by Niki Florica
The Heir of Ariad
The Heir of Ariad
Niki Florica
© 2019 Niki Florica
The Heir of Ariad
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All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the King James Version. Public domain.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018963708
ISBN 978-0-310101871 (Paperback)
ISBN 978-0-310101888 (Hardbound)
ISBN 978-0-310101895 (eBook)
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Please note that footnotes in this ebook may contain hyperlinks to external websites as part of bibliographic citations. These hyperlinks have not been activated by the publisher, who cannot verify the accuracy of these links beyond the date of publication.
This book belongs to Jesus, the Author and Finisher.
I’m just a pen.
Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
One
Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.
-Exodus 1:8 (KJV)
The Silvercloud was silent as death, slicing through the wind at storming speed. Pale sails soared high, billowing with the rise and fall of the wind above a host of sky-tossed heads, gleaming eyes, and polished weapons. The Silvers stood in loose ranks, haphazard in form but formidable in stance, the hoods of their silver-white sky-cloaks hanging limp upon their shoulders.
Kyrian waited in the stern beneath the sails, one foot jogging wildly while he watched the Silvers stirring, fidgeting, whispering amongst themselves. Melkian stood at his side, leaning against the mast. His arms were crossed, his brows furrowed, his presence collected and cool. He rarely displayed unease before the regiment, but Kyrian knew him too well to be fooled. There were shadows beneath his eyes, webbed red veins behind his irises. He rarely slept before missions, Kyrian knew. Neither of them did.
The northern edge of the Rosghel Cloud came into view and Melkian gave the order for the sails to be adjusted. In moments the vessel was sailing directly for the outpost on the point, and the Silvers’ bright eyes gleamed in anticipation of the mission ahead. Salienne was waiting with her arms folded and her bow strung over one shoulder, the picture of confidence. She caught Kyrian’s gaze and read his mind with a blink.
“We are too late,” he said to Melkian, voicing the thought she had drawn from his eyes. “If we cannot take our positions before Thunderfoot arrives—”
“We will,” Melkian interjected. He swallowed, straightening against the mast. “We are well prepared, Kyrian. Do not allow your doubt to infiltrate the regiment.”
Kyrian frowned, leaning forward on his knees. “Yes, Captain.”
The Silvercloud drifted into the bank of the outpost and a swarm of Silver warriors leaped from the ship to moor it to the Rosghel Cloud. Melkian gave the order for the ranks to assemble upon the bank, and in a moment the vessel was clear of all but him and Kyrian.
“You did not sleep last night,” Kyrian remarked, tossing him his bow.
Melkian caught it and slung a quiver over his shoulder. “Nor did you. I heard your pacing.”
“Did you speak to Salienne?”
His guardian’s face fell, and Kyrian wished to all the Skies that he had not spoken as Melkian turned away to descend to the bank and the question died unanswered.
The Silvers were gathered upon the bank to await their captain’s final commands, and Melkian wasted little time reinforcing their orders. “You are armed,” he reminded them, “but it is my hope that our weapons shall not come to use. This is a meeting and an escort. Thunderfoot has vowed to arrive alone and unarmed. We shall not reveal our full strength unless need demands it.”
“And if Thunderfoot does not honour his vow?” chimed a nervous warrior. Needlessly.
Melkian’s steely eyes hardened. “As I said, I hope our weapons shall not come to use. But it is a hope in which I have little confidence. As ever, if I am compromised, command falls to Kyrian.” He waited a moment for further revelations, then nodded. “It is time.”
In a breath, the regiment dispersed. Silvers scattered to their posts, drew their hoods, and vanished into the mist, phantoms of the cloud, invisible as the wind itself. One moment the outpost was a sea of wind-blown heads, and the next the mist was thick with Skyad warriors united with the clouds by little more than a thought. Kyrian swallowed his envy and wrenched his gaze away.
The wind tore at Melkian’s dark hair as they strode to the centre of the post, the last visible members of the Silver regiment. He had tied back the long strands at his temples into a braid, distinguishing him as a warrior of higher rank and poise than those beneath him. Kyrian chose to ignore the grey streaks that had appeared in the last four years, fighting the surge of sadness they evoked as he ran a hand through his own black hair. Unlike Melkian’s, his was loose and wild. He liked it that way. Like his father’s.
Silence settled over the post and Kyrian fingered the hilt of his sword, standing at Melkian’s side in the stillness with the weight of his sky-cloak heavy upon his shoulders. Melkian cast him a glance, grey eyes gleaming. “I do not trust him to come alone.”
Kyrian nodded. “I know.”
“I do not know what he will say, Kyrian. Of your father. Of the past.”
“I know, Melkian.”
The captain sighed, raked a hand through his hair. “I know you know. I am reminding myself.”
A dark fog drifted over the sky-post, clouding the pale sheen of the Rain Realm with grey. Kyrian felt familiar adrenaline surge within his veins as he stood, rigid and tense, wishing to draw his blade, knowing he could not without breaking their vow of peace. His gaze roved the cloudscape for the first signs of the enemy, searching each shadow that quivered in the fog, every flicker in the gloom. Melkian’s fingers tapped incessantly against the hilt of his knife.
A dark shadow shifted in the far corner of his vision and they turned in unison, the smoky fog billowing darkly against the cloud. A tall, broad-shouldered warrior had materialized in the mist, dark hair hanging damp to grey-cloaked shoulders that blended mystically with the fog. A sinister skybow was strapped to his shoulders, coupled with an intricate quiver of dark arrows.
Thunderfoot.
Kyrian was reaching for his blade when Melkian’s hand locked upon his wrist, and the captain of the Silver Guard’s ungloved fingers bit warning into his bracers. He nodded, and the hand fell.
The Storm Lord’s stony ey
es followed their exchange, gleaming coldly in the pale light as he crossed his arms before his chest with an expression of faint amusement. His smoky grey sky-cloak billowed in the wind, framing powerful shoulders and a chiselled face woven like a thread into Kyrian’s memory, in all the tales of his father. The thread that had seen Aradin die, and warred against his father and Melkian upon the Bloodmours, and gathered a Grey army with strength enough to drown Ariad in the Storm. He had not entered the Rain Realm in more than twenty years.
Until this day. Until the alliance.
“My lord Thunderfoot,” Melkian greeted him with a shallow bow, “we welcome you to the Rain Realm as a guest of King Tasnil.”
Thunderfoot blinked. “Captain Melkian. I see you did not trust me to arrive alone. Tell me, do you prefer the company of children to warriors?”
The insult was so very predictable Kyrian almost snorted. Melkian was expressionless. “My lord, I thought it wise for my second-in-command to serve as a witness to our meeting. It is, after all, an historic day for our realms, is it not? The day of the long-awaited alliance.”
“You are armed,” Thunderfoot observed coldly.
“As are you,” Melkian returned. “These are dangerous times.”
“Indeed they are. But tell me, Captain—” the Storm Lord’s gaze hardened to twin daggers—“why must the commander of the Silver Guard bring an armed regiment to a meeting with one Skyad?”
Melkian stood silent, but Kyrian saw his knuckles tighten. “You are mistaken, my lord.”
“Am I?” Thunderfoot stepped nearer, his broad shoulders squaring beneath his cloak. Melkian almost equalled him in height, but in physical strength he was at a gross disadvantage, even with Kyrian to fight at his side. “Our paths have crossed too often for such games, Captain. Did you truly believe the ruler of the Storm Realm would be deceived by your Silver trickery? Your mists are powerless in the eyes of the Storm Lord.” His lips curled in a faint sneer, betraying testable patience. “Call them out,” he demanded. “Did you not vow to arrive alone and unarmed? Call them out that they may tell me why the captain of the Silver Guard does not honour his word!”
Kyrian felt his temper flare and started forward with fire on his tongue before Melkian’s hand was tight on his arm, holding him steady, warning him, pleading with him. “You have grown stronger, my lord,” Melkian said, voice tight but steady. “When last we met you could not see through Silver cloaks. I commend you for your strength—” his tone turned frigid—“but I refuse your demand.”
Thunderfoot’s brow twitched.
“You vowed to arrive alone and unarmed,” Melkian continued, “but you are not unarmed, and I would be a fool to believe that this fog is empty of your warriors. I thought it wise to avoid any . . . unjust advantage in our meeting. But if you will be escorted peacefully to Rosghel, as was your vow, I see no reason for my warriors to interfere.”
Eyes glittering, Thunderfoot straightened. The fingers of his right hand twitched in some subtle signal to invisible eyes. “I expected as much, Captain.”
Instantly Kyrian was seized from behind, an explosion of pain sending him forcefully to his knees with a cold knife to his throat and a Skyad’s hot breath against his neck. He heard a cry escape his throat but choked on it when the knife bit more firmly into his flesh. Melkian’s face tightened.
“Do not consider fighting,” Thunderfoot said calmly. “I assure you my warriors shall take pleasure in killing your second-in-command before your eyes and the eyes of your regiment. They are eager for war, you must understand, and only warrior’s blood shall satisfy them.”
Kyrian felt the invisible eyes of the Silver regiment upon him as humiliation simmered beneath his skin, warm and bitter but nothing compared to the white-hot wrath steaming curses in his blood. Stars danced before his eyes from his captor’s blow, but he willed them away, locked his eyes upon Melkian, and wished for an enemy near enough to spit upon. The Skyad behind him radiated a confidence only one breed in Ariad had mastered to such perfection. He snarled.
Greys.
Melkian remained composed, but he was uncertain, his knuckles clenching whiter as all blood fled his face. Kyrian held his gaze, waiting upon his knees with a knife to his throat while the Silvers hidden in the outpost looked on in hesitation. Somewhere among them he felt Salienne watching, an arrow to her bowstring, awaiting the moment to free him but biding her time with a viper’s cunning. Thunderfoot commanded the Silvers to reveal themselves. Melkian’s jaw clenched until shadow appeared beneath his cheekbones. The Storm Lord twitched and the knife pressed more firmly to Kyrian’s throat, until he could not breathe for fear of spilling his own blood upon his enemy’s dagger.
“What say you, Captain? How much do you value this warrior’s life?”
Melkian’s grey eyes lingered for a moment upon Kyrian before flitting to the Storm Lord, before he spoke the words that Kyrian had never doubted for a heartbeat.
“I yield.”
Kyrian marched at Salienne’s side in frigid, burning silence. His wrists were bound behind his back, his sword hanging at the side of the Grey warrior whose knife had been held to his throat, the arrogant chortling of Thunderfoot’s Greys setting fire to his blood with every step. His sister was silent at his side. Her bow and quiver had been claimed by another Grey, along with her hidden knife, but she walked with her head held high, raven-black hair whipping wildly in the wind about her face. Anger simmered in the air as the Rain Realm warriors walked—bound—before the Storm Lord’s regiment. The regiment that had waited in fog until Melkian’s surrender, to appear and strip the Silvers of their weapons. And their dignity.
Oh, Skies, how he despised them.
Thunderfoot marched at the head of the failed escort, directly behind Melkian, who remained unbound—a token of the Storm Lord’s generosity. The captain’s face was so very bloodless Kyrian could almost see his internal war—see Melkian reprimanding himself, scolding himself for his inability to predict the future. It mattered not that he had acted in the wisest possible judgment. Kyrian knew his guardian too well to believe he would not blame himself.
“He should not have surrendered,” Salienne whispered at his side, glaring ahead.
Kyrian glanced at her. “You would rather I died with a Grey knife in my throat?”
“Of course not,” she retorted, cold and quiet. “But he has made us look weak.”
“He had little choice, Salienne.”
“There is always choice. I could have freed you before that Grey could draw a breath and Melkian knows it. But he is weak, and now the Silver Guard shall be mocked for his weakness.”
Exasperated, Kyrian cast her a glare. “I cannot believe you. Melkian is the wisest warrior in Rosghel. We both know it, more surely than anyone. We owe him everything. How can you reject him as if he is to blame for our—” he stumbled, choking on the secret, on the curse—“our misfortune?”
She looked sharply at him, hearing his misstep. “Do not speak of it. Not here.”
He returned the glare. The fire to her ice. “Melkian does not deserve your hatred.”
“He lied to us.”
“Oh, for all the Skies, he raised us.”
He had not intended to speak so forcefully and he winced as the eyes of the regiment turned to him, Melkian’s included. He met the captain’s gaze and frowned, apologetic. I am trying, Melkian. Truly, I am trying. His guardian’s features fell; he faced the path ahead again.
Salienne glowered at the horizon as they marched, and Kyrian could see he had not swayed her. “I do not know why you defend him,” she sniffed. “He has deceived us—all our lives.”
Kyrian leaned toward her and lowered his voice to the conspiratorial tone reserved for the unspeakable. “He protected us, Salienne. We were not ready to know the truth. You know we were not. It was difficult enough to find a place among the Skyads without knowing that we are half—”
She silenced him with a burning glare. “Not here, Kyrian.”
“Half-bloods,” he hissed defiantly. “Say it, Salienne. Denying the truth will not make it disappear.”
His sister was white as the clouds beneath her feet, lips pressed bloodless as she wrenched her black gaze from his and glared directly ahead, signifying that their exchange had drawn to a close. He spoke the truth and she knew it, but she did not possess Kyrian’s stormy temper, his remarkable ability to flare with wrath only to forgive and forget in the same breath. Her wrath was slow to burn and near impossible to kill once blazing. A cold, cunning, bitter flame. He knew it better than most.
The pale cloudscape of Rosghel passed on the edge of Kyrian’s vision—rounded, sparkling hills and cloud formations of soft silver-white. The regiments marched along the edge, where the clear, blue Skies met the Rosghel Cloud and the Green Lands could be seen in the haze far below. The forest was sickly yellow, a dying wasteland. The Green Lands had not been green for a long time.
The sun had begun to dip beneath the Azure Sea when the regiments paused at the Rosghel Gates—twin outcroppings of cloud that formed an arch over the pass. Melkian turned to the Storm Lord, his expression as empty as his voice. “My lord Thunderfoot, welcome to Rosghel.”
They stepped beneath the gates, and the city came into view.
The streets crawled with Silvers: merchants, urchins, and trades workers returning to their homes after another difficult day’s labour. A sea of once-vibrant tunics and gowns swirled beneath the last light, faded after years of wear and destined to continue fading until trade began again between the Skies and the Green Lands. If trade began again. Kyrian was not one to place his faith in empty hopes.
The Silver warriors marched through the main avenue, a shameful journey with their hands tied behind their backs and a regiment of Greys prodding them onward, smirking like falcons. The street’s occupants shrank to the borders of the avenue to watch their passing, glancing away after a handful of moments, unable to keep from bearing their shame.
Kyrian held his gaze defiantly ahead.