by Ellyn, Court
He knelt and splashed his face, then scrubbed at the blood stubbornly clinging to his skin. It was everywhere, inside his clothes, crusted in his hair. He dunked himself, head to toe in the babbling current. With a smooth flat stone he scrubbed his clothes while they were still on his body. The red feathered on the fabric, thinned and dripped away. Brown stains remained and the gasps of the dying.
“Pst!” A pebble landed in the water beside him. On the far bank, nestled inside the leaves of birch saplings, a pale hand waved at him. A face—
Goddess! Kethlyn surged to his feet. Valryk. Surely he was seeing a ghost, a hallucination, a bad memory.
Valryk eased out of the foliage, leaning on a crutch, one foot raised. He wore poor clothes, thick heavy boots, and a ratty velvet doublet. “I saw the banners. Followed.” He looked stunned to see his cousin. “I was riding to Rhyverdane. What’s happening? Who are you fighting?”
Kethlyn’s fingers squeezed the smooth flat stone, then let it fall. Plunk. “Lothiar. Who else?”
Valryk nodded. “Good.”
Had he actually thought Kethlyn would lead his banners against his own father? After everything…? Suspicious suddenly, Kethlyn searched the trees. Might Lothiar have sent Valryk to lure him? He saw only the swishing tail of a horse in the sun-speckled shade, but the veil might be hiding any number of ogres.
“I’m alone, I swear to the Goddess,” Valryk insisted. “I escaped them, cousin.”
“Sire, we all assumed you were dead.”
“I assumed you would follow my orders!”
Valryk’s spark of rage was startling. He hopped down the bank and joined Kethlyn in the shallows, the crutch sinking and sucking free.
Kethlyn eased back a step.
The misery of betrayal was ripe on Valryk’s face. “The last order I gave you, cousin. But you didn’t bring your army to Bramoran and rescue me, did you! You left me there. Do you know what Lothiar did to me? He burned me. He left me to rot in the dark. My feet will never heal properly. I’m a cripple thanks to you!”
Anger flared hot. “You’re blaming me—?”
“Where were you? If you were too great a coward to come, you might’ve informed my mother. She wouldn’t have let me die in the dark.” Rage had driven the sense from his head. His eyes darted feverishly, as if he watched specters lunging for him. “With her merest word she could have sent armies to stop Lothiar, but you’ve all proven where your loyalties lie. I’ll tell her, soon as I reach Rhyverdane, I’ll tell her.”
“She’s not at Rhyverdane. She’s here. Tell her now. I’m sure she’d love to see you.”
Valryk peered over the swaying reeds. Gray surgeons’ banners flew over the peeks of gray hospital pavilions. Satisfying to see him wrestle with his courage as he stomped and splashed back and forth.
Kethlyn smirked. “So would everyone else, I’d wager.”
Valryk rounded on him, swinging the crutch like an extension of his arm. “Traitors, the lot of you!”
Unbelievable. Could Valryk not see his part? Did he not own the capacity to admit his responsibility? “You invited Lothiar in,” Kethlyn said. “You ordered the slaughter of the highborns at your table. Was Lothiar burning you then? Thousands of people have died in these hills trying to rectify what you’ve done. What I helped you do. How many more must die before the bloodshed ends? Every drop is on your hands. Every drop.”
“Lothiar lied to me!”
“As you lied to me.”
Valryk grabbed Kethlyn’s arm, panic turning his grip fierce. “I have to tell them the truth. This isn’t what I wanted! My people want me dead. You must help me. Convince them—”
“I’m finished helping you. I’ve stood trial for my part. As you will for yours. You named me duke, so by my own authority I arrest you for murder, for inciting war, for more crimes than I can enumerate.”
Valryk blinked at his cousin in disbelief.
With an exhausted, throbbing sword arm, Kethlyn reached for the pommel at his hip. He drew the steel merely an inch to prove he wasn’t in a joking mood. A jut of his chin indicated Valryk get moving.
Hopping one-footed over river stones, Valryk started toward camp. “You could let me go. No one else has seen me.”
“There’s nowhere you can run. Go to Rhyverdane, we’ll find you there too.”
Valryk whirled, roaring. The crutch crashed into Kethlyn’s wounded arm. Stitches burst, blood flowered afresh, and before Kethlyn could see through the pain, Valryk’s hands latched onto his throat. They tumbled into the water.
Kethlyn pried at the choking grip. Legs thrashing. Knees pummeling. Forehead slamming. Blood gushing from Valryk’s nose. Hands releasing. With a sweep of his arm, Kethlyn sent Valryk splashing into mud and reeds. He drew the dwarven steel he wore. “Yield!”
Valryk scraped mud from his eye. “I’ll win them back. I’ll tell them it was all your doing.”
“No one will believe you. You should hear the songs the bards are already singing.”
Feet ruined or not, Valryk lunged, arms wide, teeth grinding. Kethlyn flicked the sword, a tiny motion of his wrist, and the blade bit flesh. The warning wasn’t enough. Valryk’s momentum carried his shoulder into Kethlyn’s chest. “Bastard! Fucking bastard, I’ll kill you!” he shrieked.
River stones cracked against Kethlyn’s ribs, shoving the air from his chest. Water surged over them. Kethlyn bashed with the pommel, with a fist.
Stars burst across his eyes. Black closed in. Valryk raised the stone again.
Kethlyn turned his head to avoid having his teeth crushed. The stone crashed behind his ear.
Darkness, darkness, an eon or a heartbeat.
When he roused, he was face-down in the river, stones pushing against his face, a weight like a mountain pressing against his spine, against his skull. He tried to shout, to breathe. Water rushed into his mouth, his nostrils. He spat it out. Kicked. Heart hammering in his ears. He reached back to remove the mountain crushing him. His fingers closed around a wrist.
“Drink it!” Valryk bellowed over the thunder of blood pounding, water burbling. “Drink it, you fucking traitor!”
No breath, no breath. Behind his eyelids deeper blackness gathered, flashing with red stars. Raise up, raise up and breathe, but Valryk pinned him down. One little breath. Just one. Not yet. Goddess, not yet.
Despite his demand, his mouth gasped down the water. His lungs coughed it out, only to draw it again.
The chilled rush of the current closed round him like an embrace, lifted him weightless. He floated apart, into darkness.
~~~~
Valryk sat back and stared at his cousin’s body bobbing in the pool. Arms outstretched, fingers laxly curled. Blood darkened the golden hair on the back of his head where the stone had knocked him senseless. It cooled fast in thick gobbets. The current tugged at Kethlyn’s foot, trying to turn him and drag him away. Beneath him the water was cloudy, churned with mud and sand.
“You should’ve let me go,” Valryk muttered. He meant it as an apology, though it was too late for that.
He tried to drag himself across the stream, back to the Leanian side where his stolen horse waited. Sam whickered at him, as if beckoning him to hurry. But pain tore at his side, stopping him cold, drawing a hiss through his teeth.
Blood gushed warm just below his ribs. His cousin’s sword had been well-honed. The blade had bitten deep. Kethlyn might kill him yet.
He pressed a fist into the wound and hauled himself to his feet. His crutch was nowhere to be seen. Fuck it, he’d find it later. He was already growing lightheaded. He needed help before he passed out and bled to death. Finding the pennants of the hospital tents over the swaying cattails, Valryk trudged up the bank.
~~~~
Alyster followed the sound of water. Orderlies had pointed him this direction; so too half a dozen soldiers scrubbing sweat and gore from their hides. Seemed their lord wanted to claim a quiet stretch of water for himself.
Stupid lad, out this fa
r alone.
He looked for murky lights, bright lights, but neither bogle nor Elrie lurked in the birch trees. A dense patch of reeds gave a shake, and the dim light of a human emerged. Soaked head to toe and reeking of unwashed socks, the man appeared to be a vagabond. He stopped, startled at the sight of Alyster blocking his path. Ducking his eyes, he grit his teeth and brushed past. “Out of my way, louse.”
The man limped, and his hand pressed at his ribs. Blood leaked through his fingers. It dripped in fast rivulets, hot and fresh. Either Alyster’s eyes deceived him and an enemy lurked nearby or—
Alyster broke into a run, leapt down the bank and broke through the reeds.
The sparkling current turned the body slowly. No glow left. Strands of light, thin as a spiderweb wafted skyward, growing dimmer by the second.
“No, damn you.” Alyster grabbed an unresponsive arm and hauled Kethlyn onto his back. Eyes half-open stared at the bleached sky. Water dribbled from half-open lips.
“Not after all this,” Alyster shouted. “Don’t make me tell him. Don’t you dare!” He dragged Kethlyn up the bank, dropped him on his belly, and pressed hard on his ribs. “Cough it up, you wee shite!”
Water gushed, gurgled, retreated, gushed again. But no intake of breath, no twitching fingers or eyelids. Alyster could barely find the strands of light now. The dimming tendrils rose from Kethlyn’s body and out of sight, into some mysterious ether he wasn’t permitted to see.
“Ai, Goddess, Carah, where are you when I need you?” She had saved a king once, dragged him back from the Mother’s arms. But how had she done it? She had never explained the way of it. Alyster had watched her work many a time, in awe, as she splayed her hands over a wound and whispered it whole.
He knelt with his palms pressed to the earth, and his skin prickled with the power sleeping in the soil of this otherworldly place. How to draw it out? How to make it do as he willed? He could command his goats to dance; didn’t mean they would. What can you do? Just a bastard. Would this spoiled brat even thank you for your trouble?
Feeling an utter fool, he laid a hand to Kethlyn’s chest, another to his forehead. So cold, so still.
I go down inside, Carah had told him. Find the source. I don’t know how. I just feel for it, and I’m there.
Alyster closed his eyes and felt for the source. What was there but darkness inside a dead man? Water-filled lungs. A lump of motionless muscle in the chest. A void inside the skull where thought and memory and identity lived. Nothing left.
Rage bubbled up fast, roaring and hot. Don’t make me tell him. I can’t be a son to him. Come back, you miserable bastard.
The strands of light shivered.
Alyster didn’t understand how, but he heard a response whispering along those strands. Don’t…
Don’t argue wi’ me.
Don’t … don’t call me that.
Bastard? Well, you are one. Don’t like it? Come back and tell me with your fist.
Alyster raised his hand from Kethlyn’s chest and slammed it down again. Something glorious surged up from the earth, into his bones, and down through his palm. The motionless lump of muscle gave a leap.
Stop! Hurts! The light. I am the light. Come into the light. She’s here…
Alyster saw it, behind his eyelids, an explosion of light. Light that went on forever. Light that was … aware.
I won’t stop. I don’t care how bad it hurts. And I don’t care what the Mother-Father decided! Alyster’s hand thumped down again, again, and like a flint catching spark, Kethlyn’s heart awoke, spasming, settling into a faint, hesitant rhythm.
The earth seemed to split beneath Alyster’s knees. Cold, shocking cold as he hurtled into darkness. He flailed, though part of him knew his arms were motionless, his knees planted on the riverbank. He caught hold of the light and dragged it into the dark with him. He hovered, suspended between an endless vault of light and the bottomless void.
~~~~
A thousand needles pierced Kethlyn head to toe. The pain was startling, the darkness immense. But the darkness was only behind his eyelids. The light! Where had it gone? So empty without it. A protest rose, struck a wall.
Muscles cramped, convulsed. A desperate breath, the choking grip of water in his throat. He lurched onto his side, retching, gagging, coughing out a river. An iron band squeezed his chest like an ale barrel. With each expulsion of water, each deeper breath, the band released.
At last Kethlyn collapsed, gasping, staring up at the sky, at a face.
Alyster grimaced, swayed, as though he’d been the one struck by a stone.
“Did … didn’t you nearly drown me in a bathtub once?” Kethlyn’s voice was scored raw. Felt like someone had shoved steel wool down his throat.
A grin broke across Alyster’s face. “Deserved it, you wee shite.” He waved a hand before his eyes, as if to dispel a coil of smoke.
Kethlyn groaned, and the groan rasped toward laughter. A coughing fit put an end to it. Drink it! The memory rattled him. “Where’s Valryk?”
“Who?” Alyster blinked slowly, like one slipping into poppy-wine sleep.
Kethlyn nudged him, elbow to knee. “Gotta find him. Get me up.”
But Alyster didn’t move. The heels of his hands pressed his temples, and he blinked hard. “I can’t … I can’t see…”
“Damn it, what did you do?” Kethlyn pushed himself to his knees, peered into his brother’s eyes. They were dilated so severely that only thin rings of blue remained.
“Just light. It’s all I can see. And everything. You and the battlefield and Carah wearing chains. And my mother. My mother, she’s calling me—”
“Don’t listen! Don’t listen to her.” Lungs aching, legs quivering, Kethlyn planted his feet under him, hooked Alyster’s arm round his neck and dragged him up too. “The hospital. Walk, damn it.”
Hardly a man was left at the riverside. The wounded and their caretakers clustered outside one of the pavilions. In their midst, a man knelt on the ground.
“Motheeeeeer!” The cry carried the note of bereavement, of abandonment. Aye, it was Valryk. On his knees, dripping water and blood into the soil. Swords were out, four of them hedging him in, forbidding him the chance to enter the shade under the canvas and find his mother. “Please! Mother, I need you! Help meeeeee!”
Perhaps he had already found her. Perhaps she had turned her back on him. It no longer mattered.
Kethlyn pressed into the crowd, Alyster heavier on his shoulder by the minute. Once his men recognized him, they called ahead, “Make way! Make way for His Lordship!”
Hearing the announcement, Valryk turned. Terror snatched a gasp from him. “You … you drowned! I drowned you.”
It was all Kethlyn could do to keep his feet under him. He took a deep, wheezing breath. “Failed even at that. Your Majesty.” He gestured at the four soldiers who had boldly drawn swords on a king. “Arrest him. Take him. A tent separated from the rest. Four of you on watch at all times. The Black Falcon will answer for his crimes.”
“Curse you!” Valryk cried as the soldiers pried him to his feet. “Traitor!”
Kethlyn turned away. To watch his cousin being hauled away was to show him pity, regard, respect. No more.
“Is that the way of it?” Valryk called, wrenching against the soldiers’ grip to peer over his shoulder. “You think you’ve escaped? I’ll see you hanged, traitor! I’ll swing on your feet! Goddess rot the lot of you.”
His howling tapered away, leaving only astonished mutterings behind. The king was alive? Where had he been? Did this mean they were all criminals?
Before Kethlyn could stop it, Alyster slipped, boneless, from his grasp, dragging him to the ground with him. Orderlies rushed to their side, looking for blood-loss.
Mum was there too, on her knees, patting Alyster’s cheek. His breath came in shallow, labored pants. “What happened?” she demanded.
Kethlyn shook Alyster’s shoulders. No response. “He saved me. I don’t understand why
he…” How large and black his pupils. How pale his skin. “Alyster! Talk to me! I don’t know what to do! What do I do?” Though both of his siblings were avedra, Kethlyn himself had nothing, nothing sleeping in his hands.
Alyster’s mouth moved.
“Silence!” the duchess bellowed. Even the wind and the ravens seemed to pause and listen.
“Sh … she will have her way,” Alyster breathed. Kethlyn leaned closer to hear the words inside the sigh. “Am I falling? Up into light. Tell Carah … I …”
The breath stopped in his throat, and the silence seemed to engulf all the world.
Kethlyn seized a fistful of shirtfront. “Brother!”
Arms went around him, squeezed him hard. The scent of his mother. “There’s our answer,” she said. “There it is, my son.”
He shook her off. “No! It’s supposed to be me! Goddess, please! This is all wrong. You’re supposed to take me!”
There was a rustle of linen, and a larger presence eased down beside him. Larger because it carried a calm inside this sea of confusion and misery. Etivva laid a gentle hand on Kethlyn’s shoulder. “Who are you to say she has done wrong? The Mother has traded, life for life. So be it.” Her gentle hand closed the dead man’s eyes.
~~~~
33
Among green hills, inside a hollow shrouded in lingering night, Thorn paced. His boots wore a narrow groove in the grass. Dew settled, dampening the hem of his robe. Waiting was eating a hole in his brain. Another hour and he would go mad with it.
In the dark at his feet, the dranithion crouched. Some dozed, balanced flawlessly on their toes, chins lowered toward their chests. Tarathien and Ynora argued with Laniel over their supplies of arrows. Danellys stared into the shadows, bereft since the death of her twin at Bexby Field. And lurking on the hilltop above them, Azhien fixed his eyes on the northern horizon.