Page 69 of Of Empires and Dust
“I’m sure you do,” Tamzin said with a laugh, giving Ella the response she’d hoped for. “It’s a long walk, but if you have half the number of questions I had when Amatkai found me, it might not be long enough. Ask, and I will try to answer.”
“Before you left, you spoke of someone called Kerith. Who are they?”
“What Kerith is has many names amongst our people. My sentinel, my guardian, my reflection… But Amatkai refers to her as my keeper. All Aldruids create a tether to a keeper. We give them strength, intelligence, companionship, and in turn they watch over us. We are a pair. When Aldruids walk in Níthianelle, we are exposed in the mortal plane. There are some whose blood is strong enough that they can move in both worlds at the same time. I am gifted as such. But even then, our mind is never truly in one place. It is our keepers who guard our bodies while our souls wander. You will find your keeper one day…” Tamzin gave Ella a curious look. “If you haven’t already?”
A realisation struck Ella. “Faenir.”
“A wolf, I assume?”
“Wolfpine,” Ella corrected.
“Is there a difference?”
Ella let out a long, exasperated sigh. It was like walking with Farda. A smile curled her lips, but then her mood soured as her memories flooded back from before the battle. If this all worked and Ella found a way back to her body, she prayed Farda had survived the fighting, if only so she could kill him herself. “Yes. There’s a difference.”
Tamzin raised her open palms. “Well, I’m going to leave that one firmly alone. You’ve noticed changes in Faenir since your blood made itself known? Stronger, larger, quicker?”
Ella nodded, thinking back to when she’d first noticed the changes. “I can feel him, his heartbeat, his fear, his anger. I can tell when he’s hungry… He’s always hungry.”
“Well, Ella Bryer, it looks like you found your keeper.”
The thought warmed Ella’s heart. It was a fitting name for what Faenir was to Ella: her keeper. It was he who had been there when Rhett died, he who had saved her, and he who had never left her side from that day on. Even then, as she focused on that thought, she swore she could feel the wolfpine watching her, protecting her body in the waking world. She could feel his coarse fur brushing against her skin, feel the warmth of his touch.
“You say we are Blooddancers. Are there others? Or are all our kind like us?” Ella had heard stories of the old druids, but those were from a time even more ancient than The Order. They were more myth than legend.
“There are others. Many of the Gifts have been lost with time.” That same melancholy returned to Tamzin’s scent, her voice a requiem. “Once, long before we set foot in Epheria, our people could perform all sorts of wonders. There were some with the Gift to make crops grow at twice the usual rate, influence flowers to change their colours. They would sing, and the trees would bend their trunks so as to better hear. Otherscould walk the dreams of the sleeping, chasing nightmares from their heads. Moonwalkers could bend the light around them, vanishing from plain sight. Listeners could hear the vibrations of rare ore buried deep in rocks, find water wherever they roamed, tell the species of a bird by only the beating of its wings.” Both Tamzin’s voice and scent continued to change as she spoke, a warm joy seeping in. “Amatkai even tells of those who could heal wounds with the touch of their hands and those who had such a connection to the animals of the world they could create new life, new species…”
“And now?”
Tamzin scratched at the back of her neck, her clawed fingernails leaving bright red marks. Ella noticed she did that anytime she seemed uncomfortable. “There are but four druidic Gifts we know to have survived the purge of our kind. Those of the Blooddancers, the Stormcallers, the Pathfinders, and the Starchasers. Though, those are names from the time of the first landing. Alternate names were given by those who hunted us. The Blooddancers are Aldruids. The Stormcallers are Skydruids. The Pathfinders and Starchasers are Seerdruids and Aetherdruids. Far lesser titles if you ask me.”
After a while, when Tamzin stopped near a slow-moving stream and ran her hand over something on the ground, Ella built up the courage to ask the question that had been circling in her head. “Have you heard anything about the battle in the Darkwood? Who won? Who survived?”
Tamzin had said that if Ella were still alive, that meant there was someone tending to her body in the waking world. But that didn’t mean that someone was Calen or Haem. It didn’t mean the battle had been won.
When Tamzin didn’t answer, Ella repeated herself. But before she could finish the sentence, Tamzin was on her feet, her hand clapping around Ella’s mouth, blue kat-like eyes staringinto hers. Tamzin’s face was so close Ella could feel the warmth of the woman’s breath.
Ella tried to push Tamzin back, but then a scent touched her nostrils, clean and fresh like wet grass and squashed berries. She’d smelled it for a while, but it had blended with the world around her, so she’d thought nothing of it. Now though, it was more prominent, more distinct. And with that scent came another that wafted from Tamzin: fear.
Tamzin slowly lifted her hand from Ella’s mouth, grabbing her forearm and leading her into the flowing stream. Ella didn’t say a word as Tamzin walked deeper into the rushing water until only their heads remained above the surface. Ella widened her stance, trying desperately to stay on her feet against the current, her heart racing.
Tamzin pressed her fingers to her lips as she pulled Ella around a large rock that jutted from the stream, the current breaking around it. She nodded upstream over Ella’s shoulder.
It was all Ella could do to hold in the gasp at the sight of a bear so large bards would have told stories of it. The creature must have stood at least ten feet tall on all fours, its shoulders broader than a wagon. Smoke as black as its fur drifted from its body, twirling and shifting with the breeze.
The bear moved strangely, with a careful grace, its steps slow and purposeful. It was looking for something, and it was drawing closer.
Tamzin pulled Ella back behind the rock. She once again pressed her finger to her lips and shook her head. The bear’s scent grew stronger in Ella’s nostrils, the deep, sonorous thump of its heart steadily rising.
Tamzin gestured down at the water, then mouthed:three,two,one.
Ella drew a deep breath on ‘one’ and submerged herself in the stream. The cold water rushed over her, and her pulsequickened even more, panic setting into her veins. She closed her eyes and tried to settle herself, one hand leveraging against the rock to keep her under. A slow burn ached in her lungs, her throat growing tighter and tighter. She’d never had a fear of water, but drowning was another story.
Tamzin’s fingers closed around hers, and the woman pressed Ella’s hand against her chest. In the chaos of the rushing current and the panic, it took Ella a moment to understand. Then she felt Tamzin’s heartbeat. Slow, controlled, calm.
Ella’s pulse settled, Tamzin’s heartbeat steadying her. She lost her sense of time. Seconds could have been minutes, minutes seconds. The burning in her chest turned to a searing pain, her lungs begging her for air. All the while, the cold water rushed around her, drowning out all sounds.
Tamzin pushed under Ella’s armpit, signalling her to rise, but kept Ella’s hand pressed over her heart.
