Ours Is the Storm

by D. Thourson Palmer

  “Good,” Ahi’rea snapped despite herself. “He is a foul murderer. He deserves to die.” Tak’la opened his mouth, but did not speak. Lasivar looked at her—his eyes once again appraising, measuring.

  “You told me you were the one who kept him from death, before,” he said. “Why, if you hate him so much?”

  Ahi’rea glowered. “My father used him, just as Halkoriv did. That was unjust. He should die for his own crimes, not while being used for another.”

  Lasivar held her gaze. Ahi’rea found herself unable to look into those clear blue eyes for long. “If he believed he was someone else, perhaps he was.” Lasivar got to his feet. He faced the coast. “He needs rest. Tell me when he wakes.”

  —

  Azra dreamed. The life he had once had, that had been taken from him, returned in a scattered torrent as he slept. The familiar coast, the sound and smell of the ocean and the trees. The face of his friend: a tall, dark-haired youth with piercing eyes and a strange charisma. The boy had been called Revik Naghan—a name Azra, even dreaming, now understood to be assumed, false, to hide him and his parents.

  He relived portions of his happy early years and the days leading to his capture. He remembered how despondent his parents had become, and now understood that they had known what would happen. He remembered them fighting. He remembered huddling in a house of logs, with an earthen floor. It was autumn. He remembered fire, and crying, and screams. Men had come. There had been blood. His mother had held him, taken up a sword herself. He still could not see her face, but he remembered now seeing her run through, seeing the red-stained sword slide from her back.

  How could they? How could they have given up their son like that? To protect another child, one somehow of greater worth than he? Perhaps they meant to deliver him into imprisonment instead of death. He felt that he should hate them along with Lasivar and his parents, the heroes, but somehow he did not. Only a few weeks ago, he would have been enraged. Still anger clawed at his heart, seeking another hold on him. But somehow, he felt he could understand why they made their choice.

  His had been, for many years, a good life with Halkoriv. He had food and shelter, an existence of luxury. Images of the Huumphar came to his mind, of their slaughter and loss and tears, images of pains inflicted by him and those like him. His parents had died when he was taken, along with many others. Even in his sleep he found he could not blame anyone for their choices, except Halkoriv—and later, himself.

  —

  Ahi’rea stirred and cried out. She pulled away in horror at an icy touch on the back of her neck. When she opened her eyes, however, all she saw was the inside of her tent. A comforting voice murmured, “It’s only me. I came in when I heard you shout. You were dreaming.” She rolled onto her back and could make out Ruun’daruun’s form beside her, dark against the pale glimmer of moonlight through the tent flap. He lay down next to her, his dark eyes betrayed his concern.

  Shivering, she pressed against him, thankful for his warmth. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close. Ahi’rea pulled herself tight to him, savoring the touch of his skin to hers, tracing her fingertips amongst the scars on his back and chest.

  “Our first night of easy rest in a month, and you’re having trouble sleeping?” Ruun’daruun said. It was more observation than question.

  She nodded.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She stared, her eyes looking beyond the tent as she tried to organize her thoughts. “It is the prisoner—the false Lasivar.”

  Ruun’daruun nodded, frowning. His hatred of him had not abated.

  “Revik Lasivar called him ‘Azra.’ I suppose… hearing his real name… I never thought of him as a person. He was a story, a prophecy, and then a monster. Now…”

  “He is still a monster,” Ruun’daruun said. “You saw him today. You saw what he will still try to do. He can’t be trusted, can’t be allowed to live.”

  She shook her head. “That is something else. He may be a wicked man, but that power, that evil that comes on him, was placed there by another. It is as if Halkoriv nurtured the anger and rage in him until it became something else, something alive.” She shivered against Ruun’daruun, the memory of that incorporeal touch on her skin, weeks ago at the Monument, forcing its way back to the surface. “His spirit to fight us is broken.” Her words surprised even herself. “It is the power he thought he commanded that is dangerous. It will kill him. It is more of a danger to him now than to us.”

  Ruun’daruun grunted. “I still don't see why you saved him. He may not wish to fight us any longer, but he's done unforgiveable things. All the scattered tribes, the slaughter of our people—he was behind it, whether he was deceived or not.”

  Ahi’rea felt her hands become fists. “You are right.” She sighed. She relived, as she had so many times, the moment Azra had killed her mother; watched his blade rip through her, watched him toss her aside like refuse. She shook as anger and hate overwhelmed her—and yet, somehow, she still no longer wished Azra’s death.

  —

  Lasivar waited and listened, infuriatingly calm. Haaph’ahin, livid, was protesting his earlier actions with Azra. Though he could conceal his rage, he knew that Lasivar could see it, could feel it radiate from him. It irritated him that he could not hide his feelings from the youth.

  “He is useless to our cause, and he is dangerous,” Haaph’ahin said. “He knows about you! He is riddled with the Sitis spirit! It could seize control of him at any time. If we let him live, he will return to his master and come back to fight against us.”

  Haaph’ahin had restated his arguments in as many ways as he could think, doing everything he could to appeal to Lasivar’s reason. He was determined that he not go through with his plan to let Azra go free when he awoke.

  He had felt such glee at Lasivar’s arrival. He had cheered his own visions, the final vindication of his actions and the deaths of so many. He had finally felt they had been justified. That glee and pride had been soured by Lasivar himself. Haaph’ahin had expected Lasivar to heed him and take his counsel. Instead, the young man and he had disagreed over almost everything.

  Haaph’ahin had hoped to gather a great army, as they had in his youth. It would take time, but the rest of the Huumphar could be found and many able warriors raised in the North as well as rebels from the South. With Lasivar, he had said, such a force would be gathered to challenge Halkoriv again. Lasivar had disagreed, declining to explain, and forbade the sending of search parties and messengers to find other tribes and raise the The Gharv.

  Haaph’ahin had hoped to finally kill the false Lasivar. On this too, they disagreed.

  Lasivar stared at him. “Killing Azra will solve nothing. He will pose no danger to us, and he will not return to Halkoriv.” Haaph’ahin, glaring back, began to falter as he tried to hold Lasivar’s gaze. The old Huumphar's face twitched and he shifted on his feet. Strain pulled at the corners of his mouth. Lasivar said, “Be careful, Elder, lest war and desperation make you into the very thing you seek to defeat.”

  Haaph’ahin finally looked away and scowled. “I am nothing like Halkoriv. Son of Lasivar or no, mind what you say.”

  “I always choose my words carefully, Elder. Now I must rest. We set out tomorrow.”

  —Fifteen—

  The prisoner awoke the next morning as the first rays of sun broke over the cliffs and ocean in the east and shone down on the camp. He found himself beneath a makeshift shelter, a few hides stretched over poles stuck in the earth. His bonds were gone, and he had been left where he was on the cliffs. A Huumphar guard stood nearby while another hustled away, presumably to report that he had awoken.

  He had vague recollections of what had happened. He remembered attacking Lasivar, but could not think of why he had done it. Lasivar had stopped him—but not the same way that Ahi’rea had, back in the plains. Instead, it had felt as if Lasivar had helped a dam to break in the prisoner’s mind, and the sudden flood of memory had overwhelmed him. He h
ad heard a name—but did not dare to hope that it was his. Now, in the morning’s light, the dreams and images that had come back to him were fading again—fading, but not vanishing. The landscape was familiar, the sound of waves and the smell of the sea somehow comforting. Had Revik Lasivar been his friend when they were children? He could not tell if the memories were his own or not. What if they were more illusions, crafted and molded and cast into his mind by Lasivar for his own ends? The prisoner tried to focus on other thoughts, though the visions and dreams flitted through his mind. They were not his. They could not be his.

  There was water and food waiting for him—small fish on skewers, roasting by the campfire, and some berries from the woods. He ate, hoping to distract himself from thoughts of the previous day.

  The food reached his tongue. The salty, smoky fish and the sudden familiarity of its taste assaulted him. He had eaten such food before—when he was a boy.

  The memories were his. He choked back sobs.

  This land had been his home. He knew his name, a name he could not recall and had never heard until Lasivar had said it. He struggled to bring himself to accept it.

  Autumn, the harvest season, was approaching—something he had not recognized until that moment. Long ago, his parents would have been together with the rest of the village, collecting and preserving grain and fruit. He dried his eyes and gazed down toward his old village. He remembered, then, that it was just beyond the trees—and he wondered if he could go back. Could he forget all that had happened, as he had once forgotten his life before, and become a simple farmer or fisherman? Images crashed through his mind—Cunabrel telling him that Halkoriv had ordered his capture; his enemy’s brutalized face as he had raised a sword over him. He thought of the old Huumphar woman, Ahi’rea’s mother; he had gutted her just before he had been captured. He thought of Halkoriv, his eyes emotionless and his smile kindly, sincerity arranged and settled upon his face like a mask.

  “Azra,” a voice said, an echo of the last word he remembered hearing—his name. He hated it, did not want it. He looked up from his seated position to see Revik Lasivar approaching, towering over him. Ahi’rea, Tak’la, and several others stood a short distance away. The prisoner stood and faced Lasivar’s piercing gaze. The other man’s eyes went through him, but the prisoner felt a chill grow behind his own eyes and Lasivar seemed to diminish before him.

  Lasivar blinked. “It’s alright, Azra. Calm yourself—I am here to tell you that you are free to go.”

  The chill vanished. The prisoner felt a familiar satisfaction at having unnerved Lasivar, but tried to ignore it. I am not that man. That man was a lie. Then what am I? Still, he held Lasivar’s gaze. “You are not going to question me? Try to press me into helping you?”

  “No.” Lasivar shook his head.

  “I remember you, Revik,” the prisoner said. “You are here to stop him. To kill Halkoriv.”

  Lasivar nodded.

  “He is strong. The power I had was nothing compared to his.”

  “I know,” Lasivar said. “I am sorry for what has happened to you.”

  The prisoner glowered and said nothing.

  “The power he planted in you will kill you, Azra. I cannot stop it.”

  “What are you talking about? I am not Azra. Azra was a boy, taken away in the night to save you.” He is trying to use me, just like the others. “And I am not going back—you do not have to worry about me or what I can do. You do not need to lie to me or trick me.”

  “I am not trying to trick you.” Lasivar had started to say ‘Azra,’ but stopped himself. “The power you use, that is in you, is not sorcery. It is a spirit, riding you, and as soon as you outlive your usefulness to it, it will consume you. It will do the same to Halkoriv. It may already have. It is old, and stronger than both of you. It is too ancient to know anything but hunger. Each time you use it, its hold grows stronger in you and it is easier for it to control you, to take everything from you and keep you. That is the immortality Sitis found, and it is the lie Halkoriv’s line has pursued for generations. It will betray him to its own hunger and devour you.”

  A snarl formed in the prisoner’s throat. “You are lying!” he shouted. “I remember how you always had to be the best! You never wanted anyone to be able to match you.”

  “I am trying to warn you!” Lasivar said, voice rising. “We are friends! Why would I lie to you?”

  “We were friends, a long time ago, but much has changed, Revik. I know what you are. I know that you are lying to me because I would have done the same. They think you are a great hero, a leader—but I know what you really want, because it is what I wanted. You want more power, you want the fear of these people, and you want control. You may say you are here for peace or freedom or whatever will please them and you, but I know what it is like, and what you are truly after. Even if you do not mean to simply replace Halkoriv, even if you do not want his throne, it is power you want—but you do not want any rivals for it.”

  Lasivar sighed and lowered his gaze. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet and collected. “Remember, Azra. Try not to use it. I am sorry for what happened—truly I am. I hope you can forgive the choices that were made on my behalf. It is not how I would have had events unfold.” His tone was cool again and his manner unruffled.

  The prisoner turned away. “I hate this place.”

  “You are free to go where you wish. What will you do now?”

  The prisoner looked out over the sea. He could leave—leave Feriven behind, his past, the people and conflict. He imagined forgetting about all of them as he had forgotten everything else. His memories were a jumbled mass of half-truths and misinformation. He thought of making a new life for himself, a new name. He could forget Lasivar and Halkoriv and all the others—and then his thoughts turned to Ahi’rea.

  He glanced over his shoulder and saw her, still waiting a short distance away. Their eyes met. Desire stole over him, but the look of hatred she returned made him look away. “I want my sword,” the prisoner said. “I may leave Feriven someday, but for now… I just want quiet. I will go west along the coast.” He did not know what he hoped would happen if he stayed, but he knew he could not imagine forgetting about her.

  Lasivar turned and said something in Huumphar. Tak’la disappeared, returning a short time later with the prisoner’s sword, scabbard, and armor. The tall warrior handed the prisoner his things, keeping his eyes to the ground. The prisoner turned away the armor, but took the garnet-pommeled sword. “What about you?” he asked Lasivar, wondering why he bothered to ask. “How will you go about your purpose?”

  “We leave at dawn,” Lasivar said. “We will go south. I have work to do, old friend. I hope you can find peace on your journey.” He extended a hand.

  The prisoner ignored the gesture, adjusting his sword belt. He turned to the west, looking along the coast. The sun was high and the wind blew cool off of the ocean. Green waves peaked and crashed, and to the south they were echoed by the treetops rustling and waving in the breeze. The tallest branches were turning. Hues of red and gold were beginning to tinge the forest leaves.

  He turned back, addressing Tak’la. “Thank you for speaking with me.” Tak’la nodded but did not answer or meet his eyes. The prisoner reached out and put a hand on his shoulder, then approached the group of Huumphar waiting nearby. He stopped before Ahi’rea.

  She was beautiful—he allowed himself to notice, to admit it to himself. He wondered, for a moment, if she might accept him if he agreed to stay and help them. He looked into her eyes and spoke. “Ahi’rea,” he said, “you saved me. Thank you.”

  She glared at him and said, “Thank Lasivar. I did not want to see you taken by the Spirit, but do not mistake my choice for mercy. If not for Lasivar, you would not leave these cliffs alive.”

  Her words stung, but he had expected them. He knew she hated him. His foolish hope now seemed even more ridiculous. He waited for anger to rise in him, but it did not. The prisoner stood for a moment. “I
understand why you would want that. I… I am not sorry for what I have done. I was led to this. It was not my choice.” He kept her gaze as she glared in silence. “Do not do what he says just because of his name,” the prisoner cautioned, eyes flicking to Lasivar and back. “He will only be able to rule you if you let him. If you want to kill me, do it.”

  Ahi’rea’s hand, already on the hilt of her machete, tightened around it.

  “Do not tempt me,” she said. “You are no match for me. You had better take our charity while it is offered and go.” Behind her, Ruun’daruun’s hand went to his machete as well.

  The prisoner resisted the urge to step back. “As I said… what happened was not my fault. I will not say I am sorry, but…” he paused, unable to go on. Ahi’rea looked on, and something crossed his face that she had never seen before. The prisoner breathed deep. “But I hope someday, you will forgive me.”

  He turned and began to walk away. Ahi’rea called out after him, despite herself. “You always had a choice, Azra. When you realize that, maybe I will.”

  —

  The prisoner could not bring himself to leave the area while Ahi’rea was still nearby. He stopped atop a small rise within sight of the camp and decided to wait there until she left with the others. Gazing down, he watched as the Gharven, Huumphar, and Lasivar’s escorts prepared to march, as he had watched his own armies gather before. Their force seemed so small—they had no chance. He caught occasional glimpses of people he had come to know—the closest things he had to friends, he realized, were his jailers.

  The prisoner made a makeshift camp—Lasivar’s men had given him a bedroll and a few supplies as he left. He set out the bedroll and gathered some kindling for a fire. His clothes were ragged, having gone over a month without repair. The foreigners accompanying Lasivar had also given him new breeches and a heavy gray shirt, along with a long, dark gray oilskin coat of the kind worn by sailors. He set his old clothes aside and dressed in the rough foreign garb.