Aldyth was dying.

   At least that’s what they told me.

   Magic wasn’t working the way it was supposed to, but my bitterness overrode it for simply one reason. Magic was the only reason she was still here.

   She was frozen – or maybe numbed, it was hard to tell with their quick words and annoying accents. Taurus spoke little to me in the following days, but what he did tell me was this. Their leader had convinced the others to keep my friend alive, just to see why we were here, just to see if our lives were worth saving. There was no regret among the people of the North Cardinal. They would have quickly let her die.

I suppose that I shouldn’t have been surprised about this. Hyde had warned us back in Hbéakut: Walking past the border of the North Cardinal was the same as diving face first into your own grave. One can’t lay in a hole and expect to not be buried alive.

   I don’t know what I was realistically hoping to find, but it was not this. The only people I wanted to speak with, were the only ones who couldn’t speak back. And those who could speak to me, I didn't really want to speak to. Even Taurus grew silent, his large orange eyes flickering like he was waiting for someone to slip a rapier between his ribs.

   Briar, the soldier who had led us from the border, provided the only looks of sympathy I got. The rest stared relentlessly like I had a rock for a head as well as the brains to match. Now more than ever, in this cozy camp under the wing of a snow storm, I felt exposed – like someone had stripped me of my clothes and thrown me into a river.

    My fever broke after the first night, and I was able to walk after the third. With every half hour that passed, I would check on Aldyth for any change in her condition – for better or worse. There came a point where I stopped caring which it was, as long as the cycle of stillness stopped.

“We were supposed to do this together,” I whispered and lowered my eyes so that my lashes brushed my cheeks. A hot tear boiled and slid down my face, tracing rivers of sorrow where there had once been hope. Four nights had passed and there was no change, but I continued on waiting. Someone once said that that time healed all wounds, and I waited astutely, for time to heal hers.

    I was dozing off, somewhere in that calming state between life and death when a hand came down onto my shoulder. Any other time I would have been surprised, but at that point, I didn’t have a strong enough grasp on my consciousness to care. “A representative from the Council of Majors is riding down today,” a gentle voice announced. Out of the corner of my eyes I watched Briar, the soldier who had done all the talking back at the Northern border, take a seat on the ground next to me.

    “They will question you,” he continued. “And they won’t be easy about it either. We haven’t let anyone in for a very long time.”

    “Sounds like the sort of thing my mother would warn against,” I commented humorlessly. “Don’t put up walls, don’t block people out. It will only lead to heartbreak.”

    “She wouldn’t be wrong,” Briar replied, craning his neck in attempt to meet my eyes. For several long moments, he said nothing. In the time that passed the old Aldyth would have asked a half dozen questions, not including the time it would have taken to answer them. But instead the silence rang true, muddied with dirt and life’s sightless murmurs. Some sort of reed instrument danced its little song in the back of my mind, and I was too tired to do much but lean my head on my palm to listen.

    “I don’t want you to feel like I’m intruding,” Briar said suddenly, breaking the silence and muting the song. I scowled at the ground so that he wouldn’t see – something told me that the rest of his sentence wouldn’t be to my liking. “But I have to ask, for the good of my people. Do you trust that elf you travel with?”

    There it was again: an endless cycle of, do you trust Taurus? If only he had known. That was the only relevant question I could seem to occupy my time with. And truth be told I had no real answer for him, nor myself.

    “I only ask because we’ve had trouble with the elves in the past and now it appears that the past is coming to haunt us. They’ve stolen our children right out of our arms, replaced them with rocks when we thought them safe in their beds. We know they have changed, but so have we and…”

    “He’s not going to hurt you,” was the only thing I could promise. “I don’t know him very well. I only just met him a little over a week ago and in that time we hadn’t much time to look into each other’s souls – but he saved me and Aldyth when we would have surely been dead or enslaved. And for better or worse, he got us here.” I scoffed lightly under my breath. For worse.

    Briar gazed at me for a long moment before nodding. “So you don’t know who you’re traveling with, either?”

    I shook my head. “Not for sure. But I do know this, you’re not the only ones in this world who hate elves.”

    “I don’t hate – “

    Suddenly a middle registered wail not unlike the sound of a war horn bellowed. I looked up sluggishly, the movement still causing my neck pain. Briar turned as well before looking back to me. “That’s them,” he announced before grabbing my arm and tugging me clumsily to my feet.

    The sound of war horns and galloping hooves was promptly met with a tightly wound rhythm provided from the other Northerners. They were drumming, maybe on pads or maybe on tree branches, it didn’t really matter because the sound was as slick as a tightly wound drum. There could have only been one person out there with how timely their precision was and if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes; I wouldn’t have believed it myself.

    The North Cardinal was the Drummer Nation. Everything they did was centered in the beat from evening prayers to building fires. It wasn’t at all surprising that their greetings were tapped out too.

    There came a second where it all clicked into place, the galloping horses, the beating drums, the crackling fire, the cold, the warm, and the ways my eyes opened when Aldyth’s wouldn’t. It was all interconnected; everything was just a single piece in an infinite amount of little sections that made up the world.

    And in that moment, I was seeing it.

    Or more importantly, hearing it.

    “Keep your shoulders squared and your chin leveled with the ground.” Briar advised hurriedly, fussing over my attire like a mother with her child. He seemed worried, like he actually cared if I got killed or not. “Not too high, not too low. When you come to a final stop, keep your feet together in a block – heel to heel, toe to toe. Knees back but not locked, hips over ankles, ribs separated from your abdomen.”

    “What?” I hissed as he straightened the collar of my tunic. Outside the wind was brisk, but somehow it felt too late to go back and fetch a cloak.

    “Just keep your chest up, but not out,” he amended. “Arms loosely at your side, slightly bent backwards. Fists against your legs, curled lightly like you’re holding a baby bird in your hand.”

    He pushed me roughly into a clearing where the rest of the Northerners had already gathered. Their sticks blurred in synchronicity against their drums and the temperature rose to match their tempo. I suddenly didn’t feel the need for another layer of warmth, in fact I could have probably done well to take off my tunic – yet somehow I felt like that would be frowned down upon so I refrained.

    Something about the whole scene was eerily familiar, and then it came to me. The drumming. The strange absence of cold. It brought me straight back to the night that Taurus proclaimed me as a listener, a braje. Simple northern magic, he had said. To sweep away the cold. Suddenly that piece in time made a little bit more sense.

    I almost chuckled to myself. Of course everything was starting to make sense. I was standing on the brink of death.

    My bones ached as I stumbled out into the clearing. The air was clear, despite the fact that all around us the storm, Sivena, raged on. It was like the camp was in the middle of its own little bubble and the drums were the force that powered it.

    But I didn’t have time to comprehend any of it before the attention of the Northerners moved solely to me. No heads turned, no bodies moved, not even a single eye averted, yet somehow I could feel their awareness like they were all staring dead on.

    I scanned the area for the bright eyed elf, and found him some time later sitting on the ground at the base of a tree. His head was bowed and his hands were cupped in front of him like he was holding something – or like he was showing everyone that he had nothing to hide. His damp hair hung down into his face, and the tips of his long ears were red like blood. I almost went over to ask if he was okay when Briar grabbed me by the shoulder and spun me to face in the opposite direction. “Feet, knees, hips, chest, shoulders, chin, arms,” he whispered at my ear before bowing swiftly at the waist and retreating backwards into the circle of Northerners.

    As I scrambled to remember the things he’d advised me, the drumming moved down into a whisper – a roll almost – as a figure suddenly materialized from within the storm. I held my breath as he drew closer and closer. The man was clothed from head toe in deep black cloaks, not even his eyes shone as he galloped through the storm on the back of a proud grey stallion. A cape of night blue clung snuggly to his shoulders.

    I blinked again and looked closer. There was something else there, like a glimmer of magic that surrounded the man and horse, shrouding them both from the storm.

    As he drew closer, two more figures appeared beside him. I blinked harshly, positive that they hadn’t been there moments before. Together the three of them brought their steeds to a gallop side by side and thundered through the bubble that shielded the camp from Sivena.

    The Northerners ended their roll with a sharp tap and brought their hands to their sides, each individually unwavering in their posture and gaze. I was beginning to think that an atrix could have landed in the clearing and they wouldn’t have moved.

    Suddenly the lead figure, the one who had appeared first, started unwrapping the scarves that sheathed his head. Dark braids fell across his shoulders, a flash of bright eyes moved against the light. I let out a small gasp to find out that it wasn’t a man, but a woman. Her skin was dark, with a harsh undertone that rivaled blood. Her irises were the color amber and thick, black tattoos inked their way up her neck and onto her face in a way that made her skin seem even redder.

    I could tell that I wasn’t the only one who was surprised.

    Taurus looked up curiously while the other northerners sort of tightened their stances like they were expecting a fight.

    “I call to the circle, the leader of this band,” the woman announced loudly. She didn’t even allow for her companions to fully unwrap their head scarves.

    Briar stepped forward regally and I tried my best not to gawk. Composure could do much to alter one’s appearance. In the span of about three minutes he had wiped all expression from his face. His eye had grown hard and the color of shattered ice. A thick leather belt hung to one side, carrying a strange sheath that could have shielded anything from a hunting knife to a roll of paper. He had donned again the cloak had been wearing when we first met, black with a ring of dark blue ringing the hood.

    With flat hands he brought his right palm up to his left shoulder and his left one against the small of his back. He nodded his head at the woman. “Briar,” he introduced. He didn’t speak loudly, but his voice carried fast. “Section leader of this border patrol.”

    The woman repeated the gesture back at him. “Aria,” she replied with a half smile on her lips. “Majorette of Scendo.”

A/N

Had a snow day today so I decided why not finish chapter...

So how are you holding up? How is Eli holding up? Much band references.

The playlist above is made by the fabu stardust24601