“Yet he wasn’t an alchemist himself?”
“No.” She glanced to Tylar, her voice bitter. She pointed three fingers toward his face, toward his stripes. “He was a Shadowknight. Like you.”
Tylar felt a sting from her words, old anger glancingly aimed at him. He fumbled for words. “What was his name?”
Delia shook her head. “I won’t speak it.”
“What of his family name then? The one he took from you.”
She answered leadenly. “It was Fields.”
What little blood that still coursed in Tylar’s veins drained to his feet. He fought to keep from yelling. “Not Argent ser Fields?”
Delia’s gaze darted at him, eyes going hard. “You know him?”
Tylar pictured the long bench in the Grand Court of Tashijan, the line of adjudicators, soothsayers, and representatives of the Council of Masters and Order of Shadowknights. In the center of them all reigned the overseer of the trial. Beyond this knight’s masklin, only a single eye glowed, the other covered in a patch of bone, earning him the nickname One Eye.
Argent ser Fields.
“How do you know him?” Delia asked again, almost a demand.
Tylar could not face her. “Your father . . . he sent me into slavery.”
THIRD
LANDFALL
Tashijan ∫ founded in 129 (new ann.) by First Warden Kreier ser Plumas, the Citadel houses both the Order of the Shadowknights and the esteemed Council of Masters, uniting Myrillian might, justice, and wisdom to the service of high and low. It is said of Tashijan: “The Nine Lands are only as strong as the corner-stones of the Citadel. As Tashijan stands, so does Myrillia.”
—Historicals, Treatise of Annise, ann. 3291
12
CROSSROADS
“CASTELLAN VAIL!”
The call drew Kathryn’s attention around. One hand still rested on the latch to her new rooms, chambers that once belonged to Mirra but were now hers. She turned to find a stick figure of a man striding down the hall toward her. He was dressed in the blue-and-white of the livery staff; as he neared, Kathryn recognized him as the personal manservant of Warden Fields. The fellow reminded Kathryn of the long-legged mantis bugs that frequented the fields around Tashijan: wide startled eyes, arms always moving, jerky motions of the head.
He offered half a bow as he stopped beside her. “Excuse me, Castellan.”
“What is it, Lowl?”
“Warden Fields requests your immediate presence for a private counsel.”
Kathryn glanced to her door. For the past several days, she had feared and dreaded this summons. Until now, the few occasions when castellan and warden had met were overseen by various knights and masters, when matters of rule and writ had to be decided, matters of succession and appointment delegated. They had yet to meet alone. But at each meeting, Argent had caught her eye, a glint in his own promising further discussions would follow. It was a look laced with menace, almost leering.
And now the summons had finally come.
She glanced down at herself. She was ill suited for such a visit, just back from an early-morning ride, sweat stained and smelling of horse and saddle. “I will see to the warden as soon as I’ve adjusted myself properly.”
Her hand pulled the latch to her door. She would need a few moments to steel herself for the coming meeting with the leader of the Fiery Cross, the man said to have had a hand in the murder of Ser Henri and perhaps Mistress Mirra. The former castellan still remained missing, despite days of searching. Trackers with black ilk-beasts sniffed throughout the Citadel.
“Mistress . . . Castellan, I must insist you come with me now. I’ve been searching for you since the full ring of the Sunrise Bells.”
“Then a few moments more will make no matter, will it not?”
A heavy sigh escaped Lowl. She had not thought such a weighty sound could come from such a thin man. “The news is most urgent.” He glanced up and down the hall, a mantis searching for prey. He leaned closer. Kathryn backed up a step. “It concerns the godslayer.”
Kathryn’s hand fell away from the door latch.
Lowl nodded. “Warden Fields knew you would want to hear the tidings from his own mouth.”
Her heart thudded in her throat, threatening to choke her. If there was fresh word, then Tylar must have been spotted, found, rooted out. And if that were true, he was surely slain. A mighty bounty had been placed upon his head, with or without his body attached; word had been sent by a flock of ravens to all the cities of the Nine Lands, even out into the few semi-tamed areas of the hinterlands.
“What has happened?”
Lowl shook his head. “I’ve perhaps said too much already, but I needed you to understand the urgency and follow me at once.” He turned on a toe and continued back down the hall.
Kathryn was drawn after him. How could she not be?
Lowl led her to the double doors that opened into the Warden’s Eyrie, formerly the abode of good Ser Henri, now the lair of his likely murderer. The manservant tapped the silver knocker on the door. The sound reverberated off Kathryn’s ribs.
The door opened before the echo faded, opened by the hand of the new warden of Tashijan, Argent ser Fields.
Lowl bowed deeply. “Warden, I present Castellan Vail, as you requested.” He sidled back, making room for Kathryn.
Argent filled the doorway, dressed informally: black boots, trousers, gray shirt with silver buttons. His auburn hair had been pulled away from the hard planes of his face and tied up with a spiraling loop of gray leather that matched his shirt. One dark green eye studied her, the other was a blank plate of bone. It was hard to say which was warmer.
Kathryn stepped forward, hands behind her back. “Ser Fields, you summoned me?”
A tired sound met her words—not so much a sigh as an exhalation. “Here in the Eyrie, Argent will suffice. We can forgo the formalities.” He moved aside. “Please come in.”
She passed through the doors, unsure what to expect. She held her breath, eyes alert. She still wore her cloak and sword from her ride—no knight left Tashijan uncovered. She had to restrain herself from pulling up her hood and hooking her masklin in place, an instinctive reaction to threats.
The main chamber was vast with its own terraced balcony overlooking the inner gardens. The view of the giant wyrmwood tree matched her own in the neighboring castellan’s hermitage. The door to the balcony lay open to the morning sunshine, allowing a freshening breeze into the room. The appointments to the chamber were simple yet elegant: tapestries that dated to the founding of Tashijan, goose-down settees and chairs, a tall hearth still aglow from the prior night’s fire. Thick rugs warmed the bare stone, though one had been rolled back in a corner section of the room. There, a stand of swords and staffs stood racked. Plainly it was a small practice space for Argent to keep his skills honed.
Nowhere about the room was there a trace of menace or ill purpose.
Lowl closed the door and crossed to a small table and chair. A bowl of sliced yellow sweetapples and bunched grapes sat beside a copper tray of cheeses and a loaf of bread. The manservant poured two mugs of steaming bitternut from a silver flagon.
Argent nodded to one of the seats. “The stables sent up word of your jaunt. I’d assumed you’d not broken your fast yet this morning. It would be my pleasure to offer you my table.”
“How kind,” she answered, but she made no move toward the spread.
As Lowl stepped aside, Argent turned to his servant. “That will be all, Lowl.”
Lowl bowed himself out, retreating through a side door into the servants’ rooms.
Once the door closed, Argent crossed to the table, speared a slice of apple with a knife, and bit a chunk. He settled to one of the two seats, legs outstretched, relaxed. He stared at her.
Kathryn found the gaze somehow too personal, too intimate. She moved to the table to escape his study. She busied herself with slicing a chunk of bread and smearing a baked cheese onto it. Her eyes focused on her task, she s
poke as evenly as she could manage. “Your manservant mentioned some word on Tylar.”
“Yes. He’s been found.”
Kathryn could not stop her shoulders from tightening as she glanced toward the man. His eyes—or rather eye—remained stone. Unreadable. He waited. She met his gaze and held it. She would not give him the pleasure of hearing her ask.
Argent shifted and finally continued. “A Shadowknight out of the Summering Isles led a fleet of corsairs across the Deep, following bits of trail left behind by the godslayer. He was almost caught, engaged by this knight, but escaped in a vessel stolen from Tangle Reef.”
“Tangle Reef? How?” Kathryn settled the knife to the table, ignoring the bread and cheese. Tylar is still alive.
A shrug. “Fyla of the Reef has always been reclusive in her watery realm, suspicious of all. She has refused to communicate, even in this dire matter, withdrawing her realm from habitable seas. But in her wake, large swaths of dead tangleweed, singed and smoldering, foul the seas. Ships report a poisonous stench that kills with a mere breath. There can be no doubt that the realm was attacked most foully and now retreats to lick its wounds.”
“Tylar . . .”
“The godslayer proves his dark bent yet again.” Argent sat straighter, plucking a few grapes from a bunch. “But measures are being taken.”
Kathryn frowned. “Measures?”
He waved away her question with his knife. “I called a council. ’Til then we have more to settle between us. Please sit.”
She remained standing.
“Do you not wish to know why I chose you as castellan?”
Warily, Kathryn obeyed. She sank to the other seat, too curious to refuse. “Why?”
He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Because I need you.”
The earnestness of his words struck through her.
“In the past, you have demonstrated the ability to place the welfare of Tashijan above personal gain or desire. When I was overseer for your betrothed’s adjudication, you set your own heart aside to speak the truth. I watched the pain with which you spoke those damning words of accusation. Yet you did not falter or attempt to obfuscate.”
Kathryn looked down. The pain from that day remained with her. She had sat upon the chair of truth and told all how Tylar had come to bed on the night of the murder of the cobbler’s family covered in blood, smelling of ale and drink. She had already heard testimony about how his sword had been found among the bodies, how Gray Traders, under the cloak of anonymity, had shown records of Tylar’s dealings with them, and how on the night of the murders, a cross-street neighbor to the cobblers had seen a Shadowknight vanish into the night’s gloom.
“Each word you spoke destroyed a small part of you,” Argent said.
Kathryn forced her hands not to touch her belly. The heartache and anguish destroyed more than just her own well-being. She had been with child, Tylar’s child. She had been hoping to tell him the night he vanished, the morning he came home bloody to her sheets. But that moment was lost forever. During and after the trial, heartache wrung her body, finally choking the child from her. She remembered the blood on her hands, staining her sheets again. Strangely, there had been too little pain to take so much from her.
“It is such bravery of spirit that has always stayed with me,” Argent said quietly. “It is such bravery that is needed now, during this dark time.”
“Still, you chose me against tradition. One of the Council of Masters has always sat as castellan.”
“Not always. There has been precedent in the past. During the rule of Warden Gilfoyl, he chose another knight.”
Kathryn knew the story. “The two were lovers.”
“So it was rumored, but the pair did rule Tashijan for two decades, well and with much accomplishment. And prior to that, for the first three centuries, there was no Council of Masters. Tashijan was ruled solely by knights.”
“And is that what you wish again?”
“Of course not. I would not usurp such power. Balance in all things is the best way to govern.”
“So again, why pick me over an equally brave and well-spoken member of the Council of Masters?”
His one eye narrowed. “Because you have no equal, Kathryn ser Vail.”
Again the intensity of his gaze felt a violation. She reached to the mug of bitternut and warmed her palms upon its hot surface.
“I’ve waited a long time to have you at my side.”
Kathryn heard a hint of something deeper, a trace of huskiness in his voice. She remembered the stories of Warden Gilfoyl and his castellan. Leaders and lovers. Did Argent believe they, the two of them . . . ? She shoved such a thought away, repulsed. Instead, one hand reached into a pocket and removed a black stone, her cast ballot. She placed it on the table. Painted on the stone’s surface, the crimson sigil was plain to see, a circle around a slash of crossed lines.
“What of this?” she asked.
Argent leaned forward again. “Ah, yes, the Fiery Cross.”
“So you don’t deny that you are a member of this order?”
“Not at all,” he said. “In fact, I’m the leader and founder.”
Kathryn’s blood went cold. She couldn’t keep the shock from her face.
“But please, don’t mistake the rumors and nighttime tales of the Cross. Such a group never existed. We don’t practice Dark Graces or blood rites. We don’t skulk around hidden chambers. We are merely a faction of knights who wish to see Tashijan function more independently of the rule of gods and men. It is a minor, yet volatile, distinction. Nothing sinister. So we took the old name of the Fiery Cross as our own. The symbol of fire was apt. It is only in flame that something stronger can be forged. And with Myrillia standing at a crossroads in history, choices have to be made. Which path to take? Ser Henri looked to the past, to the old ways. We knew such measures had grown stagnant and that a new path was needed. Ser Henri did not agree.”
Kathryn attempted to hide any reaction to the name of Ser Henri, but something must have shown through.
“No, I did not slay Ser Henri. We had our differences, but as I said, they were political and philosophical. Nothing to shed blood over.”
“And what of Castellan Mirra?”
“Ah, yes, now that is something of a concern.” Argent shook his head sadly. “Ser Henri and I had discussions about her. Few would know, but she has been growing more and more addled of mind and reason. Flights of suspicion that had no thread in reality.”
Kathryn kept her own suspicions silent. He had all the right answers, but were any of them true?
“Myrillia is faced with a dark time. Unrest and menace grow each day. Darkness has even reached Chrismferry, in the form of an assassin who slew one of Lord Chrism’s Hands.”
Kathryn, like all in Tashijan, had heard the bloody story.
“And there can be no doubt where the blame lies,” Argent said, brow tightening.
“Where is that?”
He stabbed a finger to the table. “Here.”
Kathryn glanced sharply at him.
“ ‘As Tashijan stands, so does Myrillia,’ ” he quoted. “And, likewise, as Tashijan ails, so will the Nine Lands. For the past century, the number of Shadowknights has been steadily declining, likewise the number of sons and daughters schooled to be Hands to the gods. Across Myrillia, conclaves have closed or crumbled into ruin. Is it any wonder rot has crept into the rest of the landscape? Ill creatures grow in number. The hinterlands grow wilder and bolder with each passing year. And a daemonic godslayer has risen from our ranks, one of our own fallen. Can one ignore the finger pointed at our very heart? Pointed at Tashijan. We’ve stagnated under the rules and rites of tradition for far too long, grown fatted and lazy. If we are to face the growing dark tide, then we must start here first. The best must lead us. Those who have been tested under fire, whose loyalty and fealty to Tashijan has been forged and honed to a keen edge.”
Argent took a deep breath. “We two—you and I—condemned
Tylar. We proved our strength of purpose and focus. He should have been killed. But Ser Henri’s soft intervention and petitions won him a reprieve, allowed him to live. And see what such weakness has sown. A godslayer who threatens all.”
Kathryn found her head spinning from his words.
“I chose you, Kathryn ser Vail, because once again it is up to us to steel our hearts and make the tough choices, to harden Tashijan in a new flame, to face what must be faced without flinching or soft hearts. You have done this in the past. I ask you to take my side and do it again—for all of Myrillia. Can you do this?”
Without willing it, her head nodded. A dark time was indeed upon them. Despite her suspicions, she could not deny Argent’s words. A renewed strength, purpose, and focus were needed to stand against the tide.
“Very good. I knew I chose well. Now we must prepare ourselves for what’s to come. Time closes like a noose.”
Kathryn raised her eyes, confusion plain to read.
“The godslayer must be stopped.”
She found her voice. “How . . . ? I thought he escaped into the Deep.”
Argent nodded. “But we know where he’s heading.”
Kathryn frowned.
“The godslayer is coming here . . . to Tashijan.”
Kathryn paced before the balcony window. Sunlight streamed down upon her. She felt none of its warmth.
“Impossible!” Perryl declared as he stood by the hearth.
“Why would Tylar be coming here?” Gerrod echoed. He sat in a chair by the window, his bronze armor achingly bright in the light. He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. Though his face was hidden, his posture spoke his intense cogitation. “There is no benefit in returning to Tashijan.”
“He’s coming for me,” Kathryn said, biting at the words as they came, repeating what Argent had spoken just two rings of the bells ago. “One of the sailors aboard a ship upon which Tylar had booked passage, a galleon with ties to the Black Flaggers, had spied upon their cabin. He heard their group speak of Tashijan.”
“And you?” Gerrod asked.
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