“That’s when the war really began, didn’t it?” Dherran murmured.
“Uhlas became wise to the Vhinesse’s strategy,” Grunnach nodded. “After the Kingsmen Summons, he sent commanders with more salt to the border. I daresay you remember General Theroun den’Vekir. He built his reputation in those days, though he later went mad, killing Valenghian Alrashemni as well as Kingsmen in his own ranks all along the Aphellian Way.”
“But how did Mad General Theroun find so many Alrashemni in Valenghia?” Khenria asked. “Aren’t they rare there?”
Gazing up at the swaying linden trees, Grunnach gave a grim sigh. “They are. But there was a... fashion begun along the Aphellian Way, some hundred years back. The Alrashemni Blackmark placed upon a youngster during times of border unrest could save a child from harm. Kingsmen would adopt Blackmarked Valenghian children, rather than kill them when skirmishes happened. So along the Aphellian Way, many Valenghians grew up with the Blackmark.”
“Farmers. Tradesmen.” Khenria had gone green. “Men who didn’t know how to fight, who weren’t Alrashemni. Those were the Kingsmen that General Theroun crucified!”
Still gazing up at the linden trees, Grunnach nodded, his flint-grey eyes grim. “Mad General Theroun didn’t know about the Inking fashion. When he went on his fever-ridden rampage, he caught the easy ones – villagers who weren’t actually Alrashemni. And he caught a lot of them. The atrocious death toll was the bloody banner the Vhinesse needed to convince her nation to go to all-out war. And they did. All because of one man’s actions: mine.”
Khenria’s eyes widened, and Dherran’s gut twisted. He reached down, gripping the stone bench. “But... how were you involved in General Theroun’s madness?”
“After Khenria went missing ten years ago,” Grunnach’s gaze came to rest upon Dherran, “I opened up every contact I had, trying to find her. I re-infiltrated my Lothren, pretending to beg their forgiveness while secretly milking them for information. The price I paid was returning to the Lothren’s service. I was sent with a secret faction to undermine General Theroun’s campaign. Myself, a Khehemnas assassin falsely Inked with the Alrashemni Blackmark, and a Kreth-Hakir High Priest by the name of Khorel Jornath. Theroun was a strong commander, passionate. And though he had few weaknesses in battle, he loved his wife and children – desperately. His family were visiting the front that week. Someone had to give him a push, to make all that incredible passion break. To make it turn mad and recoil in the wrong direction.”
“Someone quiet as a forest-mouse.” Dherran’s gut clenched, sick, as he wiped a hand over his mouth. “Working with the fucking Kreth-Hakir and the Lothren, headed by the Vhinesse...”
“The Kreth-Hakir have a longstanding alliance with the Khehemni Lothren, Dherran,” Grunnach was impeccably still. “I worked with them upon numerous occasions. The blood of General Theroun’s family is on my hands, but it was the falsely Blackmarked Khehemni agent who knifed Theroun. Theroun needed to think that Alrashemni killed his family. And with a push from the Kreth-Hakir High Priest, Theroun’s temper did what the Vhinesse intended – far better than she had ever hoped. He was the perfect desert-funnel, unstoppable in his fury and fever. It gave the Vhinesse everything she needed to retaliate. Severely.”
“And you?” Dherran’s gut turned over, miasmic. “You ran away, didn’t you? Just like a rat.”
“I did.” Grunnach’s eyes were sorrowful. He turned back to the trees, watching them sway. “Seeing what I had caused along the Aphellian Way was far too much, so I disappeared. For years, I had been tired of war, and this... it broke me. And so I became Grump – hiding in the forests, searching for Khenria.”
“So you’ve been on the run ever since?” Khenria murmured, sorrow in her gaze.
Grunnach nodded, and the softness of his voice was Grump’s. “Khehemni assassins were sent for me. I escaped through the Heathren Bog, to Purloch. I stayed there a while until my conscience drove me out, searching for you once more. I’d shaken the Khehemni assassins from my trail that winter and finally found you near Dhemman, wandering in the snowy woods and nearly starved. It broke my heart, that our war had turned you into a half-mad animal, so I took it upon myself to care for you, rather than take you to Arlen. Until you were strong enough to face this terror of a legacy you’ve inherited.”
Khenria shivered in the cool breeze, her hands gripping each other in her lap. Her gaze traced the courtyard, lingering on the crimson-liveried Red Valor. “And now? Does my father even have a chance? Do any of us? Or will we all be ground down like the Bitterlance?”
“Perhaps.” Grunnach shrugged, tracing Khenria’s gaze. “But would you rather live your life having done nothing? When I saw Arlen again these past weeks... I realized how wrong I was to simply take you into the wilds. But men are flawed, Khenria. I did what I thought best at the time.”
Suddenly, there was movement from the palace ingress. Two massive ashwood doors boomed inward, and a set of crimson-liveried guards beckoned. Petitioners began to rise from their benches, stepping along the gravel paths to the open doors. Grunnach pushed up from the bench. Brushing down his elegant attire, he spoke with command.
“Come. Gather yourselves for our audience. And remember – there can be no mistakes this day, and no acts of bravado. Be civil. Be irate at your lord, but that is all. And both of you – watch the Vhinesse. If anything strange happens in that throne hall, note it. For it is surely her diabolical magic, and nothing else. Let’s go.”
Moving off, Grunnach den’Lhis strode toward the open ingress, without looking back.
CHAPTER 23 – ELOHL
Elohl's bare feet ached from standing upon hard marble. His knees creaked when he shifted, his low back throbbed. He almost didn’t care that he was displayed upon his palladian chain, as he and Fenton had been standing at attention for hours. This morning’s audiences in the Vhinesse’s throne hall had begun at dawn. For the first few hours, Elohl had paid attention – listening to petitioners, memorizing the Vhinesse's responses, but as the rays of light streaming in the clear glass windows slowly changed angle through the high vaults of carven trees and vines, the series of open audiences for various sections of the populous became tiresome. Elohl heard nothing of the war, nothing about the Khehemni Lothren. Through it all, he stood, staring straight ahead beside the Vhinesse’s alabaster throne without so much as a glance at Fenton upon the other side.
When suddenly, someone entering the far back of the hall caught his eye.
As the petitioners for the Commoner’s Audience entered, a solid fighter strode in at the back of the long hall. Well-dressed but not ostentatious, he had sandy blonde hair and wore a Cennetian jerkin of hunter-green leather and a white shirt – but it was his stature that caught Elohl's attention. Muscled like a boar, the fellow spoke to a small older lord who was far more richly dressed. A thin young woman stood by them, watching the room with hawkish eyes, her coloring strikingly Alrashemni.
As the brawny man gazed toward the front of the hall, Elohl's breath caught. A tremor thrummed his body. He knew that square, bullish jaw. He knew those high, arrogant cheekbones. He knew those scowling blonde brows and piercing green eyes – eyes so hot with passion that they smoldered like emeralds in forge-coals.
“Dherran.” Elohl’s breath slipped from his mouth. He froze, wondering if the Vhinesse had heard, but she had begun to orate a judgement about a grape-blight, the first commoner’s petition, and did not falter in her elegant speech. Though the Vhinesse had not heard him, it was as if Dherran had. Dherran’s mouth dropped open in astonishment where he stood at the rear of the hall as his hot green eyes widened.
Elohl? He mouthed from the back of the room.
Elohl gave the tiniest nod. Dherran saw it. Elohl suddenly felt Dherran's energy hit him like a spiked mace. Dherran had always held a strangeness about him, something Elohl had never been able to define, but which could be felt. In Alrashesh, the elders had never been able to say whether or not Dherran had wyrr
ia. But the fact was, his temper was palpable to those around him – a force generated by the pureness of his heart.
Dherran's eyes narrowed with that stunning temper now as they flicked to the Vhinesse – Elohl saw righteous wrath in those green eyes. Dherran’s presence surged in the vaulted hall, that roaring sensation Elohl had known even when they’d been kids together. People felt it, shrinking back from Dherran with uncertain glances. So long sundered, having not known Dherran was alive until this very moment, Elohl found that surge of passion over his skin the same as it had ever been – but hotter, stronger. As if becoming a man had made Dherran a roaring volcano rather than the forge-fire he’d been when they were young.
Elohl watched Dherran's face turn scarlet. He turned to his lordly companion, growled a few words. The man's eyes went wide, blinking up to the dais in astonishment. He said a few words back, the girl now also watching Elohl with her pretty mouth fallen open.
His face a thundercloud, Dherran was gesturing emphatically at the lord. Elohl could almost hear Dherran’s growl as he seized his older friend by the collar and tried to hustle him out of the chamber. The man stood his ground, but Dherran had a full head on him and a hundred pounds. The girl had her hands on Dherran’s arm, trying to pull him off, but the commotion disturbed the hall.
The ruckus caught the eye of the Red Valor. They moved over the alabaster and marble floor, motioning commoners back as the Vhinesse continued her ruling. Elohl saw Merkhenos del’Ilio note the disturbance from where he waited in an alcove with his elite Red Valor for a war-meeting. Merkhenos had a hand on his sword, craning his neck to see what was going on. His seven Valormen, one a handsome Valenghian woman with a long silver braid, were drawing weapons, but Merkhenos motioned them to stand down when he saw that other guards had arrived and were now separating Dherran and his companions.
Hauling them to the front of the room.
“What is going on?” The Vhinesse ceased her ruling. Standing from her gilded alabaster throne, she motioned petitioners away so the space before her dais was clear. People shrank back like frightened sheep. Elohl could feel the Vhinesse’s milky tendrils licking through the room. That sweet mist tried to ease into his thoughts, but he held onto the vision of Ghrenna’s eyes and the sensations cleared.
“Bring that man to me. Just him. Not the others.” The Vhinesse gestured imperiously at Dherran. Her Red Valor guards hustled him forward, leaving his two companions behind in the middle of the hall. Elohl saw a look he knew well upon the Vhinesse – a lecherous benevolence. The Vhinesse had seen Dherran’s promise, a warrior of the highest caliber. Someone strong, handsome, vicious – someone she wanted to possess.
Dherran was marched to the front, his companions pushing through the crowd behind. He was more massive than Elohl remembered, his well-cut shirt and jerkin straining over fit muscles. He shivered with fury, though Elohl could see he was trying to contain himself. The clarity within Elohl sharpened as Dherran neared, as if someone thrust hot knives through the Vhinesse’s weaves, her poison sighed away from Elohl like cobwebs, full of holes in the presence of Dherran’s wrath. Elohl stilled his body, but a thrill of anticipation went surging through his limbs.
A humming sensation began to rise in the throne room. The closer Dherran was hustled toward the dais, the more it vibrated across Elohl’s skin like a swarm of bees. As Dherran’s gaze connected to Elohl’s, Elohl felt a fiery lance rush through him. Like molten ore poured through his veins, his Goldenmarks buzzed through his body, though they had yet to light.
Memories knifed Elohl, then – of home and family, of friendship and childhood. His life came rushing back with Dherran’s passion seething through his Goldenmarks. How he’d laughed, once, with Olea. How he and Dherran would climb the cendaries by the river and watch the girls bathe on late summer afternoons – Elohl cut by Ghrenna’s pale loveliness; Dherran transfixed by the dark beauty of Suchinne. How they’d gambled at cards, stealing each others’ arrows and laughing late into the night after the adults went to bed. The quietness of those hours, laying on their backs in the dusty fighting-rotunda, the five of them listening to the wolves howl as the moon rose in a clear midnight sky.
Dherran’s gaze held Elohl’s as he was shoved to his knees at the foot of the dais. Amazement conquered his arrogant face, and Elohl knew Dherran could feel it also – a synergy was happening between them. As if Elohl’s Goldenmarks reacted to the passion of Dherran’s intensely loyal nature, and Dherran’s passion was heightened in the presence of the Goldenmarks. As the Vhinesse stepped down the dais toward Dherran, Elohl suddenly felt Fenton’s electric presence shivering all around him like lightning barely constrained, pulled into whatever was happening.
Then, Elohl’s mind was drowned by cerulean blue, like his resonance with Dherran and Fenton had called Ghrenna, and she was there. Her tundra-clean scent in Elohl’s nose, her dark eyes in his mind; the feel of her body all around him. Elohl’s pulse raced as his heart hammered with sensation. Her face clear in his mind, Elohl knew she was there with him – even though she wasn’t.
Elohl’s blood rushed in his ears as his Goldenmarks lit in a searing wash. A molten sensation filled him, like he’d caught fire – and that fire was fed by the wind of Ghrenna’s etheric presence, the passion of Dherran’s physical one, and the searing conflict of Fenton’s wyrric one. As if alchemy existed between them all, Elohl’s marks blistered like a desert sun, causing people to cry out all through the hall. The Vhinesse had been about to touch Dherran, to slide her fingers over his blonde mane and conquer him, when she halted, staring at Elohl. Fenton was suddenly beside Elohl, moved so quickly that Elohl hadn’t seen it – lighting crackling to life in Fenton’s palms as Elohl’s wyrria surged to the screaming point.
As the Vhinesse paused, Dherran’s woman dove in, lunging toward Dherran with a sword for him. The Vhinesse’s cruel white eyes shifted, an inundation of white mist snaring the young woman. The girl spasmed to her knees with a cry before the monarch, the sword spinning from her grasp along the floor. The Vhinesse’s hand snaked out – seizing the girl’s sword and driving it home through her chest. Fingers clutching the blade, the girl’s Alrashemni-grey eyes widened in surprise as crimson darkened her fighting-corset.
Dherran roared, a sound like a raging boar, as his woman came crashing down.
Elohl felt something expand out from Dherran. Hitting the room in a rush, Elohl saw a vicious mirage explode out from Dherran’s body – a whirling maelstrom of sand and wind – as if a raging desert-funnel had swept into the throne hall from some far southern clime. As the mirage blistered away, history began again. The Vhinesse’s lunge. The blade’s plunge. This time, the hot whirlwind blew through the hall – arresting the Vhinesse’s hand and plunging the sword through the outer part of the girl’s shoulder rather than anything vital.
It was a light wound. The girl was up fast, whipping out a longknife at the Vhinesse in an arc of golden fire, causing the monarch to stagger back with wide eyes and drop Dherran’s sword, but Dherran was already there, his eyes fierce and boorish as he swept up his sword in a roll. Then lunged out of that roll – thrusting his blade right through the Vhinesse’s pretty white chest.
Chaos erupted in the hall. Roars resounded as Red Valor raced to the Vhinesse. Fenton was in action, blasting the Vhinesse’s men back from Dherran and his woman with strikes of lightning that exploded chunks of marble from the floor. Dherran’s woman fought one-handed, rips of gold-red fire surging up her blade as Dherran roared up into the battle like a desert on fire, the small lord cutting down Valenghians like a grey hawk of death at their side.
Striking with a sword and longknife he didn’t recall seizing, Elohl cut alongside Fenton’s wrath, dancing the steps he’d known since birth with effortless tingles of his innate wyrria. Hewing down the Vhinesse’s guard as they ran up the dais, he watched Merkhenos’ group surge in to finish the Vhinesse. A vicious melee ensued as civilians fled, trampling each other to the doors. More Red Va
lor stormed the hall, surrounding Merkhenos and the silver-haired woman. Carvings were blown asunder, fountains blasted and rivers of water surging into the air as Fenton let loose. Golden fire devoured his eyes as he hammered back wave after wave of guards like children’s dolls.
Protected by a knot of Valormen, the Vhinesse struggled for breath on her knees, one pale hand bracing the floor while the other clutched her crimson-stained chest. Staring through the melee, she watched not Dherran, nor Dherran’s woman, nor even Fenton or Elohl, but the handsome Red Valor woman with the long silver braid. Fighting with a sword and spear with Merkhenos and his retainers, Elohl could see the woman’s grim steadiness through blasts of lightning and flying chunks of rubble. Slicing down opponents with a look, then her bitter blades, some wyrria similar to the Vhinesse’s arrested her foes, hewing them down around her.
“To me!” The silver-haired fighter’s rousing alto split the chaos.
Elohl’s Goldenmarks seared like the sun to her clarion voice, even as hundreds more Valormen poured into the hall, surrounding their paltry force and pressing in upon Elohl’s senses. Elohl was motion as the chaos in the hall reached its peak, he was response, his blades like liquid light. Still alive, the Vhinesse’s white sighs flooded the room, bolstering her men, causing them to drive in where Fenton’s lightning wasn’t. Fighting close to Fenton, Elohl could feel a cord of blistering resonance uniting them. A twisting bond that devoured energy from Elohl’s Goldenmarks and funneled that power into Fenton – renewing him, making the lightning in his palms surge as he fought on.
As if the Goldenmarks had been made for this – to funnel power into the Kings of Khehem.
Yet Elohl knew it wasn’t the Scion of Khehem that was their lynchpin today, but Dherran. If Dherran fell, their coup was lost. Elohl could feel the heart of all their passion blossoming out from Dherran’s boorish frame, from his chest, from the screaming feel of a desert-funnel sweeping the room as he fought. Dherran had changed the outcome of events today – and continued to change them, simply by the power of his passionate rage.
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