The Fireblade Array: 4-Book Bundle

by H. O. Charles

  the company he had not known in many years. But something irked him about it. He could not see any sort of future for whatever relationship she might wish to forge, if she still wanted to forge one. And he could not see how it would be possible to love two women, sisters, without the situation ending in heartache.

  Artemi shot him one of her fine smiles as they entered the white glow of the office, and went to sit on her desk. “Aren’t you going to start off our conversation mid-way through? I’d have expected some sort of obscure comment by now.”

  His mind was too full of other concerns. He plonked himself onto his desk and pondered the problem further. Talia would be fun, but... No. It just could not work. He would have to tell her directly and decisively. And if she became upset... oh, that would enrage Toryn, and Silar had seen enough of that man’s anger towards Morghiad to know that he didn’t want any of it himself. He was not sure which would be worse: Toryn’s anger, or proceeding with a relationship that was doomed to failure, and which would most likely result in Toryn’s anger in any event. D’Avrohans!

  Artemi now appeared to be fully absorbed by whatever paperwork her hand was scribbling over, and she was employing her usual strategy of thinking of the next sentence before the first was finished. Silar could read her as easily as the documents at his side, and that predictability was enormously comforting. “There’s something we should discu-”

  There was a knock at the door, and the resulting visions that marched through his mind were not ones he liked the look of. “Seffe,” he grunted.

  Artemi’s face brightened immediately. “I’ve been so looking

  forward to meeting this man. Come!” The door opened, and Silar’s younger brother stepped in with all of his usual arrogance. Although slighter than his elder brother, and with darker hair like their father’s, many people had commented on the similarity between them. It was more than irritating. The general’s brow darkened further as soon as he saw the progression of events that would come in the next few moments. Seffe had a bad mind on him, alright, and it was full of wrong thoughts. “Brother,” he said with as little emotion as possible. His younger sibling bowed

  overly far, and smiled too broadly. “General, and my queen.”

  “Well, you most certainly share those big, dark blue eyes, Lord Forllan. Do you also share our any of our general’s talents?”

  “Alas, no. Only the sword skills, and I fear those are not quite matched, but I find that I fare better with the women.”

  Silar attempted to conceal his distaste, but his mouth twisted in spite of his efforts. He watched quietly from his position on the desk as Seffe simpered and grinned and very nearly drooled all over his queen through their talking. It was disgusting, more so than anything The Hunter mustered through his words. His elder brothers were far better behaved, but then they had known the influence of their mother.

  “... Well, you must join us for dinner this evening. Anyway, I have to deal with the bankers again today.” The queen made a pained grin and picked up a ream of papers.

  “You should take the water jug with you,” Silar said calmly.

  “What?”

  “The water jug.”

  Artemi’s eyebrows rose but, after a pause, she shrugged. “I suppose I’ll find out why when the time comes. I shall see the two of you later.” She strode out of the room with smooth strides, carafe in hand.

  The general smiled to himself. Master Haldrin would very much deserve the soaking he was about to receive.

  As soon as the door clicked shut, Seffe folded his arms and plonked himself into one of the high-backed chairs. “She needs a good banging, that woman - needs putting in her place.”

  “Stop it, Seffe.”

  He shrugged. “You know, it’s weird I that can’t sense her. Anyway,

  I’m too busy to do the honours. Got this right little rocket at the moment; backside like a couple of fighting apples...”

  Lady Allain, Silar finished mentally.

  “...I’m told you know her.”

  The general very nearly burst from his urge to laugh. “She’s after a marriage, that one. You won’t have that smile on your face when she asks.”

  The look on Seffe’s face was pleasing, to say the least. “That only happens to fools. Can’t you and I have a proper conversation, just for once?”

  “Speak about the queen with more respect and maybe I’ll allow it.”

  His brother threw his feet onto her desk and grimaced. “That woman has no right to rule here, Si - you know that. She’s low-born, no matter how old she is or how much she can wield. She shouldn’t be in charge of important things. And you – you are a joke! Mooning at her like some sort of forlorn kitten these last... fifty, sixty years? For Blazes, sake, get over it!”

  It had been nearer seventy. Well, perhaps not that long. She had been a child, kept out of sight for almost twenty of those, but the

  memory of the woman had not left him throughout. ”She has been born into much higher families than ours in previous lives. Rank means very little in the end.”

  “Rank is everything,” Seffe huffed.

  Idiot. The boy was an idiot! The general settled himself into his office chair and unbuttoned his coat; the morning sun had warmed the offices considerably.

  His brother’s eyes narrowed at him. “You still haven’t forgiven me, have you? After all these years. It wasn’t even my fault!”

  Silar’s eyes met the other man’s. There was no ignoring that stupid, arrogant jaw and a nose so pointed it could cut through ice. This boy was what the Forllan brothers had received in exchange for their mother: an accident in most respects, and a mistake in all. There had never been any kanaala in their line until Seffe, and nobody had been prepared for it. Silar still recalled opening the letter from his father. Great news and grave come hand-in-hand...

  He forced a change in topic. “How is the old manor faring, these days?”

  Seffe shrugged. “Still standing. Our father wants to rebuild the entirety of the eastern wing. Though, I don’t see wh-” He was interrupted as a messenger burst into the room.

  The woman was red-faced and puffing heavily. “Lord-general – something terrible has happened!”

  Silar heard the words that were about to leave her mouth before she had formed them in her mind. ...No. Oh, blazes, no! He launched himself at the door, and tore past the messenger without a second thought. As soon as he reached the castle stables, he vaulted onto the back of the nearest

  horse and released it from its hitching post with a swipe of his sword. He prayed that she had been wrong. She had to have been wrong! The horse galloped forward in a panic, clearly sensing every one of his fears and mirroring them with every stride. They swept past the inns and homes of merchants, over and under the river, and battled through the market day crowds. When he reached the gate he ordered a wide-eyed soldier to seal the city off. No one was to leave without his express permission.

  The general thundered on through the farms beyond and into the

  forest. It was not long before he found the small crowd of people at the side of the road. Artemi, Sidav and Sindra were already there, while Toryn was kneeling on the floor with a figure in his arms. Silar squeezed his eyes shut. It was true. He walked very slowly to the huddle, though none of their eyes met his when he arrived. Peaceful, expressionless and lying in her father’s arms was Talia. The grey waves of pinhatar were just visible at her neck, and an unhealed wound still oozed black poison at her breast. She looked cold.

  “Do you know who did this?”

  Toryn’s eyes spoke of the horrible, gut-wrenching pain that Silar recognised in himself. It was the callous solitude of winters past and winters to come, combining in a vapid, dead storm of disenchantment with life. It summed up the indifference of fate across the ages. No, not indifference; fate was cruel. Damn fate! Damn it for repeatedly killing every red-haired woman he cared about!

  He glanced at her clothing, which was the same outfit she had w
orn out of his rooms that morning. Her hair remained poorly brushed and her boots half-laced. She could not

  have died much longer after he had last seen her. “I’m sorry, Toryn, I do not.” He wanted to offer reassurances that he would find the individual responsible for this, but Silar knew that every glance into her possible actions was a journey into a black hole of possibility. She had a similar chaos about her as Morghiad had, and Silar knew that his inability to see through it had resulted in both their deaths. And there he had been, full of eagerness and expectation upon his bed, while she tied him up like a compliant hog.

  Artemi gave him a sorrowful look then, and buried her face into his

  chest as she embraced him. He had no option but to put his arms about her, terrible though he felt about it. The five of them remained there for some time, bitten by shock and immobilised by their own distress. The sound of birds overhead caught his attention, and he raised his eyes to see them through the tree canopy. Their V-formation was heavily lop-sided and imperfect, and it was early for them to be moving south. Something in the north had upset them. “She said she had discovered something, a secret she had to tell me.” The queen moved away from him and wiped her eyes with a bare

  hand. “Do you think this is related?”

  “I cannot say.”

  “Why else would anyone want to do this to her?”

  “Temi, she -” He could hardly tell them what had happened on the previous night, although the truth of that would probably be out within the fortnight... unless he left. “She was a soldier, and your sister. There are a million reasons why someone would want her... dead”

  Artemi’s eyes darkened further, if that was possible. “My sister was a good fighter. Look at her. There are no signs of battle, no other injuries.

  Nothing. And this is not the dagger of an eisiel. Someone she trusted did this to her. She was murdered, Silar. I am sure of it.”

  He looked at her body again. Of course. Why had he not noticed any of that? Was his mind affected? And what use could he be if it was? Talia. What was it she had wanted to tell him? Her hints and her smiles had implied it was good news rather than bad. “Has she been searched?”

  Sindra shook her head. Her cheeks were still puffy and red with tears. “You should do it.”

  “Me?”

  Talia’s mother nodded. “I do not want anyone else touching her body. Please.”

  Oh, Blazes burn him for what he had done! He could not – it was not right! But Sindra’s eyes were so pitiful, and Toryn was silent in solemn agreement. He wanted to admit the truth to them but, as always, his talents showed him that such honesty would not be best received at this time. Against all his principles, he said, “Alright.”

  Within moments the family had withdrawn to some distance away, and Artemi hovered in the space between

  them. Talia’s blank face stared at Silar almost accusatorily as he contemplated the duty he had been charged with. She was lying in a curious position for a murdered woman; there was nothing remotely awkward about it. It looked as if she had simply lain on her back to stare at the sky for a moment, and a blade had fallen from the clouds while she did it. Unfortunate, beautiful Talia. He walked around the edges of the scene, examining it for anything that might give a hint as to what had happened. But mostly he wanted to postpone touching her body. There were no hoof prints to be seen in the

  immediate area, though of course there were many upon the road. He stared at them for a while to try and assess which were the newest, but none appeared to belong to animals other than his own, the D’Avrohans or the soldiers who had found her.

  The general turned to examine the faces of each of the soldiers who huddled at the corner of the road, which were as sombre and grey as the dead woman’s. All of them had honesty in their features, and he could read the truth of their discovery as if they had written it out in plain prose for him. They had feared it was Artemi at

  first glance, but the darker shade of hair had made her identity clear the closer they rode. They had not moved her except to extract the dagger, but she had been too-long dead for further efforts.

  He turned his eyes back to the girl – and she had been only a girl. He could read nothing from her face at all. He had to do as her mother had asked, but, if he waited just a moment longer...

  “I’ll help you.” Artemi knelt at her sister’s side and began undoing her coat. “If there’s one thing you can learn from this, Si, it’s the importance

  of family, no matter how we feel about them. We never know how long our siblings will be with us.” Her meaning was obvious, and Silar swallowed it as best he could. She would not have said the same thing if she knew how Seffe had spoken of her. Artemi looked at him then, and her gaze told him a thousand things about the actions she would take over the next day, and what she would do in the evening. Silar tried to put that particular vision out of his mind as promptly as he was able.

  He crouched at Talia’s feet to examine them. She wore the same boots as she had left his rooms in, and

  they remained lazily pulled on over her breeches. Their undersides were covered in the same muds of the forest, which probably meant that she had walked there herself. Perhaps her killer had invited her there to meet them. By the side of her left leg lay the bloodied, poison dagger. It was one of her own special, silver blades. Two more were tucked into the uppers of her boots, and a fourth was at her waist. Silar would have been happy to gamble that a fifth was hidden in her lower back and two more inside her coat sleeves. As the thought pushed through his mind, two metallic objects dropped

  from the clothing that Artemi had removed from her sister. Perhaps Talia had not been so unpredictable, after all.

  “All of her pockets are empty. Do you think she had her money stolen?”

  He was fairly sure she had not been carrying any when she had left his rooms that morning. It was possible that she had picked some up in the interim, but what for, and why? If someone she knew had done this to her, then money would only be involved where blackmail was, and Talia had never been the sort of

  woman to be ashamed of any of her own behaviour. “No. The killer was not after money.” And that probably meant, “They either wanted her dead to hurt you, to send some sort of message... or to keep her from telling us a message of her own. I think someone called her out here, and she came willingly on foot.”

  Something caught the corner of his eye, and he turned to examine it.

  “What’ve you seen?”

  Snagged on the soft branches of a sallow tree was a long, shiny and red piece of thread. He picked it up to study closely. It looked like silk.

  “Talia wasn’t wearing red, and nor are any of us, or the soldiers,” Artemi said excitedly.

  “Then we are looking for a very skilled fighter in crimson.”

  “It would seem so.” He wound the thread around his finger and placed it carefully into one pocket. “I need to go back to the city. It’s been sealed off. The killer may have left, but we can at least get every soldier we have to ask every citizen and visitor what they know. I just need a small detail about this person, Temi - a description of his bearing – and I may be able to work out enough about him to find him – or

  her,” he added as an afterthought.

  “You should seal off her room, too, Silar.”

  Why hadn’t he thought of that already? Artemi’s mind was uncommonly clear given the shock she had just experienced. Then again, Morghiad had been the same. Practical in the immediate aftermath, and then broken once the truth had time to settle in. Silar felt utterly broken throughout. “Of course.” Silar ran to his borrowed horse and all-but-leapt into the saddle. It was time to send his army into battle.

  A day full of interrogations followed, and it was not long before his beloved brother caught up with him to offer his usual brand of condolences. “Lucky it was one of them, eh?”

  “Shut up, Seffe.”

  His brother frowned and folded his arms about the short s
word he carried. “Oh, come on! She was a commoner, a nothing! Fair enough that the king was a loss – he had some good blood in him, but not some little ginger girl!”

  Silar rounded on his brother, grabbed him by the collar and shoved him against the white-blue wall. “Do not speak of her or her family like that again. Not unless you appreciate your

  fool head and your welcome here.” He gave Seffe an extra shove for good measure, and dropped him before walking away to his next duty.

  “Just what is their hold over you, Lord Forllan?” his brother called in a quavering voice.

  “They’re good people,” Silar called back, “Good like our mother was.”

  He marched darkly towards Talia’s rooms, his hand gripping at his sword hilt. This was a duty he had put off until the end of the day, and would undoubtedly be the most onerous. Her body had been difficult to look at, but a room full of her possessions and personality – that would be the real trial. Three soldiers stood guard outside it, their faces solemn as the night skies that hovered in the windows behind them. “The room was turned over before we arrived, lord-general.” “Say that again, sergeant?” “Someone had already been through her things. We wondered if it might have been you or the queen...” Silar shook his head. Whoever had done this was almost certainly linked to her death. “Let me in, then.” The room was indeed a mess, though barely more so than its usual