by Aaron Pogue
I took one long step forward and pressed its point against the back of his neck. "Stop."
He went as still as any of the statues in the room. "Would you cut me down?"
"I have no wish to. But you must end this brutality."
He turned to face me, unconcerned with the blade that bit into the flesh at his collarbone. I pulled it back enough to let him turn, but still blood swelled along a nasty cut and spilled down to stain his simple tunic.
He said, "You brought me here."
"Not for this."
"You watched this rabid dog attack your mother."
"I protested," I said. "And I will find justice, but this is not it."
He sneered. "There is no justice for men like this."
"Perhaps there is a greater good."
"The greater good would be to see them dead."
"Very well." I brushed past my father and climbed the dais. I held my sword to the back of the king's neck. The carapace dissolved beneath its edge so the sword sank slowly to rest against the king's skin.
I met my father's eyes. "If you want to see a bad king dead, let's have him dead. There's nothing gained from this violence."
"There's vengeance—"
"No!" I roared. "There isn't. The thing you're satisfying is not the man that was injured. My father could have killed this king before. My father could have buried him alive, but he decided not to give the world to Chaos. So who are you?"
The monster in my father's skin sneered back at me. "I'm everything your father couldn't be."
"No. You're just some wretched shadow."
He showed me his teeth. "I am the vengeance he deserved."
"You are a monster all alone. And you're at war with yourself. I know my father's still in there somewhere, and I know he fights you."
"Don't be a fool. I am your father."
I shook my head. "I know him. He's a hero. You're the sort of thing he kills."
He snarled in answer and threw a spear of crimson fire at me. I dove aside and came up in a roll, sword ready. He was there, across the distance in a flash and swords the gray of ash coalescing even as he swung.
I parried one stroke, our blades ringing like giant gongs through the still hall, then disengaged in time to catch the other on my guard. My father and I locked together for a moment, face-to-face, and he was snarling like an animal.
But his weapons fell to dust.
I didn't strike. I jumped back a pace, and he came at me again, this time with a lash of fire in his left hand and something like a dagger reversed in his right. He struck out in a frenzy, with curling flame and flashing edge, but I answered blow for blow. I dodged the strikes I couldn't turn aside. But wherever I could block or parry, Father's fire melted into soot, and stone dissolved to dust.
He kept coming. Now he had a battle-axe larger than any man could handle. Now he threw a net of braided blades. Now he shot spearheads at me. Now he summoned fire.
And everything he brought, I answered. I cut it from the air or carved it into dust. He was panting now, his shoulders heaving and his brow a fearsome scowl. He screamed in feral fury, "How can you defy me?"
"You lack imagination, and Caleb taught me well."
He roared in rage and raised his hands, and a cloud of dust billowed up before me. I slashed the sword into the heart of it, and Father slammed his hands together with a thunderclap. A wall of solid rock congealed around the blade. The construct instantly began to decay, but before I could pull the weapon free a stone larger than a fist slammed into my shoulder.
It knocked me back and ripped the sword from my grasp. I tried to spin in place and grab with my left hand, but another rock crushed into my midsection. The air rushed from my lungs. I staggered, fighting for breath, and a staff of living air struck my chest and knocked me from my feet.
Then Father came to stand over me. He held both hands outstretched, and grains of dust poured up between them, gathering into a perfect sphere larger than my head. I groaned and tried to rise, tried to roll away, but the floor itself reached up to catch my clothes in fingers of elemental earth. I lay trapped while the stone grew into a boulder above me.
I fell back, gasping. Pain deep and twisting worried at my gut, and a numbness hot and flowing washed across my shoulder. Fear hissed through it all, a screaming terror way in the back of my mind, but it couldn't seem to find purchase anywhere. It melted where it touched my skin, and left me feeling...far away. Drifting. Calm.
"Father, please," I said. "For me. For Mother. Find control."
He shuddered like a leaf in a gale, and his cloak of shadows writhed.
I held his gaze. "You do not want to kill me. I'm your son."
He raised the boulder higher, ready to smash it down and crush my skull. I wouldn't even feel it.
I said, "I missed you. All those years. But you were saving lives."
"No. I was hiding."
"You were fighting this fury. You don't want to hurt me."
He snarled at me in the monster's voice. "Oh, but I do."
"You don't. Not the Dragonprince. Not the chief defender against the dragonswarm. Mother said you could teach Caleb lessons in self-restraint. You're strong enough to lay your weapons down."
My father screamed in wild rage. I closed my eyes and took one slow, cool breath. Then I looked again, and the stone between his hands exploded into dust.
So did the fingers gripping me. So did the wall around my sword, and the shells he'd made to trap his enemies.
But my attention was on Father, now fallen to his knees beside me. He sobbed in grief and pain. It was an empty sound, helpless and alone. "I am not...strong enough...to save you."
"You are. You just proved it."
He shook his head feebly. "No. There are other...dangers. And I can't...save you...all. Not without the dragons' power."
Around the edges of the room, two hundred military men were recovering from their shock. I heard their voices raised—in relief or fear or anger. I heard weapons whump into the bed of dust or rattle as they were made ready.
I tried to put them from my mind for now. I focused on my father. "You have done your part," I said. "You brought us through rebellion and the dragonswarm. You have shown us what a hero looks like. Now it's up to us to fight."
Finally he met my eyes. He was at the edge of consciousness, exhausted by the psychic battle he had barely won. But for a moment he focused on me, and he looked puzzled. "Who is this brave young man?"
My spirits sank. Had he forgotten me again? "I'm Taryn—"
He grinned. "All grown up. It seems like only yesterday you were a child."
I smiled into his eyes and watched them close. Then motion caught my eye as Seriphenes moved, shoving past the king still on his knees. The wizard raised both hands with vengeance in his eyes.
Though every muscle ached and though I hadn't slept in days, I found the strength for one last burst. I threw myself up off the ground and lunged toward my father. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, pressed my face against his hair, and felt the searing burst of heat against my spine an instant before I heard the thunder.
For a moment I was paralyzed, too stunned to even think. Then I caught a breath like a diver surfacing, sucked deep the air, and I felt the power of the lightning strike suffuse across my back. It was warm like sunshine. It buzzed beneath my skin.
In my mind's eye, I clearly saw the room around me. I saw my sword, fallen two paces away, and the wizard standing proud and exposed three paces behind me. I conceived it in an instant and sprang to action. With lightning in my veins, I felt like one of Father's constructs, living fire dancing to human will. I spun and leaped and caught the sword on fingertips. The motion carried me around, my arm outstretched, my whole body chasing the deadly weapon through its arc.
The wizard yelped and threw some spell against me. A wall of solid air slammed up in my path and broke the graceful strike, but it only stopped me for a moment. I gripped the hilt more tightly, ground my jaw,
and walked through the resistance. Seriphenes licked his lips, then threw a conniving glare past me, to the spot where my father lay unconscious.
I struck the wizard backhand with the flat of the wide blade. It sent him sprawling, and I followed after. I growled, "Don't you dare."
He lay still. Five paces away, Mother seized the chance to tear herself from the Grand Marshall's side and rushed to comfort Father. For his part, the Grand Marshall was still struggling to rise. His fine armor was torn in a thousand places and dripping with blood. His face was pale and his eyes were veiled, but still he fought to gain his feet. Still he clasped the dagger.
And behind him, the king finally scrambled to his feet. He looked old and used up. He was as broken as the Grand Marshall. But now the king raised his chin at me and called defiantly, "Green Eagles! Find your marks!"
Some obeyed. Some already had crossbows raised. Some had long fled the hall.
It didn't matter. It would take but one clean shot to strike me down. They didn't even have to hit my body. One lucky shot at my unconscious father, an errant bolt in Mother. It didn't matter. There were a thousand ways that I could die in this moment, even if I lived ten thousand days more.
Father had been in this place before. In his own stronghold where the king had taken refuge. He'd had the choice that I had now. Not just one decision, between good and evil, but a choice between a thousand ways to die.
This was what Laelia had tried to tell me. This conflict was my family's destiny. No matter how we struck at him, this king would not back down. And even if he did, he'd have an heir. I could start a civil war right now, or wait five years for him to die and have it then.
And Father...in his power, my father could defy two hundred Guards and get us out of here alive. He might have been strong enough to carry us all home. But what would we have gained?
The king would come for us. Armies would come for us. The king had left us alone while the dragons still flew, but now...now he needed to rebuild his kingdom. He didn't need a defender anymore. He needed loyal kingsmen.
We'd have to fight, just as Laelia had said. A war was coming either way. The only hope had been to postpone it for a while. Perhaps a human lifetime. But the kingdom had to have its king. It had to have some power preserving order, even if it was the twisted order of this petty tyrant.
My mind raced, and for a moment I imagined I could see the shady destinies spread out the way the elf maiden had described. For a moment, I imagined a dozen lives I might have lived. If Father had killed the king. If the Grand Marshall had killed Mother. If I had killed the wizard.
If I killed the king.
I thought of stories. I thought of heroes. I thought of sacrifices. And then I thought of a way to save the world. In fact, I'd spotted it in Laelia's garden. The king needed a token in his hand, a hostage. Mother needed Father, and Father needed to be home. The fates of nations and the destinies of men twisted in a knot around my heart.
The moment broke against the edge of the strange blond blade, and I stepped over the cowering wizard to stand before the king.
King Timmon tried to sneer disdainfully, but he was shaking now.
I met his eyes. I flung aside my sword. I swallowed hard and bowed my head. "Your Majesty. Accept me to your service. I place myself completely in your power."
Once upon a time, the greatest hero in the world bent knee to a petty little king so that men might fight the dragonswarm instead of other men. That was his legacy. My father had the chance to reign in blood, but he chose peace. He swore an empty oath, and it bought him a reprieve. But that was all.
I knew that story. I had known it all my life, but I never knew its depths until I stood before a king who owed me everything and watched him spit defiance. I faced the same choice my father had faced, and I saw my father's folly. But I was blessed. I had the benefit of a lifetime of training toward that very moment.
Father had set me an example. Mother, too. Caleb had drilled me on it almost every day. I'd heard it from the Lord of Cara's lips, and from Captain Tanner's. I'd seen it firsthand, when the Dragonprince refused to be a monster. Sometimes the greatest strength was shown by laying weapons down.
Once my offer was made, the king suggested an hour's respite. We saw Father resting under Caleb's guard and a Beneficent Priest's care in the Great Cathedral. Then I found a chance to bathe and change my clothes, and Toman brought me breakfast while Jen demanded every detail I could recall. But all too soon the summons came, and we gathered in the Hall of the Council of Lords to craft a whole new legend.
Once upon a time, the Dragonprince's heir crossed half a kingdom to swear allegiance to the ancient crown. He gave up his heritage to live in service to the king. The son of Daven turned his back on the Tower of Drakes so he could help rebuild the kingdom that had been.
That was an end to any war my father's name might have inspired. As long as I was safe, at least. As long as I was happy here. The Dragonprince would have no cause to move against the king. Nor would my father dare strike first, not with me in the king's clutches.
The Grand Marshall grumbled in objection, but Seriphenes proclaimed he'd had enough of this blood feud. In the end, King Timmon was satisfied with his token. And the lords all cheered, ignorant of everything else that had transpired.
After that we'd settled down to terms and binding oaths. We consumed a day, from dawn to dusk, and wrote new destinies for everyone who had gathered in the throne room.
I asked only one favor of the king, and that with trembling heart. But I had family and friends around me, old and new. Uncle Themmichus had stood on my left, with Captain Tanner and even Justice Antinus. My knights had stood on my right. And perhaps Jen had arranged to stand so close to me, perhaps it was just chance, but when she fidgeted, her fingers brushed my arm.
But Mother stood behind me, her hands on my shoulders, and all of this I had done for her. So I took courage from her presence and begged the king to allow me visitors. In his generosity, he granted me apartments near his own with quarters for two permanent guests and arrangements for as many as arrived from time to time. I needed nothing more.
When we left the hall, the sunset glowed as red as fire off the palace's golden gates. Out in the wide, white courtyard between the Council Hall and the palace, my entourage gathered close around me. They were more curious than excited, anxious to understand the pieces they had missed, but I felt light as sunshine. Jen walked at my right hand and my Mother held my left. I stopped halfway to my new home and lingered in the shadow of the soaring fountain.
In time, my mother squeezed my hand to catch my attention. I turned to her expecting some reprimand, some plea, some soft rebuke.
Instead she smiled. "You are your father's son."
"My father needs to go back home," I said, serious.
"I know. But he is safe for now, and my dragon can restrain him if necessary."
I didn't let her distract me from what I had to say. I held her gaze. "And you. You need to go back with him."
A pause, and then, "I know."
"To keep him strong," I said. "And just...just to be home."
"Taryn," she said softly. "You have to know, it won't be home without you."
"I'll be right here," I said. "I will be safe. And you'll know where to find me. You will come visit?"
She laughed. "Every other day."
"Until your dragon's wings grow tired."
"My son," she said. "My little prince."
"No. That's not my destiny. But I can find one here."
She touched my cheek. "Are you sure? You will spend your life as a hostage."
"Oh, I will be more than that," I said. "I have a place beside the throne. The king only means to keep an eye on me, but in time I'll earn his trust. Of this king or the next. Then I'll guide his choices and make the kingdom better. In glory or in secret, I'll complete the work my father started."
As I made my speech, the huge, dark shape of Caleb came up silently to stand at Mother'
s side. I waited for his sneer, for his sarcastic response.
He met my eyes and growled, "That is well said."
"More than that, it's noble," Mother said. "You make me proud. But can you be happy here?"
I found Jen's hand without looking. She let me take it.
I smiled. "I will be well."
THE END
There's plenty more stories still to come in Aaron Pogue's World of the FirstKing.
But while you wait, why not explore more great epic fantasy from the author who inspired the release of the Dragonprince Trilogy,
Rethana's Surrender
Rethana Chosardal's life in hiding is over, and she has no one but herself to blame. A foolish choice leaves her in the power of the same vengeful clerics who slaughtered most of her family when she was but a child. Worse, the soldiers also seize her best friend and her frail little sister.
Allasin, the clerics' leader, recognizes in Rethana the Blessing of comori, magical energy that can manipulate the elements. Rethana has always craved the power her birthright can bring, but Allasin will only teach her if Rethana serves him in intrigues she cannot hope to understand. Yet this cold, cruel adversary gives her glimpses now and then of a warmer soul—of a master she could fall in love with.
Rethana is torn between two men: the hometown protector who loved her as a girl and the conqueror who loves her as a woman. As the threat of civil war grows stronger, Rethana must choose between her power and her past. Knowing that a reckless act has already cost her the life she once loved, this new choice may well tear her fragile heart apart. How much more will she surrender to protect her precious, dying sister?
Rethana's Surrender is the first book in the Legends of the Light-Walkers. Approximately 100,000 words.
Also by Aaron Pogue
The World of the FirstKing
Taming Fire