Chapter 4
"Sel'uen!" came a loud call.
She glanced up from her work. Renarion was jogging over to her. "Could I help you with your tent?" he asked
She watched him head for a peg and start undoing it. "You're kind Renarion," she said, lowering herself back down to her own peg. "Thank you."
It was taxing work. Sel'uen ran her finger over the seed, coaxing it to withdraw its roots. She had one hand on her tent, so that it wouldn't fly away once its roots were gone. The wind was growing coarser and wilder by the hour. It stung her skin. She was starting to feel something like a rash on the back of her neck. She thought about donning the hooded cloak she had brought with her. Why not?
Because the Shan'do wasn't wearing his, she reminded herself. And as he brought down his tent several yards away, he did not sway in the wind and he did not flinch. She saw it as a challenge, and knew the other students had as well. If he could take the fury of the storm, then so could they. He had to be doing something. Manipulating the air around him, maybe. But how?
Frustration getting the better of her, she exhaled and closed her eyes, falling into a meditation. The wind was screaming around her, carrying with it bits of earth deader than a corrupted corpse. She did not know what she was trying to do, but she tried it anyway. Her teeth ground together.
She gave up with a gasp. Sweat that had popped from her skin cooled instantly. Renarion had picked two of her five pegs and was moving on to her third.
"Has the Shan'do seemed…" he trailed off then came back, "distant to you?"
He hadn't appeared to have noticed her latest attempt to master their Shan'do's lesson. She turned her attention back to her peg.
She cupped it with her hand, and tried to reach out to the earth. The roots had gone deep, and she felt how the stress of the uncertain earth and the tugging wind had made them brittle. She wondered how many more times they would work.
Going over the roots, she noted how they felt more like a clingy string than a living root. She tried to soothe them so they could untangle themselves. They did not respond to her.
"The Shan'do has much on his mind," she finally said, shifting her seat, trying to get a better sense. "You should have been the one to wake him. His mood would have been better."
Behind her, Renarion plucked his third seed. She could sense him watching her. She shifted again, reached deeper and with more force.
"Of course," he said, apparently not hearing much of what she had said. "He is the Shan'do. Much always lays on his heart." He moved towards the fourth, the last besides hers. "But he seems to carry a heavy burden, wouldn't you agree?"
Her root was determined to hold onto the earth. Only through great effort could she connect with its life force, as if it were becoming something else other than a simple root. She clamped her teeth, straining to undo its hold.
She gave up with a gasp and rested back on her haunches. Renarion glanced up.
"I'm fine." She said through her teeth. The sweat made her cold. Flecks in the wind stuck to her skin.
"I can get it if you wish."
"No," she said. Renarion retreated with a shrug. "I can handle undoing my own tent," she muttered, quiet enough so that the wind kept it from his ears. "My own damned tent."
He clasped his arms around himself now. Not even he had been able to figure out the Shan'do's trick. It gave her a little comfort.
He was staring at the stormy nebula in the distance.
"We should never have come to this place," he said. "We are powerless. Defenseless."
She took another breath-heaving break. She had no patience left for conversation. "You question the Shan'do?" she said.
"Of course not," he said, but she wasn't so young that she didn't hear the undertone of sarcasm. "The Shan'do can do no wrong."
Sel'uen knew how he felt. They were obliged to their teacher. It had seemed like such an honor when she'd gotten the news back in Teldrassil. She imagined it had been the same for the others. The Shan'do Ero'then, on a journey to the reopened Dark Portal, itself a world away. The elders had assigned students to Ero'then so that the honored teacher's absence wouldn't be wasted—and he would be protected.
The opportunity of a lifetime.
"I'm not saying—" Renation cut himself off and glanced down to where Ero'then sat with the goblin waiting for his students, who were beginning to finish with their tents and trickle back towards him. "There's no reason for us to be here," he murmured, almost to himself. It was difficult to hear him. "I worry that this chase of the Highborne is too personal for him. He is becoming…" He tried to choose his words carefully, "…foolishly passionate."
She had to hide another smile. "You have always been wise with your words, Thero'shan," she teased.
Renarion glanced at her severely. "This is not something to jest over, young one," he said.
"Young one?" she echoed. Now she was grinning. "You might be Thero'shan, but you are hardly my elder. And simply because you're smarter than the rest of us does not mean you can speak ill of the Shan'do so recklessly."
"I respect and revere the Shan'do as I should," Renarion said. "But you've heard his screams. While he sleeps."
The image of Ero'then's face while he had been trapped in his nightmare sprung unbidden on her. Her smile fell and she rubbed her eyes, trying to drive the image away. A stronger wind tore through the area, almost tearing the tent from her grasp. She tightened her grip.
"We have all been sleeping unwell," she said. "He warned us of that."
Renarion helped her hold the tent. "Just as he warned us, I know," he said, crouching next to her. "The Dream is far from us. But have you heard me shrieking in the midst of my dreams? Have you had the terrors he has? Have any of us?"
She didn't answer. She did not want to think on her dreams, but they had never been so bad as to wake her screaming.
Not like the Shan'do.
"I thought not," Renarion said, taking her silence for the answer it was. He tore out his last peg. "His mood has darkened. Would any of our other teachers in Teldrassil so blatantly intimidate someone?" She opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off, bringing his tone back down. "All I ask is that we watch him," he said. "His judgement may be deteriorating."
She looked down and kicked the stubborn peg. "If we are feeling the grimness of this place, then so does the Shan'do, only a thousandfold," she said. "We are just learning how to commune with the world. He has been walking with it for millennia. We can't imagine how this place must be effecting him."
He nodded once, curtly. It reminded her of the Shan'do. "Perhaps," he acceded. "But watch yourself anyways. Keep your own safety at the forefront of your mind."
She nodded as well. Renarion wasn't one to voice his fears. The fact that he had trusted her with his concern made her treat it with more respect. "And yours," she told him. "Though you are wrong about us being defenseless." She pulled out a knife from the back of her belt. She knelt by the peg, pulled it up as far as she could. When she saw the roots peek out from under it, she sawed them off until the seed snapped free.
She glanced at him. His eyebrows were raised high.
"Excellent," he muttered. He handed her the other seeds, stood stiffly, shouldered his pack, and started to make his way towards the rest of the group. "We have knives. Those will be most effective against Highborne magi." He moved out of hearing range.
She watched him go. "Well, aren't we a barrel full of moonlight?" she murmured.
But as she finished rolling up her tent and packing her belongings, she knew Ren's musings had affected her. She could still see Ero'then's eyes, glazed over and unseeing, and could still hear him shrieking louder than the wind, like a tortured child.
We should never have come to this place.
Shivering, she finished packing and headed down to join the rest of the group.
