by Ronie Kendig
But why? Why the charade? Why kill Chauld and not him?
Tili straightened. Folded his arms. Scruffed a hand over the beard he detested but wore for practicality. “Negaer, Rhaemos, Draorin, Tokar, remain. All else—dismissed.”
The general jerked. “Sir? You cannot be—”
“I don’t believe I stuttered.” He coolly met Negaer’s gaze. “Clear the tent.” With a motion, he allowed the Tahscans to gain their feet. “Vaqar, choose one warrior to remain.”
The Tahscan commander hesitated, wary. “I alone will stay,” he said, his voice like rocks tumbling in a pot.
Though disconcerted and incensed expressions were tossed about, the men cleared out. Tili waited. Watched. Thought. Tokar drifted closer, along with Draorin, in whom he found strange comfort.
“Steward, I must—”
Tili raised a hand, silencing Negaer, then he paced to the far end of the tent and turned. Considered the Tahscan. “I will not pretend to understand yer customs or rituals, Vaqar. What ye did, killing the colonel assigned as my protector, is as much a threat against my person as if ye attacked me directly.”
Vaqar stood silently, hands loose at his sides.
“Yet our men, clearly out-skilled”—Tili heard Negaer huff—“even to our own dismay and humiliation, were given no resistance when they dragged ye into this tent.” He ventured closer. “This leads me to believe ye intend me no harm.”
Vaqar’s expression remained impassive.
“Come,” Tili said. “I would have ye speak. Explain why ye killed the colonel.”
Hesitation guarded Vaqar. He cast a look over his shoulder to the tent flap, before letting out a long sigh and pulling his gaze along the perimeter, eying Tokar and Draorin, on whom he lingered. “I made a vow.” His gaze finally returned to Tili. “That my blade and my life would always belong to Aaesh. That where Her messenger willed me, I would go and deal violently with her enemies.”
“Enemies!” Negaer objected. “He was an officer of the Fire King’s Jujak. An elite fighter. Designated by Gwogh himself to protect the Steward.”
The man’s large frame remained unbending. His eyes firm but burdened. “Those names mean nothing to me. My men and I must fulfill Aaesh’s call. It was the only way to find”—sweat beaded on his brow—“relief.”
“Relief?” Tili asked.
“Sir,” Draorin spoke quietly, moving from the Tahscan, who fixed his gaze on the tall man, “he does not look well.”
Indeed, Tili noted the man’s pallor. “Are ye ill, Vaqar?”
For a second, the warrior sagged. “A cloth, if you please, sir. A cloth”—his jaw muscle bounced—“to cover my face.”
“I would have us be allies here,” Tili said, motioning around them. “Ye have no need to fear us seeing yer face.”
Vaqar breathed through a laugh weighted with pain. “It is not for you.” He hesitated again, then—gaze locked with Tili’s—a smile trembled on his lips as he lifted his tunic, revealing a glowing, marred mess of a scar on his side that almost matched the one on his face.
“Blazes,” Tokar hissed. “That looks like Praegur’s mark!”
“He gave it to me, said to follow the scent of evil.” Vaqar breathed heavily. “It is our only relief, to end evil. To fight for Her. When we do—”
“But why the cloth?”
The man’s brow furrowed deep. His nostrils flared. “You will think me mad.”
Tili scruffed his beard. “Ye murdered my colonel before an entire contingent of Pathfinders. I think we are beyond mad.”
Vaqar smirked. “We were marked. Each Tahscan here. Marked by him,” his gaze lazily drooped, but seemed to reach toward Draorin. “When we accepted the mark, we were . . . changed.”
“Changed?” Negaer snarled. “What the blazes—”
“We can smell it.”
Tili scowled. “Smell what?”
“It. Them. The disloyal. The pungent stench of inflaming, jealousy, betrayal . . . The reek of the wicked is especially pungent.” He breathed heavily. “We smell it all. Relief only comes when we deliver this world of it.”
• • •
CASTLE KARITHIA, ITEVERIA
Every time he stepped from the Void, it seemed another piece of him stayed in the netherworld. A lie stole into his mind as he stood on the cold marble and scanned the room to figure out where he’d landed. Poired had told him to practice, to strengthen, so he worked on traversing the world via the Void. Diavel circled him as Drracien finally identified the location—the Infantessa’s castle. He snorted. Wouldn’t she throw a hissy to find him here?
Much had changed. He had changed. Like a creeping, darkening mist of night that consumed the light and joy of day, it swept over him. Thicker. Deeper. Summoning. Devouring. Until there was little of him left.
But there was enough. Enough that he was still Drracien. Enough that he fought to exert his will over the inky heaviness enveloping his soul. Gnawing at the barriers he’d erected as he struggled to keep himself together.
Diavel came to his haunches and snarled, looking into the hall of the Infantessa’s castle. Drracien wanted to kick the foul beast for the bite that tethered them, burning, searing. What the beast felt, Drracien felt. What the beast wanted, Drracien wanted.
If he killed the blasted thing, would he be free?
There was only one way to know. But how did he kill a half-spirit, half-flesh beast? The stupid thing wisped in and out faster than Drracien could blink. Still, a well-placed bolt through its corporeal heart should work. If the thing had a heart.
But Drracien had a terrible feeling that whatever happened to the beast would happen to him. It was a crazed idea, borne of the way Diavel had forced a transference onto him. Forced him to embrace something that he’d probably known all along dwelled deep in his abiatasso: darkness.
And yet, somehow, he pitied the beast.
Because I am now that beast.
Traitor. Spawn of the Dark One.
Murdered his own mother.
She wasn’t his mother. She was a whore who took money and gave me over to depravity.
Tingling wormed through his spine seconds before Diavel let out a low growl. Shadows moved in the long hall, pulling Drracien from the forechamber. He scanned the quiet, lonely—desperate halls. Feeling something. Bitter. Disgustingly sweet.
He let the scent draw him away from the stone table, following instinct and noting Diavel at his side, a low rumble stoking his fiery belly. Drracien’s steps echoed in the vacuous emptiness. Was everything so blazing vacant here?
It was like he couldn’t get away from it. He’d seen it in the village, in the shambles of a home his mother used. Anger churned through his chest again, knowing he’d crossed a line by killing her, but for the children—because of the children and what she’d done to them—he didn’t care. He’d do it again. Except, maybe slower.
A woman’s voice drifted closer, and Drracien drew himself deeper into the shadows, shielding himself as the Infantessa strode in the opposite direction. A good thing for the princeling, too.
Drracien slipped to the balustrade and squinted into the darkness below. Diavel’s animalistic sight gave Drracien an advantage, revealing two faint forms skating through the inky halls.
Haegan.
Diavel growled and couched, then leapt over the balustrade. Down two levels. The blasted unearthly creature had an unfair advantage.
But I can traverse the Void.
Aye, and each time cost him a piece of his abiatasso. Each time ensured one day he would dwell there as a Void Walker. But if he allowed Diavel to alert Poired to Haegan’s presence . . . Yet, if he hurt the beast, wouldn’t he hurt himself?
But Haegan. The prince who wasn’t a prince, who had been too good, too caring. His fear of rejection and failure had cost him everything.
Maybe the fool deserved—
Drracien’s pulse sped as Diavel gained on the prince. There was only one who could stop him.
Gra
bbing the rail, he steeled himself. Then pitched over the balustrade and into the air. Into the Void.
• • •
Anger tightened. Churned. Wove deeper into the fabric of Haegan’s soul as he moved through the icy palace. Where were the gilded accouterments he recalled as he sat at the table with Trale? The feasts fit for kings? Where had the deep black chill of night come from? The heaviness that weighted his very abiatasso?
“Wait,” he said, still aching from the words he’d burned into his flesh. His thoughts tumbled into one another, tangling. Disorienting.
What had he been thinking about?
A boy. No . . . not a boy. A man, his age.
“Trale.” Haegan glanced at the manservant. “Where is Trale?”
Thomannon shook his head, flinging tears in desperation. “Please, sire.”
“You call me sire. You know. You know who I am.”
Thomannon ignored the statement, instead pushing his gaze to the upper levels they’d just fled. “He’s there. But if you go back up, you’ll die. He’ll die.”
Indecision gripped Haegan, fanning into righteous anger as he stood in the grand foyer, lights dead. Plants dead. Hope dead. No. No longer. “You.”
“Sire?”
“You,” Haegan said, grabbing at the man. “Free Trale and bring him to me, or I will send you to the Flames myself!”
“But he won’t come, sire,” Thomannon choked out. “He’s . . . he’s like you were. Lost to his doubts and fears. But more so. It’s too late.”
Frustration seeped into Haegan again. He fisted his hands. Light haloed around them, shoving back the thick veil of darkness.
“You cannot free them both, Prince,” Thomannon warned.
No. There must be a way. He would not abandon one to save the other.
Abiassa . . . Aaesh . . . Speak to me. Show me. I beg Your mercy for my failure, my selfishness. Lead. Lead the way.
His arms glowed, the marks he’d seared into his flesh illuminating. Where he expected pain from the burns, he found only strength. Shards of heat brought confidence and courage not his own.
His mind drifted back to one particular nightmare. To the one where his father screamed for help, but shoved Haegan away.
A dungeon. Below.
“If I go back,” the manservant warned, “you are alone with no one to guide you, to see to you.”
“I am not alone, Thomannon.” Haegan stared through still-wet hair dangling in his face. “You know this, yes? That with me are Abiassa’s Deliverers.” He thought of the mighty men standing guard on the perimeter. They’d been but a whisper of a thought, a glimpse of what was there, yet wasn’t. He felt mad for speaking it.
You’re crazy, Haegan. It’s why your father shut you away.
Falling . . . falling . . . his courage was falling.
No, not falling. Pulling—being pulled from him.
Inflaming.
Manipulated again. Anger rearing, he gritted his teeth. “Augh!”
Thomannon yelped and threw himself backward.
At first, it seemed the manservant acted in fear of Haegan’s gift, but then he stared at something in the gloom of the hall. When Haegan shifted, shadows danced beneath the tease of moonslight.
No. The moons have no entrance here since the ceiling forbids it. So what then?
Darkness seemed to pour more of itself from the shadows.
A creature! Haegan’s gaze fastened on the body slinking toward him. Yellow eyes blinked. Another form coalesced from nothing. Not there one second, then there the next. How? Quicker than mist darkening a wool coat, the figure appeared.
Haegan started. “Drracien.”
“Hello, Princeling.” Drracien gave him a wicked grin. “Like my new trick? I can disappear”—he was gone, then there again but on the other side—“and reappear.”
Haegan jerked. “How . . . ?”
Drracien laughed. “I’m not sure, actually.”
“A-are you dead?”
“No. Not yet, but I will be if I keep dancing across the Void.”
“Then don’t. Come with me.” He indicated the doors.
Drracien’s gaze tightened. “Not this time, Princeling. I fear my path is less . . . hopeful.”
“Leave them. I’ll protec—”
The beast leapt into the air from the left. A blur of razor-edged teeth, long and needlelike.
Thomannon shrieked.
Haegan threw out a hand to defend himself, but before the Flames even left him, the beast howled and thudded to the ground. Confused, dumbfounded, Haegan watched the incorporeal body of the beast solidify.
“My lord, run!” Thomannon shouted. “They’re both down. Run!”
Haegan glanced to his friend now slumped on the floor. “Drracien!” Who had struck him?
“No, my lord. You must—”
“What was that noise?” came a shrill voice far above. “Guards!”
“Go!” Thomannon yanked Haegan around. Pointed to a door beneath the stairs. “Your father is there, sire! Hurry before—” The manservant’s head snapped back and struck the wall with a sickening crack. He crumpled in a heap.
Haegan spun. His heart pounded at the sight of Nydelia scuttling down the staircase, shouting to the guards rushing ahead.
With his goal yet in reach, Haegan bolted for the door and dove through, careening into a vacuous darkness. Fear choked him; he realized as he went airborne that he could not see ahead. He braced. His shoulder hit first. Jarring pain rattled his teeth. He tumbled backward, expecting to meet another wall. Instead, there was nothingness. He was falling . . . farther. Something whacked his head. A metallic tinge glanced across his tongue—blood. His cheek stung. Jagged steps pounded him, pitching him in a spiraling tumble. Stairs.
He landed with a bone-cracking punch to his back. Air punched from him. Haegan arched his spine, writhing against the torturous lack of oxygen and the inability to take a breath. He squeezed his eyes, straining. Feeling every pinch, cut, and ache in his body, but none more than the greedy demand of his lungs for relief.
Get up!
Nydelia—no, Father!
Groaning through the agony, Haegan flopped over, face in muck and dirt. Fingernails dug in the earth. Struggling for a breath that did not sear, he fought for bearings. Saw dots of light . . . dots that slowly glowed brighter.
Clawing the ground, he hauled himself onto all fours. Pain stabbed his side, and Haegan gripped it as he lumbered to his feet.
Clanking drew his gaze to nearby cells. Dingy, smudged faces pressed to the iron. A wail went up, then a repetitive thud. The noise came from a dark corner of the dungeon. Haegan cast a dull glow in that direction. As the embers spread, he barely made out a huddled shape pressed to the far side, rocking. Banging his head on the wall with each rock.
“Oy!”
Haegan shifted his attention. Through damp curls grown too long, he stared at the far end of the passage, where a large man emerged from a room leaking light down the dark corridor.
Ugh! What was that smell? Shielding his mouth and nose, Haegan took a step forward.
“You are?” Jangling preceded a man who came into the light of the lone torch.
“Your end,” Haegan gritted out.
The man’s jowls jiggled. Then his eyes bugged. “You again!” He lunged, keys forgotten and a dagger suddenly in hand.
Perhaps the anger is not yours alone.
Flames roiled true and hot with a will all their own. No, Her own. Haegan pushed into the wielding, funneling every ounce of anger he felt into vanquishing this jailor, whose scream died with him. Accosted at the loss of life, Haegan was bolstered by the influx of righteous anger. Emboldened by Abiassa’s strength, Haegan stepped into his purpose.
• • •
Baen’s Six stand as faithful sentries, jubilant in the victory of the Fierian. They exist in two worlds—Haegan’s and Abiassa’s. They serve one will—Hers. And now, Her will is exacted.
“He is free!”
> Exultation rushed through the air of both worlds. Desecrators shrieked in mad fury, their defeat already whispered on the wielding of the Fierian. Baen shouts, his voice rattling the heavens, “Prepare the warriors. Send the Guardian and position the Paladin.”
“The Guardian is coming,” promises Draorin.
“The Paladin is ready,” Medric vows.
“Ensnare the witch. Her hour is come!”
13
CASTLE KARITHIA, ITEVERIA
“Fool!”
A wash of heat much like a shove rushed over Drracien’s shoulders. Annoyed, he brought his gaze to the Infantessa marching toward him.
“Why didn’t you stop him?” she shrilled.
The Infantessa was not worth the fight. She’d played a game with Haegan’s life, and lost. Drracien didn’t care that he’d angered her.
Nydelia sent a spark toward him.
With a snort, he caught it, rolled it around his fingers, amused as he watched the flame dance. Then he lifted his gaze to her and crushed the spark in his palm.
It wasn’t true that he didn’t care. He did—the witch had imprisoned his friend. And that irked him.
Confusion and indignation combusted in her expression. “How dare you!” She shoved with both palms, flames convulsing from her hands.
Sidestepping her efforts proved easy. Drracien reached back and siphoned the heat and embers she’d thrown. He brought them around, hyperfocused the energy, and whipped it back at her. “You’re predictable.” He sneered. “And slow.”
The bolt hit true and hard. She stumbled backward, her head jerking. When she straightened, shock riddling a face that looked like his hands after he’d been too long in the water, she gasped. “You impudent brat!” Even as she trained her wielding on him again, she froze. Her hand gnarled and extended. Mouth gaping like a part of the black void. Empty eyes bulging in shock and disbelief.
Should he kill her? And betray to Poired that he had come here? He really didn’t need any more headaches or lectures. “I should end you.” Diavel was there, snarling, rippling through mist and flesh, begging to carry out Drracien’s thoughts. “But I want to see you fail.” Drracien seeped into the Void, the pain numbing yet not as excruciating as before. Yet before he lost his grip on the Infantessa’s palace, he heard the howl of anger.