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

by Melissa McPhail

  “Do you really think it’s time to bring Alshiba into the fold?” Dagmar sounded less than pleased by the idea.

  The First Lord cast a look over his shoulder as he passed through the open doors. “I guess we’ll find out.”

  Inside Björn’s study, the Second Vestal threw himself into an armchair and extended long legs dejectedly across the carpet. He followed Björn with his gaze as he walked towards his desk. “You know she’s going to flay me alive.”

  Seated in a near armchair, Raine D’Lacourte looked up from the book he’d been reading. “Who’s going to flay you alive?”

  Dagmar gave him a look. “Alshiba.”

  Raine turned an inquiring glance from Dagmar to Björn, who was just sitting down behind his desk. “When is this momentous occurrence expected to happen?”

  “When she gets here,” Dagmar muttered unhappily.

  Raine stiffened. “Alshiba’s coming here?”

  Björn shrugged. “We’ll see.”

  “Don’t let him fool you.” Dagmar rolled his head around on the back of his chair as if already enduring Alshiba’s flaying knife. “He’s going to Illume Belliel to claim her.”

  “What?” Raine gaped at Björn.

  Björn rested his chin on one hand and his elbow on the chair arm. “A one-man raid on the cityworld isn’t exactly what I had in mind, Dagmar.”

  “But you do intend to go to Illume Belliel?” Raine looked confused. “I thought we were waiting for Alshiba to come to us.”

  “It appears she needs some encouragement.”

  Frowning, Raine rose and went to pour himself some wine. He turned with goblet in hand and gazed uncertainly at Björn. “If you’re caught…”

  Björn chuckled. “Do neither of you have any faith in me? Have I become just the ghost of my own memory…some ancient name of old to be invoked in a prayer?”

  “More likely a curse,” Raine muttered into his wine, “but I take your point.”

  “We have unquestioning faith in you.” Dagmar motioned to Raine to pour him a glass and shifted disagreeably in his chair. “Just not in this game without you.”

  Björn shook his head. “You do yourself an injustice, brother.”

  “Possibly. But like Raine said, if you’re caught—”

  “If Illume Belliel succeeds in catching me, then it will prove that they’ve gained the knowledge to defeat our enemies. I would become merely,” he waved an airy hand, looking for the right word, “…superfluous.”

  Raine choked on his wine.

  Björn leaned back in his chair. He toyed with a crystal pyramid used as a paperweight on his desk. “Sadly, I don’t think that will be the case.”

  In truth, he would’ve relished such an outcome. Yes, he lived for this game—he’d sacrificed everything for it—but if the game itself became unnecessary…if the realms could be made safe without his involvement…well, he would gladly have abandoned the whole affair.

  He cast his gaze to include both Raine and Dagmar while his fingers traced the edges of the pyramid. “This thing we do isn’t a sacred act to be carried forward in spite of all. We don’t gain any righteous pinnacle for the sacrifices we’ve made or the trials we’ve endured…we’re not playing for the sake of having something to do, only to see something important done. If someone else were to accomplish the same end a better way…our task would be complete.”

  Dagmar took the goblet Raine handed him and raised it. “To better men than us.”

  Raine considered Dagmar with a frown. Then he clinked goblets with him and drank.

  Looking back to Björn then, Raine remarked, “I always wondered why you didn’t tell Alshiba the truth.” He walked over and slowly settled back in his chair. “Me, I understand.” His gaze bore rueful apology. “But Alshiba would’ve done anything you asked of her.”

  Björn gave his oath-brother a tragic look. “Anything…except the one thing I most needed her to do.”

  Raine frowned. “Which was?”

  “To stay behind.”

  Dagmar grunted at the truth of that.

  “But if you’d told her why—”

  “There’s no way she would’ve stayed, Raine.” Dagmar gestured with his goblet. “You know how stubborn she is. She would’ve demanded to come with us.”

  “Who would’ve held the Seat then, Raine?” Björn searched his oath-brother’s colorless gaze with his own. “You? Seth? Dagmar had to be here with me to repair T’khendar. It had long been the plan for him to return after we deposited the rest of you back in Alorin.”

  “Yes, enduring thanks for that, brother.” Raine cast Dagmar a pointed stare. “We fretted over your disappearance for centuries.”

  “The twisting of Tiern’aval’s weld didn’t exactly go off as planned, Raine. I certainly didn’t expect the whole bloody island to get ripped out of the realm.” He grimaced into his wine and remarked before taking a sip, “I felt rather bad about that.”

  Raine frowned at him. Then he looked back to Björn and frowned at him harder. “It still seems an unnecessary risk to me, your going to Illume Belliel. I’m sure Dämen would agree.”

  Dagmar snorted. “Dämen is like an old woman with his worrying.”

  Björn ran a finger idly along the edge of his desk. “We always knew Illume Belliel would be the last piece. I think it’s time to set it in motion. It may take some time to get that wheel turning.” He lifted his gaze to his Vestals. “Maybe just time enough.”

  “You have a lot of wheels spinning already, brother,” Raine remarked.

  Björn smiled. “But I have you now to help keep them going.”

  Raine grunted dubiously.

  Björn gazed upon his oath-brothers with a contemplative smile. Seeing them both there, knowing they played side by side with him in this great game…warmth filled his heart. How humble these men—great men, by any standard, and far more capable than they gave themselves credit for.

  Dagmar cleared his throat to gain Björn’s eye. “You know the minute you set your foot on the field, all the Players will want your help.”

  Björn arched a resigned brow. “The minute I appear on the field, they’ll all need my help.” Alshiba perhaps most of all…

  He pressed his lips together at this thought. So much had been left unsettled between them. He had many wrongs to atone for, more than he could possibly ever make right. He sighed. “This will be hard for Alshiba.” Then he shook his head and pressed his lips together. “Hard for us both.”

  Raine was regarding him seriously. “She’s never stopped loving you.”

  Björn shifted his gaze to him. “Ah, Raine…we’ve never stopped loving each other.”

  He rested his head back against his chair and lifted his gaze to the ceiling and the patterns frescoed there. Often he would let his eyes follow their whorls and spirals and feel his tangled thoughts begin to unwind. Now he let his wandering gaze pull at the threads of a love that was centuries denied.

  Thinking of Alshiba and their time together recalled a familiar ache he’d suppressed for too long. Yet he couldn’t help feeling it now.

  How beautiful, the bonds of love. He could see these ephemeral threads connecting the Players on his field, binding them in unique and enduring ways, binding them across continents and even through time, through loss and heartbreak and betrayal. These special bonds forged their own glorious pattern above the tapestry that was his game, and the threads of that pattern were far stronger than anything simulated by men or magic.

  Bjorn had known more sorrow, more loss, more betrayal and more sacrifice than any of his Players. He supposed he had a right to grieve. Yet a wielder learns indelibly that his thoughts sculpt what is to become. In his long years of life, Björn had seen too many times how his attitude changed the shape of things. Sorrow, grief, regret…these emotions weakened the threads that bound the game and introduced darkness into the pattern. There was darkness enough without his adding to it through self-pity.

  His emotion, misplaced or wr
ongly channeled, could change the shape of the world. The cost of feeling these emotions was just too high. He couldn’t afford them.

  Björn exhaled a measured breath. His game had developed its own personality, but also its own peculiar energy. He’d learned how to read that energy like he read the currents, interpreting its swells and ebbs, the tugging of its tides, the mercurial, shifting currents of his Players as they shaped, framed and pulled the tapestry with their choices. He’d honed his senses to recognize particular surges that signaled new threads.

  One such energy was cresting now. He felt it in the rising hair on his arms, in the quickening of his heart, in the slanting daylight and the sharpness of the air. And he sensed it in the threads binding him and his Vestals…in the threads binding them all.

  He pushed from his chair. “Thus it begins.”

  Dagmar eyed him darkly. “Whenever you say that, the space between my shoulder blades starts twitching.”

  Björn’s eyes sparkled with humor. “You really have no faith in me whatsoever.” He headed around his desk.

  Raine followed him with his gaze. “What will you tell her?”

  Björn laid a hand on his shoulder as he passed. “The truth. What else is there to say?”

  Raine’s expression grew troubled.

  Björn headed for the doors then, but just as he reached them, he turned with a final thought. “Dagmar…advise Franco to do nothing to betray Alshiba’s confidence, even should it appear to mean betraying mine.”

  Dagmar regarded him soberly. “Your will, brother.”

  Björn smiled in gratitude and took his leave.

  Forty-Two

  “We hold the keys to our own prison cells. Fate is a careless warden.”

  –The Adept truthreader Thrace Weyland

  The door to Trell’s tower room opened with a crash. He jerked awake to see one of the Nadoriin standing in the portal—the same guard who’d shot the old sailor. The guard pitched something at Trell. “Taliah says to put that on.”

  Trell sat up and caught the item out of the air. It turned out to be a leather collar with a small gold bell. Trell hooked his forefinger through it and held it up for the guard to see. “Pretty. And what will you be wearing?”

  The guard pushed his hand onto the hilt of his sword. “She’s waiting.”

  What he really meant was he was waiting.

  Trell slipped his legs over the side of the bed, then looked up under his brows at the guard. Apparently the man meant to wait and watch.

  No doubt Taliah had given that order as well. She spent her nights dreaming up new ways of humiliating him.

  The thong had clearly been made for a smaller man. Walking turned out to be challenging. The leather constricted and chafed in the most uncomfortable places imaginable. He buckled the collar around his throat and followed after the Nadoriin.

  Taliah was sitting at a long table in a loggia overlooking the sea when the guard ushered Trell within. Abalone tiles covered every surface, from vaulted ceiling to columns to walls, so that the easterly sun made the entire loggia gleam with pearlescent light. It was one thing he admired about the Nadoriin—even a crude fortress was outfitted as a palace.

  Taliah smiled as she watched Trell approach, but her smile faded when her gaze shifted to the Nadori guard. “Go stand by the door, Captain Fazil—in case I need you later.”

  Both Trell and the captain knew this meant, I want an audience and you’re it.

  The Nadoriin glowered at her, but he did as he was told. Trell wondered if Taliah had taken hostage the life patterns of every person on that barren rock. He’d no reason to think he was the special exception, and the guards were unusually compliant considering the kinds of things she demanded of them.

  “You shall serve me today, Prince of Dannym.” Taliah sat primly back in her chair and folded hands in her lap, waiting.

  Trell looked across the loggia to a table set with silver bowls and domed trays. He moved in that direction.

  “On your hands and knees.” Taliah gave him a little smile that in no way resembled the expression of anything living.

  Trell chewed on the side of his cheek while he considered his options. He could refuse to allow her to humiliate him, but she would just use pain to first punish and then coerce him into doing whatever she desired anyway. In either case, he would end up on his hands and knees. What difference then to just do it now and skip the painful appetizer?

  He got down on the floor.

  She snapped her fingers beside her chair. “Come.”

  Trell forced a calming exhale and shuffled over to her.

  “Stop.” She held up her hand to halt him beside her chair. The she laid her hand on his head and patted softly. “Good boy.”

  Trell clenched his teeth.

  “Now get my meal.”

  He did as he was told.

  “Do you see, Fazil?” Taliah waved an airy hand as Trell was crawling towards the table of food. “Do you see how easy it is to make a man obey—even a princely one? A little pain applied in the proper order and place, and he becomes as a puppy eager to be trained.”

  The captain glowered blackly at her.

  Trell made his way back to the table carrying the first of the bowls. He handed it up and returned for the next.

  Taliah chose a grape from the bowl, popped it into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “Any Adept talent that exists falls upon both the hal’alir and mor’alir paths, Fazil, for all are harmonics of each other. For instance, Healers make the best torturers, as you have no doubt observed—and, I might add, incomparable courtesans. In Vest, truthreaders trained in illusions are sold as sex slaves for thousands of reales. But the paths are not restricted to Adepts alone. For instance, soldiers turned to the mor’alir path make delightful servants.”

  She reached down to receive the last bowl from Trell. “Thank you, sweet prince.” She petted his head by way of reward, then caught a hank of hair and with one finger twined it idly around.

  Trell drew in a slow, calming breath and reminded himself that being petted like a lapdog was the least of her imposed indignities.

  “Because a man obeys,” she continued, “doesn’t mean he’s broken—don’t be deceived in this, Fazil. Obedience can be gained through any number of methods, but to break a man…this is to make him want to obey, to bring him to such a point of subservience that he seeks desperately his mistress’s approval and will do anything to gain it. That is what it is to be broken.” She took another grape and sighed as she ate it. “But gaining that most desirable state takes time—the stronger the temperament, the longer the path. Until then, gaining the man’s obedience must suffice. It is the first step.”

  Releasing Trell’s hair, Taliah took a strip of flatbread smeared with goat cheese and spread a jam of figs across it. “Men are no different than dogs, Captain, in the end. Obedience doesn’t come naturally to man or beast, but with proper indoctrination, both become tractable and easily controlled.” Her hand caught Trell’s chin and pulled up his head to make him look at her. “Do you not agree, Prince of Dannym?”

  In the flash of an instant, Trell saw himself launching to his feet, snaring her knife from the table and plunging it into her heart. He knew in truth she’d have him writhing on the floor before he could rise from his knees.

  She squeezed his chin harder, and her gaze became sharper. “Don’t you agree?”

  “No.”

  She released his chin and drew back from him. “How not?”

  He settled back on his heels and tossed his head to clear the hair from his eyes. “You don’t control me, Taliah.”

  She laughed. “Of course I do. Look at you on your knees before me! Look what you wear for my pleasure—you, a prince.” She leaned closer to him and stroked a finger appreciatively down his bare chest. “Think what you have done because I commanded it of you.”

  “By choice.”

  Her expression hardened, and she drew back again. “At my command.”

 
; “Which I chose to comply with.”

  “Because you’ve been trained to comply.” Her tone snapped like a whip. She made him feel it too, all along the back of his thighs.

  Trell sucked in his breath and said through clenched teeth, “I still made the choice to comply, Taliah.”

  “Because you understood there is no choice!” Abruptly she banished her displeasure, took up his chin again and shook it like a mother scolding a naughty child. “In the end, you will do what you’re told because you understand what awaits you if you don’t. It matters not the reasons you obey, so long as you do obey. The result is the same.”

  A hurricane raged in Trell’s gaze, but his voice remained calm. “In the end, all you have to command is a man’s willingness. You can never change that, Taliah.”

  A smile flickered beneath those dead eyes. “Oh, no…” She leaned and kissed his mouth and let her breath mingle with his. “That is exactly what it means to be broken, sweet prince.”

  After she finished her meal, Taliah released Trell to his own devices—and clothes—as a reward for his obedience, but he knew she’d still be watching him. She would often leave him alone just to see what he would do with his time. If he gave her any hint that he cared for anything, that he enjoyed or needed anything, she would use it against him later.

  He usually spent his free time out on the head on the island’s south side, sitting on the rocks and counting the hours passing in the crashing of waves. He’d nothing to do there but think, but he’d long sought the silence of his thoughts when no other peace could be found; his head remained a sure refuge.

  That morning as he was crossing the fortress yard towards the south gate, a commotion drew his gaze.

  The pig trough had dislodged from the fence and the sows were pushing it violently around the pen, endangering the trough as well as the corral. The keeper watching them seemed unsure of the best course of action.

  He had reason to be wary. Each of the dozen or so sows must have weighed several hundred pounds. If hungry enough, they could churn through a grown man’s body in about eight minutes, leaving only teeth and a bit of hair to account for his ever having lived. But this lot looked well fed, if a bit rowdy.