by Ronie Kendig
“This is not yours—”
“Augh!” Fingers as daggers, Haegan plunged onward. Sailed through the phantom-like form. Where he’d expected resistance, he found none. It threw him off. He stumbled.
Something caught his leg and pitched him forward. Straight over the ledge of a cliff. Horror gripped him—the walls were not dirt. They were made of giants. Drigo. They stood, eyes blazing. Their bodies enlarged. Their anger rabid.
Haegan fell, feeling their searing disapproval. The fires of their rage. He threw out his hand, sending a blast of heat below to level himself and vault back over the cliff’s edge. He landed, knees bent, shoulders stooped. Then drew straight.
As he turned toward his father, though he did not see it, he knew what was coming. The fist of Thelikor. Straight down on top of Haegan. He screamed.
Jolted upright, hauling in ragged breaths, Haegan shuddered through a cry. Sweat dripped into his eyes. He dragged himself free of the drenched sheets. Moonslight stroked the night and cast an eerie glow across the highly polished floor. Haegan shuffled to a water stand and gripped the edges. He gritted his teeth against the onslaught of images. His father’s flesh melting away as Poired killed him.
Haegan swallowed. His grip tightened.
The crunch of incipient’s bones. Flattened into the earth.
Stop—no.
His mother’s agonized scream.
Heat thrummed.
“Augh!” Haegan pushed. The water stand exploded. He whirled and threw a fire ball at the bed.
A creak sounded to his left.
He flicked his hand in that direction in the same second his gaze hit hers. His heart stalled as the spark snapped Thiel’s head back. Her hair blew away from her face. Shock widened her eyes. She fell back into the door, which cracked against the wall.
“Thiel!” he cried. “Thiel. What are you doing here?”
Shouts in the hall froze Haegan. Guilt nauseated him as he watched Thiel find her feet, hand to her cheek.
“You startled me,” he said, crossing the room to her, his lame words ringing in his ears. “Are you well? How are you here?”
Wincing, she swallowed. “I disguised myself and hid among the Nivari.” A shaky laugh. “Tili was not pleased.”
He tilted her chin to see better. “I’ve scorched you.” Anger churned. “I told you it was dangerous. They are hunting me.”
Two shapes appeared in the corridor. Torches cast a dull glow upon Tili and Tokar.
Tendrils of smoke from the burning bed curled across his field of vision, entangling him in its choking stench and guilt. Haegan dropped his gaze, ashamed. Angry with himself, he turned away.
“Haegan.”
Teeth grinding, he pivoted. Threw out a bracing blast. “Stay back.” He shoved a warbling wall between them. “Please . . . don’t.” Had to get out of here. Escape. He backed up, feeling for the door to the outer courtyard.
Drracien slipped in and extended a hand toward the flames devouring the bed. With a roll of his fingers, he drew his hand back to himself and doused the fire. Smoke hung defiantly in the air.
“Haegan,” Thiel called. “Haegan, please. Please don’t go.”
How? How did she know his thoughts before he did? “I have to.” He turned away, expending the energy it took to maintain the wall.
“Ye’ve been through a lot, Princeling.” Tili’s words were firm and sure. But not angry. “We are yer friends. How can we serve ye?”
Haegan pivoted, his anger flaring. A halo of red rimmed the heat wake he’d erected. “I don’t want anyone serving me! I only . . .” What? What did he want? He pushed his hand into his hair and fisted a tangle of curls. Thought to rip them out.
“Go,” Thiel said quietly to the others. “Leave us.” Surely someone would pose an objection to them being alone in his bedchamber, but no one did. A few seconds later came the click of the door.
Haegan moved onto the terrace, out of the smoke, away from her constant belief in him. On the path to a wading pool, he dropped onto a step. Stared at the rippling water.
Though her steps were quiet behind him, he heard them. Felt her calm, cooling presence. She was the antithesis to him. The cool to the fire. Peace to the rage. This hadn’t always been his way. “I hate what I’m becoming.”
She sat beside him.
“This is a burden I did not ask to carry. I merely want . . .” Wishing and lamenting were exercises in futility. He’d never been able to have what he wanted. In the tower, he had wanted to walk and run and train with the Jujak. Now, though he could do all those things, he wanted to be back in the tower.
“It’s overwhelming.”
He snorted. “An understatement.”
“I believe in ye, Haegan.”
“Do you?” He glanced to the side but couldn’t bring himself to meet her beautiful brown eyes as he voiced the most painful part. “I hurt you.”
“Ye didn’t mean to.”
“In a rage, I acted without restraint. Because of my folly, you were a victim.” He shook his head. “I don’t know why She chose me when—”
“It does not matter why.”
This time, he did look at her. And winced at the mark on her right cheek. Half the length of his finger, the marred flesh was edged in black where he’d seared her. He yanked his gaze away. She should be far from him so he could not hurt her. “You should go to the Eilidan. They have a Drigo healer. His ministrations helped my sister recover from Poired’s attack.” He thought of Hoeff and his endearing ways. “Do all Drigo heal?”
She hesitated a beat too long before she said, “I have no idea. They’ve been gone for generations. But . . .”
Haegan looked up, and the pieces fell together in a gut-clench of realization. “You saw.” The Drigovudd. The massacre.
Caught off guard, she flinched. Her eyes betrayed her.
“You know now what I’ve become. What I bring.”
Thiel looked away, but when she spoke again her voice held neither judgment nor horror, but the ache of sympathy. “Haegan, we always knew what it would mean, yer being the Fierian.” Taking his hand, she entwined their fingers. “I admit it became . . . real on that field. But regardless. I am not leaving ye, Haegan. Ye cannot send me away.”
Frustration gripped him. Worry. “’Tis dangerous, Thiel. I am dangerous. Go to the Eilidan. For me. I don’t want you with me.”
“We are out of time, my prince.”
Surprised at the intrusion, Haegan tore his gaze from the hurt on Thiel’s face—far worse than the pain her wound had caused—and came to his feet. Looked across the courtyard to where the mayor stood with General Grinda and a half-dozen Jujak. Surrounded by the Nivari.
Jarain inclined his head. “Pardon the intrusion, but we have word Poired has taken Luxlirien and marches for Hetaera.”
Haegan tensed, imagining the devastation in Luxlirien, picturing the terror that would come to Hetaera with Dyrth’s attack. “We must go.”
31
Hetaera City, Hetaera, Kingdom of the Nine
A strange taste carried on the wind. Haegan gulped back some water to banish the acrid flavor as they stood on the rise overlooking Hetaera City two days later. The caravan of riders, which included an official Ignatieri escort from Baen’s Crossing—the new marshal had insisted—camped on the rise and now stirred beneath the cool breath of dawn. Haegan, however, sat on the overlook for the last several hours, staring at the city that could change his life forever.
A shout went up behind, and Haegan shifted toward the commotion. Four Ignatieri wrestled a fifth person between them. Tiadith rushed around the crowd toward Haegan. “My prince, we have a fugitive in our midst!”
Black hair flayed as a growl tore through the bodies. A wild mixture of panic and anger seized Drracien’s face. Why had he not sparked them? Or seared them even? His temper was worse than Haegan’s.
Outrage coursed through Haegan. “Release him at once,” he ordered.
Tiadith gaped. “My
prince—”
“Release him!” Only as the crowd around them stirred did Haegan realize the embers roiled through his fingers.
“But, my prince, he is wanted for murdering a high lord.”
“And some say I am wanted for the murder of the Fire King. Will you arrest me as well?” As the attendants drew back with gaping expressions, Haegan hauled in a shaking breath.
Drracien yanked free from the brethren and strode toward Haegan with a fierce scowl. “They haloed my hands,” he hissed, and he flung a withering gaze at the accelerants as he rubbed his wrists.
“Then you knew the charges against him,” came a new voice. Another accelerant.
“What I knew is that this man saved not only my life, but the lives of my friends, the only ones who braved a perilous journey with me before safely delivering me to the Great Falls.” Haegan pulled in a measuring breath. “I will extend you mercy for this slight . . . this one time.” He weighed each of them, monitoring their reactions. Assessing who he might expect the most trouble from. In the shortest accelerant, the one with narrow, muddy eyes, Haegan saw trouble. “Have you an objection?” he challenged.
The accelerant wet his lips. “Our concern with him is outside your purview,” he said, voice quiet.
“Outside my purview?” Would that he could singe this man’s clothes to show what purview Abiassa had given him. Instead, Haegan slid closer. “Have you not heard that they intend to set me in as king?” He angled his head closer. “In the Nine, the Fire King supersedes Ignatieri law.”
The man tremored with unrestrained emotion. “Does it mean nothing to you that he murdered High Lord Aloing?”
“What proof have you of his guilt?” Haegan cocked his head. “Produce it now, and I will deliver his punishment myself.” Only as he laid out the demand did Haegan realize his folly. Was there proof of these charges against Drracien? The rogue had merely shown up in a cave and claimed ignorance. He had never fully related the truth of what made him flee the Citadel. “No proof, then?”
Silence snapped through the camp.
“Be at peace, Elgni,” Tiadith spoke gently, then turned to Haegan. “If Marshal Drracien is not guilty, he should present himself to the Ignatieri to answer for his actions, to explain . . .” He inclined his head. “We beg your mercy, but Grand Marshal Dromadric himself reported chasing Drracien from the high lord’s tower.”
“Then you persist in accusing my friend,” Haegan said.
“Justice will be done,” Tiadith insisted.
“Not when the eyes of those trying him”—Haegan looked to Elgni—“yearn more for blood than truth.”
Praegur came to his side as Tokar stepped before Drracien, forming a protective barrier. Incredible how the rogue had become an irrefutable member of their troupe. It was then, as even Laertes surged to the front next to Haegan, that he knew they were his family. They would lay down their lives for one another. “I have seen the kind of justice delivered by those with a single mindset, bent on punishing someone rather than meting out the truth. We will have truth!” Haegan shouted. “We will have justice.”
“Prince Haegan.”
At the commanding voice, Haegan shifted. Saw General Grinda plowing through the crowd that had formed around them. He’d always been grim-faced, but his dourness had deepened.
“I beg your mercy, my prince.” Grinda inclined his head. “There is a contingent coming from the east.”
“Sirdarians?” Is that what the odor was?
“Our own,” Grinda said. “Jujak as well as Ignatieri.”
Haegan’s gaze swung eastward, though with the faces before him, he could not see. “Show me.”
“Make a path!” Grinda roared, swinging his arms wide as the sea of bodies parted.
Haegan followed him to the easternmost ledge. Dawn yawned in the cool morning, brightening the lands and glittering against the white plaster Citadel and its Spire of Zaelero.
Marching across the great valley in precise columns came the Jujak. One hundred in each column. A total of eight hundred men. Awe speared Haegan as he watched them advance, rimmed by a thin black line on all sides—Ignatieri. At the rear came the banner of Dromadric and, of course, the Jujak carried the banner of the Nine.
“Am I friend or foe to them, Grinda?”
“She knows,” Grinda responded gruffly. “We’ve sent word, but what poison has the grand marshal put in their ears as they handled the masses, the desperation?”
The general had long been known to be suspicious of the Ignatieri. But Haegan suddenly felt the same hesitation. Gazing on his father’s army, Haegan wondered at the number. “So few . . .”
“The rest are coming. Tricky paths to evade Sirdarians. But they have their orders to regroup here. Also, some have orders to protect those fleeing the city, help keep order.” Grinda pointed southwest, where it seemed another city had sprung up at the base of Abiassa’s Throne. “The refugees.”
Disbelief found a new ally as Haegan looked with new eyes at the small tent-city. He’d been here, months gone by, with Thiel—on that cleft. Where Zicri had skimmed his head and given him terrors.
“Blazes,” Laertes said, choked on the same shock. “Dem what’s got little ’ave taken ov’a da whole fields. I ain’ ne’va seen nu’fin like it.”
“Haven’t, ever, anything,” Haegan corrected absently, his mind struggling to take it in. The potential dangers that arose with people in desperate lives and situations.
In the past, wagon masters would set up camp there, but nothing like this, with structure to the layout. Nothing like this great a number. Not a patch of grass remained exposed between the city wall and foothill. How had so many come in such a short time?
Haegan glanced at the thick-chested general. “Are the Jujak here to protect them, or fight them?”
“Both,” Grinda grunted. “Most are peace-loving. Just wanting a place to live and survive. But that creates pressure, stress, panic. They forget themselves.”
Something in Haegan writhed. “We shouldn’t be policing them. Jujak are for protection, not—”
“Aye.” Grinda lowered his head. “But where am I to quarter the Jujak, my prince?” His voice was quiet but resolved as he made his point: Seultrie was taken. “And there are thousands more coming up the Throne Road and farther east, fleeing what remains of Luxlirien.”
“Why? Why would they risk traveling here? When Poired has his eyes fixed on Hetaera City?”
“I sent word their prince was coming.” Gray, weighted eyes measured. Probed with an intensity Haegan could only liken to what he felt beneath the Deliverer’s gaze. Expectation. But more than that—necessity.
The Nine needed a leader.
“They should be told of Kaelyria.”
“Begging your pardon, my prince, but in her condition, she is of no use to us. To them.” Resolution carved long, experienced lines through Grinda’s ruddy face. “You’re here. And the Lady chose you.” He gripped Haegan’s shoulder. “Be the man I always knew you to be, my prince. Make your father proud.”
“Hitting below the scabbard, Grinda.”
He grinned, his silver-threaded beard parting. “Sometimes, it takes your manhood getting jostled to find out who you are.” His gaze sobered. “I know you fear this path. I see it in your eyes—the same look your father had before taking the throne.”
He hadn’t heard stories of his father like this. “Father was never afraid.”
Grinda chuckled, his broad shoulders bouncing. “Aye, that’s what he wanted everyone to think. But there were times even the most powerful accelerant wanted to walk away.” His smile vanished, and he seemed to consider his words, the patch of beard below his lip rolling. “Don’t run from this, Haegan. Don’t you do it.”
Thunder clapped through Haegan’s chest. “I—I won’t.”
“I know you fear this path and would run from it if you could. We all would.” Grinda squeezed his shoulder again. “But I won’t let you. And I will have your back until my
dying breath.”
Hunger unlike anything Haegan had ever known coiled around his heart, tempting him to grab this thread of hope. Of courage.
Grinda must’ve seen the yearning because he gave a grim smile. “I had your father’s back so he could do his job. It will be the same with you. But if you don’t do your job, I can’t do mine.”
Haegan nodded.
“And I will kill you myself before I let you dishonor House Celahar or Abiassa—or yourself.”
Shock pushed Haegan back a step so he could look into the eyes that had only seconds earlier pulsed with reassurance. Was he sincere?
Unlike Haegan, Grinda did not falter. “I am Jujak—Valor Guard. My oath is to Her first.” He gave a cockeyed nod, the same one Haegan had often seen his father do. “Then to the Fire King.”
“I will not shame you, my father, or Abiassa.”
“You have good sense in that head—you’re Zireli’s son. I know you’ll do the right thing. Ready yourself, Prince,” Grinda said as he turned toward the guard huddled behind them.
“For what?”
“To ride out and meet your reception.”
Haegan looked to the field of red, blacks, and greens. “What if they want to kill me? Arrest me as these”—he motioned to the Ignatieri—“attempted with Drracien?”
“Then they die.” There was no anger in Grinda’s expression or eyes. Only hard resolution before he pushed past two Jujak and the rest swallowed him.
Smoothing a hand over his face, Haegan could not help but feel that forces were converging at this point, on this field. Not just Jujak and Ignatieri. But light and dark. Good and evil.
Were there but a way to escape . . .
“Do we ride with you?” Tokar asked. “Down to meet the delegation, I mean?”
Haegan turned from the tide of bodies. Considered Tokar, Praegur, and Laertes. “I know not what dangers are coming,” he said, glancing again to the valley floor, “whether they will crown me or kill me.”
Tokar didn’t blink. “I will help if they want to kill you.”
Laertes stomped on his foot.