by Ronie Kendig
“I don’t understand.”
Voices in the passage drew his attention seconds before the iron gate swung inward. The Drigo and Aselan entered.
“Dress, Prince.” Aselan tossed clean clothes at him.
“You are releasing me?”
“Nay, the storm still rages. No one leaves the Heart. Get dressed.” He pointed to a small divider that afford a modicum of privacy.
“I must return, Cacique. You know this.” Haegan stepped behind the tightly stretched leather screen and changed. “I am the only living heir of Zireli. It is my duty, my obligation to do whatever it takes to wipe out the scourge that is Poired Dyrth.” Would he never shake the images of that cackling devourer of accelerants? Shrugging the tunic into a more comfortable position, he stepped from behind the divider. “Please release me so I may—”
Aselan swept his foot out from under him and at the same time grabbed his throat, slamming Haegan down and pinning him to the dais.
Air punched from Haegan’s lungs. He gaped up in shock at the cacique.
“Ye cannot see me coming, ye cannot see yer enemy coming. Tell me, how will ye stop Poired, thin-blood?”
Pawing with bandaged hands at the cacique’s strangling grip, Haegan choked out, “I will bring war to him.”
Brown eyes narrowed beneath a fringe of black hair. “Think ye not that yer father did exactly that?” Aselan sighed then released Haegan and stared down at him. “What do ye know, what can ye do, Prince, that yer father did not?”
Humiliated, Haegan pried himself off the dais.
Aselan stood before him now. “Ye have what, seventeen, eighteen cycles?”
“Eighteen.” Just. He’d not celebrated the day of his birth because he’d been running for his life.
“Zireli was forty-three when he perished. Nearly twenty-three of those years spent as Fire King.”
Haegan would never forget . . . his tormenting dreams would not grant him the freedom to do so.
“He spent ten years learning in the Citadel before being taken under the wing of the grand marshal for final training.” Aselan crossed his arms. “Only two men have trained with the grand marshal in the last decade—yer father and Thurig. Do ye not know yer Histories, Prince? I thought ye had an aged and wise guardian looking after ye.”
“He was a pestering annoyance, but, yes, Gwogh was wise.”
“Gwogh.” Aselan’s gaze widened, then he nodded. “Think back to the first Celahar to take the Fire King’s throne.”
“Baen, who became Zaelero the Second.”
“How many children did Zaelero have?”
“But one—”
“Nay nay nay,” Aselan growled, his icehounds slumping on the ground in apparent boredom. “Just like a Celahar . . .” he muttered before turning back to Haegan. “Three. There were three children born to him by Nydessa: Ybienn, Hetaera, and—”
“Zaethien.”
“Why is it, Prince, that ye recall only yer ancestor?”
This . . . no, it didn’t make sense. “I studied what was in the Histories.”
“Bah!” With a quick wave to Toeff, Aselan sighed and exited the room, his icehounds trotting after him.
Haegan stepped forward cautiously, but the cacique had already stormed out of sight.
A blast of hot breath skated down his neck, ruffling his tunic. “Toeff think you should hurry,” the giant grumbled.
Scurrying behind the hounds, Haegan banked left as he had seen the cacique do seconds earlier. But when he got there, he found a six-point juncture. All possible routes stood dark and barren.
“Quickly, Prince,” Aselan’s voice boomed from the left.
Two openings. He squinted into one and caught a faint glimmer of light. Haegan ventured in, his shoulders tightening at the darkness. Never mind the cold that chewed his bones. How could they live with the damp, dark, and cold?
He would trade it all in a heartbeat for the Lakes of Fire. To feel the heat against his face again. Summer breezes that cleared his sinuses. Unlike the relentless cold here that—without Hoeff’s teas—would make it difficult to breathe, let alone think.
And the darkness! “I cannot see,” he called into the passage. “I . . . cannot see,” he repeated, his voice falling to a whisper. “And I’m alone.” He glanced back, but there was only a dot of light at the far end.
Weight pressed against his chest. Constricted his throat. Hating the confined space, he closed his eyes. Huffed through his nose. Breathe. Just breathe. Don’t think about it. You’re fine—in the tower overlooking all of Seultrie.
Which burned to the ground.
The tower . . . crumbling . . . crumbling. His father’s shout!
Being chased from the only home he knew. Holding his father as he died. Carrying Kae to her death. Alone. Defeated. Nothing he could do. Now he would suffocate on the frigid anger of Abiassa.
“Find a—good, ye used yer head. Hurry. Bring the stone light ye touched.”
Haegan snapped his eyes open, the area around him illuminated. Stone light? He hadn’t touched—Haegan looked at his hands. It was not a stone light providing him direction, but him. Heat wakes warbled around his hands, flames dancing gently.
“Prince! I have duties. Hurry.”
He swallowed, seeing now that the bandages had fallen to the ground as ash. Amid them, unburned, a green plant of some kind. I did not think there existed enough heat in these cursed passages to draw out.
His gaze again hit the plant. He could wield now. No pain. No marks. The plant. Haegan seized that truth then stalked with fierce intent toward Aselan’s voice. Stormed out of the passage.
Aselan turned his head—and snapped fully around, a blade in hand.
“You knew,” Haegan growled. “You knew about me. The bandages—my hands were not injured.”
The icehounds growled, slinking forward, heads down. Teeth bared.
Dagger to the side, no doubt more than able to use it, Aselan held out a staying hand, first to the hounds, then to Haegan. “Easy, Prince. It was necessary. Accelerants do not enter the Heart—are not allowed to—because not only would ye draw heat, ye would sap our very air. ’Twould suffocate everyone here.”
“The leaves—”
“Sangeen.” Aselan shook his head. “They’ve worked before.” Another shake, brown eyes wide. “I know not how ye were able to burn them off. Those leaves should have numbed yer ability to draw on the embers. It was not meant as harm against ye, but as protection for my people.”
“Do you know what I am?”
The blade in Aselan’s knife glinted as the cacique tightened his grip. His gaze never left Haegan’s. “A guess. The marks—Hoeff panicked when he saw them. It’s why he suggested the sangeen.”
And they didn’t try to kill him. Sometimes our most likely ally is the most unlikely ally. Aaesh’s childlike words pushed Haegan like a dog nudging his hand, calling for his attention. Haegan stemmed his fury but let the embers roil around his fingertips in emphasis. “I have no desire to hurt anyone, but I must leave.”
“I swear to ye, doing so would risk yer life. ’Tis no jest, Prince. The blizzard is especially cruel. At first tempering, Teelh will escort ye down.”
“How are you able to gauge the weather from down here?”
“A cavern—there’s a way to see the skies from there.”
“Take me to it.”
“No.”
Anger spurted. Light erupted.
Aselan shoved out a hand. “Wait!”
“There is no trust between us, Cacique. You have held me hostage behind iron bars, with herbs to dull my abilities, with a guardian who could crush my skull like a fly and a pert girl who brings me stale bread.” Haegan felt the heat plumes and leaned into them, savoring the warmth.
“I would show ye something, Prince Haegan. Something that might change yer mind about singeing me.” Aselan straightened and stood tall. “Despite the circumstances, despite the attempts to protect my people, no harm was intended.�
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“The herb you placed on my hand—”
“Drigo medicine with no lasting effects” He shrugged. “It has worked on others.”
“You’ve had accelerants—”
“Two, more than three cycles past. They saw how their gifts affected the Heart and asked for it.”
“Willingly?” Haegan’s voice pitched.
“Aye.”
“Then why did you bind mine without permission and deceive me?”
“As ye said, there is no trust between us. Not yet. Do ye forget the clearing? Yer hands glowed. I saw yer intent to wield against my men.” Aselan’s eyes were earnest, his tone even. “Had ye struck the mountain, an avalanche would have buried us—and perhaps even parts of Ybienn outside the wall.” Aselan pointed to a staircase that spiraled out across a cavern. “Come. Let me show ye.”
It would be but a simple act for the cacique to pitch Haegan over the iron rail to his death hundreds of feet below, where darkness concealed the depths. Though he hesitated, Aselan did not. He strode up the narrow ramp to the stone steps and moved ahead of Haegan by several feet.
Trust.
12
Legier’s Heart, Northlands
They rounded a stone wall, squeezed beneath an arch, and stepped into a great room. Simple but large. A long table straddled it, affording space for little else but the half-dozen chairs snugged beneath it. Aselan walked to the other side. A narrow, pencil-legged table pressed against the far wall.
Haegan reticently entered. “Why did you bring me here?”
Whistling, Aselan waited as the hounds left the room. Then he pointed to a tapestry hanging over the great fire pit.
Haegan’s gaze rose to the piece, fluttering beneath a stiff breeze that circled down from the vents. Stitched resplendently, though time had taken its toll on the fibers and vibrancy, it still resonated with incredible artistry and craftsmanship. Three kings stood there, arms folded—just as Aselan stood now. Circlets crowned two of the figures who flanked the middle king. Recognition sparked through Haegan. “Zaethien.”
Aselan nodded. “The First.”
Haegan’s heart thumped a little harder—if that was Zaethien, then the other two . . . Had Aselan been right that Zaelero sired three children, not just the one? Haegan’s gaze skipped to the figure on Zaethien’s left, surprised to see it was not a man, but a woman. More strident was the fact that the man on Zaethien’s right bore an uncanny resemblance to the man standing before Haegan. “You favor him.”
“That would be because he is my forebear, Ybienn.”
Haegan started.
“That would make us cousins, would it not?” Aselan asked. “But in truth, it goes deeper. I am Thurig As’Elan, firstborn of Thurig the Formidable.”
Haegan stared, suddenly seeing the resemblance. Not just between Aselan and the prince in the tapestry, but between Aselan and the king who had given Haegan a crash course in wielding. The bearing and powerful presence had handed down well from father to son.
“But I am also not his son.” Aselan lowered his gaze for the first time and eased into a chair. “At least, not by his account.”
“He disowned you? But Thurig was more a father to me than my own.”
Pain, sharp and swift, flashed through Aselan’s expression, but then he looked down again. “It does not surprise me.” Leader of hundreds, if not thousands. Powerful. Mighty. Feared. Yet he too knew the ache of abandonment.
But the tapestry—why had this been hidden from Haegan, from the Nine? What did it matter that there were three children of Zaelero versus the one, the only heir within—“The Histories only record one heir from Zaelero.”
Aselan pointed to the tapestry. “The ladder—use it and climb up there.”
Haegan frowned.
“Must ye fear me at every suggestion?” Aselan growled as he shoved back the chair and went to the wooden and iron ladder that hung from a track hidden behind the tapestry. Using his dagger, he disturbed the tapestry and craned his head back, looking beneath the hem.
Noisy and grating, the ladder scraped to the side. Aselan gave it a shove, then climbed the seven steps, head and shoulders disappearing behind the blue tapestry.
Something poked out beneath it, then Aselan descended, a large bound volume in hand. He flung it onto the table so that it slid across the surface, spinning to a stop in front of Haegan. Even with the lettering upside down, Haegan could make out the crowned tri-tipped flame of House Celahar. Bold gold lettering scrawled over the leather cover. Histories.
Haegan looked to Aselan. “By what means have you come by this?” He reached out, tentatively touching the binding. The edges dipped in gold. With care, he eased open the cover. “The ancient language,” he said, studying the elegant lettering and cantillation marks. He could not help recall the meeting in Nivar Hold with the Council of Nine. How they’d cornered him. Saddled him with the great weight of his purpose in life. A cruel purpose. One that relegated him to Destroyer.
His fingertips touched the words, trailed the lettering. Illumination flared beneath his fingers. Haegan drew in a sharp breath and jerked back.
In a flash, Aselan stood at his side. “What did ye do?”
Feeling like a scolded child, he pulled his hand away. “Nothing.”
“I trust ye with a rare copy of the Histories, and ye attempt to burn it?”
“No!” Haegan cried. “In earnest, I merely touched it.” But had he been angry when touching it? “My anger . . .” He curled his fingers into a fist. “I beg your mercy. It was not intentional. When my anger flares—it flares.”
“Accelerants are trained from the very beginning to control the embers.”
“I have no formal training, not like my father,” he admitted. Then glanced at the cacique. “Your father tried . . . he tried to teach me.” Haegan sighed and looked down at the Histories.
“It seems my father has become more free with his secrets in his old age.”
“But you know he can wield.”
Aselan looked away. “Aye, and the truth of it divided us. His lies, as well as the choice of whom I bound with.”
Haegan frowned.
“I chose a Legieran woman, the daughter of the last cacique. By binding with her, I gave up rights to the Ybiennese throne.”
“And your father—”
“Said if I left, I could never return.”
“But you chose her.”
“No,” Aselan said, his expression weighted with old grief and yet softened by memory. “She chose me.”
Haegan said nothing, sensing something deep and almost sacred beneath the three simple words. All at once, he saw Aselan as more than a foreign chief, an antagonist, a barrier to his will. He saw a man, a widower, Thiel’s brother made orphan by their father’s rage.
After a moment, Aselan lifted his shoulders in a shrug, breaking the spell. “And I loved her.”
“Was there no compromise to be made?”
Aselan sighed. “My father pursued the party I traveled with back to the Heart. Slaughtered a dozen Legiera in his anger against me. The Nivari sent smoke bombs down the few vents they were aware of. Not the most important—those we protect heavily—but enough that lives were lost.”
Haegan stood rigid, disbelieving. “That is not the man I met in Nivar, the one who helped me learn to wield.”
Sorrow darkened Aselan’s eyes. “It is the man I knew.”
Stunned, Haegan thought of how his own father had pursued him. “My father sent his Jujak after me.”
Aselan sighed heavily. After a few moments of pained, awkward silence, he motioned to the book. “Can ye read it?”
“It is the ancient tongue,” Haegan mumbled, shaking his head and remembering how ancient words had fallen off his tongue a few times. “I cannot . . .”
And yet, even as he slid a finger above the text, the words seemed to bend to understanding in his mind. “I . . .” He frowned. How was this possible? He leaned closer. “I don’t understand . .
.” But he did. The words somehow translated in his mind.
“What?”
“I—I can’t—I don’t know the ancient tongue, but somehow, the words are making sense.”
Angling the book aside, Aselan scanned the thin pages. Flipped several more and came to a page with an illuminated painting that matched the tapestry over the door. He traced the lettering down to a line. “Here—read this.”
More than a little unsettled at the things Abiassa did with him, Haegan forced his gaze to the page, knowing now the reason his old tutor had bored him with letters and Histories was that he’d known . . . Gwogh had known all along what Haegan was.
But that could not be. Haegan had no giftings as he lay in that bed.
The book. Words. “. . . and after the great war when Abiassa and her Deliv—” The word caught in his throat as he recalled the burning being standing between him and Poired.
“Much to take in, is it not?”
“’Tis . . . familiar.”
“Read on.”
Haegan skipped the word. “ . . . protected and aided Zaelero, delivering into his hands all the lands west of the Catatori, She bestowed upon him the love of a woman and the blessing of three heirs, Zaethien, Ybienn, and Hetaera, all powerfully gifted with the Flames to protect Her lands.”
Haegan stopped, frowned. “This . . . this isn’t right.”
“Because ye don’t believe it?”
“I read the Histories.” Had all but memorized them in the hours and years spent with little else. “I know them. These—it should read: ‘rewarded Zaelero with the love of a woman and the blessing of their offspring, Zaethien, ruler of the Nine, powerfully gifted—’”
“Aye.” Aselan scanned Haegan’s face. “That is what ye were taught.”
“That is what all the Nine are taught.” A craggy voice crawled through the room.
Haegan stepped back, startled. Uncertain.
The tapestry above the door shifted.
He gave a shout.
Aselan steadied him as the tapestry drew aside. A heavily robed shape lowered down the ladder, still talking. “Remove truth from the Histories, Parchments, and Legacies, and what is known as truth changes.” The bent shape touched the floor and her feet scratched against the stone as she turned. “Does it not?”