Soon, they shall mount my story near hers. We both will be the reminder.
She turned south and entered a smoothed, spiraled staircase on the right that lead to the squat third level where her solar was. The servants had visited since her departure that morning. Fresh rushes were thrown down, and the wooden shutters to her southern facing window were closed. Before aught else, she threw those open, and breathed in the cold air.
She sat down in her tall, but plainly adorned wooden throne. She lifted the glass paperweights, and sorted through all the news that had come throughout the day.
More confrontations between my people and the city borders. No, none may pass through them yet. Ah, the granaries have been replenished. That is at least good news. Fathers Dominic, Augustus, and Buchanan demanded audiences again. I will have to accede them soon. The fewer enemies, the better. Some of the wells were drying up. We will have to gather from the clean stream beds. Supplicants begging for a public sermon. It has been some time since I stood before my people. If it helps, I should indulge them.
It was not until the ruddy orange glow of sunset lay beneath the horizon that Lutessa was disturbed.
“Unbar your pikes or find it up your crystal arses!”
The Cleaver Prince has returned. The brother spoke more pliantly, but that did not much impress the guards at the door. “The Voice awaits us. Do be a faithful knight and let us pass.”
Mutes, Stephen Francis. Not one of your better notions.
She rose and opened the door. Prince Adreyu Marcanas was red-faced and sour, though he had not bared an inch of steel. “I shall see them. They are expected.” There was a noticeable, but slight hesitation, then relief, as the pikes were withdrawn, and she welcomed the royal brothers. “There is much that I must see to. Our affairs must be put to order.”
“There is an affair that must be put to order first!” Prince Adreyu near screamed. “None of your pissant worries concerns me, woman!”
Lutessa despised the Cleaver Prince. There was so much Dalian blood on his hands—far more than Ser Elin ever had. It took much to restrain herself. “Princes Adreyu and Adonis. Please sit. Your brother said there would be news.”
“Ah yes, Lutessa—”
“High Priestess or the Voice, Adonis,” Lutessa interrupted curtly.
“High Priestess,” Prince Adonis corrected himself as he took his seat, though his brother kept his gauntleted fists upon the desk, exacerbated. “We shall begin with—”
“A Mother God be cursed explanation for your deception!” Prince Adreyu shrieked.
Lutessa recalled another man who came to her solar demanding answers, utterly forgetting his place. Counsel El Lucourt occupied the offices of counsel of faith, until his passing in the same attack that took the life’s blood of her beloved Rachel. When they had met, Lutessa allowed the counsel to rain out his disdain and disgust for restoring Ser Elin to power. Whilst it did move her, counsel of faith or no, he had no right to make those demands of her.
The man learned his place, as will this butcher. “Do not profane Mother God in these halls, Prince Adreyu. Your fleet may surround my home, but my knights surround you. Sit down.”
The Cleaver Prince stared at her incredulous, before he, like all who preceded him, acquiesced.
“What concerns you and where is Counsel Stephen Francis?” Lutessa asked.
Prince Adreyu grinned. “His ship—along with most of your miscreants in white—will dock soon, if the seas hold. Direct routes are no longer safe. Cautious is e’er your friend at sea.”
He heard my counsel’s account and did not like it much.
“I would hear the reason why you deceived us,” Prince Adreyu demanded, near shouting. “Your counsel speaks for the Voice when he visits foreign countries, yes?”
“I am the Voice of Mother God, and he is my voice in Trecht.”
“Then why in fire and death did I learn that there is more than one God Stone?”
Lutessa felt Gabriel’s Gift stir beneath her robes. “You know more than I do. The overlord had been contending with a power he could not understand. It was so that my counsel plead before your king for aid. The nature of that power, or how it came to be, was unknown to me. I trust you found it?” Will you be a liar too, butcher?
The Cleaver Prince reached into the folds of his robes and withdrew a spherical crystal, clear, but for the maroon hue, and an unintelligible symbol upon its face—Subversion, she knew—though It dared not leave his hand, or face the air for more than a few seconds, It was enough to send a warmth through her skin.
“It is not red,” Prince Adreyu declared pointedly.
“Brother,” Prince Adonis spoke up. There was a slight tremor was in his voice. “Is it not possible that the overlord lied, and the Faith merely describing what he had believed?”
Prince Adreyu slapped his brother square across the face, leaving a red gash. “So it is Trechtian blood. I was not sure.”
Lutessa did not want this. “What would please the crown?”
The Cleaver Prince smirked. “My knights must be allowed to search your places of worship, your cities, your towns. Two countries are a smoking ruin, and thousands are dead. You cannot protect anyone, but we can. That is what I want.”
“You will not have it,” Lutessa pronounced in a steel tone.
“Would you make an enemy of your only friend?”
“Dalia is not a vassal to your sovereignty. Three hundred years ago we fled in fear. Today we stand with as much pride and power as you do. We promised you a God Stone, and we have given one to you. Your fleets will leave as soon as they can be made ready. Our pact is done.”
“As you will, High Priestess. Do not forget the lion has claws, and does not forget.” The Cleaver Prince rose, gave a mocking, contemptuous bow, and thundered out.
Prince Adonis remained, massaging his cheek with a silken glove. The bleeding stopped, but his garments were a mess. “My brother—”
“You need not say it.” She knew it was hardly a comfort, but as much as he disliked the younger brother, Lutessa needed him. “Will King Tristifer see it the same?”
The prince stood up, seemingly ignoring the question, and walked towards the door. Hand upon the wood, he turned and said, “Tristifer is cautious, not stupid. He will want to learn and weigh every detail, and then—”
Lutessa knew the unsaid words. “What happened in Lanan, Prince Adonis?”
The prince shook his head, and painfully said but one word: “Death.”
Lutessa sat in the gloom for what seemed like hours, watching the candles slowly gutter. Whatever she wanted to believe, the Mother’s Pilgrim was not wrong. The longer the brothers remained, the more likely it was that her secret would be discovered. There will be a time and place to reveal it. Johnathan was not wrong in that.
Upon the morrow, she knew the Trechtians would leave as she commanded—not even the Cleaver Prince would openly defy her in this—but a return would be all but inevitable; the Northlands would be a battlefield once more, and death would visit more than just Lanan. It is only a matter of when.
One word stayed with her, lingering like a buzzing fly: death. She had rarely seen Prince Adonis so solemn, but he said that word with much regret and sorrow, almost out of fear. It was not them that brought ruin to the Southern Nations, then.
Concerns passed through her mind, far reaching, eminently dispiriting: if not them, then who? None had survived the Calamity that destroyed Isilia. Perhaps an uprising within the nations itself? That she seemed to doubt. Damian’s grip was iron; him unafraid to spill the blood of any who challenged him. That left only her own country, assuming it was not another deception played out by the brothers. There was a time, not long ago, when she would have given it credence, but not any longer. Stephen Francis, though I have long distrusted him, he needed Trecht. No, it was not him.
She wished for the Mother’s Pilgrim to appear. Guidance was what she needed, more than ever. She trusted him, but to oppose the kingdo
m seemed to invite this death to continue its westward march.
We are not ready.
It would take some time before King Tristifer would give the order. Prince Adonis assured her of that. It was this whoever, or whatever this Death was that gave her pause.
Even if we can but throw the Trechtians back, are we strong enough for this nameless foe?
Lutessa slammed her fists upon the desk. Why won’t you give me answers?
A hard rap came upon the door. She straightened her robes and beckoned the visitor in.
No more than a boy stood in front of her: slim and ashen haired, a smidgeon of dirt smeared his face. “A message, High Priestess. There was a rider from the cities. Said he was to bring it to you himself, but um, it was not allowed. So I was summoned.”
As if forgetting the reason why he was here, the boy frantically stretched out his hand, and she took the wrapped parchment.
“Walk in the Light of Mother God, child,” she intoned.
Once alone, she turned it over beneath a candle to her right, and saw the white sealing wax: two crossed swords with an N affixed between them. She knew at once who sent it, broke the seal with her thumb nail, and read it over once, twice, thrice. She had waited long for this news to arrive, and even after the third read she feared some trickery.
No trickery. The Mother’s Pilgrim was right. Mother God would not ask it of us if we were not ready. We are.
An end to Trecht’s sovereignty draws near.
Chapter Five
The Hunters
Daniel felt sticky and irritated.
The dawn came with the same arguments. Jaremy’s support never wavered, while Ashleigh opposed every idea that he offered, never shy in reminding him that they should make for Dale, seek an audience with the Voice, and take her life’s blood. As if it was that simple, bloody mad woman.
Aerona remained solemn, but when it occasioned that she had some spirit, the Harpy wanted no more than to lay low, or return to the islands, once it was clear that the Dalian-Trechtian alliance had left.
I do not know who is madder.
Daniel did not want to admit it, but he knew their road must lead to Trank. To the home I once betrayed, to the family that would cut my throat in an alley.
The endless downpour did not make affairs more amenable. Whether he pulled his watches by day or night, the rain came down in sheets, making it near improbable to see or hear anything. Whether beast or man came through the cave mouth, they would leave slick and lifeless. What concerned him was the rising tide below. If they must flee, they would do so blind, every step a chance encounter with the Lord of Death.
An eventuality that, from dawn to dusk, the last Isilian did not fail to make note of. “You lead us to our deaths,” Ashleigh flatly accused him on the third day of the torrid storm. “I would have died with sword in hand, not fleeing from floods, or cowering in hunger.”
“If it was not for my lord, they would be digging you out of the rubble,” Jaremy declared pointedly. His annoyance was palpable. “Every breath you take you owe to him. Oh, and me. I played a little part.”
“You are the rat that carried the disease.”
“I will have that wheel of cheese, then,” he said, swiping it from the pewter plate beside the knight. She growled and sulked.
“It will pass,” Daniel grunted, sitting near the fire, a small bowl of berries in his hand. “We have survived the worst of it.”
“We fled the worst of it,” she shot back. “We came too far north.”
“You are welcome to make the trek south. I will not stop you.”
“I would die of hunger. I will not leave this realm on account of your counsel.”
“Aerona,” Daniel said softly. Her eyes rose from the fire, wounded. “You had a stone. Where would you counsel?”
Ashleigh shot back accusingly. “It does not matter! The prophet said that—”
Aerona shook her head, staring into the embers as she spoke. “The stone speaks to you. It does not tell you where to go or what to do. More that it influences, gives you strength and resolve where you thought you had none. My heart led me back towards my consort.”
“What of the old man?” he asked.
She sighed. “Riddles. That is all. ‘Seek stone and sky.’ I do not know what he wanted. Though I am sure the answer is not in Dale.”
Ashleigh’s head was in her lap. “How do you know that?”
“Did you not feel his presence when he wounded you?” Aerona asked. “Who he really was? I saw his face.”
Ashleigh sighed. “I will never forgive nor forget that man. I do not need to stare at him to know Lord Kaldred was beneath that cowl. The dead demand vengeance, and I will give it to them.”
“Then you do not know,” Aerona replied quietly.
“If not Lord Kaldred, then who?” Daniel asked.
“Ser Elin Durand,” Aerona sighed. “I saw his face. I heard his voice. It was Ser Elin who—”
“Ser Elin is dead. Died in the Calamity,” Ashleigh protested.
“I survived it, why not him?” Aerona said, eyes staring into the fire. “I know what I saw. If what you say about the Voice holds, there will be naught to find in Dale. We should look to where he has not been. Ser Elin, not the Voice, that is who matters. I thought you would have known that by now.”
Ashleigh sat in sullen silence.
It may not be that hard after all.
Daniel slept a couple dreamless hours, and then took over the watch from Jaremy just after midnight. He was tired and wet, and said little. Daniel thought it would be a long, tiring night, full of fear and questions.
Stone and sky fluttered through his mind. It was a confuddling mess; near every city and town in the Eastern Lands had stone structures beneath a blue sky. A man would go mad trying to figure that out. Likely that old man lied.
He ne’er trusted Gregory Tanev. There was a shyness, and a shameless, inquisitive nature about the man that belied an uncertain allegiance, or worse, outright deception. The overlord always tolerated the old pirate—why, Daniel was never certain—but he suspected some tryst would surface if harm befall the old, done man. That would be the overlord’s way: bury a truth rather than face it.
Daniel had remained curious. Despite his efforts, there were only errant wanderings, and odd, muddled questions, naught which could be used against the old man.
My instincts were right. Whatever stone and sky is, it will be fraught with peril; Aerona must be made to see that.
Then there was the matter of Ser Elin’s apparent survival, and Aerona’s fervent belief that it was him; it was no more believable, even though it drenched him with worry.
A foe I ne’er faced, and glad for that. Any man who threw back Prince Adreyu Marcanas is a man to be feared.
But how he fought…
He had never felt such a pain in his life when darkened shadows pooled from the daemon’s open palms, and thrust him into stone pillars. In pain and agony, he leapt at the foe time after time, not caring if it meant his death. The daemon did not spare a glance as he pushed Daniel away; the darkened steel of his sword creeping ever closer to Aerona’s flesh, and her resolve was whittling down.
He is not human.
After the fourth thrust, the pillar cracked behind, and Daniel lost the strength to face his foe. There were sharp, aching pains in his back and abdomen, and he felt a slick trail of blood running down his legs, but that did not stop him. It was like some presence mastered his will: a permutation that he could not hope to overcome. He heard cries of pain. Ashleigh was hurt, blood puddling beneath her. She needed him. Whatever this man was, Aerona would have to stand alone.
He could only watch.
It was like a storm of knights rolling over peasants with pitch forks. It hardly seemed fair. Aerona was soon swordless and cornered; the monster had his blade poised to strike, but then the old man had appeared in a gust of wind and shadow, calling him off like a kennel master does a hound.
“Sto
ne and sky!” Daniel shouted out as his bare fist struck the cave wall. In all the years he served under the overlord, he was very rarely uninformed. What this enemy truly was, what was meant by stone and sky, the nature of these stones, these were unknowns to him.
If this is your work Tristifer, I will have your head.
He cleared his thoughts and mulled over what he knew of these Northlands. It turned out to be little more than long forgotten scribblings on a map, haphazard warnings from tavern drunkards, and hidden coves where he had traded and bartered.
Little as it is, it must be enough.
The golden dawn broke, and the clouds began to part; the slick and weathered rocks were the only remnant of the storm. It was long since he saw the sun’s glares. Aerona arrived to relieve him, and she bore a smile for the first time in days. “It is beautiful.”
“And hopeful,” he replied, smiling briefly. “It means we can hunt.”
“Not in the dense woods. Stay away from them.”
He could not help but smirk. “To hear that from you. You have changed, Aerona.”
“We all have,” she said. “It was that, or die.”
He returned to his companions and dumped crates full of bows and arrows, dirks, hunting and skinning knives, snares and traps, dark linens, and light leather jerkins. Jaremy and Ashleigh rubbed the sleep out of their eyes, seemingly confused as much as startled. “The clouds have broken. We hunt.”
Daniel washed his face with cold water and dressed for a wilderness fraught with peril, and picked out his weapons. He tested the blades and arrow tips. Then, he strapped on a pair of brown cloth bags that were stuffed with long shafts of wood, hempen rope, pools of string, iron spikes, hammers, and an assortment of small snares and traps.
Darkness Rising (Ancient Vestiges Book 1) Page 55