by H. L. Burke
Frorian animals tended to wander between these points of light, herds of moss-elk staying long enough to eat the grass or strip trees of leaves before moving on to the next starshard and allowing the plants to regrow. Wolves would follow the elk.
The animals Kay and his men encountered, however, were walking further into the darkness, along paths that would lead them away from rather than towards any known starshards. Both large animals, like moss-elk, and small, such as squirrels and stoats, were wandering to inevitable death by starvation and cold. When approached, they’d attack blindly, mad and thoughtless with no regard for their own safety.
Though he’d never seen it in his lifetime, Kay had heard about this illness: the dark tether. The creatures had somehow been exposed to evil spirits, corrupting powers leaking out of the Lingering Dark, like infection spreading through a wound.
If such a tear existed in the boundary between the mortal realm and the Lingering Dark, Kay needed to find and close it.
“There’s something off in the air,” grunted Idyne, the third member of Kay’s group. He was about Kay’s age, red-bearded, and surly. A useful fighter when his temper was in check. “I can’t put my speartip on it, but whatever it is, I don’t trust it.”
“Neither do I.” Kay scanned the slopes of the valley, charting a way down that skirted the clouds. “We need to stay close together. We don’t know what we’ll find down there.”
The men formed a line, Kay at the lead, Frole bringing up the rear. Every few steps, Kay poked at the ground before him with a pole. With the thick layer of white covering the landscape, crevices could easily hide. However, the terrain here proved solid, and they made the valley floor without incident.
Frole scanned the skies. “I don’t like this. Even with the clouds, we should be able to see the starshard from here.”
“Could we be further away than we think we are?” Crede asked, his tremulous tone belying his hopeful words. Kay winced inwardly. Maybe he’d been wrong and Crede was still too young for this sort of mission. Still, the youth couldn’t stay soft-skinned forever. Time to make some calluses.
“Not unless the skies have changed or I’ve forgotten my starcharting,” Frole snorted. “How do we proceed, Starwarden?”
Kay exhaled, and his breath fogged before him. Anything could be hidden in that soup of clouds, and the flat, sloping valley leading up to it offered no cover. “We go in, stay close together, and see if we can find the rift. Once we have found it, you three watch my back while I close it.” He snapped his fingers, summoning a spark of starlight. “If there were any animals in the area when the rift appeared, they might have been corrupted into grims. Even a stoat or a squirrel is dangerous under that influence. Keep your eyes and ears open and watch each other’s backs.”
The group moved forward. A low, whistling wind swept across the landscape, spitting flakes of fine snow into Kay’s face. He tugged his hood lower and put his head down. Shoulders squared against the elements, the men tramped across the snow. Soon the clouds loomed before them like a bulwark. The hairs on Kay’s scalp rose as an uneasy energy washed over him, like a combination of spider-legs on his skin and the sensation he got when he woke up having slept heavily on one arm. Beside him, Crede whimpered.
“Who brought shard lanterns?” Kay asked as his men gaped up at the wall of lurid vapor.
Frole and Idyne dug in their packs before bringing out their lanterns: metal hooks attached to fist-sized starshard fragments. When they fastened these to their packs, comforting circles of light spread out from the lanterns. Crede’s posture noticeably relaxed.
Kay nodded his approval. “Stay alert. We need to find the rift, close it, and get back to camp.”
With one last breath of cold clear air, the small group plunged into the darkness.
The fog prickled against Kay’s skin like a thousand marsh-gnat bites. His shoulders hunched, but he pressed forward.
The faint light from the shard lanterns chased the darkness away, though tendrils of mist occasionally snaked into the light, reaching for the men’s ankles. Crede gasped and leaped to the side when one such strand wrapped about his boot. He shook it off, and it broke apart like smoke on the breeze.
“It’s like it’s alive,” he whispered.
“Some say it is.” Idyne scowled. “Darks spirits spreading foul magic.”
Crede’s mouth dropped open. “But it looks like smoke.”
“It’s just a legend. Not sure if it has any merit.” Idyne shrugged. “They also say the starshards are full of star spirits, and I’ve never seen proof of that either.”
“That’s actually true,” Kay interrupted. He remembered during the heartbond ceremony, when the light from a starshard had come alive with a thousand bell-like voices.
The men all looked at him.
“I guess you would know, sir,” Crede said.
Kay cleared his throat and scanned the darkness. Unable to see more than a few feet in any given direction, it was hard to tell whether they were headed the right way or not.
Something crunched underfoot, drawing Kay’s attention. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and looked again. Instead of the thick covering of snow and ice prevalent in the frozen wastes, he now stood upon grass. Holding up his hand, he paused his group so he could kneel to examine it. It was stiff and brittle beneath his touch, flash-frozen. He scratched at his beard. The starshard had been here, then, providing enough light and heat for grass to grow—but something had happened.
He stood again and waved his men forward. A few more steps, and they found themselves in a grove of trees, their leaves covered in a heavy coat of ice. The men grew quiet, shuffling along behind him.
“Look!” Frole hissed, pointing forward. “Is that a light?”
Kay squinted. A faint flicker penetrated the fog somewhere to their right. “Weapons ready,” he said.
They trudged on, through frozen flora that couldn’t have been dead long considering the lack of snow-cover. Finally they reached a crystal as tall as a man, radiating a sickly green light, but with a feeble silver glow still quavering at its heart. Kay’s chest tightened.
Approaching the shard, he chanced removing one of his gloves, exposing his skin to the freezing cold. He channeled magic into his fingertips and touched the surface of the starshard. A gentle energy pulsed into him, like the frantic heartbeat of a dying animal. He drew it into his core, absorbing the light and easing the star spirits out of their corrupted home. The light went out, but the lifeforce of the spirits remained within him. A feeling of relief coursed through him. He’d spared at least some of them a sad, lingering death.
“Was this the starshard that lit this oasis?” Crede asked.
Kay shook his head and redonned his glove. “It’s too small. A starshard this size would only be able to warm a space a few yards across, hardly enough for all those trees we passed.” Kay bit his lip. “Unfortunately, I think it was part of the starshard.”
Frole recoiled. “You’re saying it ... exploded?”
“Shattered at least.” Kay motioned towards the top of the crystal which was jagged. “Naturally forming starshards are curved and arched. This one was obviously broken off of a larger shard. The edges are ragged.”
“What could’ve done that?” Crede’s voice quavered.
“The rift?” Frole asked.
Kay adjusted his hood. “I guess. I’ve never seen a rift open on a starshard before. Normally they’re far from them because the light naturally fights against it.” Dread settled in his chest. For a rift to open with such strength that not even a starshard could drive the darkness back, there had to have been a lot of power behind it. Perhaps someone guiding the power. Could they be dealing with another sorcerer? Or had Athan somehow returned already?
“Let’s keep moving. We need to find where the rift opens.” They strode further into the darkness, passing more dead trees, brittle grass, and even dead animals, squirrels and elk lying stiff and cold upon the ground.
&nb
sp; “Where do you think the rift is?” Crede asked.
“My guess, near the center of this, where the starshard used to be.”
“I don’t see ...”
Kay took another step forward and Crede’s voice cut off mid-sentence. The light from Idyne and Frole’s starshards went out like a snuffed candle plunging Kay into darkness.
Heart leaping into his throat, he stumbled back a step. His boots clacked against hard, cold stone. No grass, no ice, only bare, slick rock.
“Frole?” he called out through clenched teeth. “Idyne? Crede? Shout out!”
There was no answer except for the faint echo of his own voice. Swallowing, Kay held out his hand. His magic sparked in his blood, an energizing tingle that warmed his skin until light radiated through his glove in the form of a single, silver-white orb.
A courtyard stretched out before him. Toppled down walls of massive stones loomed on all four sides, with no sign of doors or windows. The walls ended at cragged peaks above which swirled ominous dark clouds. The cold air somehow felt heavy, pressing down on him from all sides.
He let out a long breath. Where was he?
“Hello?” he called out.
A shadow stirred in the corner, and he drew his sword with his right hand, holding the light-orb out in front of him with his left.
The darkness twisted like ropes braiding together, growing taller. Kay considered traveling, but not knowing where he was, it would be too hard to be certain of his safety upon arrival. He had a strange sense that he’d gone a lot farther than the few yards he’d remembered walking.
“Show yourself!” he barked.
The dark presence glided forward. A stone’s throw from Kay, it solidified into a man in a black hood. Gray, cadaverous skin surrounded glinting dark eyes, eyes that flicked over Kay like a carrionbird considering a carcass.
“Interesting: a starcaster like myself.” The man extended a skeletal hand. Light flickered to life in his palm, but it had a sickly green tinge to it. Kay’s tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. His family had done everything in their power to keep starcasting limited to the royal line, avoiding the siring of heirs beyond those essential to continuing the bloodline and forbidding the few accidents, such as himself, from marrying or siring children.
“Where am I?” Kay growled.
“You must be Kajik, the cruel joke fate played on my usually cautious brother.” The strange man chuckled.
Kay’s heart blocked his throat. No, it couldn’t be ... he was dreaming. Had he somehow hit his head stumbling about in the mists?
“How do you know me?”
“I have my methods. Even in this prison, there are ways to reach out to those who would communicate with me. I may have never met you, but I know much about you, son of Evyd.” Athan—for who else could this be—crossed his arms and the sickly light extinguished. Kay channeled his magic steadily into his own orb. He needed that light, the connection to the outside world.
Connection ...
Arynne! He hadn’t considered their heartbond. Could she still feel him through it? Searching his mind, he reached out for her, but the strands of heart-magic were faint, strong enough only for a glimmer of love to shine through. Well, that was something.
He took a step back. If he’d somehow fallen through the cracks into the Lingering Dark, he needed to find a way out again ... but he also needed to avoid Athan following him through whatever hole he’d found.
“How did you bring me here?” He glared at the sorcerer.
Athan shrugged. “I didn’t bring you here. In fact, you haven’t gone anywhere. You’re still standing on your two feet in the middle of the snowy wastes of Frorheim.” Athan stretched out his right hand, and a beam of light shone from it, reaching the ground. He leaned upon this beam as if it had been a solid staff. “The boundary between the mortal world and the Lingering Dark is weak enough here that I can project images, visions if you will, to those with a blood link to me, such as yourself. I can’t move through it, however, and I certainly don’t have the power to drag you through—though maybe with a little effort, you could bring me to you.” A thin smile crept over his gaunt face.
“I’d sooner die!” Kay snapped.
“So dramatic.” Athan clicked his tongue. He pushed back his hood revealing stringy gray hair. In the glow from Kay’s star-orb, some resemblance to Evyd could be distinguished, in that Athan looked like Kay assumed Evyd would if the old man had died a week ago and been left out to be weathered by the frozen winds in the wastes rather than properly buried. Decades spent in the Lingering Dark obviously weren’t great for one’s overall health and appearance.
“You nearly destroyed Frorheim. I won’t let you try again.” Kay focused on the heartbond. If he could somehow sharpen his awareness of it, the one thing he was certain came from the real world rather than this dreary hellscape Athan projected, perhaps he could snap himself back to reality and escape Athan’s scrutiny.
“I have little interest in destroying Frorheim—just in righting the wrongs done to me, punishing those who betrayed me—people who, if I am correct, have also harmed you.” Athan narrowed his eyes. “Or should I say person?”
Kay’s stomach twisted. “My father is out of your reach.”
“But you know who I meant.” Athan took a step closer, the light-cane tapping upon the rocky floor. “I can end him, you know, allow you to return to your home to be with your sweet dark-skinned beauty—your Sun Princess.”
Kay recoiled. “How ... ?”
“I told you, I have connections. I know that you love the girl chosen for your brother—even as I coveted the throne meant for my brother.”
Kay snorted. “A bride and a throne are hardly identical desires.”
“Perhaps, but the longing is the same.” Athan closed his eyes. “That deep-seated, heart-rending hunger that consumes you every waking moment, lying down to sleep in the dimming, exhausted, but unable to rest because your brain is afire with lust for what you cannot have. The frustration of knowing that if you had what you desire, you would treat it so much better, make so much better use of it, than those who do have it but take it for granted.”
Kay’s heart faltered. He remembered Olyn’s lukewarm response to Arynne, how he’d never wanted her, not in the way Kay did—and yet Arynne was to be given to Olyn ...
A jolt of self-awareness hit Kay, and he shook his head, pushing aside the doubts. “Let me go.”
“As I said, you’re right where I found you.” Athan patted his mouth with a spurious yawn. “But that is right where I need you to be. We have a connection, Kajik. We are one and the same.”
“I am nothing like you!” Kay snarled, wishing he were more sure of his own claim.
“Are you sure? Like you, I was unwanted. My parents wished for a single son, but all their magic couldn’t prevent my conception, nor my birth as a male.” His eyes shot open like dark flames flickering to life. “I had a destiny, to rip away the hold of the royal line on starcasting magic, to free it to be held by more than one man with the kingdom at his mercy ... and for that, I was scorned.”
“That and for attempting to plunge our homeland into cold and darkness.” Kay rolled his eyes. “You know, the little things.”
“Silence!” Athan rasped. “I have sparse time, and I will not spend it listening to inanity. You, also, defied magic to be here, pulled into this world by fate to fulfil a purpose against your father’s wishes. We are one, Kajik. We share blood. We share magic. We share a destiny.”
“I am not interested in your lies,” Kay snapped. “I would never betray—”
“Betray what? The father who never wanted you? Who would have killed you if his council had allowed it?” Athan sighed. “Poor, deceived boy. I can offer you everything you want. Your princess as your bride, your father dead at your feet as payment for his many crimes against you, and the throne—” He eased closer. “It is too late for me to sire an heir. Help me take Frorheim, and you will rule by my side.”
>
Kay’s throat tightened. “And Olyn?”
“Your brother?” Athan snorted. “Has he really ever done more than humor you? Hasn’t he always sided with your father in action, even as he eased your fears with empty words?”
Kay stiffened.
“You and I can rule the Starspire, but I need your help, your blood.” Athan extended his hand. A spark of light played about his fingers before solidifying into a blade. “Your blood is my blood, Prince Kajik, for we are of the same doom, bound by the same stars. Your blood has the power to open the doorway between Frorheim and the Lingering Dark, to free me.”
Kay braced himself, his hand tightened around his sword hilt. “You’re not getting a drop of my blood.”
Arynne, I need you. Where are you? Like a drowning man clutching at a rope, Kay latched onto the heartbond and focused on it.
“If that doesn’t appeal to you, perhaps another route?” A cold smile curled Athan’s lips. “The sacrifice of another magic user of similar power, such as your father, could also free me. If you and your girl would consult together, to end King Evyd’s life, we could work with that. You can keep your own blood. Just shed your father’s.”
“I’m not a murderer,” Kay snarled. “And I wouldn’t so much as kill a seedmouse to help you.”
“You say that now, but if you tasted the power I could offer you, your soul would crave it like a drunkard thirsting after wine.” Athan put out his hand, fingertips aglow once more with that same unwholesome light. Somehow Kay knew if it touched him, even if this were all a vision, it would be bad, very bad.