Eulogy
Page 38
"And?"
"They believed he created everything, knew all, and chose how to best lead his world. Their kingdoms knew prosperity through centuries. Imagine that: peace for two hundred years. They knew happiness, Kipra. They were artisans and poets, kings and queens, a culture based on respect and worship of their god."
"We've never believed in that," she said gently. "There's no mystical person who directs our lives or plans our fate. You know this, Ark."
Their eyes met, and Ark jerked back.
"Tell that to Fier," he said. "Tell him there's no one who directs our lives or plans our fate. No, it's pointless to do that. We can't ignore this any more than we can ignore the army on the horizon."
She stared at him, stunned. "You believe Fier?"
"Why shouldn't I? He claims his father did all this, planned it all, put us all on this island. Now we dance on the Prophet's strings. Isn't that the definition of what a god is?"
"There is no god!"
At that, he simply frowned.
"This is better left to Bran," she said, attempting to change the subject. She hadn't come to discuss myths, but to apologize for what she'd done. "I'm sorry I don't have anything else to say."
"Why'd you claim the army isn't ready?"
"Because it's not. It would be better to flee to Alkar, to find ships and sail to the Inner Empire." She gestured to the crumbling courtyard, the dead oak, the failing city. "This place isn't worth defending."
He dipped his head in a helpless shrug.
"You disagree?" she said.
Ark still gripped her fingers, pressing down as if afraid to release them. Moments passed, and darkness devoured the once-red sky. Torches sprang to life in the streets, but still he clenched.
Tighter and tighter.
Finally, he whispered, "Fier's father is in my head. Ah, and the things he says... no one should endure this. Nothing feeds him. Nothing draws him out. He also claims the army isn't ready, that nothing can make them ready."
"Ark—"
"You proved it."
She swallowed hard, wishing she could've seen his face in the darkness, but shadows concealed his eyes and swirled around his cheeks. Another shadow—the same heaviness, the same impossibility—swirled in her gut.
He's cracked. Was it because of the fight with Crest? Not many men can take that kind of punishment and not come out changed.
"I'm not insane," he muttered fiercely. "Fier's father loves this world, but he'd threatened to reduce it to ashes once. He planned far worse than what we see here. But something’s changed. He's as lost as I am, yet we struggle and strain."
"Ark! Listen to me, we'll—"
"My army isn't ready."
He released her hand, but she snatched back his fingers.
"Listen to me very carefully." She paused, uncertain how to yank him from the edge he tottered upon. "We don't need to wait for Abennak. We have other options! Alkar, the Inner Empire, anything but this."
"Kiln."
"No!" She cursed herself. "Fier is wrong. Do we really believe another army is going to help us, even one as powerful as the Kilnsmen? Damn you, Ark, how often am I wrong? You need rest, not—"
"You're wrong about as often as I'm wrong. Perhaps often. Perhaps never. But I'm responsible for these people, just as much as Yaron Kenn or you. They're mine." He sucked in a deep breath, expelled it. "I made them."
"You're a fool."
He smiled a strange smile. "I do this because I must, but you do it because you want it. You and Bran, even Fier and Kenn—you're all better than I am."
"Self-pity doesn't look good on you."
"Yet these shadows hide our faces. They hide what we've done."
Stunned, disbelieving silence filled the courtyard.
Irreor hadn't spoken with his voice. His words had come from somewhere different, somewhere wild and furious and caged.
Far in the distance, a child shrieked.
Ark grabbed his dagger and lifted himself from the dirt. "We'll burn Yekkin tomorrow. Hopefully the man will find a type of peace. Tonight, ah, I've too much on my mind. I need to be alone."
"Irreor," she blurted.
The name had leapt from her mouth before she could snatch it back. She pressed a handful of dirt between her hands, felt grains dig into skin, then rubbed it deeper. She'd never allowed his name to grace her tongue, but it felt right.
Just as his touch had felt right.
"You know I'm here, if you need me? Bran's also here. Demons weren't meant to be faced alone."
He vanished into the night.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Irreor gnawed on a roll in solitude that night, locked away in Bran's shack. Graelina had left to prepare food for the soldiers. The blacksmith had vanished to meet the council, then he planned work with the army afterward.
Even Pernik and Fier and Gar Tsi allowed him this time.
Thus he was alone.
Ah, but you’ve never let me close to anyone, have you? And these words, these emotions, they simply bubble and bubble, pressure building with every second. Can you feel it, or do you simply see with my eyes?
-It was foolish to tell her.-
"Then I'm a fool."
-She'll never believe it. Who would? It's even more foolish to listen to our son. Don't take us to Kiln. There's nothing good for us there, just memories locked away for a reason.-
Pressure built like a kettle about to burst, shrieking through Irreor's mind.
"We go to Kiln. My army isn't ready, just as you and Kipra claimed, so I'll find one that is. I'll stop Abennak, and neither you or I or us will stop that. It's time I faced my own demons."
-I'm sorry.-
"I don't believe you."
Irreor snatched a roll from his plate and tore through its stone-like crust. The overcooked dough tasted of ash—his life tasted of ash—and he spat it out and threw the remainder against the wall.
It thumped in a satisfactory manner.
And that pressure....
I am myself. Void take me. I am. Myself.
Chapter Sixty
"He's cracked," Kipra told Bran.
They stood beneath the same oaken branches where Ark had left her at nightfall. The glow of dawn lit the sky. It had taken her hours to find the blacksmith, who'd been closeted away in a small shack. Not his home, but the shack of a Parched Girl.
Kipra shivered. King's cock, how could he stand touching her? She was smarter than most of the others, even Yaron Kenn, but that doesn't justify it. Did he find her sensual? Did he simply wish to experiment? Disgusting!
"What do you mean?" he asked.
She attempted a shrug, wishing she couldn't explain, wishing she hadn't seen Ark's madness. "He thinks Fier's father talks to him. Not only that, but he believes Fier's father planned all of this. It's absurd."
Bran peered at the ground, to the place where she'd sat with Ark. The brown, lifeless grass had been torn up. Kipra's and Ark's heels had formed little craters in the dirt.
"Why did you want to come here?" she asked.
He kept his gaze pinned to their feet. "I needed to see it."
"It's more than that."
"Probably."
"You're embarrassed about the girl, aren't you? Well, you should be." She shoved him back a step, forced him to look up to her. "She's bloody Parched!"
He narrowed his eyes. "She's more than that."
"She isn't."
"Is." He hacked a laugh. "Just because you have trouble with emotions, it doesn't mean I do. Or should. The island doesn't float beneath only you, Kipra. Get that through your skull."
He shook his head. "You and Irreor are more alike than you'll ever admit."
"Burn on a pyre, you—"
"Do you want to match streams of piss, or would you rather find out what's wrong with Irreor? Islands float, Kipra. They do it with or without us."
She clamped her mouth shut.
"Tell me exactly what he said," the blacksmith murmured.
He's cracked. What will we do without him? What will I do without him.
That knot tightened.
Bran sighed. "You didn't think it was a poor idea to call him a fool? Foolishness shouldn't beget foolishness."
"I...."
He tweaked an eyebrow.
"I am what I am, Bran. I told him this was a discussion better suited to you."
"He couldn't talk to me. He had to say it to you, and thus it was your responsibility. That's a heavy weight, yet it can move mountains. There are mountains in our minds, in our thoughts and hopes. Words can shove those mountains. They can tear them down or lift them up. It isn't easy."
"I made a mistake."
"We all do, at some time or another." He winked. "Some of us more than others."
They fell silent for several moments as dawn spilled over Farren. Sunlight lanced through the branches of the oak, stark and bright against its twisted branches. Comatose shops awakened. Lifeless alleys livened. In the distance, the funeral pyre still crackled and blazed, belching smoke over the city.
Kipra and Bran stood at the heart of it all.
The blacksmith knelt, pressed his fingertips against dirt and grass and dust. He lifted his hand, gazed at it for a moment, and showed it to her. She spun away, unwilling to look at the blood on his fingers.
Ark's blood.
We don't have a choice. Bran is right. It's our responsibility to the city, to our friends, to each other. But don't expect me to learn your forgiveness. And Abennak will pay my price for this war. I don't—
Bran expelled a short burst of air—agonized, terrified.
She pivoted on her heel, snapped her blades from their sheaths....
...and dropped them from numb fingers.
A gleaming point jutted from Bran's chest, and her friend opened and closed his mouth as blood surged past teeth and tongue. He croaked, his eyes dripped tears, and his hands flapped open.
"Bran!"
Kipra's snatched her shortswords from the ground and leapt around her impaled friend. An invisible thread thrummed and shuddered within her mind, and a shadow surged to meet her.
It moved faster than quicksilver, faster than comprehension.
Three of her fingers smacked the stones. Pain exploded up her right arm, and she shrieked and lurched backward.
Bran dropped to his knees, smiled an odd, sad smile, and flopped forward. His chest slapped the dirt like a slab of cow onto a butcher's table.
Strength abandoned her, and again her blades plummeted from numbed, throbbing hands. She sank to the ground, and gaped into the damp, marble eyes of her oldest friend.
A smug voice murmured, "Abennak didn't want him, just you."
Chapter Sixty-One
Sorrow wore a crown of tears and a tunic of sadness.
It sat atop Kipra's head, lay across her heart. Bran had once told her, 'There are mountains in our minds, in our thoughts and hopes.' She felt as if she stood at the top of that peak, looking out across a dim landscape.
Its pinnacle offered no hope.
Her captor shoved her, and she stumbled over a root. A thick forest surrounded them, and vines and sticks littered the roadway. They'd passed Farren's gates three hours ago, on their way to Renek.
Three hours of crowns and mountains and sorrows.
The gatemen—Parched cowards—had simply let them leave Farren. They hadn't questioned her captor, nor had they noticed the anguish in her eyes. No. They'd squinted and backed away.
Her hand burned like a shard of molten steel, but she gritted her teeth. In a way, her fingers felt as if they were still there. It didn't matter. Her captor had bound her hands, taken her weapons, but he'd hardly spoken a word. The shadows that swirled around him had fallen, revealing a wizened, lined face. He wore blades strapped to his back, and a brace of knives along his jerkin. The man wasn't Parched. He was something worse, something calculating and frigid and deadly.
In her memories, Bran lay upon the ground.
Slaughtered.
Lifeless.
She imagined his face, and he smiled at her as if he'd known this would happen. She gulped, swallowing back the tears. Void take me, please forgive me. Her throat burned with a mixture of fear and snot and sorrow, but she managed to croak past it.
"Who are you? Where are you taking me?"
The man shoved her again, and she whipped around.
He eyed her—a slow, appraising examination—and he twitched his lips into a smirk. This man saw only the hips, only the breasts. In a voice like crushed stone, he said, "Call me Wisk. There's a man who wants to meet you. I'll see that he does."
Kipra flinched beneath his gaze. Her hand throbbed, blood dripping to the leaves and sticks and dirt. And the crown of tears and tunic of sadness... they pressed deeper. This monster had murdered Bran.
"Burn on a pyre."
Wisk grinned. "Spitfire!"
"I'll smirk as your guts splatter the ground. I'll match your laugh. I'll spread it across the island."
In this way, she would avenge her friend. She'd lay her crown atop this man, shroud him in her tunic. The pain he'd feel, what she'd inflict... that would be something to savor.
Wisk slapped her, but she refused to cry out.
"I'll build a fire as you shriek," she promised. "First one toe will melt. Then another. And you'll know agony. You'll feel it like I do. You'll feel it like he did."
He smashed his fist against her temple.
Blackness.
Sweet, blessed blackness.
Chapter Sixty-Two
Dawn spilled through the shack's window.
A lump of disgust churned in the pit of Irreor's stomach. A portion of him desired nothing more than to wrap Kipra in his arms, carry her from the city. Last night, it was... let the world burn.
She'd let me take her. I know she would.
But he couldn't. His responsibility to the army, to Farren, overruled his feelings for her.
-There are worse ways to convince yourself.-
Irreor swung a heavy pack to his shoulder and stomped to the practice yards. He skirted to the side of the picketed horses, the few that remained, and lifted his hand to the soldiers. They rubbed the weariness from their eyes, wiped the hunger from the mouths, and returned the gesture.
Up the hill Irreor climbed, until he reached Fier's low fire. The man had slept beneath stars and silence these past two nights, ever since he'd confronted Irreor atop Farren's Spire. He wasn't exactly an outcast, as no one had forbidden him entrance to the city, but more of an observer.
He watched, judged.
How that judgment stung.
Once, and only once, he'd attempted to convince Irreor to seek out the Kilnsmen, but Irreor had ignored him, and eventually the tattooed man had wandered off. That was before Kipra and the Prophet had proven how fragile and bumbling his army was.
His army.
Irreor needed something... more. Kipra didn't believe he should recruit his father's people, but she hadn't offered any alternatives. She'd simply touched his hand, holding it there for long seconds, until those moments became ten, then twenty.
And she hadn't released him.
Now he'd leave her, maybe for only a week, but the thought of it refused to release him. Worse, he'd leave with Fier. The man knew far more than he revealed, and this would supply an opportunity to gain control over him.
It didn't need to be pretty. It didn't need to be friendly.
Irreor tossed his pack down beside Fier. "We go to Kiln."
"Now?"
"We'll take four horses, alternating mounts in shifts. We'll reach the Targ in two or three days if the weather holds, then take a ferry across the bay. Kiln is only a day's walk from there, and I want to return here within a week."
"What of the army her
e?"
"Abennak hasn't moved since he sacked Renek, and Kipra and Bran will know what to do if he does. Gar Tsi can take care of the mundane matters, and Pernik will continue to train the army. We just have to return before the Mad King reaches Farren."
"You're certain?" Fier chewed his cheek. "What changed your mind?"
Responsibility... what a cursed word. It demanded he leave Farren, compelled him to leave Bran and Kipra, forced him to seek out his father's people. For the past year, Irreor had feared the memory of his father above all others. He'd stuffed it deep within, striving to ignore the pain.
He couldn't continue to run. Responsibility wouldn't let him.
"It's none of your business."
"So why take me?"
"Because I can't trust you out of my sight." Irreor kicked dirt onto the fire. "Maybe you're right in this. Maybe wrong, but I'm not willing to let you roam free in my city."
-Because he's our son, and we're drawn to disaster like a moth to a flame.-
Be silent!
"So now it's your city?" Fier said.
"As much mine as anyone’s since Kinslek abandoned it. Yaron Kenn can't even manage a room of councilmen, and so the people look to me, just as they look to Bran and Kipra and Pernik."
"So be it."
Irreor swallowed a sneer. Fier hadn't slept beyond Farren's walls because he'd felt like an outcast, nor did he watch or judge. He'd been waiting. The bastard must've known this would happen.
Fier offered a thoughtful nod. "But not with horses."
"I'll lock you in a dungeon and go by myself before I walk."
"We take the Blind Strait, outside of Tranquil Waters. It's a narrow—"
"I know what it is. How do we get there without horses?
Fier's eyes twinkled. "I'll take us with gentahl."
A thread of the Prophet's power whisked across Irreor's shoulders, but where it had once been free and wild, more like a leaf against his skin, now it constricted, condensed. It lashed his skin, his neck, as if attempting to drive away a stubborn mule.