The Chosen of Anthros Page 5

  The plague was crawling up her arm, wreathing her shoulder.

  “Stop!” Abagail cried, fear gripping her.

  “Where is she?” a voice called from down the hall.

  “In here!” Leona said.

  The door shattered inward and a dark figure filled the entrance.

  Darkling! Abagail thought for one panicked moment, and her hand flared with fire. She pointed her palm but suddenly a strange force gripped her hand, almost like a hand tightening around her wrist. It choked off the flow of wyrd just as certainly as a fist would strangle the breath from her.

  The dark figure slipped into the room and from out of the thickness of the smoke, Rowan materialized. She carried something in her hand. A collar of some sort. Rowan wasted no time in latching the iron collar around Abagail’s neck, careful to avoid the tendrils of plague slithering up the younger woman’s neck toward her jaw.

  As soon as the collar was in place, Abagail felt the advancement of the plague stop. In a huff of air, she sighed out in relief. She sank into a chair on the other side of the wall, staring at the offending, smoking bed.

  “Dear All Father, what happened here?” Rowan asked. “Was this you?” She glanced at Abagail, and then down to her shadowy hand. Rowan frowned when she saw how far up her right side the shadow plague had traveled.

  “I had a dream,” Abagail said. “When I woke up the covers were smoking and Leo and Rorick were trying to get in, but couldn’t.”

  “What were you dreaming about? Muspelheim?” Rowan said. It sounded like a joke.

  Abagail just stared at Rowan.

  The harbinger’s face sobered and she nodded once as if she understood. Rowan scowled at the bed as if to show it her disapproval.

  “What does it mean?” Abagail asked.

  “It means we are going to have to air out this room and keep that collar on you until you can get yourself under control,” Rowan said. “Preferably sooner than later.”

  “But how am I ever going to do that?” Abagail asked.

  “Everyone learns it in their own way. All the rest of us can do is assist and make it easier.”

  “What if I can’t?” Abagail asked Rowan, her hazel eyes meeting her mentor’s watery blue ones.

  “I think you know the answer to that question,” Rowan told her.

  There were so many questions floating through Abagail’s mind just then, but they were all about her dream. All questions she didn’t think anyone in all of the nine worlds could answer. She nodded instead.

  Why was she having these dreams?

  “Where’s Rorick?” Abagail wondered, realizing he wasn’t at the door now.

  “He’s at the end of the hall,” Leona said.

  “Is he okay?” Abagail asked.

  “He’s fine,” Leona remarked.

  “Why is he at the end of the hall?”

  “He probably didn’t feel comfortable watching you run around your room naked,” Rowan said.

  Abagail squeaked and wrapped her arms around her chest.

  “In the closet there,” Rowan pointed to a door in the corner. “There’s a robe I believe.”

  Abagail pulled open the door and found several hooks within the closet. Only one of them was occupied and it was a robe. Too small for her to be sure, but Abagail was thankful to shrug into it and bind it around her waist.

  “You can come back now,” she called to Rorick as Rowan opened the only window in the room at the head of the bed.

  Rorick stepped into the room. His face was so red as to remind Abagail of Surt in her dream and his eyes wouldn’t meet hers.

  “Now that you’ve had a great wake up call,” Rowan said. “Might as well get ready and start your orientation. We will have breakfast with Gilphig in a little while, so you better get freshened up and dressed.”

  Abagail didn’t think any amount of scrubbing would get the smell of the smoke out of her hair, but eventually she was clean and she didn’t smell like Muspelheim any longer. With a force of effort she didn’t think again about her dream and kept her mind on small tasks like washing and dressing.

  Finally done, she stepped out of the bathroom and joined the others in the kitchen where Rorick was pouring himself another cup of coffee from the kettle on the hearth.

  “Alright, bring that along with you,” Rowan told him. “Gilphig will be waiting for us, and you all have a long day ahead of you.”

  Rorick opened the door for them, and Abagail thumped down the stairs behind Rowan.

  “How is the collar?” Rowan asked her, turning back to her newest protégé.

  “Heavy,” Abagail said, tugging at it.

  “Well, we probably won’t get any training in today. It’s probably best if you wear it for a while until we are certain you’re not going to burn your house down with another dream,” Rowan told her as Leona and Rorick joined them.

  “Was that the fire bringer power waking in her?” Leona wondered.

  Rowan shrugged. “Maybe, but if she did dream of Muspelheim, who knows.” The harbinger’s eyes were dark and she glanced away from them.

  “So just dreaming of Muspelheim can catch your bed on fire?” Rorick wondered.

  Rowan sighed and shook her head. “I really don’t know,” she told them. “It might have been her power brought on by the dream. At any rate, we will teach her to bring it out of hiding and then she can control it better.”

  The gathering hall was a large building made of rough looking logs and long enough to fit more people than Abagail had ever seen gathered in one place in all of her life. So large in fact that she was surprised she hadn’t seen it the night before.

  The barn style doors stood open. The sounds of food sizzling, dishes rattling and conversation and laughter spilled out into the cool air. Her mouth began watering when she smelled the mingled scents of eggs and bacon that road a cloud of steam out into the frigid air.

  “A breakfast like you’ve probably not had in some time, am I right?” Rowan said, motioning them all ahead of her.

  Abagail could only manage a nod, but the growling of her stomach spoke volumes.

  They joined a line to the right and Abagail collected a tray and a plate with some utensils before she started down the line of tables laden with fruits and cheeses. Then came the heated tables where cooks dished out a healthy portion of eggs and bacon. Abagail accepted an offered biscuit from another cook and even a scoop of sausage gravy for the top of it.

  Abagail hadn’t even sat down yet, but she could barely stop herself from diving into the plate while she waited for the others at the end of the line. Rowan was taking a painfully long time with her tea. Finally the harbinger joined them and led them across the glowing hardwood floor to a smaller table where Gilphig sat.

  Abagail sat her tray down on the scuffed table that had evidently seen many spilled cups and a lot of use. At least the worn down bench she sat on was comfortable enough.

  “Hi!” Gilphig said. He closed the large tome before him that he’d been scrutinizing before they sat down. He smiled at Abagail.

  Abagail couldn’t help but smile back as she spread a napkin over her lap.

  “This is Gilphig,” Rowan said, sitting down at the head of the table.

  “You can call me Gil,” he told them.

  Leona and Rorick barely mumbled their names before tucking into their breakfasts.

  When their plates were clean and Leona was looking at her tray mournfully like she wished more would appear, Rowan drew all of their attention to her.

  “Later the two of you will join me in meeting with Fen, the leader of Haven. It’s customary for all new arrivals to meet with Fen so he can give you a run down on what we expect, how your training will go, and what to expect after you’ve finished training.” She was looking at Leona and Abagail when she said it, but Leona was still focused on her empty plate. “For now we can figure out your jobs. Tell me what kind of secondary skills you have. What can help you earn your keep around here?” Abagail noticed tha
t Rowan hadn’t finished all of her food and had forsaken most of her biscuit for her tea.

  “I can fight,” Rorick said with a shrug.

  “We established that already,” Rowan reminded him. “You will most likely be posted to guard duty. Even though we have the elves above us and no real close settlements beneath us, we still post guards.” She turned her eyes on Abagail.

  She sighed. “Dolan couldn’t upkeep the house much, so I tended to the animals and split the wood.”

  “We have enough people that tend to our energy needs. We could always use someone to tend to the animals,” Rowan said. It was better than Abagail had expected to get, so she nodded in agreement. “What about you?” Rowan asked Leona.

  She shrugged. “I really just assisted Abagail.”

  “Alright, so you tended to outside work. I’ve recently been put in charge of our greenhouse, you can help me there if you’d like,” Rowan said.

  Leona’s eyes lit up and she nodded enthusiastically.

  “Now, on to primary training,” Rowan said. “Abagail, you will be working with Gil and I since you have aggressive powers, we can teach you how to channel the wyrd. We can also teach you the best ways to control it, and how to spar with it.

  “Leona, since you have mental abilities that outpace my own, I’ve set you up with the ravens,” Rowan said.

  Leona’s eyebrows drew together in confusion.

  “The twins Huginn and Muninn,” Gil told her.

  “Why do you call them the ravens?” she wondered.

  “Because they don’t just have mental powers, they can shape shift into ravens,” Rowan told her. “Rorick, you’re to go to the barracks tomorrow morning to start your training. I’m not sure who you will be training with, but they will get you squared away.”

  “Aren’t we going to learn to fight also?” Abagail asked.

  “Of course,” Gil said. “But for now we want to make sure you have your powers under control so that you don’t do wyrded damage unintentionally while you’re sparing with a weapon.”

  Abagail remembered launching the sword out of her hand when fighting the elle folk king and the harpist and nodded. That had been rather unexpected. She could only imagine what the sparring field would look like if harbingers were able to launch their weapons as projectiles without meaning to.

  “Huginn and Muninn will take you to the barracks after their work tomorrow, Leona, and get you set up with a trainer. Your wyrd is passive, so there’s no worry of you causing unintentional damage with it while you spar.” Rowan told them. “Alright, if we are all done, it’s time Abagail and Leona meet with Fen.”

  “What will I do?” Rorick wondered, rising with the rest of them.

  “You and I can take a look around while they’re in their meeting,” Gil said. “I can show you around Haven and take you to the barracks, maybe they can get you set up earlier.”

  “That’s a great plan,” Rowan nodded. “Alright, the two of you, follow me.”

  Abagail and Leona fell in line behind Rowan, leaving Rorick’s side for the first time since leaving O. To Abagail, it was almost like she was shedding some mental weight she hadn’t realized she’d been lugging around. His expectations were so high that Abagail often felt as though she couldn’t relax around Rorick.

  I know he’s just trying to look after me, but I miss old Rorick. But she hadn’t really given him a choice in the matter. She was the one that laid the burden of killing her at his feet if she were ever became a darkling.

  She pushed the thought away as they stepped out of the noisy dining hall and into the cold morning. Rowan turned to the left and they followed her across the open courtyard to the trail in the center that climbed up through the second level and to the first.

  The main hall was in the center of that level. A one story building that could easily get lost with all of the other two and three story buildings of the living level. The main hall had log walls and few windows. The roof was thatched, and the door was barn style, like the one to the dining hall.

  Rowan led them into the warm building and down a long hall lined with doors. Abagail didn’t get a chance to look at the plaques on the doors, telling who they belonged to because Rowan kept a brisk pace. They drew to a halt when they reached the green door at the end of the hall. Rowan knocked three times but she didn’t wait for an answer before pushing her way in.

  Fen’s office was spacious and lit in honeyed light with flickering candles and lamps sat on low tables. There was only one window, and that was directly behind the oaken desk near the far end of the room. The chairs were large and spaced around the room less like an office and more like a lounge. From the placement of the chairs around a low rectangular table, Abagail could tell that Fen didn’t take guests at his desk. He welcomed them like friends.

  The leader of the harbingers stood behind his desk, as if waiting for them. He smiled warmly when Rowan led Abagail and Leona into his office.

  Fen was tall and thin with short dark hair shot through with gray at the temples. His face was long and angular reminding her slightly of a rat, though he was strikingly handsome. She got the feeling from him that he could be very dangerous. She wasn’t sure why she got that feeling, maybe in the fake warmth of his green eyes?

  He wore many golden rings on his long fingers, and his body was clad all in shades of green from the long coat he wore buttoned up the torso to the trousers on his legs.

  “Abagail, Leona, I finally get to meet you when we aren’t surrounded by battle and bloodshed.” Fen spread his arms wide. Abagail felt like he was welcoming them more to Haven with that one gesture than he was welcoming them into his office.

  “Thank you,” Abagail bobbed her head. Leona followed suit woodenly, as if she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do in this instance.

  Rowan and Fen started talking about the day, and what she had planned for the newest arrivals.

  “Please,” Fen said, gesturing to the lounging area, “Sit, and let us talk. I’m sure you have many questions for me.”

  “A few,” Abagail said. She rubbed her moist hands on her trousers as she sat in one of the chairs.

  “Well, I’m ready to answer whatever you may want answered.” He smiled again and sat across from Abagail. Leona positioned herself beside her sister in another chair while Rowan took up a spot beside and slightly behind Fen.

  “I’m not sure where to begin, I mean I wonder how this place came to be. I wonder how you know when people arrive in Agaranth, or when to go after a harbinger that’s already here. I’ve also been told by my father that Rowan was the first to learn to control the shadow plague, but that doesn’t seem likely with so many people around. I mean, she couldn’t have been the first harbinger.”

  Fen nodded. “Many questions. Your father was right, Rowan was the first to learn to control the shadow plague, but that doesn’t mean she was the first harbinger. Harbingers don’t have to have the shadow plague in order to wield wyrd.” He held up his hands to show them that he didn’t have the plague. Of course, Abagail knew the plague could be anywhere on his body, but she took him at his word.

  “As for how this place came to be, it’s been in one form or another for a very, very long time. Of course, before it was spread all over the face of Agaranth, but now we find strength in our depleting numbers. It wasn’t until recently that we found ourselves holing up near the elves. We needed a place to be safe. The darkling tide, as you know, is only growing. There were many settlements all over Agaranth, but the darklings hunted us down. They can sense our power, somehow. It’s almost like we are a beacon for them. We were only making those places more and more dangerous for the people that lived there, so we moved to a place where we could be safe.”

  “And the elves with their scepters provided that safety,” Abagail said.

  Fen nodded.

  “Why are your numbers depleting? Are the darklings killing harbingers off that fast?” Leona wondered.

  “It’s true that darklings can
sense us, and they come after unclaimed harbingers, like you’ve noticed while you’ve been here. You’ve been hunted up to this point, so it is for all harbingers. Darklings seem to hold more power than us in the regards that they can sense us better than we can sense them. As to why the numbers are depleting, we aren’t sure if the darklings are getting the harbingers before we sense them, or if there simply isn’t as many wyrded folk being born.”

  “Or other reasons,” Rowan murmured.

  Fen cut her off with a sharp look.

  “As far as how we know when people arrive, that’s something the elves have worked out. They send out scouts, like Celeste, who track down other harbingers that come here or awaken their powers and bring them to us. We aren’t exactly sure why or how the other harbingers know to come here, and we can’t even be sure that we are the only settlement of harbingers in all the nine worlds. I fear if we are the only school that we will be grossly outnumbered before long.”

  “So you and the elves work together?” Leona asked. “How does that work with the dark elves wanting to open the scepters?”

  “We don’t get into their politics. We’ve stressed how we feel about the scepters being opened, but we can’t afford strife with the elves when they are one of our only allies now.”

  “One of?” Abagail asked. “There are other allies?”

  “Of a sort, but they aren’t here in the settlement. There are dwarves to the south that we check in on during circuits, and we have a few harbingers staying with them, keeping an eye on other hotspots of darkling activity.”

  “And what did Rowan mean just now?” Abagail asked. “What are the other reasons that harbingers might not make it here?”

  Fen sighed and shook his head. “We’ve heard rumors.”

  “More than rumors,” Rowan said.

  “Maybe you’d like to tell this part?” Fen gestured to Rowan sarcastically. Rowan, however, didn’t pay him any mind and went right ahead.

  “We have light elves that report back to us, as you can imagine.”

  “Skye?” Abagail asked. Her stomach twitched at his name.

  Rowan nodded. “And Mari until she was killed. At any rate, opening the scepters requires the blood of unclaimed harbingers.”