Voices of Blaze

by H. O. Charles

  She smiled, though a twitch of her fingers as they clasped might have indicated she did not wish to be interrupted. “And so this must be Kahr Kalad, First Heir to the Crystal Throne of Calidell.”

  First Heir? Fires! No one had ever called him that before, even if it was now his true title. He forced a smile. Did anyone really expect him to be a king one day? His thoughts immediately returned to Medea’s questions about The Hunter. She had better get to work on him soon, Kalad thought, or think of naming an heir. The last thing he wanted was to be locked inside that castle again. He would write to her tomorrow, and instruct her to bloody well get on with it!

  “Come. My niece welcomes you all.”

  Niece? Of course. Niece-in-law. He should have remembered from his childhood lessons that she had been a blood relative of Hirrah’s dead king, and that she would surely claim kinship with his widow. The High Priestess’ name was Parfal, if he recalled correctly, and she had been placed in the Sisterhood of Achellon at Quidarh in order to remove her from Hirrah’s line of succession. Older relatives could often get in the way when families bred hastily, and Kalad certainly did not intend to get in the way.

  Their horses were taken away for stabling, but Tyshar did not appear to agree with this plan, and stamped and bucked at the hands who tried to lead him.

  “I’ll see to him,” Kalad’s father said, and then to Kalad, “I’ll catch up with you later.” He led a considerably more placid warhorse away, and Kalad was left alone with the Hirrahans.

  It was not that he was afraid of being assassinated – he fully expected them to try that while he was here – it was more that he felt horribly out of place amidst these politicians and manipulators. He had enjoyed some of his lessons with Silar, though the man’s abilities had been so advanced in nature that he had often found it hard to keep pace with the conclusions Silar had come to. Kalad’s family had never been the sort to play mind games, blackmail or pretend to be anything they were not; they were all far too interested in swords and fire for any of that.

  His party were led into the entrance hall, where the priestess fell into step between him and Qeneris. “I see the Lady Artemi Calyrish is not with you,” she said in a much less officious voice. It was almost soft in tone.

  “She has been called away on other business.”

  Parfal’s mouth turned down at the corners. “What could be more important than this, I wonder?” There was a pause where Kalad supposed he was meant to provide an answer, but he elected not to, and she continued, “And what about you, Kahr Kalad? I understand you are still not married.” Her hand brushed against his, sending sparks of flame directly along his arm and into his chest, and it could have been no accident. She was testing his ability. Given that he was said to be the most powerful kanaala in the known world, he doubted she would be disappointed by what she felt. That’s not the only impressive thing about me, he very nearly said to her.

  “And is that your wolf?” she asked, nodding to the animal as he sniffed his way along the hallway.

  “His name’s Danner. Don’t worry. He’s well-trained.”

  She nodded, though she did not seem satisfied with his reassurances. “I was sorry to hear the news of your brother. By all accounts he was well-liked in Calidell.”

  Qeneris seemed to pay more attention then. In truth, it felt as if the entire party ceased to breathe at that moment.

  “He faced death bravely, and accepted it. He is missed,” Kalad said curtly. He did miss his brother. He had not thought about it any more than necessary after it happened, but since his father had turned up, he was reminded of Tallyn daily. In life, his elder brother had emulated many of his father’s mannerisms and tones of voice, but Kalad had not been aware of that fact until recently.

  “Forgive me, Kahr Kalad, I had thought the cause of his death was unknown. Has there been new evidence?”

  Burn it! Only seconds spent in this palace and already he had been too free with his words! He was supposed to be better at this! He thought quickly. “You forget that my brother was trained to be a warrior from an early age – how to fight well and die well. I knew my brother, and he was brave in all situations.”

  The priestess pursed her lips, but did not chase the matter any further. After that, she began using her soft voice on Qeneris, and it only took her two tangential sentences before she had determined that he was not married either.

  Kalad’s father caught up with them when they arrived at the guest quarters, and the priestess’ eyes became even hazier with his arrival. “I hope to see you at dinner this evening,” she said sweetly.

  “We will all be there,” Morghiad replied. He did not even appear to have noticed her tone, or perhaps had chosen to ignore it.

  Parfal departed with an obvious sway of her hips, but before the rest of the party could depart to their rooms, another woman stepped into the circle.

  His father’s eyes widened rapidly at the sight of her, and his mouth seemed to work as if to speak. “Ah…” he began, but did not finish.

  ”Hello?” Yarrin Calyrish prompted the woman.

  She smiled, though her gaze did not shift from the man who seemed so dumbfounded by her appearance. There was something syrupy and honeyed about her, though Kalad could not decide if it was her rosebud lips or perfectly arranged freckles that made her so. He decided to add her to his list anyway. “I am Jurala Laotoli,” she said in a voice that dripped with sugar, “though I had hoped Morghiad would remember that.”

  He smiled thinly, but it fell from his face almost as rapidly as it had manifested there. “Ah, yes…” he looked to everyone else, though his eyes appeared to dart about more than their usual steady hold. “Ah… we were… ah… once engaged. A long time ago.”

  “Not that long ago!” she retorted, “And I had expected more than a hastily written note from you to break it off.”

  Qeneris and his stepmother immediately broke into smirks, whilst Kalad’s father looked only at the floor with a curious pallor to his complexion. He was sincerely embarrassed. Kalad would never have guessed that the man was capable of such an emotion twice in one lifetime.

  “Hirrahan lidir do not look bad on you,” Jurala said to him, twisting a finger in her pale brown locks. She turned and locked eyes with Kalad. “Kahr of Calidell,” she said with a bow, and then swept away as if the encounter had been nothing but a relaxed conversation about the weather.

  His father was still clenching his jaw as if to bite down on his own mortification, but that expression was shattered again when he spotted something beyond Kalad’s shoulder. “Let’s find our rooms… now,” he said quietly.

  But it was too late. Though Qeneris, Yarrin and his wife had departed with most of their guard, Kalad and his father were trapped in a corner of the hallway that would not permit an easy escape. A servant woman presented herself before them, and performed a deep curtsey of respect. “It is an honour to be in your presence,” the woman said. Her eyes were a sky shade of blue, while her face beamed with the most sunshine-filled smile. Kalad would have replaced Jurala’s name with this woman’s on his list, if it had not been for his father’s obvious, and further, discomfort.

  “Cass,” Kalad’s father said with another thin smile.

  “My lord,” she replied. Her bright eyes moved to Kalad. “And you must be the son. The true Kalad. I will be your maid during the period of your stay – both of you. If there is anything I can do for you, I will be at your service night and day.”

  “Thank you, Cass. We will be able to manage ourselves for now.”

  The woman almost looked disappointed, but kept her smile where it was. “May The Blazes protect you,” she said, and made another curtsey before striding into the murk of the corridor with everyone else.

  Blazes! Kalad had completely and utterly underestimated his father. He followed the man into his rooms, and waited until the door was closed before speaking. “I thought you said there was only my mother.”

  “I never slept with those w
omen.”

  “No?”

  “No!”

  Kalad allowed his eyebrows to rise just a fraction. “But you clearly had something with them – and an engagement?”

  His father sighed with exasperation, and set about the business of unpacking his saddlebags. “That was arranged for me while I was little more than a child. And Cass – she drugged me. She was well-meaning about it, but-”

  “Drugged you?”

  “Yes. Look, it wasn’t… she just… I had been walking across the desert for a long while. I was barely still on my feet. She helped me. There was nothing more to it than that.”

  But there could have been. Was his father stupid, or blind? Both those women would have been excellent opportunities to enjoy. Fun, supple and warm opportunities. “Well, I’ve learned quite enough about your romantic life already,” Kalad said with a shrug of his shoulders, “I’m going to my bed to have a nap, and then maybe there’ll be an ale or three after that.” A man needed something to calm his nerves, especially a man who had the fate of nations resting upon his back.

  “No. You’re staying in here with me. Your life is at risk in this place, and we both stand a better chance of surviving this if we watch for each other.”

  “Is it the assassins you’re afraid of, or the women?”

  His father fixed his gaze only for a second, but soon went back to his task.

  Eventually, and when his father had finally stopped fussing about the room to check for hidden traps or poison needles, Kalad was permitted to settle into a pleasant doze upon the great, curtained bed. It was a far more luxurious sort of accommodation than he had grown used to in his travels, and in truth, he would have much preferred a tavern room or a place on the forest floors. But Kalad found himself comfortable enough to drop to sleep while his father relaxed into an armchair to read. The man seemed to like books an awful lot, and sleep not very much. Blazes, protected by his father when he was a full-grown man!

  Kalad’s world dipped to nothingness for a while, where he dreamed of a woman he had met in Jurini. She’d had dyed blue hair and skin the colour of red leaf tea. And her voice…

  Kalad was rapidly torn from his dreams as a loud thump and a shout woke him up.

  “Kal – get down!” A rough hand pushed him off the side of the bed, and he thudded onto the floor beyond it. As he put his hand out to lift himself in his daze, his palm touched something cold and sharp. Broken glass? There were more crashes and grunts coming from the other side of the bed, and Kalad peered round the edge of it to see what was going on.

  An arm lay upon the rug with a small pool of blood, its fingers still curling inward toward the palm. Kalad looked quickly to his own arms. Not one of his. Beyond the disembodied limb, he observed his father swing that white sword of his at something just out of view. The sweep was perfect, swift and efficient. It looked very much like the sort of fighting The Hunter did, though Kalad could not be sure. He never had been able to analyse sword techniques in quite the same way that the rest of his blazed family could.

  Presently, there was a thud, and his father lowered his blade. Red blood trickled down it and dripped onto the floor below. “Are you alright?” he asked, striding over to check upon his cowering son.

  “I’m fine. What was that?”

  “I’ll give you one guess, and if you don’t get it, I’ll assume you’ve been hit on the head.”

  “Assassin, then. Hirrahan, or…?”

  His father blinked. “Ah. I didn’t think to keep her alive. I suppose…” His eyes lost their focus momentarily. “…I became overexcited.”

  “Are you injured?”

  “Fine, fine.”

  There was the sound of the door to their rooms opening, and of footsteps trotting in. Four of the Calyrish guard bustled into the room, and Kalad was glad that he had at least found his feet to stand by that point. No one needed to see his spinelessness so soon.

  “She come in through the window?” one of them asked.

  Morghiad nodded. “Feet first. There’s probably still a rope up to the wall above. At least, I didn’t sense a wielder launching her through it.” He went over to the window and leaned out a little way. “Yes, it’s up there.”

  Kalad was already at the side of the decapitated body, and was looking for clues as to who might want him dead. The body was certainly female, and the blades she had been armed with looked more Hirrahan than anything else, but that could have been an intentionally misleading clue. Kalad rifled through the pockets of the woman, but found nothing in them to identify her. Her clothing was entirely unremarkable too, being only of muted shades of brown and of a style that was neither especially Hirrahan nor Calidellian.

  “Nothing?” one of the Calyrish guards asked.

  Kalad shook his head, and looked on as his father went to inspect the head.

  It took a moment for his father to lift the scarf-mask from the assassin’s face, but when he did, his limbs appeared to freeze where they were.

  “Do you know her?” Kalad asked.

  “Yes,” he said, his voice barely audible.

  “Well, what’s her name? Where’s she from?”

  His father sighed heavily, and lowered the veil again. “Ulena. She’s Sunidaran.” He went to lean against the wall, and in truth, it looked like he needed it for support. “She was a friend.” It was difficult to tell beneath the rapid blinking, but his eyes seemed to be growing watery.

  How was it that this man felt remorse for one of his killings when he had performed it with so little hesitation? Was the emotion Kalad saw in him genuine? I do not understand you, Kalad thought, and trying to do so is going to be an arduous process.

  It was wrong, Celysane thought, to have a favourite son. It was not that she could find fault with the other two, and all three were sons to be very proud of, but the youngest had a smile that could sweeten even the vilest of killers’ hearts. She shook her head free of the thought. Each of the boys took after their father in one manner or another, and Rafhiad possessed many fine qualities to bequeath. She did not doubt that she would provide him with more children in the future, though this youngest one needed all of her attention at present. It would have been neglectful of her to give him anything but the best of opportunities in light of the talents he had to hone, especially when she also had the day-to-day business of checking on her whisperers to juggle besides.

  It always seemed to her a wholly unexpected thing to have maintained such strong relationships with so many of the spies in Calidell, but Celysane had met many who, like her, had become disillusioned with Acher’s leadership. Those secret listeners, news-whisperers and mind-twisters had reached their conclusions well before she had, of course, but then she had loved the glint of gold too much to see the red of the blood that had been spilled to forge it. And Celysane had done many terrible things to earn as much gold as she had. Her youngest would be her route to righting at least some of those wrongs.

  Celysane signed the last of her letters in code, sealed it and added it to the bundle she would deliver when she reached the village. All of her clothes had been packed away into trunks and taken down to the carriage, and her rooms now appeared rather bare. She approached the mirror to don her cloak in front of it, and checked that her hair was properly secured in its plait for travelling. It had grown even blonder in recent years, which was curious given the amount of shade the trees in this place provided.

  There was a sound behind her, but she knew well enough not to reach for the knives she hid in her sleeves. Her husband rarely ever announced his approaches to her with speech, which would probably have been irksome to other women, but not her. He placed his hands upon her shoulders and met eyes with her in the mirror. Those were such fine, deep blue eyes he had.

  “Finished all of your secrets and correspondences?” he asked with a smile.

  “Nearly forty years, husband, and you still dismiss the importance of what I do.”

  “Of course! I must compete with this business of
yours for your time.” He turned her gently to look at her. “Are you sure you want to do this? He is old enough now to go with a maid and a guard, and I do not think I can bear to lose you for so long.”

  Celysane could feel her heart very nearly break. They had already discussed this on enough occasions, and each time it hurt to give him the same answer. “I have more to teach him, and there are people he must meet while he is young. It won’t be forever, I promise.” Just one year; two at the most.

  “Can I have you for another hour then?”

  “If I stay for a moment longer, I will never leave.”

  Rafhiad’s smile darkened. “That is the idea.”

  “They will be waiting for me, husband.” She tangled her fingers in his dark hair as deeply as she could, and drew him in for a lengthy kiss and embrace. She had not realised how practised their kisses had become until now, but this one felt very much like the first one they had ever shared.

  “Will you stay true to me?” he said under his breath afterward.

  “You know you do not have to ask such a thing!”

  “I do know… but I remember what court was like, and what that king was like.”

  Celysane remembered too. When she had been approaching womanhood in that gloomy rock in the capital, there had been few options available to her but to marry a grotesque lord, be made benay-gosa to an equally grotesque king, or to bind her life to his service through the craft of intelligence gathering. That route had at least offered the hope of some small freedoms. The choice had not been a difficult one to make. “My heart is yours until I die, Rafa.”

  Rafa. That nickname had not been uttered in so very many years.

  Celysane kissed her husband briefly this time, and made her way to the courtyard at the front of the house. The carriage and its four white horses already waited for her at the bottom of the manor’s steps, and two gentlemen with gleaming buttons and gilded cloaks had seated themselves at the front to drive it. Rafhiad had insisted that no fewer than eight guards accompany them on their journey, though it was quite ridiculous when they had no gold or jewels to transport. That sort of security could only attract the wrong manner of attention.