The Tales of the Wanderer Volume One: A Book of Underrealm (The Underrealm Volumes 4) Garrett Robinson (poetry books to read TXT) 📖

before the huge doors leading into my mother’s audience chamber. There she left us with the other rangers while she ducked inside. Our guards removed our bindings. I stood stock still as they did it, staring at my own hands.

“What happened?” said Dryleaf quietly.

“The weremage was following us,” said Mag. “We almost ran her down, but our friends here came upon us and mistook our intent.”

The rangers gave her a sidelong look, but they remained silent.

“How unfortunate,” said Dryleaf with a sigh. “Well, hopefully the Rangatira will understand.”

My limbs had begun to shake. My mother, being understanding? It was more than I could imagine.

Another moment’s silence stretched. Then Dryleaf cocked his head.

“You said she was following you. The two of you did not track her down?”

“No,” said Mag.

“So she knew we were here.”

A cold dread came over me. She had known we were here. It was too far-fetched to assume that she and the other Shade had simply stumbled upon us in the mountains.

“She … must have seen us when we arrived to Kahaunga,” said Mag, though her voice was tinged with doubt. “It is not as though she—”

“—led us here,” I said. “She led us here.”

Dryleaf gave a grim nod. “You have been given quite a trail of breadcrumbs.”

“What, since Opara?” said Mag. “I find that hard to believe.”

“Mayhap even earlier,” I said. “Always we have gained one piece of information at a time—never enough to bring her down, but only to lead us to the next step in the road.”

“But that was true in Northwood,” said Mag. “Are you saying that in the mountains, and in Lan Shui, she …”

And then she, too, fell to silence. But where I was now wracked with fear and confusion, I saw a burning rage rise in her eyes. Her fists clenched, knuckles turning white.

“But that begs a question,” said Dryleaf. “Why? Why all this? You do not even know her name, Mag. What grudge could she bear you that would be worth all this?”

“Only one answer matters to me,” snapped Mag. “The same I have sought since the beginning: her head on the end of my spear.”

In front of us, the chamber door creaked open. The ranger captain stepped out.

“Follow me.”

I steeled myself, following Mag and Dryleaf into the chamber. I remained behind them, forcing myself to stay as calm as I could. Mag would do the talking. Mother would hardly even glimpse my face. She was never interested in visitors, unless she thought they were of some value to her. She would never notice an attendant in the back.

The door closed behind us. I risked a glance up at the dais from beneath my cowl.

I froze.

The room was just as I remembered it, long and wide with a high ceiling. The walls had a series of short windows near the top, impossible for anyone to climb in, just enough to provide some ventilation for the fires that burned in two hearths. The stone pillars running up both sides of the room were of gleaming white limestone, while grey limestone made up the floor. But that grey was now covered with many rugs, which had not been the case in my youth. I saw the furs of bears and mountain cats, but also of creatures from more distant foreign lands. They were well swept and clean, and they made a soft surface for us to walk upon as we approached my mother’s dais.

But the woman in the chair was not my mother.

Oh, she had the same sharp chin, the same piercing eyes, the same wide nose. She even wore her hair in tight braids bound up close to her scalp, as my mother had. But she was much younger than my mother. Only a few years older than me.

I looked into the face of my middle sister, Ditra.

This was such a shock to me that it was a good long while before I noticed anything else about the room. When I did, it was only to see that there were a few guards posted along the walls, and that just behind Ditra’s chair was a young man wearing the Telfer family colors, as well as a badge of my family’s symbol made of gold. Her lead ranger. I did not recognize him, but I remembered Tuhin’s words back in Opara: his name was Maia.

My gaze was pulled back to the center of the dais, back to my sister sitting in my mother’s chair, wearing my mother’s stern countenance, crowned with the silver circlet my mother had borne as her mark of office. It was like seeing my mother all over again, but younger, the way she had looked when I was but a child.

In the end I realized I had been staring too long, and I ducked my head again. For her part, Ditra had not seemed to recognize me in the slightest. Mag and Dryleaf stood in front of me, and so she paid attention only to them, likely thinking me some sort of retainer or guard, and not an equal member of our little party.

That, too, was very like our mother.

Her lead ranger stepped forwards and raised a hand, causing us to stop a good five paces away from the dais. “You stand before Lord Ditra of the family Telfer, lord of Kahaunga, Rangatira of the domain of Tokana.”

My sister tilted her head up slightly. “Well met, travelers,” she said. The words were courteous, even if her voice was steely. And suddenly her likeness to my mother was greatly diminished in my mind. Yes, she spoke in a stern tone, but that was my sister’s voice, a voice I knew better than any but Mag’s, a voice I treasured beyond anything else in my life.

I ducked my head still lower, struggling to contain tears. I did not entirely succeed, and I had to pretend to scratch my cheek to wipe them away.

We all bowed low with our fists to our foreheads. “Well met, Rangatira,” said Mag. She had given