Goldenmark

by Jean Lowe Carlson

  Khouren felt Fentleith turn, noting Khouren’s presence with widened eyes.

  And Khouren felt Lhaurent’s command, wielded by all the power of the Wolf and Dragon, and Lhaurent’s own oceanic madness – to end Fentleith.

  “Khouren!” He heard Fentleith shout through the grinding walls and the simmering thunder. “He’s not our master! He’s not Wolf and Dragon! Break free, Khouren! Break free with me!”

  Something shivered deep inside Khouren. Some beast came awake in him, roaring up inside his flesh. Suddenly, he felt all the hate he’d harbored against Lhaurent. All his hope, dashed upon the black tide of Lhaurent’s ruthlessness. All the disappointment, that his Rennkavi had been a madman, a thing which never should have seen the light of the Goldenmarks. And the fear that had once swamped Khouren, the conflict that had raged inside him for centuries, of wanting a strong leader to follow, suddenly focused. All Khouren’s loves and losses sharpened – his battle of the Wolf and Dragon coming to perfect balance inside him.

  He felt the air shiver around him. A nimbus blossomed from his core, and it was not the lightning that surrounded Fentleith, but the devouring darkness of Khouren’s own wyrria. Striding forward like a dancer, Khouren was lifted into the air by his dark nimbus, the marble of the floor phasing out beneath his steps. Lhaurent cast his hand out, commanding bluestone columns to shift and the floor to open, but all of it disappeared in a devouring arc to Khouren’s wyrria, sections of ceiling crashing down as he walked on. Falling gold and marble phased out as it hit his sphere. Lhaurent’s grey eyes widened. Fentleith leaped back, to not be touched by that dark halo as his grandson drew abreast of him.

  “Shaper’s mercy, Khouren!” Fentleith breathed, his eyes burning gold in astonishment.

  “Not for Lhaurent, grandfather,” Khouren breathed back, ready to finish it.

  Raising his voice, Fentleith Alodwine, Last Scion of Khehem, addressed Lhaurent as blasted chunks of marble crashed down though the ruined hall. “You have shown no mercy to the world, Lhaurent, and so from the Scions of the Wolf and Dragon, you shall have none! Prepare yourself for the Void, spawn of the Undoer!”

  “The Order of Alrahel will never surrender to Khehem’s Kings!” Lhaurent’s grey gaze was cold, imperious. His chin rose, eyes glittering with righteousness. “We are the Thorn that pierces the Dragon. We are the Last Night that silences the Wolf. We are the Rose that will come again with the Dawn, uniting all under our glorious light. We are the Linea Alrahel – the true Line of Kings – the Order of the Dawn! Even if you kill me, the violence of Leith Alodwine will never prevail over this world. She who Shapes us all, will never allow it.”

  “You really believe that?” Fentleith’s voice was astounded. “You really believe that you are a vehicle of the World Shaper?”

  “I do. Because I am.” Lhaurent’s voice rang with belief, echoing through the hall. “I am the Light of the Dawn!”

  “You are nothing.” Khouren’s growl was low like an animal. “Elohl den’Alrahel is the Rennkavi, and has brought our glorious Dawn, not you.”

  Khouren knew a zealot when he saw one, and Lhaurent’s power simmered with a crimson annihilation that could never have been the World Shaper. Furious, Lhaurent’s eyes burned red as he suddenly flung up Leith’s ruby ring, gripping into that dark nimbus of Khouren’s, trying to command it. But Khouren was done being the servant. He was done being someone else’s cur.

  He was done believing in others – before he believed in himself.

  Like a demon, Khouren dashed in. His will was a spear, his devouring ruin sharpened into a lance. Lhaurent deflected, using Leith’s ring to throw up the marble of the floor between himself and Khouren, but Khouren’s spear ate through it all. A howl ripped from Khouren’s throat as he felt his grandfather attack also with a shattering lance of lightning that surged upon Lhaurent as Khouren’s black nimbus speared toward Lhaurent also. A cold fury drove Khouren as he lunged toward Lhaurent, implacable as the fall of night.

  But before his spear could reach Lhaurent, the once-Rennkavi flung his right hand out. Leith’s ruby ring flared, bright like an exploding volcano. His grandfather’s careening bolt of lightning turned, flashing back – and smiting Khouren right through his chest.

  Pain exploded through Khouren. He barely heard his grandfather’s scream as he felt his heart burst; his body spasming as he fell with a crash, his black nimbus gone. Falling to the marble dais, Khouren felt Lhaurent’s hand flash down, pressing that burning ruby to Khouren’s sundered heart and turning it to stone so he could not heal. Khouren saw his death arrive through the Void. But as Khouren’s life sighed away, he slipped out one dying fingertip – and touched Lhaurent’s soft boot.

  Lhaurent immediately shifted through the floor of the dais, pinned in solid bluestone to his shoulders. Sweeping forward with a blitz, Fentleith Alodwine, Last Scion of Khehem, seized Lhaurent’s startled face in his grip. And thrust all of that wyrric lightning, all that power of the living Wolf and Dragon, right through Lhaurent’s skull with a sundering roar.

  Lhaurent screamed, searing in lightning-swaths through his skin. His eyes charred out to scorched sockets, and still Fentleith’s lightning roared through him, Khouren’s grandfather’s wrath twisting through his molten eyes. Lhaurent’s head fell back, black smoke exhaled upon his last breath. And then his body burst into ashes, piling upon the stones of Roushenn as the clink of a falling ring came from far below.

  Fentleith rushed in, cradling Khouren in his lap, his vivid golden eyes lost in tears. But Khouren’s soul had already fled, watching from the Void. Roushenn Palace was wreckage, his grandfather screaming in wretchedness as the new day shone beyond the ruined domes. From behind Roushenn’s throne, the tableau of the Wolf and Dragon in their ever-battle lifted Khouren’s eyes, still intact. Their gazes penetrating him, the beasts seemed to judge Khouren.

  Then smiled – deeming him worthy of their lineage at last.

  Turning away, Khouren lifted his eyes to the Void. And saw it brighten for him, lit by a million stars.

  CHAPTER 50 – ELESHEN

  Eleshen rode tall through the streets of Lintesh, upon her dappled keshar cat Moonshadow. At the front of the Elsthemi royal retinue, just behind King Therel Alramir and High General Merra Alramir, Eleshen had been given a place of honor as they paraded at an easy pace through the crowded streets of the Queen’s City. A brisk wind skirled the sunny morning, snow glimmering off every bluestone gable. Riding at Ihbram Alodwine’s side, Eleshen’s white shrug of snowrabbit fur ruffled in the crisp breeze, her long sable braid spilling in a complicated weave over it. General Merra herself had woven Eleshen’s braid this morning, once Eleshen had finally awakened from her khemri-venom dreams.

  Merra had insisted that Eleshen be sexy as hell today, resplendent in the vicious finery of the Highlands. Eleshen rode tall in her charcoal corseted leather jerkin with its plunging neckline, her buckled leather trousers and boots with their knife-sheaths, and her pelt buckled on around her shoulders. All of which left the most important feature of Eleshen’s attire visible – the stark black ink of her new Kingsmount and Stars – finished just yesterday and still red-limned from fever dreams.

  Darkwinter Fest had never looked so bright, as their retinue of five hundred Highlanders continued through the streets. Elsthemi war-horns blasted their arrival. The populace thronging the streets cheered, pushed back by cobalt-clad Roushenn Guard to make way for the massive cats and their wild northern riders. Eleshen could see that Lintesh was being rebuilt as they entered Roushenn’s main plaza, to a fanfare of Menderian trumpets from the Fourth Tier. The city had been scrubbed of soot and grime from the midsummer burning, and the blue-grey byrunstone shone with flecks of quartz under the bright snow. Taverns and shops had been restored all around the broad circular plaza, strong new cendarie timbers and blue roof tiles hale beneath the winter drifts, cheery smoke issuing from chimneys.

  The shanty-cities in the outer Tiers had been disassembled, although some
places in the city were still ruined. Though the winter day was bright, the First Abbey of the Jenners haunted Eleshen. As they’d come through the city, she’d seen it was still a jumbled mess of broken stones. The two months since the Rennkavi’s Unity had not been enough of a span to rebuild it, and Eleshen wondered if it would ever be done. But as they rode through the main plaza, packed with a carnival atmosphere, food booths, acrobats and sundry, Eleshen’s heart lifted – as eager as the rest of the city for the Pact of the Coalition that would be signed today between seven nations previously at war.

  Threading their column around the main fountain, its frozen spume carven into an enormous sculpture of roaring lions and keshar-cats encircling the Kingsmount, they eased through the cheering throng to the massive portcullis of Roushenn. Just after they’d crossed under the bluestone wall, carven and far more ornate than Eleshen recalled, Ihbram gestured at a section of collapsed wall near the gate and chuckled.

  “Well, well, well,” Ihbram spoke smoothly. “Fucker’s showing off. I swear, that man is too much these days, now that wyrria’s returned.”

  Glancing over, Eleshen saw a crowd gathered near the breach in the wall. As she watched, a massive tumble of byrunstone blocks near the breach lifted into the air upon invisible hands, shedding snow as they rose. Moving in a slow spiral, the sundered blocks began to arrange in mid-air, wintry blue-white sigils curling in the thin cold, pulling them together. Suddenly, all the broken bits and boulders were pulled tight, then fitted seamlessly back into the thirty-foot high breach. With a flash of blue-white light, the blocks flared with sigils all across their surface, then died out – leaving an intact section of wall.

  Applause broke out among those watching, and cheering roared from the plaza beyond, which had seen the event from the far side.

  “Fentleith Alodwine, ladies and gents,” Ihbram chuckled. “As I live and breathe.”

  At last, Eleshen saw the man who stood before the wall, a man she’d once known as Fenton den’Kharel. Wearing a crimson jerkin tooled with the Wolf and Dragon, he wore no jacket nor furs in the cold air. Steam wafted up around him, shimmering in a mirage as if he’d expended a great heat in his exertions. His white shirtsleeves rolled up, his arms rested upon his head as he heaved a sigh with a pleased smile. The column of Elsthemi halted in Roushenn’s broad inner courtyard, watching. A woman in a long white ermine cloak stood next to Fenton, and with a strangely simultaneous movement, they turned toward the Elsthemi’s arrival. Eleshen was shocked to recognize Ghrenna den’Tanuk as the woman in that snowy cloak, as she and Fenton turned. But Ghrenna was as distant as Fenton was elated to see them, parting his throng of admirers immediately to stride across the snowy courtyard.

  Fenton’s stride increased to a jog, his grin elated as he neared. With a roar and a laugh, King Therel slung down from his keshar-cat to greet him, but General Merra beat her brother to the punch. Vaulting from her saddle, she landed neatly in Fenton’s arms as he rushed up, her legs twined around him as she devoured his face in the most immodest kiss Eleshen had ever seen. Holding her up effortlessly with his hands gripping her leather-clad ass, Fenton broke from her lips with a hearty laugh, gold and red fire twisting through his eyes, then dove in more. Everyone cheered and hollered as the King of Elsthemen waited on their pleasure beside his cat, grinning from ear to ear. When Merra at last released Fenton, Therel hauled him in for a hearty embrace.

  “Why do I never get homecoming welcomes like that?” Ihbram chuckled near Eleshen, his elbows resting on the pommel of his cat-saddle.

  Turning to him next, Fenton gave a pleased grin. “Because you’ve never settled long enough to require a home, miscreant. Come here.”

  Ihbram slung down from his saddle with a laugh and stepped in to embrace his father. It was long, and both heaved a great sigh before setting their foreheads together – the homecoming of family. It made Eleshen’s heart grip suddenly. She gazed up at the palace, feeling it loom above her. Much of it was repaired, and like the city, it had been scrubbed of brimstone from where it had burned from Fenton and Khouren’s battle against Lhaurent – but still. Entire wings were yet crumbled, collapsed in upon themselves or spewing enormous stones into the courtyard like a giant’s playthings. As Eleshen viewed the destruction, her chest clenched, her breath shallow in the crisp air. Seeing the palace, even largely restored as it was, reminded her of only one thing.

  That Khouren was gone, and had sacrificed himself to bring down their enemy.

  Eleshen had not been to Lintesh in all these months. When she’d received the news from Fenton that his grandson, her lover, was dead, Eleshen had stood by, numb with shock. Ihbram and Fenton had wept out their pain that horrible day. But when they’d traveled through an open Alranstone to Lintesh from the Aphellian Way and seen the swath of destruction, Eleshen had stared, mute and hollow inside.

  Khouren had gone in there ready to die for what he believed in, zealous to the last.

  Eleshen’s gaze strayed. She found herself looking down at her russet leather boot in its stirrup. Suddenly, a hand appeared, resting on her boot, then rising to give her calf a kind squeeze. Swallowing a shine of tears, she looked up – to find herself gazing into the stalwart kindness of Fenton’s lovely eyes.

  “Eleshen,” he murmured.

  “Fentleith,” she spoke back.

  A hard knowing rested in his gaze. His eyes were peaceful but sad, with only flickers of gold as he gazed up at her, then gave her leg a squeeze again. “Your Inking looks well on you.”

  “Thank you.” She shivered, dispelling her fugue and sitting tall upon her dappled grey cat. “I’ll be formally recognized tonight at the festivities.”

  “The Kingsmen have gained a valuable asset. And ascending to become Dhepan of Quelsis also,” Fenton’s smile was kind, though wistful around the edges. “Khouren would be proud of you, and so am I.”

  “Thank you,” Eleshen murmured again, subdued.

  “Come.” Fenton gave her boot a light slap, breaking the mood. “Queen Elyasin makes ready for everyone inside. The Council begins in a half-hour. I was just finishing up here with Morvein.”

  Eleshen’s brows knit, and she glanced from Fenton to Ghrenna. Ghrenna had not approached the Elsthemi party and stood aloof in her white ermine cloak. No one approached her, as if she was too intimidating or perhaps too frightening to be near. Her beauty was pale as tundra-snows as she returned Eleshen’s gaze with calm cerulean eyes. A breeze stirred and Eleshen shivered, unnerved at Ghrenna’s unearthly presence.

  She’d only heard the basics of Ghrenna’s story from Ihbram as they had helped rebuild Lhen Fhekran these past months, and Eleshen had progressed through her formal Alrashemni training under General Merra. Of Ghrenna’s damage from Lhaurent upon the White Tower, of how Elohl had died and suddenly been returned to life by unknown means, only to have Ghrenna nearly die in his arms. Of how she had awoken, changed – now someone else entirely, because of everything that had happened.

  A fanfare of horns sounded, breaking Eleshen’s thoughts. A retinue of liveried guards, dignitaries, and servants began pouring from the palace ingress as the doors boomed open. Stepping down the wide bluestone steps, they fanned out in a welcome-arc in the humped snow, with proper decorum but delighted smiles. No one’s smile was more delighted than Queen Elyasin den’Ildrian Alramir, who swept down the stairs in a stunning outfit of dove-grey battle-leathers to embrace her King and husband almost as passionately as Merra had Fenton, though Elyasin’s feet remained on the ground.

  Cheers exploded around the square, whoops roaring from the Highlanders as their King and Queen kissed. It was passion, and it was steadiness, and it was bliss. Watching the fierce, true love that had united two nations and was about to unite many more, Eleshen finally smiled, her heart swelling with an infectious joy.

  Queen Elyasin broke from her husband’s kiss. She beamed one last smile at him, then turned to face the Elsthemi. Raising her hands, she roared, “Highlanders! Tonight we shall dine a
nd drink, tell tales and dance! For no man nor creature will keep us from our celebrations – for your homecoming, to a nation that is as much yours now as it is mine. Elsthemen, be welcome! Be welcome in Alrou-Mendera, and let us celebrate a new era of Unity at last!”

  Her words were devoured by roars and cheers. The plaza behind them erupted, trumpets gave fanfare, and Elsthemi war-horns blared. With their arms around each other, Queen Elyasin and King Therel bounded up the stairs of the palace and disappeared inside.

  Eleshen slung down from her keshar-cat with a smile. Grooms came around, collecting her cat’s reins and leading the beasts away toward the stables. Eleshen was left standing among the milling Elsthemi as Fenton and Merra embraced again with throaty laughs. But Merra pulled away, bounding up the palace steps to attend to the duties of her rank. Ihbram and Fenton began to talk, and Eleshen joined them as Elsthemi moved into the palace to the welcome of maids and butlers – others picking up handfuls of snow and beginning an impromptu snow-fight in the courtyard.

  Eleshen ducked a wayward snowball and stepped to the palace ingress. Joy surged all around. But there were some who were not so joyous. Eleshen’s gaze connected with Ghrenna, who still stood aloof by the guard-wall. Her hands were folded into the voluminous sleeves of her white cloak, the hood of fur framing her pale locks like a wintry pane of glass. With a shiver, Eleshen suddenly realized that Elohl was not there. And as she glanced around the milling courtyard, she saw no sign of him.

  Only Ghrenna, standing alone by the wall, watching Eleshen with those drowning blue eyes.