In the Shadow of the Rook (The Sons Incarnate Book 1)

by JDL Rosell

  But how could they? Erik was already fading. He could no longer remember what it was to live. He tried to remember, but all he could do was forget. He forgot, and forgot, until it didn’t seem like forgetting. He forgot, and forgetfulness became his existence.

  How pleasant it was to forget.

  Erik remembered. I killed him.

  He woke to water splashing in his face, and he moaned and wiped a sluggish hand at the brine. He kept his eyes closed then, and not only because of the stinging salt. The roll of the sea made his stomach feel like he’d drunk too much ale, but it was this remembrance that made him the most sick.

  He thought again of how he stabbed Oslef in the chest, with the same knife he’d been killed with. How did I have the strength? A knife almost in my heart—I couldn’t even remember I’d done it. But he remembered now. He had left his body and watched those events happen, even once he had died. He had seen Vodrun come in and drag his body, smearing his blood across the stones. He had seen his father sobbing over him.

  He’s the Rook, he thought numbly. And he knew it was coming. Why didn’t he stop it? But that wasn’t the question he wanted to ask. He knew it had begun long before Vodrun killed him. His father hadn’t just known—he’d participated, planned it even, if the Rook was who the nekromists had said he was. First among equals—as damning as anything he’d heard.

  But even as he knew it in his heart, was convinced of it, he felt no anger, no sense of betrayal. He didn’t feel much of anything at all.

  The boat tipped, and a splash of seawater brought a fresh wave of pain from his various open wounds. He wasn’t becoming completely numb, then. And from the feeling of it, he ought to look the proper lurcher by now. He knew it was a waiting game at this point, only a matter of time before muscle atrophy, organ failure, and brain death set in, and he just ambled and moaned along with the rest.

  Could be worse, he thought. Could already be a moaning deadwalker.

  He knew he wasn’t at the limit of his body yet, though. He’d seen lurchers torn to pieces—had torn them to pieces himself—and move long after they should have. Who knew how long they lasted?

  Long enough to reach my father. He hoped.

  He must have moaned again, for Persey asked matter-of-factly, “Are you dying?”

  A weak laugh escaped him, though his ribs cut amusement short. “No, afraid not. At least not yet.”

  “Because you don’t look too good,” the girl continued.

  “Shut it, both of you,” Tara snapped, then grunted as, Erik assumed, she heaved on a sail. “Persey, a hand!” He heard the girl splash towards the relict.

  A girl and a woman with you, and you’re crippled and coming apart, pursued by a pack of mooneyes and a crazy lion man. But what could he do, now that he’d gotten them in this situation?

  We could leave. Go over to the continent. But he couldn’t consider it seriously, not knowing what he did now. Zauhn, as little as it was home now, beckoned him back. His father—his answers—waited.

  But could he allow Tara and Persey to risk it with him?

  No. It was the one thing he felt truly convicted about at that point. I’ll swim. They’ll not leave me if I go ashore with them. I have to swim there, leave them behind. I can make it. But he hadn’t peered over the boat to see how far away they were, to see if he could. If land weren’t even in sight…

  He groaned and gripped the side of the boat, then sat up, gasping from the pain in his sides and ignoring Tara’s protests. He blinked at the red evening, and saw the golden horizon where it faded, and barely saw the tops of the milket trees.

  I can make it. I have to. For their sakes.

  Before he could second-guess, he heaved himself up with all his strength and stood on trembling legs. Then he leaned over, and for a brief moment, stared at the dark waters, utterly unfathomable in their depths.

  Then he made his mistake. He hesitated.

  It was too late after that. Tara yelled and lunged, roughly grabbing him around the chest and bearing him to the planks. Despite his lofty intentions, he let her wrestle him back to the deck, and fresh suffering washed over him.

  “What are you doing?” she snapped, rising off him when she thought he’d stay put. “One swim not enough? You have to make me rescue you twice? What is going on in that thick, fek-filled skull of yours, trying to pull that on us?”

  “If you stay with me…” He didn’t continue immediately, his throat feeling particularly dry. He wished there was a way to rehydrate. The salt in his mouth made him dizzily thirsty. “If you stay by me,” he repeated, “you’re putting Persey and yourself in danger. Real danger. You saw what happened back there.”

  “Don’t indulge your flaw,” Tara said, returning to the sails. She seemed almost relieved by his answer, though he couldn’t imagine why. “You only think they’re after you because that old hag said so.”

  “That was the second time I’ve seen the Talstalker,” Erik insisted. “You can’t tell me that’s coincidence.”

  “The what?” she asked, tugging a rope. “Nothing but mooneyes that I saw. Tall-Socker, you say? Like the hoses the nobility wear, or the wool ones of the Seafolk?”

  “Two times,” he said, ignoring her mocking. “Within a few days of each other.”

  She knelt next to him. “And what happened the first time? You seemed to have survived it.”

  Erik hesitated. “They just watched me from across a pond, then left.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “After what we saw, do you really think you’d be alive if you saw them?” She rose again. “Like it or not, Erik, you’re stuck with us. You helped us escape Her Ancient and kill that mooneyes, so we owe you something.”

  I didn’t kill it without help. He looked askance at the girl, but quickly looked away when he saw her glaring. He tried not to feel scared, just in case she felt it and it made her upset.

  But still, he had to know. “How long have you known she was far’egan?” he asked Tara.

  The relict looked to the sunset, fiery hues reflecting in her eyes. “Since I found her. She’s always been… different. Haven’t you, Persey?” She snatched the girl up, breaking out of her reflective stance.

  “You knew what she could do? Like what she did back in the nekromist’s laboratory?” Erik pressed. He hadn’t met a far’egan since before coming to Erden Isle, and that was just part of a human menagerie. That man had had a connection with birds and could make his retinue of canaries fly in any pattern or sing any song he wished. Persey’s powers were quite a bit beyond that.

  “I knew before that,” Tara said. “She would do that every once in a while, especially when she was upset, but I thought they were just headaches. No, what told me first was her… development.”

  “How do you mean?”

  She sat on the bench and studied him a moment. “She’s not nine, or ten, or however old she looks to you. I don’t know how old she actually is, but she’s grown about twice as fast as she should have since I’ve known her. It’s why…” She looked at the girl with a small, sad smile. “It’s why you have trouble sometimes, isn’t it, Moonfly?”

  Persey shrugged, and leaned over the waters.

  “Not too far,” Tara warned, watching until the girl obliged. “It’s made it hard for her to have friends. She outgrows other kids too fast to make any lasting connections. And the clothes—I can’t tell you the trouble I’ve had keeping her in size.”

  Erik propped himself up on an elbow, grimacing as he did. “You always did seem a bit weird,” he said to Persey with a small smile.

  The girl shrugged again and didn’t look over.

  “Now, don’t get up anymore,” Tara commanded. “Lie back down, or I’ll make you—again.”

  “I wouldn’t mind that.”

  The relict rolled her eyes.

  They listened to the breeze whistle an unknown song, the waves lapping its rhythm. The barely lit waters around them made him feel like they were only three people left after a great flo
od, and the world sang its dirge.

  While they talked of other things, his thoughts wandered back to the sober reality facing him and the confrontation ahead. They weren’t in this together, no matter how much he wanted them to stay. For Tara and Persey to survive, he had to leave, and that was that. If they didn’t see the blighted sensible thing themselves, he’d just take matters into his own hands.

  Sailing at night was no easy feat, but Tara said landing would only invite further trouble. Thus, she kept to the sails through the night while Erik continued to bleed out on her boat’s deck. It was getting to where he wasn’t sure if there was more blood or seawater sloshing around the bottom. At least they don’t have to see what they’re standing in. The Mother knew nobody needed seasickness mixed in with the rest.

  Persey was curled up on the bench, snoring softly, and Tara did her best to keep it that way. She had stood all night as far as he could tell, leaning over when necessary to tug one of the ropes behind her. It was remarkable how calm the girl had remained, as abnormally calm then as she’d been wild before. She wrestled the mind of a mooneyes, and won. The girl, young as she is, is twice as fierce as any lion.

  Eventually, the sun began rising behind them, and he could see the lightening of the violet sky, so Erik raised himself over the protests of the ship’s captain to see where they were. A sanguine glow blanketed the sea to the east. To the west, he could see the dark outline of the shore slowly becoming visible.

  Tara, like a flower in the morning, perked up at the light, and set a straight course for land. He watched, bearing the pain of being upright as Tara rowed the last bit in until he felt sand and stone scrape beneath the hull. Tara splashed out into the shoals and hauled the boat in, then dropped the anchor and set to helping Erik out.

  “I can do it,” he said through gritted teeth. And, surprising them both, he gained his feet and tumbled out of the boat. It was not a graceful landing, and it hurt like Er’Lothe’s immolation, but he did it. Standing up, his legs felt like they’d been stripped of bone and stuffed with rotten wood instead. His mind performed flips and his eyes were nearly unmoored from his sockets as he staggered through the water, but he made his own way—slowly, carefully—to the beach. When he arrived, he collapsed to his knees and relieved his stomach of all the seawater that had found its way inside.

  “Mother shelter us all,” Tara muttered, and no matter how he protested, she helped him gain the tree line, some hundred paces from the cove they found themselves in. The trees still loomed in the early morning darkness, rising off the banks all around them while the bay was turned into wine by the sun.

  “What do we do?” she asked. “You shouldn’t even be walking with how much blood you’ve lost, much less…”

  Living, I know. He wondered how long it would be before she realized why he still was.

  Erik closed his eyes. The world was too loosely spinning. “Build a fire,” he said. “A big one. And make it hot.”

  “Persey!” Tara set the girl to the task. Then he felt her lean close and wished he could enjoy it more than he did. “I don’t know how you’ve managed it,” she whispered, “but I’m glad you’re alive.”

  He smiled faintly, his eyes closed, and his head leaned back. At another moment in his life, it might have been blissful to have a woman whisper that in his ear. Now, it would only make it harder to do what he had to do.

  "Why didn't you leave me behind?" he murmured. "You would have been safer. You and Persey."

  Tara was quiet, and Erik listened to the breeze coming in off the sea, felt it brush, cool and crisp, across his cheek. "I don't know that you're a good man, Erik. You lied to us from the moment we met, and we've known each other barely two days.“

  Erik didn't move as she paused, didn't dare draw a breath, waiting for what was coming, what must come. She will leave you, that devilish side of him said.

  "You've got phantoms in your past that haunt you—I would have known that even if you hadn’t said anything about them. Even if what you said is a lie. But it seems you're trying to do right by them." She gave a little laugh. "I know what that's like, I suppose. And maybe, we can help each other do better than before."

  Before Erik could think of a response, she stood up quickly, and he opened his eyes to find her cheeks darker than before. “Enough of that. What do you need this fire for?”

  Erik sighed and sat up a bit straighter. A fleeting moment and half-meant words, nothing more, he thought. “The wounds won’t close themselves. Not soon enough.”

  Tara's eyes trailed over his body, eyes catching on his numerous wounds, and her frown deepened. “Do you need me to—”

  “No. I can do it myself.” He swallowed, trying to recover some moisture in his throat. “You still have your knife?” He’d lost his somewhere between the nightstalker and the sea.

  “Yes.”

  “Once you get the fire going, leave it with me and take Persey into the woods.”

  Tara didn’t say anything. Eventually, he heard her move away and say something to the returning Persey, too faint to make out. They continued about their preparations for the fire, so he started determining the extent of his wounds.

  The worst ones were along his left arm, where the nightstalker’s sharp canines had bit deep to the bone. He didn’t know how he could even go about cauterizing those. Did he just stick the blade in and hope for the best? He felt the other wounds through tears in his tunic, seven or eight larger cuts around his ribs and chest, with many other smaller holes throughout. Smallest to largest, he reminded himself. That way he wouldn’t faint before he got to all of them. Hopefully.

  He heard Tara come back and noticed the crackle of fire. “It’s ready,” she said, soft as if they were in chapel during a sermon.

  “How’d you get that going so fast?” Erik asked before he groaned at her lifting him.

  She didn’t speak for a moment. “I keep an emergency set of those alchemical firesticks,” she said. “And there was plenty of dry wood around the beach.”

  He wasn’t sure if her discomfort at her transgression made her more or less devout. Amusing and endearing either way. It was nice to have something to smile about just then.

  The fire danced before him, almost painfully bright to his sensitive eyes, and the gathering sunlight didn’t make it better. “Set me down there,” he said, and Tara lowered him close enough to the fire that he could almost smell his nose hairs burning.

  “Knife,” he requested, holding out his hand, suddenly not even having the strength to lift his head and look at Tara. The weight in his hand came as a surprise, and he nearly dropped it. “Thanks,” he murmured, then blithely tossed the blade near the flames.

  Tara silently handed him a forked stick to pull it close and a rag to handle it when he picked it up. He smiled and nodded his gratefulness, then set them on his lap.

  “Need anything else?” she asked softly.

  He shook his head, but before she left, he put his hand on her arm. “Thank you.”

  She smiled faintly, then turned and left.

  He left the knife in the flame until he thought it must be hot. The blade didn’t even have the beginning of a glow, but it would have to do. He pulled off his tattered tunic and shivered at the cool mist settling over his skin. The shiver made his wounds almost cold for a moment, almost soothed. Not for long. He eyed his wounds, which looked as mottled and sorry as the autumn forest floor.

  He sighed and put a thick stick between his teeth. Then, he moved the hot knife to the first of his wounds, and felt his teeth grind through the bark as the skin sizzled.

  He was rocking back and forth far from the fire when the woman returned. The woman, was she Ilyse? She tended to him like Ilyse had when he was ill.

  “Gather milket fronds,” the woman said to someone unseen. A girl. Erik remembered a girl was with them. Our girl?

  Erik knew what he saw was impossible, but he couldn’t deny it. It was Ilyse swabbing his brow with her robe, combing back his h
air. It was she who covered his angry red wounds with his shabby cloak, she who leaned down and whispered, “Remember the cool sea breeze… remember the cold touch of winter…” so that, for a few precious moments, chills replaced the fever setting fire along his body. Never mind that she looked different. It was Ilyse all the same.

  He reached up to her face, cupped her cheek in his palm. “I’ll always remember you this beautiful.”

  Ilyse smiled back down at him. “Settle down, settle…”

  He closed his eyes. Even the emptiness seemed warm with her tucking him into it.

  He woke to his heart pounding and darkness crowding around him. Away, away, the wind whispered in his ear.

  Erik bit back a heavy groan as he rolled to his knees. The ashes and dim coals of a fire were a few feet away, and two shadows, mere humps in night, slumbered on the other side.

  He couldn't take back what he'd done in the past. He couldn't protect Ilyse, three years and too many wrong decisions separated from him. But here were Tara and Persey. Here were these two who stood by him when they shouldn't, when they knew they shouldn't, even as it was not a matter of if they would suffer for it, but when. He couldn't protect Ilyse, but he could protect them.

  Erik resolutely, stiffly, painfully rose to his feet.

  His wounds had been seared shut, and his skin felt tight along the new scars, shrunk like leather too long wet. His legs shook just holding him up, but he took one step, then another. He could make it. He was a lurcher now, through and through, if he could still move after all the damage his body had taken. Lurchers could walk until they lost their feet. It became the sing-song question that prodded him onwards: Are your feet still on? Then move along.

  He hadn’t made it forty paces before he heard rustling behind, and he stumbled as he turned to see. Persey stood before him.

  “I felt you leave,” she said. “You are leaving, right?” Her eyes were hooded by moonlight.

  Erik hesitated. Leaving. How many times had this orphan been left behind? How many times had others left her for what she was, for that which she had no control over? But he couldn’t think about that now. This time was for her own good. “Yes.”