The Broken Realm

by Sarah M. Cradit

  From here, Jesse lost sight of Gretchen. He flashed forward, and was again with Ash, in a forest he knew, but also did not. It was the Hinterlands, but a part he had never seen, and yet he understood, instinctively that this was his mother’s home, which had been denied to him.

  Ash’s cold eyes regarded the world from the shadows of each moment. His heart had not recovered. His mind did not understand how someone could love so deep and hate as far. His mother and father, who had no other children, fussed over him. His mother, rightly guessing the cause of her son’s angst as only a mother can, coyly introduced him to the young Yanna de Medvedev, who was still rosy in the cheeks. Her pale green hair flowed freely; she had not yet come to plait it or tie it back, as she would later in life.

  Yanna’s sister, Yseult, chided Yanna for how she flushed when she spoke to Ash. Yseult warned her of what could happen, should she fall for a man. She would be cast out, unwelcome. Yanna had a playfulness in her that her sister, who would one day become Chieftainess, could not afford. She laughed off her sister’s warnings, insisting that Ash and the others would return to their kingdom, as they always did, and nothing would change.

  But Yanna underestimated the deep yearning of a heart broken in half. Of all it would do to mend itself of the pain for even an hour; a minute. Yanna’s soft hair tosses and high giggles threatened to close the wound. Her light touches on his arm as she showed him her favorite trees, as she let her familiar climb over his shoulders, nearly sealed it.

  Ash beheld her under a sprawling oak and thought to himself that he was Drystan here, and Ash out there. It was Ash who had crippled under the weight of his heartbreak at the hands of Gretchen, his Sparrow, but it was Drystan who could put aside those things, at least for now, and take the beautiful, glowing Medvedev by the hands and pull her closer for a kiss.

  But he found he could not stop there. And Yanna’s sleepy, blissed gaze she gave him when he tried to stay himself only made him lose himself all the more. She would regret this. He would regret this. Both thought this, at the same time, for their own reasons, as they made love beneath the oak, sealing a fate that neither would ever fully comprehend.

  Drystan returned to his world, lovesick, but he would take that over the heartbreak that returned as he again slipped into the life he had known as Ash. The one Gretchen had colored in for him, painting every corner and edge with herself so that there could be no escape.

  And when she threw her arms around his neck and blessed him with an ocean of her tears, what else could he do, but kiss them away?

  He could not know of the new heartbreak burning bright in the heart of Yanna, who had come to regret her declarations to a sister who now had cause to throw them back at her. Yanna, the fool. Yanna, the traitor. She heard this and more from Yseult, who, through her tears, declared that if she wished to remain in the lands of the Drumain, she must agree to be rid of the child growing within her. A child that could never, ever be permitted to live within their clahnn. An abomination of their ways.

  And Yanna, in her youth, her unwitting impetuousness, declared that she could not live anywhere that would demand such a thing of her. Yseult, in a fury, cursed her from returning; from ever having the ability to again find the doors to enter their lands.

  Yseult would regret this later; Jesse saw this, too. Time was fluid where he was.

  Though this regret would not happen for a long time.

  Yanna wandered the borderlands of the Easterlands. She had no money. No horse, no name. She bartered with the only currency she had, herself, and many nights she lay awake wondering if the day’s events had taken her child from her. But they never did. Within her womb, a son grew stronger every day.

  At last, she found herself in Bythesea, a port town where she supposed she might have better luck. As a Medvedev she was skilled in everything from seamstressing to preparing meals to even smithing, and here she could find work, and make enough coin to find Drystan and make her declaration: that their love had caused this, and their love could cure all.

  Instead, she found more of the same.

  More cruelty.

  More pain.

  Disappointment unlike she had ever believed was possible.

  And then, when the hope had been beaten away, when she no longer possessed the idealism that she and her child could have anything resembling a life out in the kingdom, she was taken by the hand by a young Hamish Strong...

  53

  Ryan

  Stefan was the first to wake at the sound of a visitor. Anabella stirred behind him, wincing as the aches from spending another night on the cot when she unfolded her limbs. The hard bed gave her a glimpse into how she might feel in another decade, if she lived long enough to greet her middle age.

  Across the circular room, Wyat was already at attention. He had a hand on his sword, but he looked less concerned than curious.

  The hooded figure was tall, though slight in figure, like a woman. But they didn’t walk like a woman. They’d entered the room with full, purposeful strides, and when they dropped down to their knees by Ryan’s bedside, there was nothing delicate in that, either.

  The figure raised a hand. Across the room, the door slammed closed.

  Anabella and Stefan gasped in unison.

  “Magic, Mama,” he whispered, and all Anabella could do was nod.

  The figure made no acknowledgment of them. Surely they knew they were not alone in this room they’d entered without invitation.

  The hood fell back. Short waves of violet caught the light streaming through the long windows.

  “Medvedev,” Wyat whispered.

  The figure turned, and now there could be no doubt it was a man. Or was that even the right word? Anabella did not know how Medvedev made distinctions of their gender, or if they even possessed a gender at all. She would ask questions about the Medvedev, following her father around as he worked to prepare his furs for sale. He told her to save her curiosity for those things, and people, who wanted to be understood, for the Medvedev did not.

  “I have not come to hurt anyone. But if you come near me, that purpose will change,” the Medvedev said.

  “We mean no one harm,” Anabella answered before Wyat could. “We’re only here to help see this man back to health.”

  “Then we are in accord,” the Medvedev said. He studied the three of them with increasing scrutiny. “Who are you to him? Not you,” he said to Anabella. “I know who you are. And your son.”

  “Scholar Edevane. Ryan and I are not yet acquainted, though I am a friend,” Wyat said evenly. It was evident he did not yet trust the lavender-haired creature. “It would be harder to explain his connection to the Medvedev, I would think.”

  “Kael,” the Medvedev said. “Is my name.” He turned his attention back to Ryan.

  Wyat laughed, shaking his head. “That was no answer at all.”

  “Kael,” Stefan said. “We are well met, sir. I am Stefan.”

  “As I said. I know who you are,” Kael said without turning. He seemed to be studying Ryan, his eyes falling over the sleeping man inch by inch.

  “How?” Stefan’s eyes twinkled as he looked up at Anabella. “I don’t know you.”

  “You’ll meet your father soon,” Kael said matter-of-factly. “Beyond that, I have no more to share.”

  Stefan practically shook with this news. Anabella pulled him tight. She would have turned her fury on anyone daring to give them false hope, but the Medvedev were said to see all, to know all. This Kael was not their friend, but nor did he seem to be their enemy, or intent to stir deception.

  “You better not be lying to the child,” Wyat warned.

  “Only men do that.”

  “Then tell us why you’ve come for a boy from the Southerlands who is just barely of noble birth.”

  “Nobility has no meaning to me. We are all born under the same sky,” Kael said. He paused his examination of Ryan. “No. I very nearly lied to you, and so must correct. I come because he is the nephew of th
e great Yseult of the Drumain, and she will not hear of his death if it can be avoided.”

  Anabella and Wyat exchanged looks. Ryan was Medvedev?

  “His mother, Yanna,” Kael said, answering their shared but unspoken question. “She came to the Southerlands under a veil of deception. She gave Hamish Strong two sons. Neither belong here.”

  “Where is the other?” Wyat asked. “Should he not be here, at his brother’s side?”

  “Addressing his own destiny,” Kael said. There was a decisiveness to his words. He was done speaking.

  Kael of the Medvedev leaned forward over the still, sleeping body of Ryan Strong and, with a monstrous inhale, he rolled back against his heels, waiting.

  Ryan Strong opened his eyes.

  Kael jumped to his feet, replaced his hood, and fled in a whoosh of fabric catching air.

  * * *

  Anabella was a natural caregiver. People assumed this was true of all women who were also mothers, but this had not been Wyat’s experience at all. His own mother had gleefully turned him into the care of a nan whose idea of rearing a child included regular beatings laced with heavy doses of shame.

  After they were both dead—his mother, bringing her tenth child into the world, and the nan, from too many years in her cups—Wyat’s father finally acknowledged what Wyat had known all along. I guess it’s no wonder you had a yearning to understand the meaning of things.

  But the Guardians hadn’t made Stewardess Edevane predisposed to turning her nose up at children, or the nan violent and unloving. Nor had they given Anabella Weatherford Rhiagain her gift of compassion. They gave men a world with which to make their choices and men become who they became.

  Ryan struggled in and out of consciousness. He would wake long enough to blink a few times and take in what must have been very confusing surroundings, and then surrender once more to rest. But this rest was not like the rest from before. Kael had seen to that. Now when Ryan slept, it was a sleep he could wake from.

  Wyat was still spinning his thoughts around what they’d witnessed. He’d read about the Medvedev at the Reliquary. He’d studied their ways, their magic—which they knew so little about—their unique speech, which Kael had not used on them at all, surprisingly. Nothing could have prepared him for being in the presence of one.

  He had so many questions to ask, but he’d known even before Kael fled that he’d never get the chance to ask them.

  Wyat was musing over this when Ryan said his first word to them.

  “Water.”

  Anabella was on top of it. She had the water poured into a glass before he could even prop himself up. Wyat came around the other side to help him.

  “The water is from yesterday. I’ll have them fetch more from the stream for you,” Anabella said, flushing with apology.

  “Where am I?” Ryan asked. Water dribbled down his chin. He pushed her hand away.

  “You’re in Whitecliffe. You’re safe now.”

  “Safe from what?”

  “From anyone who would wish to do you harm.”

  Ryan’s lip curled. “Harm? Why would anyone?” He gestured at his throat, and Anabella again fed him a sip from the cup. “Thank you. Who are you?”

  “I’m the one who owes you everything,” Anabella said through fresh tears. “For you delivered my husband from his terror.”

  “Your husband? Who’s your husband?”

  “Darrick is my husband. I understand he might not have told you about me, when you were in the Wastelands?”

  “In the Wastelands? Darrick? Lady, I don’t know... why am I here? Where’s my father and that wench he married? Where’s Jesse?”

  Anabella exchanged a troubled look with Wyat.

  Wyat reached forward and touched Ryan’s arm. “You’ve been resting here weeks following your escape from the Wastelands. But perhaps more rest is needed.”

  The disgust in Ryan’s eyes when he regarded Wyat’s hand upon him caused him to rescind his comfort.

  “He’s confused,” Anabella said to Wyat.

  “He’s lying the feck right here,” Ryan snapped. “And he’d like to see his father and brother.”

  “Ryan, what’s the last thing you remember?” Wyat asked.

  “You, staring at me like I just ground yer mother’s corn.”

  “Before you woke up to find us here, Ryan. What do you remember before that?”

  “Aye, we were celebrating the death of the old traitor king, tha’s what I remember, and I’d like to be doin’ it still.”

  “Eoghan? Eoghan is still very much alive,” Anabella said.

  Ryan snorted. “Aye, I suppose he’ll be king now, won’t he?”

  Anabella mouthed the word Khain to Wyat.

  Wyat nodded, sighing. “So you don’t remember going to the Wastelands?”

  “Catch me dead before I’d go there,” Ryan said with a hard frown. “Why the feck... who are you people?”

  “And Esmerelda? You don’t remember her?” Anabella pressed softly.

  “That gold-tongued witch? Lord Warwick’s spawn?”

  Wyat stretched his jaw into a wince. “Right. Well, then—”

  “So, you don’t know where Darrick went?” The disappointment in Anabella’s face, the sorrow laced into her words, broke Wyat’s heart.

  “Darrick who, lass? I dinnae any Darrick. Unless you mean that whorepicker comes round the tavern?”

  Anabella buried her face in her hands. “We have to go find Kael. He can fix this.”

  “He’s gone, Anabella. He did what he came to do,” Wyat said, wishing the words did not feel so true.

  Ryan sat up in the bed. He looked around the room. “Which one of you feckers filched my sword?”

  54

  Command

  Christian was weary of watching his wife sleep. He hadn’t left her side in the tent other than a few trips out to address the men awaiting his word on what to do next. Each time he’d linger, struggling for words, before retreating back into a place more familiar to him. They’d fashioned a travel litter for Aylen while he was steadfast in his tending of her. The sight of it brought him to tears.

  They’d done it as much for him as themselves. It was time to go home. The word had come shortly after Holden’s capture that the short-lived war was now over. Whitechurch was back in the hands of friends, and the men deployed to the Westerlands had begun the slow retreat home. Had the men come with Aylen half a day later, Holden would still be here, leading his own men.

  But then Aylen would be dead, for there would’ve been no negotiation to give her life value to them.

  No one bothered him. Not the men looking for direction. Not Alric. Not even Marsh, who held the blame for what happened with the negotiators deep in his troubled gaze.

  Yes, Christian was tired of watching his wife sleep because he hadn’t looked into her eyes in so long that he’d forgotten how that felt.

  He’d been so preoccupied with his horror at the condition she’d arrived in—that she was there at all! Oh, he should have known she wouldn’t be content to stay behind—he hadn’t immediately noticed that they’d returned without Holden. He’d sobbed into her crimson-matted silver hair, screaming at Marsh to be quicker at undoing the bindings the enemy had used to keep her from healing herself. As he’d lowered her from the horse, her arms and legs going limp over the sides and ends of his embrace, he’d reached deep within himself for any signs that he’d repressed his own healing abilities over the years. He’d begged, pleaded, and sobbed for the Guardians to intervene.

  Only when he was certain she was healed beyond death’s reach did he seek out his father. Holden must have a plan to answer this crime. Aylen was a lady of the Northern Reach, the wife of their heir apparent. The men delivering her hadn’t been fit to share a meal at the same table, let alone handle her so crudely.

  Instead, he found a solemn Marsh, gathered around the men who had seen what Christian had not.

  Marsh passed Witchwind to Christian, dropping the sword
and scabbard in his arms.

  “Not your fault, Tyndall,” Alric said. “Holden has been waiting for this moment all his life. He knew what he had to do, and he did it. A hundred men could not have changed his mind.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Christian cried, storming from the tent. “Waiting to be taken? To give himself up to the enemy?”

  “Christian—” Tyndall put out a hand, but Christian knocked it away.

  “Did your father speak to his lord and commander this way?” he demanded. He tore his gaze through the other men, landing on Alric. “For that’s what he did, did he not? Leave me in command? He seems to have told everyone but me this.”

  Marsh dropped his eyes. “That was one of the commands he left with me. Sir.”

  “Don’t let me stop you from sharing the others.”

  “Christian,” Alric warned. “Remember yourself.”

  “The greatest curse of my life is that I can never seem to forget who I am, Alric, so please don’t trouble yourself on my account,” he snapped. “Go on, Marsh. Tell us all what my father wanted for you to share with me.”

  “Are you sure you want me to do this here?”

  Christian’s laugh turned into a white cloud of fury in the cool air. “Why not? He gave them to you, a stranger, not me, his son. He’s never given care to what I think or feel, even in the end. May as well share them with the world.”

  Marsh glanced at Alric for guidance, but Alric was no help to him, or anyone. Christian saw it now, when Alric was no longer his father’s burden but his. Oh, he was beginning to see so much.

  “He traded his life for Lady Aylen’s,” Marsh said with a guilty sigh. “He wanted you to know that... that you are the Lord of Wulfsgate now. The Northerlands is yours, whether you want it or not. That was the price. Those were his words.”