Fierian

by Ronie Kendig

  She snapped her gaze to where the day grew dark with the army of incipients. Fire and blazes! Those traitors were far more effective than she’d expected. As they closed in, bands of heat energy coiled around her. Thiel stiffened, remembering what it was like to be haloed. Remembered to temper her response.

  A sound came from her right. Cadeif. A groan rolled through his body. When she fought to take another step—the incipients must be too far to wield with strength—another dagger singed her boots.

  Halted, she glowered at the rancid betrayers, but another grunt, a shift of dirt, drew her attention. On all fours, blood dripping from his lips, Cadeif clawed to his feet. A shaft wavered, embedded in his back. Blood streamed down his bare chest, the tip protruding there in a gory declaration of victory. He held his arm close. Teeth bloodied, face dirtied, he straightened.

  Though he squared his shoulders, Cadeif was injured—badly—or he would be throwing himself at the incipients. Shouting, trilling, and calling his warrior brothers. But he stood there.

  Thiel realized with a start the incipients were wielding against him as well.

  She whirled to face them. “Stop!” But instantly heat seared her, biting fire trickling across her flesh.

  Disbelief froze her as the incipients halted. General Onerid stalked through the line, his blood-red cloak fluttering. “It seems the good archon here has a very bad weakness.”

  “Cadeif knows nothing of weakness,” Thiel snapped. “Weak is preying on others, manipulating them and restraining free will.”

  “Weakness is anything that allows your enemy to win.”

  “Weakness—”

  “Enough!”

  A jolt of heat seared Thiel’s body. She shuffled forward, nearly falling to the ground.

  “No!” Cadeif said. “Leave her! We had a deal.”

  “Which you broke.” Onerid looked around. “You freed this woman.” His icy gaze struck her—and simultaneously, heat showered her again.

  It grew so unbearable, she wavered. Dropped to a knee. Sweat poured from her temples and spine.

  “Leave her,” Cadeif growled.

  But the fire intensified. Thiel refused to cry out, knowing Cadeif would put his life in danger. Knowing it would feed the frenzy of Onerid’s insanity. But the heat . . . blessed Lady . . . No longer was there blood in her veins. Only fire. As if she lay in the Lakes of Fire.

  The Lakes . . .

  Haegan.

  Thiel closed her eyes. Felt the dryness of her lids. Her swelling tongue.

  Beneath her, a vibration wormed through her palms and knees. Thrumming. Pounding. Like the beat of death drums. Was someone already mourning her?

  It was growing louder. Louder. LOUDER!

  She eyed the ground. Saw pebbles vibrating so hard they seemed to hover above the earth.

  Men shouted. The band pressing her down snapped free.

  So weak, Thiel could only drag her gaze up. The incipients stared behind her and Cadeif. She pushed her gaze there.

  A massive boulder barreled toward them. Darkness grew. Light faded, but a howl took its place and rattled through her chest. The shape soared into the air. Over her. Rocks dribbled down. The ground shook violently as the great creature landed.

  A crack sluiced, like a dividing line. To her stunned amazement, between her and the Sirdarians stood a Drigo, his voice like a mighty wind.

  Though bolts shot at him, the Drigo railed as they bounced, his skin unusually hard in his vudd state. Did his head touch the heavens? For his anger at the attacks so roused the righteousness in him that he grew and grew.

  With a great swipe of his hand, he tossed the incipients across the riverbed. Bodies flew. Men shouted. Wailed.

  “Get back!” Cadeif shouted. “I’ll—”

  “No. Stop,” Thiel said, pitching herself toward the giant. “I know him.” She craned her neck to look up. “Thelikor.” But her voice was lost to his shouts. She cupped her hands over her mouth and shouted his name once more.

  The Drigo purred a sigh, his great shoulders rising and falling, then he stepped back and went to a knee, resting a forearm there. “He call for you.”

  Thiel’s heart lurched. When she breathed, “Haegan,” the overgrown man gave a slow, pleased nod.

  Thelikor’s gaze shifted and a glint of searing white hit his irises. He shoved upward and his fist—big as a horse—pounded a wielding incipient to dust.

  The earth rattled at the impact, as did Thiel. She swung out her hands and stared in wonder as Thelikor’s pale eyes came to her again.

  The large lines of his lips curled in disgust. “We go.” He growled with ferocity at something over Thiel’s head.

  She spun and spied the general stalking back into the open. His cloak was torn. Blood seeped from a wound on his temple.

  Cadeif was at her side. “You should go.”

  “Both of us—”

  A deafening roar pierced their ears and defying his size and shape, Thelikor moved quickly. Grabbed the general. Flung him across the distance—incipients jerked up their hands to catch him, break his fall.

  Thelikor lumbered to Thiel, shaking his shoulders as a dog might shake his pelt. “We go. Now.”

  Thiel spun to Cadeif. “Come with—”

  His legs buckled. He went down hard.

  “Cadeif!” At his side, she appraised the chest wound. So near his heart, blood squirting out like a bubbling spring. How had he not died already? “Cadeif, ye will be well. Thelikor—”

  “Etelide.” He sat back against the riverbank. Dragged eyes with hooded lids to hers. “It never happened.”

  “We’ll go to Haegan.” Thiel blinked, fighting tears, desperate to fix this. Save him. But the fight had gone out of Cadeif. He’d never looked this broken, this tired, this weak. “Get up and be the warrior—”

  “I never touched you.”

  Her heart hitched, stealing her breath.

  “I had to make them think . . .” He swallowed, shook his head, eyes closing beneath the weight of pain and the approach of death. “Etelide, you . . .”

  She inched closer, looking to Thelikor. “Can ye help him?”

  The giant swung his head wide and low. “Too much blood.”

  Pressure against her hand snagged her attention. She looked to Cadeif, into those brown irises that had held light and love for her. “If I did not become their pawn, they would have ruined my people. I . . . bartered. Bought time.” He wagged his head again. “I beg . . . yer mercy. Never would I . . . hurt you.”

  His eyes slid closed.

  “Hey.” Thiel cupped his face. “Cadeif—ye’re strong. Fight it.”

  “You . . . are . . .” His eyes shuttered open and locked onto her once more. “. . . mine.”

  Throat raw and tight, Thiel again fought the tears. Finally, fully seeing that the phrase was not one of ownership as she’d railed against, but one of belonging. It was his way of saying, I love you.

  34

  SOMEWHERE WEST OF LUXLIRIEN

  Kaelyria pressed her spine against the cage bars as two Sirdarians stalked toward it. She shoved her gaze to Cilicien. “Do not do this.”

  “I have no choice.”

  “It is your choice—this does not—”

  “If you had not bedded that feckless mountain man—”

  “He is twice the man you are!”

  “He was enough, apparently, to get you with child, but where is this great bound of yours now? Why has he not come for you?” Dressed in his long, red-and-black cloak, edges trimmed in red silk, he epitomized the villain of every tale told to children in warning of being wicked.

  Guards entered, their expressions masks of stone as they reached for her. “Get back, vermin!” She yanked her arms and wrenched away, scrambling to the side. “I would scald that smug look off your face if—”

  “If what? You had not squandered your gifts?” His chuckle was vile and cruel.

  The guards, patience thin, grabbed her. She threw herself back—and str
uck the bars. Her head and neck ached.

  “Easy with her,” Cilicien snarled. “She’s to be unharmed.”

  Grips like shackles, the guards dragged her out. She fought every step, demanding to be released. Begging. Crying. “Abiassa, help me!”

  “I’m afraid it’s too late. You threw Her gift in Her face.”

  It was true. Horribly true. She sagged in their grip, refusing to walk. But they simply hoisted and hauled her from the cage and tent. Hot wind smacked her face as they stepped into the day. At once, she realized how far they’d traveled—this was closer to home, closer to the Lakes. She writhed, caring not for the gawking incipients and Sirdarians, who watched without a word or compunction to offer her aid.

  They drew her into another tent, where a large wood table spanned the length of the space. Four more guards waited, along with a man in a gold tunic.

  “Do not assist this incipient,” she pleaded with the gold tunic.

  The two nearest guards forced her onto the table, one stretching himself over her to keep her in place, the other shackling her wrist.

  She squirmed and kicked. “Do not perform this abominable act!” She thrashed, wood biting into her shoulder. They secured her other hand, and she knew if they got her legs, there would be naught she could do. She kicked violently. Thrust her hips right and left.

  Weight landed on her legs, forbidding her freedom. Leather straps secured to her legs, then a tightening slowly drew her legs apart. “No!” she screamed, tears streaming down her face and into her ears. “Please! You know this is evil. Abiassa gives life! It is for no man to take the life of an innocent!”

  “Gag her,” Cilicien said. “We do not need the Verses here.”

  “Please,” Kae cried out again. “Your very teachings instruct you to heal and save, not murder!”

  From behind, the nearest guard hooked an arm around her head, keeping her still as he worked a wood grit into her mouth. The piece bit into her lip, warm blood snaking down her chin as he tightened it around her head.

  Blessed Lady, hear my silent cries and prayers. Save my child! Through blurring vision, she saw the pharmakeia hesitate.

  “She is right,” he said, his voice small, his face pale. “We are taught—”

  Cilicien flared his nostrils. “Do what I say or die.”

  “But you are an incipient—you can burn the child—”

  “I cannot kill the child without risking her womb,” Cilicien snarled, “and I need her intact to secure allegiances.” He nodded before he walked over to a chair and sat, producing a fruit and chomping it. “Get on with it.”

  The reluctant pharmakeia lifted a long metal tool and started toward Kaelyria’s feet. She whimpered and tried to move, but it did no good. She shifted her hips as he lifted her skirts.

  “Be still, child, or I could do permanent damage.”

  You already do. Yet she would not comply with them, she would not willingly allow them to rip her child from her. She squirmed, the only thing she could do to protect her child.

  The pharmakeia huffed. “She will not keep still.”

  “Give her a sedative,” Cilicien barked.

  “No. It will countermand the herbs she’ll need after.” With a nod, he said, “Strap her hips down.”

  The guards did as instructed, wrapping a large strap around her hips, forbidding her from moving.

  “Nooo,” she moaned. Bereft, terrified, she clenched her eyes. Sobbed.

  Abiassa, please! Save my baby! Her thoughts drifted to Aselan. To what he’d do to every man in this tent. To the grief he’d feel, knowing he had lost yet another heir. Tears streamed, running hot into her ears. Anger churned, mingling with her tears, rolling through her. Would that she could squeeze the heart of the murderer trying to kill her baby. Take his life for the life he attempted to take.

  Someone sucked in a breath.

  A weight fell against her ankles.

  “Pharmakeia?” a guard to her left called, tentatively.

  “What’s wrong?” another asked.

  “He okay?”

  The air shifted. She blinked away tears and glanced down, confused to find the pharmakeia’s bowed head on her leg. A guard nudged him backward, asking if he was okay.

  Mouth agape, the pharmakeia stared with blank eyes. Then slid off the stool he’d been seated upon.

  “Blazes, he’s dead!”

  Shocked relief swelled trough Kaelyria, bottoming out the terror she’d felt seconds earlier. More tears flooded her, her thoughts rife with gratefulness. Abiassa had saved her.

  “Get the other pharmakeia.”

  Fear clawed her relief.

  “Do not give in to false hope, Princess,” Cilicien said. “He was an old man you scared the wits out of. His protégé will not be so easily frightened.”

  Would that she could speak, but she shot defiance through the most heated glare she could muster.

  Cilicien glowered as the guards returned with a younger man. “Ah, see, Princess? Youthful vigor.” With a wave, he motioned the pharmakeia toward her. “Relieve her of the child she carries.”

  The pharmakeia started, eyes wide. “’Tis forbid—”

  “Dare you tell the Dark One you cannot obey his command?”

  He paled.

  “It must be done,” Cilicien said, nodding to the body the other guards were removing. “And if you fail me, you will die like the one before you.”

  The pharmakeia finally turned his gaze to Kaelyria, and she saw the wavering devotion to the Guidings. He was young, he abided the dictates of his arts only in such that they provided a general foundation, but he thirsted for power and recognition.

  She shook her head violently, pleading as loud as she could in her gagged silence.

  He glanced over his shoulder to Cilicien and sighed. “If you promise the Dark One will hear that I have obeyed . . .”

  “What else would he hear?” Cilicien crooned and regained his chair.

  With a nod as if to reassure himself, the young pharmakeia lifted a long tool from the table. He squared his shoulders.

  Kaelyria threw back her head. Cried out again to Abiassa.

  “Oh.” The pharmakeia’s soft word sounded like an oath.

  When she looked once more at him, she was stunned to find a greater, larger man standing before her. She felt his strength, his gift, rushing out in a pale blue stream. It infused her. Focused her. Their eyes were locked. He gave a slow nod. She has heard your pleas. She has already given what you need. The great man reached toward her face. The gag broke free.

  Kae knew not what it meant. But when the pharmakeia’s gaze slid to hers, fury erupted through her at his determination to do this wicked thing. “Touch me and you shall die, pharmakeia,” she growled, beads of sweat drenching her scalp and back.

  Surprise laced his features. He hesitated. But still he reached for her. For her child.

  She envisioned his heart, like the pharmakeia before him, shriveling to the size of a prune. Envisioned the hand of judgment squeezing away his life as he intended to do to her babe.

  The pharmakeia stepped back, grabbing his chest with a loud gasp.

  She released him, staring boldly down the length of her body. “I warned you,” she whispered, and released the clutch on his heart.

  “What is wrong with you?” Cilicien demanded.

  He hesitated.

  Cilicien lifted his hand.

  Kae felt a threatening waft of heat.

  The pharmakeia shook his head and moved forward again. Greater this time, his expression more furious, the large man reappeared. A sword in one hand, the other extended toward Kaelyria. The world righted itself. To the healer whose heart had fouled, she growled, “You will not breathe your next.”

  The man’s mouth opened in a silent scream. His eyes bulged.

  “Finish it!” Cilicien shouted.

  But Kae watched the larger man, his sword sparking as he lifted the great instrument with deftness and tipped the blade toward the p
harmakeia.

  He slid that tool between her legs. A burst of fury-red flashed, and he toppled, the tool clattering to the table.

  Cilicien stood frozen, his face a mask of shock. He gaped at the now-dead pharmakeia. Then at Kaelyria. She knew exultation shone in her eyes and cared not. This was not her battle. It was Abiassa’s, to protect life on this planet.

  Cilicien shouted, “Get another!”

  “We had but two,” a guard said. “Nearest one is with Onerid’s contingent.”

  “Then we ride for him.” He glanced at Kaelyria. “Return her to the cage.”

  The guards removed the shackles. Kaelyria scrambled from the table. “How many lives will it take for you to realize Abiassa will not let you harm my child?”

  Cilicien pivoted and struck her with a dark bolt. Kaelyria tumbled backward and collapsed.

  35

  IRONHALL, VID

  On the plains overlooking Ironhall, Haegan stood strung up to a pyre to be burned at the stake by Sirdar’s hand, Poired. The wood shifted. The sticks and branches beneath his feet morphed into limbs—arms and legs. Bodies.

  They were the warriors. But he saw no tethers, no bindings that held them there, propping up the bier. “Get up! Free yourselves!” he cried.

  Yet they remained.

  “Accelerants and Pathfinders will burn for you, Fierian.”

  Haegan snapped his gaze to the dark figure looming before him on a giant black raqine. Poired. Fear writhed in Haegan’s chest as he spotted Drracien and Astadia on another black raqine.

  “Abandon this path, surrender your life, and they will be freed.”

  “Freedom is not decided by any but the one it involves,” Haegan pronounced, and suddenly he was on a horse in the midst of a great plain full of soldiers. “If a man wants to be free, he finds a way. If an incipient wants captivity, he surrenders to it. I will not be that man.”

  “What say you of your father, prisoner in his own mind?” Poired taunted.

  Haegan grew uncomfortable. He had no answer. No hope his father would be freed. His was now a physical condition, not a mental one alone. Damage of the brain, not the will.

  “Look there! Even now your father exercises his will, Fierian.” Poired pointed.

  Haegan glanced back, peering over the thousands gathered, the army of Abiassa, to the great ironstone walls of Ironhall. Atop a parapet stood his father, precariously perched on the ledge.