new names. She’d sworn she would never take a man to her bed, even if she discovered one as strong with The Blazes as she was. And eventually her memories coursed inexorably to her time with Morghiad, and her most recent life.
It should not have been possible, and it certainly should not have happened. Artemi’s heart wept as she recalled the depths of her feelings for him - the torrential strength of her desire. And lying with a man – how could she ever have known it would be like that? She had never cared for someone with such abandon, and now she knew that it was not a relationship she could resume. She would be forced to spend an eternity without him when he would, quite inevitably, expire before her. And if Mirel discovered that Artemi loved this man during
his lifetime, he would be the one to suffer for it. When she finally awoke, three-and-ahalf days had passed. Wing-Lieutenant Collete stood over her bed with a look of sympathy, or maybe pity, on his face. “Welcome back, girl,” he said, taking a puff of his ever-present pipe. Was he still wing-lieutenant? “Though Arrian tells me you’ll want to be off again soon.” Artemi roused from the bed sheets. They were soaked and made cold by her perspiration. It was always the same after the memories returned - a head stuffed full of confusion and a body cloaked in sweaty clothing. She tried to order her thoughts, but instead experienced an undeniable urge to blow something up. Artemi stumbled, barely clothed, out of her bed and staggered to the window. The Blazes tore easily into her body, and she
took in almost as much as she could bear in her weakened state. She launched the fire upward and into an especially gloomy cloud, where she allowed it to explode with terrifying force. The shockwaves blew a strong wind toward the ground, the buildings began to shake and several windows were heard to shatter. The cloud was gone, and it was several seconds before the earth ceased its trembling. “Much better,” she said, and flopped onto the floor.
Collete merely raised an eyebrow and took another drag on his pipe.
The memories were still rattling around Artemi’s head, making very little overall sense. But she knew what she was, and she knew something was wrong in Calidell. Quite what, she couldn’t properly establish.
“What was that, Sergeant Fireblade?”
She hadn’t even realised she’d been speaking. Perhaps she was becoming as unhinged as Mirel.
The general seated himself opposite her. “You started mumbling something in a language I don’t understand.”
Artemi couldn’t remember how to speak the same language as this man – but he was Sunidaran. She was sure of that. She tried a few words of the country’s original tongue. “I’m not sure if I have to leave... but there’s somethingI need to do. I know that much.”
A guffaw came from Collete before he replied in a curious mix of Sunidaran and something else, “Even I’m not old enough to speak like that, girl. Try again.”
She picked up a piece of notepaper to her right and swiftly read through the contents.
The common tongue. Of course. “There’s somethingI have to do... something I’m needed for.”
“You’re needed here.” The wing lieutenant said – except he wasn’t that anymore. He was a general. What had happened to Hedinar? “But you told Arrian...” he continued, “About your little thing with our former general’s son – the King of Calidell. Is it true? You accepted that dagger from him?”
Artemi looked over at the blue-silver blade on the cabinet. Morghiad. Morghiad was to wed another woman. Her stomach twisted into a thousand knots then, and her body felt as insubstantial as the cloud she’d just destroyed. Why would he have done this? He had to have known she was within weeks of remembering, and that she would have written to him at the
very least. And his promise... after waiting twenty years for her, why would he break his promise now? Another man surely would have married and bedded a hundred women in the same time, but not him. Not her kahr; not her king. Artemi wanted to weep, or maybe blow something else up. “I did accept that blade from him, and we were lovers. But you must tell no one else of it. And there is something amiss in Calidell – I must go there.”
Collete made an odd grunting noise, and reached inside the top of his coat. “This arrived for you while you were lying about in bed.” He handed her a roughly folded note. It bore no seal or stamp.
Her name and the Sunidaran Army’s address were scrawled in hurried script on the smooth side. It looked a little like Silar’s hand. Artemi opened the sheet of paper and read the contents. It was a single word in large capitals:
MIREL
Artemi’s blood grew cold as she recalled her crossing of paths with her old enemy in Hirrah. It had been her. Artemi scraped herselffrom the floor and staggered to the bed, where she found the Cadran Chronicle tucked down the side of the sheets. The drawing of the woman wasn’t entirely inaccurate, she realised. And it wasn’t Kahriss Eryth. “Fendar, the woman who cut off your arm – what colour were her eyes?”
Collete screwed his face up and pulled his white-blond ponytail over his shoulder. “A very bright blue. I’ll never forget them.”
And she’d had her gale swords. There was no question. “You are lucky to be alive after your dealings with her. I’m afraid I’m going to need Hedinar’s sworn men-” Alas, Hedinar. And Medea too. “- I’ll do my best to send them back to you afterwards.”
“Try not to get them killed. You may take extra if you feel you need them. Blazes, take halfthe army if it helps you kill that woman!”
A Sunidaran army would have made a lovely knife for Mirel’s hamstring, but wouldn’t have been able to move fast enough. No, Artemi needed to enter Cadra without arousing suspicion. “I’ll need no more than ten. I would like them ready within the hour.”
Collete grinned and chuckled. “Hed always used to say you’d forget who was the
general. I’ll have them assemble in the stableyard.” Then he stood, and left her alone in her room.
Artemi’s mind began to clear and organise itselfat that point. A plan started to form. Mirel had both her gale swords and, thanks to Morghiad, Artemi now had the one she’d been missing for the last few centuries. Though how Asterid had ended up in the Kemeni mountains - that was peculiar. She only had to travel to Gialdin to collect the second, assuming no one had robbed it from her body. She’d been careful enough to leave a fresh tracking form on it before she’d died, which shouldn’t have faded too much in the last few decades. Sky Bridges would be essential, but dangerous without a ghar-en. Blazes alone knew where one of those was stashed.
She bathed quickly in the blessedly hot water that steamed near the fire, and dug out her old Calidellian uniform. It fitted perfectly to her frame, though its fabric was not so soft against her skin as desert-worn, silk-strung Sunidaran tailoring. Artemi strapped her engagement dagger to her thigh, her gale sword to her back and some of the better Sunidaranissue weaponry to her waist. Collete had been good enough to leave her some food, and she gobbled it all down hungrily before drinking a carafe full of kefruit juice.
As soon as she was ready, she hurtled down the yellow sandstone steps and out into the yard. Arrow was saddled and pawing at the ground when she arrived, surrounded by a small crowd of soldiers in burgundy and gold. Artemi was pleased to see Arrian there,
together with Fhirin, Burrus, Leo and others. She’d robbed the Sunidaran army of most of its best lieutenants, she realised. But they had been the ones Hedinar thought too good to take with him, and he’d only taken Artemi because he couldn’t tell her what to do.
The men greeted her with hugs and smiles and jokes about her absence, but Artemi’s own grins faded quickly as she explained the task in hand. Their mouths dropped as she explained Morghiad was the son of their former general, and several curses of surprise were emitted when she spoke of her former attachment to him.
“Benay-gosa!?” Fhirin coughed.
Artemi nodded. “For a number of years. But one of Acher’s cronies found outI was a wielder, and put an end to that life.” That
/> particular memory was very fresh. “Evidently Morghiad spent some time relocating me afterwards, and he saw to it that I was raised in safety.”
“Follocks!” Arrian muttered.
She raised an eyebrow. “Quite. In any case, he needs our help. Mirel, the woman who injured our current general, is currently running loose in Cadra. I need you to help me stop her.”
“Anything for Hedinar,” Burrus said plainly.
Leo, a cautious and lithe old man, spoke with his ragged voice, “She’s vanha-sielu like you, is she not? If we kill her now – she’ll come back, presumably with a hunger for vengeance.”
Artemi sighed. “Mirel is a never-ending
battle, alright. If we can imprison her alive, we’ll be able to keep her out of trouble for many years to come. If not, we give Morghiad another two decades of life.” Assuming he was still alive. She didn’t want to think about the alternative. That letter would have taken at least three weeks to reach her.
The shortest of them: Fhirin, with his golden skin and curls, grinned broadly. “A mission to save a king and his country, lock away a murderous villain and bathe in the subsequent glory... or valorous death in honouring two of my friends. That’s my kind of adventure!”
You could say a great many things about Sunidarans - their humour was as dry as their orange-yellow lands and their hair as long as the stories they told, but they were always
keen for a good fight. Artemi vaulted onto her horse with the rigorous grace known only to Kusuru, and nudged the animal into a broad canter. The shouts and whoops of her men followed close-behind as they gathered pace and trailed the wide streets to the eastern gate. They were coming for him now.
The Sky Bridge shook gently as each man stepped out of the gateway and into the overgrown forest. “It’s alright, lads. Iwon’t let it fall in on you.” She smiled confidently at their wary looks. The Bridges had deteriorated rapidly over the last few centuries, as if some sort of rot had set into them. Aside from their being almost as ancient as she was, whatever it was that had caused them to degenerate didn’t feel quite right.
She gazed northward between the tree trunks and vines. Gialdin’s boundary lands had grown so dense with their lush vegetation; it was peculiar to see it so devoid of people and management. In the near distance she could sense the oddly latent warmth of Blaze that emanated from the ruined city. A tear pushed at the corner of her eye as she recalled her last visit here with Morghiad. But she remembered how it had been before, and the great celebrations that had taken place when it was first constructed by ten of the most powerful wielders. And it had been beautiful.
Every part of it glistened in a perfect, crystalline white. Great waterfalls cascaded from shelves that touched the sky and delicate
bridges arced between impossibly tall towers. It had looked as if a strong wind might send it tumbling to the earth like a house of paper. But the Jade’an family had resided there, safe from invasion, for thousands of years. Artemi halfwished she had been involved in building it herself. Too wilful and errant for cluster tasks, the Founder Sisters had pronounced her.
Well, their blasted obedience and conformity hadn’t made the structure completely impervious to attack! Though, quite how Acher had managed to destroy the place still remained a mystery to Artemi. A summer shower of rain began to trickle through the trees, and distantly she could hear thunder. “We need to move faster,” she shouted to her soldiers, “Rain’s only going to make this
tougher.” The horses picked their way through the undergrowth with markedly less caution as they were urged on by their riders.
She brought her thoughts back to the fall of Gialdin and her memories of that day. They’d known that King Acher was headed their way for some weeks before he arrived, and Medea had rallied her soldiers from all sections of the kingdom. As was typical for Gialdin, they’d opted to keep as many as possible within the confines of the castle walls. It was an arrangement that Artemi and Hedinar had both agreed made them uncomfortable, with people penned in there like cattle. But that had always ensured the minimum loss of life in the past, and that is what they had done. She remembered the change in Hedinar’s bearing in the days before that battle, and Medea’s too.
They’d become very... withdrawn. She remembered how the Army of Calidell had arrived with a red sunrise, and had very nearly been slaughtered at Gialdin’s gates in their own red sunset. She remembered how, after burning those at the western walls to a crisp, she’d run out to meet the remainder at the northern end. And then there had been a brilliant, azure-blue light. It had enveloped everything, made her feel warm and soothed. It had probably blown her into a thousand tiny pieces. She dearly hoped that her weapons had survived. But how had the Blaze Energy been released from the structure like that? It had been far too complex for a single wielder or kanaala to deconstruct alone. And the other mystery: those curious words Medea had uttered to her when Acher’s army arrived.
Perhaps she’d never find those answers now. It was always the same when she returned - yet another swathe of people she’d known, dead.
Artemi and her Sunidaran men soon happened upon the sharp, white ruins of Gialdin city. The rainfall had thickened during their journey and now pelted the white crystal shards with singing noises and ricochets.
“Blazes alight!” hook-nosed Burrus exclaimed, “They really cut this place to the ground!”
“They did,” Artemi whispered.
The followed the edge of the ruins round to the northern side, whereupon Artemi formed a small ball of energy. It rotated and flashed splinters of light as she tweaked it into the proper shape, trembling about in its own complexity. She sent it out and into the ruins,
where it floated briefly, turned around and flew back, away from the rubble, over their shoulders.
“What is my body doing over there?” Artemi muttered to herself.
They followed the tracker into the verdant growth once more, and it was another fifteen minutes at a brisk trot until the Blaze form stopped. Before them, in a curiously clear area, stood several tens of grave markers. “They actually buried me. Someone looked for me and buried me.”
Arrian gave her a nudge with his knee as his horse moved past. “You seem to have little faith in your friends.”
She wondered where Morghiad had put her in the last life. Probably somewhere nice and obscure where there were trees.
Artemi dismounted and walked between the roughly carved stones until she reached hers. FIREBLADE had been inscribed on the uppermost surface of the rock, and something else was written around the sides. She knelt to read it, and laughed. It comprised three words: Welcome back, girl. Koviere had to have been behind that little message. Immediately to the right were four larger markers: memorials only, since there were no mounds behind them. She did not allow herselfto look at the smallest, which would have been Morghiad’s.
“Time to do some digging, lads,” she instructed.
Fhirin and the others blinked at her, some open-mouthed. “Er... you sure about that? I’m not sure I like the idea of disturbing the dead.”
Artemi sighed with exasperation. “It’s me! Granted, I won’t look great after fifty years in the dirt. But it’s still me.”
Fhirin made a face and shook his golden curls.
“Fine, I’ll do it myself.” She hadn’t wanted to wield any more than was necessary – she had a tough fight to prepare for, after all. But time was short and arguing would only waste it. Artemi jumped back into the flames and filled herselfwith a moderate amount of Blaze, which she then used to build an invisible platform. She buried it deep in the earth of her grave, solidified it with yet more power, and began to push.
The soil mound grew and heaved with her efforts, causing the men to move back in with horror. “It’s just earth,” she reassured
them. Jhontin, who was a kanaala of appreciable skill, actually stepped forward to examine what she was doing. It wasn’t long before her former skeleton emerged, complete with spin dag
gers and gale sword. Artemi extracted the items she needed and brushed her fingers along the shaft of one femur. It felt odd against her skin as all her old bodies did; like an empty shell full of echoes.
“You don’t look so bad,” Arrian grinned at last. “Could do with a couple of good meals, though.”
She could do with one now, she realised. Her stomach growled noisily at the thought. “I have whatI need. Let’s get to Cadra before nightfall.” Artemi stood back to allow the soil and bones to return to their burial pit, feeling a touch of sadness for those who
could not stand as she did now.
The group landed ten miles from the city just as the sky turned amber and the leaves lost their colour. If Mirel was anywhere nearby, she would surely feel Artemi’s wielding, and Mirel did not like having other wielders around her. The Blazes would have to remain out of Artemi’s reach until they met. She had the Sunidaran men change into plain clothes and hide their swords, before instructing that they scout the perimeter of the city’s grasslands. When night had drawn in, they settled around a small fire to chew on some rabbit which had, thankfully, been cooked.
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