DREAMWIELDER Book 1 of The Dreamwielder Chronicles

Chapter 35: RISE OF THE YOUNG

Taera reigned her horse in as she reached the center of the small town of Tritea. It was little more than a village really, but Taera recognized it from her vision. She dismounted and led her horse to the only inn in town, a nameless boarding house made of wood—squat and sturdy. Inside, only a few elderly townspeople sat eating in the common room. The innkeeper sat too, wiping clean his wooden mugs and goblets. The lot of them looked up and gawked at Taera in her outlandish furs.

"I'm here to see the refugees," Taera said to the innkeeper.

"I... I don't know what you speak of," the man stammered.

Taera didn't have the patience for games. She strode through the common room and pushed her way through the door past the innkeeper into the private dining room she knew would be there. It was just as she had pictured it in her vision. The people sitting there eating though, were not as she had hoped they would be. They were a pitiful lot, all seven of them. Like frightened children, they looked up at her from where they sat hunched over a long bench eating from bowls like a pack of feral animals. They were a mixture of males and females, young and old, but they were all emaciated and wild looking, filthy beyond description. Some of them were dressed more scantily than Taera herself, others wore clothes that were worn to shreds.

The innkeeper barged in behind Taera and clutched at her sleeve apologetically. "I meant no harm. They're homeless vagabonds. All I did was feed them. I swear. They were hungry."

"Don't apologize," Taera told him. "You did what was right." She turned her attention to the seven sitting at the bench. "All of you have come here because you have heard that Pyrthinia is at war with Sargoth. You have lived many years in hiding, I know. You have been afraid. You have been hunted. Well no more. I am Taera, Queen of Pyrthinia, and I say that you are outlaws no longer. I am like you, a sorcerer, and I ask for your help now. If you would have a Pyrthinia where you can walk freely and do as you will, I beg you, join me. Help me defeat the Emperor."

~~~

Makarria relaxed her arms and let the shackles binding her wrists above her head support her weight. Across the circular chamber from her, on metal racks the same as hers, her parents were shackled against the wall. Her father hung in a trance, his face a mutilated pulp and his left shoulder grossly displaced. Her mother was conscious, but only with great effort, and she breathed in long deliberate breaths.

The sight of it all made Makarria begin crying again. She wanted nothing more than to use her power to make the chains and wounds go away—to make her parents free and happy again—but she knew she couldn't dare use her powers. When she had been escorted up the tower stairs two days before, the guards had warned her to not use her magic. "The scent-hound's tower is no more than a hundred feet away," the captain of the guards had said. "Be still and your remaining days will be painless. Try to use your ill magic and the houndkeeper will sound the alarm, and the Emperor himself will come to kill your parents first, then you." Makarria had said nothing in reply. She felt helpless then, as she did now. The realization that her friends were likely suffering as badly as her parents only made matters worse. Poor Talitha, she thought, the memory of Talitha naked and battered flashing through her mind. Of Siegbjorn, Taera, and Caile, Makarria knew little, but she knew they were at war—she had seen the soldiers marching from Col Sargoth and she knew what those soldiers meant to do. And then there was Parmo. A sense of dread and emptiness filled Makarria when she thought of him. She couldn't help but feel that something horrible had happened.

"Makarria?"

Startled, Makarria looked up to see her mother awake, head held up weakly.