“My son,” the King murmured into Ean’s ear. He held him in a rough embrace, and for once in his life, the prince didn’t mind feeling the child in his father’s company. “Epiphany blesses us that you return whole and safe,” Gydryn confessed with such relief that Ean choked back tears. Knowing that his father cared filled his heart with blossoming emotion, but it shouldn’t have come as such a surprise. Twice Gydryn had lost a son; the loss of his third and youngest child might have proven the final straw.
“Ean…”
The prince lifted eyes and saw his mother standing just behind the king, and he moved to embrace her with even greater emotion.
“My dearest, dearest son,” Errodan breathed into Ean’s ear while she held him enfolded in her arms and the crowd cheered on and on. For a brief moment as Ean returned her hug with his cheek pressed warmly against hers, the terrible events of the past week were forgotten.
Ean kissed his mother lovingly, then pulled away smiling. Errodan cupped his face with both hands, was about to say something, but then grabbed him back into her arms again. “Dear heavens, if anything had happened to you, my darling boy…”
“I know…” Ean laughed in her arms. “There would’ve been hell to pay.” Errodan laughed softly beside him, and even the king smiled and reached a hand around his son’s shoulders.
And the world started again. The nobility were suddenly all crowding for the prince’s attention, the guards were shouting orders to the assembled masses, the rest of Ean’s companions were dismounting and handing off their horses to the pages, squires were rushing down the steps to take their things, the Mistress of Apartments was loudly declaring where everyone had been quartered, the onlookers began to disperse…
Tanis was being jostled this way and that and found himself climbing the steps beside Lord Fynnlar.
“And what’s your name, lad?” the royal cousin asked.
Looking pleased that Fynn had taken notice of him, Tanis replied with a smile, “Tanis, my lord.”
But when their eyes met, Fynn gaped at him. “Burn me proper!” he declared. He put a hand on the boy’s head and turned his colorless eyes away. “You’d best not be reading my mind, lad. I wouldn’t want to put you through such torture.”
“I’m only in training, my lord. I can’t read minds yet.”
“Oh? Well then. So long as you don’t go poking around in anyone’s head—specifically mine—we’ll get along splendidly.”
Walking beside them, Alyneri observed imperially, “A guilty conscience, Fynnlar, is a firmer imprisonment than any dungeon could ever prove.”
Fynn gave her a look of surprise. “How strange, Your Grace; my conscience has never bothered me at all.”
They reached the royals then, and Errodan took notice of Alyneri. “Alyneri d’Giverny,” she said in her most stately of voices.
Alyneri curtsied and came forward. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
“You have done us an invaluable service. We shall talk later in private of your reward.”
Alyneri curtsied again and kept her eyes lowered respectfully. “I am pleased to perform my duty as Healer to the Crown and ask no favor.”
“All the same, you shall have a place of honor at tonight’s banquet table.”
“Your Majesty is too kind,” Alyneri murmured.
Ysolde held out her hands and took Alyneri’s in her own. “As soon as we learned the prince was in your care, we had no more fear for his welfare.”
Alyneri‘s face flushed beneath her caramel skin, and she nodded as she stepped back with another curtsy.
The King came over and put a hand on Ean’s shoulder. “I would speak with you, son. There is much to discuss.”
Ean winced at the skepticism in his tone. “Father, I—”
And someone screamed.
Ean felt more than heard the second arrow whiz past his head as panic ensued. Someone grabbed him from behind and thrust him against his father, who in turn was being mobbed by his guard, all of them forcibly pushed backwards through the portal inside the protection of the palace. People were screaming and shoving to get out of the way, guards shouting to regain order.
The palace doors slammed with a reverberating thunder, but inside was no less chaotic. A breathless Ean finally freed himself from the mass of guards, looked around, and demanded into the confusion, “What in Tiern’aval happened?”
Fynnlar gripped Ean’s elbow. “An assassin’s arrow, Ean. Didn’t you see it strike some poor doomed porter straight through the eye? Epiphany’s hand alone guided it on a hairline between you and Her Majesty—Raine’s truth, only divine intervention could’ve kept it from striking you both down together.”
“Thank you for that colorful recounting, Fynnlar,” the queen said, coming up behind him with her green-coated guards looking formidable in a half-moon formation around her. She was pressing a handkerchief to her cheek, its linen dark with blood.
Ean blanched. “Mother—!”
“It’s nothing,” she soothed, though he could tell she was shaken. She gave him a reassuring smile. “Just a scratch, my darling. Nothing our Alyneri can’t easily mend.”
Ean felt a sudden overwhelming rush of guilt. He grabbed his mother fiercely into his arms. My brothers, Creighton, and now my mother nearly taken from me!
“It’s all right,” she soothed as she hugged him close.
“No,” he growled and pulled away. He felt choked by fury, consumed with grief for those already lost. He barely kept the two emotions at a brimming boil, their disparate flavors melding into something fierce and malevolent.
Errodan sensed his mood, and her expression turned grave. “Don’t do this, Ean.” She took his face between her hands and captured his gaze with her own. The arrow’s trail formed an angry welt marring her perfect ivory skin. Ean was ready to tear off the archer’s head with his bare hands.
“Don’t take on this guilt,” Errodan told him in a low voice while people milled around them and the King’s Guard shouted to regain order. “We are all victims here, and none of us culpable save in too naïve a belief in the goodness of men.”
“It’s too late, mother.”
“No—no.” She gripped his shoulders tightly. “We never wanted you to don this burden. We kept you safe in Edenmar—”
“A brief respite.” He gently extracted himself from her, but his steely gaze was drawn to Morin d’Hain, who spearheaded through the melee trailing a host of black-coated men. The spymaster stopped smartly at the king’s side. “We got the archer. He’s being prepped for immediate questioning. Your Majesty…” and his brown eyes turned and settled pointedly on Ean.
“Indeed.” growled the King. “Ean, we must talk.” He turned and headed off.
The prince willingly followed. His expression grew as dark as his father’s as they headed through the palace surrounded by a swarm of guards.
They convened in the king’s study, where two floors of bookshelves overlooked a wall of windows and the churning sea beyond. The king walked to a sideboard and poured two glasses of wine for himself and his son. Handing one to Ean, he stared out the windows, resting one fist behind his back.
“This is not the homecoming I had hoped for you, Ean,” Gydryn remarked, his tone hot with the coals of his fury, “but I confess there is no surprise in it.”
Ean found something reassuring in his father’s anger; as a child it had terrified him, but as a man he felt the vengeance that infused it, and it was a glorious thing.
“We’d hoped to keep you free of this fight. Your mother took you to Edenmar knowing none would dare touch you there. We hoped that our enemies might attach themselves to a new target.”
It took Ean but a moment to understand. “Yourself, father?”
He cast his son a rueful look. “But it was not to be. I am not so formidable that they daren’t make an attempt on my life. It is just that they know how much they can weaken me first by slaying my sons.” Gydryn turned back to the window, but Ean saw the way he worked
the muscles of his jaw, holding back his emotion.
“First my blood-brother,” Ean ground out the words, “and now my mother. Who dares—”
“Morwyk,” said an entering Morin, just then walking through an interior door from an adjoining room, obviously having taken a different and less well-known route from the dungeons back to the King’s apartments. “It was Morwyk, Your Majesty. We have the archer’s confession.”
“Fast work, Spymaster.”
“It seemed the man was rather attached to his fingers and valued them over his allegiance to the Duke.”
“But you’ll behead him for this crime,” Ean said, both a demand and an order.
Morin replied with a grim smile. “Eventually, Your Highness. But hope is an interrogator’s greatest ally. The apathetic man has nothing to lose, and therefore no inspiration to share the truth of his crimes.”
“Morwyk must be getting desperate, for him to go so public with his treason,” the king noted. He and Morin shared a knowing look.
“What am I missing?” Ean asked.
Gydryn turned to his son. “The Duke of Morwyk has long conspired against the Eagle Throne, Ean. We believe he was also behind the failed attempt on the night of your return.”
“Partially behind it,” Morin corrected. He perched on the corner of the king’s broad mahogany desk and folded hands in his lap. “The introduction of a Shade rather shattered his plans for a graceful coup.”
Ean went to drink his wine and realized he’d drained his goblet. He set it down on a near table feeling unsettled, his anger rising as the image of his mother’s damaged face loomed large in memory. “If Morwyk is to blame, why is it he still lives?”
“It’s not so simple, Ean,” Gydryn remarked.
“Even if it were that simple,” Morin said, “Morwyk isn’t at court. He claims fears for his southern border, that trouble with Saldaria necessitates his staying east and raising an army to protect his lands.”
“He raises it against you, father,” Ean declared.
“No doubt,” the King agreed.
His dispassion set Ean’s anger alight. “Then why haven’t you stopped him? If you’ve known all this time—seven hells! My blood-brother might still live!”
“It was my understanding from all reports, including yours, that the purported Shade killed Creighton,” Morin pointed out tactlessly.
Ean turned him a scathing look. “It was a Shade,” he snapped, enraged by Morin’s skepticism, “and he speared my blood-brother in cold blood. How dare you challenge my report, Morin d’Hain! ’Tis a matter of honor that his death be avenged!”
“Yes, if only we had his body we might lay it at the feet of any number of seditious factions.”
Surprised stalled a retort on Ean’s tongue. He looked from Morin to his father and back again. “His body?”
“There were no bodies at the scene, Your Highness—not a one. Not a single dead traitor, nor any evidence of Creighton Khelspath…when the King’s Guard arrived, they found only the survivors, who’d bound themselves for no apparent reason save madness.”
Ean stared rigidly at the spymaster. “I saw what I saw.”
“No one challenges your account, Ean,” the king murmured.
“Then you’re looking for him?” Ean demanded of Morin. “Your spies are turning over every stone in search of that hell-spawned Shade?”
Morin gave him a rare compassionate look. “We might as well chase our own shadows, Your Highness,” he said gently. “You must understand that as well as I. When passion no longer rules your head, you too will see the illogic in sending men on such a search.”
Ean felt such hatred for Morin in that moment that his eyes burned with it. Never mind that the man was right.
“Legendary monsters, notwithstanding,” Morin pushed on, “Morwyk is a very real, very tangible threat to your person, Your Highness.”
“One you’re apparently doing nothing about,” Ean growled.
Gydryn turned solemn grey eyes upon his son. “There is much you don’t understand, Ean.”
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” Morin murmured.
“Close enough to stab you in the back!” Something inside Ean snapped, and he could hold his anger in check no longer. “Mother was right.” He glared incredulously at his father. “All those years, she was right. You sit around and do nothing while evil men claw for the throne and those dearest to you fall prey to their avarice!”
“Your Highness goes too far.” Morin’s said sternly.
“No, not nearly far enough, Morin. But I intend to go much farther.” He looked to his father. “If you won’t search for the damnable Shade, be assured that I will!”
He stalked to the study doors and stormed out.
But while Morin’s call to stay went unheeded, Ean couldn’t ignore the rational side of his conscience, who cautioned him not to alienate his father upon the instant of their reunion. Suddenly indecisive, Ean paused just outside the doors, his shoulders hunched against the anger fighting to explode.
He heard Morin calling him from the study again, and then, “Let him go, Morin,” came his father’s calm reply. “He’s grieving for the last of his brothers. Let him go.”
A moment of silence followed while Ean deliberated returning with an apology, the idea battling against his rage at their inaction. Just as he was about to turn and go back inside, Morin said, “Having now met your son, Sire, I feel ever more unsettled by your intentions. From all accounts the prince is reckless and brash, and I’ve seen nothing to convince me otherwise. Such a man is liable to make….incautious decisions. Telling him could imperil everything you’ve worked so hard to gain.”
“Knowledge is power, Morin,” the king replied, “as you of all people well know. I won’t deny my son the truth any longer. When the Vestal returns, we shall tell him.”
“As you will, Sire,” Morin said in acknowledgement, and before Ean realized the conversation was done, the spymaster was passing him with a nod of hello and not even a flicker of surprise at seeing him standing there.
“Ean,” called his father from the study.
Realizing they’d known he remained, Ean turned and walked to the middle of the open doorway. The king stood before the windows framed by the dark clouds of a gathering storm.
“Father?”
“If you want to search for the man who slew Creighton, you have my blessing.”
Ean stared in surprised silence.
“But promise me you won’t leave just yet. I would have your company for a few hours at least after all these years.”
Shamed, Ean dropped his gaze. “Of course, father.” He turned to go.
“And Ean…”
The prince looked over his shoulder. “Father?”
“Welcome home.”
Twenty-four
‘The heart and head are seldom in accord.’
– Morin d’Hain, Spymaster of Dannym
Alshiba Torinin, First Vestal of Alorin, sat behind her broad marble desk with fingers pressed painfully to her temples, eyes closed.
Her realm was crumbling like sand between her fingers; her race approached extinction within three generations unless something could be done to alter the Balance, yet all her efforts changed nothing. She waged a constant battle with her own self-doubts, yet this only made her conscience heavier, for so many placed their hopes and prayers upon her.
More and more of late her thoughts were tormented by memories of Björn. As the Alorin Seat, Björn had navigated the politics of Illume Belliel as easily as he conjured handfire. The connivances of courts were a simple game to him.
Maybe that’s why he abandoned us, she thought with a derisive grimace. This game was too easy.
As always when pondering memories of Björn, her mind turned eventually to that night, the night of her own near death three hundred years ago, the night she should have and would have died if not for one man, who had shattered her hopes and spared her life in the same wre
nching moment.
Alshiba would have given anything to change that past, to see Björn still as the Alorin Seat, with or without her at his side. The knowledge of what he’d done felt a constant painful thorn in her heart. Centuries passed and she lived on, but she’d never recovered, neither from Bjorn’s betrayal, nor from the loss of his trust.
Alshiba recalled with vivid clarity the moment she learned of Björn’s betrayal, the moment she turned her back on him to walk her path alone…
“The Overlord awaits, Your Excellence,” the Shade had told her as he stood in the open doorway of the room where she lay dying.
Alshiba blinked against the light streaming in behind the man—could he still be thought of as a man when he raised from naught but dust and darkness? She shielded her blue eyes with her hand and struggled to rise from the bed, but no sooner did she set feet upon the stone floor than her head began to swim and vertigo threatened again.
The Shade swept to her aide as she fell. He looped her arm across the brace of his shoulders and slipped his hand around her waist to support her. How strange that this creature of smoke and shadows could have such substance.
She’d been just days in T’khendar, but every day brought her closer to death. Whatever force sustained life there, it was stingy and partial to its own.
With the Shade’s support, Alshiba concentrated on putting one foot before the other. She was grateful for the strength of the creature beside her, even as she couldn’t help but wonder how many of her race this one had killed, this one who showed her such odd and unexpected compassion.
She wanted to question him, but her head was pounding as hard as if she climbed through thin mountain air. “How is it,” she managed breathlessly, “that you can survive in my world, but I cannot survive in yours?”
The Shade answered without malice. “T’khendar is newborn, your Excellence, birthed as you know from the womb of Alorin. It suckles within the thin shroud that separates existence and nothingness, so we its first children touch both.”
Cephrael's Hand: A Pattern of Shadow & Light Book One Page 36