“She doesn’t need your protection.” Khouren held the Vicoute’s chill gaze, matching him.
“Neither does she need yours.”
A ripple of shock went through Khouren’s body, and Arlen’s chin raised. His keen eyes missed nothing, and Khouren had a feeling the man possessed a wyrria he didn’t speak of, a way of evaluating the characters of men. He had already judged Khouren’s soul and found it lacking. Khouren felt certain the only thing that stopped Arlen’s blade from piercing his heart was a long association with Ihbram.
Sunlight blazed over the red minarets, but the sight didn’t fill Khouren with bliss. Gazing down at the activity below, all he could feel was a sinking sensation. Another soft step upon the stone made him turn. Ihbram stood there, his mane of russet braids vivid in the golden light. He said not a word as he stepped to Khouren’s side, giving a nod to Arlen as he moved forward to stare out over the valley.
“They look so small, don’t they?” Ihbram spoke, his tone somber.
“Except there’s eight thousand of them.” Arlen crossed his arms, gazing down at the sea of soldiers. “At least they’ve not started re-building their siege towers yet.”
“They’re doing something else.” Khouren nodded at a sprawling tent in the western camp, his keen eyesight evaluating the movement. “Rolling barrels out from that tent there. Putting them on carts and moving them to the river near that catapult, just out of the burned area.” He nodded at a small catapult just behind the line of char that didn’t look like it could throw anything a hundred feet, much less up and over the fortress’ walls.
“Interesting.” Arlen scowled. He turned to Ihbram, tapping the fingers of one hand on the wall. Khouren rubbed his shoulder and Ihbram eyed him also, though he said nothing in Arlen’s presence.
“Watch their movement,” Arlen spoke at last, his gaze pinning Khouren, then Ihbram. “Report to me at the dome the moment anything changes. I’ve counsel with General Alramir and Vicoute Purloch this morning, otherwise I would stay and watch. But I am afraid I’m needed elsewhere. Gentlemen.”
“Vicoute.” Ihbram gave a genteel nod as the battle-hardened Kingsman moved off. Once Arlen had jogged down a far flight of stairs, Ihbram turned to Khouren with an appraising eye. “You’re still hurt. From our encounter with the water-wraiths.”
“It’s nothing.” Khouren ceased massaging his shoulder, again.
“What did Arlen say to you?” Ihbram’s russet brows knit.
“He spoke to me of power, and Eleshen. Warning that wyrria doesn’t make a man powerful. And warning me to stay away from her.”
“That’s where he’s wrong,” Ihbram spoke. “Leith’s line is dangerous, but I don’t think Arlen understands the truth of it. I haven’t told him of our real origins, and he knows nothing of Fentleith. He’s never experienced true Khehemni wyrria, not like our bloodline. If any one of us starts to break from being exposed to Leith’s original power, or what’s waking inside Roushenn—” Ihbram’s eyes went distant as he hitched a hard sigh.
Khouren caught his uncle’s gaze. They still hadn’t had a good moment to speak about Temlin’s revelation concerning Lhaurent, but it seemed the time had come.
“Do you think it’s true, what Temlin found out?” Khouren murmured, watching his uncle. “That Lhaurent isn’t actually a Scion of Khehem? That he’s not really twinned blood of Alrahel and Khehem?”
Ihbram blinked as if focusing his thoughts before speaking. “I can’t rightly say, Khouren. I’ve never been able to penetrate Lhaurent’s mind, and Fentleith told me it was the same for him. I feel Lhaurent’s substance, a treacherous thing like eels in black water. And though he has rage within him, it just doesn’t feel...”
“Doesn’t feel what?” Khouren pressed.
“Conflicted,” Ihbram continued. “With every child Fentleith’s spawned, or me, even if they only had a hint of the Wolf and Dragon wyrria, they’ve always had a conflicted righteousness about them. Hotheaded? Sure. Warlords? Sometimes. Zealots? Many. But no true Scion of Alodwine ever had such cold calculation as Lhaurent. He’s not conflicted, Khouren, about anything he does. His mind has the darker feel of Scorpion-wyrria to it, like the Kreth-Hakir.”
“I defied him,” Khouren murmured. “When I carried Lenuria’s body away from where he’d tortured her – he ordered me to stop. I didn’t. And I didn’t burn.”
“Why did you not tell me that?” Ihbram gazed at him, his brows lifted.
“I didn’t know what it meant at the time.” Khouren avoided the topic of the Kreth-Hakir High Priest’s silver weaves in his mind, which had guided the entire episode and leant him strength. Both then and later, when he’d watched Lhaurent from atop the ramparts at the public unveiling of his Goldenmarks.
“I wondered how you managed to escape Lhaurent’s service without burning into ashes,” Ihbram mused, scratching his short russet beard. “But I took grandfather’s oath too, Khouren. There was a lot more to it than just swearing ourselves to the twinned bloodline of the true Rennkavi. Did you ever see it in Lhaurent, the red eyes?”
“Sign of the Demon, or sign of the Wolf and Dragon?”
“Both. Either.” Ihbram’s gaze was intent.
Khouren heaved a sigh. “No. As much as Lhaurent tortured for pleasure, as much as he ruined men and women for the sheer atrociousness of it – no. I never saw his eyes flash red. Either with the Demon’s Rise, or with ours.”
“Have you ever had the dreams?” Ihbram gazed at Khouren, with the desolation that always lurked beneath his blithe exterior. “Of the Red-Eyed Demon Fentleith described from his nightmares?”
“Never.” Khouren shook his head. “But Lenuria had them. She managed to keep the Demon out. She told me that when she began to meditate at the Abbey and examine her own deepest darkness, that the Demon’s nightmares began to go away. It didn’t want her to know herself. It wanted to use her darkness to break her. But she never let it.”
Ihbram leaned against the berm, staring out over the valley. “Would you kill Lhaurent? If it came to it?”
Khouren stared up at the towering red minarets, rising like twisting spires of blood in the dawn. “I would now. Would you kill Fentleith?”
“In a heartbeat.” Ihbram’s answer was prompt. “I know what he’s capable of, Khouren. If he went wrong, if the Demon ever rose inside him... he could tear our continent apart. Especially if wyrria ever manages to wake completely in the world.”
“Even though Fentleith’s our blood?” Khouren murmured, his heart twisting.
“Even so.” Ihbram’s face was stone. He was silent a long moment, then turned to Khouren. “What about Eleshen? Do you think Eleshen has our wyrria now, since her healing?”
“I can’t say,” Khouren murmured, returning to a thought he’d often had since Eleshen’s salvation. “Eleshen can feel wyrria now that she’s changed, and I can sense something moving inside her, yet to be unleashed. But I haven’t seen her do anything uncanny, other than fight like a well-trained swordswoman.” Glancing to Ihbram, he picked up their previous thread of conversation. “What about Fentleith? I put his palm on Leith’s talisman, Ihbram, it drank his blood. If he has any of Leith’s ability running though him now—”
“Lenuria was the strongest at taming Fentleith,” Ihbram eyeballed Khouren with a sigh. “She used to give him calming treatments, did you know? Fentleith called her his blessed daughter, because of us all, she was the only one who could get through to him during his rages. It was because of her that he became so calm in later years and learned to control that diabolical battle-wyrria of his.”
“And if he begins to rage again?” Khouren glanced over.
“I don’t know.” Ihbram answered with a tired rubbing of his hands over his face. “I don’t have any answers, Khouren. If Fentleith begins to rage again, he’s at risk for raising the Demon’s nightmares that plagued him in the past. If I were the Red-Eyed Demon, I would go straight to him – and pummel him until he broke.”
�
�Unless it chooses one of us to haunt this time,” Khouren’s words were black, a despair taking him that their future would be anything but bloody. The Scions of Alodwine both settled at the wall, silent now, watching the army below. Suddenly, Khouren perked. The barrels he’d been watching were being opened near the line of archers, slouchy bags loaded into the cup of the rickety catapult. The bags were sloppy, shifting around like wheat-flour. But the material they were made of was too fine for a flour-sack, thin and friable.
“What the—?” Ihbram asked, watching it, too.
“Devil’s Breath!” Khouren straightened at the wall as live lightning shot through his limbs.
“Fuckstones!” Ihbram glanced to a set of Arlen’s banners flying on a pole near one trebuchet. “Wind’s coming up steady from the south. They’re going to poison us out!”
“Hold on!” Khouren gripped his uncle’s wrist, skin to skin. Faster than thought, they were falling through the floor to the level below. Roaring for archers to retreat from the vaulted ingresses, Khouren and Ihbram hurled their face-wraps into the nearest water bucket and swaddled them around their heads, protecting their noses and mouths. Yelling for everyone else to do the same, now, they hurtled along the wide causeway that led toward the courtyards and the dome.
Just as they did, they heard the sharp sound of the catapult released. A whump hit the side of the arch, white powder exploding through the air. Puffs of deadly powder swirled on the morning wind, rushing down the causeway and blooming up like fungal spores.
Thundering orders through their facecloths to get noses and mouths wrapped, Khouren and Ihbram streaked past the first courtyard. The Bog-archers in the hall had been spared, swaddled before the first bag hit, but here, it was too late. A number of keshari riders made it to water-buckets and had facecloths in place, but few made it to their mounts in time. Cats began to go down; yowling, gasping, tongues lolling as they strangled. Eyes bulging, they panicked – shredding anything nearby, contorting into impossible shapes. The courtyard roiled with shrieking, rasping death. Even as Khouren stared around in horror, another whump hit the fortress wall behind him. Even one sachet of Devil’s Breath was enough to kill a keshar-cat – and he’d seen dozens of barrels unloaded this morning.
His heart thundering in terror, Khouren ran on, Ihbram at his side, roaring for wetted facecloths. The surviving keshari riders and Bog-archers raced in every direction, roaring for the same, all of them trying to outpace the deadly bloom of powder upon the crisp morning air. Twin streaks of purpose, Khouren and Ihbram made it to the second courtyard of keshar-cats before the drift of deadly white, shouting for everyone to get to a water-barrel and wet whatever they had. Keshari riders launched into mad action. Faces of man, woman, and beast were wrapped fast, the cats’ heads entirely swaddled so they couldn’t shake off the wet wrappings.
The second courtyard of cats had been saved, but only just. Khouren’s mind was madness as he left Ihbram, streaking through wall after wall in a direct route back to the dome. All he could think of was how porous the walls of the dome were, how many spaces there were between the delicate stone filigree – how exposed Eleshen would be.
His lungs burned as he gained the bridge arching up to the grand dome. His mind was a single point of focus as he raced inside, roaring for people to soak clothing in the fountains and guard their breath. Racing through to the main fountain, he roared at the morning war-council. General Merra, Purloch, Arlen, and the rest jumped quickly to the water, wetting garments and slapping them over noses and mouths.
But Eleshen wasn’t there. In a surge of desperation, Khouren raced past. Through the next hall, to the semicircle of filigreed bowers beyond the main vault. He raced to the bower he and Eleshen had taken the evening before, but the bed was empty, the covers thrown back, a half-eaten breakfast upon the stone bedstand.
“Eleshen!” Khouren roared. “Eleshen!!”
His mind spun. He couldn’t think. His lungs burned from running. His eyes watered as powder blew through the dome, caustic dust making him shed tears. With a hard inhalation, Khouren did the only thing he could think of. Closing his eyes, he focused on Eleshen’s smile. On her beauty. On her nature, dark and light, tempestuous and loving. On how she laughed, so suddenly and full. Her scent of violets and rain filled his nose, the feel of her soft skin beneath his fingertips devouring him. In desperation, Khouren opened himself wide, and from his heart a cord of golden flame went lancing away into the morning beyond the dome – east.
With a prayer, Khouren dashed through the filigreed eastern wall to find himself upon a broad balcony. Golden sunlight smote his eyes, the brilliance of the day rising over the forest. And there, to his left, a woman had collapsed to the stone, her sleek black hair puddled around her lean and lovely form. Khouren raced to her, his heart screaming. As he turned Eleshen over, he saw that her lips and eyelids were blue, her violet eyes shot through with red veins as she gasped from asphyxiation.
“No!” Khouren knelt over her, hauling Eleshen’s spasming body up from the balcony. Tearing his wet face wrap down, he set his lips to hers, elevating her head at the neck and exhaling down her throat again and again. His eyes burned from poison in the wind, tears spilling from his lids as his throat began to close. Torment roared through Khouren, anguish like he hadn’t known in a hundred years. As Eleshen spasmed in his lap, dying, Khouren screamed, and something exploded from his being. A concussion of power, it thrust into Eleshen’s body. Roaring through her, carrying all of Khouren’s love and wyrria with it.
He felt something grasp his power from deep within Eleshen’s body. Something that felt like it ate Khouren’s power alive – feeling all his abilities, sifting through them. It latched on to one, twisting into something that went deep into Khouren’s bones. As he spasmed hard, feeling her wyrria dig into that energy deep inside him, Eleshen twitched. Gasped. Drew a horrible, rattling breath and began to cough, her eyelids and lips regaining color, fast.
Khouren didn’t know what exactly had happened, but some resonance between his wyrria and hers had saved Eleshen. Khouren held her fast, gasping with relief as he wound one end of his wet face wrap over her mouth and nose, the other over his own.
“Khouren?” Eleshen spoke through the wet cloth as she gazed up. Still cradled in his arms, she was so warm, so beautiful, and looked strangely hale, as if she had healed fast via Khouren’s own innate ability. Reaching up, she touched his face, his hair, tears shedding from her lovely violet eyes. “You’re alive! I thought... when you weren’t there this morning, I thought—”
“I’m here.” Khouren breathed through his cloth, setting his forehead to hers as grateful tears slipped from his eyelashes. “I’ll never leave you again, I swear it.”
“Don’t swear to me. Just be with me,” she murmured, her violet eyes haunting and beautiful.
“Always.” Leaning down, Khouren moved their facecloth aside, pressing his kiss to her lips. It was deep, and it held everything his heart wanted to say. Pressing up, Eleshen kissed him back, as the vile white mist dissipated upon the morning breeze.
* * *
In the deep of the night, Khouren woke the moment rain struck the stone of the dome outside. A patter at first, then a deluge, he lay still listening to the steady drumming with Eleshen wrapped in his arms in the solitude of their bower. Pressed close to her naked skin, he breathed her in, smelling rain and violets, and an undertone of mountain spices. His bare body drank her warmth, exhausted and invigorated from their lovemaking earlier.
Nothing moved in the dregs of the night, and Khouren realized it was still an hour or so pre-dawn. The forces of their allies slept deep after such a horrible day. Almost two hundred cats had been lost to the Devil’s Breath. Almost a thousand men and women, too – fighters and farmers alike succumbing to the Devil’s luck. And though Khouren felt bliss, lying here with his arms wrapped around Eleshen’s lean curves and his lips softly kissing her shoulder, his mind knew no rest.
Lhaurent’s forces would
strike again. And if they did, Khouren might lose her – for good this time.
Khouren hardly knew his own intentions as he shifted away from Eleshen’s warmth and out from beneath the covers. A strange fervency gripped him as he slipped naked out of bed, silent as shrouds. He was a wraith in the night as he donned his charcoal Kingsmen gear and weapons harness, his mind moving in a haunted darkness as he raised a new shouf over his mouth and nose, and his hood up over his hair.
As if sensing his departure, Eleshen turned over in her sleep and made a peep. Khouren stared down at her for a moment, drinking in her beauty, feeling her again with his body. After their rush of heady lovemaking, they had lain together, all night. Khouren could still feel the softness of her curves in his hands. He could still feel how she arched for him, how she breathed to his rhythm as he moved his fingers over her lovely flesh, stroking her hips, her shoulders, her thigh. Taking her slowly with the softest kisses to her drinkable lips.
Leaning over, Khouren slipped a kiss over those beautiful lips again. They curled in a smile just for him, and Khouren’s heart broke to see it. But it was well that she did not wake. Khouren was night itself as he moved through the walls and out of the dome, his mind churning with dark thoughts as he made a straight line toward the southern wall. Stepping through an alcove by the first courtyard, he saw piles of bodies of cat and men alike, waiting for the pyre. Sobbing eased through the night. Eerie and haunting, it spoke to Khouren of what he had to do.
He was a wraith in the shadows as he gained the southern wall. Materializing through the stone, he was about to pass under an open archway and let himself down the rock face, when he suddenly heard voices in the chill night. Slipping into the column of the massive arch, Khouren watched two men approach in the shadowed gloom, one bearing a minuscule lantern in his palm, turned down extremely low. He wasn’t surprised to see Arlen, wondering if the Kingsman lord ever slept. But the other man was a stranger, an enormous, brawny fellow with a bald pate positively devoured by crimson tattooing, wearing the classic crimson jerkin of a Red Valor soldier.
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