CHAPTER 56
The carriage ride was as tortuous as Tianna remembered. Moreso now that Eveera was active and hated being confined to the hard bench seat. Chelsey and her son rode across from them but even the appeal of new companionship did little to appease the grumpy baby. Worse, the trail was made longer by Tianna’s insistence that they travel through the village.
When the caravan of wagons and long trail of guardsmen finally stopped an hour before the village proper for a picnic lunch, Thanlos approached. The house doctor would follow the family wherever they resided. He looked good in Xor’annan’s care. Filled out a bit, the slightly haunted look he’d often wore replaced by relaxed good humor. Except for now. His dark brows pinched together as he descended his own wagon and approached Tianna, a younger and very attractive man following behind. She had met Devon, of course, after her reunification with Thanlos, but his beauty still shocked her.
“Is something wrong?” she handed Eveera to Chelsey and focused her attention on this, her first good friend in this world.
Thanlos shook his head, his long braids tapping against his chest. “No, not as of yet. I believe Devon and I will accompany the rest of the escort around the village. We will meet you on the road beyond. There’s no reason for us to return there and incite ire.”
Tianna looked at Devon. “Are you sure? Not even to visit your father? What about Marcie?”
Devon’s eyes grew sad, but he shook his head. “I think it is for the best,” he answered. “Coming back now...no matter how things turned out, going back will only make them worse.”
“Do you want me to take them a message at least?”
Devon shifted uncomfortably.
“Tianna,” Thanlos reached out a hand and placed it on her arm. This time she allowed it, his touch brought comfort and at the moment she felt like she could use some. “We discussed this for most of the ride here and we really think it is best to leave the past behind us. Talking with Marcie or Devon’s father will only place any suspicion back on them.”
“What are you saying?” She wanted to know.
Thanlos sighed. “Go back if you must, find closure. But please, leave Devon’s family out of it. We would rather not cause them grief.”
Tianna stared at them. After everything they’d been through she had thought...but then, maybe everyone dealt with their past in different ways.
“Please,” Devon added, his voice soft.
“Alright,” she agreed.
“Thank you, Tianna, for everything,” Thanlos smiled. His face lit with true happiness and his fingers tangled with Devon’s. They took their leave, wandering over to where one of the servants had prepared cold cuts of meat and cheese.
“Everything alright?” Xor’annan approached from the head of the line, looking much more refreshed than she felt. She had taken to riding a few hours a day as well, but it was unfair to leave Eveera with Chelsey all the time and the guilt had a tendency to eat at her.
“They do not want to go into the village, and they want me to avoid Devon’s family.”
Xor’annan tilted his head. “This bothers you. Why?”
“Well, I guess it’s because they didn’t do anything wrong. It’s the village that should be ashamed. I don’t think they should have to avoid it.”
“Not everyone faces their problems head on, Hellcat. It does not mean they aren’t dealing with it.”
She thought about it. Maybe accepting that those of the village would never change was its own type of closure. But personally she couldn’t just let it lie. At least she had to find out what happened to Marcie, Jac and Jillian...even Penelope.
“You are still determined to terrorize the occupants?”
She looked up at him, with the light hitting him just right, his features rugged and incredibly tempting, even here in this open field surrounded by their people.
“Yes, I need to know,” she shrugged.
He leaned down so that his forehead touched with hers.
“Then I will be there with you, Hellcat.”
***
It was Tianna and Xor’annan, and six men who entered the village late that afternoon. They rode along the tiny street, bordered by tiny houses. Funny how time in the capitol had painted her experience of this place. Now it seemed so small and run down. Quiet...sad even.
When they reached the first houses of the village they found them locked tight, barred against the strangers. While it was to be expected, given the events of last fall, Tianna couldn’t help but be a little disappointed. Even the general store, which she knew to be open most hours, was closed. It occurred to her that someone had seen them coming and warned the village.
It was the blacksmith, at last, who’s door was opened to them. The old blacksmith stood in the doorway, his expression resigned, but not surprised.
“Are you needing my services again?” he asked, his eyes flicking from Tianna to Xor’annan behind her, and then the men who stood wary guard.
“Not at all,” Tianna reassured. “Only passing through,” she lowered her voice. “I am very glad to see you here. I worried...How are Jac and Marcie. And the others? Is everyone alright?”
The blacksmith’s face contorted and Tianna couldn’t tell if it was fear or something else that drove the expression. Finally he heaved a great sigh.
“Come in,” he said. “I will explain that one of your horses lost a shoe and my aid saw you from the village before you started pounding down doors.”
Tianna frowned, but followed the old man as he made his way deeper into the smithy. Heat raged agaisnt her skin from the forge, which the blacksmith fed and pumped the bellows into a few times before turning to them.
“Before you begin you should know that your husb...” the man looked up at Xor’annan, who had followed her into the smithy and coughed. “...that Thanlos is gone,” he managed.
“Yes, his skill was required in the capitol,” she agreed. This seemed to be a surprise to the old man, which meant that when Marcie and Jac had returned to the village they had no idea where Thanlos and Devon had gone off to.
“Well, Marcie and my Jac, they packed up shortly after our return, took Jillian and that sister of hers too, set out for Takika, maybe farther.” His voice turned bitter, “I will be lucky to ever see my son again.” Because of Xor’annan. He didn’t say it but the glare he sent Xor was more than obvious. She didn’t bother trying to correct him, if his mind was set then he would never believe that Marcie had planned to flee the village regardless of the Daemon’s interference, and Jac would have followed.
Maybe she could send a messenger to Takika, find them and at least assure them that Thanlos and Devon were safe. Would Devon accept that? If it didn’t disturb the village status quo? She was still hurt by Marcie and Jac’s treatment at the manor, but she was still Devon’s sister, he must want some contact with her, if possible.
“What of the rest? Penelope?”
The old man got quiet. His gaze dropped to the floor.
“Most are getting along, well enough. Penelope you can find in the old field beside her mother. An accident, they say. Fell off the church roof.”
Tianna froze. They had killed Penelope.
“If that’s everything I would be asking you to leave, even if I respect what you did for us at that...place. Your company doesn’t go unnoticed.”
She was still a little shocked. She hadn’t spent a lot of time worrying about Penelope since their departure from the manner. Maybe she should have. As soon as she had gotten word about her position she should have sent as many men as it took back to this hell hole of a village and...
“Easy, Hellcat,” Xor’annan wrapped an arm around her shoulders and led her toward the door. She realized she was crying.
“He has to be punished, Xor,” she told him. Poor abused Penelope.
“Who? The blacksmith?”
She shook her head, tears falling in earnest now. “The preacher, he has poisoned this whole village. He set everyone against Thanlos, and anyone who is different, especially against Daemon. He killed his own daughter!”
“There are many villages just like this one, Hellcat.”
“So, they should all...”
“If we storm through human villages and punish their leaders, take them from power, no matter how wrong those leaders might be, more like them will simply rise up, and they will have real reason to hate us.”
“So we just let him keep poisoning this village, murdering?”
“I didn’t say that,” Xor lifted a hand to help her mount the gelding she had taken a liking to. “But change, real change takes time. Let us think through our options. It would be better to discredit the man, to show the village that there are other options of thought and behavior, than to remove him by force.”
He was right, and she knew it, it was just that letting the man off without consequence just seemed wrong. But Xor’s words sparked a new idea in her mind. Why should the outer city be the only place she could have a project? Her plan would take some serious thinking though, if it were going to work. She let her gaze travel around the town, her mind churning, ending on the south fields.
A yearning that hadn’t bothered her for some time dug its way into her heart.
“What is it?” Xor asked. “You’ve gone very quiet.”
“If it is okay there’s one more place I’d like to go.”
“In this village?”
Tianna shook her head. “South of it, in the woods.”
“We should have a few hours, the carriages travel slowly, it will be easy to catch up with them.”
“Fair enough...would you come with me?”
Xor’annan looked at her as if she had rocks in her head. “You would be hard pressed to stop me.”
The trip into the woods took a little longer than Tianna had planned. They had do dismount at the forest’s borders as the underbrush was too tangled for the horses to pass. They wandered a little too, crossing their path several times before Tianna got her bearings. It had been many, many months and she’d forgotten some of the markers. Xor’annan trailed her without comment, alert to the forest around them but also watching her closely.
Finally she found the grove of spruce and pine. The trees heady with summer scent. She hopped over a large root and turned, almost on instinct, before stopping short.
It was back.
The black arch, towered upward, the cool stone gleaming in the sunlight that filtered down upon it, highlighting the strange glyphs that were written along it. None of them were lit up.
Fear, excitement, a myriad of emotions slammed into her.
Slowly, as if in a dream she drifted toward it, footsteps soft on the bed of pine needles below.
“Hellcat?”
She heard Xor’annan speaking, but didn’t stop...couldn’t...her heart thundered in her chest. She never expected it to come back. She thought she was trapped on this world forever and had made decisions accordingly. Now, this new element had come in and turned her world upside down.
She moved around it so that she could see through the opening.
The trees through the arch were not that different from the grove she stood in, but there was something about them that pulled at her, that string of familiarity. A wave of homesickness came over her. Earth.
“Hellcat?” Xor’annan called again.
She looked over at him, her eyes wide. She could go home.
He stood, very, very still at the edge of the clearing, watching her intently. There was real fear in his emotions. Still, he did not move toward her. Did not try to stop her.
She looked through the arch again. She could walk through, the trees would end with a few minutes of walking and she would be in the north field. From there she could see the old ranch house and the yard where she had grown up. What was once her whole world. She reached out a hand toward the scene and held it there, not moving.
If she went through there was no guarantee that the arch would let her back. It might close and she would be trapped on the Earth side as easily as she had been trapped here. Eveera would suffer, maybe die. Xor...
She stood for a long, long time.
...Saying goodbye was harder than she thought.
When she turned away from the arch and made her way back toward Xor’annan he blinked with relief and surprise. When she sought his arms for comfort he clasped her to him fiercely.
“I thought you might leave me. This is what brought you to this world, it is your way home, isn’t it?”
“Yes, though I didn’t think you knew…”
“I suspected there was something, but I didn’t know what it was. Not for certain, not until you found this place and looked like that. Like you had seen home. Akatha and I found one of these constructions once,” he gestured to the arch. “On our duty in the south. Monsters as such we had never seen were coming through and torturing a town nearby and we determined it was the door to another world. There are many things that make more sense now.”
She sighed. “It was once home. I miss it. I miss it so much. My world was so much alike and yet very, very different from this one. But...it is not where I belong anymore, maybe it never was. You and Eveera are my world now.”
There was a deep, relieved breath that stirred the hair at the top of her head, he tipped his head down and kissed her there.
“I will hold you to that, Hellcat. Let’s go home.”
The End