Goldenmark

by Jean Lowe Carlson

  “He didn’t know.” Grump cut in, his voice low and sad. “Not until I told him later. And then he did what he could behind the scenes, keeping a watch on you in Dhemman as you grew up among the Alrashemni.”

  “He was a fool,” Delennia spat from a vicious tongue, “not claiming her when he found out!”

  “A man’s heart is a tender thing, Delennia.” Grump’s words were very soft.

  “A man’s heart is nothing.” Rising from her crouch by Khenria’s chair, she rounded upon Grump. “He could have protected her in my stead!”

  “Arlen is a good man,” Khenria bristled. “He may not have been there for me growing up, but he’s made up for it in recent months. Training me. Teaching me of war, and ruling a nation with fairness and balance.”

  Dherran’s eyebrows rose. He’d not known Khenria was taking private lessons with Arlen, studying such things, and yet, it made sense. She had grown more commanding, more calm and weighing of situations under Arlen’s care, rather than jumping into her rash temper. Khenria had grown into a woman in the weeks they had trained under Arlen den’Selthir – and apparently, had been groomed to rule as much as Dherran had been groomed to lead an army.

  He stared at her, suddenly wondering about the young hawk before him. “So what now?”

  “Now,” Delennia stared down at her daughter. “We have two aces. But you knew that, didn’t you, Grunnach?”

  “What does an old sewer-rat know?” Grump chuckled, sipping from his goblet.

  “Much.” Delennia’s gaze pinned Grump. “You knew only a Child of the Sands could truly command the touch of an Oblitenne.”

  Grump lifted his goblet, saluting Delennia before drinking.

  “Excuse me?” Dherran spoke, feeling this discussion involved him again.

  “Wyrria, Dherran,” Grump chuckled. “Oblitenne magic – the ability to seduce a man’s heart with a touch or a glance or a laugh. Oblitenne magic is an odd variation of Scorpion wyrria, the magic of the Kreth-Hakir Brethren – though they tend to not conscript Oblitennes into their order, as it has gone disastrously wrong for them in the past. Khenria has Oblitenne magic, from her mother’s line, but interestingly enough, Khenria carries two ancient strains of wyrria. From her father, she has acquired Werus et Khehem wyrria, the battle-magic of the ancient Kings of Khehem. Arlen hates to admit it, but he has a Khehemni ancestor far down his line somewhere. Though his wyrria is latent, it’s still palpable – still enough to make him a demon in battle.”

  “Arlen has Khehemni wyrria?” Dherran blinked. It made sense, suddenly. Why the man would have the Khehemni wolf and dragon emblem carven into his training-room wall, even though he was Alrashemni. Why he was sympathetic to bringing his and Delennia’s forces together as the Bitterlance. To unite two sides of an ancient war – that had borne misbegotten children over the ages. Bloodlines no longer pure on any side, but a hatred that still reigned culturally, depending on where one was raised.

  Grump gave a small smile, watching Dherran think. “Khenria has both strains of wyrria, Dherran, though she hasn’t learned how to use either one yet, due to a lack of available teachers. And you have the ability to resist her dynamic pull. Strong enough in your jinnic wyrria to choose your destiny around not only Oblitennes, but also around a Wolf and Dragon wyrric, like Arlen. To be the Great Boar among lesser swine. Now you will face the Vhinesse, and for all our sakes, I hope your love for Khenria is strong enough to bring that pale bitch down from her ivory throne.”

  “How—” Dherran blinked from Khenria to Grump. “How do you know all this, Grump? How do you know so much about wyrria and who carries it?”

  Grump’s smile was subtle, and something veiled came down behind his eyes. “I have my sources, Dherran. And you are not high up enough in the game to understand why I must hide my reasons from you. Only know that I have been trained, long ago, to sense such things.”

  Dherran’s gaze narrowed upon Grump. “Does this have something to do with how you were able to hide Khenria and I from those Kreth-Hakir on the road near Vennet?”

  “Something like that.” The smile had dropped from Grump’s face now, and his gaze pressed Dherran, his next words soft. “The less you know right now, Dherran, the safer you are. If my enemies captured you... they would rip your mind apart, searching for my secrets. Please. Ask me no more questions just now. You and Khenria are safer, if you know as little about me as possible.”

  “Are you still being hunted by the Khehemni?” Dherran blinked, concerned.

  Grump’s gaze was penetrating. “I am always being hunted Dherran. And the out-riders of the Khehemni Lothren are the least of my worries.”

  Dherran sat back, something cold roiling in his gut. Holding Grump’s gaze, he could feel truth in the man’s words, and yet, he still couldn’t trust someone that held so many secrets from him. Dherran bit back a growl, crossing his arms, processing. Khenria reached out, setting a hand to his arm. Dherran took a breath. It was almost as if he could feel it, a soothing balm pouring from her, like something she didn’t even know she was using. Sometimes it was roaring for a fight, and Dherran realized that that part of Khenria affected him, too. But different from Delennia, he didn’t see any threads or wyrric mist curling out from Khenria in his mind’s eye.

  As if she was something different, even from the two ancient strains of magic that ran through her veins.

  Khenria’s lovely dark eyes searched his, and at last, Dherran sighed. “You just embrace all this? Like it’s the most normal thing in the world?”

  “To me, it is,” she stated simply, her dark eyes honest. “I feel all these dynamics inside me, Dherran, all the time. I know when I’m able to seduce someone, or wind them up and make them strike. But I just don’t know... how to control it. Even Arlen couldn’t help me there, though he taught me how to think clearly through it, and you did also. I don’t have to be at the mercy of the magics that ride my veins, Dherran. But I still don’t know how to use them.”

  “And she won’t,” Grump chimed in, with a glance to Delennia, “until she has a proper teacher.”

  “I can only teach my daughter how to use Oblitenne wyrria,” Delennia spoke, tapping the table with one finger. “She’ll need to find someone else to teach her how to corral Khehemni conflict wyrria into something useful. It’s very rare now, even to the Lothren’s knowledge.”

  Delennia and Grump shared a long look. At last, Grump sighed. “In any case, Dherran my lad, we must move our own plans forward without the help of magics, for now. Except, apparently, yours.”

  “But,” Dherran paused, trying to take it all in. “How am I supposed to bring down the Vhinesse? Do we even have a plan? What do I do? I didn’t even know I had wyrria, really, and I certainly don’t know how to direct it.”

  “One move at a time.” Delennia’s words were calm. She returned to her seat, regarding them all with a very commanding, Arlen-esque look. “Jinnic wyrria is a spontaneous thing. It rises when it is needed, when it is tested. Aelennia will test Dherran, we can count on it. First, we will bring you before the throne, in disguise. Dherran needs to be in the same room as my sister, disguised as a petitioner airing a dispute for the Commoner’s Audience. She does not touch commoners, and will not touch him, but we will get a feel for his ability to resist her charms. If he is strong enough, we will formulate a more thorough plan – to get Dherran close enough to assassinate her. Privately. Dherran, how do you feel about becoming a kept man, for a while?”

  “For you?” He eyeballed Delennia.

  “No, not for me,” she chuckled. “The Vhinesse allows the men she keeps, her Falcons, close to her person with minimal security. It’s the only way to get close enough to assassinate her – but you’d have to play besotted with her, and you would have to acquiesce to... sleeping with her. To gain her trust, before we make our move.”

  Dherran took a breath. His gaze flicked to Khenria, saw her square her shoulders. “You have to take this chance, Dherran. If we could assassinate
the Vhinesse, we could end the war, and bring the fullness of Valenghia’s armies against Lhaurent. We could protect Arlen with the might of the Valenghian Red Valor. Protect my father.”

  Clasping her hands, Dherran found his eyes stung with tears. “I don’t want to hurt you like that, Khen. It just... it feels so wrong.”

  “Destiny comes for us all, Dherran.” Khenria’s words were soft, strained. “Whether we like it or not. I knew it, when Elyria gave us our readings at Purloch’s House. I knew then, that we would face challenges: testing from our fates. But if this is what needs to happen, to unite our world, my bloodlines, my family—” Khenria choked off, with a glance to her mother. “I have to do it.”

  Leaning in, Dherran set his forehead to hers. They shared a breath in the lowering firelight, then a gentle press of lips. “I love you,” Dherran murmured.

  “I know,” Khenria murmured back. “But we have to take this chance. We can save countless lives, Dherran.”

  “What about our love?”

  “Our love will heal. It has to.” Khenria’s words were firm, and in them, Dherran heard the echo of Arlen and Delennia both. Fighters who had risked everything for peace – and whose love had paid the price. If Delennia was willing to fight again, for her daughter and for unity between Valenghia and Alrou-Mendera – who was he to say no?

  Slinging an arm around Khenria, he turned to Delennia. “I’ll do it. Put me in the ring with the tyrant. I’ll go toe-to-toe with her, and show her who wins when I fight.”

  “Great Boar,” Delennia’s smile was ruthless. “Charge.”

  A shiver rippled up Dherran’s spine, hearing the soothsayer Elyria’s words fall from Delennia’s lips. His mind was taken back to Purloch’s House in the Heathren Bog, to that strange reading of fates he and Khenria had had at Elyria’s subtle hands and blind-seeing eyes. He and Delennia regarded each other a long moment. At last, Delennia set her palm to her chest in a Kingsman salute, and for a moment, Dherran thought he felt the bristles of a boar’s spine raise upon his neck, rippling with the charge of fate and destiny, and with his own livid passion.

  His own magic of the heart.

  CHAPTER 17 – KHOUREN

  Khouren Alodwine was watching from the walls.

  Or rather, from within a fountain.

  The day of the Abbey’s negotiation with Lhaurent den’Alrahel had come. A sprawling silk pavilion had been erected before the fountain in which Khouren waited, in the plaza near the Abbey’s main gates. Gold and white striped, the pavilion was a symbol of Lhaurent’s den’Alrahel reign rather than the cobalt and white of den’Ildrian. With open-air sides, it allowed Khouren to watch the negotiations from within the central fount of a buxom stone woman riding the back of a lion.

  Lhaurent sat in a gilded throne under the pavilion’s noontime shadow, gold and white Perthian rugs cast beneath the throne’s legs. Four Kreth-Hakir Brethren stood flanking him, faces shrouded in the depths of their herringbone hoods. Having Brethren present wasn’t part of the deal, but Khouren saw King-Protectorate Temlin den’Ildrian’s retinue approach up the Abbey’s causeway, cool and unimpressed, as Temlin claimed a seat in a modest chair beneath the awning.

  Standing at Temlin’s right with his hands laid gently on the hilts of his longknives, Ihbram wore an impenetrable expression. Dressed in a set of Greys today, Ihbram stood at attention with three other Kingsmen, flanking Temlin’s chair. Hands at their longknife hilts and swords across their backs, the other Kingsmen had wisps of white hair beneath their charcoal hoods. Expendable. Volunteered for their positions today understanding that they would likely not survive, and among them, only Ihbram had wyrria, easing out, raising shields that would protect the King-Protectorate’s retinue from Kreth-Hakir treachery. Ihbram’s ability had more than tripled in the past months, and Khouren staggered from the weight of Ihbram’s fire-tinged weave in his mind. His uncle could have been a Scorpion, had he not been shrouded from the Brethren by Fentleith long ago.

  Khouren saw one of the Kreth-Hakir raise dark eyebrows, aware of Ihbram’s mind-blocking, while another fidgeted with a hand to his knife-hilt. They could feel Ihbram’s weaves, screening off valuable information, but Ihbram was a clever mind-smith, sending threads of fire in every direction to keep the Kreth-Hakir guessing about what he concealed.

  No eyes moved to Khouren, inside the fountain. Settling in, he judged the distance to the pavilion, knowing he was far closer to the throne than the Palace Guardsmen who held back the common rabble from the plaza. Atop the Abbey’s walls, archers in grey stood at attention, looking down upon the scene below, longbows to hand and quivers full. It was a show of strength, yet it was also a farce – as much as the three ancient Kingsmen who attended the negotiations were. Though good fighters, those atop the walls were aged and ready to die, like Temlin’s retinue – elders who had seen enough of time. The Abbey stood nearly empty behind those gates: Jenners, Kingsmen, and defected Palace Guard shunted through to the fortress at Gerrov-Tel only hours before, along with any last supplies they could carry. Much had been left behind, only the most necessary items shunted through to the mountain fortress.

  Cool and composed beneath the pavilion, Lhaurent was clad not in grey anymore but gold and white robes that cascaded over his gilded throne. He wore the gilded ruby starburst pins of the ancient den’Alrahel line at his collar, his iron-shot dark hair oiled back from his high forehead, his beard neatly trimmed. There were no refreshments, no wine, no sham of civility. Lhaurent merely smiled his loathsome smirk as he waved a regal hand to begin the proceedings.

  “Temlin den’Ildrian.” Lhaurent raised his voice to be heard beneath the snap of the pavilion’s silk in the light autumn wind, his grey eyes glittering with subtle amusement. “I would have brought wine today, but I hear it is your weakness. How I would hate to send these negotiations awry with such temptation.”

  “How kind of you, Lhaurent, looking out for my welfare.”

  Temlin’s words held a witty bite, his eyes glinting like chips of emerald flint in the pavilion’s shade. Temlin was clad per his kingly station today, no black Jenner-robe or even Kingsmen Greys. He wore a smartly-fitted longjacket of black wool with a high collar and deep hood, reminiscent of Alrashemni garb but different, though his leather belt and boots were tooled with Kingsmen symbols. Over that, Temlin wore a suit of lightweight armor that shone a silvered white in the shade, made of a metal Khouren had never seen. The curious metal flowed over his longjacket and fit his body like chain links, though it was solid plate. Temlin wore a matching set of weapons to the parlay, and Lhaurent eyed them with critical disdain. A longsword with a ruby set in the pommel, made of the same metal as Temlin’s armor, was slung across his back in a leather harness, matched with two longknives of an odd sickled variety that rode Temlin’s hips.

  The overall impression Khouren had was of a lion. Ready to pounce and bite off the eel’s head.

  “Have you received my terms?” Lhaurent gestured for a document with his right hand, the ruby of Leith’s dusky white star-metal ring glinted upon his index finger. A heavy sheet of vellum was handed over by a noble dressed in grey silk with white and gold threads.

  “I have.” Temlin held out his hand, and Ihbram produced a tri-folded parchment for him from an inner breast pocket of his Greys. “And to your demands I have made answer, as succinctly as I may.”

  “And?” Lhaurent waved a hand. His noble stepped forward to retrieve Temlin’s parchment, then handed Lhaurent the document.

  “No.” Temlin crossed his arms over his chest, his green gaze hard and humorous.

  “No?” Lhaurent’s grey eyes glittered, dangerous.

  “No.”

  “To what part?”

  “All of it.” Temlin gave a growling grin. “Your terms are shit. And as you’ll see, I’ve drafted up counter-terms just there.”

  Lhaurent opened Temlin’s parchment. A scowl ate his long face. “You demand that I cede Alrou-Mendera to you. That I hand over the nation’s
military and cease all campaigns. That I turn over my emerald mines and hand over my mercenaries to be processed by your Kingsmen. That I abandon my alliance with the Kreth-Hakir Brethren and send them packing along home. That I cease hunting Kingsmen and put myself in chains. Well. I can see to whom Khouren passed all my missing documents.”

  “You should find the terms agreeable.” Temlin’s grin was feral. “I’ve not called for your head. Though it is within my rights as the last surviving den’Ildrian, other than my niece the Queen.”

  Lhaurent’s eyes flashed as he handed Temlin’s parchment to his lackey. The Kreth-Hakir at his flanks shifted, sensing the tension rise under the silk awning. The wind whipped, making the awning crack and buckle, bringing the scent of snow down off the mountains. Inside the stone of his fountain, Khouren held immaculately still. Lhaurent settled back. His face eased from a scowl to a slight smile. Pleasure flashed in his grey eyes, and Khouren knew that look: that was the look Lhaurent enjoyed when he was about to kill.

  “Temlin,” Lhaurent’s words were smooth. “I’m afraid I cannot agree to your terms. You should know better, Scion of den’Ildrian. A man who is god-marked is not to be trifled with, especially not one descended through the blood of the ancient kings that founded this land. Two lineages, far older than yours.”

  “Oh?” Temlin quipped. “Produce these documents, then, that name you to such a kingly station. I don’t see them. Did you leave them at home in your dark torture-chambers?”

  It was only the third time that Khouren had seen Lhaurent lose his temper – once with Khorel Jornath and the second time when Khouren had defied him after Lenuria’s death. Still, it was a subtle thing: a flicker of sneer crossed Lhaurent’s lips, as his face set into a drowning chill.

  “If you don’t like my terms,” Temlin continued archly, “then we can have another arrangement, Lhaurent. One that will take some months and waste quite a lot of your men. A third of your Guardsmen defected from your kingly rule, after all. I’m sure they’ll be quite helpful keeping my Abbey fortified for some time. And keeping the city dry as a bone of ale.”