Ean spun furiously to him. “Why did you do that? We could’ve questioned—”
“You never question Geshaiwyn,” Morin explained as he jerked his blade free of the man’s chest, his gaze pinned inexorably on the assassin.
The man smiled at Morin, uttered, “A halál csak az’eleje,” and died.
Morin frowned at him. Then he lifted brown eyes to Ean’s silent but dutiful bodyguards who still held the man’s hands behind his back. “Just leave him here. I’ll call my people to attend to his body. You go on with the prince.”
“Milord,” they intoned. They promptly dropped the dead man on his face.
Ean felt slightly numb around the edges and found himself wondering if this might yet be part of the same convoluted dream that began with Creighton’s murder. His bleeding right hand ached and throbbed. “Is that the end then?” the prince asked as he gazed down at the dead man’s blood spreading through the carpet. “Or should I expect another of the wretched men to appear in my room tonight?”
“He was Geshaiwyn,” Morin said heavily. “More will come. For tonight, though, you should be safe enough.” He glanced down and only then noticed Ean’s bleeding hand. “I’ll send for the Healer to attend—”
“No, this is beneath Alyneri’s skill.” The duchess was the last person Ean wanted to deal with. He held up the gash and eyed it critically. “Some water and linen is all it needs.”
“Very well,” Morin remitted.
Ean turned to go, but he looked back at Morin over his shoulder with one last question. “What did he say just then?” he asked, his eyes shifting to the dead man. “When he died.”
Morin’s expression was unreadable. “He said ‘death is only the beginning’.”
“I see.” Yet in truth he saw little. A thousand tiny fragments seeming to have no connection with one another.
“Your Highness,” Morin called the prince’s gaze back, looking upon him with lines of concern deepening his frown, “this man may be dead, but please—for my sake if not your own—please be careful.”
Ean managed a humorless smile. “I’ll do my best, Minister. Good night.”
Much later, and after bandaging his hand, Ean finally found slumber, but it would not prove restful…
In the throes of a heated dream, Ean felt for the thread of Unraveling. His hands and feet were cold—so cold!—and his bare skin burned. The only sounds were the pounding of his heart, the rushing of blood in his veins, the uneven hiss of his breath. He felt power in the darkness surrounding him, the electrified air pulling the tiniest hairs on end, a thousand needles pricking flesh. He felt hatred in the nothingness, and the intensity of it made his insides churn.
They were at an impasse.
He feared the darkness, but he knew It feared him also.
Why? Why does it fear me?
The silver thread in his hands cut sharply into his fingers. He hissed a curse and almost released it, but he knew he mustn’t. I mustn’t!
Clenching teeth, Ean resisted the pull of the darkness on the other end of the thread, drawing it closer instead. The razor-sharp silver sliced deeply into his flesh, cutting until it reached the bone. Blood gushed down his hands and bare arms, making the thread slippery, but still he held to it. It’s slipping! Slipping!
Ean felt the thread sawing bone. Oh, the agony! Yet he knew this pain was pale compared to what he faced if he failed. This he knew like his life depended on the understanding.
Yet the power against him was too great.
Suddenly his fingers were useless things. The tension snapped, and the thread spun out of his control. Ean flailed, falling backwards grasping for purchase in the emptiness, the wisp of silver melting out of sight. He watched it go with a desolate sense of failure. When the pain in his hands finally drew his attention, he looked down at his fingers and saw only bloody stumps—
The prince uttered a muted cry as he sat up roughly in bed, soaked linens clinging to his bare skin. Motion across the room made him jump for his sword, which he’d placed at his bedside in prudence for his life. But he knocked into the bed table as he grabbed for the weapon, dislodging the lamp from its base.
“Quiet, you royal idiot!” hissed the figure that approached out of the shadows. Fynn pushed back the hood of his cloak. “You’ll wake the neighbors and get me in trouble.”
Ean kept his sword blade leveled threateningly on his cousin, though his injured right hand was pounding and he felt blood soaking through the binding. Perhaps he should’ve let Alyneri tend it after all. “Tell me something only Fynn would know,” Ean demanded.
“My penis is bigger than yours,” Fynn announced proudly.
“Wrong.” Ean faked a thrust, but he didn’t have the energy to carry through with the feint and lowered his sword as Fynn neared.
“Seven hells, what’d you do to your hand?”
“It was the Geshaiwyn.” Ean held up his bleeding appendage to eye it in annoyance. Or hadn’t you heard.”
“Didn’t you see Alyneri afterward?”
Ean gritted his teeth. “No.”
“See, obviously you need a little help with this whole courting thing. You’re supposed to take advantage of any chance to see the girl you intend to court, and letting her tend a wound gained on the field—or hallway—of battle, is always a boon. Girls like that sort of thing.”
“Alyneri would only find a way to blame me for the band of relentless assassins that are seeking my life.”
“Yeah, and you’re courting her why?”
“I said I was thinking about courting her,” Ean grumbled, shooting Fynn an irritable look. “Why are you here anyway? This is my room.”
Fynn raised both hands. “Don’t shoot the messenger. You’re to pack your things and come with me. Don’t ask questions because I don’t have any answers. Someone came to my room with the same damned line, and I’m only repeating it. It’s a game, I think. Next it’ll be your turn. I suggest waking your dad. He’ll like that.”
“Pack? You’re serious?”
Fynn turned reluctantly sedate. “They’ll be here any moment, Ean. Truly, you must hurry.”
The prince rushed to comply then, but even with his cousin’s help, he only just crammed the last of his things into a canvas bag before he heard his guards entering through the adjoining room.
“Your Highnesses,” one whispered. “If you would come with us…”
They traveled in silence through the royal wing, encountering no one. The guards finally stopped before a door Ean had never been through before—come to think of it, I’ve never even seen that door. Isn’t there usually a tapestry in this hallway?
“Go ahead, Your Highness,” the first guard said, and the other added in a bare whisper, “Epiphany’s blessing on your quest.”
Both curious and wary, Ean opened the door and entered, followed by an uncharacteristically restrained Fynnlar. Beyond lay another door, and beyond that a narrow staircase spiraling down, the worn stone steps dimly lit by oil lamps hung from the high ceiling. It was a long way down, but neither prince spoke.
At the bottom of the last curving stair, Morin waited. He pressed a finger to his lips and bade them follow.
They walked for a long time in silence, traversing the dim, twisting passages with only the sound of their footsteps to keep them company, but Ean could sense the desperation behind this endeavor, so he was careful not to compromise them in any way.
At last Morin reached a door and opened it to usher them inside.
Ean drew up short at what he saw.
The round stone-walled room was warmed by oddly smokeless braziers, which illumined three faces Ean never imagined finding together. Gydryn sat in an armchair close beside the queen, holding her hand in his lap, and the Fourth Vestal stood before them. He turned at Ean’s entrance.
“Welcome, son,” the king said, and with the slightest tinge of annoyance, he added, “Fynnlar.”
“Uncle,” Fynn replied cheerily.
“Please,
come in, both of you.”
Morin closed and bolted the door behind them, and then the Vestal walked the circumference of the room with his eyes closed as if listening to the stone walls. Reaching the point at which he’d begun, he opened his eyes and nodded to the king.
“Ean,” said his father, “Fynnlar, what you are about to hear can never leave this room.”
“Because of the nature of this information,” the Fourth Vestal added, coming toward them, “I must have your agreement to submit to a binding.”
Fynn blanched. “Thanks, all the same, but I’ve already eaten—”
“Fynnlar,” the king rumbled, “if you speak another word while in this room, I will ask the Vestal to bind your tongue as well as your will.”
Fynn looked sickly at him.
“Do I have your agreement?” Raine asked.
Ean nodded. He had no idea what a binding would entail, but if it meant getting the answers he’d been promised, he expected he could endure it.
Raine stopped before Ean and placed a hand on his shoulder. The Vestal’s eyes looked starry in the muted light of the room. “Relax your mind, Ean. You’ll feel strange, like something crawling in your head. Don’t fight it or it will become painful.”
Ean nodded, holding his gaze.
And then he felt exactly what the Vestal had described. A mouse crawled and scratched inside his skull, making random muscles inadvertently twitch. Here a finger, there an arm, down low at the back of his other knee…at the base of his spine. It was intensely unsettling and required a great deal of self-control to keep from trying to push the mouse away. Finally he heard Raine’s voice, but the Vestal’s mouth didn’t move. This, too, was disquieting.
You will not speak of what you hear tonight, came Raine’s voice eerily inside his head. If questioned directly about what you hear tonight, you will not be able to remember the question. If interrogated, you will make up plausible truths but will not be able to speak of what you hear in this room. If Truthread, you will remember only my words and present no memories of what comes hereafter. If forced, the memory of what you learn tonight will retreat to the furthest reaches of your consciousness and will not return save by command of my own voice, which cannot be imitated by another. In such a case, you will continue to act on anything learned here without knowing why, only knowing that you must.
Thusly are you bound, Ean val Lorian, until such time as I alone may remove this binding from upon you.
Ean blinked out of his daze. He saw that Raine had removed his hand from his shoulder and was watching him inquisitively.
“Is…is there more?” Ean asked.
Raine smiled. “It is done.” He turned to Fynnlar.
“Couldn’t we, I don’t know, just skip this part?” Fynn whined. “I’m getting really tired of having you in my head.”
“Not nearly as tired as I am of being there, Fynnlar,” Raine returned.
Ean gazed curiously at his cousin, who shrugged and grumbled, “As if I could tell you about it.”
Then Raine had his hand on Fynn’s shoulder and the royal cousin’s eyes glazed over.
Morin approached holding out a goblet of wine. Ean stared at it uncomprehendingly until he realized the man was offering him a drink. The gesture seemed so extraordinarily misplaced, having Morin d’Hain offering him anything pleasant…
“Ean, come and sit,” his mother said, and she indicated the armchair to her left.
He felt a little dazed.
“It passes,” Errodan advised. “Drink your wine.”
Ean looked down and realized he was holding the goblet Morin had handed him, though he didn’t remember taking it.
“It passes, dear,” his mother said again. “Drink. It will help.”
Ean did, and by the time Morin was handing a goblet to Fynn, he did feel more himself. There was no time to reflect on the experience, however, for his father began at once.
“There is much to tell, and little time to tell it, for ere morning comes you must depart.”
“Where—” Ean began, but his father cut him off with a raised hand.
“All questions in their time, Ean. For now, you must listen.” He took a moment to gather his thoughts, then looked around the room at those assembled. “Five years ago,” the king began, “soon after your brother’s ship was lost, the Fourth Vestal came to me,” and he looked to Raine.
“As you know,” the Vestal offered, “I have ties to the Veneisean underground, a group known as the Brotherhood of the Seven Stones. Many years ago, the Brotherhood heard rumors—whispers only—of a plot to overthrow the Eagle Throne. Normally, I would not become involved in such matters, but in short order, this plot was linked to a certain growing religious movement that threatened the stability of our race.”
“You speak of the Prophet Bethamin,” Ean concluded.
“Indeed. We had no evidence, of course. And when I say whispers, Ean, I do not mean the kind spoken aloud. The link to Bethamin was a tenuous thread so fragile I could barely afford to think of it. I knew it must be investigated, however, for this was the kind of whisper that resonated with too much truth.”
“His Excellency came to me,” the king continued, “at a time when every lead we’d investigated had withered into hopelessness. It was clear that the conspiracy was deeper than we imagined, but it wasn’t until the Fourth Vestal spoke to us that we realized just how deeply rooted it was.”
“We formed a plan, the three of us,” Errodan said then. “I was to take you safely across the bay until you were grown. It had to look like a rift had formed between your father and me. Only then might you be safe enough to avoid the Eye of Death which had already found your brothers, my sons.”
“You see, Ean,” the king clarified with a heavy sigh, “we now understand that this plot is centered on the succession.” He grunted sardonically and shook his head, adding, “It seems I am easily dispensed with at any opportune time. It is the succession which concerns them. We still aren’t sure why.”
“You had to seem out of favor, Ean,” Errodan explained. “If there was a chance Gydryn would not support your claims to the throne, we hoped you might be safe from their schemes—at least long enough to grow up.” She squeezed her husband’s hand at this and brought it to her lips, and they exchanged a look of longing, adoration, and love.
Ean realized only then the sacrifice his parents had made to protect his life. That all of this time they’d truly loved one another, that everything said and done was only to ensure his future…
In a choked voice, he asked, “Why now? There must’ve been a reason you brought me home now. It couldn’t have been about my coming of age.”
“No,” the king agreed heavily.
Morin came and refilled Ean’s goblet. “We still haven’t confirmed the mastermind behind your eldest brother’s death,” the spymaster said. “I am not without means and ways, as you may have heard, but even I have been unable to discover the truth of his murder.”
“I thought it was the Emir,” Ean said, looking to his father for clarification. “It’s the whole reason we went to war on M’Nador’s behalf. The Dawn Chaser—”
“At the time, we believed in the intelligence we’d received,” Gydryn interrupted resolutely, long accepting of the truth that he had sent both his sons to their deaths. “Now, we have reason to suspect the information was false—due in no small measure to Morin’s effectiveness.”
Ean frowned at the spymaster, to which Morin smiled. “You are no doubt wondering now how I came into the picture.”
“Something like that.”
“His Excellency, the Fourth Vestal, enlisted Morin’s aide on our behalf,” Errodan told Ean. “As you and I were sailing to Edenmar, Morin was traveling here.” She cast Morin a grateful look, adding, “Morin’s considerable experience has proven invaluable.”
At Ean’s wondering look, Morin confessed, “I am not quite as young as I look, Your Highness.”
To which Fynn choked into his wi
ne, making a mess of his jacket.
Morin arched a brow at him.
“Three moons ago,” the king continued, “we received word from Duke val Whitney that he was returning with a document from Emir al’Abdul-Basir requesting parley.”
“The kind of parley where my brother was slain?” Ean asked darkly.
“Indeed,” Morin murmured.
Ean remembered Fynn’s warning from earlier that night—what now seemed ages ago. “And you want me to go,” he realized.
“No!” All four of the adults denied this so desperately that Ean drew back in his seat from the force of their reply.
“No, Ean,” Raine stressed again. “We want you very, very far from this parley.”
“Radov has agreed to attend,” Gydryn said, “but the truth is, Ean, we don’t think we can’t trust him any more than we can trust Abdul-Basir.”
Morin said, “It has come to our attention that Radov has granted Saldaria its independence.”
Ean stared at him, stunned. “I thought after the War of the Lakes…”
“He swore on his father’s grave that Saldaria would never be a free province, ’tis true,” Morin said, “and never a more obstinate bull of a man was born than Radov abin Hadorin.”
“What could make him renege on his vow?” Ean wondered.
“’Tis a safe assumption that the Prophet Bethamin had something to do with it,” Morin muttered, “since he rules the province and has the most to gain from its independence.”
“This knowledge is a closely guarded secret, Ean,” Gydryn said. “We don’t believe Radov is aware that we know of his close association with the Prophet, or of Saldaria’s newfound freedom, and we need to keep it that way.”
“Of course,” Ean murmured. He frowned at the goblet in his hands. “Then… what will you do?” He lifted his gaze to his father.
“I will go to the parley,” Gydryn said, and he squeezed Errodan’s hand again. She in turn looked pale, but resolved.
Ean immediately understood the peril inherent in this decision. “But surely Loran—”
“It must be me, Ean,” his father said. “It must be me because Morwyk is growing desperate.”
Cephrael's Hand: A Pattern of Shadow & Light Book One Page 45