Chapter 10

10

Vestiges of the past can haunt the future.

~ Lord Professor Varhesson, Port Jirador University

Even after the vines had Vlerion ensnared, the flowers continued to shriek. Kaylina had no idea where the taybarri had gone, but they needed to return. Soon . She wasn't strong enough to hack Vlerion free on her own. He and Targon, with their swords and powerful swings, had barely cut into the vines in Stillguard Castle.

Hanging off the ground, Vlerion pulled and twisted. His muscles bulged under his sleeves as he tried to break free, but since his wrists were restrained, he couldn't swing his sword. He didn't have a chance. The vines shifted only a little with his movements.

Once more, Kaylina tried to stand, but, again, the lightheadedness affected her balance. She couldn't stay upright without grabbing a rock for support. Frustration and fear made her spit curses.

Vlerion called to her, but she couldn't understand him over the continued shrieks.

"Will you stop that damn noise?" Kaylina screamed, so furious that she didn't care if Kar'ruk warriors all over the preserve heard her.

No, that wasn't true. If the Kar'ruk showed up, she and Vlerion would have even more of a problem. She clamped her mouth shut and leaned on a stone slab to help her move closer to Vlerion.

Her progress was painstakingly slow. The frustration of the situation boiled over, making her curse more, denouncing every moon god and the king on his throne. A final snarl of, " Sywretha! " came out of her mouth.

The shrieks halted so abruptly that Kaylina almost fell over again.

Sywretha? Where had that come from? She had no idea what it meant.

As soon as the noise stopped, her lightheadedness disappeared. She released the slab and took a wary step. Her balance had returned. Maybe it hadn't been the pollen coating her nose but the shrieks affecting her ears.

After the noise, the silence was so profound that it was almost eerie. Wanting nothing more to do with the druid ruins, Kaylina rushed toward Vlerion.

One of the vines flickered, and she halted a few feet away. But it only adjusted to wrap more firmly around him. The aggressive vines didn't react to her approach at all.

Vlerion had stopped struggling. His eyes were closed, and he was humming.

Kaylina almost swore again, realizing the beast threatened to rise, to overcome him. In that form, he could be strong enough to break free, but as soon as he did, with no other enemies present, he might turn on her.

"Are you okay?" she whispered. "Other than being completely immobilized by ranger-hating vines?"

Vlerion finished the refrain of his song and took a long breath before lifting his lids to meet her gaze. His face was calm, and she didn't catch the telltale dangerous glint in his eyes.

"I've been better." He looked her up and down. "They didn't attack you."

"The vines? No."

Not yet, anyway…

"I thought you were in danger." He shook his head ruefully.

"Well, I might be. If you weren't doing anything over there, you shouldn't be what set the flowers off. I'm assuming they're an alarm." An alarm that battered friends and their furry companions as badly as whatever they were meant to stave off…

"The Kar'ruk could be returning." Vlerion's face turned grim again as his head turned, his gaze sliding toward the lake. "Just before the noise started, I saw a glint on the far side of the lake. Like armor or a sword reflecting sunlight."

Oh, great. As if this situation wasn't bad enough.

"Let's get you down then. I need to borrow your sword." Kaylina risked stepping closer and stretching upward, but a vine held Vlerion's arm over his head, and she couldn't reach the hilt.

"Please, my lord," he murmured.

"Really? You're going to be haughty, right now? I don't know if you noticed, but you're not in a great position to, as Targon suggested, beat respect into me."

Vlerion managed a smile. "I knew you were awake during that conversation."

"You should have shut your office door if you wanted privacy."

"I'll remember that in the future. Stand back."

She did, and he moved his hand as much as he could and tossed the sword so the blade didn't clip him as it fell. The vine tightened around his wrist. He curled his lip at it.

Kaylina picked up the weapon, wrapping both hands around the hilt and debating which vines were most responsible for immobilizing him. Unfortunately, it was a lot of them.

Aiming for one wrapped around his waist, she lifted the blade overhead like a logger chopping kindling. With that image in mind, she threw all her weight behind the blow, but the sword lacked the heft of an axe. Not only did it fail to sink in deeply, but it flexed as it hit and sent a wobbly jolt up her arm.

"If the Kar'ruk do show up, I'll ask if I can use one of their magical axes," she said.

"That would be the ideal weapon for the task."

She took more experimental swings, trying to find a weak spot. With each blow, she glanced at the vines, afraid her actions would make them decide she was an enemy too.

"Is this all because you're a ranger?" she wondered. "Do all your people get attacked when they come in the preserve?"

"There's a reason we usually avoid the area, but I've not heard of rangers being outright attacked. It's more that they find their way blocked and paths disappearing behind them. Some other eerie things that the plants do to let our kind know they're not welcome." Vlerion sighed again. "From what I've heard and read, it wasn't always like that. Before the years of famine when the king ordered my predecessors to hunt in the preserve and bring back game to feed the starving populace, rangers were welcome. They found the forest peaceful and loved to spend time here. It was only after the druids returned and put the curse on the castle and my ancestors that the preserve changed toward them."

"How does it know if a person is a ranger? If you came without a taybarri or your black leather armor, could the plants tell?"

"I don't know, but I suspect this…" Vlerion grimaced and flexed an arm, again trying to pull free. He only managed to move an inch before the vine tightened. "This is because they can tell I'm one of the cursed. An enemy, someone not to be trusted." Frustration twisted his lips, but he caught himself and closed his eyes again, forcing his breathing to calm.

"It's not fair that you're being punished for something your ancestor decided to do two hundred years ago."

Kaylina had barely gouged a divot in the vine. She switched her focus to a narrower tendril, even though it wasn't as instrumental in restraining Vlerion. Still, it gripped his arm. If she could cut it away, maybe he could swing his own sword. His stronger blows would be more effective.

"When I was a boy and said exactly that, my father told me that it was good that only our family had been cursed instead of the entire populace. As horrible as it's been, especially since beasts throughout the years have killed innocent people, it could have been worse. Imagine if a population of, oh, at least thirty or forty thousand lived in the capital back then, had all been cursed with this. They not only would have killed each other, but the beasts might have spread throughout the kingdom. It could have been the end of all humanity."

"If the druids had the power to curse that many, they probably would have done it, since they supposedly hate humans. You got a shitty deal."

Vlerion opened his eyes and managed a smile. "I think you would have been more sympathetic to my tantrums than my father was."

"I'm sympathetic to you because…" Kaylina hacked several more times at the vine while groping for words to finish that sentence. "You've saved my life, and you've been supportive of me, more than you should have, considering all the trouble that keeps finding me."

"The trouble finding you also isn't fair."

"Oh, I know that."

Hack, hack, hack.

Kaylina stepped back, needing to catch her breath. She was halfway through the thinner vine, so maybe there was hope, but more than a dozen others secured Vlerion. It was hard not to feel daunted.

"What did you say that caused the flowers—they were making the noise, right?—to stop screeching like stuck pigs?" he asked.

"I've never heard of screaming flowers before, but I'm positive they were responsible for the noise. And… I don't know that I had anything to do with them stopping."

"You said something."

"I said a lot of things. I was cursing."

"The last word was something like shyrecka ."

" Sywretha, " she pulled from her memory.

"Yes. What language is that?"

"I have no idea. As far as I know, I made it up."

Vlerion gazed thoughtfully at her. "Is your hand still… being weird?"

She'd forgotten all about it. "It's neutral. I'm surprised it's not objecting to me hacking at these vines. It seems tied to this place somehow."

She supposed that made sense. If the plant in the castle had been placed by the druids—its job to monitor the curse or maybe even enact the curse?—it could be related to the trees, bushes, and flowers growing around their former home. They'd likely cultivated a lot of the plants here and surely all the altered ones.

" This place , as you call it, may not object to you at all."

"Because of my inherent charisma and natural inclination to snark at rangers?"

"Because of whatever in your blood caused you to be born an anrokk ."

"I don't think that was anything in my blood. I have the same blood as my brother, and Grandpa's hounds never slept in his bed."

"Do you?" Vlerion tilted his head, considering her from a new angle. "Are you sure?"

"Of course. I'm the middle kid of three. There's Frayvar, me, and an older sister. And cousins. My whole family lives on the same island and works at the Spitting Gull. There aren't any mysteries about our heritage."

"You're quite beautiful."

Kaylina blinked at the random compliment. "Uh, thanks, but what's your point? I'll assume that, given your current situation, you're not being moved to ardor."

Before she could catch herself, she glanced down, the memory of Vlerion nearly naked in the barracks popping into her mind. She blushed and jerked her gaze away.

"I am not currently experiencing ardor, no." He had to have noticed the glance but didn't comment on it, though a hint of a smug smile did touch his face. "What I meant is your brother is gangly and homely. Awkward."

"Boys are different." Kaylina shrugged. It wasn't as if she was the epitome of grace either.

"Your older sister is also beautiful?"

She shrugged again. "She's fine."

"Fine," Vlerion mouthed, his eyebrows rising.

"She's married and has kids. Her husband is into her. Her beauty must have appeal." Kaylina returned to hacking at the vine, not comfortable with what he was implying. "We all like books and mead." She glared at him as she hacked.

"Is that supposed to be evidence of a hereditary link?"

"You don't think mead-adoration is in the blood?"

His eyebrows remained up. Skeptical.

"Look, I'm not adopted, or whatever you're trying to imply, okay? I look a lot like my mother." Kaylina had the same dark hair and brown skin anyway. Just as Frayvar and Silana did. And all their cousins. She scowled.

"It is not my intention to offend you. Nor am I certain that being an anrokk is something passed along by one's parents. It's rare enough that I haven't seen many people who qualify, but Sergeant Jastadar's parents are adored by the taybarri as well."

"I'd like to meet him and see someone else constantly get their face licked."

"I'll introduce you when we get back. When I've escaped." With his own energy perhaps renewed, Vlerion returned to shifting and trying to twist his way free of the vines, but they gave no more than before.

Kaylina backed away and called, "Crenoch!" into the bushes in the direction the taybarri had gone. "Levitke!"

"Their bites might be able to break through these vines," Vlerion said, guessing her reason for wanting them to return. "But I don't blame them for running. Their ears are much more sensitive to noises, especially high-pitched noises, than ours, and those flowers were dreadful."

"Yeah, but they're quiet now."

Kaylina opened her mouth to call again, but Vlerion's nostrils twitched, and he whispered a quick, "Ssh."

She sniffed the air and caught what he'd caught. A faint musky scent blowing in from the lake.

"The Kar'ruk are returning," Vlerion said.