The Land's Whisper
THE LAND’S WHISPER
THE PARTING BREATH SERIES
BOOK 1
Monica Lee Kennedy
Copyright © 2016 Monica Lee Kennedy
All rights reserved.
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For my loving husband and best friend.
And a special thanks to Mama, Katy, Marianne, Dani, Bridget, and my generous, thoughtful beta readers.
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Glossary
To view a map of the world, please visit:
www.monicaleekennedy.com/map.html
PROLOGUE
Malitas shall come; its shadow heralds the approaching Change.
-Genesifin
Marietta's body and soul writhed in pain, as if some fiery knife were burning, piercing, slashing her. She thrashed, but there was no relief, no escaping it. Whatever it was, it was inside her.
Leave, her mind shrieked, leave.
Marietta could sense its interest, its disgust, its power. It was a thing so other, and glimpsing its foreignness in her very body was a horror usually reserved for nightmares.
Leave, she begged desperately.
It did not grant her an answer. Instead, it lingered and watched her, observing and learning. Its presence was pain itself, filling her whole person, material and immaterial, with agony.
Leave. Please. Leave.
There was no hiding and Marietta was powerless. The being had pinned her within her mind, and while alert and aware, she could not rouse her body or move. If one gazed upon Marietta, one would only see a slumbering woman.
I’m burning alive. From the inside, she realized in torment, and was filled with a sudden understanding: there would never again be liberty. This thing would abide in her until all that remained was a heap of scorched bones.
The desperation of this knowledge somehow freed her for a moment—like a fish leaping from the palms that cupped it—and she flung herself into gasping wakefulness. The pain was blinding and unendurable. She screamed, shrill and long.
It laughed, delighted. The sound resonated in every space of her mind.
No, there would never be freedom again.
~
Sim inhaled, his chest heaving in the thin air. The fragrances of the mountains filled his nostrils. Every sight, sound, and smell irked him and heightened his impression of foreignness.
I hate this place, he thought and scowled. His mouth felt thick with saliva from the intensity of his movements. He spit at the ground, even though he knew the land would only take offense. It did not matter really, it would always take offense. I really hate this place.
Sim refastened the clasp and string unloosening at his boot and pushed back the light brown locks obscuring his vision. He straightened his frame and took in the expanse before him.
He stood atop Berete in the terrisdan Selet. Berete may have been the highest peak in the area, but the jagged crowns of the rest did not lag far behind. Each stab of land jutted up like an enormous anemone arm—seeking, seeking. The sky arched on forever in a heavy blue that seemed opaque and tangible against the rocky grays and violets. Trees were scarce, huddling together in small clusters until the elevation dropped and the rugged terrain evened. Then, one could hardly make headway the wood pressed so thickly.
Sim sighed. His spine was forever clenched when he walked the terrisdans. Everything was too alive. It all seemed to breathe and watch him with prying eyes. There were rare moments when he experienced the true peace of solitude, but never atop these heights.
He felt the piercing cry before he heard it. It tore right down the inside of his person, from neck to navel, and left him with the smallness only a child knows. Whether it was an actual scream playing up the heights or an uncanny link with his beloved, he knew not, but it had the same effect.
He must hurry, oh how he must hurry.
He strained his weary eyes. They flitted one direction to another. This was why he had come, why he had fumbled up this cursed peak. He must find the blossom, and quickly.
The sun glinted upon the rocks, but Sim resisted the urge to shy his eyes away. He pressed his lids close together and squinted hard, changed location, and hunted anew. He raised a hand to shield some of the light. Still, nothing.
They promised, he encouraged himself, but nonetheless despondency settled into his gut. They said the trees would be here. But where?
Sim jumped along the rock, careful to avoid the scree and plummeting drops. He knew all too well that the cliffs in Selet eroded and broke under one’s feet without mercy or warning. That was the way of the land. He snorted in disgust; the land was always against him here.
As if in response to his thoughts, the step before him shuddered and cascaded down the peak with a quiet, lethal force. The air tightened and he could feel animosity flung at him like mud from a rutted wheel.
Fear gripped his heart, but not for just his own wretched hide. His eyes darted and swept the nearby mounts. They seemed so close that he could almost leap across safely, but that was the treachery of the land. Nothing was ever that simple here.
“Please, please. I beg you. Do not fight me now. Not now. For Marietta. She needs help.” His voice sounded thin and cracked before the vast wildness of the mountains and sky.
How can I even think to plead with one that hates me so? How could Selet ever have mercy?
The land about him seemed to delight in his desperation, laughing in the face of his need. The air pressed hard against him and he felt the ground speak, a slither of a whisper: “Get out.”
Fury replaced terror, flooding through Sim’s veins and powering his limbs. He would never quit, never satisfy this cursed land. He scrambled down the rock face with his fingers numbly groping for holds. He was several arm spans above the ground, yet he let himself fall. His ankles burned from the impact.
Where? Where?
He felt the race of time acutely. Selet was dangerous, but with night it would become lethal. The land was bolder against him then, or perhaps he simply grew more tremulous. Whichever it was, dread pawed at his soul.
And then, in a glorious moment, Sim spied them. Upon the next crest, Triele, in a small coppice, grew at least a dozen groyu trees. Their dark purple leaves
glimmered in mocking greeting, as if they too knew it would be no easy feat to reach them.
Could they work? Would it really be that easy?
Blinded by a terrifying hope, he raced down Berete. It would be a solid two hours before he could even begin to tackle Triele, and several hours more before he would near the trees—but he must try. He could not be certain until he arrived, but the tenralilies were known to grow beneath the cool shelter of groyu. These flowers were the treasures he sought. Old lore said they could be used to create a serum of health. While he had scoffed at the fantasy-legend since youth, his whole world depended upon saving Marietta. He would fly to the moons if he must.
As he bounded, trees and bushes struck long shadows with narrow, stretching fingers. His eyes and heart jumped as he futilely sought to quell his imagination.
The last sprays of sunset played across the heavens, and at last he glimpsed the beautiful sight. Ahead, not more than a hundred strides up, grew the groyu. Brief relief loosened his knotted gut, but only for a moment. There was still much ahead.
Sim hugged the peak’s wall as he inched forward beside the steep precipice. The drop was enough to choke the breath in his throat, and the cold air stung his lungs and bit at his nose. He willed his smarting eyes forward, and, with heartbeat pounding frantically in his temples, he whispered her name to draw strength.
As he neared a wider section of path, the land shifted under him in a brief tremor. Sim launched his body forward and clung to the side of the cliff, his fingers deep in the crusted soil. His nails tore like soft moss under a boot’s heel, and his fingertips bled. But he did not cry out; he knew Selet was just beginning its games.
He shuffled forward on all fours, trembling. He did not trust his quivering limbs, nor the quaking earth. Eventually he found his way up again, pressed his thin lips together, and rubbed his poor eyes, seeking any image that could reorient him amidst the darkening cliffs. He had lost sight of the trees in the last ascent but knew they must be close.
Sim scrambled in the assumed direction of the copse. He sweat in exertion, but it only chilled in the wind and iced his insides. His fingers numbed and his back arched forward, yet he ignored all, and within minutes he knelt beneath the shadowy glade and was cradling a soft flower in his soiled hands.
The tenralily blossoms surrounded him, their fragrance a gentle waft of sweetness. They were a deep blue that looked gray in the pressing twilight. It reminded him of another time, another world, when he would walk through the gardens of his home and allow his fingertips to trail over delicate petals and green leaves that dangled from soft-scented trees.
He shook himself from the reverie and plunged his pained hands into the rigid earth. The blossom broke and fluttered aside as he burrowed deeply along the trail of root. A span of an arm down, maybe more, the spindly strand met a small, circular pod. Sim tore the root gingerly from the sphere and drew it to his heart. He choked in a stifled sob.
No, Sim ordered to himself. Keep it together.
With trembling fingers, he wrapped the bulb carefully in a soft gray cloth and moved to the other blossoms. He unearthed and stowed three additional pods in cloth and coat. These could mean hope for Marietta. Maybe. He allowed himself a soft sigh of gratitude before steeling his nerves and beginning the descent.
It was difficult work. The moons were low in their courses and still obscured by the tall crests hovering around him, yet he felt a lightness in his steps and a glow sparking up in his heart. She has a chance. My love. She has a chance.
Marietta filled his vision as he blundered through. She was his soumme, his love, his everything. She had been his for nearly five orbits and a joy every passing moment of them. Her auburn hair in the sun, her dancing gray eyes, her lovely features and golden skin. She was more than his love; she was his life.
Sim blinked, realizing suddenly that he was at the base of Triele. The now-bright orbs of the night beamed down and turned both land and rock an eerie gray. He had been unaware of his surroundings and found his stomach flop as he took in the harsh, giant mounts of Berete, Calae, Undiae, and Feree that loomed over him. Sim cautiously turned north and prayed he would be out of the terrisdan and into the lugazzi in a few hours. He had little reason to be optimistic. Selet had disliked him from the start, but when he had taken Marietta, the dislike had transformed into an incomparable hatred.
And this trespass? Who have I to blame now?
Sim’s head dipped in shame, but he fought to rationalize.
I have no choice. None.
A cold unrest poured into him at a new thought. The Three see me…
He shook his head. Have I taken their gods now? he pondered with a sneer. Maybe, when they come to curse me, they can tell me why I was brought here.
Sim could not determine this simple fact. Orbits ago, he had been stolen from his small home on Alatrice. He had entered a cave and barely taken two steps before finding the passage behind him barred. The entrance had morphed to solid stone. The only way out was forward, through the tunnel. It had been a trap, but he had never been able to discern its purpose.
He had attempted to find meaning in this alien land but had been left without understanding. Why was he forced to remain in this strange world? Massada was so other. And while some terrisdans treated his presence with little more than indifference, something about him rubbed the land of Selet raw. Once he had found Marietta, it had soured to complete intolerance.
Marietta had lived in a town curled up in a crook of the river, a young woman of twenty-eight orbits. She had never traveled, had been happy settled there in the comfort of the known, eking out her living by fishing and gardening. She was undeniably loved by Selet, and Sim’s capture of her heart had bitterly stung the land. Marietta may have looked back wistfully, but the two moved to the neutral lands of the lugazzi to begin a fresh life together. Staying was no option. They both knew Selet would never allow Sim to remain.
How beautiful that life had been! Every day he had taken her into his arms and cradled her in gratitude. Massada had never been his home, but Marietta was. His longing for Alatrice ceased the moment she had become his. The only place in all the worlds was right there beside her, comforting her, taking care of her, loving her. Marietta was his bride and would forever be so.
Sim paused to drink from his small water sack. He had barely permitted a moment’s rest before now, so the cool water slid deliciously down his cottony tongue and throat. The moons, Stronta and Veri, were now high, and their light cloaked Massada in wondrous beauty. He skipped any awed mutterings, pushed his sack back into his pack, and urged his heels faster.
Marietta, his head pounded. Marietta.
The trees along the base of the peaks tugged at his clothing and scratched his face and limbs. He was not even in the thick of the forest, but the wood still fought him. He tripped repeatedly over stone and log and became mottled in mud and bruises. His knees were black from both soil and blood, but he did not—no, could not—stop. All that was before him was to continue on and pray that light would pierce the sky quickly to aid him against the felonious land.
Selet, he thought. I hate this cursed place.
~
It was nearly dawn when he broke through the last barricade of trees, with one final peak—Inelt—to bypass before reaching the lugazzi. Sim’s heart thundered, but he refused to stop.
The sky abruptly burned pink as the morning crept forward. His entire body quivered in chill and exertion.
Move, he ordered his rebelling muscles. Move.
Sim drove his body into a grassy, gray field that stretched around Inelt. It wrapped the base of the peak like a fetid shawl and reeked of decay and night. Dew from the chest-high ashen blades drenched his clothing, but he noted the damp and the stink in a detached way. He was practically numb in the monotonous purpose that compelled him.
But then something stung him back to his senses, and even made him pause in stride. The tall gray grasses swayed in the dawn’s breezes as if the
y were an orchestra following a conductor’s baton. Back they brushed, forward they dipped. There was a beauty, a cadence to it all, but it left him with an uncanny tingle on his neck.
I’m like a wounded antelope limping into a crouching pride.
He stared dumbly and waited, his spine still prickling. Adrenaline pushed his eyes left and right in a darting dance, and his fingers twitched in the cold. There was something disturbingly askew, even if his dulled mind could not wholly grasp it. He waited, but the anxiety refused to abate; there would be no reasoning with fear this morning. Sim sighed and shifted course to the peak. If he could not circumvent the bluff, he must ascend.
He scrambled up the rocky face using both hands and feet. As his eyes roved back to the ashy grasses, he frantically pushed his body higher along the craggy ascent. The slope was brutally steep and he moved fast, not prudently. He felt his mortality in every bone. Death whispered to him from those fields.
After several grueling hours, Sim managed to drag himself over the crown of Inelt and feast his eyes upon the sight ahead. Once he cleared the mount, it was only a matrole, maybe two, to the lugazzi. The lovely, neutral lands spread out from Lake Ziel like an oasis of life. His heart lifted in hope. Just a few matroles and he would be free of Selet, possibly forever.
Soon, and so close.
What then? What’ll Marietta say when she learns you stole them?
“Hush,” he muttered to himself. “It’s done.”
He dropped to his backside and, with heels and hands at a slant, began to descend the mountain’s flank. It sloped down sharply, and he battled at every passing minute to not become one with the tumble of scree and rubble that spilled down because of his movements. The wind whistled piercingly in his ear, and his chest—still soaked through—became a bed of ice. He feared losing his core heat, but there was no way that he could stop to dry and build a fire.
Death dogs my heels, Sim thought grimly.
“But I am faster,” he mumbled, and he spurred himself on.
When Sim had progressed about halfway down the face, the land crumbled beneath him without even a whisper. Dirt, limbs, and rock fell below into a cavern of darkness. He heard the awful crack of bone and felt a gruesome pain before writhing into unconsciousness.