Destruction. Annihilation.
Undoing.
With a scream that was part roar and part howl, Jherrick focused himself in the Void. A pure instinct, his own form suddenly flared in the Void like a falling star. Jherrick roared into being, as a sigil flared in his mind. Violet like the endless dusk, it was made of stars woven together, sharing energy in a curling, complex formation that seared outward. Luminous, made of a substance as ephemeral and star-shot as Flavian’s eyes, the sigil flared – and the tendrils of the devourer were not expelled from Jherrick, but consumed. Jherrick felt the formation he battled scream in the vast night of time, furious. Then it gave up pursuit, its red-eyed presence misting into the Void as the vision of Olea dissipated upon a chill wind.
“What in Halsos?!” Jherrick gasped, shaking with the horror of the encounter, and the terror of his own sudden power in the Void.
Beware what you ask for, kid. Aldris’ voice was solemn in the darkness, the magnificent presence still standing tall behind Jherrick. You wished for Olea, well you got her. The manifestation you wanted – of your darkest desires. But learn this about desire, and learn it well: there are a million things out there that will use your desires against you.
“But that thing – that thing is worse than all of them, isn’t it?” Jherrick rasped. Clutching his chest, he felt true pain where the thing had woven its substance through him – as if it had actually damaged his terror-stricken heart.
Bingo. Not-Aldris chuckled in the dark. You asked to awaken, and you got it. You want truth? Here’s the hardest truth of all. Your wyrria knows the Void, kid. It can feel death, and creatures that have suffered worse fates. There’s light out there, too, but fresh meat is fresh meat. And the things that linger out there will want you, before you know what the fuck you’re doing. Before you learn how to protect yourself and make your intentions truly manifest.
“What do you mean?” Jherrick’s loins crawled, the evil’s touch tingling through his body. Jherrick turned his head in the dark, though he could only see the presence that spoke to him as a glimmer of violet light on the edge of a moon-dark vastness. The being that guided him had Aldris’ sass, but Jherrick knew it was a part of his own consciousness, this edged shadow spread out behind him in the otherworld.
In the dark, he felt it smile. You’ll figure it all out. You’ll have to, and quickly. Stay open, learn what you can from the teachers you are blessed to be around. Your journey will take you into the depths of the dark, for only then can you understand your true power. You’re right: that thing is worse than everything else, but then again, it’s not. It’s in all of us, a part of us – just like it was in Olea, too. When the right moment rests in your palms, you’ll open them to find you know more than you ever thought you would, and can do more, than you could ever imagine.
A light touch came upon Jherrick’s left shoulder, encouraging him to stand. With it came a searing pain as if something had cut him, though the pain soon passed. With shaky limbs, Jherrick rose to his feet, a shiver passing through him. His consciousness’ words were mystery, a labyrinth for him to walk, but where Jherrick had only been alone in his life, he suddenly felt held. Held fast by the shoulders, his steps encouraged – to begin what he was here to do.
With that understanding, Jherrick knew his trial had come to an end. Moving back toward the stone stairs, the climb back up was wrenching in his current state. Gasping, he struggled up stair after stair, his stomach heaving bile at its insistence that he do anything but try to move. Jherrick was nothing if not stubborn, fighting his way up. Bracing upon the wall, he slid along it, lifting his leaden legs to the top landing.
Arriving at the tomb’s entrance, all his woes vanished as he blinked up at the luminous dusk. The world opened to a velvet violet above and all around. Standing in the open air, in the beauty of the living world once more, Jherrick felt an enormous expansion through himself and all around, like the spread of the goddess’ massive wings in the thrilling evening.
He’d made it. He’d gone to death’s door and come back. To the realms of the Void where all things are non-distinct, where one is everything and everywhere.
As Jherrick leaned in the sepulcher’s entrance, he experienced the world anew. No longer did the realm of the Noldarum feel flat and lifeless. No longer was it filled with an impenetrable mist. The entire realm was now translucent like flawless crystal, shimmering with facets that caused the cosmos to be magnified a thousandfold. Everywhere he looked, the dusk was alight with color, with sound, with the breath of a thousand galaxies and a million worlds. From the Noldarum’s realm, Jherrick could see the universe, with depth and prescience. Around him shimmered diamonds of life in the pearl-violet sigh of evening’s dying, and it smote Jherrick’s soul.
Crystalline. Perfect.
Jherrick collapsed to his knees in the egress of the cave, obliterated by beauty, marveling at how sightless he had been before, to have thought this sacred realm filled with only autumnal color and lifeless mist. He barely noticed that Noldrones Flavian had approached and was now kneeling before him, peering into Jherrick’s eyes with his infinite starlight ones. Jherrick could see now that Flavian’s eyes reflected the entirety of the magnificence that surrounded the Sanctuary’s realm. As if they were one, the Void and Flavian’s inner self, radiating out through his eyes as he stared upon the vastness of all that is.
As Jherrick hitched a sob, the Herald of the Noldarum cupped Jherrick’s face in his kind warm palms. “Now, Jherrick den’Tharn, do you see? Now do you understand the fullness of the Void and everything that lies beyond death, beyond time, and beyond the body? Are you reborn, resurrected, a babe seeing the Void anew in all its glory?”
“Yes.” Jherrick could barely breathe it. Tears slid down his cheeks, shimmering like drops of crystal as they tracked down his skin. “It’s beautiful—!”
Brother Flavian gave a nod, a smile upon his perfect lips. “Then welcome, Noldrones Jherrick of the Noldarum – to the Way of the Dusk, the Path of the Dead, and the fullness of the Void.”
With easy grace, Flavian slid an arm underneath Jherrick’s shoulder and hauled him up. Flavian helped Jherrick stumble back the way they’d come yesterday, toward the amphitheater and the ascending staircase, as the entire citadel of luminous domes and spires reflected the magnitude of the blissful universe – not a trace of mist in sight.
Jherrick was still vastly weak as they ascended through the galactic night, leaning heavily on Flavian. Gradually, he became aware of a dull, throbbing pain upon his left shoulder, and recalled the sensation of having been cut during his death-journey. Glancing down, he saw there was indeed a long, shallow cut upon his skin, weeping slow runnels of blood as it flared his Khehemni Bloodmark – the Broken Circle he’d been given upon swearing his allegiances far too young.
The slow runnels of blood fascinated Jherrick’s mind, absorbing his thoughts as Flavian walked him up another set of stairs. He hardly noticed when they arrived at Flavian’s sanctuary with the gazing-pool and the oculus of woven vines high above. Living green whispered around Jherrick in the night, little white flowers breathing a heady jasoune scent through the world. The scents of iron blood, rancid fever-sweat, and heady perfume disoriented Jherrick, sending him spiraling out to all those galaxies far above the oculus.
He hadn’t even noticed that Flavian had helped him step into the oculus-pool. He hadn’t felt it when Flavian brought him down gently to his knees in the luminous water – reflecting the dark infinity above – and began sluicing Jherrick’s wound. Ecstasy shivered through Jherrick, at the water’s touch upon his cut. He fell back, caught by Flavian, and was lowered to his back in the shallow pool.
Breathing deeply, Jherrick stared up at the sky, watching the night whirl. Pain seeped out of his shoulder as Flavian let him be, moving to the side of the pool and no longer touching Jherrick. His back on stone, his chest and abdomen bared to the air, Jherrick breathed in the slow tides of the universe, and it breathed with him, aro
und him – through the water, through the stone. He felt the poison of his life easing away to the vastness. As he looked to his shoulder, he saw the crimson of his allegiance slipping out of his skin upon spreading blossoms of blood. Where his Khehemni Ink flowed out, the water flared briefly in a luminous, shifting violet, then sighed away.
At last, it was gone. Deep peacefulness engulfed Jherrick and he heaved a sigh; content. Staring back to the midnight sky, he watched all of life and time, and wondered what was to be found out there – and how many universes he might have to travel to find it.
CHAPTER 16 – DHERRAN
The night was deep, Dherran’s room in Delennia’s manor silent but for the crackle of flames in the ample fireplace. He sat in his crimson silk robe, staring at her dumbly as she poured another round of wine into their goblets. She had just told him that he quite possibly had the power to bring down her sister the Vhinesse, and to change futures. By heart magic – jinne wyrdi – something so ancient that Dherran had never even heard of it.
“You want me to bring the Vhinesse down?” Dherran felt utterly confused, and it made him irate. “What about the Bitterlance?”
“If Arlen needs help I’ll go save his ass, but Arlen didn’t have what it took to resist my sister. He could resist my advances to some degree, so I thought he’d be safe in that throne hall. But if you can resist me,” a smile lifted the edges of Delennia’s lips, “your heart magic may be strong enough to resist Aelennia. Which would be a tremendously rare thing.”
“You want me to take up your failed coup on the Vhinesse?”
Sitting with her legs crossed in her peacock-blue dressing-gown, Delennia swirled her goblet, her pale gaze thoughtful upon Dherran. “Grunnach is a sneaky sewer-rat, but he knows when the tides of nations turn – just like rats run from fire sweeping through a ship. If he’s betting on you and Arlen, I would be a fool not to listen.”
Dherran paused, uncertain, but before he could say anything else, the latch to the through-door lifted. Still in his lord’s attire of the night, Grump hauled it open from the other side, his grey eyes a-twinkle. “O-ho! I thought so. But it’s not just Dherran and Arlen I’m betting on, Delennia. It’s also yourself. And Khenria here.”
Grump moved into the room, Khenria on his heels in her crimson bath-robe and looking strangely flustered. Dherran rose to face them, but as he pulled Khenria into his arms, she peeped irritably, twisting away.
“You’re squishing me, Dherran.”
“Sorry.” He eased back, loosening his arms, concerned that maybe she had heard something of his earlier encounter with Delennia. Khenria was looking past Dherran to Delennia, her gaze riveted upon the woman at the dining table – not angry like Dherran might have thought, but with a mixture of scrutiny and trepidation.
“Let us all sit and have some wine, and talk about things to come.” Grump beckoned to chairs, pouring wines all around with a cat-got-the-cream grin on his face, smug as thugs. Delennia declined a chalice, already sipping her own wine.
Dherran lifted an eyebrow as he sat beside Khenria. “You knew something like this would happen, didn’t you, Grump?”
“No man can see the fates, Dherran,” Grump chuckled. “Only linger upon their ephemeral tails. But much, I do believe, will come out tonight. Khenria, it’s your turn to have a revelation. Or give one, really.”
“What’s this?” Delennia looked sharply to Grump, then Khenria.
Khenria’s gaze rested upon Delennia for a long moment. Her brows knit. She cocked her head and opened her lips, then paused. A moment seemed to stretch between them, Delennia narrowing her eyes now, perusing every inch of Khenria’s face and form. Suddenly, Dherran realized that the two looked incredibly alike. Though one had the silver mane of Valenghia and solid muscle while the other was wan and black-curled, they both had the same sharp chin, exquisite neck and collarbones, the same cutting cheeks and almond eyes.
“Tell me, girl. Where were you born?” Delennia spoke at last, something soft in her voice.
“You can trust her, Khenria,” Grump prattled gently, “as well as you could Arlen. In fact, you might find your story has an interesting connection. Quite.”
Grump was still smiling his cheshire grin. Sensing something tremendous was amiss, but not knowing what, Dherran reached out to clasp Khenria’s hand. She stared down at it, then took the deep breath of her Alrashemni training, her eyes flicking up to Delennia as she squared her shoulders.
“I was born to a royal house of Valenghia,” Khenria began, holding Delennia’s gaze, “spirited away as a baby and raised among the Menderian Alrashemni at the Court of Dhemman. I don’t know why, only that my Valenghian mother would have been persecuted as an Alrashemni sympathizer because her baby was born with Alrashemni coloring, rather than the silver hair of Valenghian royalty. I never knew my parents, but Grump knew them,” she nodded to him, “and says he stole me away when I was an infant. At the mother’s request, whom she told no-one. Though Grump took it upon himself to inform the father. Arlen den’Selthir.”
Shock smote Dherran as he gaped at Khenria, not having known that part about Arlen. She’d told Dherran her history when they’d been in the Heathren Bog, but this was a piece he wasn’t even sure she had known until recently. Certainly, she would have shared it with him. But as Dherran’s gaze flicked to Grump, watching the man grin with pleasure, Dherran suddenly knew that this was Grump’s second ace. The secret that he’d known would throw Delennia right into the fighting ring for them, a second secret she couldn’t possibly resist.
A secret he’d not even told Khenria until tonight.
Delennia’s goblet had come to rest upon the table. She was very still. So still that she looked carven out of marble, her eyes wide in the firelight. Slowly, that brutal, astounded gaze moved over Khenria – over every inch of her.
“Lovely, isn’t she?” Grump’s murmur held amusement, but also tenderness. “Your daughter turned out to be a fighter, Delennia, just like both her parents. And full of surprises that I’m sure you’d be proud to hear of.”
Delennia’s pale eyes filled with a luminous shine. Slowly, she rose from the table. Walking around to Khenria, she knelt by the young woman’s chair. Reaching out, she touched Khenria’s face. Her lips had fallen open, her eyes filled with pain, and joy. “Kaelennia! Daughter of my loins! I knew there was something about you from the moment I saw you in the crowd!”
Khenria swallowed. Her eyes flicked to Grump, and he nodded solemnly in confirmation, his hands clasped upon the tabletop. “Khenria. When you were very small, I was tasked with a singular duty. To take a little royal baby born out of Alrashemni-Khehemni wedlock away from Valenghia where she would be killed, to Alrou-Mendera, and there surrender her into an Alrashemni family of Delennia Oblitenne’s trust. Your mother couldn’t keep you. Her sister the Vhinesse had heard of the birth and was hunting you to punish Delennia for her part in the almost-coup eighteen years ago. So I took you, to aid your father and mother, and when the Kingsmen Summons happened and you disappeared, I spent every grey hair I had hunting for you. To find you and bring you back home. Back to the great warriors whose lineage you bear. You are a Vhiniti, a tendril of the vine. A royal princess of Valenghia, in competition for the throne.”
Khenria’s eyes were enormous, but the way she held perfectly still told Dherran that Grump had informed her of this tale already, during their confidence earlier. Khenria’s gaze flicked to Delennia, still kneeling by her chair, then back to Grump. “And Arlen? Did he know me while I was there, training with him? Did he know us back at the inn in Vennet?”
“Arlen knew.” Grump murmured, tenderness in his gaze as he reached out to take her hand. Khenria pulled her hand away, though, and Grump settled his back upon the table. “Not at first, but after he caught me, I told him. He’d suspected it, though, seeing us traveling together, knowing your age, seeing your profile, so like Delennia’s. That you were being trained to fight by a Kingsman. Which is why he took such an interest
in you in Vennet.”
“But Arlen wanted you caught.” Dherran stared at Grump now, incredulous. “Punished for your crimes against the Alrashemni. Why would he want to punish you if you saved his daughter?”
“Did I?” Grump’s gaze was dire, an ancient woe lining his face. “What worse crime is there, Dherran my lad, than losing a royal child you were oath-sworn to protect? Born of both nations, who could have united two countries torn by war? Letting her be kidnapped and suffer cruelty and wander the wilds? I have much to atone for. Arlen was right to be furious with me.”
Dherran stared at Khenria. He couldn’t quite wrap his head around it, but looking at her now, at that fierce profile and that stern, hawkish gaze, he suddenly saw the woman she would grow into. A combination of the woman who kneeled beside her and the impeccably righteous Alrashemni Vicoute – Arlen den’Selthir.
“Why did you let me go?” Khenria’s eyes gathered tears, shining in the firelight. “Why didn’t you keep me?”
“If you had stayed, Aelennia would have killed you,” Delennia murmured, her eyes shining fiercely as she reached up to stroke Khenria’s cheek. “She had disbanded my House’s army – I could do nothing to protect you. Fratricide is forbidden in the royal families of Valenghia, but killing a child born out of wedlock is due course. Such children are seen as impure, especially ones that do not hold the royal coloring. Aelennia would have been justified in the courts, to seize you and murder you as her revenge upon me. My only option was to send you with Grunnach, the only man I knew who could escape all notice – and thence to a family in Alrou-Mendera.”
“Why didn’t Arlen keep me?” Khenria’s eyes were full of tears. She blinked and they shed down her flushed cheeks.
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