by Ronie Kendig
They hustled to fulfill her orders as the queen and the Jujak warrior continued down the stairs. It took several long minutes before they reached the royal residences and the Jujak plodded over the ornate rugs that lined the hall to her private chambers. Her mother’s pale blue dress made her appear as a ghost, swimming in and out of rooms before finally throwing open the doors to Kae’s room.
“The bed.”
“Yes, my queen,” the Jujak said, delivering Kae to the bed.
“Leave us. When her handmaid is recovered, send her here at once. And make sure the pharmakeia knows where to find us.”
“Yes, my queen.”
After a soft snick of the locks, her mother stood staring at the door.
Kaelyira could take it no longer. “Mother . . .”
Her mother swung around, and in a billowing cloud of satin and organza, rushed to the bed. Crawled up on the feathered mattress beside Kae and pulled her into her arms. “Oh, my darling girl!”
And the tears came. “I’m so sorry.” Mentally, she clung to her mother. “I beg your mercy. I was a fool.”
Hands cupped her head, her mother’s heartbeat thumping against her ear. “Shh, shh.”
“I had to do it. I had to. I could not let Poired deliver my gift to Sirdar. I could not. But I didn’t know . . . I didn’t know I’d feel so empty.” The tears rushed down her face, cleansing Kaelyria of the terror she had invited into their family and realm. “I didn’t know!”
13
I will have his head!
Zireli sprinted through the stone passages, the blood in his veins heated with the venom of hatred against the one who had brought about the sure destruction of his line and the realms. “Leave ka’Dur to me,” he shouted over his shoulder as they rounded the last bend.
“He’s not there,” a voice called from behind.
Zireli slowed and glanced back. Kiesa stood, cheeks flushed and eyes rimmed in the red of tears. He started toward her. “What do you know?”
“He’s fled, my king. Out the servant’s passage,” she said, bobbing her head toward the back of the keep.
“Go,” he ordered six warriors. “Capture this miscreant and bring him to me.” After sharing a glance with the remaining Jujak and flexing his hands as if stroking the embers of rage, he took a measured breath. Turned to the servant. “My daughter.”
The girl curtseyed and tucked her chin. “In her chambers with the queen, sire.”
He pivoted and headed back down the stairs to the residential wing. Though there appeared to be no imminent danger, his nerves itched to run. To fling himself down the passage. He quickened his steps.
Then slowed as sobs reached him through the thick doors of Kaelyria’s chambers. Punched him in the chest.
Zireli stepped into the room, sunlight streaming in through an open window, dust particles dancing on a beam that touched his daughter’s bed. What had possessed his wife to bring Kaelyria down here, where she could be seen in such a state by all? “Why have you brought her here?”
Adrroania stood. Stepped away from their daughter, her hands held out to the sides. She turned to him, haunted. Her face stricken white.
“What?” Zireli rushed toward the curtained bed.
“Nothing.” It was Kaelyria’s voice. But it also wasn’t. He stared at her face, hearing the emptiness in the lone word she had spoken mirror the vacant expression she wore. Blue eyes still rimmed with red, she stared toward the window. “We should go to him.”
A chill slithered down his spine.
“He would be our advocate. It is only right.”
“How can you say that?” Adrroania gasped. “He is our sworn enemy, ravaging villages, murdering our people.”
“It is necessary.” Still focused on the window, Kaelyria hadn’t blinked. A tear slipped down her cheek. She spoke as one without a will. One attached to the strings of—
“He’s in her head!” In one fell swoop, Zireli swept aside his wife. Planted himself between his daughter and the beam of light. Palms splayed, he sliced an X in the air and stepped back, ready to spar. “Release her!”
A father’s anger rose up within him. A righteous anger. Powerful and pure, unlike that of rage or arrogance. Zireli drew back his right hand and cupped the swell of heat he sensed there. A tendril, really. Nothing more. But powerfully focused, so much that it had at first escaped his notice. Curling his fingers around the thrumming force, he shoved it back. “She is protected! By her father, the king. By the Flames. By Abiassa!”
An angry roar spiraled up through the air and slammed into Zireli. The disembodied punch snapped his head back. Pain exploded between his eyes. His foot slipped. Warmth slid over his lip.
He recovered, gathering the heat and embers Abiassa granted. “Yield I will not,” he yelled, his throat scraping raw with the effort. “You cannot have her!”
Shouldering into the battle unseen by the ungifted, Zireli honed all his righteous anger at the beam that had sneaked past his senses. That had seized his daughter’s mind and turned her own will against her. But he felt the resistance. Felt it pushing against him, as if a Jujak had his armor-plated shoulder against his own. With his left hand, bracing against the torrent, he drew on the heat. On the fire of Poired’s anger . . . and sent the volley back to him with a swift flick.
The torrent snapped closed.
Yellow light blinked gray. A breeze rushed in through the window, tussling his hair. Behind him, he heard a choked cry. He spun back to his family, wiping the warm blood from his beard. “Adrroania, get the pharmakeia.”
• • •
Kaelyria slumped. Breathing hard and vaguely aware as someone gathered her in his arms. Pain . . . fear . . . terror held her captive. Unable to think. She sobbed. Though she couldn’t control her limbs, she imagined she trembled all the way to her toes. Hot tears streamed down her cheeks as strong, gentle hands clasped her shoulders. Righted her.
Surprise spiraled through her as she met her father’s gold eyes. “Gold amid the Flames . . .” Accelerants’ eyes turned gold while wielding, but the embers smothered and the natural color returned within minutes. But when? When had he wielded? She had no memory. Of anything since . . . “Fath—”
“Quiet,” he said, tugging her back against his chest.
More tears fell, confusion rampant, but the relief of his presence thickened her throat. Then at once, it flooded back to her. “Poired.” The tightening of her father’s arms around her was a sweet comfort. “I . . . I let him in.”
“It takes but a crack in the best accelerant’s armor for the darkness to become a plague.”
“I’m so sorry. About that. About trusting Cilicien. I’ve been a fool!” she muttered against the gold threaded jewels of his jerkin. Kaelyria wanted to clutch the fabric, clutch him. “I wanted to save—”
He eased her back against the mattress and shifted around in front of her; his skilled, strong hands tucked the blanket around her shoulders even as his gaze never left hers. Blue eyes so constant—like Haegan’s. Blond hair lightly threaded with silver. Formidable and handsome. “You have done well, Kaelyria.”
Tears stung her eyes again. “No!”
Again, he squeezed her arms. “He is strong. Practiced. Think you the incipient has had no training? He has had the best training at the Citadel, and when he was stripped, the most cunning master.”
“Sirdar.” Tears blurred her vision. “What have I done? I was desperate when I heard of him smothering accelerants’ gifts and stealing others. I couldn’t let it happen. I did the unthinkable . . . too late. I’m too late!”
Pensive, he looked out on their kingdom. Sat there for several long minutes. And even beneath his soft facial hair, his jaw muscle popped. Age had become an enemy to him in the last few years. “I never thought it would fall while I protected the Nine.” He blinked and gave a quick, gentle smile as he cupped her head. “How do you feel?”
“Tired.”
He nodded. “But your thoughts.”
She blinked.
“Are they your own. Do you feel the traces of him? Do you taste ash in your mouth?”
“Ash.” She frowned. “No. I sense nothing. And at first, I could remember nothing.” The fiery shards of the moments before she found herself staring into her coverlets. “It was terrifying. Confusing. I could not breathe nor free myself. I heard him—in my head. Somehow my thoughts became . . . twisted. Tangled.” She knit her brow, imploring him with sorrow. “How? Is that even possible? Am I losing my mind as well as my strength now?”
He sighed and looked over his shoulder. Only then did she notice her mother there.
“What . . . what is it?” Kaelyria felt her nerves fraying more. “What holds you prisoner in your thoughts as he held me in mine?”
King Zireli rose and walked toward his queen. Back to Kaelyria, he whispered something indiscernible, then started for the door.
“What?” Panic flushed her face. “Do not treat me as a child! Speak plainly, for we must find way out of the keep this very day—that is, if we are to evade what he said.”
Her father pivoted. His face bright. Eyes challenging. “You heard him? His voice. Not just a touch on your mind, but he spoke to you?”
“Yes. No.” She blinked again, struggling to breathe. “I don’t know. I just—”
Her mother came and sat on the bed with her, smoothing Kaelyria’s hair. “What did you hear, my sweet girl?”
Skirting a glance to her father, who stood as if ready for battle, Kaelyria inhaled. Again she smelled the carnage. Remembered the strewn bodies. “I saw . . . death. Destruction. And he said . . . he said I would yield.”
“Don’t you see, Adrroania!” Her father’s voice reverberated across the stones. “It has begun—she has unleashed the demon from his boundaries!”
14
A shock of cold cracked his head.
Haegan jerked upward, water dripping from his face and tunic. Stunned, mind still clinging to the cobwebs of sleep, he grew aware of the crowd that stood around him, frowning down on him as he lay in the dirt—water and dirt. Praegur held a dripping bucket. Murmurs and concerned expressions mottled the crowd.
The attention stirred his pulse. He didn’t want attention. No attention. Not when he was in the keep. Especially not now.
He struggled to his feet, wiping his now-muddied hands.
Praegur was there, his arm coming up under him for support. “Are you sure you—”
“Aye.” He winced as scampering torchlight from a shop seared the backs of his eyes. “What happened?”
“Everything!” Laertes bounded ahead of them, spinning around to walk backward. “One second we was waiting for him what wields to blast the Asykthian to ashes, and the next you fall right down like what a sack of potatoes does.”
Tokar fell into step, ever brooding and annoyed.
Thiel. Where was she?
“People was shouting,” Laertes went on, animated. “The Ignatieri went branding hot and, next thing what we know—”
“Where’s Thiel?”
“—Thiel’s gone!”
Haegan stopped short. “What?”
“Keep walking,” Tokar ordered, apparently having taken control of the group in Thiel’s absence. Nobody had ever said the girl was in charge, but he dared one of them to challenge her to her face.
Tokar set a fast pace, his anger strong. “We’ve had enough attention for one day. Let’s get to camp and figure things out.”
“Figure what out?” Flames, the water must have shocked his brain, too. “Wait—what happened?”
“That’s what I was trying to say,” Laertes put in. “The accelerants were asking about us.”
“No.” Tokar trudged into the valley where more than a dozen wagons, including theirs, had encamped. “About him.” He stabbed a length of stick at Haegan.
“Me?” Haegan’s heart stuttered.
“You were fainting like a girl,” Tokar said with a sneer. “They wanted to know about your parents.”
“That’s when I said you ain’t got none.”
“Don’t have any,” Haegan corrected Laertes without thinking.
The lad scowled. “It don’t matter how I say it. Still means the same thing.”
“Look, you’re bringing a heap of trouble on us,” Tokar said. “I’m thinking you should stay in camp while we look for Thiel.”
“We must get Thiel back—the more eyes the better. When did you last see her?”
“When the big-mouth rider took her,” Laertes said.
Haegan stilled, glancing to the others. “The riders took her?”
“She was lurking over by the trees,” Praegur said. “Then the leader barreled past you and lifted her by the scruff of her neck like she wasn’t anything.”
“We must get her back.” Haegan cringed as a pang stole through his side again. “Now.”
“You’re in no shape, and you are as awkward on your feet as you are in the way you act. If you go with us and the Asykthians hear us before we get Thiel out, we’ll all be trussed before you can say ‘raqine.’” Tokar held nothing back. Including his dislike for Haegan, which smarted more than Haegan would give voice to.
“Your feelings toward me should not engender ill will toward Thiel. If you know where they are, lead the way. Or would you like us to keep you informed as we search?”
Tokar stood straight, challenge glinting in his eyes.
“Very well. Let’s go.” Haegan waited.
Tokar spun, dropping quickly into a silent half-run toward the wooded area at the base of the northern cliffs. Leaves crackled beneath Haegan’s feet as he jogged in a crouch. The taller, broader Praegur glanced over his shoulder. “Slower. Lighter.”
Haegan tried—Flames knew he tried to be quiet. But adjusting to legs he could walk on, let alone sneak on . . . well, he hadn’t perfected the technique of stalking just yet. Frustration wrapped around him as they closed in on the Asykthians’ camp. A dozen paces from the riders’ fire, they slowed. Beyond the reach of the firelight, shadows shifted and groaned like ghouls, spilling dread across Haegan’s shoulders and down his spine.
Nearly laughing aloud, Haegan realized his folly. No ghosts in the night. Just those massive horses, tethered to a line. A branch snapped beneath his boot.
Tokar spun, whites of his eyes bulging. Lips screwed tight, he stabbed a finger to the ground. “Wait here.”
What? “No! I might be new but I care just as much,” Haegan argued in a whisper. “It is my—”
“What? Your right to mess it up?” Tokar interjected.
“Just . . . wait.” Praegur knelt beside them. “Thiel is tough. If you can’t keep quiet, you put her in danger. And I might not know you much, but I can figure out you wouldn’t want her hurt. Right?”
Haegan had no reply.
“Besides,” Laertes said from the side. “Isn’t she one of them anyway?”
“Shut up.” Tokar pivoted and started moving.
“One of whom?”
“Stay.” Praegur gave him a look then followed the other teen.
I’m older and a prince. Yet among them I am nothing.
Of no use.
Much like at home.
Gritting his teeth, Haegan knelt in the forest litter as the others, even the much younger Laertes, sneaked toward the Asykthian camp. Slumped against an aspen, he sighed. Wrestled with the truth of his existence. Despite having strength for the first time in more than a decade, he felt weaker than ever.
Haegan pushed off the tree and drifted away from the camp, deeper into the trees. He touched the bark. Bandra oak. He visually traced the tree to its canopy. Savored the rough feel beneath his hands. As he walked, he stared through the branches that had already begun to shed their leaves in anticipation of winter. He spotted a harkling, mostly found in northern lands and known for its vibrant colors. His wilds knowledge coming to life. What would Kaelyria think? That he should get his head out of the leaves and back onto more important matters.<
br />
His heart caught, remembering his sister—now afflicted with his condition. Paralyzed. Captive within limbs that refused cooperation.
He paused, hand on an aspen, mentally retracing his steps. Reminding himself he had a mission—get to the Falls. Stand beneath the healing waters and return to Seultrie to free Kae before it was too late. Before whatever Cilicien had done became permanent.
“No,” Haegan ground out. He would not see his sister confined to a bed and wheeled chair for the rest of her given years. He would not see her relegated to the tower, her beauty and purity concealed within unfeeling stone.
Not like they did to me.
“It will not happen,” he whispered his vow into the wind.
A voice answered.
Haegan flinched and looked around. Wait. Where was he? How far had he ventured? He hadn’t been paying attention. Had he been followed?
Again the voice came. Haegan paused, head tilted as he homed in on the sound. Voices. More than one. He turned slightly, careful not to stir the floor litter or—as he had clumsily done before—snap a twig.
With each silent step, the voices grew louder.
Haegan willed himself to be stealthy. Patient but intent. Patient? How does one stay patient when a friend was in danger?
The voices sounded near now. He used trees as shields but knew with the white bark and his dark tunic, camouflage would be near impossible. Ahead, a fog-drenched clearing stretched a hundred paces across before colliding with the encircling trees. And there they stood, enveloped by encroaching darkness, their words swallowed by the mist. His boot hit a stump. Haegan caught and braced himself, eyes glued on the scene before him.
The Asykthian leader grabbed the arm of the other, who wrenched free. He knew that defiant posture. Thiel! His heart skipped a beat. Where were Praegur and Tokar?
The raider jerked her toward himself. Would the brigand try to violate her here, where he thought they were alone?
I will not let that happen!
Again, she ripped free of the man’s grip.