Of Dark Things Waking (The Redemption Chronicle Book 3)

by Adam J Nicolai

  "Go ahead. This time it'll work." That heady rush the forbidden chant had given him, that feeling of vitality and strength, had faded the day after the battle. He suspected its absence would allow her to heal him, but there was only way to find out.

  He arched his brows, daring her on. Glowering, she healed him.

  The heat spread through his wound, knitting it closed, banishing the spirits before they could take root in his flesh. The bloody bandages sloughed away, unnecessary.

  Lyseira looked even more confused than before.

  "There," he said, masking his relief. "Must have been a fluke."

  Lyseira shook her head. "Harth, there's something you're not―"

  "Go tell them. You can―"

  "Stop interrupting me!" she snapped. "What are you hiding?"

  I don't owe you anything, he nearly retorted. If you wanted someone who was open about chanting, who would share what she knew, you shouldn't have let your brother kill her. Instead, he drew a breath to steady himself and finished his sentence. "You can heal me now. We don't know what happened, but it's obviously over. Go tell them. It's a'fin. Maybe it was all just a rumor to start with."

  The welt on his leg, the burn from her first healing miracle, gave the lie to what he said—but he didn't care. He let the hem of his robe fall to hide it.

  She gave him a glare that could have melted bricks. This isn't over, it said. Then she left.

  Rebecca put a hand on his shoulder. "She's got some fire, coming in here like that."

  Harth stood and brushed her hand away. "Next time let me handle it. I can speak for myself."

  The girl tried to hide the wound in her eyes. "I just thought you might―"

  "Well you were wrong." He turned away from her and back to his books, where he kept working on the puzzle.

  Alone.

  iii. Seth

  Iggy had horses waiting for them. They mounted and sped across the plain toward home.

  Home. A strange choice of words. It surprised him.

  The old Seth wouldn't even have noticed, and if he had, it would only have served to trouble him. But that Seth had found the death he longed for in Hannah's Ridge; he had suffocated beneath the snow, withered to a corpse in Retash's desolate cellar. He was a different person now, or was trying to be, even if he wasn't yet sure who that person was.

  A foundation for something new, Retash had said.

  The memory of the man triggered an exquisite pain, like losing his parents anew, and he felt like he was drowning. He didn't fight it. Didn't push it away. He let it wash over him, let himself acknowledge and know and accept it. If it meant agony, it meant agony. If it meant tears, it meant tears. He clung to his saddle, crippled by loss.

  And imagined that maybe he now understood how Helix felt.

  A foundation, Retash repeated, gently. Seth had lost his master, but not his revelations. In a cruel world that always took everything eventually, he had been fortunate enough to receive those first—and for that he could find it in himself to be grateful.

  His thoughts drifted back to that word, home, and in it he saw his sister. He saw her determination and joy, her heartbreak and courage. Suddenly he missed her more than anything else he could name. Home is Keswick, he discovered, because she is there. It felt like one cornerstone in the foundation of his new truth, a foundation he could build on. Freed of the compulsion to compare all good things in his life to the years he had spent in the Preserver compound, he could easily see that she was the best thing in his world; that she longed to do the right thing, even if she didn't always succeed; that he fiercely wanted to protect her.

  And then he realized she could already be dead, slain on the river shore outside Colmon.

  Because I wasn't there. Because I wanted so badly to be gone. It would have been another failure for the pile, this one heavy enough to crush him.

  But it was still only a possibility. For now, he accepted his fault. Accepted the risk it had brought to his sister, even as it tormented him.

  Then he urged his mount west as fast as it could safely go.

  By chance or fate, they reached Keswick's eastern gate just as the army returned from Colmon. A thundering crowd greeted them, lining the streets all the way to Broadside as the train of soldiers reported home. Seth kept his hood up and his head low, letting Iggy lead the way as they tried to reach Lyseira and the others.

  At the central market square, the procession halted and broke apart so the various groups could go their separate ways. As they milled about, reorganizing, he finally saw who he was looking for.

  "Lyseira!" he called. From the heart of the crowd, his sister turned to him. She looked haggard and wan, her eyes shadowed with new strife, but they lit up all the same when she saw him.

  "Seth?" She pushed her way through the crowd, crushed him in a hug. "Oh, thank Akir."

  For the first time in his life, he fully returned her embrace. Let the reality of her burn away his dread, let himself relish the fact that the world hadn't taken her—not yet.

  "I'm glad you made it back," he managed as they pulled apart. I should've been out there with you, his old conflicts wanted to say, but he denied them.

  "It was a nightmare," she said, lowering her voice. "I couldn't—I didn't even know if we were winning or losing until it was over. The Mal'shedaal . . ." She trailed off as she noticed his companion, confusion stealing into her eyes. "Iggy?" Back to Seth. "You came back together?"

  Seth wasn't ready for this conversation; he tried to head it off. "Where is Takra?"

  "Takra?" Lyseira glanced around. "She should be . . ."

  "What in Hel are you doing here?" Harth, his voice like ice. Seth turned and saw Takra with him; they had been talking, but now he left her behind to stalk toward Seth. "You have some fire showing your face here."

  "Harth," Seth said.

  "What did you think? That you could kill her and no one would care? No one would do anything?"

  "No."

  "How dare you," Harth seethed.

  "Harth," Lyseira said, "that's enough."

  "Enough? Not hardly. He gets to kill her in cold blood, but I have to stand here and do nothing?" His face twisted with grief. With rage. "She was trying to leave, you sehking―"

  "Stop it," Iggy said. "He had to come."

  "What?" Harth snapped. "Why?"

  "Because he was with us, in Tal'aden. He's the only who saw what happened and survived."

  Takra had joined them just in time to hear this. Seth's heart lurched at the look of blank shock on her face. "The only . . ." she began. "Then Melakai―?"

  We were separated, Seth thought to say. I didn't see what happened, not for certain. But Iggy had sought the man with his inscrutable powers, the same powers that had enabled him to find Seth twice, and knew he was gone. "I'm sorry," he said.

  As the blood drained from Takra's face, Harth snarled. "You sehking rat!" He threw a wild punch. Seth's instincts kicked in; he could've blocked or ducked or even caught the hit in his fists, then twisted Harth's arm until it broke. It was harder to bite back that instinct than it would have been to counter-attack in any of a hundred different ways. But he restrained himself. Felt the sharp bloom of pain high on his cheekbone, and accepted it.

  He loved her. He'd heard the rumors, but they'd never mattered to him.

  "Stop it!" Iggy launched himself at Harth, bore him down. They scrabbled in the mud as Takra stared blankly, her eyes wracked with pain.

  "Iggy, no." Seth hauled his friend back. "No. It's a'fin."

  Harth scrambled back to his feet sporting a bleeding lip, his eyes flashing. He roared at Iggy and Iggy yelled back, struggling against Seth's grip.

  Lyseira stepped between them, arms out. "Stop it!" she barked. "Enough!"

  Harth put a finger to his broken lip, then shifted his glare from the blood he found there up to meet Seth's eyes.

  "This is not going to fix this!" Lyseira shouted. "Both of you, stop it!"

  Helix emerged beyond he
r, his empty gaze roaming—then he disappeared back into the crowd. Seth felt his stomach lurch into a somersault.

  "Are you done?" Iggy demanded of Harth, who said nothing. Seth let him jerk away. "All right, then."

  "I didn't come here to insult you," Seth tried to explain as Harth stared daggers. "I wanted to make sure Takra knew―"

  He turned to the girl as he spoke, about to let her know her grandfather had succeeded where the rest of them had failed, that his life hadn't been lost in vain.

  But just like Helix, she had vanished into the crowd.

  "Good," King Isaic said, nodding fiercely. The General had just finished his report on the battle of Oak Bridge. "Good. It sounds like the chanters and Kesprey made short work of the secondary company from the north."

  "Until the Mal'shedaal came," Lyseira said. They were gathered in the King's war room—Captain Xavier, Lyseira, Ben, and Harth, who Brutus called his "command crew"—along with Iggy, Helix, and a few of the King's other advisors. Lyseira had insisted Seth come, and seated him to her right. The King had thrown him a short but withering look upon entering.

  Isaic nodded again. "Understood. But all the same, that'll make them think twice about laying siege to the walls. They can't afford to just march their troops overland, not when doing so leaves them vulnerable to an onslaught. That buys us more time still."

  "No," Lyseira said. "You're not listening. When they appeared behind the front line, in the thick of us, it was . . . brutal. The one that attacked us was able to move through the shadows, to trick us . . ."

  "It was a slaughter," Harth said. "It was the same report from the other front. If they hadn't left, they might have routed our entire force by themselves. One of them was about to kill me before it just . . . lost interest."

  Isaic didn't want to hear this. It was plain in his face. "But they did leave."

  "Yeah, to deal with us," Iggy said. "Which they did, easily."

  "It must be 400 miles to Tal'aden from Colmon," the King said. "How could they do that?"

  "The shadows," Iggy answered. "Just like Lyseira said. They can move through darkness somehow. That's how they appeared in Sanctaria—they stepped out of a dark corner like they'd just been hiding there the whole time."

  "But they didn't return."

  "To Colmon?" Iggy glanced at Lyseira, who shook her head.

  The General confirmed. "Not to either front." While he had the King's attention, he finished his report. "Your Highness, our troop numbers continue to recover, and Jacobsford should be undefended now. I believe they spent everything they had trying to block us at Colmon. I suggest we send a force north to secure the town and accept their surrender."

  "Good. Do it." Isaic turned back to Iggy. "All right. So why didn't the Mal'shedaal return to the battle at Colmon?"

  Silence. Iggy looked at Seth.

  "Your Highness," Seth ventured, "if I may."

  Isaic gave him an unreadable look. "If you have some insight, speak it. That's the only reason you're here."

  Seth nodded and said, "I don’t think they cared.

  "When Captain Melakai killed Revenia and broke the altar, they were devastated. They howled. All they cared about was revenge. Colmon was nothing to them."

  Iggy rapped the table twice. "They didn't get along with the Fatherlord. I saw that over and over. I think you're right—they think this is his war, not theirs. Revenia was everything to them. With Her gone for good . . ."

  "But She's not," Helix broke in. "I told you. She's alive."

  "Helix," Seth said, not ungently. "I saw it. Kai killed Her. He died to get it done."

  Helix swiveled his head toward Seth. "And I saw it too, Seth. She's alive. It was in the foothills of the Tears, west of the Wolfwood. A little village. I saw it. She's there."

  "Do the Mal'shedaal know that?" Isaic asked.

  "I doubt it," Iggy replied. "They were still in Tal'aden when we left. If they knew where Revenia was, they would have left right away."

  "There aren't that many villages in those hills," Lyseira mused. "Maybe we should go down there, find out what's going on."

  "I want Helix's vision investigated. Send a team," the King said.

  They finished the meeting an hour later. As Lyseira and the others filed out, Isaic gestured for Seth to stay. Harth closed the door behind him, leaving Seth alone with the King, Brutus, and Cort.

  "Go with Lyseira and Helix to the Valley," the King said. "I understand why your friend brought you, but I still don't want you here. If you come back again, I won't ignore it. There will be consequences."

  "If Lyseira's here, I need to be here," Seth said. "What are the consequences?"

  Isaic fumed. Seth expected a tongue-lashing, but the King surprised him.

  "I'm putting together a royal tribunal. Not related to the church—old or new. A group to handle matters of justice in my stead, acting with my authority."

  "A trial?" Seth tasted the word.

  "I need the chanters to trust me, Seth. I told you that. If you show your face here again, they'll be part of the group that judges you."

  Seth imagined Harth sitting in judgment of him, and accepted it. "That's fair. Including witnesses from Twosides—people who saw what Syntal did—would be fair, too."

  The King sighed. "Whatever happens, I won't intervene. I wash my hands of it."

  This, too, Seth accepted.

  iv. Helix

  He'd seen what Syntal did.

  He hadn't been in Twosides, but from eighty miles and several weeks away, he had seen it. He'd known the same horror as any of those who had been there. He'd watched the flesh slough from the men's bones, their blood drench the snow.

  At the time he hadn't realized that it was one of the visions he'd had, but once he heard about it from those who had been there, he knew what she'd done. It had been abhorrent. Repulsive. The culmination of years of failure to take her power seriously. In truth, he'd seen it coming long before Bishop Marcus had blinded him.

  He loved his cousin. He missed her. But in his heart, he couldn't hate Seth for killing her. He understood his friend's decision—and for that, he hated himself.

  He had tried to avoid thinking about it, shunting grief and guilt and rage all to the side, by moving to the royal palace and fantasizing about traveling to Keldale to find his father. When the king had ordered him to Colmon, it had been another way to set aside his reckoning. He would have continued to ignore it, but Seth's return to Keswick had torn the wound wide open. It was all he could do to hold on until Seth left again.

  When he heard Seth was accompanying them to the Shientel Valley, he wanted to scream.

  Can't you just leave? he railed. Do you even understand what you did? As always, his surge in emotions knocked him off-balance, threatened to plunge him into the chaos of the churn. He started walking to keep control, and found himself outside Seth's quarters in Basica Majesta.

  He saw himself open the door. Seth would be inside, seated on the floor. He would look up—mildly surprised but unruffled.

  Helix opened the door. "You can't just murder people."

  "I know."

  "She was my cousin, Seth. I knew what she was like. And—I haven't told anyone this, but I saw what she did." He stabbed a finger at his temple. "I saw it. It was horrendous. And I don't believe she had an ounce of remorse. She never did. But you can't just kill people!"

  Seth stayed silent.

  "We couldn't let her get away with it. I know that. There has to be something . . . a law, or something Harth could do, or Ben . . . but it's not your decision! Sehk'akir, you're as much of a wild knife as she is! You can't just kill people because you decide they deserve it!"

  "I know."

  "And now you just come back here? You expect everyone to act like nothing happened?"

  "No."

  "Then what?"

  "The King's justice. He's given me one more chance to exile myself, but I'm refusing it. I―"

  "Why?" Helix demanded. "Get out of her
e! Don't you understand Harth wants to kill you? Don't you understand how much I sehking hate that you're here?"

  "I do."

  "Then why?"

  "Lyseira. The Kesprey. You."

  "I don't want you here," Helix growled. "Are you even listening?"

  "But you're part of the good in the world. The things worth keeping. The things I have trouble understanding."

  Helix shook his head in disbelief.

  "It won't even matter, in the end," Seth continued. "When I return, he said he'll have me tried."

  Helix hesitated. "A trial?"

  "By chanters."

  Helix could scarcely believe the words. "And you think that's better than going into exile?"

  "I think it's justice. I accept it."

  After the door closed, Seth would return to his meditation.

  "Then it can't come soon enough," Helix said, and left.

  v. Takra

  She couldn't bear to go back.

  She dreaded opening that door to find the empty seats where her friends would never sit again. Dreaded calling on the memories of their laughing faces only to relive the visceral horror of their deaths.

  She had been ecstatic to find a home, but that home hadn't been a place of bricks and mortar; it had been a community, an uplifting round of laughter, a constant, shared celebration of success.

  They had held Colmon against the Church. But there was no one to celebrate their success now.

  The tearful reunions and wild cheers from the market square faded behind her first. The sun followed in a few hours, darkening the Keswick streets, but the city's celebrations continued—seen in the defiant light spilling from every window and the bawdy, drunken anthems that poured from tavern doors. She wandered between them like a ghost, numb and displaced.

  Solon had tried to comfort her on the trip home. He'd looked out for her like a father, hovering and fretting. Under his care she'd been able to hold herself together, on the outside at least, but it was the longing to see her grandfather again that had truly kept her going. Maybe she had secretly planned to confess everything that happened in Colmon to him at their reunion dinner. Maybe she had dreamt that he would understand, relate some old story of his time in the army or an anecdote about her father. Maybe she had been desperate for it.