ARC: Sunstone

by Freya Robertson

  The five members of the Veris stood in a line on the other side of the room. They had all drawn small blades and held them like dining knives. They would be no match for his trained Umbra. The journey was over.

  He moved closer and noticed with shock that Sarra’s pregnancy had advanced far more than it should have done in the days since they had left the Embers. Why was that? What strange phenomenon could be causing the baby to grow?

  She saw him looking at her bump and crossed her arms over it protectively. “Please do not harm the baby,” she whispered.

  He frowned. “I will not harm it if you do as you are told.” His gaze rested on her face and he could not stop the sweep of longing that overcame him. He loved her – he could not deny it. “I do not want to harm any of you. You are my citizens. I just want you to return with me.” He thought briefly of the waterfall and the hanging rope, then brushed it away. He would worry about how they were to return later.

  “We are not going back,” the apothecary known as Nele said.

  Comminor turned his hard gaze to him. “I will not let you leave.”

  Frustration filled the other man’s face. “What are we to you? Nothing. Why can you not just let us go?”

  “You belong to me. And it is my duty to keep you all safe.”

  Sarra moved forward. “You do not understand. There is a way out, Comminor. A way to the Surface. The baby knows – it is a bard. I have spoken to him. He is connected to the Arbor – he is showing me the way out! Do you not want to see the Surface? To know what is out there? To see the Arbor?”

  Comminor kept his face impassive. “You must come back with me.”

  She walked up to him and stood before him, then took his hands in hers. “Please.”

  He looked into her eyes. Love swept over him, and he wished he could just pick her up and carry her back, and live with her in his palace for the rest of his days. He cupped her cheek, brushing it with his thumb, aching to hold her, wishing he didn’t have to say the words. “I cannot.”

  Geve came down the steps and took Sarra’s hand. “Come on.”

  “You are not taking her anywhere,” Comminor said, moving to confront the other man.

  They faced each other, Geve’s face showing determination. “I will fight you. I will not let you take her.”

  Behind Comminor, Viel, Josse and Paronel fanned out to meet the other members of the Veris as they came down the steps, swords drawn.

  “I would like to see you try,” Comminor said, amused.

  Geve opened his mouth to reply. And then the ground trembled.

  Comminor’s eyes met Sarra’s again, and she must have read the uncertainty in his because it mirrored in her own. “What was that?”

  “I do not know.” They looked around as the trembling continued, seeing clouds of dust arising from the statues and pillars, the vibration travelling up through their feet into their bones.

  The air became thick and filled with glistening dust, and as Comminor moved his hand in front of him, the glitter stirred in whorls of silver and gold.

  He held his breath, shocked. Surely not…

  He had read about this in the Quercetum. This happened when time was being manipulated. And it had happened when the Apex had occurred.

  The Quercetum had stated that the third phase of the Apex would occur in the future. Of course the book had been written in the First and Second Age, and those who played a part in the second phase had not been able to tell how far in the future the third phase would be. Comminor had assumed it was hundreds if not thousands of years ahead – had never thought to play a role in it.

  Was it really happening now?

  The room – already in a half-light that Comminor noticed now came from a bag around Betune’s neck – darkened. His stomach knotted the way it did when he jumped into the palace pool from the diving board, as if he were falling. Around them, the air stirred, grew thick as stew, shone silver.

  And then figures appeared out of the darkness, standing beside them, their shimmering forms hardening, solidifying, until the room was full of people, staring at each other in shocked disbelief.

  Comminor looked at the men and women who had appeared and knew immediately that they were those mentioned in the Quercetum as having taken part in the Apex. The blonde, small young woman was Horada, the angry dark-haired man her brother Julen, both children of Chonrad, the great knight who had helped to save the Arbor from the Darkwater Lords. And the boy with the black hair and golden eyes the same as his own was the young prince, Tahir, while the couple standing by him must be the emissary and the boy’s guard, Demitto and Catena. Next to the Prince stood the dog that the Quercetum had stated was the father of all the dogs who had lived in the Embers ever since.

  Comminor stared at them all, shocked into silence, confused beyond belief. The Apex had occurred outside, hadn’t it? In front of the Arbor, at Heartwood. How could it be happening now, underground?

  Horada grabbed hold of her brother. “The Apex,” she said urgently. “He is trying to move the Apex. To force it to happen now!”

  “Who is?” Comminor demanded.

  Julen studied him cautiously, then stepped forward. “Pyra, the King of the Incendi.”

  “We cannot let it happen,” Demitto said.

  “I think it is too late.” Prince Tahir dropped to his knees as the ground shook again. “We have failed.”

  “No!” Comminor let out a bellow. He had not worked all these years to protect his people only to have them destroyed. “We must call for help.”

  “I have tried,” said Demitto, “but the Arbor cannot help us in here. It cannot hear us.”

  “Yes, it can.” Julen’s eyes lit up. “I thought the same, but it has just helped me turn the Incendi elementals to ice and it freed me from the manacles.” He looked down and clasped the wooden pendant around his neck. “It was this. It is a part of the Arbor.”

  The trembling increased, and to their left a statue tumbled to the ground, breaking into half a dozen pieces. Amabil, standing nearby, squealed and rubbed her arm where the rock had struck her. Everyone moved, clustering in the centre.

  Demitto fumbled in his linen shirt and withdrew his own pendant. “Here is mine.”

  Comminor pulled out his. “And mine.”

  “What do we do with them?”

  “I do not know.” Comminor lifted the cord over his head, as did the others. They tightened their fists and placed their hands together. “Think of the Arbor,” he commanded.

  They all concentrated, but nothing happened. To his surprise, he felt Sarra’s hand creep into his. “What is happening?” she whispered.

  He realised she knew nothing of the Apex, nor of the time before the Embers. But it would take too long to explain now. “You must believe me,” he said. “We have to stop this convergence. It is not time.”

  She met his gaze. He saw it dawn in her eyes that he knew more than he had revealed to her. Slowly, she nodded. “Betune,” she murmured.

  Comminor’s head snapped around to the woman who held the tiny bag in her hand. “What is in there?”

  Betune’s gaze flicked to Nele, who nodded. “It is an acorn from the Arbor,” she said reluctantly, as if worried he would take it away from her.

  But Comminor just beckoned her forward. “Hold it here.”

  It was becoming hard to stand upright, and everyone reached out to hold onto one of the stone blocks as the tremors increased and more statues fell, the dust making everyone cough.

  Betune stumbled to them, opening the tiny bag, and let the acorn drop onto her palm. She closed her fingers around it and placed her hand on top of the others.

  Comminor waited, but nothing happened. Huge chunks of stone fell all around them, as if the whole world were breaking apart. Sarra’s hand tightened in his, and beside her he heard Geve curse under his breath as fragments of falling stone chipped and flew to sting their skin.

  They couldn’t die here, not after everything he had done. He had worked
so hard, studied the histories, made decisions that had kept him awake at night just to keep the Embers at peace. Please, he thought. Do not let us all die here. I have kept us safe for so long. He thought of the Arbor. Please, help us.

  His pendant grew warm. He opened his eyes and stared at their hands. Demitto and Julen were doing the same. A glow emitted from the acorn, passing through the sunstones in the pendants. All three brightened, first to an orange glow, then to a brilliant white light.

  Suddenly, beside them all, a figure appeared, making them jump. A tall man in a long grey cloak, the hood pulled over his head, arms covered with leather bracers, body criss-crossed with leather straps. A holy man who nevertheless was ready for action.

  Comminor’s heart leapt. Cinereo?

  The figure brought his hand down in a sharp slash and, at the same time, the world exploded. Bright light from the sunstones shot out across the room, which crumbled around them, and all of them instinctively ducked and covered their heads as stone rained down. Comminor pulled Sarra into his arms and they crouched by the side of a huge stone block that didn’t look as if an earthquake could move it. Well, they would soon find out, Comminor thought, because it felt as if they were having an earthquake. The ground shook, pillars fell and dust rose to choke them all. The noise was deafening, and for a while he was sure it was only a matter of time before a huge lump of stone would squash them flat.

  He covered Sarra’s body with his own, and did his best to protect the baby.

  It felt as if the earthquake went on forever. But gradually, the noise and commotion died down. The trembling stopped. The clouds of dust settled.

  Comminor waited to make sure it was really over. Then he lifted his head.

  The other people who had slipped through the barrier of time had disappeared.

  He pushed himself to his feet and lifted Sarra with him, relieved to see she was unharmed. Around them, the others stirred too, coughing and groaning as they checked damaged limbs and found blood. Viel’s left hand had been damaged in the falling debris and he cradled it to his chest, wincing with pain. Amabil’s left arm was covered in blood where a sharp piece of chipped rock had wounded her shoulder. But amazingly, nobody had been killed.

  Comminor looked around the room. Debris littered the floor, and statues and pillars had fallen everywhere, but the most shocking sight was the far wall. It had completely crumbled, and behind it, a staircase of stone steps curved upwards, out of sight to the right.

  Comminor’s gaze met Sarra’s. Defiance leapt in her eyes.

  “No!” He drew his sword and made a grab for her, but she was already moving away to the stairs. “Sarra, wait!”

  “This way!” she yelled to the others.

  Viel, Josse and Paronel moved to stop the Veris as they scrambled to follow her. Geve vaulted over a fallen statue, but Comminor moved to meet him, blocking his exit.

  “Get out of my way,” Geve snarled, drawing his own sword.

  “Do not go up there,” Comminor said, unable to stop the desperation entering his voice. “Please.”

  Geve’s brow flickered with confusion, but Comminor saw him look past to where Sarra was already mounting the staircase, pushing bits of stone aside as she climbed.

  “This is the way out!” Her voice rang with excitement. “Hurry!”

  Comminor met Geve’s blade with a parry of his own and pushed him back, and the two men circled. To his right, the others scuffled, but the Veris were no match for the trained Umbra and were quickly restrained.

  Angry now, Comminor swung his sword and knocked Geve’s aside, but the young man leapt out of his way before he could attack again, regaining his balance and crouching as Comminor approached for another blow.

  “We have to protect Sarra,” Geve said. “This is madness. Why do we not all go with her?”

  Comminor hesitated. It was true that it did not matter whether one or all of them made it to the Surface. However many, it was the beginning of the end. He opened his mouth to speak, and at that moment, a scream cut through the silence.

  As one, the two men turned and raced up the staircase, the others close behind. Comminor ran beside Geve, taking two steps at a time, holding onto the wall as the staircase curved up and to the right.

  “We are coming, Sarra!” yelled Geve, but there was no reply.

  They climbed higher and higher, Comminor privately musing at Sarra’s sprightliness at climbing so quickly considering she was so heavily pregnant.

  More steps and yet more, and then they turned the corner and saw above them the end of the steps. They climbed the last few and found themselves in a large room.

  They came to a halt. In front of them, Sarra had collapsed onto the floor, faced with the scene on the far side. Comminor stared, vaguely aware of the Veris and the Umbra coming up behind him and fanning out to his left and right. Everyone fell silent and stared too.

  The wall on the opposite side of the room had crumbled and fallen down a slope, leaving the view wide open. They stood about a third of the way up a mountain, the panorama before them stretching away as far as the eye could see. Comminor’s head spun and he almost fell over as his brain tried to make sense of the perspective. He had never seen such a vast distance.

  He had known what to expect – the Quercetum had made it quite clear what had happened after the second phase of the Apex. He had known that the bards of the Embers saw not the present, but the glorious past: a time when there were birds and the grass and trees, when the land was whole and the Arbor still existed, when Anguis was a place for the living.

  He had known it had all come to an end, but even so, seeing it was almost the hardest thing he had ever done. Except for watching the others around him see it too. Especially the Veris – those who had also dreamed of the land of green and blue.

  Because the vista before them held only one colour.

  The brilliant red of fire.

  PART FOUR

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I

  Procella warmed her hands around the soup bowl, making sure to keep her eyes lowered as she sipped the hot broth.

  The inn was practically empty, but a woman on her own could never feel completely safe in Wulfengar, and Procella wasn’t exactly unknown in the borderlands. She had pulled her nondescript cloak closely around her shoulders and wore the hood up, hoping she could remain unnoticed. She hadn’t eaten all day, and she didn’t want to fall off her horse through lack of nourishment.

  The west border of Wulfengar loomed temptingly close, only half a day’s ride away, but as she’d walked through the small hamlet Yenston, she’d overheard talk of the presence of an army outside the westernmost fort on Isenbard’s Wall. Rumours were that the Wulfengar lord of the Lowlands was planning a raid on Setbourg. No doubt they were taking advantage of the unease caused by the Incendi, she thought, as she’d listened to the town traders gossiping about the increasing fires and strange sightings of flaming figures in the night. Most of them scoffed at such notions, but Procella knew the truth that lay behind them.

  She finished her broth, her eyelids drooping, and wished she could just rent a room for the night and rest. But Hunfrith still hunted her, and the Incendi were also literally hot on her trail. She had to keep going west until she could find a place to cross the Wall. She had to get to Heartwood. Only then would she be safe.

  And maybe not even then. As she sipped her ale, she wondered how Dolosus – Imperator at Heartwood – had reacted to the apparent Incendi threat. After the Darkwater Lords had been vanquished and the Arbor destroyed its own defences, they had not been rebuilt. The fortified Temple had been demolished, and the tree now stood in an open area, ringed only by a simple wooden fence. Around this complex a trading settlement had grown and developed into a small town. Dolosus and the Custodes who used to man the defences now merely controlled the traffic of those wishing to visit and pay their respects to the tree rather than protect it. True, Dolosus ensured that the Custodes were still trained for battle, as it
was difficult for everyone for whom the invasion existed in living memory to completely throw off the fear of another threat. But it would be difficult – if not impossible – for them to ward off a direct assault on the tree.

  She stared into the fire, musing on the events of the invasion over twenty years ago. Chonrad had descended into the labyrinth, found the fifth node and communicated with the Arbor, which had told him it did not need defending and could look after itself. It had then proceeded to destroy the stone walls surrounding it. So what did that mean for the Wulfengar and Incendi threat? Would the Arbor be able to protect itself again?

  Procella loved the Arbor – had spent most of her life defending it – and the thought of it now being defenceless sent a chill through her. The memory of what had happened all those years ago had faded, and she could no longer feel as strongly the thrill of when it had burst forth from its confinement and doubled in size, defeating the Darkwater Lords in the process. Every day, people went to Heartwood to touch the holy tree and feel its Pectoris beating. It remained tall and strong, and there was no doubt from its size and the energy that radiated from it that it was special, more than just one of the many oak trees that grew in the land. But she couldn’t imagine that it would respond in the same way to another attack. It felt like a dream, a myth to keep the younger generation in line if they threatened to forget the old ways.

  Her eyelids drooped. She couldn’t exist forever without sleep. And anyway, it was early evening and it would be better if she rode in the darkness. It was going to be difficult enough to get across the Wall without having to do it in broad daylight.

  Her breathing slowed, and she dozed.

  She wasn’t sure what jerked her awake. The lanterns in the inn had been lit and through the open doorway she could see the daylight had faded, although it wasn’t completely dark. The innkeeper had even lit the fire without waking her. She’d been curled in the chair, and she straightened, a little stiff from the position she had taken, blinking as she looked around.