King of Assassins: The Elven Ways: Book Three

by Jenna Rhodes

  “I need you to stand watch.” Lara sat down on the throne-like chair, but perched on the edge of it, still unsettled. “Had you heard—on the road, sometimes news travels fast, but I know you travel roads that few do. Tressandre claims to be carrying Jeredon’s child. I’m attacked on those two fronts, as well as by those who want to force a return to Trevilara. I’m in the dark, and I can’t let that continue.”

  “And you have hopes of changing that . . . how?”

  She bent her face away from him, seemingly intent on unbuckling her weapons belt and removing it. She tossed it to the floor with a clank and a thump, far away from her reach. When she did look back to him, a stern expression ruled her face. “Sevryn, we haven’t taken any formal oaths to each other; we’ve been locked in trust since the day we met, when you chose to save me and my brother, when you were nothing more than another half-breed living on the streets. I don’t want to negate that trust, but now I must ask for your oath. What you witness here you will never reveal in any way to another living soul, under any condition. And if I cannot return safely, you will destroy the body that waits here.”

  Sevryn blinked. After a long moment in which his heart beat one, two, and then three times, he said, “Lariel?”

  “Swear.”

  “With no further explanation?”

  “With trust comes faith, they tell me.” She sat unmoving. Unforgiving of his question.

  Sevryn found his head dipping in an almost imperceptible nod. He cleared his throat. “I so swear, Queen Lariel.”

  “I take your oath as offered.” She reached in her bodice and withdrew a small, sealed envelope. “If you are forced to take harsh measures, this letter will pardon you. Without explanation, but pardon nonetheless. Keep it. Burn it before leaving these apartments once I have finished and returned. Is that clear?”

  “Clear as muddy water, Your Highness.” He took the smallish envelope, stamped and sealed, and stowed it in a vest pocket.

  The corner of her mouth quirked. “That’s all the explanation you’ll get from me before the task. Otherwise, what curiosity would keep you here?”

  “Like Jeredon, not curiosity but love and duty.”

  “Ah.” A sweet yet sad smile fleeted across her face. “Well said. All right, then.” Lara sat back in her chair and made herself as comfortable as she could in the seemingly impossibly stark frame. “Oh, and by anyone, I meant your love, as well.”

  “Lara!” Sevryn let himself sound even more affronted and wounded than he was. “An oath is an oath.”

  “Yes, well. I know that Rivergrace is the sun to your shadow, the soul that completes your own, and you’ve not only lived but died together. Still . . . you can’t share this with her.”

  “I will not.”

  “All right. Sorry to be placing a secret between the two of you.”

  “If she doesn’t know about it, she won’t know it’s there, will she?” Sevryn tried to smile at Lariel, successfully because she returned it. He concentrated on holding it even after she looked back to her window and knew that she had placed a burden upon him which he did not wish but which he could not refuse. This was what it was meant to have a place by those who governed, if they did it wisely, and even if they did not. There would be moments of power and privy and a good many might benefit the many but be ignoble acts in and of themselves. He’d gone down that road before although Lara and Jeredon had never insisted upon secrecy before. This made the act she contemplated now all the more serious. He shifted his weight.

  The sound of his boot leather upon her wooden floorboards brought Lara back from her contemplation. She tilted her head, not toward him, but as though she might find a better view out her window if she looked slightly toward the left . . .

  “What I am about to do,” she said softly, “Vaelinars cannot do. It’s a Talent that few had ever held and those who have, were executed for, at the earliest known age of its manifestation. I travel with other souls.”

  “Foresight?” He knew of the rarity of the ability, but had never heard of a death sentence for having it.

  Lara gave a quick shake of her head. “No. I’m speaking of possession. Possession that transcends both time and distance.” She dipped her hand into a pocket and brought it out filled with material of the softest yet strongest spinnings. “Bind my wrists to the arms of the chair to make sure that I cannot loose my hands. Under no circumstance do you want my hands loose.” She paused. “Other souls are not always kind or gentle or willing to travel with mine. And if I cannot come back, you can’t take the chance of another soul coming into this body. There is too much power at stake. Do you understand?”

  “Not entirely but enough.” He cleared his throat a bit. “Has it ever happened before?”

  “Several times with me.” She ran a finger over the gouges in the wood. “But I’ve always been able to take control back. Still, I asked this of Jeredon, and I have to ask it of you.”

  “I agree. I’ll do whatever needs to be done.”

  “Good.” She went quiet as he bound her wrists, tested them when he asked her to, and stayed quiet again as he redid the knots on one of the scarves. When Sevryn stepped back, they both inhaled and exhaled sharply as if clearing away the cobwebs from what they did.

  He took his position at her right. “How long?”

  “Never more than a few candlemarks. I see what I need to see or if it’s total folly fairly quickly.” She bit her lower lip. “Coming back . . .”

  “Is there anything I can do to ease the journey?”

  “Call my name. You know that we take it, our label, into ourselves, given or invented, we weave it into our beings whether we love it or loathe it, and we will always answer to it if we are able.” She put her booted feet upon the tiny wooden stool as if just noticing it, and rested the back of her head against the throne, and her attention on the window.

  “All right. How will I know when you’ve. . . . gone?”

  “You’ll know,” she answered faintly and went silent.

  Sevryn wondered about that. He went to the bureau nearby, where another chair rested, and candles sat in hand-made holders, clumsy holders. He picked one up, wondering why it had even been fired and painted, and saw her initials in the underside. The second bore Jeredon’s. They had made these when they were children, probably little more than beginning to walk and play and craft at things. He set hers down and lit it, so he could mark the time.

  He stood at her shoulder for the first mark and then finally returned to the chair and sat, watching the window itself as if he could see in its reflections what she might be seeing. At the passing of the second mark, the candle flame flickered and nearly guttered out as she violently kicked the stool from under her feet and her body went slack.

  She was gone.

  He could see her breathing. Her chest rose and fell in the tiniest of breaths, in a rhythm long and drawn out so that he feared he might miss a breath altogether and think she’d stopped. Small bubbles upon her slack lip. Her eyelids fluttered as if her closed eyes watched some violent dream yet refused to open. Gently, he slid the stool back into place so that her feet might not dangle in the air. He sat on the edge of his chair and prayed that he would not have to carry out her orders.

  It had been said, over the decades, or actually whispered, that Lara could see through the eyes of the vantane, those great war hawks that the Vaelinar had brought with them to the world of Kerith. He knew it was likely she did, for she often had oversight that only those airborne could have held. But this. This confession of riding souls, of possession . . . could she mean it? He knew that Gilgarran had held suspicions about her Talents for the last few centuries, but he’d never put more than that to pen and paper, nor had he ever voiced them to Sevryn. Sevryn was a half-breed and not one raised in the shadows of any of the Holdings or Fortresses. He’d been abandoned on the village streets by his mother, and
he knew almost as little about the Kernan as he did the Vaelinar. What he knew, he’d gleaned himself and hoarded, treasures of stories, scraps of family interaction, little bits of kindnesses punctuated by huge hunks of cruelty. Once among the Vaelinars themselves, he’d grown into his skin as it were, first under the tutelage of Gilgarran and then with the help of Lara and Jeredon. But Vaelinars rarely talked about their Talents, their true breadth and depth, because that made them vulnerable to others. That they had Talent showed in their multicolored eyes, although he was a throwback in that his eyes were a plain gray of Kernan heritage, and more than that the Vaelinar did not put on display. One either had Talent or one did not.

  He had never heard of, not even whispered of or speculated about, an ability like that one Lara just described to him. Foresight was observed either in the body of the seer or from the outside, a detached observer, often with many entanglements so one single true path was near impossible to discern. The future was comprised of too many threads for its weave and final pattern to be perceived more than a day or two in advance. Sevryn found that comforting. Nothing could be set in stone as they all had a hand in making tomorrow, and all could change their contribution. But this. Lara spoke of total possession, of seeing the future and its outcome through another’s body and soul . . . the thought of it rankled through him, setting the hairs on the back of his neck on end. What of that person? Where did its essence go when possessed? Had one ever been thrown back here, into Lara’s body until she came to reclaim it? Her words hinted that it had. Her bonds told him that it was possible. Her actions spoke that it could well happen again, and if she were not able to regain herself, he had his orders. He chafed his arms uncomfortably.

  He could see why she’d sworn him to an oath. Even that might not persuade her of his discretion. He could not lie to himself. His life would be forfeit if the Warrior Queen thought him a liability and at the very least, Rivergrace could be held hostage to his intentions. He did not have the upper hand in this bargain, and none of the wiles Gilgarran had taught him about becoming a Vaelinar that came readily to mind could give him the advantage. He would have to be very circumspect about Lariel now. She was his friend and benefactor, but she was also what Sinok Anderieon had made her, a truly formidable Warrior Queen.

  The candle sputtered when it hit its second mark. Sevryn’s gaze darted to it. He watched it closely for a moment or two and then realized the candle had been dipped with marks embedded in it, so that it might be read more easily. These candles had been made specifically for those waiting in vigil. Watching. Studying.

  He crossed his booted ankles and began to take his weapons out, one by one, to sharpen and oil and examine for defects in blade or balance, a ritual he normally did in the evening before going to bed, much like a woman might bathe and take an accounting of her body’s health and beauty, line by line, freckle by freckle, asset by asset before rising from her tub to garb herself for the day’s, or night’s, affairs. Although, truth be told, he’d only known one woman who was that vain about her body: Tressandre ild Fallyn. And she, also telling the truth, would then spend even more time on her weaponry than he did. He had not enjoyed his brief servitude as her lover.

  Sevryn put his head down, after checking on Lara’s evenly breathing form for a long moment, and immersed himself in his work. The day would be long and, he feared, the night longer. He relaxed for a moment, and that’s when he lost himself.

  HE FELT HIS HEART GO DOWN HIS THROAT, and the thoughts in his mind scatter like a flock of birds an archer had shot an arrow through. Nothing remained of him but that which he caught by a will of iron, and felt himself imprisoned. Within what, he had no notion. A scene unfolded before him of a Larandaril he both knew and did not know. He was both there and not there.

  He watched as they carried the Warrior King on a litter into the Dead Circle. A moment of panic hit him and yet it played across his eyes as a memory, so real it must once have happened. Sinok Anderieon sat up as they lowered the bower, swinging his legs over and crossing his arms, his brow lowered defiantly. He wore his mail but no helm; instead he used a bejeweled leather strap to hold back his silvery-white mane of hair from his forehead. He stared across the Circle. In the beautiful, enchanted valley of Larandaril, this alone was its singular blight. Perhaps it encompassed all the blight that might ever have entered but magic kept it out, one could not know; but nothing lived, crawled, or flew across its expanse. It was as if it had been blasted into the ground and lay, quietly lethal and sterile, for the rest of its existence.

  One could step into the Circle. One could step out again, but whether the experience would be survived depended upon the reason for visiting the spot in the first place. Today, survival would have a high cost and perhaps not visit the trespasser at all.

  The bearers of his litter, armsmen, not slaves, fell back several paces and into guarded stances. He looked once over his shoulder, the irony that a Warrior King might need protection not lost on Sinok Anderieon. He put his hand to his back sheath and withdrew the gleaming blade as if to signal that he was not as aged and helpless as observers might hope. The brisk late spring day brought spots of color to his otherwise graying complexion, perhaps the only obvious sign of ill health about him other than the way he had entered the arena.

  He would not have been carried in if he had had any other choice. To expose a weakness among those gathered here, his peers, his own Vaelinars, was deadly. He looked about him, taking stock in the way a fighter did. Sevryn took stock even as the old king did, recognizing figures of past power. Gilgarran. Daravan. Bistel. The Istlanthir and Drebukars were here, and the ild Fallyns. Others who he could not discount but no one he feared more than the Hold he had recognized first: ild Fallyn. Lifting his chin, the old king met a gaze across the Circle, and Lariel, his granddaughter, did her best not to shy away from the Warrior King’s intensity. She toed the line, waiting for the order to enter the Circle.

  He strode across the Dead Circle as if breasting a river in full flood, deliberate, slow, and chest forward. He might be taking a risk but it was unlikely. He had been there before and strode as if he remembered it well; it was when he was on the young side of his prime, and it was where he won the confirmation of his title of Warrior King. He had gained it in battle and proved it in this arena. It was whispered in Sevryn’s time that the trials Anderieon had faced were what had poisoned the Dead Circle. But only whispered.

  Now it was another’s time.

  The call and chatter of nesting birds, which had quieted when the various personages came to ring the circle and then risen back to an unafraid raucous volume, silenced again. It was as though nothing dared to breathe while Sinok Anderieon was in motion. He came to a halt at the far side of the circle where the candidates stood, sat, and squatted in waiting. He held his hand out.

  “Lariel.”

  Grandfather. Father.

  The realization of Sinok’s place in her lineage jolted him. And that is when Sevryn knew what imprisoned him.

  Not what, but who . . . he lay like a speck within Lara’s mind. Her memory. The young Vaelinar with hair of many shades of gold both light and dark, with a touch of silvery platinum smiled faintly before answering his summons.

  Lariel held an unquestionable poise before her grandfather and his enemies, unaware Sevryn rested inside her thoughts. She was, as always, uniquely herself. Her posture echoed the manner that was reminiscent of Sinok and that was as well, because she was his granddaughter and daughter, a thought that battled itself inside her. Sevryn tried to wrap his own mind about the incest and betrayal of Lariel’s mother and could not. The young man she stood with looked after the two of them as she moved to answer Sinok. He was a grandson, but he bore little resemblance to the Warrior King except that his face was as finely carved and handsome as theirs. He wore a scattering of years more than Lariel but Jeredon Eladar did not show dismay that his sister was called forth before he was. In the
set of his shoulders, it could be read that he did not expect to be. He was not the preferred heir of the old man. Sevryn rejoiced to see his old friend again but mourned what he knew of him through Lariel’s thoughts.

  Sinok clasped Lara by her wrists. He looked her up and down. “You are well equipped.”

  “Jeredon and Osten made a few suggestions.”

  “Wise of you to heed them.” Both ignored the irony that the two advisers were among the other candidates. Jeredon equipped himself like the ranger and hunter he preferred to be, and Osten leaned upon a great poleax, one of his more favored weapons, seeming unconcerned though his keen gaze was focused upon them. The son of the House of Drebukar was an opposite to Jeredon. He was nearly as broad as he was tall, muscular and heavy browed, and solemn of face. He wore his great sword strapped to his back and a throwing ax on his left hip. He, no doubt, had more weaponry placed within easy reach upon his person, but the mail and hard leathers that armored his body made it difficult to see them.

  Jeredon had a baldric filled with throwing daggers, each of them as sharp as any razor, blades whisper-thin and handles balanced for the long throw. He had other knives for short throws and hand-to-hand, if needed, but had not equipped himself with them that morning. His hair looked as chestnut as the field foxes they had scattered before them in the grasses and brush when they rode in with the dawn, his hair braided and tied back tightly. The only weapon of any extravagance upon him was the longbow and a multitude of arrows filling his quiver. Jeredon returned a nod when he felt his grandfather’s gaze upon him, and before he turned away from the Warrior King’s harsh assessment, he threw a wink to his younger sister.

  She felt it as she might a warming coal placed upon her heart: welcome and, in the chill of this morning, necessary.