken still had her clutches in Rorick. It didn’t help that the dark elf had spoken right to his weaknesses. She promised the death of all darklings through all the nine worlds and that’s what Rorick wanted. His mind had been made up to do everything in his power to destroy the darklings since darklings had killed his parents.

  She wondered how long it would be before Rorick saw her as a darkling because of the plague she harbored.

  Abagail sighed and turned her eyes to the trail ahead.

  It wasn’t until halfway through the day, when they were taking their lunch in the saddle that one of the harbingers decided to talk to her. The thin man was nibbling at the edges of his biscuit when he fell back to ride beside her. He had shaggy brown hair that looked like it had never seen a comb, and dull brown eyes. He was thin enough that Abagail wondered if he ever ate more than a nibble here and there like he was doing with the biscuit. But when he smiled at her, it was one of the warmest smiles she’d ever seen. Abagail couldn’t help but smile back at him. She judged he was about her age.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Aren’t you the one who almost burned me when we were fighting the frost giants?” Abagail asked. His pale face flushed with color. She remembered him clearly now, having taken out a troll, he had nearly lit her on fire until he realized that she wasn’t a darkling, or maybe he recognized her as the person they’d been looking for.

  He bobbed his head. “I’m Gilphig. I’m a fire bringer,” he told her.

  “Are you from Agaranth or did you come from another place?” Abagail wondered.

  “I’m from Agaranth,” he told her. “How long have you been infected?”

  Abagail looked away from him. “A few weeks,” she told him.

  “There’s no reason to be upset, most of us were infected at one time or another. I’ve just recently started learning to control my power better,” Gilphig told her.

  “And what kind of powers are there?” Abagail asked him, once more making eye contact. He looked away from her and his blush deepened.

  Abagail smiled. It felt good to have that effect on someone. Now she knew how Skye must feel around here.

  “Well, the most common are fire bringers,” he said in a tone that sounded like he wasn’t happy with being so common. He shrugged. “The powers are about as varied as the people that come to Haven to learn. Take Huginn and Muninn, they can shape shift. Not many harbingers can do that. Then Rowan, she’s good with herbalism.”

  “How is that a power? Being good at something?” Abagail asked.

  “It’s more than just being good with it. She can unlock powers within plants. She can help them grow, and because of her powers, her potions are much more potent than anyone else’s.”

  “That must be a horrible power here where there’s never any plants to work with,” Abagail noted.

  Gilphig smiled. “We have a greenhouse in Haven. But that’s not her only power,” he told her. “She’s also a fire bringer, and works well with mental powers.”

  “Is it common to have more than one power?” Abagail wondered.

  “Well, you can control the waking eye as well as the sleeping eye,” he said.

  “I never thought of those as two separate powers. One makes the plague spread, the other makes it go away.”

  “They are two separate powers,” he nodded. “It’s very rare to find anyone with one of those powers. I honestly don’t think anyone has ever had both of them.” His blush was now all but forgotten when he looked at her. His face was filled with another emotion: awe.

  Abagail didn’t say anything. She rolled her shoulders under the weight of his gaze and glanced off to the side of the path. She didn’t find anything there but more endless expanse of frigid tundra, but she acted as if it was the most interesting thing she’d ever seen.

  “And the only reason why one makes your plague spread while the other removes it is because of your emotions,” he told her.

  She rolled her eyes.

  Gilphig laughed. It was a deep hearty laugh, much more confident than he spoke. Almost as strange on him as his smile.

  “I know, you’re probably sick of hearing that,” he said. “I heard Rowan drilling it into you the last few nights. She can be harsh, but it will help you out a lot in the long run.”

  “So I have to become emotionless?” she wondered. Given to such whims of anger, Abagail wasn’t sure she was meant to be a harbinger of light.

  “No, but when working with your wyrd it’s best not to use it when you have an emotional investment in the outcome.”

  Abagail frowned.

  “But all of that will become easier when we get to Haven,” he said. “You’ll love it there.”

  “I haven’t heard too much about it,” she said. “At first I thought it was a school.”

  “No, it’s much more like a village. Most of us have a house we share with a couple people, and we all have to pull our weight around the village. They will make sure your talents are put to good use.”

  “Great,” Abagail said. “Looks like I will be chopping wood.”

  “Logging family?” he asked, appraising her broad shoulders. It made her uncomfortable when he looked at her like she was different from most girls her age. She had grown up different from most other girls. She was larger, broader but she’d never felt that difference as much as she did just then with Gilphig drawing conclusions based on her physique.

  “I had to pull more than my share of weight around my own home,” she said offhandedly.

  Gilphig changed the subject, and though he talked a lot about the day to day life of Haven, a topic that Abagail was genuinely interested in, she couldn’t force herself to pay attention.

  Her thoughts were on home, and how her father was.

  The cool surface of the mirror washed over Dolan as if his face were being brushed with a web of frost. He often wondered, if he could stop himself from moving through the portals what he would see? But there was no way that he was aware of to pause the transition. What lay within the universe? If Eget Row was the way from one world to another, what was in between the portals?

  The room he stepped into out of the portal from Eget Row was small and warm, despite the banks of snow piled up outside. The sun was bright, and glowed peacefully off the carpet of the room.

  It was nice to be home if Bauer Hall could be called home to him now. There’d been so many good times here when he’d lived with Fortarian and Mattelyn. But that was a lifetime ago. The house had changed. Granted, the mirror room hadn’t changed, but there was just a sense about the house that it was different. Outside the door, he knew he would see a lot of things he didn’t like.

  Before Dolan had left, Fortarian had already given in to the shadow plague and Mattelyn had gone into hiding. The darklings were already starting to settle into Agaranth, and Dolan didn’t want his family to be part of a world ruled by shadow. He left to keep Leona and Abagail safe. Having no clue where Mattelyn had gone, Dolan had no choice but escape through the mirror when Fortarian came to claim Bauer Hall as his own.

  Dolan could almost hear the walls around him weeping. With a shaking hand, he open the door and stepped out into a dusty hallway. Above him the roof had caved at random points, allowing snow and ice to sift through the ceiling and paint the floor with a dusting of powder.


  He pulled his cloak tighter around his body, trying to stave off the chill of the day. To his right was a hallway that led to darker chambers. Before him was the main galley that circled the second floor of the house. He could look over the oak railing, broken in parts and largely unstable, and see the wreckage of what used to be the foyer.

  The large chandelier that had hung so high above the foyer was now nothing more than twisted metal and broken glass on the first floor. Snow and ice covered some of its beauty, and hid more of the sadness of the lights malign form.

  Dolan backed away, not wanting to see the destruction of the home he’d loved so much when he’d lived there before.

  To his right he heard laughter and he turned, though he knew the laughter was only a memory. His feet took him down the hallway to his right into the darker recesses of the second floor. He could hear whispered voices of a conversation that had happened so long ago.

  Another squeal of laughter wafted through the intervening years.

  He stopped in the bedroom doorway and watched the memory of Mattelyn dancing around the room, her white hair fanning out behind her. The fire in the hearth crackled merrily, almost as if her dancing was fanning the flames. Her bare feet listed languidly across the floor as if she were stepping in time to the merriment of the room.

  He remembered that he had rested in this very doorway watching her dancing, listening to her laughter. Staring at her pregnant belly.

  Tears moistened his eyes and the memory faded away. It was just a darkened bedroom, musty with age and covered in dust. A broken bed and a cold hearth. If he stared he could still see the tracks her feet left as they wound through the room, but it was just his memory. Even the prints faded as time intruded on the memory.

  Dolan turned away.

  Despite the coldness of the house, there was a stench he couldn’t completely place, though it seemed as though it should be familiar to him.

  He didn’t want to find what the stench belonged to. There was only one place in Bauer Hall that he was here to visit, and that was the grand library on the ground floor. The rest of the house, the rest of the warm memories spent with Mattelyn, could go to Muspelheim for all he cared. That was another time. Another life. They had all moved on since then.