Free Valley of Embers (The Landkist Saga Book 1) by Steven Kelliher Page B

he saw at the close of the Dark Months,” Fihn said.
    “Does it seem to you he’ll be able to make that deadline?” Linn countered.
    “Doesn’t matter much to me. Not sure why it matters to you.”
    “Because she wants him to be alive,” Jenk said, understanding dawning as he studied Linn’s face. “And she fears what Kole will do if he finds him.”
    “Where has he been all this time, then?” Kaya asked “Hiding?”
    “It would make sense,” Nathen said with a light shrug. “If he was gravely wounded. We don’t know how long Sages take to heal.”
    Larren scoffed, something entirely unlike him. But he did not speak, just stood there with his back to the wall, shaking his head slowly.
    “He’s been gone our entire lives,” Taei said, and all eyes turned to him. He glanced at Larren. “Most of our lives.” It was rare enough for the Third Keeper to speak. Rarer even than Baas Taldis, but it was the Riverman who answered.
    “Here’s hoping it stays that way,” he said and Larren straightened.
    Trusted Towles sidled awkwardly between Linn and the others carrying another bucket of scented water. This one smelled strongly of lavender and sour orange, a pungent combination clearly meant to signal that he had had enough of harboring this particular meeting. The baths were no doubt heated overhead and he had customers to tend to.
    “Who says the Dark Kind will stop with the coming of longer days?” Linn asked.
    “All of our prior experience, since the first attacks occurred not long after I was born,” Jenk said. “These creatures are perverted wretches from the World Apart, leaking in from the broken kingdoms in other lands. They have grown in number, yes, but they have not grown so bold as to attack us in daylight.”
    “The Dark Kind used to be a force of nature, and a random one at that,” Linn said. “Now they attack like clock work, as if their scourge is a season unto itself. Before last night, they have never been bold enough to take down an Ember on our borders.”
    “An Ember who went out alone,” Kaya said.
    Still, Linn could tell all in the room save Baas were unsettled, the Embers most of all.
    “What of the Faey?” Baas asked.
    “What of them?” Jenk asked.
    The hulking Riverman turned to him, the bench creaking under his weight.
    “They meddle in the ways of magic, no? Perhaps they have turned the Dark Kind on us, seeking to purge us from the Valley.”
    “We settled our issues with the Valleyfolk before you were born,” Larren said. “Besides, only the Eastern Dark can control the Dark Kind.” He looked at Linn, and she was surprised to see that he was waiting for her to speak.
    “If the White Crest is alive,” she said, “we will need him to stop what’s coming.”
    “What’s already here, according to some,” Larren said.
    “We have a week to decide,” Linn said. “Maybe less. We need the days to get a bit longer, but if the Eastern Dark is intent upon us, I doubt it will make a difference.”
    “We would be depriving the Lake of many of its stoutest defenders,” Larren said. “On a fool’s errand, to brave the Deep Lands and the Steps, and to see if a Sage that has not been seen in a generation will save us once more.”
    “Look at it this way,” Linn said. “If our old enemy has returned, where do you think he’s holed up?”
    “He could be anywhere,” Baas said.
    “Maybe.”
    “We should wait until Doh’Rah, Ninyeva and Tu’Ren make their decision,” Jenk said.
    “They are not our leaders,” Linn said, and the unintended venom with which she said it caught the room off guard.
    She swallowed.
    “They will drag their feet, as they ever have, while we wait for the days to shorten once again. And then we will be asked to hold out another year, to hold out before we make an attempt on the peaks, before we see the state of the World. No. It is time we took our destiny into our own hands.”
    “But not with Kole along,” Jenk said flatly. Linn had