The Heir of Ariad

by Niki Florica

  Kyrian felt the eyes of the Silvers upon him, boring into his back, burning him, stinging him. He dared a sidelong glance and met Berdon’s watery stare. Berdon, of all creatures. Berdon whose childhood voice was ringing in his ears and pounding against his skull, singing with mockery. Kyrian’s father is a traitor!

  His fists clenched upon the table, white and shaking.

  “Brondro is not a traitor,” Elyis whispered, hazy blue eyes wide and earnest. “Brondro served Aradin. He came to the Skies for a purpose. He disappeared for a purpose. He is not a traitor.”

  Kyrian’s hands trembled on the ledge. Skies ablaze, where was Salienne when he needed her?

  Elyis raised his eyes and cocked his wild white head. “Brondro Tarmilis is not a traitor, and Aradin is not dead. Killed, perhaps, but not dead. All for a purpose. Everything. Always.”

  The Grey’s cold, dead eyes narrowed to slits in his cruel, wicked face. “Unhand me, filth, or I swear by Tasnil’s black heart I shall kill you.”

  Elyis blinked, confusion dawning on his pale features, panic gleaming in his eyes as he seemed to snap from his fevered trance into a stark reality he did not understand. He glanced frantically about him, eyes falling to the bony hand wrapped still about the seething Grey’s wrist.

  He blinked again, swallowed. Stared blankly at the Storm warrior for a long, still moment.

  Then, “Could you spare a glass? A mouthful? Could a strong warrior spare a glass for a weary miner?”

  In answer, the Grey chortled, raised a sharp-knuckled hand, and struck Elyis of the Rain Realm fully across the face.

  Three

  And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian:

  -Acts 7:24

  Elyis staggered back with a cry, blood trailing down his chin, fear wide in his eyes. Deathly silence fell over the tower as the Silvers watched, breathless, but too Skyad, too proud and uncertain and purely Skyad to do anything but watch. Kyrian felt his heart tighten in his chest.

  The Grey stalked toward his fallen victim and Elyis stumbled backward in terror, toward the open doorway, toward escape, stuttering and dripping blood. Avel was shouting over the ledge, first threats, then pleas as Elyis pressed himself to the tower wall and the Grey struck him again, laughing. The blow was harder this time, and a glint of metal revealed to all the rings upon the Storm warrior’s hand. Elyis raised his feeble arms to deflect the blow, crying out when the Grey grasped his wrists and raised him to his feet, only to strike him again, roaring as the elder crumbled to the ground.

  Kyrian shoved himself from the ledge, blood flowing like liquid fire in his veins. The Silvers simply watched—silent, selfish, and impossibly proud as all pure Skyad warriors were born to become, as all pure Skyad warriors strove to be. He crossed the room in two strides, skull pounding with the beat of his own heart, hot and burning with anger, with hatred, with fury.

  Elyis’ milky eyes widened in pure, unmitigated terror as the Grey raised his hand for another blow, laughing in wicked delight.

  His laughter died in his throat when he turned to find Kyrian’s hand clenched about his wrist, killing the blow before it could fall. His pale blue eyes spewed flame. Spewed murder.

  Kyrian did not balk. His fingers tightened. “Perhaps it is different in the Storm Realm,” he said, his voice soft and even and laced with venom, “but in Rosghel, Grey, we do not strike our elders.”

  The Grey’s nostrils flared and he wrenched to free his arm, but Kyrian held firm, challenging him with his eyes, daring him to resist. Elyis stared, wide-eyed, but if he recognized his saviour, he gave no indication.

  “You dare to challenge me, Silver?” the Grey hissed, eyes gleaming. “You think yourself strong enough without your captain to plead for your life?”

  Kyrian was a living flame, flaring hotter by the moment, pulse rising with every heartbeat. He wet his tongue, swallowed, willed himself to breathe. “Leave him alone, Grey.”

  He would not fight. He could not fight. It had been years. And he had promised Melkian.

  Stars exploded in his vision and he found himself on his knees, coughing—heaving—for breath while the Grey’s wicked laughter filled the air and echoed in the pounding of blood in his ears. His chest ached. He felt the eyes of the Silvers upon him, uncertain and astounded, and their eyes kindled him, fuelled him, fed his burning flame. Avel called his name. He ignored it. The Grey struck Elyis again, and a surge of blood exploded from the frail miner’s nostrils beneath whimpers of pain. A scarlet droplet landed upon Kyrian’s hand. His vision blurred red.

  When he stood the world tilted, but he willed it to still. He was burning, blazing, white-hot and invincible and sparking wrath. His hand clenched into a white-knuckled fist.

  This time, when the Grey’s hand raised, glinting metal, Kyrian struck hard.

  The Grey collapsed to the ground with a wheeze, the breath blown from his lungs by the strike to the flesh beneath his ribs. Kyrian seized the moment to heave Elyis to his feet. The old miner’s eyes were wide as blood spilled from his broken nose; he seemed unable to move, unable to speak, to think.

  “Are you all right?” Kyrian barked, shaking the elder when he received no response. “Say something, Elyis! Are you all right?”

  The Grey cursed behind his back. Kyrian heard him struggling to his feet and knew his time was dwindling. He forced Elyis to meet his eyes, shook the frail shoulders. “Go, Elyis! You need to leave—now!”

  The miner stared emptily at him, bloody and stuttering nonsense.

  “Elyis, go!”

  He heard the sharp intake of breath behind his back and acted upon instinct, throwing Elyis to the wall and positioning himself to shield the broken miner from the coming blow. It landed hard upon his right side and he winced, jerking Elyis toward the door, dodging the next predictable strike meant for his temple. The doorway yawned before them. Kyrian shoved Elyis over the threshold. The miner landed hard upon the cloudy ground and hesitated there—motionless, uncertain, and pitifully confused, blood streaming down his face.

  “Go, you fool!” Kyrian roared. “For all the Skies, Elyis, run!”

  The trance shattered and Elyis obeyed as swiftly as his broken body could bear him, trailing blood on the cloudy ground as he stumbled in the direction of the city.

  Kyrian had only a moment to watch his flight before a fist was in his ribs and he stumbled against the doorpost, dodging a second blow only by a breath. He winced, but the pain was nothing compared to the burn, the fire, the flame, sparking hotter by the moment.

  “You think yourself a saviour, Silver?” the Grey spat behind his back. Kyrian turned to face him, one foot in the tower, the other braced against the cloud beyond the door. His every muscle was alive, pulsing with readiness. “You think yourself strong enough to defeat a champion of the Storm Realm?”

  A thousand warnings blared in his mind at once, ringing with the roar of blood in his ears. It had been too long. He was weak with thirst. He had promised Melkian. Loud and blurred they screamed in his skull, but wrath arose to drown them and he heard only his heartbeat, strong and fast and fed by fire.

  “You are confident,” he heard himself spit, “for one who strikes old ravers for a challenge.”

  The Grey laughed, pale eyes gleaming. “Good. You are arrogant.”

  “I am not an old raver.”

  Avel stood behind the ledge, pale and breathless. “Enough, Kyrian. For all the Skies, think!”

  “Silence, keeper!” the Grey snapped, before Kyrian could do it himself. The Silvers were standing in a crowded ring about the watchtower door, witnesses to a long-awaited war. They did not interfere, did not fly to his defence. They knew him too well to doubt his strength, and respected him too much to place his courage in question. This was his place in Rosghel, in the guard. Not liked, particularly. But respected. A respect he had earned with his own blood and tears and pain.

  Familiar adrenaline pulsed in his veins as h
e widened his stance and clenched his fists, a silent challenge. The last time, he had been a child, fighting childish battles for childish gain. This was real, against a real enemy and real hate, but he felt no fear. He was born for this. He had missed this.

  The Grey struck first, predictably, but Kyrian sidestepped it and lunged forward in his enemy’s moment of imbalance to land a fist beneath his ribs. A satisfying gasp escaped the Grey’s lips but he swiftly recovered, and his eyes blazed blue fire as he seized Kyrian’s still-extended arm like lightning and wrenched it hard, twisting it almost to the breaking point while his other fist blasted Kyrian in the temple. He felt the metal of the Grey’s ring and saw stars, but still managed to kick backward, wrenching free when something cracked beneath his foot. The Grey roared a curse. Kyrian danced around him, tossing black hair from his eyes, alive with the thrill of a fight. He shook sensation into his arm, breathing fast and hard, as the Grey, upon one knee, cursed him through gasps of pain. The pain in his skull throbbed distantly, beneath a drumming heart.

  Somehow, with liquid fire in his veins and a reckless smile on his lips, Kyrian’s eyes found Avel’s across the ledge, alight with pleading, with warning. Enough of this, Kyrian, they implored, shining. Enough. Please. You have nothing to prove.

  The fire sputtered. Kyrian hesitated, poised upon the balls of his feet with his fingers clenched into fists and his heart beating faster, faster in his chest. What was he doing? He was fighting. Why? Why, when he had promised Melkian? The Silvers watched him, waiting expectantly for Rosghel’s fiery champion to claim the victory as he always did, as he always had.

  He could claim the victory now. He wanted to claim it.

  But Skies and moons—Melkian.

  His heartbeat of hesitation was all the Grey required. With a roar of rage he lunged for Kyrian with all his weight, carrying them both through the open doorway and onto the cloud beyond. They landed hard, Kyrian pinned beneath his enemy’s armoured bulk, breathless with the impact and all momentum shattered by his moment of hesitation. The Grey’s eyes flamed pure murder. Kyrian wondered what he had broken.

  And then the cold hands were tight about his throat, and panic chilled his fire to ice.

  The Grey’s fingers encircled his throat like a living noose, pressing to kill every breath in Kyrian’s lungs. He struggled, writhed, lashed, but in pure weight he was wildly disadvantaged and his enemy was not moved. His heart pounded in his chest, in his ears, in his skull, seeking air, finding none. He tore at the cold hands and the fingers gripped tighter. Stars swam in his vision, the world’s edges fading to black. Panic hummed in every fibre of his being with every moment he could not breathe, could not think, every moment death closed nearer upon him, and he was almost incoherent when the Grey’s fingers loosened to allow him a shallow breath that burned in his throat. His enemy leaned forward until the blue eyes were a breath from his own, pale, cold, and gleaming with malice. Murderer. The eyes of a murderer.

  Skies. He was dying.

  No. He was being murdered.

  His eyes rolled back and the world swirled, but he was not quite gone, not yet, when the Grey’s hot breath rasped into his ear, “Failure suits you, Silver. Savour your slow death . . . I shall.”

  Would Salienne cry for him? He had never seen her cry. Would Melkian? Yes. In the darkness of the manor beside a dying fire. Alone, if she did not forgive him. Kyrian prayed she would. If only for him.

  “Would you like to know what is next, Silver?” the Grey whispered. Someone was shouting, Silvers and Avel, tearing at the Grey, but he held firm. Their voices blurred in Kyrian’s fading thoughts. Death was agonizingly slow. The Grey’s fingers loosened still more to allow him a precious breath, a last breath. He chuckled in Kyrian’s ear. “When you are dead I shall find your old raver, the precious lunatic you thought worth defending.” He laughed. “And I shall kill him as well.”

  His fingers had loosened almost completely when Kyrian heaved a breath, filled his lungs, felt something within him flare to life then shatter into a thousand jagged shards. Silvers pulled his enemy from him, someone was shouting for him. Life drummed in his chest with every breath, every glorious, pure, unobstructed breath. Something in his heart exploded. And I shall kill him as well.

  Someone was screaming. The world spun. Kyrian was on his feet, and then he was not, and the Grey was beneath him and the universe narrowed to twin blue eyes and his right fist clenched and swung and the Grey’s head snapped to the left. The ache in his knuckles was glorious. He did it again.

  I shall find your old raver, and I shall kill him as well.

  Kyrian was burning, melting, blazing. In his mind he saw Elyis with blood streaming from a broken nose and milky eyes wide with terror and an expression of pure confusion upon his ancient, mad face. Elyis, with his old bony hands and earnest, childlike innocence and pure, unstained belief in Aradin, in Brondro, in a world ruled by good. Elyis, who remembered the truth of Kyrian’s father.

  His father.

  Berdon had been the first to call Brondro a traitor, when they were young, only children. Kyrian had flown upon him, shouting and striking blindly, small and weak and fuelled by fire. The other children had pinned him to the clouds while Berdon had struck, again and again and again while Kyrian had screamed their cowardice to the world and dared them to fight like true warriors. Melkian had found him there, bruised and tear-streaked, hiccuping sobs to his sister.

  Something cracked beneath Kyrian’s fist. He kept striking.

  Melkian had lifted him from the cloudy ground and held him to his chest. Melkian had told him that his father was not a traitor, that he had fled for a purpose with the Sword of Kings and it would not be the last time Kyrian heard the lies. Melkian had told him the truth, again and again, every night until Kyrian was satisfied, until the doubt was buried. Melkian had dried his tears, warned him not to fight, but ruffled his hair and cleaned his bloody knuckles when he chose to do it anyway. Melkian had always believed.

  Melkian had lied.

  Kyrian, you are a half-blood, Silver and Green.

  Why did you never tell us?

  You were not ready to know.

  Why did you lie to us?

  I wished to protect you.

  Why do I not have the Skyad gift?

  Because your father’s blood runs in your veins.

  Why, why, why why why?

  His knuckles ached. He could not remember what he was doing but continued doing it, hard and fast while memories simmered in his blood. He had forgiven his guardian, chosen to forgive him. Salienne had refused, despite the fact that she had always been the more Skyad of them, the one blessed with the Skyad gift, with beauty, with Rosghel’s respect. He was the one the mist would not obey. He was the one the Skyads had mocked, the one who had fought for supremacy among children to gain the respect of his people. He was the one with the right to bitterness. Why had he chosen to forgive? Why had his father abandoned them? Why had his mother died?

  The trance shattered, melting into breathlessness, a pounding heart, and a dull, distant pain in his right hand. A face was stark against the cloudy ground, stained purple and scarlet and beaten beyond recognition. He found himself staring into a Storm warrior’s icy blue eyes, turned skyward, wide and blank and empty of all murder, all cruelty. All life.

  Kyrian’s throat constricted.

  When a moment before the world had been chaos, there was now deathly silence. Kyrian stumbled back as if burned by the body and closed his eyes, fighting desperately to drown the sight in the darkness behind his eyelids. Horror lodged in his throat and he heaved for breath upon hands and knees, the pale, ghostly gaze swimming in his memory as a host of Silvers wakened from the spell.

  Their voices brushed the edge of his consciousness and he shoved them away, fighting to breathe, fighting to think. He was trembling—violently—shuddering upon his hands and knees beneath the weight of his guilt. Nausea roiled in his stomach, then rose to his throat. Shaking he retched his rati
ons onto the cloud between his white hands, again and again and again until there was nothing left to leave him. He heard his name. Somewhere. Blue eyes swam in his vision.

  What have I done what have I done what have I done . . .

  The spell weakened gradually, until Silver voices were clear in his ears and shrill with fear, disbelief, and underlying excitement. His fellow warriors jostled him as they flew to the Grey and knelt to listen for a pulse in his chest, but they would not find one. He knew they would not. The Grey was dead. He had felt it. Someone shouted for the captain to be found, and Kyrian glanced up in time to meet Berdon’s eyes across the cloud, the watery blue stare darting uncertainly from Kyrian to the Grey to the shouting Silvers. He was not the same creature he had been then, as a child. Something had happened somewhere along the thread of their lives, to change him, to break him, and now his passion and his loyalties were a frayed tie, easily altered and easily replaced. Kyrian watched him sprint for the barracks, and something hysterical within him choked out a laugh.

  Skies ablaze, what would Melkian say?

  Hysteria and panic blended toxically within him and he felt his every muscle tense. Berdon would tell the captain. Melkian would tell the Storm Lord. The Storm Lord would demand justice and exhaust his forces to arrest the offender, an offender convicted by a tower filled with witnesses. He had no defence, for there was none. He had chosen to fight after Elyis had escaped, he had pounded the life from his victim in cold blood, he had murdered a Storm warrior. Murdered him.

  And now they would kill him for it.

  He was still fighting to form a coherent thought when a hand rested suddenly upon his shoulder, accompanied by a voice in his ear.

  “Run, Kyrian,” Avel hissed, “before Thunderfoot arrives with Melkian. Run.”

  He glanced upward into the eyes of the low-rank Silver keeper whose bold wisdom had been a steadfast presence through every trial of his life. He inhaled, disbelieving, grasping for his senses.