Kingdom Blades (A Pattern of Shadow & Light 4)

by McPhail, Melissa

  The world felt askew.

  Though the sea seemed to maintain its position parallel to the horizon, on some level, Tanis perceived it tilting.

  “What are you so worried about?” Nadia shifted slightly in his arms. “You rescued the heir to the imperial throne. You’ll be seen as a hero.” A look flickered across her brow and she added under her breath, “That is, if they even noticed me missing at all.”

  Tanis pressed his nose to her hair and breathed deeply of her scent. “You wouldn’t have been in danger at all if not for me.”

  Nadia arched an imperious brow. “I seem to recall that I’m the one who put on a disguise and snuck out of the palace without my guards.” She turned in his arms. “I won’t have you blaming yourself and leaving me out of it, Tanis.”

  Simple words, but Tanis heard a far deeper intimation there. He wasn’t certain she’d meant for him to perceive it though.

  I want to be with you—always.

  That time the thought came with an ethereal pinch, for clarity.

  Tanis smiled and drew her closer once more. “I want that too, Nadia.” He rested his head against hers and gazed off over the ashen sea. “But I don’t know where my path is leading.”

  She pulled away just far enough to look at him. “Why can’t it lead to me? You’re the son of Arion Tavestra, heir to Adonnai. Do you have any idea the fortune you stand to inherit?” She searched his troubled gaze. “Besides, as I told you, when I’m empress I can choose my own consort. Not that it will matter once my mother finds out who you are—”

  “It’s not as simple as that, Nadia.” Tanis pressed his lips together and held her gaze. He hadn’t yet told her that his mother lived, or that he’d spoken with her via their binding.

  There was much he hadn’t told her.

  Making his tone more gentle, he said, “Even if it was that simple, I’m not sure my name is a truth that should be shared. I’m…” Gods and devils, there was so much he couldn’t say. Tanis shook his head and then exhaled a forceful breath. “I’m not just bound to two immortals, Nadia, I’m bound to an immortal game; my uncle’s game.”

  Nadia must’ve seen something in his gaze—or else in his thoughts, Tanis didn’t know which—for she withdrew from him and took a step back. Her eyes studied his expression while her mind searched his for the truths he’d thus far kept hidden. But Tanis feared sharing more with her; for if he held any certainty, it was that the more Nadia knew, the greater danger she’d be in.

  Finding his deeper thoughts closed to her awareness, Nadia frowned. “Is there nothing you’ll tell me? Don’t you trust me to—”

  He quickly enfolded her in his arms again. Pressing his forehead against hers, he murmured, “You know it’s not a matter of trust.” She was a warm comfort in his arms and a grounding presence in his thoughts. He would’ve told her everything if he dared. “The zanthyr brought me to the Sormitáge because that’s where my path was leading, but somehow I knew from the beginning that I hadn’t gone there to study.”

  “It wasn’t coincidence that placed you in Felix’s room or brought you into our doomed little investigation. That’s what you’re saying?”

  Tanis exhaled heavily. “I’m bound to a zanthyr and a Malorin’athgul, Nadia, and they’re bound to me. That should indicate the scope of what I’m involved in.”

  Nadia regarded him circumspectly. Then she rested her head against his shoulder and traced the arabesques on his coat sleeve with one finger. “And the zanthyr Phaedor is also bound to you?” Her finger circled, circled on his sleeve. “You never told me this before.”

  “It never came up. Do you think it’s important for some reason?”

  “Well, it’s certainly intriguing…” She lifted her head to look at him. “Are you familiar with the legends of Cephrael?”

  “Not nearly as familiar with them as you are.” Nadia was a veritable fount of information on the angiel. “Why?”

  “Just now, when you so blithely said you were bound to two immortals…” she paused to let him note the miraculous aspect of this statement, “you reminded me of a Genesis legend.” She cast him a long look while a thought lingered in her mind, unspoken. He sensed it hesitating there like a diver at the edge of a cliff considering the plunge.

  A sudden smile hinted on Nadia’s lips. “Oh…it’s not so enjoyable when others are coy with you, is it?” She slid out of his arms and walked towards the railing, radiating amusement.

  Tanis frowned after her. “By this you imply that I am coy?” He followed her across the marble tiles. “I am never coy.”

  She laughed and spun him a look. “You are fabulously coy with information you don’t want to divulge. I daresay as formidably closemouthed as your zanthyr—if my father’s indignation is fair testimony of Phaedor’s nature.”

  She was teasing him, but Tanis felt frustrated. “Nadia, I only want to protect you—”

  “I know your mind.” She smiled and held out her hand to him, so he took it. “You know,” she drew him to stand with her at the railing, “sometimes people can be in just as much danger by not having information as by having it, especially when said knowledge might impact their choices.”

  Tanis shook his head. “If I hadn’t let you be the distraction while Felix and I searched N’abranaacht’s rooms—”

  “Tanis, you’re walking your path. What makes you think I’m not walking mine?” She held his gaze pointedly, forcing him to conceive of this possibility. “You had your tea with Shailabanáchtran. So did I. Perhaps we were both meant to.”

  While he deliberated this logic, which he couldn’t fault even if he gravely misliked it, Nadia moved beneath the circle of his arm so that they faced out across the ocean together.

  “Everyone thinks Björn van Gelderan betrayed the realm.” Nadia exhaled a slow breath and glanced meaningfully to him, whereupon Tanis sensed a previously shuttered window in her mind suddenly opening, even as she said, “That is, except my mother.”

  Tanis arched both brows.

  She arched but one in return, both an invitation and a challenge. “You don’t have to tell me all of your secrets—especially not the ones you’re afraid will endanger me—but Tanis…if Björn van Gelderan works in secret to right the Balance of the realm, as my mother suspects, and if you’re helping him, shouldn’t I at least know that much?”

  Tanis frowned deeply at this.

  A rising breeze blew Nadia’s dark hair into her eyes, and she turned her head slightly so the wind blew the strands away from her face instead. “There are many legends of the Genesis,” she told him while casting her colorless gaze along the jagged line where the Hallovian cliffs met the charcoal sea. “But one of the more famous legends is the story of how our Maker created Alorin and the first races.”

  Tanis murmured into her hair, “Even I know that one.”

  “But do you know Cephrael’s part?” Nadia gave him a look that was all crisp challenge. When Tanis merely grinned and nodded for her to continue, she regarded him imperially. “After our Maker created the zanthyrs, the Sundragons and the Wildling clans, He brought His blessed children, the angiel, into the realm and asked of His new creatures: ‘Who would serve my children? Who would bind themselves to my blessed son and daughter, that they might have a protector to aid in anything they required?’ And Tanis, do you know who answered Him?”

  Tanis grinned. “I’ll bet you’re about to tell me.”

  Nadia arched a brow at him. “According to the legend, the greatest of all the zanthyrs fell to one knee before our Maker, and he said, ‘I will bind myself to their fates.’” She eyed Tanis meaningfully. “Legend claims that our Maker gave this zanthyr infinite ability so he might be aided in his task of protecting the blessed angiel.”

  She lifted a hand to free a lock of hair from her face, yet the dark strands blowing across her fair skin gave her an alluring quality that Tanis found quite mesmerizing in that moment. He wished she’d have let her hair linger longer across her eyes…her lips�
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  Nadia caught him staring and gave him a coquettish smile, accepting of his adoration. Tanis wondered if she took a class instructing in the proper smiles to use to woo a suitor—

  “Tanis, pay attention.”

  He smiled. “Sorry. Please continue with your story.”

  She eyed him narrowly. “It’s not a story, it’s a famous legend that surely has its roots in truth.”

  He grinned and nodded for her to continue.

  “After the zanthyr bound himself to the angiel, the other races followed in kind, pledging their troth to Cephrael—the drachwyr, the Avieths, the Tyriolicci; some say even the dark races of Shadow bound themselves to Him.”

  She freed her hair from her eyes again and turned her face back into the wind. “Thus Cephrael came to share in their collective awareness and knew all that they knew. With this vast understanding of the cosmos, he assumed his role as the Hand of Fate, serving all by serving the Balance.” Nadia arched a brow as she finished, inviting Tanis’s reply, daring him to deny the things she’d implied. Oh, she’d suggested much with the thoughts that had been spinning within her mind while she spoke—wild connections and assumptions that seemed to fit in a certain context, yet could have absolutely no basis in fact. Her gaze hinted that she thought he must surely know the truth of these matters, and the expectant arch of her brow challenged him to share what he knew.

  Tanis smiled at her. “It’s an interesting theory.”

  “Oh, you’re terribly coy!” she laughed and swatted at him.

  Tanis probably would’ve enjoyed the speculation under different circumstances, but matching Nadia’s lighthearted mood that morning was proving a challenge. The closer they came to their agreed-upon time of departure, the more the world seemed askew; he felt like he was walking sideways across a steep hill, leaning into its incline to keep from sliding off.

  With this distempered sensation unbalancing him, Tanis tossed the blowing hair from his eyes and gazed off out to sea. The morning wind held the tang of salt, tears of the distant waves. Somewhere another storm was building. He didn’t think it was in Hallovia.

  A tugging as if on the fabric of the realm alerted Tanis that Pelas was approaching. Suddenly every muscle in his body seized up, as if bracing for impact.

  He clenched his jaw and looked to Nadia. “It’s time.” He turned to face the house just as Pelas reached the open terrace doors.

  The Malorin’athgul paused in the doorway. “Ah, the princess and her prince.” Pelas’s copper eyes were bright, lit by the promise of adventure. “I bid good morning to you both. Are we ready to travel?”

  No. Tanis thought as Nadia bobbed a curtsy and said brightly, “Yes, Signore di Nostri.”

  Pelas caught Tanis’s thought and cast a look at him, both bemused and curious. “This was your idea, Tanis.”

  “That doesn’t make it a good idea.” Tanis was suddenly very sure they should not go anywhere just then; yet when he thought to say as much, he felt as if that entire hillside was pushing down against his chest, preventing him from finding the breath to say anything at all.

  “Oh, but I’m excited.” Nadia moved to Pelas and greeted him with a kiss on both cheeks. “When we came through Shadow before, I was hardly aware of it. I want to see it this time.”

  Pelas gave her a humorous look. “I fear there isn’t much to see, Princess.”

  “But there’s the experience of it, isn’t there?”

  He bowed his head to this sentiment. “There is definitely that.” He extended his elbow graciously to her.

  Nadia slipped her arm through his and then cast a look over her shoulder. “Tanis, are you coming?” Then she frowned at him. “By the Lady, why are you so tense? I told you not to worry.”

  “Yes, why are you so tense?” Pelas looked him over speculatively.

  Tanis held his bond-brother’s gaze with his hand still holding the railing. Do you perceive nothing?

  Only your unease.

  Tanis pushed a hand through his hair and lodged it there as his mind roamed the paths of perception. Pelas’s side of the bond carried only its usual swarming sense of the vast elemental cosmos, while his own had become a wall of force veritably pushing against him, urging him to take that next step.

  Tanis scrubbed at the back of his head and then threw his arm down to his side. He started forward to join them. “Let’s do this then.”

  Nadia gazed wonderingly at him. “Light of the Lady, Tanis, you make it sound like we’re going into battle. My mother and the High Lord cannot seem that formidable to you.”

  What do you perceive, Tanis? Pelas placed a hand on his shoulder as the lad reached his side.

  Tanis met his gaze. I cannot say…something.

  Pelas’s copper eyes searched his. If you would have us stay, speak the word.

  Tanis worked the muscles of his jaw.

  Last chance, little spy…

  Tanis felt such a force pushing against him that he barely ground out the thought, We have to do this.

  Well and so.

  The lad felt a rushing sensation, and a silver-violet line split down through the air.

  Nadia inhaled a gasp. “So easy?” She spun a look at Pelas and then leaned to better view Tanis, who was standing on Pelas’s left. “But surely—Tanis, don’t you think this is how Malin vanished from the Archives?” Nadia looked back to the widening portal and shook her head. “Poor Malin. We still don’t know what became of him.”

  Tanis didn’t need reminding of how he’d made such a mess of things. He’d underestimated Shail at every turn. He adjusted his satchel diagonally across his chest and looked to Pelas.

  Thus with a hand on Tanis’s shoulder and Nadia on his arm, Pelas took them into Shadow. The portal winked shut behind them.

  “Why…it’s so…dark.” Nadia’s voice seemed swallowed by the endless void. Tanis felt a sudden nervousness flood into her mind and wished he’d been holding her hand.

  “Can you feel it, Tanis?” Pelas asked into the darkness. His words were similarly swallowed.

  “Feel what?”

  Pelas squeezed his shoulder. “The absence of time.”

  Tanis was opening himself to Pelas’s perception when he felt something shift—

  Wrong—no, this is wrong!

  Light exploded in his brain.

  Pelas hissed and pulled Tanis close against him, but the lad still felt like they were whirling head over heels. There was nothing by which to gauge up or down, neither wind nor gravity to prove they were in motion, yet he knew they were tumbling. He could sense Pelas trying to anchor them again, though he couldn’t grasp how he was attempting it.

  Then came a jolt, more mental than physical, a light that wasn’t light but rather a sudden perception of depth, and Pelas’s growl—

  A force ripped between them, tearing Tanis from Pelas’s hold. He went flying again. Nadia screamed.

  Tanis!

  The lad felt Pelas mentally reaching for him—

  An arm closed around his chest—not Pelas’s.

  The tumbling ceased. That feeling of unbalance slammed into its proper horizon.

  And a voice that had haunted Tanis’s dreams many nights since they’d parted murmured close at his ear, “Shadow has no form save what our thoughts impose upon it.”

  The Warlock’s arm tightened around Tanis’s body, pulling him against a powerful frame. “And I am more adept at molding it than your White Knight of the Void.”

  Tanis!

  That time Pelas’s mental call felt far away. Sinárr had imposed some kind of barrier—Tanis could sense it now like a veil between himself and Pelas. He knew there was no chance of reconnecting with Pelas, even as he knew he would have to go with Sinárr—that this was, in fact, where his path had been leading him.

  Whirling together through the dark, Sinárr ran his nose along Tanis’s neck, inhaling deeply. Then he exhaled a delighted sigh, and Tanis felt another shift. The sensation reminded him of passing through that curtain
of deyjiin at Shail’s temple.

  Then he knew only silence, the feel of Sinárr’s arm holding him close, and an endless sensation of tumbling.

  ***

  Pelas realized what was happening an instant too late.

  He flung out his awareness to anchor them and reestablish his own frame of space, but the energy of the two colliding universes was in such turmoil that it wouldn’t comply with his intent. He felt Sinárr’s bubble of space piercing inexorably through his, sensed the Warlock’s established frame of space overtaking—indeed, consuming—his own.

  Then the two merged. Pelas growled an oath—

  A blast of force ripped Tanis out of his arms. He only kept hold of a screaming Nadia because their elbows were linked.

  Tanis! Pelas threw out a line of energy to bind the lad to his own space, but Tanis had already been yanked into Sinárr’s universe.

  Just as Pelas managed to hold his anchors in place and establish a frame of space within which to orient himself, he felt another mind descending—pouncing, pouring in—and Shail imposed his own consciousness into the space Pelas had framed.

  Pelas mentally struggled to hold his anchors and push Shail out of his space, but his attention had become scattered, and he couldn’t summon the necessary force to oust his brother.

  An icebound world not of his creation appeared—instantly, as a breath of vapor upon a glass pane. Pelas stood with Nadia on a vast glacial plane, breathing air of crystallized ice that felt sharp in his lungs. High mountains loomed all around, mostly obscured by fog.

  Nadia clung to his arm, dazed and frightened. “Lady’s light, what’s happening?” she whispered.

  He drew her closer while he looked out over the bleak landscape. His gaze tightened. “Trouble.”

  “Where’s—” Nadia turned a look around, and her eyes widened while her voice grew fainter. “Immanuel…where is Tanis?”