by T. A. Miles
“Anticipate them,” Korsten repeated and they looked at each other for an extended moment. He understood what Merran meant by that. And it made sense. The Vadryn’s instincts were primal and reactionary. He, as a person over an instinctive beast, had the ability to define sensations as they were forming. He had perception and emotion to help him translate ahead of things leaping out at them, more so being a priest.
These were aspects of working as a priest that he’d had little time to hone. Thirty years at the Vassenleigh Order had afforded him ample time to understand his new calling in philosophy and practical application, but in instinct and technique, he was still growing. He wondered in a moment like this if Merran regretted their assignment and if he would have preferred to be working alone again. Maybe that was what was being implied with the comment about Ashwin before he’d Reached back to the Vassenleigh Order. Maybe it was intended as an enticement, an excuse for Korsten to leave the field and return to safety.
As such thoughts were forming he wondered why it was that he found it so easy to feel insecure, still. Maybe it wasn’t that Renmyr had always been affecting such a dismal attitude onto him. Perhaps it was him after all.
Merran lifted his hand to Korsten’s face and in that moment Korsten drew himself up mentally. He took in a leveling breath and turned his face toward the tunnel entrance and away from Merran’s fingertips. He forced himself to smile somewhat, hoping to alleviate Merran’s automatic concern and want to help.
“I wonder sometimes if I’ll ever overcome the mess I let myself become.” He said it in a tone that was meant to state he was determined to try.
Merran raised his other hand, directing Korsten’s face gently back until it was in both of his hands. Korsten didn’t bother to escape when Merran kissed him. He lifted his own hand to cover Merran’s and kissed him back without regard for their situation.
Unexpectedly, the pleasant pushing back of his emotions...the sedating effect of Merran’s healing touch was absent, and Korsten felt an intense stirring inside of him instead. For the first time, he felt a very conscious, very passionate want not for the man’s healing ability, but for the man himself. Whether or not it felt at all different to Merran, he made no attempt to part and for several long moments Korsten felt as if he couldn’t be torn from him even by the force of all of the Vadryn within the passages around them.
And it was then, as he considered the demons he had just defied in thought, that he drew himself away from his partner.
Merran appeared mildly stunned—perhaps by his own actions—and somewhat breathless. He furrowed his brow very lightly, as if anticipating that Korsten might say something.
Korsten decided not to leave him waiting. Though his hand remained on Merran’s, which had slipped to his neck, and their faces were still quite close, he resisted that closeness and said, “They’re moving...” He paused to recover the breath he had also misplaced during their exchange, then added—not as urgently as he might have at any other time, “All around us.”
And now Merran’s slight look of puzzlement became a full frown. He almost looked to the walls surrounding them, but Korsten’s gaze held those blue eyes in place.
“There are passages,” he explained.
Merran hesitated another moment, but then nodded. He understood. “Let’s keep moving.”
“There is a storm approaching,” Ersana said, in a voice that projected with amazing ease considering her manner.
Vlas stood in the back of the chamber with Imris nearby, disliking the tone of the speech at hand. It was delivered to a greater number than he anticipated arriving during the hours that were marked dangerous. He’d watched them filtering gradually in as the evening went and had decided to witness the stance of these particular rogues for himself. He wondered in so doing how many of these people were members of the coven and how many the coven hoped to absorb.
“Those of us who have not defied the Malakym should not fear the retribution at hand,” the woman continued. She said it as if to ease her audience, rather than intimidate. “The Malakym will protect the innocent.”
“The Malakym will equip the innocent with the means to protect themselves,” Vlas said. He thought that he said it to himself, but there were some nearby who looked at him.
Whether it was interest or offense being taken, he almost felt inspired enough to attempt wresting Ersana’s audience from her and letting these people know that the war approaching was far more tangible than metaphor and religion. No disrespect intended to the gods, but it seemed well in evidence that they meant for people to play an active hand in all of this.
It was during that thought that a hand lightly touched his elbow. With Imris to the other side of him, he knew it wasn’t her and he looked toward the stranger with curiosity that became mild impatience when his gaze came to rest on none other than Dacia Cambir.
What is it that you want, you absurdly negligent girl?
He almost blurted the thought. He imagined the tone of the unspoken words made it into his expression and into the words that he did put together for her nonetheless. “What is it you’ve been trying to say, Miss Cambir, and are you certain you want to say it in the presence of your ever-watching mother?”
“I have a message for you, priest,” the girl said, in a tone that was very direct and that instantly raised Vlas’ suspicions, but of what exactly, he couldn’t say. “There’s far more at work here than lies at the surface. Look further than what you can see.”
“I don’t have time for riddles,” Vlas told her, though it was simply something to say while he studied the words and the person delivering them in spite of himself. Dacia seemed the same simple, overly curious girl he had met at Irslan’s, but there was something...
“I meant what I said literally,” Dacia told him firmly.
Vlas instinctively looked past the girl in that moment. A mild start reverberated through his system when a hooded man in the far corner of the chamber raised one hand slightly, just waving with gloved fingers.
“Outside,” Dacia said. “Leave the girl here.”
Somehow Vlas knew Dacia...or the man in the corner...wasn’t referring to Constable Imris. He issued a single nod in reply, then turned toward Imris, who had evidently paid due attention to the exchange; she fell readily into step with him as he made for the door.
As they were passing beneath the entryway into the night air, Vlas looked behind him to see if Dacia had followed in spite of what had been said. He saw her still standing where he’d left her, only now her eyes were on the area below where her mother continued to calmly preach at whoever was there to listen.
With an inward sigh of vexation, Vlas stepped out onto the street. This time it was Imris’ hand that touched his arm. Her grip was strong, but not forceful, not unlike her unique facial features.
“What is it?” he asked her, noting now that his attention had been brought to the matter that she was, in fact, a young woman, though not to be mistaken for a girl.
“What we saw there,” she began, frowning.
“What?” Vlas pressed, not impatiently but with some slight urgency that couldn’t be helped. He didn’t want to lose whatever connection they had made just yet and was eager to meet the man who initiated it.
Imris shook her head and looked up at Vlas, who also took this moment to realize that he was a full head and shoulders taller than her. Her strength in form and posture had made her appear taller at first. “I haven’t seen anything like that since I was a child,” she said.
“It’s magic,” Vlas assured her, because he knew even though it was not a form he was familiar with. Considering it in the brief moments he’d been allowed thus far, he didn’t believe he cared for it. There was an air of ‘possession’ about it.
“Yes, it’s magic,” Imris answered, nodding slowly, her gray-green eyes narrowing as she articulated her next words through her heavy acce
nt. “The magic of the Islands.”
While Vlas immediately wanted to compare what she meant to what he knew, he forced her to hold the thought in the moment he was forcing himself not to reply verbally and turned to look for the hooded man. They could discuss this between them in better detail later.
“There,” Imris said and Vlas looked to see her nod toward a nearby stair where a man with a hooded cloak stood conspicuously against the wall. He would have appeared conspicuous had there been more people traversing the stair. With no one about, it was almost eerie.
The both of them headed over immediately and the man waited for them to come up to the level he stood at.
“I suspect I know who you are,” Vlas said before anything meant to be misleading could be offered to them. He not only had no time for riddles, he had no care for them either.
“Good,” the man said, leaving his face in the shadow of the cowl that framed it. “None of us have the luxury of time.”
“Yet you wasted twenty years of it imprisoned,” Vlas accused.
“I worked from what I considered a safe fortification,” the man answered, confirming that he was, in fact, Vaelyx Treir.
“What do you mean?” Imris demanded before Vlas could and since she had, Vlas had a different question to accompany hers.
“How?” His answer occurred to him immediately afterward. “Dacia Cambir?”
“No one looks twice at a simple young girl,” Vaelyx said.
“No one except the Vadryn,” Vlas reminded.
At the same time, Imris said, “You endangered her life, and your own.”
“I know,” Vaelyx growled, more at Imris than at Vlas. He pulled back his hood to reveal the glare in eyes that had no small amount of aging gathered around them. Short gray hair sat slightly disheveled around a face that did resemble Irslan’s, in its way. But more noticeable than that, was the way that Dacia Cambir’s face very strongly resembled his.
“She’s your daughter,” Vlas noted aloud.
Vaelyx transferred his glare from Imris and his jaw tensed while the constable spoke.
“It requires a blood connection,” she said in a tone that confirmed Vlas’ statement.
“What does?” Vlas asked, keeping his gaze sternly on Vaelyx. “It appears a form of possession.”
“Not possession,” the man corrected. “The projection of oneself through a body.”
“Soul riding,” Imris further explained. “I heard stories as a girl. One was of a jealous mother who cast herself onto the soul of her daughter so that she could sabotage her union night. The mother was cruel to the young groom, who then rejected his intended bride. The girl had no memory of it and fell into despair over her loss.”
“There are hundreds of stories on the topic,” Vaelyx inserted. “None of them are relevant with the exception of the fact that the act itself is possible. And yes, I’ve done it to my daughter. Often enough that I fear I may have hindered her, but there was no other choice.”
“Does Ersana know?” Vlas asked while he contemplated what was meant by ‘hindered’.
“Ersana is not her mother.”
“Who is?”
Vaelyx held up a hand. “It’s not important now. I came to you to tell you what is important. To show it to you.” He pushed off the wall and began up the stairs. “Come with me.”
“There have been two more disappearances, these in the vicinity of Cade’s Pier.” Cayri lifted her gaze from the book spread open in her lap, making brief eye contact with Irslan before continuing to read aloud. “By accounts it was two young brothers. This makes fourteen in the last two months. Where are these people being spirited to, and why?”
Her fingers slid down the page. “Another empty body was found. The boy was emaciated, as if all the blood had been taken from him. What remained was a lightless and abandoned vessel, the soul vacated. Why are these incidents continuing to happen before our eyes with no resolution presented nor any attempt at one being offered? What’s possessed Raiss? I used to know him.”
Cayri turned the page, skimming over other journal entries made by Irslan’s uncle. There were entries upon entries of accounts made of disappearances and unexplained deaths that had been plaguing Indhovan for what appeared to be years. Vaelyx had also painted a portrait of Raiss Tahrsel as a man who more than willingly turned a blind eye, as well as a man who had undergone significant change over the years.
The two of them had been friends and colleagues, both of them cherishing Edrinor and the Islands, a small collection of land that almost seemed—to use Vaelyx’s words from his journal—as petals scattered on the surface of the pool Edrinor perched beside. The locals had not named their home and, out of respect, it had been left nameless by its visitors and guests. It became simply referred to as the Islands. Over the years, there had been much shared effort in bringing the two cultures together. The governor himself was a native of the Islands, adopted by the previous governor, who married Tahrsel’s mother later in life. It would appear that the current governor returned the gesture in adopting Ilayna’s child after he also elected to marry in his elder years.
“Where did you find these?” Cayri asked, gently closing the book in her lap. On the table between them, several more books were stacked.
“As it turns out, my uncle had left them for me,” Irslan replied, his hand resting on the cover of the journal nearest him. “Apparently, he felt it would be dangerous to simply give them to me all at once, so he’d hidden them strategically, but still in plain sight throughout the library.”
As he spoke, Irslan scanned the surrounding floor and its overfull shelves. There was an air of chagrin and of nostalgia in his tone. Cayri had been gleaning aspects of his mood since not long after she sat down to join him.
“He’d put it on Stacen to draw certain journals to notice subtly by relocating them, leaving them out on tables…whatever might draw my eye. Well, it drew Merran’s eye recently, which you may know.”
“Yes.” Cayri nodded.
Irslan returned the gesture, looking at her before indicating the door and presumably the house beyond it. “Earlier this evening, I happened upon Stacen relocating another. With everything that’s been happening, my suspicion is sufficiently bristled. I insisted that the man explain himself and show me all my uncle intended me to see. And, here it is.”
Cayri’s gaze returned to the collection of journals. “People have been aware of the danger before the curfew was ever suggested,” she said. “The governor’s been ignoring it until now, when the murders became more exposed.”
“Possibly,” Irslan said, and they seemed to silently agree that it didn’t seem quite accurate.
Cayri paused before asking, “Why didn’t your uncle tell us about these incidents sooner? We could have been helping long before now.”
A mildly sheepish expression came to Irslan’s face as she was speaking. He waited for her to finish, then said, “What I failed to tell you is that my uncle felt…under someone’s eyes. He couldn’t say who, but it was enough that he felt watched.”
“Was this after his investigations into the coven?” Cayri asked.
Irslan nodded. “Though…I don’t want to say that he felt the victim of any spells necessarily. He carried on with his role as an informant for the Old Kingdom, reporting to Vassenleigh on his findings. Unfortunately, he felt as if his correspondences were not making it to the Vassenleigh Order.”
“Someone was intercepting his letters?”
Irslan shook his head slowly. “I’m not sure what he believed. Truthfully, with as quickly as my letters were answered, I believed that he’d grown so paranoid over affairs—many of which he did not share with me—that he simply didn’t realize he hadn’t sent them off.”
“Did you know about the disappearance and murders before the most recent?” Cayri asked.
“No,” Irslan replied.
“My uncle went on most frequently about the coven itself and his frustration with Tahrsel. There was a point where he blamed Konlan for their falling out.”
“Konlan?” Cayri echoed. “Why?”
“Competition,” Irslan answered easily. “Konlan and Tahrsel are cousins. It’s presumably one of the reasons our friend holds his station regarding relations with the Islands, and it’s also presumed that their relationship is the primary reason Tahrsel hasn’t more strongly criticized his political views…and activities.”
Cayri considered the information as it was placed before her. As she found it odd, she decided to say, “Yet your uncle is imprisoned for twenty years over…”
“Riotous behavior, reckless insinuation, public slander…” Irslan drew in a breath and let it out slowly. “Very suddenly two friends had become enemies. Tahrsel decided that my uncle was dangerously insane and that under lock and key was the best way to keep him. I assumed his duties. The unofficial ones, at least.”
While Irslan forced a smile, Cayri said gently, “What you do for the Vassenleigh Order and the war effort is invaluable. Thank you, for sharing these books.”
“You’re exceptionally welcome,” he replied with a better smile now.
Before anything more could be said between them, there came a knock at the door. Stacen let himself in almost immediately afterward.
“Excuse me, sir,” the man said. Holding out his hand, he approached them. “This arrived for the Lady Priest.”
“Thank you, Stacen,” Irslan was saying while Cayri’s eyes went to the folded parchment in the man’s hand.
When he was near enough, Stacen transferred the note to her hand and she thanked him. Irslan’s thanks and her gaze followed him to the door when he dismissed himself. Her attention returned gradually to the slip of parchment in her hand and she opened the note, which invited her to another meeting with the governor’s wife.
Thirteen