by T. A. Miles
Korsten nodded in reply, simultaneously considering that he now knew something more of Sharlotte; that she had Healing as one of her talents. He would not have guessed as much. Granted, upon meeting her, he would not have assigned green or Empathy to her either.
“Of the six bloodlines Adrea originally considered,” Sharlotte said, returning them to their original topic, “two became cold immediately, especially considering Lerissa’s theory regarding you, as both of these would have happened not only before your birth, but well away from this region. There was obviously due cause for her to abandon them early, but as we were just starting out and lingering in the vicinity of Vassenleigh and the Old Capital, we investigated anyway.
“Reading what Adrea had written, the theories behind those two options were a hopeful reach, derived of fleeting interests that members of the Rottherlen family may have had. One was the possibility of a male cousin involved with a farmer’s daughter well before the attack on Vassenleigh ever became a remote fear at the back of the Council’s collective consciousness. Whether or not anything truly went on, the record keeping of which child came from which farm were confounded at best. With no solid talk or writing of the incident, there’s no hope of knowing where the girl may have been from, let alone what may have become of her. The other was an affair between a granddaughter of the last King, who had taken interest in a merchant boy…who turned out to be a girl in disguise. The uncle of the merchant girl was still alive twenty-some years ago. The family maintained the falsehood regarding gender because they feared rebuke.”
Korsten’s mind lingered on the information for a bit. And then he said, “And the other four?”
Lerissa took her turn at answering again. “Three of these were very removed cousins. One family, in terms of record keeping and local memory, seems to have fallen into complete obscurity. Two resulted in sons who have all reportedly died at war before having had any children of their own—unless they had one unbeknownst to anyone else and in that event gods’ luck finding them—and the remaining option is a family that is entirely closed to the possibility of a pairing outside of marriage in their history. Of course, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t possible, but even if it is, all of the descendants have scattered and had children of their own by now, further diluting an already thin blood influence, if one was there at all.”
“That must have taken considerable time and effort,” Korsten said of their work.
Lerissa confirmed with a nod. “I’ve never talked to so many people in all my life, as I have in the last thirty-five years.”
There was a long pause, during which Lerissa sighed in exaggerated weariness, and both Sharlotte and Korsten remained contemplatively silent. What went through Sharlotte’s mind was a mystery that Korsten didn’t worry over deciphering. He was pleased to know that, while he had been studying and training—and more recently working alongside Merran hunting the Vadryn—Sharlotte and Lerissa had been working as well. He considered how exhausted the two women must have been by now and was beginning to understand just why the search had been largely put off, in spite of how important the Ascendant was still regarded by Ashwin. It crossed Korsten’s mind that enemies may have known what Adrea was doing, and that she had been murdered. No one had ever related the time or nature of her passing; only that she was gone. He understood that it had been—and yet remained—unimportant that he know the precise details. Except now, he was curious.
“Everything we’ve accomplished is written down,” Lerissa said, drawing his attention back to her fully.
“You planned to return,” Korsten said when it fully dawned on him, and he couldn’t help that a smile formed in his relief.
Lerissa smiled back at him. “Of course, my ridiculous friend. For one thing, our supply of petals and honey has about gone dry, and for another, I had no intention of leaving my Merran entirely to you. And now you can tell me how he is, thank you very much.”
Korsten’s smile grew and fell away in those moments. He had no desire to worry Lerissa, but the truth of the matter was what it was. “We were separated by unexpected circumstances,” he told her. “Involving demons.”
“More than one?” came the response of a newcomer to the conversation.
“Yes,” Korsten replied automatically. “A small…”
Looking over his shoulder at Sethaniel, he paused long enough to make it plainly evident that he’d been caught off guard and was intent on further extending the awkwardness between them. He forced himself to finish his words, but found that he had to look to Lerissa again in order to do so.
“A small army,” he said.
Lerissa offered a look of sympathy that may have been intended for both Korsten and Sethaniel.
The look escaped Korsten to some degree. In the corner of his vision, he was acutely aware of the very aged patriarch of the house he stood in—that he had believed with diligence that he might never stand in again—walking further into the room.
“A small army,” his father repeated, dark eyes yet strong enough in their gaze to make his skin feel warm. “Where were you last?”
As an adolescent, that question would have been met with defiance or tears, or both, depending on just what it was Korsten didn’t want Sethaniel to know. At some point before he was done being a child, Korsten had concluded that he didn’t want Sethaniel to know him. And in what may have been a wish cruelly granted by the gods, Korsten’s father decided that he was quite finished with him. But it wasn’t a wish granted by the gods in actuality. The lack of positivity that birthed the wish would not have been dignified by any being of true wisdom or compassion. The miserable attitude Korsten had then would have surely drawn the Vadryn instead. Haddowyn’s fate rushed to the front of his mind, washing fresh guilt onto the uneven shores of his memory and his present life. As the two places converged, they formed a landscape that felt uncomfortably foreign. The landmarks of familiarity listed awkwardly against all attempts to maintain dignity in the face of defilement. Defilement from what source? From the Vadryn, or from himself?
In Korsten’s silence, his father let go a somewhat restrained breath of frustration. He began to turn around and Korsten snapped alert, not by the breath or the motion his father had put forward, but by the very strong sensation of regret that came over him, maybe even of remorse. Confusion chased the feelings through his blood, but he didn’t allow that to silence him any longer.
“I was in Indhovan,” he said finally.
Sethaniel stopped. He seemed to be digesting whatever information he perceived in that answer. His gaze returned to Korsten. “For how long?”
Korsten met Sethaniel’s dark eyes when his father looked at him, and he found himself nearly brought to tears, but not in the same way he recalled having been so as a child…or even as a very young man, estranged from his family. This felt deeply different and it was beyond his ability to comprehend in the moment. “A matter of days.”
Again, the considering silence. Korsten very nearly blurted out an apology, for what exactly, he couldn’t say. He lowered his gaze to the floor instead. His heart began to beat heavily enough that he could hear it resounding throughout his body and he resolved himself to take control of this moment, lest he return to the child he once had been, one he may have only just been realizing had been very confused, if not entirely wrong. “The war is coming closer to home than it’s ever been, Father.”
“The war was at my doorstep when it took Haddowyn,” Sethaniel said somberly. “And you with it.”
The words drew Korsten’s eyes up in time to see his father leaving the room. His jaw tensed helplessly as tears immediately formed. He felt as if he’d committed a very deep wrong. He felt as if he’d committed it in his sleep and awake he had no hope of recalling what it was he had done. He could only see the damage.
Two
THE DAMAGE DONE to Indhovan had been significant, but manageable thus far. Water carried with it, the destructive force of armies. However, the full of that force had b
een stayed. It was the actual army that Vlas was more concerned with.
Morenne had troops on the water now as well as on land. They were coming, and Indhovan’s forces were readying as quickly as they were able. Scouring the Islands for any further traces of Vadryn became an immediate and urgent priority. So far, they had found nothing substantial outside of Serawe’s nesting ground—for lack of a better term.
The demon had done her share of damage to rival the crone’s summoned wave. She had destroyed countless lives in her gluttony and in her allegiance to her fellow demons and Morenne…a country of people who were the bedfellows to demons, from what Vlas had seen. Seduced by promises of power, men had turned against men and conspired with the vilest creatures the world had been witness to, perhaps in all of its history. Those men would become the victims as well, if they weren’t already. Vlas had no doubt that once this war was over—if it ended in Morenne’s favor—that the Vadryn would renege on whatever promises they might have made while the victory was still fresh.
“That would be the end of our world, wouldn’t it, Zesyl?”
The white mantis loitering on his shoulder poked along his collar region. He gave his soulkeeper his hand and gently relocated her to the rock he was crouched beside.
The boulder was one of many which sufficiently blocked any hope of entrance into what had once been Serawe’s well. He could only wonder at the state of the chamber beneath the rubble and he tried not to wonder too long, as it tended to lead him to visions of Vaelyx Treir in his last moments. In fact, it was already too late, so he promptly pushed all related thoughts from his mind, concluding once again that the well was secure. Neither the Islands cult, nor the Vadryn would have access to it again while it was both buried beneath rock and sealed by spell.
The Islands cult may still have been a problem for them, however. Unfortunately, Konlan Ossai remained missing and he was the most prominent figure any of them had to look to for information regarding the cult itself, along with the precise nature of his involvement with it. What else they could learn was coming slowly from Vaelyx’s writings, which Irslan had been poring over diligently. Indhovan’s governor had yet to fully recover from his bout with cultist magic, but fortunately his son and wife were working well with what emissaries and connections they had in order to work with the Islands in gaining a better grasp on fire tactics for the battle ahead.
There had been precious little time to organize and prepare since Serawe’s fall at the hands of a fellow priest who remained missing as well. Vlas presumed the demon had fallen, but the truth of the matter was that neither he nor anyone there had any real idea just what had gone on after Korsten’s departure by Reach with a small horde of demons caught up in the pull of his Siren spell. Cayri held herself optimistic and Vlas tried, for the most part, to follow her lead. The problem for him was that he had stood witness to Serawe. And he had witnessed a priest spontaneously mastering a spell that was both rare and quite dangerous for the caster. For all any of them knew, those demons—overwhelmed by their draw to Korsten in those moments Siren was cast—had devoured him, along with each other. What Vlas had watched happening was a frenzy for magic.
With a sigh, he rose to a stand and looked out to sea. There were no ships along the horizon yet. He supposed that was for the better. Still, a part of him found the enemy’s quiet entirely disturbing.
“War is coming,” Deitir said to his father.
Raiss Tahrsel lay in his bed and said nothing.
Deitir didn’t know why he expected that he would have awakened by now—it hadn’t been more than a period of days since he fell to whatever illness had assailed him. Not even priests knew precisely what it was, though with what was being uncovered about the Islands’ brand of witches, he suspected it had been some form of curse. He believed that Vaelyx Treir was not the one to have betrayed him, but that it had been Raiss’ own cousin instead. Deitir’s conclusion with what information he had was that Konlan Ossai had designed to use magic to influence Indhovan’s highest authority and to cast blame onto Vaelyx, who made it all too convenient with his own involvement where magic and the Islands were concerned.
The Islands had been a mystery and overlooked by most of the city beyond their surface interaction. After hearing accounts of what had led to the end of Vaelyx’s friendship with Raiss, it seemed evident to Deitir that his father had sought to protect his mother’s honor by putting his own blood connection to their people behind him. As a faithful friend would, Vaelyx sought to uncover a better truth, and to exonerate a woman who was simply misunderstood, or perhaps too closely related to those who were truly a danger. Those people remained unidentified, with thanks to Konlan’s disappearance and Raiss’ voluntary silence, which had led to an involuntary one.
Naturally, a more thorough investigation could be ordered. They could attempt to track people who had known his father when he was a boy and to learn who his blood relatives were other than Konlan. But there was no time for that right now. Morennish ships were coming. The enemy’s plan had been to attack a city direly wounded by an assault from nature, disorganized and unprepared for not only their arrival, but for the new weapons they would use, forged by traitors embedded among the Islands. Presumably, runner ships would carry—or maybe had already carried—the supply to the attack vessels. At least now they were aware of the fire tactics, but how ready they would be to combat them, no one could accurately say.
“We need more time,” he said, maybe to his father…maybe to the gods.
Both were silent.
The depth of that silence was made more apparent when a stark voice elsewhere penetrated it with shouting that Deitir was not unaccustomed to these days, but that typically took place within the governor’s office or study…while Deitir acted in place of the governor, and received all the disagreement and challenge the station called for. He knew that he’d heard his father engage in many heated discussions over the years, but it sounded much different now, being not only the target of such flame, but the source intended also to put it out. In which case, duty required of him to douse this most recent conflagration of temperament as well.
He left his father’s bedside and exited the room into the hall, drawing the door closed behind him.
Cayri was coming toward him from what was evidently her favorite place before the window at the end of the corridor. It had a glorious view of the ocean, but more importantly, one could see the outermost edges of the city and what may be coming at them from beyond.
The priest seemed to have a knack for knowing when Deitir was going to emerge from any of his vigils at his father’s side, but he suspected this time that what had drawn her was the same disruption that had drawn him. For that reason, he didn’t bother to ask her if she knew what the commotion was. He simply headed toward the stairs, with her alongside him.
Whenever she walked with him so automatically, he felt his confidence strengthen. She had a way at soothing with her presence, which he resisted at first because he felt the need to be an extension of his father’s distrust while his father was absent. It did not take Deitir long to realize that Cayri had come to help, or maybe just that she could help. He would hope to never see her go, though he knew that the citadel at Vassenleigh was her place. And Indhovan was his, whether to support his father or to succeed him.
He put such thoughts deliberately from his mind, making his focus the very raised voice of a man he felt certain that he recognized.
“I will not quiet down,” the man protested at whomever had suggested he lower his voice. “The ship was not only sunk, it was obliterated. It was shredded—torn literally asunder! Can you understand that? Can any of you imagine it?”
Deitir felt his mood and expression both sour, particularly as he heard his mother now, attempting to calm the man—one of her activist friends, and a particularly irritating one at that. Upon arriving at the top of the stairs, Deitir visually targeted the man, who was nearing his sixth decade, if he hadn’t eclipsed it already. He m
aintained a sturdy frame, despite his lack of youth. His dark hair shone lighter in some places and his hairline had retreated somewhat above the temples, though the exceptionally short style the man kept may have made it less apparent to an eye not quite as critical as Deitir’s in the moment.
In these moments, Deitir felt helplessly uncharitable. According to his mother, she and Firard Mortannis shared a common city of origin to the south, where Deitir supposed he might have run the narrow risk of growing up himself, if his mother had not determined to make her own path away from the overly domestic expectations of her family. Deitir became acutely aware in moments like these, that his mother’s past acquaintances had very likely known the man who sired him.
He resented them for it, not out of jealousy, but because he had no desire to know. If the man had been such a worthy person, he doubted his mother would have been unmarried when she’d met the only man Deitir would acknowledge as his father. And it was within that thought that Deitir understood that his pronounced lack of charity just now may have stemmed from his father’s failing health more than from anything else.
He drew in a breath and headed down the steps, just behind Cayri, who seemed particularly drawn by what Firard was exclaiming.
“That ship was a scout,” the man went on. “It attacked us immediately and brutally, with weapons of tremendous force. It may have been fortunate that the sea rose against us when it did. We were set adrift. Thankfully, boats were recovered and we were able to bring those of us left to shore.”
“And the scout ship?” Deitir prompted, watching his mother take note of a crudely dressed wound on Firard’s right arm.
Waving away Ilayna’s concern, Firard looked at Deitir and said, “Sunk, as we were. They may have taken the brunt of the water. We didn’t encounter any survivors, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t any.”