Dragonlands(36)

“It is only the two of us,” Tressa said, her voice low and steady. She didn’t know him, or have any measure of his compassion to their situation. Nor did she particularly want to explain it to him. What lay between her heart and Bastian’s was theirs alone. It was too precious to give it over to a veritable stranger for judgment.

“I’m sorry.” He patted her arm. “I know what it is like to lose someone I love.” He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry I left you behind. I was grief-stricken when your mother died.”

“Granna raised me just fine.” Tressa couldn’t imagine another upbringing. Granna had loved her completely and she in return. She’d wondered about her father, but never missed him.

“How is my grandmother?” he asked, laughing. “She was so spirited, I swore she’d never die.”

Tressa’s voice lowered. “She died only a few days ago. There’s a plague overtaking the village.”

“I am sorry to hear that.”

“Now you know why we must find our way through the fog and back to the village as soon as possible.”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t allow that.”

“What? Then why search for survivors each year?” She was confused. “Have you given up on Hutton’s Bridge?”

“All will be explained when we arrive at the village. I promise, what we have to tell you will make sense. Just give us a chance.”

Tressa looked ahead for Bastian. His red hair stood out among the tall, green grass. She wanted to go back for her people. She wasn’t sure Bastian would agree.





Chapter Twenty-Four


Before the sun lit the tops of the trees, they arrived in the village. Bastian kept his hand on the pommel of his sword, still convinced treachery might await them. The man knew too much and exactly how to leash their hearts to his will. Despite wanting to kill him and move on with Tressa, the boy in Bastian had to know the truth.

Was his mother still alive? Had she kept her promise to see him again? And would he even recognize the woman who’d been elevated to ultimate perfection in his mind?

Despite the law not to bear arms, for years he’d trained with the sword in private. It had been his goal to go into the fog and find his mother. Bring her back. Everyone thought he belonged in the forge because of his strength. Little did they know the strength came from the secret training, driven by only one goal.

When he began to look at Tressa as more than just a playmate and friend, his focus shifted to protecting her. The lengths he went to save her from the fog were successful, until the last choosing. Someone thwarted his efforts, rigged the game. He swore if he ever found out who, they’d die by his hand. Slowly. Painfully.

He volunteered to go with her, only to be with her in the moment she died. He never suspected, not for a moment, that they’d take another breath in the fog. It was a death sentence. If it wasn’t, his mother would have come back for him. Wouldn’t she?

Inside a thick copse of trees far away from the road stood four cottages. Crudely constructed, but his sharp eye told him they were more solid than they appeared. A trick for the casual onlooker. In fact, the entire settlement appeared abandoned. The stones surrounding the fire pit listed to the side, sloppy and forlorn. Bastian sauntered over to it. Just as he suspected – the fire had been put out with water, ashes scattered. It looked old. It was only another well-constructed illusion.

“The trees block the firelight in the evening. At least most of it. We’re very cautious.”

Bastian didn’t turn around to see whose voice it was. He already knew. It was the same one that had sung to him every night before bed when he was afraid of monsters lurking in dark corners. The same voice that had soothed him when he tripped and skinned his knee. The same voice that had promised she would be back for him.

A hand fell on his shoulder. Light as a feather, but weighted with so many bittersweet memories and unresolved expectations.

“Mother,” he said, turning around.

“You used to call me Mama.” A tentative smile graced her face. She’d once had a full head of red hair. Now silver strands of hair reflected the sunlight. A few more wrinkles than he remembered had settled around her eyes. Other than that, she was the same woman whose skirts he hid behind when kids more clever and quick of tongue teased him.

“You didn’t come back.” Childish? Perhaps. What else was to be expected around his mother? “I don’t know you as I once did.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to get back. After what I went through in the fog, nearly losing my life half a dozen times to beasts I couldn’t see…” Her voice trailed off. “I don’t even remember how I ended up outside the fog. Fenn, Tressa’s father, he found me and carried me here. I woke up in that cottage,” she pointed to the first one on the left, “and began life anew. It was months before I could use my arm again. Even now it’s not as it was.” She shrugged, a smile on her face. “It’s enough, though. It’s far better than being dead.”