The Fireblade Array: 4-Book Bundle

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The Fireblade Array: 4-Book Bundle Page 86

by H. O. Charles


  “Alas, I’m missing one rather vital characteristic.” And that was a shame; it meant his time with Artemi was incontrovertibly limited.

  Tallyn pursed his lips in thought. “You know, I think you really ought to see her now.”

  Morghiad was determined not to let anything spoil this day. He hadn’t felt so upbeat in an age, and his memories of that dream in the months before still glowed warmly. “I’m not ready for that yet. Things are only just returning to the way they should be, including me. She can wait down there another year for all I care.” His own challenges had become much clearer since that dream - easier to deal with. All except Silar’s games of will-die, of course. Silar seemed to delight inordinately in his recent spate of victories.

  “My lord, please listen to me, because I believe you are ready to hear this now.” Tallyn shifted the rugs onto his opposite shoulder. “Artemi did beat Mirel in their fight. And she did release you. And now that is her in your prison cell. No wielder is capable of a disguise that perfect, not even Mirel. And making all kanaala see the streams differently?

  It is impossible. Stealing someone else’s memories – I’ve never seen that done. Ever. You seem to believe in some sort of magic that doesn’t exist - to such an extent that the woman you love is suffering for your treatment of her.”

  Morghiad made a concerted effort to calm himself. “You believe her too.” He let his annoyance out in a sigh. “I should have worked that out.”

  “I’ve known the girl for more than fourthousand years! So have Vestuna and Romarr. There is no question of believing. It’s just her!”

  Morghiad kept his voice entirely calm. “You are seeing what you want to see. It is possible to clone the appearance of the environment – why not a person?”

  “I see what I want to see? I do not

  think you want to admit you have been so wrong, or that you have hurt her. And as for land-copying. Yes, it’s done, but it always fails under scrutiny. You should know that well enough. And the eyes can never be masked, else they are blinded. Mirel’s were blue. Artemi’s are brown. Though you should know that, too.”

  His mood was fast becoming dark, which he did not appreciate. He ceased walking to turn to the older man. “Tallyn, I will ask you this once: stop. Now,” he said as firmly as his voice would allow. He turned back to his path, and continued to follow the woman leading them. Morghiad could feel Tallyn’s angry eyes upon him, and he forcefully ignored the sensation. He really did not want to upset Artemi’s friend, and he knew Tallyn would see

  the truth eventually.

  The Kusuru Assassin remained tightlipped and sour-faced for the rest of the journey to the rug-seller’s house, but Morghiad mustered a warm smile for the lady when they set down their burdens. She seemed to respond well with a coy grin of her own. He clapped Tallyn on the shoulder as they left. “Come, let us put our differences aside for now. The day is too beautiful for arguments.” He met Tallyn’s eyes. “For your and Silar’s sakes, I’ll see her sooner. Just... not yet.”

  The Kusuru huffed quietly, but his features had visibly brightened with those words. The poor man had been rendered utterly blind by the woman.

  As they meandered back toward the castle, they happened upon a building

  undergoing extensive repairs. Scaffolding netted the structure like a wooden cobweb, and five workmen laboured with chisel-cutting and stone-laying.

  “Were you ever a mason or builder in any of your lives?”

  “Four of them. These men are working in the Ignarinian style – it’s rather oldfashioned, but sturdy enough to build as high as Cadrans seem to.”

  Morghiad quite fancied getting his hands dirty, and another two days would pass before the army’s next practice session. “Show me. I think I’d like to help these men if they’ll let me.”

  The workmen did let him, and soon he was shirtless and sweating as he hauled the great blocks of green limestone into place or

  chiselled them down to fit. A crowd had gathered to watch, as if repairing a house had become some great spectator sport. Having Tallyn there was a reassurance in more ways than his stone-working expertise. The man was handsome enough to keep the women’s attentions to himself, and away from Morghiad’s fumbling attempts at masonry.

  Morghiad persevered with the task well into the afternoon, when the other workmen retired and he found his arms coated in a thick layer of dark green dust. The daylight was still good, and he felt rather self-conscious leaving the worksite wearing only his trousers and boots.

  “After this day of aiding the community, what do you intend to do next, my king?” Tallyn asked, pointedly looking at the lengthy

  eisiel scar.

  “Go home, bathe and eat an entire cow. Maybe drink the bar dry as well. I can recommend it.”

  “That sounds like an excellent plan. How did you get that one, then?” He nodded at the scar.

  “Eisiel.”

  “Hmm,” was all Tallyn said in response. They traipsed back to the castle in the cooling sun, when a group of worn-looking soldiers stopped in their path.

  “Sire.” The long-absent Jarynd stepped forward and bowed, before noticing the king’s messiness and frowning lightly. “We have... found someone for you.”

  Morghiad’s eyes moved immediately to the anxious-looking man behind the soldiers.

  He cradled something in his arms. “Let me see her.” The soldiers swept aside as Morghiad walked through them, and he was soon facing the child’s father. The man’s presence ought to cause a few problems with Toryn, as if Morghiad didn’t have enough to deal with. “May I look at her?”

  The blue-eyed man nodded, and held his daughter out to the king.

  As gently as he was able, Morghiad took hold of her and pulled away the edge of the blanket that obscured her face. The baby looked up at him with its ice blue eyes. Its hair was dark like burnt oak. Not red. “What did you name this child?” He touched one of her wavering hands with a finger. Definitely a wielder, but her immature power did not feel at all like Artemi. It felt just like...

  “Mirel,” her father said.

  Sudden nausea heaved through Morghiad’s body then, but he managed to pass the baby back to her father safely. How had she engineered this? How could she have wrapped such lies around an innocent child?

  “It’s her isn’t it?” Tallyn had pushed through the soldiers behind him. “Do you see now? That’s Artemi who’s locked away. Let her out, and beg her forgiveness NOW.”

  Morghiad forced calm back into his mind. It wasn’t her in his prison. Not his Artemi. “Fine. I will prove to you finally that you have been misled.”

  “What?! And just how do you intend to do that?”

  He could not tell Tallyn what he was about to do, else the man would try to stop

  him, so he kept his silence. “Wait for me in the castle courtyard. Jarynd, men, you have done well. Find this man some quarters and then take your rest.” He strode from the gathering then, and headed directly for the armouries.

  Once there, he searched behind the racks of swords for an opened vat of pinh. The army no longer had need of the stuff, but some of the old stocks remained in these guarded places. He found what he was looking for, took a crossbow and dipped three of its bolts into the viscous black liquid. Fully prepared, Morghiad paced down to the tunnel’s entrance and clambered through the hatch with a torch.

  He would break her spell once and for all, and when he next looked at that child, it would be Artemi he saw. He loaded the first bolt onto the crossbow as he walked, hooked

  back the release mechanism and broke into a jog. A new sweat had broken out on his skin by the time he reached her cell, and she stood to greet him.

  “Why are you topless and covered in green slime?” she asked with a grin when he drew close. She looked like a dishevelled Artemi. But it was not her. They would all see, soon enough.

  Morghiad dropped the torch to the floor and raised the crossbow to his eye, pinh dripping from the end. He lev
elled it at her heart as she moved toward the bars.

  “You intend that for me?” she whispered. “Is this howI must prove my identity to you?”

  “This is how I’ll prove your identity to everyone you’ve fooled. No mask will hide you when you are dead.”

  “If this is how it must be done. Very well.” She took a ragged breath. “I forgive you.”

  A powerful force thundered into Morghiad as he loosed the bolt from the crossbow, and he was thrown to the cold, hard stone of the floor.

  “What have you done?” Silar breathed, leaving him to go to the now-gasping woman. He started kicking and wrenching at the bars, which groaned noisily at the top. “Artemi! Stay alive, you stubborn bitch! Help me get rid of these bloody bars!”

  Morghiad watched peacefully as Silar struggled with the iron of her cell. The bolt had made its target with satisfying accuracy, and she clutched at it tightly while her heart pumped the poison around her body. He stood to assess her more closely, to watch for the moment when the mask finally fell from her face.

  “Morghiad!” Silar shouted for his aid, before giving up on the bars and reaching through them for the bolt in Artemi’s chest.

  “Leave it there, Si,” he warned.

  Silar took no heed, and yanked the missile free of her body. “He’ll never forgive himself if you die. You can’t die now.”

  She only blinked and turned her eyes to Morghiad. Deep, dark, brown eyes.

  Silar began stripping her crumpled coat from her torso, and tore open the shirt below it. It was then that Morghiad saw the long scar in her abdomen - the one she’d gained after her escape from Reduvi. He knelt down to reach

  for it, to see if it felt as real as it looked, and passed his hand between the bars. Silar was busying himselfwith trying to find every drop of water the tunnel held, fruitless a task as it was. But the moment Morghiad’s hand touched her skin, he felt the tumult of Blaze pour into him, together with the echoes of the other thing he sensed in her. Desperation and terror suffused his mind as he realised. This could be no one else but Artemi. “No.”

  She took his hand as he spoke and smiled sweetly, before her eyes fluttered shut.

  That familiar sensation of anger suffused and drowned his every muscle in that instant, effortlessly suppressing his despair and fear. He launched himself at the bars and tore at them with all his strength, and Silar rapidly came to help him. The iron groaned more

  noisily until one joint gave way, and then a second... and finally a third. The two men scrambled in to reach her, where Silar commenced dousing her wound with water. A small swell of poison came out. Her heart was still beating, but it was still carrying the poison around her body.

  “That’s not enough,” Morghiad croaked. It was too late.

  A thunder of footsteps rattled against the walls as a dozen men approached. Tallyn was at their head. He took one look at Artemi, and his seething eyes moved to Morghiad. They remained there as he gave orders to the men behind him. “She’s still breathing. Find a wielder - any of them. Bring them here. Run!” The Kusuru clambered smoothly into the cell and knelt to inspect her. “You,” he said to the

  king, “Will sit over there and not touch her.”

  Morghiad obliged immediately, and buried his forehead against his dusty arm. His face was wet, he realised. He was crying.

  “I can use some of her power to keep her alive for a limited time, but the longer I do it, the fewer reserves she will have to heal. Blazes knows she doesn’t have much in the way of reserves at the moment.” Tallyn seemed to extract her power from her with little problem, and the air around him glittered with dancing spots of light. He began forming something complex from the fires, and settled it over Artemi’s body.

  Minutes passed. Minutes or hours - he wasn’t sure. He didn’t really even believe in Achellon, but he prayed to it to save her anyway. At length, Selieni and Arrian came

  hurtling into the receding torchlight. The crowd surrounding Artemi’s body swelled, and soon the heat of Blaze filled the entire tunnel. From his position, and through the blurry glaze of his tears, Morghiad could see the healing forms that Tallyn drew from Selieni. It looked like a net, sieving through Artemi’s blood and tissue for the poison, removing the black liquid drop by drop.

  “That is a wonder,” Arrian murmured as they worked.

  Selieni and Tallyn were sheathed in sweat and exhausted by the time they stopped. The Kusuru’s hand shook as he released hers. “Vestuna, if you and Aura can see anything I’ve missed, please feel free to tidy it up.”

  Morghiad desperately wanted to do it himself, to help her in some way, but he dared

  not speak.

  Thick-set Vestuna leaned down with that peculiarly grey hair over his eyes, dragging tiny Aura with him. He touched Artemi only briefly, and shrugged. “Clean. Very weak though.”

  A multitude of eyes turned to Morghiad then, either in accusation or curiosity. Words almost drained from him. Why had no one sought retribution for this act against her? “I would like to carry her out of here. The officers’ rooms are closest and they are always warm. It’ll be less of a journey for her to endure.”

  A look of disgust passed between the Kusuru men, but Silar looked as if the responsibilities of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. “Let him,” the general

  instructed.

  The gathering moved away from her wasted form, watching tensely as he approached.

  Artemi was easy to lift from the gritty floor, and her familiar taste of Blaze burned where her skin met his. Morghiad held her as gently as he could, wary that her bones were so prominent he might snap them in an instant. She looked even more fragile as he took her into the fading twilight, her skin greyer than the stone walls themselves. An empty room with a made bed was rapidly located, into which Artemi was carefully placed.

  He moved her dirt-filled hair from her face, instantly reminded of the last time she’d been unconscious and injured. Only, this time it was not quite so indirectly his fault. Silar and

  Tallyn were the last ones to remain in the room, though a company of guards were quickly gathering at the door.

  “I want to stay with her.”

  Tallyn folded his arms and clenched his jaw. “Then I’m staying too.”

  “He won’t hurt her,” Silar said softly.

  “I don’t care about your stupid looking-into-the-future abilities or whatever they are. I don’t trust him.” The Kusuru plonked himself decisively in an armchair.

  Silar cleared his throat, but continued to keep his voice soft. “Artemi called you here to help him, remember?”

  “What?” Morghiad had always thought the Kusurus had somehow been enticed here by the echoes of Artemi’s battle with Mirel, not called here by anyone.

  “She sent for us because she was desperate. Artemi never sent for us before. Never. ButI came here to help her. He was incidental.”

  Silar folded his arms in frustration. “You’re really far too old to be so enrapt by your own jealousy.”

  “And you are too young to properly understand love. Both of you!” Tallyn settled more deeply into his chair, clearly unwilling to move.

  Morghiad pondered the Calbeni’s expression for a moment. “Was she ever more than your friend?”

  “I can answer that for you,” Silar said triumphantly. “They were as close as brother and sister, except he didn’t quite see it that way. She cried on his shoulder when she was a girl. He wishes the grown woman would do the same. And he meesses herrr teets.” The last sentence was a rather good mimic of the Calben accent.

  Tallyn slammed his knife into the arm of his chair threateningly, but did not get up to confront the other man. “What he says is close enough.”

  Morghiad couldn’t help but smile and chuckle softly to himself. Only Artemi could so innocently leave such a trail of destruction among men. “If you will stay I should be honoured. Silar, you have a choice. Either join her vigil or take some rest before you assume the duties thi
s country will demand of you. My powers will transfer to her once I go to trial, assuming she survives. But you will need to prepare for that.” Light of Achellon, he had

  been wrong. And how wrong!

  Silar made a disgusted sound. “It will be better if I leave. She will live, by the way.” He strode from the room with his shoulders tensed.

  “Trial?” Tallyn murmured.

  “I wrongfully imprisoned her and attempted her murder. That sort of behaviour usually calls for a trial.”

  He straightened in his seat. “It is very bad for kings to go on trial. Not that I’m excusing it, but you were crazier than a wolf with blood up its nose. Artemi won’t care anyway. She’s never been the resentful type.”

  Morghiad ignored his memories of her numerous resentments against him, and settled into the other chair by her bed. “I have to do what is right, and face her with some small

  degree of honour.”

  “Honour!” Tallyn harrumphed. “Only young men ever talk of honour. What you have is a debt. A great, big debt.”

  Perhaps he was right about that. Morghiad deeply wished he could recall the pains Mirel had left him with, or take the crossbow bolt into his own heart.

  The light was so bright in Artemi’s eyes, she halfthought she was lying at the centre of the caldera again. But it was only

  daylight - soft and warm spring sun. She squinted as she tried to focus on the room around her, and didn’t recognise it. Waking up in strange places was becoming far too common an occurrence in a single lifetime! Then a face moved into her field of view. Its brilliant green eyes shone at her, but there was no smile in them. Another face loomed into view, and its dark features were most definitely smiling. Artemi wrestled her protesting and ineffective muscles into raising her body to a sitting position, and then stopped for breath.

 

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