Paths of Alir (A Pattern of Shadow & Light Book 3)

by Melissa McPhail

  Seeing those dead eyes staring down at him, her petite body pinned to his hips, Trell had the sudden unwelcome realization that the torture she’d inflicted upon him so far had barely skimmed the surface of possibility.

  Taliah leaned forward and rested her hands to either side of Trell’s raised arms. Up close, her large, dark eyes held flecks of green. He searched her gaze for some shadow of humanity but found only desolation’s shadow.

  “I walk the path of mor’alir,” Taliah whispered. She leaned in and gave him a soft kiss. “You will soon walk it with me. In this we will be bound, Trell, Prince of Dannym, to walk together to mor’alir’s end.”

  “You’ll have to drag me, Taliah. I’ll walk nowhere willingly with you.”

  She ran her hand along his face, pinned between muscular arms, and smiled sadly. “You still think you can resist my working, but this is because you have only what we’ve done so far to compare it against. A body’s pain might be fought with the mind, but where can you retreat when the mind itself burns?” The smile returned to her lips, though it didn’t touch those hollow eyes. “Let me show you what I mean.”

  She rose above him on her hands and knees, then leaned to plant a kiss upon his brow. At the touch of her lips, his head exploded.

  Such pain as he’d never experienced flamed through his entire body, so much pain that he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but arch in a shuddering scream, silent for lack of breath to fuel it.

  The blinding agony lasted an eternity in a minute’s passing. When she released him from her punishing kiss, he fell back against the marble in utter, desperate relief. Every muscle cramped as he sucked in a shuddering breath.

  She planted little kisses on his mouth and stroked his hair. “My father would know where you’ve been since the Dawn Chaser sank beneath the waves. Do you wish to confess?”

  Trell tried to focus through the tears leaking from his eyes. “…amnesia…” he managed, giving her a gritty smile.

  She smiled in return, slow, with a cat’s self-satisfied mien. “I’m so glad you said that.” Taliah sat back and pressed her sex against his loins. Her hips made slow circles, her thighs clutching and releasing. “The sorceresses prefer to interrogate their male prisoners with their penises sheathed inside them. It seals the connection in a manner that simple contact cannot possibly compare to. My father doesn’t want me using this method on you, for he fears that you might make me with child. He doesn’t really understand what I do.”

  Trell barely did either, but what he was starting to understand made him cold inside.

  “It’s my hope that we might walk the path of mor’alir together for many days.” She pushed her hands against his chest and closed her eyes as she ground into him. “Sadly, none can resist the path for long.”

  Still wracked with pain from her last kiss, Trell knew only disgust and revulsion for the fey thing writhing lasciviously atop him.

  She opened her eyes and smiled. Then she leaned in with another kiss. While Trell screamed—aloud that time, his raw pain rebounding in the stone chamber—Taliah moved her lips to whisper at his temple, “You see…the path of mor’alir breaks all men.”

  As Trell would soon discover, she was right.

  Twenty-Six

  “He knows the rules like the back of his hand…and pays them like attention.”

  – The Second Vestal Dagmar Ranneskjöld,

  on Björn van Gelderan

  An imperial ship offered landlubbers little in the way of idle enjoyment, so during the long hours of sailing, when Tanis wasn’t reading his father’s journals, the zanthyr put him to work with combat sparring and sword practice, running him relentlessly through his maneuvers or his forms for hours at a time.

  Sparring on the foredeck with the ship keeled hard to port, Tanis strained just to maintain his balance, much less fend off the zanthyr’s tireless attacks, and when Phaedor called for the cortata or the ta’fieri, Tanis’s growing skill was well and truly tested.

  All those days, the High Lord watched from afar with his hazel eyes pinned unerringly on Tanis. The lad could tell Marius harbored an intense curiosity about his and Phaedor’s relationship…about him.

  Of course, Phaedor never asked why the High Lord had actually sailed five days to claim him from a remote stretch of the Caladrian coast, and Tanis knew better than to broach the subject with either of them.

  The High Lord did not intrude on their company until the wind died on the third day. Noon approached, and the sun strode high and warm. They’d been sailing steadily southwest with the wind for all of that time. Tanis suspected they’d have crossed all of Dannym and most of Veneisea by now had they been following that coastline, yet the vast reaches of the Empire of Agasan still spread endlessly before them. He noticed the change in the weather with each passing day; the wind no longer held winter’s frost but spring’s warming breath, and the sun felt heavier and hotter upon his back.

  Tanis had stripped off his cloak one day and his vest the next. That morning he wore only a chestnut tunic of fine-spun linen with cuffs embroidered in gold, and dark blue britches rolled up to his knees. He was standing barefoot running through the cortata sans sword—which Phaedor often had him do to keep him centered on the motions themselves instead of on his blade—when he noticed the wind die and the sails fall slack, and the ship leveled out.

  The crew immediately started searching the sea with their eyes, squinting beneath upraised hands, but even Tanis could tell the wind had abandoned them. The deep blue waters lapped languidly at the bow as the ship slowed on her course, and all around the ocean became as glass. Far astern, Tanis could see the wind-line rippling the water.

  The captain eventually came forward to where Tanis had been working through the cortata. The captain was a big man, and he filled his naval uniform well. Tanis had noticed that when not wearing his officer’s coat, the captain’s arms writhed with ropy muscles as like the lines he’d likely spent a lifetime hauling.

  That day, the zanthyr was sitting against the bulwark with one arm draped across his knee, watching Tanis quietly with his green eyes keen to the slightest misstep, while the High Lord stood several paces further forward, frowning at the sea.

  “Your Grace,” said the captain, calling Marius’s attention.

  The High Lord turned.

  “What would you have us do? Wait for the wind, or…”

  Marius considered him. “No,” he said after a moment. His gaze strayed to Phaedor and lingered before returning to the captain. “I will see what can be done.”

  “Thank you, Your Grace.” The captain bowed and retreated.

  Marius looked to the zanthyr. Tanis could tell that the High Lord wasn’t sure how to treat with Phaedor, though clearly their acquaintanceship had endured the mutual centuries. The lad had no recourse to the High Lord’s thoughts, however, for the man’s mind was as closed to him as the zanthyr’s own—although Tanis had the sense that the barrier protecting the zanthyr’s thoughts was far thicker than the barrier protecting Marius di L'Arlesé’s. Yet there was not really any point in theorizing on how deep the barrier was; if you’re staring at a granite wall, past a certain depth, it is simply impenetrable.

  Perhaps at last realizing that the zanthyr might go on not noticing him indefinitely, Marius pressed the fingers of one hand to the railing and turned to the zanthyr. “I would call the wind for the captain…unless you would do it?”

  Phaedor tossed the hair from his brilliant green eyes and settled them on the High Lord. “Speak plainly your desires, Marius di L'Arlesé.”

  Marius’s brow pinched slightly, the only indication of the confusion he seemed always to experience in dealing with the zanthyr. “Would you call the wind for our ship, Phaedor?” He held a hand to the sea and shrugged resignedly. “I could do it… but not as effectively as you.”

  “Flattery hardly suits Your Grace.”

  Marius shook his head. “I’ve never been one to overlook the chance
to improve my craft by observation of its mastery in another.”

  Phaedor moved to his feet in one swift and graceful motion that brought him up close to the High Lord, nearly nose to nose in fact. “Indeed, I have observed this about you, Marius di L'Arlesé.” He gave him the slightest of nods and an even slighter smile, yet it was acknowledgement enough to make the High Lord arch his brows.

  Then Phaedor moved to the bow, and only heartbeats later the breeze began to stir in the sails.

  Tanis couldn’t see any patterns of the fifth flashing, for the zanthyr worked the fifth innately and used no patterns to compel it, but the lad had no doubt that the High Lord understood the working from watching its story on the currents.

  As the ship began to keel to starboard, Marius walked to the high side and leaned against the polished wood railing. Tanis went to stand beside him. It bothered him to see this man, who was so wonderfully courteous and genteel, standing humbled or confused in Phaedor’s shadow. Not that anyone could outshine the zanthyr, but it was a bit easier to bear if one understood Phaedor’s motives.

  “He taunts you, Your Grace,” the lad offered after a moment of standing in silence at the High Lord’s side.

  Marius arched a brow by way of resigned agreement. “I don’t know what he hopes to have from me.”

  “I don’t suppose to know it either,” Tanis admitted, laughing at the very idea of such presumption.

  The High Lord turned and leaned sideways against the railing to better look upon Tanis. “You’ve traveled with him for how long?”

  “Since the harvest months, off and on. He joined our company south of Chalons-en-Les-Trois, but I met him first when he brought Prince Ean to Fersthaven—that’s Her Grace’s home—for Healing.”

  “I see.” Marius spent a moment considering Tanis then, and the boy returned his gaze with dutiful attention. The High Lord’s amiable and gracious manner helped Tanis feel comfortable in his presence despite this intense inspection. After a while, Marius said, “I admit there is something in your features that is familiar to me, but try as I might, I cannot place it. How many years have you?”

  “Ten and five, Your Grace.” His sixteenth name day seemed ages away yet, and at this point he somewhat feared reaching it. Some of the implications the zanthyr had been hinting at were decidedly ominous.

  “You’re tall for your age.”

  Tanis looked down at himself. Was he? It had been so long since he’d really looked at himself, and when he did manage to end up in front of a mirror…sometimes he hardly recognized his own features.

  “And you were raised where?”

  “In Dannym, Your Grace, as a ward of the Healer Melisande d’Giverny. I assisted her daughter—at least until I began training as a truthreader.”

  “You speak excellently of our language for one so young.”

  “Thank you, Your Grace. My mother taught me Agasi in my youth.”

  Marius cast him a look of bewilderment at this. “And you were trained in your craft by whom?”

  “King Gydryn’s truthreader, Vitriam o’Reith, started my training. I also learned from the Fourth Vestal while he was staying with us in Rethynnea—”

  “The Fourth Vestal was staying with you?”

  “Yes, Your Grace, during Prince Ean’s convalescence, but I learned the most from…”

  The High Lord’s attention was fixed raptly on him. “Go on.”

  Tanis gave him an uneasy look and rubbed at one eye. “Well…I suppose it’s truest to say that most of my training I received from my mother.”

  “Your mother was a truthreader?” Marius latched onto this bit of information with alacrity.

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  “Your mother who taught you Agasi, whom your father called Renaii.”

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  Marius frowned at these perplexing facts. His gaze drifted towards the zanthyr. “And how does the elusive Phaedor fit into this puzzle?”

  Inextricably, Tanis thought. He was grateful that the High Lord’s question had not been directed at him, thus he was not compelled to answer it.

  Marius looked back to him. “Do you seek to solve the mystery of your parentage, Tanis?”

  “No, Your Grace.”

  The High Lord drew back in surprise. “You don’t?”

  “I do,” Tanis amended in a suddenly small voice, “but I don’t think it would be wise to pursue it—for me to pursue it.”

  The High Lord displayed a formidable frown upon this revelation. After a moment, he remarked, “You are an unusual boy.”

  As a means of escaping the High Lord’s further speculation, the lad asked, “Your Grace, what is the meaning of the rings you wear?”

  Marius flipped his hands back and forth to look upon both sides and the thin gold bands that adorned each finger. Now that Tanis could see them closely, he realized he’d seen such rings before.

  “These are Sormitáge rings.” Marius arched brows and made a self-deprecating grunt. “Doubtless this means little more to you. Such rings are relics from a lost Age, a greater Age. I wonder if they have meaning anymore.”

  “Do not let him fool you, Tanis,” came the zanthyr’s deep voice, and the lad looked up to see Phaedor joining them. The wind still blew steady and sure. Indeed, they might’ve been moving faster now than the entire trip thus far.

  “To wear a ring on each of ten fingers means the High Lord has gained the revered status of a rowed wielder, a master of the Laws and Esoterics of every strand. He is one of the few living wielders who can work the fifth—and work it well.”

  “What others do you know?” Marius affected a casual tone, but Tanis saw the tightness around his eyes and sensed a deep disquiet underlying this question.

  The zanthyr undoubtedly sensed it too, but he merely held the High Lord’s gaze with his eyes glinting in shadowy amusement.

  Marius gave him a tense look. “You are a singularly infuriating creature.”

  Tanis cast Phaedor an annoyed glare and then asked, “Why do you feel such rings have little meaning now, Your Grace?”

  “Ah, well…” Marius sighed and leaned back against the railing. “The Sormitáge is rife with young Adepts hoping to gain their rings and the opportunities such opens to them. Yet I often wonder if they’ve truly gained the status at all, for no Mages remain to oversee the trials, only Sormitáge maestros heretofore unschooled in the rigors of such examinations.” He looked to the zanthyr, and a shadow fell across his gaze. “Another tragedy of Malachai’s war.”

  “How is that?” Tanis asked.

  The zanthyr flipped the hair from his eyes. “The Hundred Mages conducted the trials for the wielder’s rings, Tanis. They traveled readily between the Sormitáge and the Citadel but claimed allegiance only to higher law, to that of the Sobra I’ternin. They were governed by an elected council of their peers, the foremost of these being the High Mage of the Citadel, Isabel van Gelderan.”

  “And they were slaughtered on Tiern’aval,” Marius added tightly. “By Björn himself, if the Vestals are to be believed.”

  “With the Mages went the knowledge to gain the rings,” Tanis surmised, feeling a sudden permeating sense of loss that he couldn’t quite explain.

  “Far more than this, lad,” the zanthyr said. He pulled out his dagger and began flipping the blade, catching it by the point.

  Marius eyed him disagreeably. “The Hollow Years following the Adept Wars—as those decades have come to be called—witnessed a huge gap in the generations. Young Adepts too innocent to have gone to war abutted the eldest Sormitáge maestros, who had maintained and protected the Sormitáge during Malachai’s siege. As years drew on and fewer Adepts Returned, we survivors saw our race dying. Many of the eldest grew bereft of hope. They ceased to work the Pattern of Life and retired into their autumn days, taking their knowledge with them. Only a handful remain who knew life before the wars.”

  “Like yourself, sir?”

  “Yes,” the High Lord groused, “I l
inger. But I was never a maestro. I have neither the talent nor the training to teach.”

  “All might instruct if the desire survives within them,” the zanthyr observed. He cast Marius a pointed look from among his wind-tossed curls.

  Tanis let out a slow breath. “I didn’t realize so much was lost—I mean…I knew the grave loss of life, but…knowledge, too…”

  “Yes, young Tanis.” Marius’s expression was grave. “We ken but a thimbleful of what once was a sea. In his madness, Malachai swore to wipe us from the earth. His war began it. Björn ensured its eventuality on Tiern’aval.”

  Tanis heard this statement and felt confusion over it. Since speaking with Loghain, certain information had found its place within his understanding and thereafter would not be dislodged again. Tanis no longer believed the Fifth Vestal was culpable for all of the things people blamed him for—the statements held no resonance of truth. Still, he’d never dare say such a thing outright to the High Lord of Agasan.

  Instead, the lad asked, “What really happened at the Citadel, Your Grace? There’s a thousand stories, but…I wonder if even one is true.”

  Marius glanced to the zanthyr as if to give him opportunity to illuminate the vacuum of unknowns. The zanthyr yawned.

  The High Lord returned his gaze to Tanis. “No one knows, lad. The only survivors of Tiern’aval are those Adepts known as the Fifty Companions, and they’ve been truthbound against speaking of what they know—even of who truthbound them.” His gaze flicked once more to Phaedor as if to catch the zanthyr disproving this statement somehow by a roll of the eyes or perhaps a twitching brow. When Phaedor merely stared neutrally at him, Marius added with a disappointed frown, “Everything we know of the Battle of the Citadel came from Neralo di Romani, who was the Imperial Historian at the time.”

  The zanthyr remarked, “Alshiba’s account. Not Raine D’Lacourte’s.”

  The High Lord turned him an uncomprehending look. “You think Raine’s would be different?”