Heir to the Sun

by Jennifer Allis Provost

  “The hill is not merely a hill,” Rahlle said, and with a sweep of his hand seven glowing orbs appeared across the plain. “These orbs mark the entrances to tunnels that now wind their way beneath the palace. With them, you may breach the walls without detection.”

  “Master Sorcerer, words cannot express my thanks,” Asherah said. “Thanks to your help, we will bring Sahlgren to justice.”

  Rahlle bowed his head as Asherah turned to address the assembled Ish h’ra hai. Neither noticed Rahlle’s youngest apprentice as he made a few furtive motions with his hands, nor the sparks leaping from his fingers as he made ready to hurl his spell at Asherah. Only one did.

  “No!” Torim leapt in front of Asherah, shielding her with her body. Asherah spun about and saw Torim crumple to the ground, her tunic burnt away and her back blackened and charred. She caught Torim and they fell together, Asherah cradling the burned woman to her breast.

  “What happened?” Asherah demanded.

  “Sorcerer's flame,” Lormac growled, grabbing the boy by the throat. “Isn’t that so?”

  “S-She would have harmed the king,” the apprentice rasped, his eyes on Torim’s scorched flesh. “I needed to stop her.”

  “You saved me,” Asherah murmured, stroking Torim’s damp cheek. “Torim…why?”

  “Need you ask? You saved me many times,” Torim whispered. Asherah noticed the burns curling up and over Torim's shoulder.

  “Why is it spreading?” Asherah demanded of Rahlle. “Help her!”

  “Sorcerer’s flame consumes the whole of the body,” Rahlle said. “I have taken her pain. That is all I can do.” The sorcerer bowed his head and gathered his cloak about him.

  “Don’t leave me,” Asherah begged. “Torim, I cannot live without you.”

  “It was I that couldn’t live without you, and now I won’t have to.” Torim touched Asherah’s hair, her fingers crumbling to ash as she made contact. “You are strong, where I was weak. I love you, Hillel, never forget that I do.”

  Torim glanced to the side, fixing Belenos in her gaze. “I loved you, as well.”

  Belenos fell to his knees, tears wetting his beard. “Must you go, sweet girl?”

  “I must,” Torim said. Her golden bracelet, a love token from Belenos, clattered to the ground by Asherah’s knee. The ash had taken Torim’s neck, and was creeping up her chin.

  “I’ll never love anyone as I love you,” Asherah whispered as she kissed Torim for the last time. Then what was left of her dearest friend crumbled and blew away in the summer breeze. Asherah stared at the dust that coated her hands and stuck her fingers in her mouth; the ashes were sweet. Sweet ashes mean that she had an honorable soul, Asherah mused, then wondered how she even knew that.

  Asherah crouched upon the crest of the hill while the remains of Torim were slowly dispersed by the wind. When the last of Torim was gone, she stood and strode to where Lormac held the apprentice immobile.

  “Your name,” she demanded.

  “Elnic,” he whispered, Lormac’s crushing grip not allowing him a louder voice.

  “Who holds your oath?” Asherah asked.

  “The king,” Elnic insisted. “I am beholden to remove threats to his safety. We are all sworn to the king!”

  “You lie,” Asherah hissed. “Rahlle does not seek to harm us! His other apprentices do no harm here! Yet you struck out the moment my back was turned.” Asherah grabbed the apprentice’s robe and wrenched him from Lormac’s grasp, dragging him to his knees in the dirt. “I ask again, who holds your oath!”

  “The king,” Elnic insisted again. Asherah struck him, sending teeth and blood spattering. She was about to strike again when Lormac stayed her.

  “Rahlle, you created the fae binding oaths, correct?” Lormac asked the sorcerer, who nodded. “Can one be sworn to more than one?”

  “Yes,” Rahlle answered, his voice heavy with sorrow. He placed a wizened hand atop Elnic’s head. “My boy, tell me who else you are sworn to, and I will do for you what I can.”

  “Ehkron,” Elnic admitted.

  “Where?” asked Rahlle.

  “In the king’s chamber,” Elnic replied, and tugged aside his robe to reveal the mordeth-gall’s handprint upon his flesh. Again, lightning cracked in Rahlle’s eyes as a soundless thunderclap reverberated across the landscape. Elnic writhed in agony at Asherah’s feet, the sorcerer’s flame burning him from his core outward.

  “You said—” Elnic began, and then ash consumed his throat.

  “I said I would do what I can,” Rahlle replied. “All I can do for you, you who undertook dark congress with the mordeth-gall in my home, is offer a traitor’s death.” Elnic screamed without a sound, his throat blackened like coal, and Rahlle turned to his remaining apprentices. With a sharp movement, their robes were whisked open; one of the three bore a demon’s mark above his heart. The untainted apprentices backed away as their brother crumbled, his ashes mingling with those of Elnic and Torim as the wind swept them away. Asherah watched as the dust of her friend comingled with that of her murderer, then she turned and walked away.

  Asherah speaks…

  She’s gone!

  She’s gone.

  She’s gone she’s gone she’s gone…

  I reached the bottom of the hill and stumbled, but didn’t slow. My feet kept moving, past the ranks of the Ish h’ra hai, past the cooking fires and tents and heaps of bedrolls and supplies…past everything, for none of it mattered. Torim needed no bedroll on which to lay her charred head, she needed no supper to fill her ashen belly.

  Torim… It had been my life’s mission to keep her safe. I sought to escape the doja so she would no longer be tortured, I killed demons so she wouldn’t be recaptured, I sought war with the faerie king to keep him from ensnaring her ever again. Now…it had all been for naught. Because she was gone.

  “Torim…”

  I spoke her name as both a shriek and a whisper as I tumbled to my knees, my legs unable to hold the weight of my grief. I stared at the dirt beneath me, so like the ashes that were now all that was left of Torim, and yet not like her at all. Warm arms encircled my cold flesh, and Lormac was there like a living, breathing mountain. Had he been following me the entire time? I suppose he had.

  Lormac said nothing as he drew me close, holding me fast against his chest while he tucked his face against the nape of my neck; his breath was warm, damp, alive. My Torim wasn’t.

  “I want to go home,” I croaked.

  “Then she will have died for nothing.”

  His words struck me to my core. If I abandoned this cause now, her sacrifice would be meaningless. That was wrong, I knew it was wrong, but it didn’t make going on any easier.

  “I… I don’t know how to do this without her.”

  “Then let me help you.”

  I turned and flung my arms about Lormac, throwing myself at him with such force he landed flat on his back. He didn’t complain, but then Lormac never complained, and we lay together in the dirt for who knows how long. My thoughts turned to the prior evening, when Torim had made up some sort of errand so she might leave us alone for a time; later, I leaned that she had gone to Belenos. I was safe and warm in Lormac’s arms, while he made promises of what our life in Tingu would be like.

  “I’ll give you a hundred sons,” he had proclaimed as we burrowed deep in the blankets, “who will all grow to strong men, true warriors to defend Tingu from the Sahlgrens of this land.”

  “What if I don’t want to bear one hundred children?” I’d asked. I had propped myself up on one elbow, and a curl of my hair tumbled over my shoulder and onto his chest. He grasped it, loosely plaiting it together as he replied.

  “Then we will have none.” he said quickly; I wondered if he still worried I would run, as I had tried so many times. Fortunately, Lormac was as stubborn as I, and he held on tightly to those he loved. And those who loved him.

  “What if I want one thousand?” I asked, tracing circles on his chest. “And maybe a few c
ould be girls.”

  “Maybe they will all be girls,” he continued, “and elfin women will be the warriors, and the men will keep the hearth.” I laughed; of all things I could imagine, Lormac sweeping the threshold and mending worn clothing was not one of them.

  “Then will you cook for me?” I teased. “Mighty Lord of Tingu, will you bake me bread every morning and offer me a hot bath before bed?”

  “Baking? No. But bathing you,” he uttered a contented sigh—perhaps it was more of a moan—as he abandoned my hair and rolled me underneath him, “that I will enjoy.” I had expected him to kiss me then, but instead he stared so intensely I couldn’t look away. “You will stay, won’t you?”

  For a moment, I was speechless—of course I would stay! I had accepted the Sala, what, three times by now, his lords had sworn fealty to me as their queen, his son called me Mama…

  Hmm. He put the Sala on me three times before I managed to let myself wear it.

  “I belong with you, my mate,” I replied. “I… I am so—”

  “Bind yourself to me,” he said, cutting off my apology.

  “I thought elves didn’t believe in bindings.”

  “We don’t. But then, Tingu has never had a queen who is not an elf.”

  I remembered what Harek had told me of my first day in the doja, that I’d screamed and railed of being promised to another, that they couldn’t take from me the one gift only I could give my mate. That man had never come for me, or perhaps he died in the attempt; no, somehow I knew the truth. He had never come. He left me to the monsters.

  Lormac would never leave me.

  “Nothing would make me happier,” I said, and then I showed him how happy he had made me. Afterward, I nestled in the crook of his arm as he made outlandish plans for our return to the Seat.

  “There will be feasting,” he proclaimed. “We will celebrate you as queen, and all my lords will toast your health and beauty. No, minstrels will compose songs about your beauty; Asherah, already a legend in the first year of her reign!” I laughed again—gods, had I ever been so happy?—and he went on, “Of course, the first order of business will be obtaining a larger bed.”

  “Why? Will we be holding our own private Madoc’na?” I teased. Lormac’s bed was easily as large as a small cottage. I doubted a bigger bed existed and couldn’t imagine why we would need one.

  “Seductress,” he accused, nuzzling my ear. “But there will be you and I, and Leran, and I imagine Torim will remain with us, so we will need a larger bed.”

  “You truly don’t mind about Torim and me?” Lormac sighed, squeezing me against his chest as he replied.

  “Do I mind? I do want you all to myself, to ravish as the need strikes me. To share one’s mate with another is unnatural. Once, I did mind, and I wanted nothing more than for you to leave her be.”

  “And now?”

  “And now I understand what she means to you, and you to her,” he softly replied. “Besides, what man wouldn’t want two lovely faeries in his bed? However,” he added with a stern glare, “Belenos is not invited.” I swatted his shoulder, but in truth his words had made me happier yet, that not only I but also Torim had found a home.

  Now, I felt nothing but the cold, aching void in my chest that used to be Torim.

  “We won’t need a bigger bed,” I murmured, and he tightened his arms around me.

  “You still have Leran and me to contend with,” he pointed out. “Leran does tend to steal the blankets.” I made a noise that was meant to be a laugh, but ended up more of a snort. I moved so my face was over his, my hair falling about his shoulders.

  “If we go back,” I began, “if we fight, we need to win. I need to win, for Torim.”

  “For Torim,” he affirmed. He put Torim’s ash-covered bracelet on my wrist, and we got to our feet. Lormac laced his fingers with mine, so tightly it hurt, but it was a good sort of hurt. We walked in silence back to the hill. The rest were still there, looking at Lormac expectantly. No, they looked at me expectantly.

  “For Torim,” I repeated, and we moved to invade the palace.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Nalla, I cannot fight a battle and watch over you at the same time,” Caol’nir said to Alluria for at least the hundredth time. “You’ll distract me, and a moment’s distraction could get us both killed.”

  “Nall,” Alluria said in the same tone one uses with recalcitrant children, “I’m going with you.”

  Gods, she is the most stubborn woman in Parthalan. Caol’nir paced the length of their tent, gesturing wildly as he recited the many reasons why Alluria should just stay put. He was in the midst of explaining that while he loved her dearly she would only prove to be a liability to him and all the warriors around him, when he found that he could no longer move.

  “Having trouble?”

  Caol’nir looked from his feet, firmly planted upon the ground as if he had sprouted roots, to where Alluria reclined on their bedroll. She didn’t hide her smile, or her arm extended in a halting gesture. “Would you like me to release you?” she purred.

  “Nalla,” he began, thoroughly exasperated, “must you continue practicing this talent on me?” Already that evening, Alluria had flung cushions at her mate, wrapped him tightly in a blanket, and made his boots walk across the tent without the benefit of his feet, all with her newfound power. When Caol’nir had asked her to cease, she responded by attempting to pull his tunic over his head, nearly strangling him in the process. He stared at her, trying very hard not to glare daggers at this woman he had missed so.

  “As you wish,” Alluria said, releasing her hold. “Don’t you want someone with you who can keep a demon from advancing while you kill it?”

  Caol’nir sighed. “Yes, but not if that someone is you.” He wrapped his arms around Alluria and drew her against him. “What if the battle takes many days? What if you’re hurt?”

  “I’m hurt already. What if you are hurt?” she countered. “Do I not have the right to stay at my mate’s side and keep him from harm?”

  Caol’nir fell back onto the bedroll and covered his face with his hands. She refuses to listen to reason. Alluria climbed onto his chest, and he sensed heat and light through his closed lids.

  “Can any of your warriors do this?” she asked, a tiny ball of fire in her palm. She made the puff of flame expand until the tent was nearly as bright as day, then snapped her hand shut and extinguished the flame. Caol’nir sighed and tucked her head against his neck. Clearly, this battle had been lost.

  “Since you’re coming no matter what I say, there are rules I need you to abide by.” He glanced downward, ensuring she was paying attention. “You will stay behind me at all times. Your first thought will be finding shelter, and use your glamour as much as possible. You will not engage any foe unless I am beside you, otherwise you will hide.” Caol’nir pulled her up so her shining chestnut hair framed her face in the soft waves he so loved. “And if the fighting proves to be too intense, I need you to leave with no argument,” he said softly. “Nalla, if anything more happens to you, it will kill me.”

  “What if something happens to you?” she asked softly, tracing the scars on his neck. For the first time fear, crept into her voice, and Caol’nir wondered how he could have been so blind. She is as worried for my safety as I am for hers.

  “I’ve been in many battles. I can take care of myself. I also know that you’re going to follow me no matter what I say, so please just agree to my rules now. I know you won’t abide by them, but I can pretend that you’ve listened to me.”

  Alluria had smiled sweetly, then agreed to each and every rule he put forth.

  ###

  “Hells!”

  Caol’nir curse was met by a sharp look from his father. “These tunnels are little more than holes in the ground,” he explained.

  “What did you expect from a tunnel?” Tor asked. Caol’nir ignored him; his father’s relaxed attitude toward the invasion of Teg’urnan was more than annoying. His fru
stration was only magnified by Alluria, who was already breaking the first rule of staying behind him at all times.

  “Alluria,” Caol’nir snapped, “behind me, now!”

  Alluria glared over her shoulder. “I am lighting our way.” She turned and revealed the flames dancing upon her palm.

  “Forgive me,” Caol’nir muttered. His mood was hovering somewhere between fearing for her safety and wishing he had knocked her over the head and left her tied up at camp.

  “This time,” she said, then resumed leading them through the tunnel. Caol’nir hated the confines of the tunnel, the dank, rotting smell of the earth. Most of all he hated not knowing where the tunnel would emerge. Rahlle assured him that each led to a safe location within the palace where the king was not likely to be, and while Caol’nir did not doubt the sorcerer, the images of mordeths in the Great Temple were still fresh in his mind. Demons were not supposed to be in the temple, either.

  At least I’ll be able to get Alluria out of the palace safely. Tor and Lormac agreed that trying to move all of the Ish h’ra hai through the tunnels would take far too much time, not to mention that someone would notice all those elves appearing in the midst of Teg’urnan. Caol’nir suggested that he and Alluria be the first through the tunnels so they could open the gates and allow the Ish h’ra hai entry. Being that Caol’nir’s twin was the head of the king’s guard, the gatekeeper wasn’t likely to question him.

  The plan had been readily agreed upon, but Caol’nir had an ulterior motive: once the gates were open, he would secure a horse and get Alluria out of the palace, away from the battle. As he crept behind her in the tunnel he wished he had told her of his plan, but he couldn’t say anything now with his father and ten elfin warriors at his back.

  Alluria stopped before a door—an actual oak door, replete with hinges and a brass knob—at the end of the tunnel. She flattened herself against the dirt wall and let Caol’nir push it open and examine their location.