Bastial Sentinels (The Rhythm of Rivalry: Book 5)

by Narro, B. T.

  “That’s unfortunate,” Micah answered. “Yes, we were hoping to speak with him, but more importantly—and we hate to impose—we need food and beds for the night, if it isn’t too much to ask.”

  Owin was perplexed at first, but worry struck his face next. “Did something happen, perhaps with Elves?”

  “How did you know about Elves?” Micah asked.

  Owin pressed his lips together, his eyes drifting away as he shook his head. “I believe there’s much we need to discuss. I’ll have the chefs prepare a meal and make sure a room is ready for each of you.” Owin called over a few servants and barked some orders.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve heard from Raymess recently?” Vala asked.

  “I haven’t.” Owin grew anxious. “What happened to him?”

  No one wanted to answer, so Jek took it upon himself. “We’re…not exactly sure.”

  “That’s dreadful.” Owin held his head as if in pain. If he was at all monstrous like Kasko, then he’d mastered the role of a caring noble. “I don’t believe we’ve met.” He extended his hand. “I’m Owin Lage. Are you Jek Trayden?”

  Jek shook his hand, surprised the young man knew him. “I am. How did you know?”

  “I could tell you were a mage from your wand, and the story of how you became the King’s Mage is popular among my company.”

  The King is dead. The thought struck Jek so suddenly he couldn’t think of anything to say, nor could he force a smile.

  “I’m sorry if I upset you,” Owin said, perplexed.

  “It’s not that.” Jek took a breath as he looked at Vala and the other Takarys. He felt it wasn’t his place to bring up Danvell’s murder. If anyone was going to, it should be family.

  They must’ve read his thoughts, because their expressions quickly mirrored Jek’s.

  “The Elves killed my father in cold blood,” Jessend said.

  Owin looked deeply pained, as if he’d been struck in the stomach. Just then, a young woman in an elegant gown descended the stairs. Everyone made an effort to hide their grief, even Jek, though he didn’t understand why. There was something about the woman’s innocent face, a smile carried warmly by her lips. It didn’t seem right to sadden her.

  “This is my wife, Heather,” Owin said.

  Jek held in a grumble as he realized what would be next. Any time he’d dealt with nobility, there were always too many people to meet and even more formalities to follow. He was in no mood for it, wishing there was something he could say before the poor woman got involved.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you all.” Then her gaze found Jessend’s. “It’s terribly awful about Kasko. I’m sorry.”

  Jessend sort of nodded, her eyes watching Owin, clearly waiting for him to break character. But Jek already was convinced the man was nothing like his brother.

  “What brings you all here?” Heather asked politely.

  “There’s some business that needs to be discussed,” Owin interjected bluntly. It was off script from the usual formalities and could’ve been perceived as disrespectful, though Jek was glad for the noble’s dismissive tone.

  Heather surprised Jek by smiling and waving her hand. “No need to say more. I’ll leave you be.” She kissed Owin’s cheek and left.

  “Micah and Vala, will you follow me to the dining hall so we may speak privately?” Owin asked. “Servants can bring the Princesses and the others to their rooms. Food will be delivered as soon as it’s ready.”

  “Yes, thank you,” the Queen said.

  Owin removed a small bell from his belt, unlatched the stopper, and jiggled it. A horde of female servants rushed over. “Take these men and women to their rooms, the nicest we have available.”

  The servants nodded silently.

  “This way,” one said politely, starting toward the stairs.

  Jessend and Lisanda stopped before their mother. “Come by our room when you’re finished,” Jessend said.

  “I will.” Vala kissed their foreheads.

  On the second floor, Jessend asked the servers, “Do you have any rooms with two beds?”

  “Yes, my lady. I’ll be happy to show you to one.”

  Jek thought about how they would find his sheets bloody the next morning. He wondered if he should bring it up now. Jessend poked him in the shoulder before he could decide. It was an odd habit of hers to get his attention, but he didn’t particularly mind it.

  “You can stay in our room,” she said. “But Lisanda’s sharing my bed.”

  The servants left them in their large room and escorted the guards to theirs. With his feet aching, Jek sat at a table in the middle of the room. Lisanda plopped down in the seat beside him. Jessend found a bottle of wine in a cupboard and brought it to them, along with three glasses.

  “Lisanda, you must teach me how to resist psyche,” Jessend said as she filled a glass for her sister.

  “That’s too much wine,” Lisanda complained.

  “It’ll help you forget,” Jessend nearly whispered, as if speaking to herself. She filled her own glass to the brim and did the same to Jek’s.

  “I don’t think I can teach you,” Lisanda said. “I doubt I’ll even be able to do it again.”

  “Why not?” Jessend sounded like a child whose hopes had just been crushed.

  “Because something happened that I hadn’t felt before. I went somewhere else, even though I knew I was still there, about to be killed.”

  Jek sipped his wine as Jessend gulped hers. Lisanda paused for a gulp of her own.

  “It was like a dream.” She shook her head. “This is going to sound strange. But I imagined us in the afterlife, the two of us, Raymess, our mother…and we were with Father.” The twins locked sorrowful gazes. “And of course you, Jek. All of us who were about to die. I…” She stopped, too uncomfortable to say more.

  “You what?” Jessend urged her to continue. “Please, we need to figure out how to fight against them.”

  “Well, Micah said we needed to move our minds and feel something strongly. So I thought of a world in the stars, without war or desmarls, grass plains and cloudless skies. I’ve always thought of the afterlife like that. It brings me comfort. And when I saw all of you there with me, I could focus on the feelings I had for you.”

  “Love,” Jessend said indifferently.

  “Yes,” Lisanda scoffed and waved her hand. “It sounds ridiculous, I know.”

  Jessend was chewing her lip. She spoke Jek’s exact thought aloud. “I don’t think I could do that, especially while I was in as much pain as I was.”

  “Same with me,” Jek agreed.

  “Like I said,” Lisanda added with a sad smile, “I don’t know if I could do it again.”

  By the time their food came, Jek realized he’d drank too much. He ate a little, then stopped when he felt he was about to retch.

  “I need to lie down,” he said, stumbling across the spinning room to a bed. He felt Lisanda removing his shoes, then his shirt. She kissed him on the cheek when she was done.

  “Thank you,” he muttered.

  “You’re welcome. I’d better lie down as well.”

  As the sisters whispered and prepared for bed, Jek couldn’t get the spinning image of Sannil and Kalli out of his mind. Desmarls were trampling their small city, using massive tentacles to crush and devour five people at a time. He was stuck between reality and a dream. He tried to wake up but couldn’t. So he tried to save them instead, throwing himself into the nightmare. But that didn’t work, either. All he could do was watch as his family screamed in terror.

  Then Fatholl appeared and roared like a beast. With his silver hair whipping behind him, the Elf threw out his hands, and the desmarls fled. The people of Facian cheered. Then Jek finally saw himself there in the dream, hollering with Sannil and Kalli. Fatholl walked toward them, the crowd applauding as they parted to clear a path for the seemingly heroic Elf.

  “Now you’re in debt to me,” Fatholl told Jek.

  “But we’re enemies
. I can’t possibly be in debt to an enemy.”

  A gust of warm air came and lifted Fatholl’s straight hair. It had become so long that it seemed to reach the clouds, darkening the sky. Suddenly it began to rain. Lightning struck and thunder boomed.

  “You had your chance,” Fatholl said, his eyes fiery red. Descending from the sky was a cloud of the deepest and darkest black.

  The crowd screamed and fled for their lives. Fatholl floated away, leaving just Jek and the cloud. It grew legs and arms, then an expressionless face crept out of the shadows of its shoulders.

  Jek’s darkness stomped toward him with so much force that it shook the ground. He fell and tried to crawl away, but he was bouncing in the dirt, unable to do anything but flop around like a fish on land. He wanted to look away as the darkness loomed over him, but he couldn’t. He watched in horror as the darkness jabbed its claws into his chest and ripped all the way down to his stomach.

  He sat up in bed, panting. As soon as he realized where he was, he tried to quiet himself so as not to wake Jessend and Lisanda. But it was too late. Both of them were upright, peering at him through squinted eyes.

  “Sorry,” he said, sitting on the side of his bed as he waited for his heart to calm. He found a clean cloth Lisanda must’ve laid out for him and dabbed his wounds with it.

  Sometimes she would get up with him to help take care of his oozing cuts, though he never expected it. This time, she stayed in bed, cuddled with her sister. He sleepily wandered into the hall, looking for a servant or a room that might have clean water.

  I don’t have any bandages, he realized. Everything he hadn’t been wearing had been left at the palace, including his lucky bandana. The pain of losing it stabbed his stomach.

  He chose a direction and continued onward, pressing the cloth against the scratches down his chest. They weren’t too deep, luckily. It wouldn’t be long before he’d stop bleeding.

  A woman came out of her room. Not seeing Jek, she turned to walk ahead of him.

  “Excuse me,” he called politely, thinking she might be a servant. But when she turned, he saw it was Heather. “Oh, I apologize,” he said.

  Her brow creased. “Are you hurt?” Then she gasped and pointed nervously. “Is that from your nightmares like they say?”

  Jek nodded, uncomfortable that someone he’d just met seemed to know about his darkness.

  “Jek Trayden, right? I recognized you beside Lisanda.”

  “Yes, I was hoping to find someplace to clean my wounds.”

  “Follow me.” She waved him forward. “I can’t sleep anyway. Let me help you.”

  Heather appeared to be his elder by only a few years, though she spoke just like Vala, with a motherly yet worried tone. She led him to a room with a water basin and opened a cabinet to fetch some rags and bandages, as if preparing to clean a gaping gash.

  “It’s not that bad,” he said, showing her the long yet shallow scratch marks.

  Her loud gasp startled him. “It looks terrible!”

  “It’s been much worse than this.”

  “Yes, I can see that.” Nearly touching him, she used her finger to trace the air just over his scars and lingering bruises from his chest to his stomach. “I can’t believe it’s true. I’ve never heard of someone’s nightmares actually injuring them. Does this mean the other things they say about you are true as well?”

  “I don’t know what people say.” It wasn’t exactly true, as he’d heard some things. Many other people had recognized him since he’d become the King’s Mage, but not all the rumors they shared with him were accurate. It was easier to lie when asked. Everyone always seemed eager to bring up what they’d heard anyway.

  “You worked as a wand stuffer at a forge until you were summoned by the King. You kidnapped Prince Harwin from Zav expecting a cure to your nightmares, but the King wanted your help with other matters before giving it to you. So you kidnapped Lisanda as ransom for the cure, but then—”

  “All of that’s true,” he interrupted.

  She smiled playfully. “I was just getting to the good part.”

  “It’s too strange to hear so much about myself from a stranger.” The word came out before he thought about it. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

  “It’s fine. We are strangers.” She rinsed her hands even though all she’d done was hand him rags and bandages. Was she getting ready to touch him, or was just the sight of his blood enough to make her want to cleanse herself? “We often learn more about ourselves speaking with strangers than with old friends. It’s the same with any fresh experience. I’m just finding out the sight of blood doesn’t terrify me like it used to.” Drying her hands, she leaned against the wall with a proud smile.

  “Thank you, my lady.”

  “Please call me Heather.”

  “Heather…but you don’t have to stay.”

  Her smile faded. She walked past Jek without a word. For a moment it seemed like she was leaving without a formal goodbye, but after peering into the hall, she closed the door and turned to stare at him intently. It looked like she was about to reveal a secret.

  “Did something happen within the palace?” Heather asked.

  “I wouldn’t want to trouble you with it.”

  She rolled her eyes at the line she’d clearly heard too many times. “I don’t know what it is about me, but I’m often treated like a child. I know something happened, and I fear it might be related to the visitor who came by a few weeks ago.”

  Jek stopped bandaging for a moment. “A visitor, you say?”

  “If I tell you, will you tell me what happened?”

  “Yes.”

  She stepped closer, wringing her hands. “An Elf came to the door. He spoke perfect common tongue and asked for Owin’s father. Many people come by to see Namlin, but this was the first Elf—the first time I’d ever seen one, in fact. Namlin isn’t very trusting of Elves and demanded to know what the visit was about before allowing the stranger farther into his house. I was listening from the second floor. The Elf said his name was Fatholl and that he came to warn Namlin that Greenedge would be changing soon. He seemed interested in securing Namlin’s assistance for something. I heard no more after they walked into a room to speak further. Namlin left for Chanren the next morning. When I asked Owin about it, he wouldn’t tell me why.” Heather frowned. “Your expression worries me.”

  “Fatholl led an army of psychics into the palace. They killed Danvell Takary and took over. Raymess escaped before we did, but now we don’t know where he is or what Fatholl has planned.”

  For a moment, she just stood there with her mouth agape. “I had no idea it was this bad.” She sounded as though she regretted asking about it in the first place. “I thought knowing might help me sleep, but…”

  “We’ll keep Goldram safe.” Jek felt obligated to reassure her even though he felt just as worried as she looked. He was the King’s Mage. Justice and protection were his tasks.

  “I didn’t even think psyche existed. How will you fight against it?”

  He’d finished bandaging himself and placed his hand on her arm. “There are ways; one is blocking it with thick Sartious Energy. Let us worry about it.”

  “Yes, you’re right. I trust all of you. Though I do imagine Goldram will be changing quickly. I can’t be the only one who’s frightened by this news. People will panic and flee.”

  Jek nodded. “I’m sorry. I must get back to sleep.”

  She gently brought her arms around his torso for a friendly hug, keeping herself from pressing against his bandages. “Thank you. I do feel better now.”

  She was pulling away from him when the door burst open and startled them both. They jumped away from each other and turned. Jek’s heart leapt into his throat when he saw Lisanda’s exasperated expression.

  “What in the Bastial stars is this?”

  Heather’s face was bright red, her hands shaking. “I was just helping him with his wounds.”

  �
��Nothing improper happened,” Jek said.

  “Why was the door closed?” Lisanda asked loudly.

  “Please, lower your voice,” Jek urged, not wanting anyone else investigating and assuming the worst. “I was telling her about the palace and she was telling me that…” He stopped to wave her closer. “Shut the door.”

  Some of the anger drained from her face as she closed the door and came close.

  “Fatholl visited Namlin Lage a few weeks ago. Heather was telling me what she overheard.”

  “I fear my father-in-law might be involved in something,” Heather added. “Please don’t tell Owin what I said. He doesn’t like it when I get involved in such matters. I was trying to get more information from Jek while sharing what I knew.”

  “There’s no need to worry,” Jek said, pulling Lisanda tightly against him. He didn’t care that she pressed against his bandages. The comfort of her body against his was far better than the sting it created. “I would never betray you with another woman. Don’t you know that?”

  He smiled when she wrapped her arms around him. “I was coming to see if you needed help,” she said. “And then I heard you and a woman behind a closed door.”

  “I’m sorry to have given you the wrong idea, Lady Lisanda,” Heather said. “I’m going back to my bedroom now if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course.” Lisanda slowly parted from Jek, her eyes fixed on his as Heather left and closed the door. Lisanda reached out and grasped his arms. “I wish these nightmares would stop.”

  “I know.”

  “All these nightmares.”

  He knew what she meant. Besides his attacks, she wished war and everything that came with it would end—death, power-hungry men, and now murderous Elves. It was almost impossible to know who to trust.

  “I know,” he repeated.

  Seeing that he understood without her needing to explain, she gave him a sad smile. They held each other’s gaze in silence until Jek leaned down and kissed her. It soon became obvious that neither of them would be satisfied with just one.

  As he nuzzled her neck and let his hands roam, Jek realized he might not have another night with Lisanda for a long while. He most likely would be leaving to search for Raymess tomorrow. Even if she came with him, they would have no such private moments.