by Niki Florica
The one called Ranril materialized in the gloom, the Naiads parting like a blue-robed sea to swirl in his wake as he came to stand before Kyrian, victorious. “Welcome, Skyad, to the place of your judgment. You stand within the haven of Ariad’s wise, the first captive in Dunbrielle’s ancient history.”
“What an honour,” Kyrian drawled.
The ageless face darkened, to his satisfaction. “You are unwise to test the patience of the Peacemakers, traitor. The crimes upon your account are grave indeed, and worthy of dark judgment. You have tainted the Nelduith with the blood of an abomination, brought war to our shores, and held our lady against her will.”
A blood vessel in his eye leaped to attention. “I did not harm your lady.”
“We shall see.”
The haven was flanked along its northern edge by a black, jagged cliff whose flaking stones littered the paths of Dunbrielle. It stretched east and west as far as Kyrian could see, and periodically little streams and waterfalls tumbled over its edge, spilling from some great pool beyond his sight. The pavilion into which they condemned him was a small dome built out of the crag’s shadow, a pearl canopy protruding from the cliff face, half of it buried in the wall. Upon entering he found that the cliff had been chipped away inside, doubling the space while making it somehow smaller, darker, and more dungeonlike than any Naiad craft had reason to be. It stood in the shower of a small waterfall, and the pounding of the water upon the ceiling was deafening in his already-pounding skull. It cascaded in a crystal sheen from the sloped plafond, filling the space between the pillars with a glassy curtain of water, through which he could see them—the Naiads—watching him. Watching him cough and splutter from the falls, water running with blood in rivulets down his arm.
“You cannot do this!” he roared through the watery curtain, when finally he regained his breath. He stood, shoulders heaving, and in a fury-filled act of defiance moved to step through the glistening cascade, if only to show them that their Naiad illusions would not deceive him. Would not cage him.
The moment his boot crossed the threshold, the waterfall roared, vomiting a surge of foam and spray down upon him with a force that sent him to his knees, blinded him, drowned him, and deposited him—heaving—into his prison once more.
He coughed, spat. Cursed his ill fortune. And when at last he found the strength to stand, crossed the sky-forsaken prison to kick the stone wall with every drop of his wrath, and shout when pain spiked through his bones, mocking his fury like the blue-eyed nymphs who watched him through the curtain of the falls.
Curse the Naiads. Curse the shepaard. Curse the maiden who had betrayed him, lied to him, abando—
He paused, stiffening at the slightest of sputters behind his back.
“You are wasting your strength,” said Elillian of Dunbrielle, quietly. “Your fury shall only condemn you.”
In the light of the moons through the crystal curtain, the Naiad’s eyes glowed like living sapphires, her pale gown drifting about her feet, rippling like the waves of the Azure Sea. A basin of clear water was balanced between her hands, her blond hair tucked hastily behind her ears.
He glared at her. “What are you doing here?”
She pursed her lips, returning the glare. “I did not faint.”
Weary and aching, Kyrian barely restrained a wince, hating himself for the guilt that speared his heart while she waited for him to confess the truth, waited for him to concede. It was a weak lie and he knew it, but it was a necessary one. Already he had jeopardized everything by losing the Sword to the river; if the world discovered the rise of the blade, of the Heir, if the secrecy Aradin had wished was unravelled . . .
He told himself he was justified, that it was necessary. After all, he had lied to the Robin as well.
Oh, Skies.
His flame drained, along with his fantasy.
The Robin.
She must have mistaken his expression for pain, for her eyes quickly softened and she crossed the room to him, laying her basin upon a stone table and gesturing for him to sit upon the cot along the cliff wall.
He frowned at her, his thoughts a thousand leagues away. “I do not need your pity.”
Her lips pressed in firm impatience. “Do you wish me to heal you or not?”
He sat. He could not decide whether she was concerned or infuriated as she laid a hand on his wounded shoulder and began to tear away the shredded cloth with her knife. Her hand was still grey, though less so than before, and he found himself struggling to tear his eyes from it as guilt roiled in his throat. My King, forgive me. I did not wish her to be harmed. Do not maim her for my sake, I beg of you. Her fingers worked efficiently, tearing at the bloodied cloth until most of his shoulder was exposed for the mutilated atrocity it was. Ripped flesh, dark blood, and pale shepaard saliva. She did not even flinch.
Perhaps it was his guilt, perhaps his admiration, but suddenly he was reaching for her grey hand with his left, and suddenly it was firm in his—small, strong, and confident. “It is not so cold now,” he said quietly. He felt her heartbeat pulsing in her hand, and her every muscle was rigid as she swallowed, pulled it away, and resumed her work with an intensity that betrayed shaken focus. He looked away, and silence fell.
“I must thank you,” she said suddenly, quietly, “for saving my life.”
He dismissed her miserably, stringing a hand through his hair. “Any warrior would have done the same.”
Her brows quirked skeptically, and though she attempted indifference, it was strained. “Truly?”
“Of course.” He squinted at her quizzically. “You did not think the people of the Skies would abandon a fellow warrior in the heat of battle, my lady?”
“Elillian,” she corrected, half-defensively. But found no words to protest.
“I see.”
“You must forgive my ignorance,” she justified, somewhat desperately. “I have never before seen a Skyad, and in the shadow of the Usurper the eyes of the world have darkened toward your kind.”
He snorted. “So I have learned. All the same, my lady—”
“Elillian.”
“All the same, I wish you would not look upon me as if I were an enemy. I had hoped that by fighting at your side I may have proved my worth as more than a bloodthirsty descendant of the Usurper, but perhaps it was too much to ask. You are not the first to place Tasnil’s sins upon my account since I arrived in these wretched Lands.”
At the bitter edge in his voice her eyes snapped to him, wide and bright with earnest. “I do not think you a bloodthirsty descendant of the Usurper. And I am not afraid of you.”
He choked on a tired laugh, dragging a hand over his face. “Well, then, for that you have my thanks.”
She paused, wringing a cloth over the water basin to glance at him, surprised. “If it is not me,” she asked then, lightly, as she pressed the cloth to the blood, “who was the first?”
He cocked his head. “The first?”
“To place Tasnil’s sins upon your account.”
He wiped a wet palm upon his trousers with a frown, guilt returning in a tidal wave. His heart shrivelled and his hand rose unconsciously to the silver chain strung upon his neck. Her eyes followed the gesture, and she promptly bit her lip and fell silent, as Kyrian had prayed she would. He did not wish to discuss the Robin any more than he wished to discuss the buried Sword of Kings.
Kyrian wanted nothing more than to forget every moment since this wretched day had dawned.
“I am sorry for this,” Elillian of Dunbrielle said suddenly. “For Ranril. It is not the Naiad way to seize captives by force. Since his promotion to the Peace Council, his brazenness has grown to match his arrogance.”
Kyrian frowned halfheartedly. “I would hardly call it force. How long must I remain here?”
“You shall be tried at dawn.” Her lips twisted as she pulled a broken fragment of shepaard’s tooth from the wound, and Kyrian hissed through his teeth. “My father shall see to it that you are justly
heard, but he cannot clear your account if you do not tell the truth. My people are wise. The Council shall know if you attempt to deceive them, and it shall bode ill for your judgment.”
Kyrian frowned at her, one foot jogging a sudden nervous rhythm. “What are you saying?”
“I am saying,” she answered evenly, her fingers cold against his skin, “that lies do not become you. I myself am a member of the Peace Council, but my credibility shall be tainted by this meeting. Were it not for my position as the healer of Dunbrielle, I would be rejected as a witness. I wish to help you, Skyad, but if I cannot trust your word, I cannot sway the Council on your behalf. Nor can my father.”
The rhythm of his foot quickened, but Elillian of Dunbrielle had not finished.
“I did not faint, Skyad.” She abandoned all pretence of healing, leaving his shoulder exposed in tatters of cloth, Kyrian’s blood red on her hands as they clenched at her sides. “It was your sword that burned me. Of this I am certain, and I shall not lie for you before the Council. I cannot risk that.”
He peeled his shoulders back, meeting her blue glare with his. “I would never ask it of you.”
She was whispering now, in fear of the Naiads listening blue-eyed from beyond the curtain of the falls. “Do you not understand?” she hissed. “Deception shall bring you only death! I can help you. I can sway the Council in your favour, speak upon your behalf. You have my word, I shall do all within my power to aid you, if you will simply tell me who you are and the truth of your business in the Lands.”
Kyrian was trapped in a cage growing smaller by the moment. He stood, tearing his eyes from hers, turned his back to draw a shaky breath and gather his scattered thoughts. She needed to leave him. Skies, why would she not leave him? Did she not know how difficult it was for him to meet her crystal eyes and turn her warrior courage into something weak and fragile and in need of his protection?
“Kyrian.” He opened his eyes, gazed through the clear curtain of water that held him in this prison of Peacemakers. His name was somehow more powerful in her soft, lyrical voice, holding him prisoner as her bare footfalls approached whisperingly behind his back. “Why will you not tell me the truth?”
“Why must you know?” he retorted, but it was halfhearted. He turned to face her, the Naiad maiden whose eyes reached scarcely to his chest and held no secrets, whose courage did not waver in the face of death and who would never abandon a fellow warrior in peril. “Why should you care whether I live or die?”
“I care,” she returned, half-severely. “Already I have done more for your sake than most think wise.”
“You have, my lady?” His guilt curdled into bitterness. “Have you forgotten that were it not for me, you would be dead this night beneath a shepaard’s talons?”
She whitened, lips pressing to a thin, pale line.
He was instantly drowned in remorse. “My lady . . .”
But already Elillian of Dunbrielle had turned her back upon him, the loose, pale gown whispering about her ankles as she gathered her instruments of healing—cloths, herbs, a beaded pouch—with the rigid movements of unconcealable hurt. He watched her crumple the bloody shreds of his Rosghel silks into a knot in her hand, grasp her satchel with the other, and whirl to march wordlessly for the shimmering entrance, eyes sparking blue, nostrils flaring wrath. She left a silver-white bundle on the cot. His sky-cloak. Newly cleaned.
Desperation seized Kyrian in barbed talons and he crossed the room in two strides, grasping her arm when she did not respond to his call and not releasing it even when her face whirled round, nose wrinkling in distaste. “My lady,” he said softly, pleadingly, “forgive me. I do not mean to dishonour all you have done, and I am thankful for your sacrifice. Truly I am.”
“Then tell me the truth,” she answered, fiercely. “Am I to believe that all the tales of Skyad treachery and deceit are true? That all you have said of blood and honour is no more than a Silver deception?”
“No.”
“Then trust me.” Her wrist was cold in his hand, her eyes pleading for his faith. “Kyrian,” she whispered, “who are you? Tell me the truth.”
He swallowed, longing to share his burden, terrified to misplace his faith, certain she was incapable of treachery while remembering that he had once expected such loyalty from the Robin himself. He was failing upon so many fronts. Lying, fighting, failing.
His eyes fell to his useless right hand. “You would not believe the truth.”
When she pulled free he did not meet her eyes, but allowed her to turn away, to tread the pavilion floor, to step effortlessly through the crystal falls, vanishing for a moment like a diamond apparition before appearing again, through the curtain. She held her head high as she passed from his sight, nodding in cold acknowledgment to the Naiads posted in the moonlight beyond. He watched her blue gown until it melded into gloom and faint moonlight, and his weary eyes blurred her retreat.
He sank to the floor against the stone of the cliff wall, where Naiad craft had formed the stone to complete his prison’s perfect circle. The light of the third moon danced upon the floor through the falls, but could not penetrate the gloom of the deepest recess, and it was here that Kyrian sat, with his head against the stone. Here that he cursed himself, closed his eyes, and questioned every choice he had made since the day he had cheated Rydel of Robinsdwel out of his inheritance. The day that the Sword’s light had died.
Everything was wrong. So utterly, utterly wrong.
As exhaustion claimed his weary limbs and pulsed in his shoulder, his thoughts drifted miserably from the Naiad’s failing trust to the guilt of his far greater fault.
“My King,” he whispered, desperate and alone, “you should not have chosen me. But if I have not lost all favour in your eyes, do not let the Robin die this night.”
In the light of the dying moons, a glowing golden figure emerged from the river Nelduith, brighter than the stars above and dry as the Oenghi Sands. In his arms was a bloodless, shapeless green form, a pale face wreathed in dripping curls, eyes sealed, head slumped—unconscious—against his saviour’s chest.
The golden figure laid the Robin gently upon the riverbank and knelt beside him. Had any waking mortal been present to witness it, he might have seen the golden tears streaming endlessly down his cheeks, pooling alongside the Robin’s limp hand, still warm with the faint pulse within. Weeping, for the child of Robinsdwel. Weeping for this creature who was drowning in the shadows, dying of his own darkness.
The Robin coughed, water spurting from his lips, green eyes snapping wide to stare unseeingly at the sky, blind to the golden figure at his side. Blind to the light, to the freedom in love.
“Rydel,” said the Light. “My child. Rydel.”
The Robin bolted upright, reaching for his right hand knife and blanching further upon realizing that it was in its sheath no longer. Instead he drew the left, eyes frantically searching the bank. “Who are you?”
“You know who I am, Rydel of Robinsdwel. Why do you suffer alone?”
The green eyes stretched impossibly wider, emerald orbs in an ashen visage. “No,” he whispered, voice grating in his throat. “No . . . I do not know you. Who are you? Why do you torture me? I do not know you!”
“You cannot escape your Creator, Rydel. You may drown my voice in the darkness of your own heart but always I am near, and I shall never cease to plead for your heart. Open your eyes. Look upon your King. I alone can free you from the prison of your hatred.”
The wretched creature was trembling, the knife shuddering in his bloodless hand as he stumbled away, frantically searched the shadows, choked on a breath. “I cannot see you,” he whispered. “Where are you?”
“I am here, Rydel,” said the Light, heart breaking. “I have always been here, from the moment the shadows of grief first consumed your broken heart. There is no power of good nor evil, no great height nor black depth, no darkness nor grief that can divide the Creator from his creation, and you, Rydel of Robinsdwel, are far m
ore precious to me than your mortal mind can comprehend. I cannot forsake you, Rydel. I am here, always here. That is a promise. I keep my promises. It is you who have forsaken me.”
“No,” moaned the guilt-ravaged creature, weak and crumbling and dying in the dark. “No, no, no . . .”
The Light ached for him, felt an agony a thousand times fiercer than the Robin’s rend his heart asunder for his lost, dying child. For this creature, this grandson of his beloved Camuel, this defender of Robinsdwel whose hand had stilled so many Skyad hearts and whose mind still held each one of their faces, to torture him in the shadows of night, to poison his heart with incurable guilt and chip at his sanity one fragment at a time.
“You may smother the last of the light within your heart, but still I shall not forsake you,” said the Light. “You stand upon the edge of death, but there is time yet to choose forgiveness over hatred before you are utterly consumed. Open your eyes, Rydel, my son. See the King who aches for your redemption, and the one whom I have sent to free you from yourself. Your hatred blinds you, and the dark path upon which you walk shall lead only to destruction, but my hope lies still with the Blood of Legends to fulfill my purpose for this world.” Golden tears pooled at his feet, streaming and streaming. “I have chosen you.”
The Robin shook his head. “Leave me alone . . . it is too late . . .”
In his chest, the Light knew, raged the war of utter darkness, the battle between his guilt and the beast of hatred growing stronger with each day in the shadow of his solitude. Grief had been swallowed by guilt long ago. Guilt was succumbing to hate.
The Robin breathed a moan, clutched his head between his hands, torn apart by the turmoil, a spasm seizing his shoulders when he opened his eyes and found the gash that he himself had torn in his palm. The gash that he himself had sliced to bring Kyrian’s life to an end.
The golden King watched him, shedding golden tears. Rydel of Robinsdwel clutched his hand to his chest, wide-eyed and trembling, torn by his desire to return to Robinsdwel—to leave behind the pain the Heir had brought and starve alongside his people—and the maddening, growing desperation to blot Kyrian of the Rain Realm from his earth, from his memory, forever.