Fortune's Fool (Eterean Empire Book 1)

by Angela Boord

  I’m going to have to apologize to Jon. I’ve gotten him all wrong.

  Erelf looks bored, then flicks his hand in Jon’s direction. The horses’ bridles melt into brown patches of paint and dissolve into the horses’ hides. Jon is left holding nothing. He lifts his hands, startled, and Erelf leans forward, lips pursed, and blows Jon into pieces on the wind that scatter and disappear.

  “Erelf!” Arsenault shouts.

  My left hand starts shaking.

  It’s easy to be fooled into treating Erelf like a man when he looks like one, but he’s a god. How can I defeat a god?

  Maybe if I distract him enough, Mikelo can make it to Arsenault.

  I step forward.

  Erelf’s fingers scritch down the line of one long muscle on the horse’s rump…then stop, knuckles up, as if he is going to give the horse a smack.

  “Your beloved Arsenault also killed his brother,” he says, then pauses, his expression hardening. “And my daughter, too,”

  I stop, in spite of myself, frozen in surprise. “Your…daughter?”

  “His wife.” Erelf gives me Geoffre’s cold, twisty smile, but his eyes smolder with anger. “Did he not tell you that? Did he bank on your love without telling you how he murdered his own? Do you think perhaps he was trying to keep you away from me for his own reasons—trying to push down your magic because it threatened his?”

  “No,” Arsenault says hoarsely. “No, it wasn’t like that.”

  “Wasn’t it? Do you deny that Sella died at your hand, then?”

  “She died because I gave up her secret. She only wanted to be free of you, and I let it slip to Tavi, and then— Damn you, Erelf, he took her to bed!”

  He pulls against his bonds in his anger, and the horses stamp and shy without Jon to calm them. Is Jon dead or is it only illusion? Is Erelf telling the truth about Arsenault, or is it only more lies?

  Arsenault bites his lip on a whimper as the horses start to pull him apart, then, as the horses come back together, lessening the tension on his limbs, he takes a shuddering breath.

  “You knew you could turn Tavi. And you couldn’t turn me. So, you made him into a snake.”

  “See how he twists?” Erelf says to me. “See how he turns the fault away from himself? It’s not about Tavi at all. It’s about you. You killed my daughter. My only daughter.”

  “Erelf! You know her death was an accident!”

  “So, you’ve always said.” Erelf’s voice drips sarcasm. “When you found your brother being the man you weren’t?”

  “I didn’t know Sella was so lonely. He took advantage of her!”

  “Because you failed her. And you want me to believe that in your anger—”

  “My anger at Tavi,” Arsenault says, trying to keep his voice reined in tight, the muscles of his arms taut as the ropes in his attempt to remain still, “She threw herself between us. I tried to turn the blow but I couldn’t. You know this. I told it to all the gods at my trial!”

  “And after you killed her, you hunted your brother down,” Erelf says. “You’d like to pretend you’re on the side of light, but you let that darkness into yourself. The darkness you say you’ve always fought. But when you killed Sella and Tavi, it spread like a blight into you, and from there it spreads into everyone you come into contact with.”

  “Tavi embraced it,” Arsenault says, his voice shredded with the effort of holding still between the horses. “He thought it was the only way to make a difference in the world.”

  Erelf raises an eyebrow in one of Geoffre’s cold expressions. “And have you shone so brightly since?”

  Arsenault sags in his bonds. “You know I haven’t. But use what you can. Just leave Kyrra alone.”

  “Quit tormenting him,” I say.

  Erelf whirls on me. “You think you shine bright, but the darkness burns within you, too—oh, so dark, doesn’t it, with mad Ires calling you? How many years have you spent living only for revenge? How many years have you lived only to spill blood?”

  I can’t refute that. I can’t refute the way the metal turned me into a machine for killing.

  “If you had left Arsenault to me, perhaps things would be different.”

  “Was it my fault or was it his? Little bird. He never told you the truth, did he? About anything.”

  I open my mouth to tell him he lies, but the words won’t come out.

  Arsenault never did tell me the truth. He never told me about his brother. He never told me why he hid from Erelf.

  He never told me about his wife.

  And yet…with his every action, Arsenault showed me truth. He showed me what it was like to love someone.

  “Kyrra,” Arsenault says, his voice rough with pain. “I’m sorry. I was afraid of what you would think of me. Of losing you. If you knew I killed my wife… Please, Kyrra. Go. Don’t let him take you. I don’t mind dying.”

  I take a deep breath and raise my sword.

  “Liar,” I say.

  His face twists like I just put a spear in him.

  I swing the sword around into guard. “You do mind dying. I’m not going to let you do it again.”

  “Kyrra!” he yells, like a curse or a warning or maybe just in relief, but I’m already turning to face Erelf.

  “You made a game of stealing my light and leaving me only darkness,” I tell the god. “And now I will have it back.”

  I bring my sword around in a two-handed slice at Erelf’s neck.

  He laughs. He puts one hand out and the metal of Arsenault’s sword bucks. I stumble forward, and he steps neatly away from me. With a movement too quick for me to follow, he has knives in his hands, and he cuts me in a big X across the chest.

  I gasp in pain and go down on my knees, gripping my sword in desperation. Erelf stands over me with one hand holding his knife and the other hand raised over the horse’s rump.

  “I am a god,” he says, his eyes glittering and terrible.

  In that moment, a crashing wave of magic pours over us.

  Mikelo.

  He waited. Just like Arsenault did.

  One of the metal snakes shudders and tugs so hard that the horse swings its hindquarters. It pulls Arsenault so viciously, I’m sure it’s just dislocated his shoulder. He shouts with the pain. But the horse knocks Erelf off balance.

  Mikelo! I shout. Use me!

  He knows what I mean. He’s Seen it in me.

  Kyrra, I could kill you!

  Now, while he’s off guard!

  Mikelo doesn’t hesitate anymore. He turns his magic on me with all his strength. It grabs me by the throat. I feel as if I’m being lifted off my feet and throttled. I can’t breathe. I’m burning. My sword feels like it’s welded to my hand. Metal ripples up my shoulder and shoots down my entire right side.

  Kyrra, Ekyra, valkyr.

  I can’t fight a god as myself.

  But Fortune and War can fight him.

  I climb to my feet and raise my sword. The runes flash down the blade and my arm, over my whole right side.

  “Kyrra,” Arsenault breathes.

  “I can’t let you go either,” I tell him, settling my feet. “And now I’m going to ruin all your plans.”

  Erelf laughs. Long and hard. But he drops his hand from the horse and puts it on the hilt of his sword. “Very well. Come at me with your sword and see what happens. If you lose, I’ll have both of you.”

  “And if I win?”

  “You won’t win.”

  “But if?”

  “I’ll give you Ari back. For now.”

  “Pick up your sword, then, old man,” I say, grinning. “And we’ll see which of us is stronger.”

  A flicker of unease passes over his eyes. But he lifts his sword. And swings it.

  I charge into his attack, laughing.

  I don’t only fight for Arsenault. I fight for everyone caught up in Erelf’s lies.

  I fight for my mother and my father. For my dead son. For Arsenault’s wife and his brother who betrayed him, and M
ikelo, betrayed by his family too. I fight for Lobardin, broken and warped. I fight for Jon and his country and his murdered wife and sons, and Silva and Meli and everyone who hides in Charri’s house. I fight for Cassis, manipulated by his desire to win a father’s love. For Driese and her unborn child, the child who might unite Liera.

  For Vadz and Razi.

  And for that girl I used to be, broken and bloodied and set adrift.

  But mostly, I fight for the man who found me. The only person who saw not what I was but who I might be.

  Erelf hurls Geoffre’s body into my strokes with complete disregard of the wounds I deal it. His sword rings against my body, leaving big cuts and dents, but I charge again and again until he begins to stumble.

  I disregard the pain. I disregard the blood. I disregard the life that begins to slip through my fingers.

  “Give. Up,” Erelf pants as we lock swords again.

  “No,” I say, and throw myself against him, everything I have: my sword, my body, my life.

  For Arsenault.

  I feel his magic at the end. Behind me, shoring me up. Jon, too, fighting back from wherever the god tried to put him—his sword swinging into birds and men, carving out a space for both Mikelo and Arsenault, letting me battle the god.

  Until finally, the magic breaks and the world rushes back in.

  My sword sticks out Geoffre’s back like a skewer.

  His sword sticks in me the same.

  We fall together.

  Chapter 37

  It’s like a dream. I hear my name, but it’s more like the wind. And I see her standing ahead of me, beside the river Ransi. Her golden hair floats around her in a fuzzy nimbus of light, like a halo around the moon. Her skin is icy white, smooth as new-fallen snow. She hails from colder climates. She wears black armor, plate, but her gauntlets are silver steel. Two golden eagles sit on her shoulders, twisting their heads as they watch the trees.

  Ekyra stares into the foaming, roiling waters. The plummeting current of the river breaks up any reflection that might form there, so she isn’t watching herself. It’s something else, swirling and hidden beneath the water.

  I walk up behind her, my blood-rusted metal arm hanging at my side, pocked with dents. I’m as full of holes as Geoffre is, but like him, I keep walking.

  Ekyra looks over her shoulder at me. Her eagles ruffle their wings and duck their heads to pluck at errant feathers. Their golden eyes trap my reflection.

  “Sister,” she calls me.

  Fear makes my heart pound. “Have I come into the afterlife?”

  Her lips pull up into a half-smile. “No. This is too peaceful to be your afterlife.”

  “Why have you called me here, then? Am I dying?”

  She spreads her hands. “You asked me for help, and here I am.” The eagles swivel their heads, and she cocks hers, like the birds. “I have something to show you.”

  She beckons me toward the river and kneels again on the bank. I sink to the ground beside her, cradling my metal arm against my chest. I find myself looking down a slope of tangled roots, slick with the white mist that hides the river. I can’t see the other bank for the fog.

  “Watch,” she says.

  The mist boils up into shapes that arrange themselves into people wearing white robes and flat leather sandals, reclining on couches, walking through frescoed rooms…

  Etereans. I lean closer and watch as a man detaches himself from the general swath of images. He is tall and well made, his burgundy robes swishing against bare ankles as he walks, alone, down a long, brown stone hall. Arches pierce the hall at intervals, allowing sunlight from a garden courtyard to spill through, sliding in spears across the burgundy robe as it moves with his stride. He wears a short sword at each side and a crown of gold-gilt olive leaves atop his curly blond hair.

  He walks the hallway to its end, where it opens to a wide balcony from which he can see the ocean, distantly, like a silk ribbon of blue.

  I give a start. I know that view, though the hallway is unfamiliar to me. “My father’s house.”

  “The land is old. It’s trapped its share of souls.”

  “Who is he?”

  Ekyra waves my question away. I look down into the fog again and watch as the man leans on the stone railing, looking out over a different view: Liera, more resplendent than I have ever seen it, the Doge’s alabaster palace as white as the purest block of kacin from Dakkar.

  Out in the harbor, a fleet sets out, not the mismatched shapes of Lieran caravels with their House colors. No, this is a fleet, a hundred warships rigged with sails striped gold and dark.

  Burgundy.

  “Eterea,” I breathe.

  “He’s dreaming,” Ekyra says. “His name is Attrasca. Not that it matters. It’s only a dream.”

  “Eterea existed, though. We see it on our walls, step on its shards underfoot…”

  “To him, it’s a dream. My father intended it as such.” A bitter smile creases her face. Her skin isn’t as smooth as I thought. There are lines at her mouth and eyes, the lines of one who has seen many campaigns.

  Her blue-gray eyes are old, older than stone.

  “Do you know the story?” she asks.

  “I know history,” I say. “My father taught it to me, how the Etereans collapsed into their own decadence and opened their borders to the hoards.”

  “That isn’t the story I’m talking about. Do you know the story of how Eterea came to be?”

  I shake my head.

  “My father gave it to Attrasca, encased in a pearl. He meant it to tempt Attrasca, and tempt him it did. It tempted him so much that he shattered the pearl and loosed his vision of Eterea upon the world. And then he could not call it back. His dream seeped into the heads of all around him, until they began to see it too. Eventually he inflicted this dream, this shattered pearl, upon the whole world, and all men and all the gods were called into its defense or its damnation.”

  I frown. “Which side were you on?”

  She laughs. “You, a gavaro, ask me this. Does it matter which side I was on? Perhaps I stood in the middle so I could see both sides of it.”

  “It was beautiful,” I say. “The city.”

  “And it was dark and ugly, too. Men killed for it. Men kill for it still.”

  She rises, and the fog begins to seep away. I lever myself up after her.

  “You’ve a brave heart, Kyrra,” she says, laying her hands on either side of my face, brushing away my hair. “I have need of it yet.”

  She bent down to kiss my forehead, and the world rushed back into me.

  “She’s awake!” someone shouts. Male. Young. “Awake, awake!”

  I have my eyes open. But I can’t see. Not quite.

  Dull, unmagical colors surround me. Browns mostly. A ceiling, with beams. Walls.

  I’m lying on a narrow bed. A man who’s little more than a boy leans over me, his barley-brown curls and dusky violet eyes familiar.

  Silva.

  “How—” My voice croaks out of me. Barely recognizable.

  “Don’t talk,” Silva says. “Arsenault says if you ask one question, you’ll ask a thousand.”

  He grins.

  “Arsenault is here?” I rasp.

  “Did you think I would leave you?”

  It’s Arsenault’s voice.

  I shift my head. Now I can see him standing behind Silva. His old scar jags down his temple, the metallic silver-white streak startling to see again in his dark hair.

  He looks so much like his old self that at first, I think I’ve just changed my dream of Ekyra for one of Arsenault. But then he sits down in a chair beside the cot and leans forward, smiling at me, and I realize I can feel him and smell him, and so it must be him, really him.

  He has another scar, new and pink, on his other cheek, but it’s smaller. Maybe it’s the mark my dagger left, back when he didn’t remember me and shot Razi.

  “How?” I ask. “What—”

  Arsenault glances at Silva. I to
ld you, his eyes say.

  I try to glare at them both.

  “I followed the gavaros who took you prisoner,” Silva says quietly. “And when you came to the lodge, I joined Geoffre’s army. I thought it would be the best way to get back to you.”

  “Why—”

  “Because of what you said about Meli.” He lifts his gaze to mine. “And because it would have been easy for you to kill us both, but you didn’t. I didn’t find you until it was late, though.”

  “Cassis made the charge,” Arsenault says. “But by then, most of Geoffre’s army had disintegrated. Cassis had no trouble dispatching the rest.”

  “Jon.” I clear my throat. “Is Jon alive? Jon didn’t want—”

  Talking hurts. I wince and let my head sink into the pillow.

  Arsenault frowns. “Let us tell it. Silva, get her a drink, will you?” Silva nods and spins away, walking quickly for the door. Arsenault puts his elbows on his knees and leans closer to me.

  “Jon’s fine,” he says. “A little shaken up, but that kind of illusion magic is only permanent if you accept that it is. He fought his way back, set me free, and gave Mikelo the space to keep backing you up with his magic. He’s with Cassis right now, trying to figure out where to go from here. Technically, Devid is Householder, but no one’s quite certain what happened to Geoffre after Erelf retreated, and it isn’t clear if Devid will strike a peace with Cassis or if Cassis will accept one if he does. And there’s still Mikelo to be reckoned with… Neither Devid or Cassis know exactly where Mikelo stands on this matter. Which is probably a good thing, considering the conversations I’ve had with him over the past eight days.”

  He rubs the bridge of his nose. “Whatever happened in that prison…he’s determined that neither Devid or Cassis will sit in that chair. So, that leaves him. For better or worse.”

  I open my mouth to comment, but Arsenault raises a hand to stop me. “So, no, it’s not an ideal situation. It would have been much easier if Cassis and Geoffre had killed each other on the field of battle, leaving only Devid to deal with.”