Lonen's Reign

by Jeffe Kennedy

  She reached out with her magic and connected to that Trom.

  “Oria!”

  “I know what I’m doing.” She hoped. The Trom didn’t fight her grip, but slithered back up it, filling Oria’s magic portals with oily slick darkness. “Land us inside the walls.”

  “Them too?” Chuffta’s mind-voice sounded bewildered. “Ugh! I can taste it through you.” He made mental gagging noises.

  “Them too.” Concentrating, Oria held firm, resisting the visceral urge to drop the connection, and trying to filter it at the same time, to spare Chuffta. “Take us to the temple courtyard.”

  “But the whole strategy was to keep the Trom out of Bára,” Chuffta complained, even as he angled them into a steep glide, heading for the expanse of plaza between the palace and temple.

  “I’m changing the strategy,” she replied tersely, most of her concentration going to coercing the Trom, who’d begun to tug in the opposite direction. Not to break free—no, its claws sunk ever deeper into Oria’s psyche—but to pull her away from Bára and its walls. Which only confirmed to Oria that she had the right idea. “Tell the Great One to keep all the others away still,” she added, finding it easier to speak along the time-worn channels between her and her Familiar.

  She felt the pang of concern from Lonen as he observed their descent, and sent him a pulse of reassurance, hoping he’d understand. Then she had no mental space for anything but hanging on to the Trom as they crossed the walls, the magic disruption of them like a bore tide crashing through her consciousness, and then again crossing Ing’s chasm. She dragged the Trom with her, forcing its dragon to land.

  Golden masked priests and priestesses spilled out of the temple, but Oria focused on containing the dragon, holding its mind along with her connection to the Trom. As soon as Chuffta landed, Oria scrambled down the harness straps, pulling the Trom now opposite her on the stone apron to do likewise. It followed suit, moving with spidery ease, as if Oria weren’t compelling it. In truth, Oria couldn’t tell if she really was making it obey or if she’d fallen into its web.

  “Keep that dragon contained,” she told Chuffta.

  “On it.”

  As Oria and the Trom walked toward each other, facing off, she saw Chuffta backing the Trom’s dragon to the edge of the precipice. The darker dragon tossed its head but retreated before the much larger Chuffta and his well-placed flame. The priests and priestesses shouted, incomprehensible, male and female voices combined—and Oria spared them no attention.

  Every fiber of her awareness focused on the Trom.

  “Ponen no longer, I perceive,” it rasped in its hoarse voice, as devoid of melody as its frame was of human flesh. “You are one of us now.”

  “No,” Oria replied evenly. “I’m what you could’ve been, ancestress, had you not lost your way.”

  Its lipless mouth smiled without mirth. “There are ways and ways, child, and you will find that everything dries up and dies but one thing: power.”

  “You’re wrong.” Oria untied the mask from her belt and held it out to the Trom. “I believe this was once yours.”

  The Trom extended its bare twig fingers. Not unnaturally long, but a once-human hand stripped to skin, ligament, and bone. Without the fleshy palm, the finger bones extended from the knobby wrists, creating an illusion of length. The Trom took the mask and held it, staring down at the shining artifact, arrested. “Not mine,” it said. “But one I once knew.”

  A hint of wistfulness came from the Trom, the first taste of emotion Oria’d had from one of them. “A long time ago,” Oria suggested.

  The Trom raised its unearthly gaze back to hers. “Longer than you can imagine.”

  “Longer than anyone should live.”

  “Who’s to decide such things? Some things fade too fast, are gone in a blink. Others last far too long, wearing us down to nothing. We did what we had to do not to die.”

  “The world changed when Grienon arrived,” Oria ventured. “You used magic to keep yourselves alive, then couldn’t die.”

  The Trom inclined its head. “You would do the same.”

  Oria shook her head. “There are other ways.”

  “Now there might be, but only because of us.”

  “That could be,” Oria allowed. “But you are not harnessed to us. You do not have to answer the call of Bára any longer. Our battles are not yours.”

  The Trom turned its head, raising the hand not holding the mask and beckoning to someone with an uncanny undulation of those spidery fingers. As if released from a stranglehold—perhaps he had been—Yar barreled forward, shouting imprecations.

  As one, Oria and the Trom regarded his frothing posturing with bemusement. “This one summoned us,” the Trom informed Oria, a whisper of dry humor in it. “And you say we do not have to answer? The magic compels us. We do not like it.”

  “If I promise to break your chains,” Oria spoke over Yar’s impotent yelling, “will you call off your brethren above?”

  “You believe you can?”

  “Kill her!” Yar shouted, seizing Oria by the arm in a painful grip and shaking her. “I am the Summoner and I command you to kill her.”

  “I can,” Oria replied to the Trom, ignoring Yar. His grien batted at her, but she held him off.

  “Prove it,” the Trom said, holding out its hand. “Touch me. If I don’t kill you, I’ll believe.”

  Watching the Trom’s magic, seeing how the currents of it pulsed to suck all life from whatever it touched, Oria changed her own to both match and deflect. She laid her hand in the Trom’s, clasping it in what felt like the beginning of a very strange friendship.

  The Trom smiled. “Perhaps you can. But you must kill the Summoner.”

  Everything in Oria congealed, going cold and dense. “He is my baby brother.”

  Cocking its head with what might be sympathy, the Trom squeezed her hand and released it. “I know. And I’ve shown you how. Break our chains now. Kill the Summoner, and we’ll go. I’ll trust you to make sure we can’t be Summoned again.”

  Yar still had her arm, attacking her with his grien. It felt much weaker now, and Oria became aware that one group stood well back, their sgath still and contained. The priestesses, refusing to feed the priests.

  Three women stepped to the fore, hands clasped and faces bare. Juli on one side, the golden-haired Gallia on the other, and Oria’s mother, tall and straight in the middle. The queen mother observed her two surviving children with a careworn expression, but a sharp, alert gaze. She met Oria’s eyes and dipped her chin.

  With a deep sense of regret and righteousness, a conflict Oria knew she’d spend the rest of her life resolving, she turned in Yar’s grip and embraced him. Letting the black current reverse, she pulled his life force into herself, feeling him dissolve into nothing, and collapse in a pile at her feet.

  ~ 16 ~

  Lonen had forgotten how high those walls around Bára reared up, the towers dizzingly tall beyond that. Difficult to believe he’d once scaled that impervious reach. Though he had done it—and had climbed trees far taller. The wall only seemed unscalable now because Oria was behind it, facing one of the lethal Trom.

  Buttercup valiantly galloped through the sucking sands at a diagonal from the rock outcropping they’d stopped at after climbing out of the chasm. They made for the trade road, the Destsrye army whooping and shouting in fine aggressive barbarian style behind them. Oria would be amused by it, and Lonen clung to that image of her—alive and laughing, not in a gelatinous pile. He let the feel of her burning sun at the other end of the marriage bond draw him closer, though the gates to the city remained firmly shut.

  If he had to climb those walls again, he would.

  With a clatter, Buttercup’s hooves found the hard-packed road, and he put on a burst of speed, heading for those unmoving gates. Overhead, the dragons battled with guttural roars and blasts of flame.

  Then suddenly, the skies went silent.

  Responding to Lonen, Buttercup reare
d up, wheeling in a circle to lash out at whatever had changed. But only white derkesthai remained above. The Trom and their dragons had disappeared.

  With a shout, Lonen turned Buttercup and the army back toward the gates, resuming their headlong approach. Hardly daring to hope they might have won, Lonen thought as hard as he could at Oria, praying to Arill that she could hear him.

  And the gates opened. The city guard of Bára poured out, lining either side of the gates, raising swords… and then laying them down. Without pause, Lonen and Buttercup galloped full speed through the tunnel in the wall, a space Lonen remembered all too well from long hours taking and holding it against the city guard.

  As they emerged from the shadows, the enormous white figure that was Chuffta landed in the wide courtyard. On his back Oria perched, copper hair streaming wildly from her aerial battles, a broad grin on her face.

  They both leapt from their mounts and ran, catching each other up in a hard embrace. Her light, lithe body vibrated against him, thrumming with magic and victory. He kissed her, hot and long, savoring the flavor of his sorceress queen.

  When they parted, both out of breath, he gave her a cocky grin. “The last time you surrendered Bára to me, you rode a white horse instead of a white dragon. It seems you’ve come up in the world.”

  “Well, it’s important to dazzle the barbarian hordes at your gates,” she replied with a saucy smile.

  “Where do we stand?” he asked, sobering.

  “Yar is dead.” She grew somber, too, haunted shadows in her copper eyes. “I killed him. Lonen—I used the Trom power to do it. I dissolved him while I held him in my arms.”

  He gazed back at her, letting her see and feel the love and regard he held for her. “You used the tools at hand, Oria, to do what you had to as queen of two realms. You restored the balance, yes?”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “I hope so,” she whispered.

  “You did.” He gave her all his confidence in that truth. “And now we move forward. The Trom?”

  “Gone,” she answered. “That’s a story.”

  “All right then.” He let her go and found Arnon and Alyx standing nearby. From behind Oria, a group of three women riding horses and dressed in priestess robes, but not wearing masks, approached. “I suppose we have a great deal to sort out.”

  “Yes.” Oria sighed, sagging briefly against him, then straightened. “The city council and temple are in complete disarray, but let me introduce you to women you’ve met, but may not recognize. You’ll remember my mother, Rhianna.”

  The tallest woman, with the look of Oria, dismounted and came toward him. Remembering the epithets the queen mother had hurled at him before, Lonen gave her a cautious bow. “Queen Rhianna,” he said, straightening, then putting an arm around Oria to draw her to his side. “It’s a pleasure to see you alive and well.”

  She gave him a severe look, noting his possessive gesture. “How gratifying. I offer you two things: my apology for what I said about your suitability as a husband for my daughter, and my thanks, for saving her life. Your Highness,” she added with a wry twist of a smile that reminded him oddly of his own mother.

  He looked down at Oria, who had her face tilted up to his, an echo of the same amusement in her smile. “Oria saved herself,” he said, as much to her as to Rhianna. “And Bára, it seems.”

  “Because I have the ideal husband,” she teased. “And this is Juli, without her mask.”

  The pretty young woman with tousled red curls gave him a smile and a bow. “Your Highness. Good to see you returned to our walls.”

  Lonen grinned back at his one-time co-conspirator in handling his then new and skittish foreign bride.

  “And this is Gallia,” Oria said, drawing forward the elegant blonde. “You encountered her briefly at the duel that had me excommunicated from Bára. We have her to thank for so much, including saving my mother’s sanity.”

  “That’s putting it strongly,” Gallia demurred, staying a careful step back from Lonen and casting her gaze downward. Remembering how Oria had said his presence affected her before she learned to manage it, Lonen made an effort to pull his thoughts and curiosity back. Oria stroked a hand over his forearm in appreciation.

  “It’s not.” Rhianna gave her daughter-in-law a fond look. “Gallia took Oria’s advice and sought out my friendship. She sat with me daily, helping me come out of a very dark place.”

  “You helped me through my dark place,” Gallia returned. “Leaving Lousá weakened me in ways that I never expected—or could’ve dealt with on my own. That and being married to Yar—” She cut herself off, looking anxiously between Oria and her mother.

  “Yar nearly killed Gallia,” the queen mother said baldly. “He drained her dry, trying to force her to adapt to Bára’s sgath. “He was… not kind to her. Something I shall bear the guilt for to my dying day.”

  “His actions were not yours,” Gallia countered. “You’re not responsible.”

  “I am.” Rhianna nodded to herself. “I raised that boy to be who he became. I mourn my son’s death, but I don’t regret the necessity of it. I’m only glad I had the wit to raise a daughter like Oria, too.” She opened her arms and Oria ran to her, the tears falling freely now. They rocked each other for a long moment, then Oria stepped back, holding out a hand to Lonen, drawing him into their group.

  “Juli rallied the priestesses to cut off the flow of sgath to the priests,” Oria explained to him, wiping away her happy tears. “Gallia had been gradually draining Yar already. They were able to cut off the flow to the golem army.”

  “And Nolan?” he asked. “Yar or one of his priests had a magic hold on my brother. Is it gone or is it too soon to know?”

  Oria glanced at Gallia, who considered. “We cut off everything. There should be no grien leaving Bára now.”

  Oria’s eyes took on that abstracted look she got when speaking to Chuffta mind-to-mind. “Chuffta asked Illya, the derkesthai with Lonen’s mother,” Oria explained, for everyone’s benefit. “The spell binding Nolan seems to have snapped when that sorcerer was cut off from Bára’s sgath. He’s disoriented—he remembers very little of what occurred since he fell into the chasm on the battlefield here—but seems to be more himself.”

  Her face echoed the relief Lonen felt, as that scar of guilt and worry unknotted itself. Behind him, Arnon and Alyx spoke to each other quietly, sounding equally pleased.

  “How do you have so many derkesthai?” Rhianna asked her daughter, then cocked her head to eye Chuffta askance. “Is that really Chuffta?”

  Chuffta lowered his great head to rest his pointed chin on the ground, blinking his bright green eyes at Rhianna fondly.

  Oria laughed. “Yes. I used my magic to make him big.”

  “Apparently,” Rhianna replied faintly, still raptly staring.

  “Thank you for him, Mother.” Oria became very serious. “I don’t know how you knew I’d need him, but I did.”

  Rhianna looked back at her daughter. “My sister Tania told me to get him when you were born, before she left Bára. She recognized in you what our great-grandmother had. Tania had special insight that way, an admirable skill.”

  “But you told me not to be like her,” Oria exclaimed.

  Her mother sighed, looking to Lonen. “I wanted my life for you, and for Tania, and that was selfish. I think you’re both better off having followed your own paths. At least I hope so in her case, wherever she may be.”

  Gallia cleared her throat. “Speaking of having cut off all of the priests’ grien, we’ll need to remedy that soon, or vital spells like those powering the walls and the orchards will collapse.”

  “We’ll have to determine which priests can be trusted,” Rhianna put in gravely.

  “You can learn to do it yourselves,” Oria corrected decisively. “I’ll teach you. The trustworthy sorcerers can learn to filter the wild magic—and so can you—and the sorceresses can learn to wield active magic.”

  “But women can’t use gr
ien,” Juli blurted, then looked chagrined at Oria’s laugh.

  “There is no such thing as sgath or grien,” Oria corrected gently, not without compassion. “Those are constructs, created long ago to bind us to our roles. We don’t need them any more than we need the masks. In time, even the walls can come down. The time we needed that barrier to protect us has passed.”

  “Including protection from the Destrye,” Lonen added. He glanced behind him to see Alyx and Arnon, exhausted and covered in blood and other nameless substances, but grinning with hope. Beyond them, the Destrye warriors mingled with Bára’s city guard, some in conversation, renewing acquaintances from the time the Destrye had occupied the city in peace. He squeezed Oria’s hand. “We are one people now.”

  “Which means I’d like Arnon—” Oria looked to Lonen’s brother, who stepped forward with a bow. “Arnon, can you set up a system to start ferrying food and water through the tunnels back to Dru?”

  “Of course, Your Highness. I look forward to the challenge.”

  “We’re sending food and water to Dru?” Rhianna asked, eyebrows climbing in her pale face.

  “It’s about time Bára began making up for all it’s stolen from Dru over the years, don’t you think, Mother?”

  Rhianna opened her mouth, gaze sharp, then closed it again. She nodded in resignation. “Perhaps so. But don’t strip us bare, I beg you.” She said it to Lonen, but Oria answered.

  “There is no more us and them.” Oria looked up at him with an affectionate smile. “Teamwork, yes?”

  “Absolutely,” he agreed. “And we’d best get to it. There’s a great deal of work to do.”

  “True, but…” Oria’s smile turned flirtatious. “You’re awfully filthy, barbarian. As Queen of Bára, I’m commanding you to bathe and make yourself fit for my presence.”

  “Is that so?” he murmured, remembering Bára’s luxurious baths and the fantasies he’d nurtured about Oria in them the last time she’d issued that command. “Maybe I’ll toss you over my shoulder and carry you there.”