Storm Without End (Requiem for the Rift King Book 1)

by RJ Blain

  Kalen snorted. “The offer’s open. If you want to be the Rift King, you’ve my blessings without question. Then you can do whatever you want to the Blood Priests.”

  “Kalen,” Maiten growled.

  “I’m blind and crippled. I’m in no position to stop an assassin from the Rift, let alone a Mithrian black hand. That’s just the truth. I might be good, but I’m not that good. I don’t know of anyone who is. You understand, don’t you?”

  “How can you be so calm about this? You’re talking about your own death!”

  Kalen sighed. The thought of his death used to scare him, and that fear had driven him to do anything necessary to survive. The years had, like the wind on stone, worn him down. “I told you, Maiten. You’re one of my oldest friends, you know that. You’ve known it from the beginning of my reign. I’m tired. It used to frighten me. Sometimes, it still does. You know what they say about Rift Kings.”

  “People say a lot of things about the Rift Kings. That doesn’t mean any of it is true.”

  “The Rift Kings aren’t served out of love. They never were. They never will be. It’s always out of fear. There’s a reason for that—there’s a reason our voices aren’t heard among the songs of the ancestors. What’s left?”

  Maiten was quiet for a long time before he said, “You’re different.”

  Shaking his head while laughing, Kalen replied, “No, I’m not.”

  Once again, Maiten’s hand clapped his shoulder, surprising him. Before Kalen could pull away, he was jerked into a rough embrace.

  “You’re wrong, Your Majesty. In more ways than one. People change. You, me, your father, all of your foals, and even your sire. We all change. If you can’t protect yourself, we’ll protect you, and we’ll teach these Kelshite, Mithrian, and Danarite culls why the Rift should be feared.” Maiten’s voice was hoarse with emotion.

  His Guardian didn’t let him go until Kalen nodded in agreement.

  “Let’s head back to the camp before someone notices you’re gone.”

  ~~*~~

  Ferethian and Honey refused to be left behind. Without the use of his eyes, Kalen was powerless to control either horse. Somewhere in the darkness, Maiten laughed—at him, at his horses, and at the absurdity of a Rift King who couldn’t make his best animals behave.

  “This isn’t funny,” Kalen grumbled, which made the older man laugh even harder.

  Even the First was amused. Kalen was torn between relief the creature’s presence had strengthened and annoyance that it had sided with his Guardian.

  His awareness of the First unleashed a lot of questions; how and why it existed were only the beginning of them. Before, the First had been something he had accepted as another consequence of being the Rift King. His doubts resurfaced.

  Like the existence of his Guardians, there was something he didn’t know about the creature in his head, and his ignorance bothered him. What was the First?

  If the creature heard him, Kalen wasn’t acknowledged. It was expected, but it disappointed him all the same.

  A horse’s nose bumped against Kalen’s chest. He lifted his hand to gently push the animal away. The soft muzzle was too large for either Honey or Ferethian. With a frown, he stoked the animal’s muzzle, trying to imagine the horse through feel alone. His fingers brushed against the smoothed leather of the horse’s bridle.

  “Could you—”

  The ground lurched beneath him. He pitched forward and would have fallen without the intervention of the horse. He ended up sprawled across the animal’s neck, spitting out strands of mane. The growing rumble of thunder drowned out the whinnies of frightened horses.

  Kalen’s skin crawled. As if terrified of whatever was spooking the horses and making the ground shake, the First’s presence retreated. Kalen managed to straighten, clinging to the horse’s neck with his hand. “Maiten? What do you see?”

  “Nothing,” was the clipped reply. A hand seized Kalen behind the elbow, steadying him as the ground continued to buck underneath him.

  Kalen shuddered, pulling his arm free once certain he could remain standing without help. The trees creaked and groaned in protest. In the distance, wood splintered and cracked.

  “Get to the camp and find out what’s going on,” he ordered, letting go of the horse.

  “What about—”

  “Go, Maiten! I’ll slow you down. I’m not going anywhere.” Kalen patted the animal’s neck, and managed to stand tall despite the way the ground heaved. “Now.”

  Maiten spat curses at him, but the creak of leather revealed the man’s obedience.

  Kalen’s heartbeat raced, and his breath caught in his throat. Quakes and rock slides happened in the Rift, but the way the ground writhed and bucked beneath him didn’t feel—or sound—the same. In the Rift, shelter was either found along the cliffs away from the edges of the trail or as far out in the open as possible.

  The First urged him to follow his instinct and run. Kalen remained frozen in place. Even if he ran, where would he go? Without Maiten to guide him, fleeing would only cause problems. His mouth twisted in a rueful grin. If someone did want him dead, he had given them the perfect chance.

  “Hellfires,” he muttered, trying to think of a way to be useful. The thought of the camp being attacked was short lived; what sort of army would it take to make the ground lurch beneath his feet? But in the slim chance it was an attack, there was one thing he could do. Without their horses, Rifters were at a disadvantage.

  That was something he could rectify easily enough.

  “Ferethian,” he barked out over the rumble. A neigh answered him. “Herd to Breton!”

  The command wasn’t one he used often, although Breton had insisted he teach it to Ferethian. As with all things, his stallion had learned quickly.

  A derisive snort answered him.

  Kalen clenched his hand into a fist. “Curse you and your foals to the deeps, Ferethian. Now is not the time. Herd to Breton!”

  Ferethian made a sound so pathetic that it broke Kalen’s heart. Ignoring his stallion’s protests, he jerked his arm out and made a ‘move it!’ gesture he hoped the horse would recognize. Without knowing what was going on, arguing with the stallion was out of the question.

  “Honey,” he called out. Within moments, the mare’s nose touched his hand. “Kneel.”

  Unlike his stallion, she obeyed. With a low grown, he mounted. She rose at the touch of his heels against her sides.

  Ferethian made one final, pained sound before Kalen became aware of the stallion’s presence departing. For a moment, he was tempted to have Honey follow Ferethian. Without knowing where Maiten had taken him, he didn’t dare break his word to his Guardian. If he returned to camp, he’d only be in the way. He was too tired to dance around busy mercenaries reacting to the threat to the camp.

  Honey trembled beneath him, and ignoring the ache in his hand, he stroked her neck. While the mare was smart, equal to Ferethian in many ways, he hadn’t taken the time to train her as he should have. He hadn’t wanted to ruin her sweet temperament by forcing her to live with Ferethian’s relentless wariness. In his desire to protect the mare, he had left her—and himself—woefully ill-equipped to handle his blindness.

  Muttering curses at his stupidity, he gave the mare one of the few commands he had taught her. “Guard.”

  Honey stiffened beneath him, and he relaxed at the change in her stance. All he could do, as always, was put his trust in his horse.

  She would take care of the rest without his interference.

  Available at Amazon (April 2015)

 

 

 
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