Firefly | Shelha Series 5 | ✔

Chapter Eighty-Nine: Lake of Storms

The house turned out to be the same one where Taz, Fletch and Firebrand had spent the renegades' year apart. When Sethral could walk, she left Ryatzi sleeping and explored as much as she felt was polite. She found Firebrand and an older Rivrit outside, sitting together on the grass in a pile of books.

Firebrand looked up and grinned as the door creaked shut. "You're up! Seth, this is Benty. Benty, Sethral, our resident war planner and mystery solver."

Sethral picked her way down the cold stone steps. "War planner? That's Dusk. I lit a fire and shoved a plant out a hole."

Firebrand cleared a space among the books. Behind the pair was a garden, only half kempt.

Benty waved a paw at it. "Help yourself to anything you find here. The greens need eating, and goodness knows there's probably more things in there that we haven't found yet. Haven't had much time to keep up with it, unfortunately."

"Didn't this area got taken over by Leslanders after you and Tetch came home?" said Sethral.

"They've switched sides," said Firebrand. She glanced at Benty, who rubbed the cover of an old, battered book.

"The floods have broadened the lake in the northern Lowlands," he said, "and the Far South Forest has been overtaken by Aria and Whitewings. Winter's army can no longer reach us here. The Leslanders that were left behind or refused to leave have gradually come to trust the locals, so they let us shelter here when we explained our situation."

"Where's my clan?" said Sethral.

"The non-clan group Saggitayrii all relocated to the Lowlands south of here," said Firebrand. "In the wilder part. After they declared war on Winter, the clan groups apparently held a line against the Aria until those other members were safe, then disappeared. Nobody's gotten close enough to their camp to see if it was planned, but knowing your clan..."

Sethral felt surprisingly calm about that. It had likely been planned. The clan groups had relocated in the Drakon winter, too, and this time they would have had much more time to get away. And they would not have left to fight Aria unless the non-warriors were somewhere safe first.

Firebrand eyed her sidelong. "You think they're okay?"

She nodded.

"Any idea where?"

"No. If they're not in the Lowlands... no, I don't know. How far are the Aria?"

"Up to the north end of Nova territory," said Benty. "They seem to have stopped there, and I suspect it is because of the weather." When Sethral didn't understand, he continued, "You have probably noticed how cold it is here for storm season. It only gets colder the farther north you go. Growing season this year did not come at all in the South Forest, and as you can see, storm season has hardly come either."

"Is Winter still in the South Forest?"

"We can only assume so. We have no news from anywhere farther than the edge of the Lowlands and a little ways past. Flitter has made it a day into the forest there before the storms and the Whitewings drove him back."

Sethral sat up. "Storms?"

"Constant ones." Benty shook his head. "Back when the Saggitayrii still came to visit our towns, they said they could stand at their territory's edge and see nothing but a grey wall on the horizon."

Sethral met Firebrand's eye. Storm clouds pinned. How far had Flicker in the Hollow—the Silence—progressed while they had been away? And what would the forest look like beneath it? Sethral leaned against the Leslander's side and tapped surreptitiously, 'You said he had a Forestair antler here. Does he still have it?'