Valley of Embers (The Landkist Saga Book 1)

by Steven Kelliher

  It was cold.

  The King of Ember’s face contorted, his expression morphing, and Kole felt the heat drain from his body, absorbed into the other Ember’s outstretched palm. His skin turned blue and he felt like death, ice in his veins and heart slowing. He knew what it must be like to freeze and drown all at once.

  Just before his vision faded, the sensation ceased, and he crumbled to the floor, his fire snuffed out but his life still clinging.

  Linn squeezed her eyes shut tight against the pain as she was thrown back into her body, but all was calm. Her arms felt light as feathers. Her body thrummed with energy, as if the shifting currents in the embattled chamber passed through rather than around her. Her heart beat strong and steady, and with each pulse, there was a buzz like the building charge in a storm cloud.

  Most of all, her sight—long the keenest in the Valley—was now truly akin to that of an eagle. Though the vaulted ceiling was too high even to be lit by the clashing Embers before the broken throne, Linn could see the details in the carved obsidian, the tiny motes of ash floating beneath the skylight. She saw far out into the blue-black night sky, and it nearly took her breath away, so clear did it appear, so in reach.

  And then she heard Kole’s anguished cry.

  Linn went to stand and felt none of the agony she had expected. She brought the bow with her, which had stayed together where the silver shaft had split in two.

  Kole cried out again and Linn cursed, snatching up the fletched end and setting it to the string. She settled down onto one knee. The arrow was halved, but the broken end still had enough length to scrape the bow when drawn; it would have to do.

  As she aimed, Linn saw the ending of the Embers’ duel in vivid detail. Though they battled thirty strides away or more, she saw the veins standing out in the King of Ember’s hand as he turned Kole’s blade aside and raised that glowing palm.

  Kole tried to rise, but he was too weak. A look of pity crossed the King of Ember’s features before his palm began to dull. Kole’s skin turned ashen blue, and as she watched, Linn felt something stirring within her. Her palms tingled, hair waving with a breeze she had not felt moments before. There was an energy about her. It teased the tips of her fingers and played softly along the edges of her lips.

  Linn smiled, feeling the storm as the clouds wheeled overhead. The orange and red in the chamber was swallowed by a brilliant blue as the rift in the roof opened further, the force of the passing lightning widening the breach.

  It came for her, and this time, Linn did not recoil. She breathed in as the bolt struck, closing her eyes and feeling the electricity infuse her body and charge her heart. And then she harnessed it, passing the lightning through her veins and moving the wind with her will. She directed it all into the missing point of the shaft and let fly, reveling in the look of shock in those amber eyes as they turned her way.

  The bolt struck true, blasting the Ember back even as he brought his palms around to block. He screamed out as the shaft went tumbling, teeth clenched as the storm wracked his body.

  Linn was standing over him by the time he hit the ground, his red armor blackened and his eyes losing their glow.

  “You will not take him from me,” she said.

  The King of Ember coughed, spots of blood standing out on his chin.

  “I would not kill him.”

  “You wouldn’t. But then, you are not truly you.”

  He looked up at her with a mix of awe and denial.

  “You don’t understand,” he said. “Their war will consume—

  Linn knelt beside him.

  “Maybe you’re right. But it’ll be us who decide. The Sages are in for a reckoning, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let one of them decide it. There is good to be found in all, even the Sages. I have felt it. Perhaps your master is the exception.”

  “The power,” he said, reaching out for her hand, which was orbited by blue motes of light she hadn’t noticed before—remnants of the blast that clung to her protectively. “It will consume you.”

  “We’ll see.”

  A part of Linn knew she should end it then and there. But she could not. Rather, she chose not to.

  “Mother Ninyeva believed in you,” she said in a whisper, eyes watering.

  The name seemed to strike something within him. His eyes widened as footfalls broke the silence.

  Linn whirled and was relieved to see Misha Ve’Gah and the remainder of the Rockbled enter the moonlit gallery. The Ember had shed her armor and now sported nothing but her leggings and an immodest sash of cloth that she had tied from wounded hip to scraped shoulder. One of the warriors carried Jenk over one shoulder as if he were a child, and another set Nathen down to rest by the doorway before racing to check on Baas, who laid face-down by the blasted hole in the wall.

  “What’s this, then?” Misha asked, her voice echoing oddly in the recent stillness.

  The King of Ember shot up faster than Linn could have anticipated. He put his back to the nearest pillar and Misha ignited Jenk’s sword and sprinted forward, her wounds forgotten in the rush.

  Linn stood surely, her hair fanning as the wind greeted her through the open roof. The Rockbled ringed the cornered Ember, weapons twisting silently in their hands.

  “He is an enemy?” one of them asked, curious as to why Linn had not pressed her advantage.

  “I don’t know,” Linn said, earning a confused and frustrated look from Misha. “And I don’t think he does either.”

  The wild look in his eyes painted a stark contrast to the power he had displayed just minutes before. Something more than Linn’s bolt had rattled him. Something much like doubt.

  Misha seemed ready to decide things for them all when a piece of tile fell with a clatter from the skylight above. All eyes in the chamber shot up, and even Linn could not make out the figure clearly as it crouched over the lip of the yawning gap.

  “Is it done?” the voice asked, lilting and certainly female.

  The King of Ember stared at Linn a long while. And then he gave the slightest of nods.

  “Good.”

  “Who—

  Before Linn could finish, the form had melted into the shadows. There was a hint of movement, a rustling like the shifting of leaves, and a pale arm curled out of the closer dark to grasp the King of Ember on one armored shoulder.

  “We must be going, then.”

  “What of the others?” he asked as he began to recede into the shadows with her.

  “No luck,” she purred. Linn caught a glimpse of a lavender iris glinting and the sheen of teeth that were impossibly white.

  “Brega waits with the rest. We must be going.”

  “Like hell you are,” Misha said, her blade flaring hungrily as she launched it like a spear toward the swirling patch of ink before the pillar. The Everwood blade passed through the air harmlessly, extinguishing with a hiss as the pale shadow danced out of the way.

  The pale arms returned a moment later, pulling the King of Ember into the deeper dark, his eyes leaving golden trails that floated like burning ash.

  “Well met, Ember King,” Linn said. It was as much a warning as a farewell.

  “My name is T’Alon Rane.”

  The voice came from above, and Linn looked up toward the blasted roof.

  The King of Ember stood on the edge of the chasm, the shadow girl to his right, purple irises peering down at them.

  “This Valley is no longer safe,” he said and Linn scoffed.

  “The Eastern Dark will not leave it lying free and open,” he continued unabated. “He may come in a year. He may come in a generation. But he will not suffer the Embers to live once his work is done. I suggest you be gone by then.”

  “Gone where? You want us to leave the Valley you brought us to after killing the guardian you appointed?”

  “You belong in the deserts,” he said. “There is a Sage there called the Red Waste. He could—

  “Until you come for him as well,” Linn challenged.<
br />
  The King of Ember whose name was T’Alon Rane was silent, the lavender-eyed shadow staring up at him thoughtfully, considering.

  “He is the least of,” he paused. “The least of my master’s worries right now.”

  “And who, pray tell, is the Eastern Dark worried about now?”

  “So many questions,” the shadow said, sparkling eyes staring at Linn as a cat examines a bird. “So many answers,” she said, shifting them to the Ember King.

  “There are quarrels the World over,” he said. “One is growing very tense. The Emerald Road is not the safest place for traveling anymore.”

  The little shadow glared openly now, at him more than her, but the Ember ignored his companion. He watched one of the Rockbled lift Kole like a sack. “The worse those quarrels between Sages get, the closer our master’s hand gets to the door.”

  “Then I guess we’d better stop him,” Linn said evenly, a spark lighting her own eyes that had the shadow shifting uneasily.

  “For your sake and for his,” he said, “I hope we find ourselves on the same side when next we meet. I wonder,” he looked back to Kole, “if the two of you will be, given your hearts and their courses.”

  Linn was silent.

  “So long, Linn Ve’Ran,” he said, and the shadows grew thick about them, blocking the stars in the sky above.

  “Right, then,” Misha said, squatting down and pressing a hand to her bloody cloth. She looked up at Linn. “Who was that, and what was he on about?”

  “I was beginning to get used to waking up in unfamiliar surroundings,” Kole said, rubbing his temples. He did not yet have the fortitude to open his eyes fully, but he had done enough squinting to recognize Captain Caru’s sparse, cell-like quarters. “This one’s old hat.”

  The Captain leaned against the mantle, watching Kole with a haggard look on his face.

  “If you look that bad …”

  “You are young,” the Captain said. “Your worries dissolve with the rising of the sun. Mine linger.”

  “Tough to be young or old in this Valley of ours,” Kole said, swinging his legs over the edge of the cot. The pine frame creaked in protest.

  “If I hadn’t seen first-hand how the Merchant Council treated you,” he said, waving his hand at their surroundings, “this would do the trick.”

  “You’re a simple man, Reyna, no matter what they say.” Talmir donned a thick leather glove and handed Kole a steaming cup from the bed of glowing stones in the hearth.

  The scalding liquid would have scarred a normal man from gullet to tailbone, but to Kole, it was a godsend. The memories of his battle with the King of Ember were flooding back. He supposed he should have tested his powers out before drinking boiling water, but there was no harm done.

  “My father,” Kole said, setting the stone cup down.

  “Karin received a Runner from the Lake two days ago,” Talmir said. His face worked through myriad emotions—none of them pleasant—before settling on sympathy. “The Faey Mother is dead.”

  It was like a glacier moving over Kole’s heart. He swallowed.

  “The White Crest came for her. He was driven off by Tu’Ren.” Talmir paused. “Though, truth be told, there are plenty who say the old crone herself did the driving, including the First Keeper.”

  Kole nodded blankly.

  “And Last Lake?” he asked, trying in vain to hope.

  “No further casualties,” Talmir said. “The sky broke before their walls had been breached.”

  The Captain spoke the last with a strange inflection, and Kole guessed he was trying to cover the bitterness seeping in.

  He should have asked of Hearth. Still, all he could picture now was Iyana and her shining emerald eyes. She was safe.

  “Your companions are in stable condition,” Talmir said, his military staccato covering the momentary lapse. “Linn has been attending to them in the Bowl. She seems …”

  Kole looked askance at him, but the Captain trailed off. There were fleeting images of Linn in the keep scattered in his mind’s eye, but he couldn’t sort them into the proper place.

  “You’ll see her soon enough.”

  The Captain of Hearth turned and leaned over the smoldering pit for a spell. Kole caught a glimpse of white bandages beneath his tunic, but the wounds he carried went far deeper than skin.

  “The Rivermen?” Kole asked, breaking the silence.

  “Baas and his people returned to the Steps to collect their own.”

  “They’re coming into Hearth?”

  “They could use us right now,” Talmir said, frowning. “And, the Merchant Council reckons we could use them as well.”

  Kole did not want to imagine what damage the Dark Kind had visited upon Hearth. Had the Corrupted breached the walls? If they had, it was no wonder the Captain’s voice held an edge where it concerned Last Lake, whose wooden stakes stood in the packed mud while his great white breakers of stone had been compromised.

  “Jenk Ganmeer is up and moving already,” the Captain said. “He’s trying to get on the first caravan back. And your friend Nathen, the fisher’s boy has been eating everything in sight. I daresay we would not have the stock to feed him if the siege still stood.”

  Kole laughed and Talmir turned a softer look on him. There was something like gratitude in it, spilling out through the pain. Kole did not feel much like a hero, having awoken on a sickbed for the third time in as many weeks. After all, it had not even been he who had toppled the White Crest in the end.

  “We have you to thank for that,” Talmir said. “You and yours. To think, our guardian had truly turned against us.”

  “He was a symptom of a larger problem,” Kole said, voice hardening. “An older problem.”

  Talmir nodded.

  “The Eastern Dark,” he said. “He has found us, yes?”

  “He never lost us. We were protected for a time, it’s true, but the Breaking of the Valley marked a shift. The White Crest may have won the battle against the Night Lords, but the Eastern Dark won the war.”

  “Yes,” Talmir said, looking through the misted window. “That was when the Dark Kind first entered the Valley.”

  “The Eastern Dark infected our protector with the hearts of the Night Lords sent against him,” Kole said. “He was meant to test us.” His voice took on an edge. “To cull us like a sewn crop. But the White Crest awoke after the Dark Months. And when he did, he built an army of Corrupted and unleashed them on us so we could never be used against him.”

  Talmir blew out a long sigh.

  “The Embers were the Eastern Dark’s jewels,” he said. “The Valley his chest.”

  Kole did not argue.

  “But then,” the Captain started, brows rising, “why has the Eastern Dark not come calling? Why has he not taken our Embers, taken you?”

  “Because he already has the strongest one,” Kole said. “And he’s not one I’d fancy trying to control. I imagine we’re a contingency plan.”

  The Captain’s expression went from quizzical to confused.

  “Linn didn’t tell you? Misha?”

  “I do not know Linn Ve’Ran,” he said. “She’s been more concerned with your condition than in keeping me informed. As for Misha, she hasn’t been in a talkative mood. Dakken Pyr didn’t make it through the siege. He was her man. A good man.” He paused and swallowed. “There’s been a lot to do, as you can imagine. Gathering the precise details of what occurred among those peaks hasn’t been a priority, strange as that may seem. Who is this Ember?”

  “An old one. One of several Landkist the Eastern Dark has ensnared.”

  “Our mortal enemy is amassing a secret force of Landkist,” Talmir said with a cynical smile.

  “Not a force,” Kole said. “A handful of sycophants, I’d guess.”

  ‘Who is this Ember?” the Captain asked again.

  “He is old,” Kole said. “Before the Valley.”

  There was only one Ember that could be, but Talmir Caru, Kole knew, was a p
ragmatic man. The expression he wore now was one of disbelief.

  “But we may not have lost him fully,” Kole said, trying to cover the doubt in his voice.

  Talmir shook his head slowly.

  “What do you mean to do?”

  “I mean to find him,” Kole said.

  “And then?”

  “Find his strings, and follow them back to his dark master.”

  “’If’ being the key,” Talmir said. “The King of Ember.” That look again. “If he was not strong enough to avoid falling to the Sage’s spell, what makes you think you are?”

  For a fleeting moment, Kole was back in the broken throne room. His skin was cold, his heart slow as death. The King of Ember stood over him, and just before the darkness closed in, a violent light shielded him from the Ember’s wrath—a light with the face of Linn Ve’Ran.

  “I won’t be alone,” Kole said, smirking.

  “And what are we to do in the meantime?” Talmir asked. “Now that our enemy knows your strength? We’ve a city to mend, dead to bury, mourning …”

  He trailed off.

  “He won’t come for you,” Kole said. “I’ll make sure of that.”

  Talmir stared at him. It was a long time before he seemed satisfied, at least for the moment.

  “I don’t know how this Valley can ever feel like home again,” the Captain said, sounding at once younger and older than his years.

  “Maybe it’s time our people went back to their true home, then.”

  Kole left Captain Talmir to stew in his thoughts. It suited him.

  He made his way down the stairs, body aching like it never had before, and was relieved to see that the commons in the barracks below was not full of the wounded and dying this time. His relief lasted right up until he opened the door to the street outside.

  Kole surveyed the grounds adjacent to the courtyard, which had been trampled into mush. To the west, they were still clearing the wreckage that had been the front gate. Beyond it, there was ruin far as the eye could see, the distant trees serving as silent sentinels of a different kind. What judgment they passed, Kole did not want to guess.

  Around him, there was not a single soul not in motion. Soldiers still patrolled the battlements, watchful and weary, their armor shining once again under the returned sun. Tradesmen had put their carts to uses far less enterprising than usual, stocking them with debris, and what Kole at first took for a mound of Corrupted resolved itself into the form of a massive bear. The spears had yet to be removed from its flanks and workers and soldiers alike quickened their pace as they passed by it.