by Serena Chase
My breath caught. If he wasn’t the Remedy, why else would he be here?
A cloak of acceptance settled heavily over my heart. I could not be selfish. I had to think of the entire Kingdom. Julien himself had said it and I well knew that E’veria was worth any sacrifice. Regardless of personal cost, I would do what was right for my Kingdom.
I took a deep breath, opened my eyes, and lifted my chin.
I am the Ryn.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
I lifted my hand and examined the gem. Its facets glowed with green fire, the same spark I had seen in Julien’s eyes when he told me he loved me.
I tried to hold back my emotions, but tears fell like water through a sieve. Oh, why had I let myself fall in love with Julien? How would I ever explain this to him?
“Ah.” The golden knight saw the pain in my eyes. “There is another?”
I nodded.
“I’m sorry. I had hoped you would yet be unattached when you finally came to me. This will be even more difficult for you since your heart is otherwise engaged. But you know the prophecy, Ryn Naia. You know our bond, our union, is necessary.” He sighed. “I only hope, one day, you will allow yourself to care for me.”
I sniffed. “The E’veri family has always married for love.”
“True,” he said. “But what is love, in essence, but a common goal and an affectionate, determined pursuit? These things we share. Already we are friends, yes? It is not such a big leap to love.”
I knew the truth of that from my friendship with Julien.
“Time has not given us the luxury of courtship,” he continued, “but the prophecy has foretold of our union, and as you well know, no one can thwart the will of The First King.”
His jaw stiffened slightly and, as he finished, a bitter color touched the surface of my mind. But even so, his tone had not betrayed that emotion. I blinked. Had I sensed his bitterness . . . or mine? Certainly, the thought of giving up Julien caused me pain, but . . .
If he truly was to be my husband, Andoven etiquette demanded that I seek permission to see his thoughts. But if he was not telling the truth, I had no compulsion to restrict myself thus. What to do?
But then again . . .
His recitation of the prophecy was so sure. And his interpretation made sense. Besides, he’d done nothing to harm me. In fact, he had killed a Cobeld on my behalf!
With a twinge of misgiving, I decided not to use my gift. Instead I sought its Giver.
I closed my eyes and the face of Aspera Scyles slid through my thoughts like sand.
A shiver moved across my shoulders as the vision passed, replaced by the warmer memory of the last advice my mother had given me before I left Tirandov Isle.
“When you are in doubt, or when fear itself seems as if it will overpower you, concentrate on his names, the many titles of The First King that you have studied these past weeks.You will be reassured by them.
“My dear?” The knight interrupted my thoughts. “Are we agreed? We should proclaim our vows and leave this place.”
“I understand your urgency, sir, I do.” Indeed. The Kingdom needed to be freed from the Cobeld curse. “But I need a moment to absorb this. You are asking me to forsake another and bind myself to you, a virtual stranger, while the weight of the Kingdom’s future lies at my feet.”
“It is not me who asks,” he said. “It is what the prophecy demands.”
I sighed, lowering my lashes to release the tears that had built up at the thought of losing Julien. With eyes closed, my mind turned page after page of Loeftryn de Rynloeft’s names and titles, finally coming to rest on the one I needed.
Truth Barer, I silently called, wrapping my plea in gray camouflage. Truth Barer! Please make this clear!
Aspera Scyles’s deceptive look of subservience pierced through my consciousness again, surrounded by a field of pure white light.
I’d asked for the truth to be bared, but had been given a vision of . . . deception?
All at once, the picture was joined by an echo of poetry from the scrolls. Ryn Naia’s past on future bears and memory serves to foil the snare.
A gasp sounded silently in my mind. The Truth Barer had been speaking to me all along. I had not been listening.
“It pains me to see your tears,” the knight said. “It will not be easy for us at first, but love will grow in time. Of that I am sure.”
I opened my eyes as he ran a soft, beautiful palm along my tear-stained cheek. “Does the thought of marriage to me repulse you?” he asked. “In time, could you grow to find me attractive? Someday?”
The vision the Truth Barer had granted me of the Asp gave me fresh insight into the knight’s question. His sincerity was tainted, somehow. And his eyes bore the look of one who was supremely confident in his own loveliness.
And who willingly used it for his own gain.
Suddenly, I knew why he looked familiar. I had seen him before. He had come to life in my mind through the pages of The Story of The First.
The First King had overcome the bonds of time, ink, and paper to show me how the Emblem of the First came to be. This very knight had been on the battlefield when Loeftryn de Rynloeft’s body was burned at the base of the Sacred Mountain.
He was the traitor, Cobeld. The one from whom E’veria’s greatest enemies had taken their name.
He was not the Remedy. He was the foe.
I had to suppress a shiver when he stroked the back of my hand. It took every ounce of strength within me to keep my face from betraying me as I silently expressed my thanks to the Truth Barer.
“If you find me even the least bit attractive, Ryn Naia,” he said in a tone that was now more syrupy than vulnerable to my more discerning ears, “that attraction could grow to love.”
I opened my eyes. “You are the most handsome man I have ever seen.”
I spoke honestly, even though admitting it left a vile taste in my mouth and made me feel like I was committing an offense of disloyalty to Julien. But it was that taste that assured me that somewhere beneath the knight’s—no, Cobeld’s—beauty, was the rancid ugliness of an ancient lie.
“Regardless of the cost to me,” I said, “I will do what is right to fulfill the prophecy. But,” I paused and forced myself to smile at him, “my father would be disappointed if I accepted your proposal too readily. Allow me to walk a bit. To take a few moments to acclimate myself to the idea of our future together. I would not wish the King to think I spoke my vows too hastily.”
“Perhaps that would be wise,” he said, chuckling. “You are his only child. He is bound to have some reservations to our match, even if it is clearly necessary from the scrolls. I am, after all, much, much older than you.”
Indeed. I fought the shiver that threatened to shake my spine. If he’d been trapped in this chamber for a thousand or more years, how did he know so much about me? Did the Cobelds know he was here? Had they told him? Did they worship him as they would a god?
Or was this, like my visitation from Lady Anya, some strange magic that ripped the very fabric of time?
I disregarded that last thought. He was here. Exactly here and exactly now. But how? And why didn’t he look like his namesakes? How had he retained his youth?
Truth Barer, I petitioned while trying to keep my companion’s steady gaze. Why have you allowed him to remain young that he might lie in wait like this for centuries?
There was no answer to my question, but as I pondered it, I realized I didn’t need a reason.
I already had truth.
Whatever power had enabled Cobeld to keep his youth, whatever window he had to the rest of the world, Cobeld was trapped inside this mountain.
No, Cobeld was not as powerful as I’d feared. His power would not even register when measured against that of the Warrior King who had sent me to defeat him.
And defeat him I would.
I gazed at the glittering emerald on my finger, but pictured Julien’s eyes instead. “It is such a beautiful color, this rin
g,” I said. “I will think on your proposal and give you my answer in a moment.” As an afterthought, I pulled every ounce of Veetrish charm I could to the surface of my smile, hoping it appeared both genuine and slightly besotted, something he would likely expect, given his apparent confidence in his beauty. “I will not keep you waiting long.”
With that, I turned from him and began what I hoped looked like a thoughtful stroll around the room, careful to keep my thoughts and expression masked while dearly hoping the transparent floor would remain solid beneath my feet.
I paused here and there to examine the carved sconces and other artful objects that made the chamber so lovely. I barely noticed them, though, so intent was I on surveying the room for a hint of the two things I truly sought. First, the Remedy. And second? A weapon.
Guide my eyes, Truth Barer, I pleaded. Please show me what to do. Voice of Truth, be my guide.
Again, I turned my gaze to the engagement ring, its color so like the eyes of the man I loved. But while my heart sent a continuous stream of requests to Rynloeft, my thoughts raced through the poetry.
For Ryn alone must foe engage and settle in eternal cage. Must foe engage. Is that what the scrolls meant? That I had to accept the ring? Something about that seemed wrong.
When I looked down at the floor again I had to steady myself by grasping the nearby sconce.
It was a truly dizzying view. If the transparent floor gave way, how many leagues would I fall? It had trembled when I fell out of the tunnel. Perhaps if it was struck just right . . .
It might not take much of an impact to cause it to give way, I thought. It would just have to be at a point of weakness.
I looked around for a crack or a hole, some evidence that one part of the transparent barrier was less sturdy than the rest, but found none.
I will have to create the point of weakness myself, I thought. But not yet.
It took a moment to regain my equilibrium when I looked away from the chasm. As soon as my stomach returned to its original position, however, my gaze was drawn to the rock formation in the center of the room. The rock was nearly flat at the top, but had a lumpy growth of some other kind of stone in the middle of it.
I lifted up on my tiptoes, grabbed a torch from a sconce on the wall, and held it up toward the rock. The lump in the middle cast a strange shadow. “What is that?”
I hadn’t meant to speak aloud. Silently, I chided my foolishness when Cobeld hurried around to my side of the rock.
But I didn’t need an audible answer to my question. As if Rynloeft had shined a light reflecting its name, I knew I had found the gift. The sustenance.
The Remedy.
The hairs on my neck tingled at Cobeld’s nearness.
“Please, Ryn Naia,” he said. “You cannot understand how agonizing these years have been, waiting for you. How often have I longed for death! But now you are here and my life has reason again. There is no time to waste. Let us be married at once! Let us exile the curse and save the Kingdom!”
Silence stretched the scant air between us as I rethought every word the traitor had spoken. A burst of righteous anger consumed my thoughts at his knowing manipulation of the scrolls.
And not a little rush of humiliation that I’d almost fallen for it.
For him.
Sir Cobeld had been one of the First King’s knights. A friend. But he had betrayed his oath and his King. Cobeld had no intention of exiling the curse.
He was the curse.
I closed my eyes and thanked The First for allowing me to see through this golden deception and then humbly petitioned for permission to use the gifts of my heritage and the extended power of my mother’s blessing.
I trained my eyes on a place on the floor, though it looked like air.
Weaken and crack, I commanded.
Directly in front of me, a jagged stripe appeared. It snaked across the glass-like floor between us. A slight sizzling sound broke the silence as the stripe fractured off in several different directions across the floor, multiplying in size and sound as it weakened the only support which kept us from a terrorizing fall and death.
It had to be done, but it sent panic swirling in my core. When I looked over my shoulder I was relieved to find that the crack had not yet made it completely around the rock. It was moving fast, but there was still time. Taking a step back, I looked up and was met by the golden knight’s furious gaze.
“You did that?”
I nodded, my heart pressing against my throat.
“You are not only the descendent of Stoen, but of . . . Andov?”
He knew so much about me, but he didn’t know that? Again, I nodded.
A sudden and horrible change worked over the traitor knight’s glorious face. He took a step toward me and I stepped back. In a moment of panic, I threw the torch at the floor near his feet, hoping it would make a crack large enough for him to fall through.
But even after more than a thousand years, his reflexes were still knight-quick. He caught the torch just before it would have crashed onto the weakened floor.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
My heart almost stopped. Throwing the torch was a gut-level reaction to the threat he posed to my person. But had the torch hit its mark, I likely would have fallen into the chasm along with my enemy.
Think, Rynnaia! I chastised my foolishness. Think!
Torch in hand, the golden knight stood stock-still, but for the change overtaking the loveliness of his form. In a matter of moments his beauty melted away to reveal centuries of living death and a feral countenance of pure hatred that was even more terrifying than the chasm beneath our feet.
I fled back toward the rock platform and ran my hands over it, seeking a hold for my hands or feet. Finally finding a grip, I climbed as fast as I could, but just as my hand reached the top, he started to laugh.
I almost lost my hold at the frighteningly familiar tone, the same bone-chilling laugh that had haunted my dreams over the last several weeks. Fear threatened to paralyze me. My breath came in short gasps and my heart beat a frantic pace. When a spasm gripped my chest, I cried out, but I willed myself to keep moving toward the Remedy. I had just pulled my torso over the top of the rock when a searing pain tore through my leg.
Twisting at the waist, I grasped at the dagger he had thrown, now embedded in my calf muscle. I wrapped my fingers around its handle and ripped it free.
The blade was covered in my blood; the pain, agonizing and all too familiar. A closer look at the knife revealed what I feared: a coarse silver hair was tightly wound around the tip of the steel blade.
His laugh was almost a shriek now. I turned my shocked gaze to him and recoiled at the drastic change in his appearance. His golden armor hung on shrunken, wrinkled skin and a silver-gray beard fell past his waist.
“I have been waiting over a thousand years to have my revenge,” he said, but his voice was as changed as his appearance. Its tone was guttural, like that of his servant, the Cobeld who had tried to kill me in the Great Wood. “I have parceled it out over the centuries, using those who pledged to be my subjects against the progeny of those who refused. But no matter how much death the curses I designed rained upon E’veria, it never sated my appetite for more. How could it while E’veria still had the hope of you!”
“How did you ‘design’ the curses?” Curiosity forced questions from my lips, but the first was followed by a gasp and the second, preceded by a groan. “How did the curses get inside the hairs of their beards?”
“Water,” he spat with glee.
Pain swelled to a pitch I had known only once before. Opening the cell doors had nearly killed me, but I had a feeling this curse was meant to be drawn out longer. And it didn’t have to enter me through my mind. It was already in my blood. I tried to hold back my scream, but the curse forced it from my lips, leaving the taste of greed and evil behind.
His laugh conveyed the pleasure he found in my pain. “Shireya was mine. The land, the mountain, the vineyards, and the
springs. All gifted to me by Loeftryn de Rynloeft for my loyal service,” he sneered. “Did you know, Ryn Naia, that the watered wine of Shireya was once E’veria’s most lucrative export?”
“Watered wine?” My question came out through the clenched teeth of another chest spasm that had come too swiftly after the last. My knees ached, but below them? Nothing. It was almost as if the bottom halves of my legs were not there.
“Yes. It was purported to contain the healing properties of Shireya’s mountain springs, and, indeed, it did. But it was I who discovered what could result when the water of the springs was combined with things other than wine. Things like yellowhock pollen.” His laugh contained the very essence of evil. “And extract of ebonswarth root.”
My brain swam between pain and horror. Yellowhock caused distress to the lungs, the eyes, the nose. And it might have contributed to my nightmares. And ebonswarth root was not just the effective dye that had kept my hair black while I’d lived in Veetri, but a powerful substance that, when ingested, caused people like Sir Kile to act in ways contrary to their convictions. Combined, I could only imagine what terror and devastation they could cause in a person’s mind.
“You’re a—” My throat suddenly spasmed and I choked. “Monster!”
“And you will soon be dead,” he replied darkly. “But lest you think your death will be quick, Ryn Naia, let me assure you that I will not be satisfied unless I am allowed to savor this triumph. No, your death will not be swift, but it is sure.”
His tone changed, then—almost back to that of the knight he had been before. “It is a shame, really,” he said. “You could have had the beautiful knight as husband, you know. I would have never needed to reveal this cursed skin to you.”
I wasn’t sure he was capable of feeling grief, yet his voice held the smallest tone of regret. But almost as if he’d become aware of that weak emotion, he made a sound that morphed from a growl to a shriek.