Goldenmark

by Jean Lowe Carlson

  It was a small victory, in a time of chaos and uncertainty.

  Next to speak was a tall spearman wearing thin silk garb and a reed-woven breastplate, with a strikingly Alrashemni look. Lourden al’Lhesk, Captain of the Riishalleth of Ghellen in the Twelve Tribes south of Ghrec, gave an account of particular interest to Theroun. Battle had taken Lourden’s city two months ago, attacked by a Menderian slave-army sent by Alranstone from Lhaurent. Involving Kreth-Hakir, the attack had been accompanied by an assault on the Twelve Tribes’ coastline – the sea-battle that had been discussed at the Kreth-Hakir’s Heraldation.

  The fight for the Twelve Tribes had been vicious. But the Tribesmen were excellent warriors, joined by Berounhim caravanserai from the interior to wage guerrilla-style battles in the nighttime desert. Lhaurent’s forces had been crushed, though it had been a drain on the Tribes. The spear-Captain Lourden sought compensation from Alrou-Mendera via trade agreements, now that the Alranstones were open. Elyasin nodded soberly and rose to tell the spear-captain that it would be done, inviting him and his cohort to stay the week, to continue their talks of peace.

  The man nodded with a soldier’s efficiency and sat, and the assembly moved on.

  After all had been heard, a discourse raged. Most notably, the heads of military pinning Fentleith Alodwine over and over with questions about wyrria and how it would affect people – most of which he couldn’t answer. When it was at last obvious that Fenton was becoming beleaguered, Elyasin rose and invited the Articles of the Coalition to be distributed. A few more clauses were introduced, voted upon, and added by Thaddeus to the main document, then given to Jenner scribes to copy in a fair calligraphy. The Articles were affirmed, the documents signed by royalty and witnesses, and it was done. As the signed copies were distributed back to their nations, each in a golden codex, Queen Elyasin stood.

  “This is the beginning of a new era. Thank you all for being a part of the First Pact of the Coalition. I invite you to stay the week, or longer if you like. Enjoy the hospitality of Alrou-Mendera – as we have celebrations in honor of Darkwinter Night, the Pact, and the new year planned throughout the week. Rest, mingle, or explore our fair city. Refreshments will be provided here and in your rooms. The celebratory feast tonight in the Throne Hall will commence at sundown. For those of you who wish it, there shall be an Honoring of the Fallen in the Rose Courtyard an hour prior to sunset. Come and honor your slain, but then we shall make merry, for we have accomplished a great triumph today! Go with joy in your hearts. I will see you all at the festivities.”

  With that, Elyasin placed a palm over her heart and set one hand to the longknife at her hip, bowing to the assembly like a Kingsman. All rose and made a gesture back – a bow or sign of affirmation and respect from their own culture. As she straightened, Elsthemi whoops went up, and just like that the formality broke. Everyone rose and began to mingle, taking up chalices of wine.

  Pride filled Theroun’s heart. He couldn’t help but think how proud Uhlas would have been to see this strong warrior-Queen, his daughter. To see how generous Elyasin was, how open-hearted and fierce, how unabashedly dedicated to truth and honor, right down to her marrow. It was fitting, that Elyasin had made this Unification a reality. Uhlas had been too careful and stoic. Alden had been too rash and righteous. But Elyasin was the perfect balance of both.

  Even as Theroun’s emotions elevated, the old war-wound in his right side twinged, sending a spike of pain through his chest. Theroun took a breath, stretching his scar. Lingering at the column, his fierce joy was cast into shadow – that everyone here could celebrate Elyasin’s achievements except him. He was in little danger of being discovered. But his new allegiance also meant that he would never be able to join their revelry. Apart, he lost himself in wondering if this was what it felt like to be dead. To be a Black Ghost among the living. A true outsider, so lost to darkness that he could never again be part of the light.

  So deep was Theroun in his musings that when a man stepped up beside him, Theroun’s hand flashed to the longknife at his hip.

  “Don’t draw, General. If you value your secret, that is.” Fentleith Alodwine’s low chuckle sent ripples of discomfort surging over Theroun’s skin, like a march of fire ants. Theroun set his jaw and turned, lifting his hand carefully away from his knife. The once-Lieutenant moved into Theroun’s line of sight, sipping from a chalice with a slight smile as his liquid-gold gaze scanned the assembly.

  “Does it please you to sneak up on men, Scion of Khehem?” Theroun growled.

  “Vastly.” Fenton swirled his goblet. Standing at Theroun’s shoulder, the flash of threat in his golden gaze was far from subtle. “You’ll have to improve your Hakir skills far more, General, to conceal yourself from my eye. Which brings me to why I came over. What are your intentions here?”

  “Can’t you just pluck them from my mind?” Theroun growled. He raised an eyebrow and the wyrric lord laughed, resounding and bright. Heads turned their way, but he waved a hand as if dismissing something funny he’d just thought of, and people turned back to their conversations. But Theroun stood his ground, wary. He had seen Fentleith Alodwine in battle at the Aphellian Way – the man was a force of nature. Not to mention the raging Wolf and Dragon wyrria that kept his mind a flood of red fire to Theroun’s perusal.

  “Shall I?” Fenton gave him a sidelong glance, all friendliness dropped away. “Or shall I just blast it out of you? Mind-weaves are hard to keep when your flesh is on fire.”

  Theroun took a hard in-breath, though he knew the man was bluffing. Theroun couldn’t read it, but he could feel it from years of experience. “Raise your magics against me, Alodwine, and upset this blissful treaty you and the Queen are trying so hard to orchestrate. Civil discourse will earn us more than a show of force. I am here to record the proceedings. Nothing more.”

  “Indeed.” Fenton lifted a dangerous eyebrow. “If I had felt more from you, I would have killed you where you stand. Count yourself lucky that I’m a far more patient man than I was nine hundred years ago.”

  “I’m sure.” Theroun couldn’t keep the bite from his words. He didn’t take well to threats. But he played a dangerous game here, all the more because of his relative newness to wyrria. “I’m not here to maim your Coalition. The faction I represent wishes the Coalition to move forward.”

  Fenton went very still at his side. “The Kreth-Hakir Brethren want to support the Unification?”

  “Some of us do.”

  “The Kreth-Hakir rebellion.” Fenton’s voice was soft with wonder. “Then what I saw on the Aphellian Way was no trick. Khorel Jornath has turned against his Brethren.”

  “Indeed.” Theroun set his jaw. “Khorel has a different opinion about how the Brethren need to be led. And he’s not alone.”

  “But still far from being able to fight for dominance of the Order.” Fenton’s sidelong gaze held immense knowledge, and Theroun admired it. Fenton was shrewd, and now that Theroun knew part of the man’s history, his respect was merited. Though Fenton’s choices here would define how they moved forward from this moment – as enemies, or allies.

  “I would like to speak with Queen Elyasin,” Theroun spoke in his most clandestine bark. “Privately.”

  “Why?” Fenton’s tone was curt, but not without interest.

  “I need to tell her the truth of things.”

  Fenton eyeballed him, then sipped his wine and nodded pleasantly at a pair of Cennetian noblewomen in sheer silks wandering by. They gave him sexy smiles, full of lust and poison, but kept their distance, accepting a freshening of their wine from a young serving-lad.

  “You want to clear your name to Elyasin?” Fenton asked once they’d passed.

  “It’s not about clearing my name,” Theroun growled, “it’s about the security of her nation.”

  Fenton took a deep breath. The sizzling, biting feeling that crawled over Theroun’s skin eased. Fenton drained his goblet and set it down upon a tray as a serving-girl swept by. His gaze foll
owed Queen Elyasin, now artfully extricating herself from the assembly with Thaddeus, his arms full of papers. They whisked out of the room and Theroun felt Fenton hesitate, before he gave a short huff.

  “Break your glamour and be seen before I say so,” Fenton spoke low, “or try any mind-manipulation, and become my enemy. Imminently. Come.”

  Without waiting, Fenton marched toward the open doors. Theroun was fast upon his heels, using the man’s brisk wake to follow without touching anyone. In a moment, they were out the doors and into the vaulted hall. Elyasin and Thaddeus were turning into the Queen’s resting-solar at the northern end, the doors shutting behind them and four Palace Guard moving into a flanking position.

  Fenton strode down the hall, not looking around. They soon gained the doors and he waved the Guardsmen away. They snapped their heels, parting to their once-Lieutenant, who rapped upon the door. Elyasin’s voice spoke from inside, and Fenton pushed both doors inward with a brisk, smooth strength. He moved in, waited a beat for the invisible Theroun to step inside, then shut the doors and lowered the massive beam into the brackets to bar the door.

  The solar was thankfully empty, save for Elyasin and Thaddeus. A pair of hearths burned high, a far bank of windows admitting the long angle of the winter sun as it began to set over the Kingsmount. Elyasin stood by a series of bookshelves heaped with papers and scrolls, clearly the place where she and Thaddeus had been staging their Coalition conversations. Her golden eyebrows were raised and her arms crossed, a mildly peeved expression upon her features.

  “Locking me into my study, Fentleith Alodwine?” She spoke with mild irritation. “May I ask why? You’re no longer part of my Guard, you know.”

  “I have someone who needs to speak with you, Queen Elyasin,” Fenton began. “His information may be of vast importance to the security of your nation. And of the Coalition.”

  Fenton’s grave tone sobered Elyasin. She blinked, and her arms uncrossed. “Well, show him in. I will hear him straightaway.”

  Fenton glanced to Theroun. “You have five minutes.”

  “Five minutes is all I require.” Theroun let his black weaves drop. The Queen inhaled, her hands flashing to her weapons. But Fenton held up a hand, forestalling her.

  “General Theroun!” It was Thaddeus who spoke, his eyes enormous behind his spectacles. “How... what—?”

  “Not now, Thad.” Theroun chided the lad as gently as he knew how. He wanted to tell Thaddeus everything. He wanted someone to believe him, to know his loyalty. But this moment couldn’t be wasted. He had only five minutes to state his intentions to his Queen, and Theroun wasn’t about to squander that time.

  With humility, he took a knee and bowed his head. “My Queen. Only daughter of Uhlas and righteous protector of our nation, hear me. I come before you as a penitent, seeking absolution. I come before you as a traitor, pledged to a master I cannot escape. I come before you as a dead man, knowing my life is forfeit to the forces that move me, trying to stay alive as best I may. But most of all, I come before you as your devoted servant, to the bitter, galling end – if it comes to that.”

  He heard a slow, tense inhalation from his Queen. “Look at me, Theroun. What is it that you have come here to say? For surely you are beheld in the eyes of the Coalition as a traitor of the highest order. And yet – I have heard of your valor upon the Aphellian Way, despite your new allegiances. Lift your eyes to your Queen and explain yourself.”

  Theroun did as he was told. He did not rise, but held his Queen’s furious gaze with a grim passion. “My Queen. I have a darkness within me. A darkness of wyrria. It has been recognized by the Brethren of the Kreth-Hakir as akin to theirs, and I have chosen to become a part of their Order because of it – a choice of life or death, as my rising wyrria was tearing me apart, and only the Brethren’s arts could save me.”

  Elyasin heaved a hard breath, her green eyes fired with fury. Her fingers gripped the hilt of a longknife at her belt, brushing the wrapped leather. “Give me one good reason to not slit your throat right now.”

  “Because I am yours. Just as I was once your father’s,” Theroun spoke from his heart. They had no time for subtlety.

  Elyasin hesitated, and uncertainty broke in her eyes. “Why have you come here?”

  “Because I wish to be your liaison inside the Kreth-Hakir Brethren.”

  Elyasin inhaled a sharp breath. Her green eyes pierced Theroun like knives, but she was listening. “You wish to spy amongst them?”

  “I may not be able to make report often, or hardly at all,” Theroun growled. “I may not be able to escape them for many years. But I offer you, today, my eyes and ears inside their organization, as best I may. My mind – yours to eviscerate at will – when or if I am able to return.”

  Elyasin was silent for a long moment. At last, she breathed, “Why?”

  “Because I’ve made mistakes, my Queen, from this darkness inside me,” Theroun grated. “I allowed others to manipulate it, at the expense of my King and nation. Under the tutelage of the Kreth-Hakir, I have the opportunity to learn about it – tame it to my will and make it a weapon. To become the Black Viper that strikes the heart of the Brethren. For you. For Uhlas. And for us all.”

  Elyasin’s gaze weighed him, as if weighing his soul against the steel of his words. “I believe you,” she whispered at last.

  “He employs no Hakir arts right now, Elyasin,” Fenton’s words were quiet at Theroun’s side. “His words were spoken in truth, with no mind-manipulations.”

  “Theroun.” Elyasin’s eyes softened. Her golden brows knit, a sad grace upon her visage. “The Kreth-Hakir will do worse than kill you if they find out you spy for me. Fentleith has told me of their horrors. What they do to traitors,” Elyasin shivered, standing with a hard regality. “It is worse than any punishment a Queen could ever devise. Why would you take such a grave risk?”

  “Because I am dead if I don’t.” Theroun grated, feeling his heart break deep inside. “Because my love of King and country is the only thing I do love. And if I don’t hold on to that—” Fear slithered into Theroun’s gut, carving out a black nest and filling it with venom. “Then I will become the darkness in truth.”

  A deep sadness filled Elyasin’s eyes. Slowly, she sank to one knee, reaching out to touch Theroun’s cheek. “Have you seen the red eyes of the Demon, Theroun? Because I have. And he comes for all those who fall into darkness without any light to hold on to.”

  Tears filled Theroun’s vision, burning like a viper’s strike. “I have seen black arts, my Queen. I have felt them, these past nine months, stirring within me. The Demon comes for those who rise fast in Hakir wyrria, so the Brethren say. And I rise fast. Faster than anyone they have seen in a thousand years.”

  He heard Fenton’s sudden inhalation and slow out-breath. Theroun felt the unspoken conversation Queen Elyasin had with Fenton, her eyes flicking to his. Her gaze shifted back to Theroun, and in their emerald depths was the brightest strength Theroun had ever seen. Slowly, she slipped her hand from Theroun’s cheek, her sapphire and gold lion-sigil ring of House den’Ildrian proffered now beneath his lips.

  “Swear yourself to me, General Theroun den’Vekir,” she commanded. “And let your Black Viper’s strike serve none other. Ever.”

  “So do I swear.” Theroun grated, pressing his lips to her fingers and ring. “On pain of the Demon’s annihilation.”

  “So shall it be.” With stern grace, Elyasin rose. She stared down at Theroun from a height, like a goddess of battle. “Rise, General Theroun den’Vekir. Rise as mine to command, and mine to fell. Rise for your Queen, and do her bidding. Infiltrate the Kreth-Hakir Brethren. Keep all in secrecy. Report to me when you can. And hold fast against the Demon, for he is friend to none. Rise now, and do my will.”

  “My Queen.” Theroun rose, nodding his head with a crisp clack of his bootheels, one hand upon the sword at his hip. They shared a long glance, full of things unspoken about Elyasin’s father, her family – and how much T
heroun would have given to remain by her side. Suddenly, Elyasin moved forward. Reaching down, she took up Theroun’s fingers from his sword. Holding his hand, almost tenderly, her gaze pierced him.

  “Theroun,” she spoke softly. “All may fail in darkness, for we live now in strange and desperate times. But know that all of us hold within us a light, even though there is also dark. If you cannot be light in the days to come, then I shall hold that light for you. I will be your lighthouse to come home to. But know that within yourself, lies one of the strongest lights I have ever seen. A light that knows loyalty, and justice, and all things truthful and honest. My father saw that in you, Theroun, and I see it, too. Uhlas did not pardon you out of mis-applied mercy. He pardoned you because he saw that light, even in your darkest hour. Find it. Use it. And come back to us.”

  “My Queen.” Theroun’s throat choked. His shoulders trembled, a tight lance of pain devouring his old injury. But as Elyasin let his fingers fall, he knew he would die for her. He would do anything, for her. If his path was darkness, he would take it. He would take it and bend it to his will, and make it his to command.

  For his light – and for his Queen.

  Theroun gave a long exhalation and drew darkness down around him like a veil. Elyasin’s eyes betrayed no emotion, watching him disappear with calm readiness. Fenton raised the beam and pushed open the doors, stepping out into the hall first as if he was the only one exiting. Theroun turned from his Queen, stepping out behind Fenton. His last glance was upon Thaddeus as the doors closed, the lad’s green eyes lingering as if Thad could still see him.

  And then the doors boomed shut.

  Theroun’s heart clenched. Everything he loved was in that room. And nothing of that love would save him out here in the darkness, except what he carried with him. With careful breaths, Theroun used the will-weaving Khorel had taught him these past months. He took that last image of Thad standing by Elyasin and wove it away into the darkest corner of his mind. The blackest void inside himself, knowing that he could never share it even with Khorel. His memories of this day, he wove into a tight cocoon, impenetrable.