An Altered Fate (Echoes of Imara Book 2) Read online

  “No, you misunderstand. Your room is paid for,” he said. “I’m sorry, I assumed you knew.”

  She narrowed her eyes in confusion. “Someone paid for our room? Who? Did Daro arrange something?”

  The innkeeper opened his mouth and closed it again, glancing off to the side. “Well, I—” he hesitated. “If he hasn’t told you, I’m loath to break confidence. Perhaps it was intended to be confidential.”

  Cecily’s shoulders slumped. Someone was paying for them to stay? Her cheeks felt warm, burning with shame. Not once in her life had she been without money. Even in the early days of her marriage, when her family had shunned her, she and Daro had never wanted for coin. He had saved much of his pay during his days as a merchant guard and they lived easily from the beginning. But they had lost their earnings from last year’s deliveries when Daro was abducted, and they hadn’t been home for many months.

  “Please, I need to know who is responsible.” She forced her mouth into a smile. “At least so I can thank them properly.”

  He tilted his head to the side. “Very well. I have been in correspondence with someone in Halthas by the name of Callum. He indicated he is a close friend.”

  “Callum,” she whispered. “Yes, he is a friend. A much appreciated one.” She wondered how Callum knew they were still in East Haven. He must have guessed they would need money. Gratitude warred with guilt and she resolved to find out how much Callum had sent so she could return every bit.

  “Ah, good,” Fielding said. “Having said that, there is something I need to address. I have been most fairly compensated for your stay. But I was wondering,” he paused, looking away, “how much longer do you intend to stay here in East Haven?”

  Something about his tone made Cecily step back. “I… I’m not certain.”

  He nodded, looking to the side. “It’s just that, I’ve had some complaints, from other guests. Daro’s presence here is starting to become,” he hesitated again, twisting his hands, “problematic. People are afraid of him.”

  Cecily’s heart sank. She closed her eyes and sighed. She’d been afraid of this. Although she knew Daro would never hurt anyone, at least not intentionally, his abilities had proven to be unpredictable and he’d broken things without meaning to. His strange eyes were unnerving and she knew people heard them yelling. Not to mention his disappearances and his strange demeanor when he returned. Fielding probably thought he was drunk. The thought had crossed her mind more than once, but he never smelled of drink. She suspected the truth was something worse.

  “Are we being asked to leave?” she said, keeping her voice even.

  “Ah, well, I don’t want to be too hasty. But if it begins to affect my business—” he trailed off.

  “I’ll find a way to compensate you,” she said and turned away. She was too drained with worry to deal with the innkeeper.

  “There is one more thing,” he called after her. She turned. “It appears there are some,” he paused, his eyes flicking across the room, “gentlemen here to see you.”

  Her eyes narrowed and she turned to look over her shoulder. In her distraction, she hadn’t even glanced at the common room. Most of the tables were empty, only a few patrons hunched over their meals. In the far corner, near a river facing window, two men sat with their faces turned toward her. They dwarfed the table, all wide shoulders and muscular arms, their shoulder length hair in shades of chestnut brown. If their size hadn’t given them away, their eyes certainly would. Bright silver surrounded by white with only the faintest hint of a pupil in the center.

  Imarans.

  “They asked if they could speak to you, but they were reluctant to tell me their business,” Fielding said.

  Cecily nodded and pulled in a deep breath. They stood as she approached their table and she realized she had never been this close to a full-blooded Imaran before. Their height was stunning. Daro was much taller than most Halthians, but these men were taller still. Their eyes seemed to dim up close, losing some of the brightness she always noticed from afar, although the solid silver coloring still looked exotic.

  “Halletung,” the first man said, bowing his head to her. His voice was a deep rumble and he gave her a friendly smile. “I am Balsam and this is Ysmora.” Ysmora bowed, bending his head forward at the neck.

  “You are the,” Balsam glanced at his companion and said, “aewe?”

  “Wife?” Ysmora said, his voice lifting as if it was a question.

  “Giea, wife,” Balsam said, nodding, “you are the wife of the one known as Daro?” Despite his search for the word, his Halthian accent was quite understandable.

  “Yes, Daro is my husband.” Her back clenched in a knot of tension. “Why?”

  “Will you sit with us?” Balsam asked, spreading his large hands open over the table. “We wish for nothing but to speak with you.”

  Cecily pulled out a chair and lowered herself down. The Imarans followed, sharing a quick glance between them. Looking up at the stairs, she hoped Daro wouldn’t suddenly appear. She had a feeling he wouldn’t want her speaking with these men.

  Balsam tilted his head down and cocked it to the side, studying her. He turned and spoke to Ysmora in Imaran. Cecily leaned back, her eyes moving between the two men. The feeling they were studying her as a curiosity was unnerving.

  Balsam spoke. “You married Daro some years ago?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  He nodded, his eyes still taking her in as if she were something he had never seen before. He reached out a hand toward hers, his palm facing up. “With permission?”

  She lifted her hand and held it close to herself for a brief moment before laying it, palm down, in his. Her entire hand nearly fit in his palm. He gently laid his other hand on top of hers, his silver eyes intent on her face. He nodded slowly, his eyes narrowing. His hands were warm and her skin felt a light tingle at his touch.

  Balsam lifted his hand and she pulled hers back. “Giea,” he said to his companion. “You said the words with him? You spoke the rite when you married, in the Imaran way?”

  “Yes,” she said. The words of her marriage vows poured through her mind. O aeg-hwaet endian. To whatever end.

  “This is a rare thing,” Balsam said. “For one of our people to have this bond with one of your people. We were not sure Daro was capable of this. He has lived long among the Halthians and does not know our ways. This is a good thing.” He nodded and Ysmora nodded along with him.

  Cecily wasn’t sure what to say. “Do you need to speak with him?”

  “Noma, no,” Balsam said. “Not yet, but soon. We must first speak with you. It has been told to us that Daro was,” he hesitated and whispered a word to himself before deciding, “captured? Apologies I must make, I speak often with Halthian traders, but there are some words we do not use for trading.”

  Cecily’s back stiffened. “How do you know about that?”

  Ysmora spoke, his voice even deeper than Balsam’s. “Your king sent word to our people. We were sent to find the truth of it.”

  She crossed her arms. “Your people have never seemed interested in Daro before. Why worry about him now?”

  Balsam spread his hands. “He is still Imaran. It is not my place to question the Raeswa. We received your king’s message and they asked us to come. We saw you here, in the winter months when you first arrived in East Haven. We watched from afar, but did not wish to intrude. After we reported back to the Raeswa, it was decided we should return. There is more we must know.”

  Ysmora leaned in and spoke to Balsam in low tones. Balsam turned back to Cecily and continued. “We need to know what happened to him. We can see all is not well.”

  Imaran traders were a typical sight in East Haven. They traveled down the Bresne River to Halthas, often stopping in the cozy river town. She had seen them before and had the odd feeling that they were observing her. “You have been watching us?”

  “We were sent to examine,” Balsam said. “To determine if our kin needed our help. It
may be possible we can help him.”

  Help.

  The word echoed in Cecily’s mind. “Yes, he was captured. And no, all is not well. You are correct about that.”

  “What has been done to him? He is not the same man he was before, is this true?” Balsam asked.

  “In some ways, that is true,” Cecily answered. She weighed how much to tell them. It felt odd to discuss such things with strangers, but perhaps it was their mention of help that tilted the balance in their favor. She wasn’t sure how they could help, but she was growing desperate. “The people who took him did things to him. He never had Wielding abilities before, but he does now. Sometimes he can’t control it. He doesn’t speak about it much, but I think they put other people’s energy into him. I don’t know how else to explain it. He says they drained people into him.”

  Balsam and Ysmora spoke to each other, their voices somber. “This troubles us,” Balsam said. “We see the evidence of this in him, even from afar.”

  Cecily nodded. “You can see it in his eyes. It is like the souls of those men bled into him and their color bled into his eyes. He has their abilities, or at least some version of their abilities. But it is too much for him. I can see him struggle with it. He never means to hurt anyone, but he’s too strong, and things happen without him realizing it. I think he’s trying to hide it from me, but I can see what’s happening.”

  “What else can you tell us about him?” Balsam asked.

  Cecily sucked in a breath. “He will seem fine for a while, a few days or more, but he will grow increasingly erratic. He will be jittery, like he can’t stop moving. He has no patience, snapping at everyone, me especially. Eventually he’ll wander off, disappearing for a day or more. When he returns, he’s calm again, but,” she paused, thinking of the listless figure lying in their bed, “he’s not himself. He sounds strange and much of what he says doesn’t make sense. He sleeps for a day or two and then the cycle starts again. He’ll act like himself at first, but soon he’ll behave as if something is eating him alive from the inside.”

  Ysmora’s eyes went wide and he whispered something to Balsam. Their heads nodded and shook, and they spoke low words in Imaran that Cecily couldn’t understand. Ysmora’s face looked troubled, his eyebrows drawn down and his mouth tight. Balsam’s face remained softer, although his silver eyes gleamed with intensity. They nodded to each other, as if coming to a decision.

  “It is best if Daro comes with us,” Balsam said. Ysmora nodded.

  The words dropped on Cecily like a hammer. She leaned back, pulling her hands away from the table. “You want Daro to come with you, to Imara?”

  “This is not what was expected. But we think it best.”

  “I don’t think he’ll go,” she said. She wasn’t the least bit sure she wanted him to.

  Balsam and Ysmora exchanged a glance. “This is best,” Balsam said, and something in his tone made Cecily wonder if he was using the right word. It sounded more like he meant “crucial.”

  “Do you think you can help him?”

  “It is possible. The Raeswa will know. Daro was different, even before. He was unknown to us. He is open now and may be taught to See. It may help,” Balsam said.

  Cecily didn’t understand what Balsam meant by being open or being taught to see, but she wondered if the Imarans might have answers. She certainly hadn’t found any. “I will speak to him. If he will agree, when would we leave?”

  Balsam opened his mouth to reply but Ysmora touched his arm. They spoke once again, conferring in their own language.

  “This is not for you to do,” Balsam said. “This is for Daro alone.”

  Cecily’s mouth dropped open and she looked back and forth between the two men. They meant to take him from her. Anger surged through her and it took all her self-control to keep her voice even. “That is not an option.”

  Balsam’s voice was soft. “If we are able to give him help, it will have to be alone. The Raeswa need to see him. This is not something we can change. It is best.”

  She was incapable of hiding the fury in her voice. “You will not take him against his will.”

  “Noma, no,” Balsam said, holding up a hand. “This is not to capture. That is something not done. Daro is one of ours. He is Imaran. If Halthian remedies cannot fix him, perhaps Imaran remedies can. Our way is different, but Daro needs to learn.”

  “We can teach him,” Ysmora said. “This is something we can do. We may be able to help.”

  Cecily’s anger cooled, but anxiety pulled at her. She didn’t think she could let him go. “I don’t know,” she said. “I lost him once.”

  “It may be you will lose him forever,” Balsam said, his voice quiet. “I do not think he will get better on his own. He has suffered gastgewinn, a torment of the soul. This is not something he can face alone.”

  “He isn’t alone,” she said.

  Balsam nodded. “That is truth. You do have the bond with him. This is good. I see this in you and it is strong. It may be that this bond carries him now. But as time goes on, it will pull you under.”

  As soon as the words left Balsam’s lips, she knew it was true. He was pulling her under. His constant insistence that he was hurting her bothered her so deeply, she vehemently denied it. But it was true. She could feel the slow tug of his madness and knew if he didn’t survive, neither would she.

  Her own stunning arrogance hit her. She had thought she could heal him. All it would take was time. If they only spent long enough in a place they loved, eventually he would go back to the man he had been. He would remember and all would be well. But she did not have the means to heal him. Her love and hope was not enough. In fact, it was failing miserably.

  “I will speak to him,” she said with a sigh. “But I don’t know if he will agree.”

  3. HUNTED

  The glacial wind whipped through the trees and cut through Pathius’s clothes. He usually had no trouble keeping himself warm, but this high in the mountains there was no heat to Absorb. The world was a wash of white, thick snow blanketing the peaks. The cold bit into his skin and he pulled his fur lined cap lower over his forehead. He never thought he’d have cause to miss his black mask, but it would have helped keep him warm.

  He knew spring was blooming in the lowlands and the promise of warm air and plentiful food was tempting. They’d been chased halfway across the kingdom and so far had only found brief respite in the inhospitable North Mountains, straddling the border between the kingdoms of Halthas and Thaya. King Rogan had hunted them relentlessly and any time they descended closer to civilization, they were sent running again. Given the fact that Pathius had once been the prince of Halthas, he had no doubt what the new king would do if he got his hands on him. It was better to be cold.

  He glanced up at Stoker, who tossed him another hot piece of stone. Stoker’s cloak blew around his slight frame and the cold made his already large nose stand out red against his face. Clutching the rock in his fist, Pathius held it for a while to thaw his fingers before he Absorbed the last of its heat. Stoker had been with him since they were freed from Nihil’s captivity. He either couldn’t remember his name from before their imprisonment, or he chose not to, but his ability to start a fire and provide heat had been essential to their survival over the winter. Pathius had started calling him Stoker, and the name stuck.

  The others hadn’t returned from hunting and as the sun crept lower, Pathius began to wonder if something had happened to them. There were nine of them now, all survivors of Nihil’s experiments, men who had been tortured, conditioned, and altered to the point that they bore little resemblance to the people they had once been. Pathius knew there were still others they hadn’t tracked down. After Nihil’s defeat at the Lyceum, they had scattered. Some may have held on to enough of themselves to seek out their old lives, returning to the places they had once called home. Others had likely been caught by Rogan’s force. Pathius assumed those men were dead, although imprisoned by the Lyceum was another possibility. Ne
ither option held much appeal, of course, and as much as he hated being half-starved and freezing, at least he was free.

  “Gonna be dark soon,” Stoker said as he flipped another rock.

  Pathius caught it and let the searing heat burn his hand. The voices in his mind whispered in a low hum and he fought them down. “They’ll be back. They probably had luck where we didn’t and have too much to carry.”

  Pathius and Stoker had spent half their day trudging through the snow in search of food or supplies. Thus far they had survived by hunting game, raiding the small villages closer to the road, and hitting merchant caravans as they traveled through the passes. It aggravated Pathius to be reduced to nothing but a common outlaw. He hated robbing the caravans and raiding the pathetic storehouses and barns they found in the outlying towns. He was better at hunting, able to use his Absorption ability to pull energy out of an animal to drop them, even at a distance. Hunting at least felt like there was some nobility in it. Robbing people left him feeling dirty and low.

  A whistle drifted across the muted landscape. A simple signal, but necessary. Stoker whistled back and soon Pathius heard the sound of booted feet crunching through the snow. Four of them were returning, all with sacks slung over their shoulders. A raid, then. Although Pathius was irked at not having found game, he was relieved he’d missed the pilfering.

  They lumbered through their makeshift camp to the cramped cave they had all been sleeping in, and deposited their goods. Pathius stayed seated on his log and traded his cold rock to Stoker for a hot one. The others could sort through the haul. He’d only be in the way.

  The other three weren’t far behind and carried a litter stacked with more goods. Pathius’s eyes lit up at the sight. Fresh clothes, boots, and blankets were piled high, along with thick burlap sacks and ceramic jars.