Goldenmark

by Jean Lowe Carlson

  The room was silent as Elohl felt a press of eyes upon him. His gaze found Dherran, and Dherran gave a reassuring smile, though something about it was sad. “That’s a fuck of a lot to carry, Elohl.”

  “You want some?” Elohl found himself smiling in return, just a bit.

  “If I could shoulder some of it for you, I would. You know I would.” Dherran’s gaze was intense, honest. And gazing at his friend, even though they’d been so long estranged, Elohl knew it was true. Dherran would have taken this burden from him. Olea would have also, or Suchinne.

  We’ll all share the burden, when the time comes. Cerulean eyes pierced Elohl’s vision, a thought from Ghrenna whispering through his mind. When your power reaches its peak and we must Consummate the Goldenmarks, I’ll be there. Trust in that. Come to me when the time is right.

  “Consummate my Goldenmarks?” Elohl breathed in the silence.

  “What did you say?” Fenton turned, a puzzled expression upon his face.

  Elohl realized he’d spoken aloud without meaning to. But Ghrenna’s silver line of thought had already slipped away, and he said nothing more.

  Merkhenos, sensing the closing of their agenda, rose and stepped into the center of the collection of couches beside Fenton. “My friends. We have heard much tonight, but perhaps the news we must hear most is that Elohl is not the only one who carries these Goldenmarks. Lhaurent den’Alrahel has them also, for many more years than Elohl, and is far more practiced in using them and their dire influence in addition to his own peculiar wyrric talents. My spies in Lintesh confirm a public unveiling of Lhaurent’s Goldenmarked powers after a series of recent riots. They cowed the populace, made the people unite behind him, though he allowed terrible destruction to raze the city. Even with Elohl’s masterful use of the Marks today, I fear that Lhaurent knows better how to wield his power. My deepest fear for our upcoming engagement is that, should any army face both Lhaurent and the Kreth-Hakir in battle, that we would be struck down. Decisively.”

  “I hate wyrria.” Delennia Oblitenne heaved a sigh, then drank a large gulp of her wine.

  “There’s still a chance we might prevail,” Fenton countered quietly. “Lhaurent doesn’t know yet that Elohl exists – as another Goldenmarked, at least. He hasn’t known to hunt Elohl, or even me. But as of now, he is likely learning much.”

  “It is for that reason,” Merkhenos continued, “that I petition this council to allow me to ride out from Velkennish with both milord Alodwine and the Rennkavi tonight, before we can be waylaid. Get them to the Aphellian Way posthaste, where they can remain hidden in plain sight among the Valenghian army. My Vhinesse, I have no worry that you can hold this throne. But if we lose these two wyrrics before we can bring them to battle, we are lost. And the Tyrant of Alrou-Mendera will have his way with all of us.”

  The room fell silent. Dherran glanced to Elohl from his couch, and though his arm was wrapped around his woman, his visage was bleak. Something inside Elohl echoed it. His heart gripped, to have found Dherran so suddenly yet have to leave so soon. To move on yet again – just a soldier in an endless war, forever without a home or peace.

  “Merkhenos speaks wisely.” Delennia caught Elohl’s gaze, her white-blue eyes kind but stern. “He can protect you upon the war-front. I cannot protect you here, not if I am to convince a nation of my right to rule and also aid Arlen in Vennet. Make your goodbyes and ride tonight. Ride, Rennkavi, so that we all may survive the coming storm.”

  The Vhinesse’s speech was like a death-knell in Elohl’s heart. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, he allowed himself a single moment to grieve. And then his gaze connected with Fenton’s, and the stalwart support he found there gave him steadiness. Slowly, Elohl rose. Downing the last of his wine, he set his goblet aside. And then set a palm to his heart, his other hand dropping to the longknife at his hip. Sinking to one knee, he bowed his head in submission to duty once more.

  “As you order it, Vhinesse, so shall I do.”

  “For the good of us all.” Delennia gave him a sad smile.

  “For the good of us all.” Elohl echoed, though he couldn’t feel it.

  CHAPTER 29 – ELYASIN

  Elyasin stood in the center of a vast eternity, surrounded by stars. Translucent, the smoky quartzite stone all around her held specks of diamond scattered through the black, glittering with a haunting brilliance. From every pillar, from every vaulted arch and portico, she was surrounded by darkness, yet there was light. As she gazed up from the smooth gloss of the plaza to the cavern’s lost heights glimmering far above like a midnight winter sky, Elyasin had the euphoric feeling that she walked upon the universe.

  Taking a deep breath of cool air, she watched that sky. A brisk chill sighed through the cavern, but she was not cold. Far above, a million stars studded the lost heights, the underground citadel meandering through a maze of diamond-black colonnades, luminous archways, and vast rotundas. Stars swallowed the sky. The buildings and colonnades were lost to stars also, leaving the impression of being swallowed by the cosmos. It was a retreat, Elyasin thought, as she set a hand upon a shattered column of milky white quartz crystal that she stood next to, larger than her and different than the rest of the stone in this hallowed place.

  Standing in the center of a gargantuan plaza, the citadel surrounded Elyasin with columns and archways. Unique in the underground city, this plaza contained a circle of pure gold laid into the diamond-stone floor, and at the very center, a raised golden dais bright as the sun. Surrounded by the remains of seven shattered milk-crystal Alranstones, the White Ring was a ruin. Enormous crystal shards had been blasted across the plaza. In every direction, the diamond-black pillars of the surrounding archways had been gouged or tumbled entirely from the force of the calamity that had happened here.

  Therel had stared at it like a man transfixed when they’d first arrived five days ago. This was the place where Morvein and her Brother Kings had failed to Goldenmark the Rennkavi over eight hundred years ago – the place of Therel’s seeing-dreams. And though it was in ruins, the place held power, a wyrria so vast that Elyasin could feel it thrumming through her bones at all hours. Calling her to become one with that vast vibration. Calling her to work miracles and horrors here. Calling her to join with the ancient wyrria of Hahled Ferrian that now sung through her veins.

  “My Queen! Supper is nearly ready!”

  Elyasin glanced over toward Thaddeus’ bright call. At the edge of the decimated plaza, Thad had his nightly cook-fire going beneath one massive, intact starlight arch. Therel sat beside him on a hunk of shattered milk-crystal, perusing an ancient codex by the fire’s light, something they had found wandering the citadel on their first day. Elyasin moved toward them, stepping around enormous shards of shattered quartz. Even decimated, the jagged stumps of the once-powerful Alranstones with their flowing gilded runes made her body beat with power as she moved toward the campfire and the catch of iridescent fish roasting on grill.

  At the boundary of the plaza, Elyasin crossed the gold circle set into the diamond-studded stone. Gliding over its pristine surface, she felt like she walked upon dreams as it caught the light of the fire, glowing with ethereal energy. Coming to the fire in its gilded brazier, she sat at Therel’s side upon the long shard of shattered crystal. Thick as a downed cendarie-tree, the shard was warm where it caught the fire’s brilliance through those milk-white depths. Therel snugged Elyasin about her waist and nuzzled his nose into her hair. Thad sat near the fire, poking at their grate of cooking fish with a long golden poker found in the abandoned citadel.

  With all the trappings of a working city, they’d found the buildings held kitchens and larders, sleep-rooms and bathing-pools, libraries and gardens, as if the citadel had once held a few thousand folk. Elyasin imagined their lives had been spent in contemplation, as they had found countless niches for meditation, rooms of ancient libraries, and grottoes of flowing streams where one could sit amidst the moss and become mesmerized by the translucent
fishes flashing through the water.

  Gazing at the cook-fire, Elyasin enjoyed its welcome brightness, burning without smoke or fuel in the shallow bowl of the golden brazier. Kindled from pale stones they’d discovered, which burst into flame when sung to, the fire provided a welcome accent to the glimmering dark. It felt primal, uncivilized, as if Elyasin were one of the first people to walk the land, discovering fire against the vast night. Their first hour here, they’d walked past a brazier, humming to brighten their singing-stones, and been surprised when the brazier burst to life with flames. Braziers dotted all the pathways of the citadel, as if the long-ago occupants had preferred fire under their starry vistas, rather than luminescence, and Elyasin quite agreed.

  “Where’s Luc, and Ghrenna?” Elyasin asked, seeing that they were short a few people.

  “Ghrenna’s in her bower, in trance again,” Thad supplied helpfully as he turned the fish.

  “Luc’s moping over her,” Therel chuckled with a wry grin, unhelpfully.

  Luc had haunted Ghrenna these past days they’d wandered the citadel, as they tried to figure out how to repair the White Ring. Ghrenna had gone into deep trance for the past many days, trying to find answers in Morvein’s memories as to how such a thing might be done – still to no avail.

  “I suppose I should go get Luc.” With a sigh, Elyasin rose, stepping from the fire. Moving beneath the arch, she took a short avenue toward a small dome set with tall colonnades. Ghrenna’s chosen meditation space was a modest rotunda, with nothing inside but a low stone bier right in the center, an oculus providing a view to the vastness of the cavern above. Elyasin moved into the dome toward the luminescence of Luc’s singing-stone resting in a shallow golden bowl near the bier. As she moved into the chamber, her head whirled, feeling lost among the stars. Made of darkness and flecked with light, veins of violet and red flowed through the walls and ceiling of the dome, swirling in patterns like star-dust and galaxies.

  Ghrenna’s low stone bier sat in the middle of all those stars, a fountain of water burbling out of the wall and running through the floor in a meandering stream. Elyasin stepped over the stream and the iridescent fish that swam its starlit depths, approaching the bier. Ghrenna lay upon the stone in her bedroll, quiet as death. Her face was flushed. Her chest rose and fell with the shallow tide of her breath, her fingers clasped over her abdomen. Luc sat at her bedside upon a gilded chair, the fingers of one hand stroking Ghrenna’s cheek.

  He heard Elyasin’s step and turned, regarding her with distant green eyes.

  “How is she?” Elyasin spoke, arriving at Ghrenna’s bedside.

  “The same.” Luc murmured, his musical voice grating. “Out there, wherever the fuck that is. She says things now and then, but she’s gone into a trance so deep I can’t wake her. And now... I feel her slipping away, Elyasin.”

  Luc choked to silence. Elyasin reached out and clasped Ghrenna’s fingers. They were warm, hale and hearty, though something about it was distant. Like her body was here, but her spirit was elsewhere, traveling far out over the world – something Elyasin understood from Hahled Ferrian’s wyrria moving within her.

  “Ghrenna can send her spirit and mind elsewhere,” she murmured to Luc. “She’s... traveling right now, Luc. She’s not here. We’re getting supper prepared outside. You should come eat.”

  “I can’t leave her,” Luc rasped, petting Ghrenna’s white waves. “It’s like she’s dead.”

  “Come get supper. Ghrenna will be fine. Her body is hale, only her spirit is elsewhere. We need to discuss the White Ring tonight.”

  “You don’t need me for that. Besides, we haven’t made any progress.”

  “Yes, we do need you. You’re part of this. Come on.”

  Clasping Luc’s hand, Elyasin hauled on him until he begrudgingly stood. Tearing his gaze from Ghrenna, he looked down at Elyasin from his tall height, their hands still clasped. Something complicated moved in his eyes, dark. “Why doesn’t anyone love me?”

  “Ghrenna loves you,” Elyasin protested, giving his fingers a reassuring squeeze.

  “No. She doesn’t.” Luc’s green eyes burned, haunted. “She’s with him. Elohl. She keeps breathing his name, like they’re... you know.”

  Elyasin didn’t know what to say to that. Luc’s bitterness rained down all around her, and it was awful. Reaching up, she set a palm to his cheek and smoothed his golden beard. “We’ll get through this. And when we do, Luc, there will be a thousand women who will see you for the man you are. For the bright heart and the beautiful loyalty you have inside you. Some woman will be very lucky to love you someday.”

  “Lucky like you and Therel?” Luc turned his lips into her palm, kissing it.

  “Luc,” Elyasin protested. She tried to draw her hand away, but he lifted one hand to hers, pressing her palm to his lips.

  “Don’t turn me away,” he kissed her inner wrist now, making Elyasin’s breathing heat.

  “Luc, this isn’t—”

  “Isn’t what?” Releasing her hand and pulling her in, he wound his arms securely around her waist. Gazing down, his green eyes were obliterated by need. “Isn’t what you want?”

  Luc’s lips descended. Elyasin breathed hard, drowning in his need. Feeling the heat of his hands smoldering through her clothes and upon her skin. Something rose in her, some passion that had wanted many lovers, long ago. That had never been satisfied with just one. That had wanted a harem of women, a palace full of them, and had only been broken of that need when he’d seen Morvein for the first time.

  Elyasin snapped back, just in time to turn her face from Luc’s, breathing hard. Placing a palm to his chest, she pushed him steadily away. “I can’t do this.”

  His hands held her, something fierce lancing through his eyes. She shifted, breathing faster, pushing but not with all her strength, not yet. She didn’t want to have to drop Luc to the stones or hit him with a pulse of Hahled’s wyrria, but she would if necessary.

  With a horrible smile that didn’t touch his eyes, Luc’s hands dropped away. Elyasin stepped back, breathing hard, knowing her cheeks flushed from the burn of wyrria thrumming through her. She swallowed, one hand settling to the hilt of her longknife, the feel of cool leather and steel calming. Luc’s eyes dropped to it, then roved up her body before meeting her gaze again.

  “You’re not breathing hard from fear,” he spoke softly.

  “No. I’m not.”

  “Then why push me away?”

  “Because the lust of my body has nothing to do with anything, Luc,” Elyasin was blunt. “I have the wyrria of a thousand-year-old King flowing in me. And eight hundred of those years, he’s been trapped inside an Aeon-damned Alranstone. Don’t try to kiss me again. I will cut you, I swear it.”

  He stepped back, raising his hands in surrender. But there was something obliterated in his eyes. Elyasin watched him stalk gracefully out the vaulted doorway. Smoothing her hair, she let a shudder pass through her. Straightening her jerkin, Elyasin gripped the handle of her longknife, but something inside her still beat hard at Luc’s need.

  Elyasin glanced at Ghrenna’s pale beauty upon the starlit stone. She’d not moved, rosy and beatific in her trance. Elyasin stepped out of the building and into the open, moving back toward the fire at the plaza’s rim. As she arrived, her gaze connected with Luc, who sat by himself upon a hunk of crystal across from hers and Therel’s. His green eyes met hers, blistering, before he knelt to help Thad turn the fish over and roast some tubers they’d found. Luc began adding spices from a stash of crystal jars, as Elyasin moved to her husband and resumed her seat.

  “It’s a beautiful night,” Therel snugged Elyasin close. He’d shed his down jacket and furs, his black jerkin unbuttoned and shirtlaces loosened. Elyasin watched the firelight flicker over his blonde chest hairs as Therel leaned close. Heat rose in her as Therel’s hand cupped her jaw while he pressed soft lips to her neck.

  But Elyasin’s gaze found Luc staring at them from across the fire, wrath
in the strung tension of his body. Something inside Elyasin shifted. One moment, she was angry at Luc, and the next, she wanted him to hurt. Wanted to turn her chin to Therel and meet her husband’s kiss. Give it to him good and show Luc exactly whom she wanted in her bed. Some part of her wanted to be mean – Hahled’s energy. As she stared at Luc across the fire, Therel’s kisses broke from her neck.

  “Seen everything you wanted to, healer?” Therel growled.

  “I’ve seen enough.” Luc stared back with wrathful heat in his green eyes.

  “Just because you’re not getting any doesn’t mean we can’t.” Therel’s short statement echoed the bluntness of the Brother Kings. Thad coughed nervously nearby, but none of them turned to look. He’d started to haul the fish out of the flames and place them on a gilded platter, but glanced at Therel, then Luc, uncertain.

  But Luc was in a bad mood, and rifled his golden mane with exasperation. “Everyone can hear you two fucking at all hours! It’s enough to drive a man insane.”

  “So use your palm, healer.” Therel’s smooth sass held the distinctive flavor of Delman Ferrian. “Healing hands like yours could do wonders on your cock.”

  “Is that right?” Luc crossed his arms where he sat upon the crystal pillar, putting his fingertips dangerously near the grips of his longknives.

  Therel turned Elyasin, pulled her back against his body. His hands moved up Elyasin’s waist, palming her breast through her jerkin. Possessing her as Luc’s eyes followed, bitter. “I see how you look at my wife, healer, when you think I’m not watching. You’ve had an eye for her since Highsummer when you were at her bedside, realizing she was no longer the girl you remembered. And since Ghrenna eschewed your bed, its been triply so.”

  “Therel—” Elyasin protested as he kissed her neck. She had wanted Luc to know who had her heart, but Therel was being cruel. Luc had gone pale, and very still. His green eyes darkened in the light of the flames.

  “Care to tell me just what specifically I’m accused of, Therel?” Luc fingered the hilt of one of his longknives. “Healing your wife when you couldn’t do shit to help her after she almost died?”