by Ronie Kendig
He huffed. Just had to get out of here.
“Is it Poired or the Infantessa you flee?”
“Both,” Trale said, still feeling the ring of fire around his neck after Poired nearly suffocated him. But that was nothing compared to the humiliation of succumbing to Inflaming. Was that what really happened? It was the only logical explanation, though he detested the truth of it—that he had really succumbed. “But her . . .” He shook his head. “She wasn’t telling us everything.”
“Of course she isn’t telling us everything!” Astadia pitched a small pouch of dried fruit at him. It landed with a soft thump at his boot. “I don’t like her. Pretentious and too much frippery.”
“You’re jealous of her frippery.” Astadia had always yearned for nicer things when they were bouncing around orphanages as children. When they set out on their own, she gave up hope of nice things, especially once Poired collared them.
“I want none of her frippery if it is at the cost of living with that Destroyer looking over my shoulder.” Astadia’s words were true and fierce. “She only told us to bring Haegan back. But he wants the prince dead. How do we satisfy both?”
He’d wondered that many times since leaving Iteveria.
“Maybe she wants him alive, so she can kill him herself?”
Trale pivoted in his boots, still crouched as he looked at his sister. “What if she wants him alive.”
“Right—that’s what I said, so she could kill him.”
“No,” Trale said. “Alive-alive.”
“Where’s the purpose in that?” She hopped to her knees. “Besides—you tell me how we’re supposed to smuggle that prince halfway across the Nine without getting ourselves killed? If Poired gets wind that we have him—we’re all dead.” She pointed the tip of her dagger at him. “That is the real reason—she wants us dead.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Nothing makes sense!”
• • •
Legier’s Heart, Northlands
Aselan strode to the pelt throne, his mind lingering on another throne of pelts—the dais upon which the princess reclined. Her soft words. Her pale blue eyes. He walked behind the fire, raging and soaring, throwing its smoke up to the tiny hole some hundred feet above them. He stopped, gazing over the fire to the men.
Sitting, he motioned for them to take their seats around the tables. “Toeff, bar the door.”
As the giant complied, Aselan turned his attention to the matters plaguing him. “Teelh tells me Legier’s rage has quieted.” He nodded to the burly man, who rose to his feet.
“Aye, Cacique. It has.” Teelh hooked his thumbs in the belt that secured his pelt tunic. “The winds are strong and the snow still falls, but I’ve trekked in worse.”
“When could he set out?”
“At first light,” Teelh said. “It’d take us the full day to make it down, but I can have him to Nivar Hold before the gate is shut.”
Aselan nodded and fixed Teelh with a narrowed gaze. “Think ye the thin-blood can handle the journey?”
“I’ll carry him if the need be,” Teelh growled. “The longer he remains in the Heart, the more chance we have of invasion or war with the Nine.”
A series of ayes rippled through the hall. The hounds snarled, as if agreeing.
“There is a complication.”
The men quieted, their eyes on him.
“Two, actually.” He drew in a deep breath and let it out. “Byrin, Teelh, and Bardin—ye saw him wield on the ledge.”
“Aye,” the three agreed.
“I took him to Wegna.”
Only the flames moved and popped.
“She believes him to be the Fierian.”
Stunned silence evaporated as shouts went up, demands to throw him out into the wild and let him fend for himself. For them to cut the breath from his lungs now before he had chance to start his destruction with the Eilidan.
“Ye would set yer hand against Abiassa?” Aselan spoke loudly, demanding their attention again.
“Were we to believe in Her—”
“Yet ye believe in Her prophecies, enough to slit the throat of an orphaned prince?”
Silence fell, heavy with anger and disapproval. Aselan let it stretch as he turned his gaze from man to man.
“Ye spoke of two problems,” Byrin said at last, his voice stiff.
“Aye—his sister is the heir to the throne. I have not told the princess her brother yet lives.”
“Why?”
“To gather information, discern if his truth was her truth.”
“Send them both down with Teelh.”
“Master,” Toeff’s deep voice vibrated in the large room.
Surprise tugged at Aselan that the giant would speak. He had never interrupted their proceedings. “Ye would speak?”
“Aye, Toeff know Hoeff say princess cannot move. Fragile.”
“I care not,” Caprit snapped. “They are trouble. Send them out.”
“Where is yer honor?” Aselan demanded. “Ye would send a paralyzed woman into Legier’s rage. If she died—”
“It’d be her own fault for straying onto the Tooth.”
“Nay,” Byrin said. “Teelh is an able tracker, but having to carry someone down—”
“We would not make it before nightfall,” Teelh said. “We’d freeze to death.”
Aselan rose to his feet. The icehounds leapt up and circled around him, one on each side. The Legiera fell silent. “I’ve heard yer concerns, yer complaints. It is decided—Teelh will set out at first light”—Abiassa, let this be right—“with the prince. They’ll travel to Ybienn, where Teelh will be given shelter for the night, as is the custom of the Ybiennese. He’ll return at first chance.” He dare not show an ounce of hesitation. “The princess will remain here until she is recovered enough to travel.”
“And who will make that decision?” Caprit asked.
“Hoeff will, since he has tended her and will tell no untruth.” Aselan stood. “It is settled. It is said.”
The men grumbled in unison, “Oochak!”
17
Legier’s Heart, Northlands
“Thin-blood. Come with me.”
Haegan pushed slowly from the hard dais, eyeing the cacique through the iron gate. Toeff opened the barrier, and Haegan stepped out. “Is something wrong?”
But Aselan was already rounding the corner at the end of the passage. Haegan hurried to catch up, frustrated with the cacique’s inattention. What if Haegan got lost in the labyrinth of passages? Hustling down a flight of iron steps, he found Aselan wasn’t waiting. Blazes.
Haegan threw himself after him.
As they hit the third level and Aselan banked left, past the cantina, he threw over his shoulder, “The blizzard weakens.”
Haegan’s heart jerked. “I can leave?”
“Teelh prepares supplies as we speak.” Around one corner. Down another flight. “In the morn, ye will break yer fast and venture into the storm.”
“But I thought—”
“Legier still rages, but with Teelh’s guidance, ye will make it. Ye’ll obey his instructions without argument unless ye wish to die.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Nay, Prince. ’Tis a promise of what ye’ll face when ye leave the protection of the Heart.” Aselan’s stride slowed—no doubt deliberately.
Had he not been attentive, Haegan would have collided with the Eilidan leader. Instead, he fell back a step.
They had reached a small landing, and for the first time, Aselan hesitated in his headlong progress. His gaze flicked from one shadow to another, then he turned to face Haegan.
“Are you well?” Haegan asked.
Brown eyes sparked and snapped to his. “Ye have asked me every rise about the storm,” Aselan said, his voice low and intense. “But there is something lacking in yer questions, Prince.”
A quick gust of air from somewhere blew Haegan’s shaggy curls into his face. He scowled, feeling a challe
nge from the leader. “What would that be, Cacique?”
“Earnestness.” Aselan’s eyes narrowed with meaning. “Ye speak of yer great desire and the urgency with which ye must return. To war against Poired.”
“I do—I must.”
Aselan pointed to Haegan’s hands. “When we spoke with Wegna, ye said ye can only muster the embers when ye’re angry.”
Wetting his lips gave Haegan time to draw his courage together. “Not only,” he muttered. “But . . . mostly. Or it would be correctly said, when I am angry, it consumes me.”
“And yet—yet we are all alive.”
Haegan frowned.
“Had ye set yer will on leaving and we impeded ye, would ye not have singed us all, whether ye willed it or not? I know not yer true reasons, Prince, but the fury of war grows not in yer heart. Ye have not left because ye do not want to face what awaits ye.”
“My desires are irrelevant. I must return—it is my duty as the last remaining heir of Zireli. I”—he tried to breathe but his chest tightened—“must.” The last word came out as mere whisper.
“There be no conviction in those words.”
Haegan hesitated, then slumped back against the rail, letting it poke into his side. Pain was a solid reminder that he could walk. He could talk. It must be the hand of Abiassa that had so changed his course. How could he stay here when the storm raged—not in the pure snow that claimed this mountain, but in pure evil?
“You speak truth.” Haegan sagged. “I have seen enough destruction and death.” His breath shuddered through his lungs. “I do not want to be the cause of more. I do not want it. I will not be the Fierian.”
Aselan said nothing for such a long time that Haegan looked up. The cacique was gazing out over the iron platform, watching his people bustle about their daily business on all six levels. Yet somehow Haegan knew he listened.
“I . . . I am alone, Aselan. I’m not even sure what I fight for—there is nothing left.” A pair of brown eyes glittered in his memory, but Thiel seemed distant. Perhaps even lost to him. He must plot his own course. Away from Ybienn, where she had set her heart. “I have nothing to fight for.” He snorted. “As you so ably pointed out, I don’t even know how to fight.”
Aselan gave a firm nod, and it seemed as if he had decided something. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Patience, Prince.”
Up another level, then down. Soon Aselan held out a hand as if staying one of his icehounds. “Wait here.” He disappeared around a corner.
Haegan shifted to the side to see past the junction where four rooms split off the end of the passage. Inside one, Aselan stood with his hands on his belt. He nodded to someone, then stepped out of view. A moment later, a large shape filled the door. “Toeff?” Haegan’s mind sputtered. “B—but I just left you.”
“Hoeff, not Toeff. Toeff guardian. Hoeff healer.” The giant trudged past him in slow, fluid movements.
Voices came from the room, soft and low, drawing Haegan closer. He eased around, stretching his neck to see into the room.
A weight clamped against his shoulder.
Haegan pitched forward, his heart thudding.
“Master tell Prince wait.”
Duly chided, Haegan acknowledged the giant and eased away from the door. “Of course, of course.”
“Stay,” Hoeff growled. The giant turned and headed down the passage, apparently expecting Haegan to comply. As if Haegan were one of the icehounds the cacique owned. But Haegan wasn’t a dog, wild or otherwise.
He slipped closer, again craning his neck to peer inside the room.
Aselan knelt on one knee at a heavily pelted dais. Taking in the room proved fairly simple, though the cave had ample space with a small foyer, a couple of chairs, and then an alcove containing the dais-bed. A tapestry covered the wall. And, no doubt, protected the room against the cold. Had Haegan been so looked after, he might not have this perpetual chill shivering through his limbs.
“Haegan?”
A blast of heat shot through him at that voice. He froze. Then looked to Aselan, who came to his feet with a fierce glare. Then he shifted back, revealing Kaelyria lying amid the mound of pelts.
Groomed and smiling, she held out her arm to him. “Brother!”
Six strides carried him across the space. He dropped onto the dais next to her. With a gargled laugh, she threw her arms around his neck. Hugged him tight.
Haegan held her, savoring the warmth of her, but confusion tangled his mind. “You . . . you’re alive,” he murmured into her thick blonde braids. “They told me you were dead.” Then he recalled what Gwogh said. “And you can move.”
“As you can see,” she said, leaning back and staring into his eyes. “I am very much alive, and the Drigo healer has improved my . . . situation.” Pain flicked across her face. Her smile faltered.
“You’re alive.” His mind could not wrap around it. He smiled at her. Shook his head. “It is too much . . .” He breathed a half-laugh, half-sob. “I thought I had lost you. That you’d died.”
Her delicate brow rippled, but she kept her hold on him, her fingers pressing against his back and shoulder. “We are here, together.”
He tugged her closer.
She wobbled. “Careful,” she managed, her voice wavering.
“Easy with her, Prince,” Aselan said from the corner.
Haegan punched to his feet. “I need not your help. Besides, you lied to me—”
Aselan rushed forward.
“—told me she was dead!” Haegan thought it an attack. He thrust out his hand, heat warbling around his fingers.
“Haegan!” Kaelyria shrieked as Aselan’s arms encircled her shoulders with care. Her palm out to Haegan, she shook her head as the cacique supported her.
Haegan took a step back, realizing the cacique had stopped Kaelyria from tumbling off the dais. His heart clenched as he watched Aselan settle her back carefully, talking quietly, then draw a pelt around her waist.
“Ye are well?” Aselan asked.
“Yes. I thank you,” Kaelyria said and her eyes lingered a mite too long on the Eilidan leader, who also lingered in his touch.
Humiliation crowded Haegan, shame that the cacique knew more of his sister than he did. Anger rose. “You lied to me.”
“Nay.” The cacique stood, his lips flat beneath his beard. “I have never lied to ye.” He breathed out heavily. “But I did allow yer own belief to remain in place until I could discern what threat ye both presented. For that, I beg yer mercy.”
Embarrassment mingled with indignation and confusion. What had transpired between his sister and this mountain man? He hated that Aselan had kept her from him. That he had been so much a concern and threat.
“Haegan,” Kaelyria said, motioning him close again. “Come, brother. Comfort me as I did for you all those years.”
He lowered himself to her side, glad when Aselan moved back. “I went to the Falls as you said.” Gwogh had implied that Kaelyria had lied to him. Now he saw the truth of the old accelerant’s words. “You said it would set everything right.”
She touched his cheek. “I said the words I knew you would hear, Haegan.” Tears welled in her eyes, and her lips twisted in an apparent fight against the wellspring of grief. She shook her head. “I did not mean . . .”
“You singewood,” he teased, though the words were raw and the pain real. He marveled that their roles were reversed. So many years she had visited him, encouraged him in that lonely tower. Day after day at his side, tauntingly calling him singewood to lighten stiff conversations. “Why? Why did you do it?”
“It had to be done.”
“At this cost?”
“Especially,” she said, her eyes fierce. “I could not allow him to grow more powerful with my gift and Father’s. And that was his intent.”
Haegan leaned down and hugged her. “I will always be here for you, Kae.” He pressed his lips to her forehead.
“I beg yer mercy, Prince,�
�� Aselan’s voice intruded, “but I believe ye cannot keep that promise. Ye must tell her.”
Kaelyria’s brow knotted. Her cheeks rosied as she looked from Aselan to Haegan. “Tell me what?”
His eyes traced the layers of pelts across her lap, seeking an escape from the truth. Anything not to have to look into his sister’s eyes and tell her his future. What he would cause.
“Haegan?” With a gentle touch, she lifted his jaw until their eyes met. The last few months washed away and once again, she was simply his sister. “What ails you?”
“Everything,” he admitted miserably. When he was a little boy and scraped his knee, he would fall into her arms. But as the years melted away and Gwogh’s influence grew stronger, so did Haegan’s will. Yet, he sat here, longing to be that boy again. To cry away his anger. Because the other option was frightening, dangerous. He thought of the Ematahri he’d inadvertently killed. The way Drracien had been afraid of him.
“Remember what you saw at the Falls.” Gwogh’s urgent words during his recovery in Ybienn spiraled out of the dark chasm that held most of his memory from the Falls. He recalled jumping from the cliff. He recalled seeing Gwogh trying to stop him. Then his own anger. And then . . . nothing. Until he woke up, staring at Thiel.
What had he forgotten? Gwogh said he’d seen something. How did Gwogh know he’d seen something when Haegan himself could not recall it?
“What has happened?” Concerned etched Kaelyria’s eyes.
Where was he to start? So much had passed since they parted ways in Seultrie. And there were pieces of him still angry that she had thrown him into this peril through the Transference. But therein lay folly, blaming her for something Abiassa called him to do.
“Haegan.” Insistent and tinged with panic, she cocked her head. “Speak well and true, brother, for we have no secrets, and we are in no position for falsehoods.”
“The Transference . . .” He wrestled with the tumult of words, truths, perils, and prophecies that tumbled through his mind. Gwogh’s words when Haegan insisted he couldn’t wield: “that simply is not true.”