Dynan looked all around him and saw only rolling green hills and the forest. “Where is this, and where’s Dain, and Geneal?”
“Dain is unconscious. He’ll have to stay that way for a little longer. I can’t help you both at the same time. Come inside,” she said, opening the door without touching it. “I can explain once we’re inside. I promise there won’t be any pain. Not the kind you’ve been experiencing.”
“I don’t know you.”
“You do,” she said. “I promise you do, and you’ll remember soon.”
She waited him out, but he sensed from her a level of concern that bordered on fear the longer they stood on the threshold. She looked out over the expanse of green, her eyes scanning the horizon and the line of hills as if she expected danger.
“There’s no danger,” she said. “You’re inside my head, Dynan. I can hear everything you think.”
“I think you’re lying,” he said when he didn’t mean to.
“I’m not telling you the whole truth yet. That doesn’t mean I won’t. You want to know, don’t you?”
He had to nod to that and finally went in. She followed him and immediately closed the door. The room inside changed from a cottage sitting room to a square of gleaming grey that enclosed them within. There were no windows and the door vanished.
“You can leave any time you want,” she said quickly. “This is necessary, to preclude any distractions. You can leave right now, but you shouldn’t. Sit. We’re only going to talk.”
There were stuffed cushions low to the floor that couldn’t count as chairs, but they were comfortable. Carryn pulled a cushion over and sat in front of him, crossing her legs at the ankles and set her hands on her knees, palms upward. She drew in a deliberate breath.
“Tell me, what is the last thing you remember clearly and fully? The first thing that comes to mind?”
He didn’t know right away. Bits and pieces came at him, startling in their intensity and full of confusion. And disturbing in a way he didn’t want to look at. She shook her head at each of those small snippets, and somehow kept them from blossoming out of control. He began to realize the truth behind her caution. Something terrible had happened. He remembered someone mentioning Shalis, and she was—
“No, Dynan,” she said, taking his hand in hers again and gripping hard. “That’s not the first thing. I need you to go back and find the first clear memory. You know what it is.”
“I was up in the mountains with Dain and we had stolen a transport pod. I’d just driven it. It was Dain’s turn. I see him getting into it, and that’s it. I can’t...I don’t know what happened after that.”
For a moment, Carryn sat still, frozen in place, but she relaxed the next instant. Dynan noticed and fear answered the questions. She shook her head. “Dain is all right. You’re going to be all right. When did you steal the pod?”
“It was just a few days ago.”
“How old were you?”
“I’m sixteen.”
“I’m going to show you what happened next. When you see the memories, you’ll know them to be true, but they aren’t your memories. They’ll be mine. All yours were taken. This is going to be difficult for you to believe, or understand until we reach the end or rather, catch you up to now. I have to ask you to try not to question too much. It’ll be hard, but if you let me, I’ll fill in the places that don’t make sense. I’ll go ahead and begin—”
“I don’t understand what happened.”
“Dain crashed the pod,” she said, without explaining, and then showed him. It didn’t take long before he was begging her to stop.
~*~
Chapter 2
The garden reminded Dynan of Beren, only there wasn’t a lake, and this garden was enclosed by massive arched domes of acrylon, which made it more like the Arbor at the Telaerin Palace. Everything else about it was mostly different, except there was one yellow flower that might grow on Cobalt too. It was a stretch, he decided, looking down over the tiered levels and beyond to the rooftops and buildings of the Trean City of Ilthain. At home, it was still summer. Here, it was snowing outside the dome. The heating elements in the glass melted the precipitation, channeling the moisture into tubes that ran inside and down copper pillars that finally emptied into pools of water. Within the dome, the snow sounded like rain.
He knew where he was now, and why. Geneal Elger, who Dynan felt he knew only a little better now than before, had given him some sort of dulling drug that would supposedly blunt the emotional trauma. As far as he could tell, it wasn’t working, but then, he doubted anything would. There was a constant tightened ache in his throat, constricting the ability to breathe.
There was no escaping the terrible reality - his father dead, his sister dead, almost everyone he cared for and loved, gone - there was only surviving it from one moment to the next. The urge to extract revenge overwhelmed him. For the first time in his life, he wanted to kill whoever was responsible, their faces coming back to him in flashes of memory that struck without warning. He saw himself finding those men who murdered his sister and destroying them. There was hatred in his soul now, like a dark canker pulling all the joy out of life.
More faces roamed through the mind’s eye. He knew now that he was capable of killing. He didn’t want to believe those memories were real, but he knew he’d killed a man. More than one. He saw himself in the act of doing it, over and over. Maralt apparently hadn’t been able to burn those memories away. Maybe he’d left them on purpose.
There were other things Dynan remembered too. He could smell the blood, rich and sweet, rising so quickly to fill the great hall of the Telaerin Palace, and though he’d scrubbed his hands raw, sometimes he looked and could still see them awash in red. Something else had happened, too, that left him feeling sickened inside himself, with himself, and terrified there was some defect of character that made him feel the way he did while he killed so many. He didn’t know who this person was anymore, sitting here on a garden bench in the artificial sun. He didn’t recognize him.
Dynan heard voices behind him, coming from the garden entrance, and felt the presence of his brother. Dain had only just gotten out of bed, after nearly a week of being sedated on purpose. They were both on the verge of turning eighteen, but the circles under Dain’s eyes made him look far older.
“You should talk to Ralion,” Dain said, slumping down beside Dynan on the stone bench. He had a stick from the garden that he twisted in hand.
“Why? So he can think I’m some sort of sadistic monster too?”
“He won’t think that,” Dain said, looking at the stick and breaking off a protruding nub. “In all the training we’ve had, no one warned us it would feel like it did. The sense of elation, the thrill of it that only seemed to grow the more I managed to kill.”
“And how can that not be wrong?”
“You lived. That’s where the elation comes from. You lived. And then there’s the alternative had you done nothing. That’s what the guards tell me, anyway. They’re trained to understand it, and deal with it, so they can go back and do the same thing again if they have to. But you’re not a monster. The people who really enjoy killing don’t have qualms of conscience. Men like Maralt Adaeryn.”
The name sent a shudder of fear through Dynan. There were other, terrible memories, darker thoughts associated with him. He had a feeling there was more to it than Carryn was sharing.
“The men who came in the front door,” he said, “were the same ones who attacked me last year. I remember them, and now, they’re with him. Something about that doesn’t make sense at all.”
“I’m not surprised. Maybe he was the one behind that attack in the first place.”
“I don’t think so,” Dynan said and rubbed his eyes. His head hurt.
There were too many massive issues they had to deal with. He didn’t have any idea where to even begin. They were now dependent on the good will of Drake Mardon, who fortunately agreed to let them stay, and to help them any way
he could. Dynan wasn’t sure it was a good idea, afraid they were bringing the catastrophe of their lives into Drake’s home. He felt like he was being watched, only it wasn’t the usual sense of being watched by the guards, who were always there and carried a level of tension and constant awareness that made Dynan feel like they were on the verge of being attacked.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” he said, pushing to his feet. “Everyone keeps looking at me like I ought to.”
Dain shook his head at that and joined him. They walked the path before them, following it as it meandered through the garden. Behind them, Ralion and Sheed followed. Below on a lower tier, more guards stood, surveying the area as if they’d never seen it before.
“We know who we’re fighting at least.”
“Do we?” Dynan asked, not so certain Kamien was responsible now that he knew what Carryn’s brother was capable of.
“Maralt is Kamien’s advisor,” Dain said, answering the thought.
“So guilt by association? Is that the way our laws are supposed to work?”
“What laws? What laws protected Shalis? What laws kept those men out of our home?” Dain snapped the stick and threw the pieces. “You want to protect Kamien? Why?”
“He was going to step down. Not in four years. In four months. I still have the comboard with the declaration he was going to sign.”
“Was,” Dain said, “but he didn’t.”
“We couldn’t say anything publicly. Xavier said we couldn’t since if we did we’d give Governor Alse advanced warning of our plans.”
“Then explain why Kamien is accusing us of killing our father! They’re saying we killed Shalis. That we killed Melgan, and Boral, and Roth, and Brendin. All so you could take the Throne. Take it, as if it isn’t yours by right. If Kamien didn’t plan this, why is that what they’re saying about us?”
“Maybe he’s being forced.”
Dain turned from him, shaking his head. “Why would you believe him?” he said, then answered himself. “Maybe because you never doubt anyone’s intentions. You never believe in ulterior motives.”
Dynan knew what he was talking about, referring to the affair with Liselle Tremault. Maralt had left him those memories too, of fighting with Dain, of being in love with Liselle and everything that had happened with her. It was odd, though, when he tried to recall what she looked like, all that came to him was a flash of a woman with hair the color of honey. He knew that wasn’t right, but he couldn’t bring Liselle’s face to mind. There was only the stinging emotion of loss and betrayal.
“I’m sorry,” Dain said then. “I don’t mean...I know that you don’t want this to be happening, that you want Kamien to be innocent.”
“If he isn’t he planned this from the start or was forced to go along with it. He wasn’t lying, Dain. I can’t believe he was lying. Why would he?”
“This is the only way he can take the Throne.”
“He had the Throne. He had it handed to him for four years! It doesn’t make sense.”
Dain didn’t answer to that and Dynan couldn’t tell what he was thinking. His mind was shielded, a wall separating them that wasn’t familiar. Dynan wanted to ask him about it, to change it since it was of Dain’s own creation. He wanted to make it so the barrier didn’t exist. Maybe it always would when the topic of Liselle came up, or Kamien.
A noise of doors crashing open made them both jump. In a flash, Dain had his borrowed sword drawn and put himself in front of Dynan. The guards came to attention. They heard a familiar voice calling for them.
Dain saw him first, tripping over himself to re-sheath the sword and run at the same time. Dynan managed to get by him, crashing into their old Master of Arms full force in his excitement and amazement that he was alive. Boral grabbed them both up when Dain arrived an instant later into a crushing embrace, laughing as he greeted them. Dynan suddenly felt as if the entire ordeal might now be survivable having even one of the men he always counted on still in his life. The sense of total isolation lifted while Boral took them in turn by the face, looking at them, judging how they were, the way he always could.
Dynan glanced behind his mentor, starting again when the doors opened once more.
“Xavier!”
Cobalt’s Lord Chancellor walked toward them, smiling and holding out his arms. Their greeting was no less subdued, only gentler in deference to his age. Another realignment of the universe and all that was good and decent shifted into place. Xavier was the smartest man in all of Brittallia, and more than a Surrogate father. He pulled Dynan over, a withered hand tapping his cheek.
“I’m so sorry this has happened,” he said as if it were his fault. “I spoke to Carryn. There’s more, boys. News you haven’t heard.”
“Is it true about Shalis?”
Xavier drew in a breath and nodded. “Come sit with me.”
They went with him to another bench down a short path that had the same spectacular view of Ilthain. It was snowing harder. Dynan dreaded what news Xavier could bring them, wondering what could be worse.
Mostly, it was the final confirmation of all the terrible things that had happened, only the details were more devastating. Shalis, Xavier told them, was so brutally murdered it wasn’t possible to hold the usual public viewing. Roth, Brendin and Melgan were dead, but a service for them was withheld as they were accused of participating in the uprising.
“Uprising?” Dain swore. “You can only rebel against something that isn’t—”
“I know,” Xavier said evenly. “It’s as incomprehensible to me as it is to you. I’m sorry, Dain, but there’s more. Several of your friends are dead or missing, Calman Shaun, Glenn Derrick, and Greg Altmar. They were killed in the attack. I know for certain about them.”
“Tory and Olan?”
“Ames and Lyle?” Dynan asked.
“Kyle Bairing?”
“Unknown. Kyle is probably in the greatest danger since he was a Palace Guard, on duty at the time, I believe. Ames and Lyle are still in conscription of course, so they should be safe, but...”
“He’s killing all our friends,” Dain said. “Anyone we might try to communicate with who would talk to us. If they aren’t dead by now, they’re going to be hunted down.”
“Their prospects will be better than that,” Boral said. “They’re all smart, and they weren’t at the Palace that night. Kamien can say they were part of the conspiracy, but he’ll have to prove it.”
“For a time,” Xavier said, “the rule of law will reassert itself. Until Kamien can establish himself under these new conditions, he’ll have to be somewhat careful to avoid a backlash.”
“You’re sure it’s Kamien?” Dain asked when Dynan didn’t.
“Yes, unfortunately. Allie Ahreld was able to retrieve a communications task list. It’s something that tracks users by their access code. There were conversations between Kamien and one of the attackers, around the time of the supposed Murian attack. Allie knew the man from years ago when they studied together, and recognized that he was probably the only person who could break the codes in the system. He’d only just started to unravel it all, when the Palace was attacked the second time. His name is Logue Riztrin.”
Xavier handed Dynan the comboard with the image of the man he remembered from the alley, his blond hair neatly trimmed this time and he wore a Guild uniform. Dain took the device, staring at the image for a time. “Is he the one who stabbed you?”
“What? You’ve seen him before?” Xavier said.
“Last year. In the alley. He was with two others, or I don’t know, there might have been more,” Dynan said and rubbed his head.
“These two?” Xavier asked, changing the file to show them two different men. They were well dressed and un-disheveled.
“Yes,” Dynan said.
“Was it either of them?” Boral asked.
“I don’t know. They were there. One of them killed my guard,” Dynan said and winced again. “Colyn Fryn.”
Ca
rryn came around the corner of the path then, walking toward them with her hands tucked into the sleeves of her tunic. “I think that’s enough for now, My Lord Chancellor, don’t you?”
Xavier glanced at her with a weary nod. “Yes, of course, though, I’m afraid there is one other thing I haven’t been able to tell them yet.”
Dynan glanced up, aware they were about to find out someone else was dead, and then he knew. He hadn’t heard their names mentioned. It was the final blow. He didn’t want to listen anymore.
“Regan and Lors.”
Dain jerked around, walking a few steps to the edge of the path where he stopped and stood, swearing under his breath. He whirled back, his hands balled into fists, shaking from the effort to stop the tears. “I’m going to kill that son of a bitch. Both of them.”
They all looked to Carryn, and Dynan wondered if she would defy the edict, but she only nodded. She wrapped herself up in her arms, looking around at them all. “Yes.”
~*~
Chapter 3
“I want to show you something,” Carryn said, as they moved from the garden toward the Palace entrance. Dynan glanced back at Dain as he walked with Boral, who had an arm draped around him, talking to him, trying to put him back into a better frame of mind. After a while, Dain nodded.
“Why did you stop Xavier from talking about those men?” Dynan asked when he looked back to her.
“Talking about them doesn’t help you recover,” she said. “Dwelling on those things you can’t change isn’t a productive use of time. We have to move on.”
“You’re not telling me everything.”
“I’ve told you as much as I know,” she said. “I haven’t told you every suspicion, but what we know now ought to be enough for us to move forward and deal with our circumstances.”
“What are you afraid will happen?” Dynan asked, looking at Dain again, who was paying attention now as they entered the Palace. “You’re not telling us something and we want to know what it is.”
She didn’t answer, staring at the pale green carpet that stretched down the long hall. The light usually streamed in on a sunny day through the line of arched windows. Dynan remembered walking down this hall with his father once, years ago. Carryn glanced at him and then to Xavier as if in askance, but he was walking with his head down and not paying attention.
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