King's Folly (Book 2)

by Sabrina Flynn

  Cool afternoon air greeted them on the surface, along with a city of ruin and a towering canopy. Frost still clung to the trees, and daggers of sunlight caressed their leaves with brilliance.

  As Isiilde’s eyes adjusted to the brightness, she breathed in the sharp air with new appreciation while the paladins scanned the ruins. One tree looked much the same as the next.

  “The river is that way,” Oenghus answered Acacia’s unvoiced question.

  “How do you know?”

  The Nuthaanian shrugged. “Never been lost.”

  “I’ve always thought it had to do with his stature,” Marsais mused. “He’s so large that moving south feels like walking downhill.”

  “So if I were to walk on stilts, I would have his same sense of direction?” Isiilde raised a brow at her Bonded.

  “Have you tried it?”

  “No, but you’re tall, and you get lost all the time.”

  Marsais frowned in thought. “Perhaps it’s his girth, then.”

  “He does break a lot of chairs.”

  Oenghus glanced back at the nymph and seer, tugged his beard, and pressed on with a muttered oath.

  Despite their jesting, a tense alertness hung over the group as they hiked through the ruins and lush undergrowth. The forest stirred, but only from a breeze. Isiilde was exhausted, her feet were numb, her body was bruised and aching; and yet, with every step that took her farther from the underground lair, she brightened.

  “I see why you don’t stay in one place for very long, Marsais.”

  “Hmm, and this is just one realm.”

  “Don’t get her curious, Scarecrow,” Oenghus grumbled. “There’s plenty to see in this one.”

  “And plenty of danger,” Marsais remarked, scanning the trees. “But it’s true; no matter how many ages I have walked these lands, there’s always more to see, and I never tire of seeing sights like these.” He gestured to the towering trees that would surely dwarf the throne room on the Isle. Smells of ripe earth and fresh bark filled Isiilde’s senses, leaving her heady with its scents.

  “Aye, well, I’m still searching for the best ale in the realm.”

  “One pleasure house at a time,” Marsais quipped.

  “I’m surprised you can’t turn water into ale,” commented Lucas.

  “Don’t think I haven’t tried.”

  From the looks of the group, Isiilde thought that the enchantment would be particularly welcome at the moment. They were, she reflected, a ragged looking bunch.

  ❧

  The river was wide and fierce, and the afternoon sun shone brightly on the water. They followed the river as the terrain allowed, until a slice of land split the torrent, calming one side into a slow, sluggish eddy. Reeds grew along the red banks and large, flat boulders caught the sunlight, reflecting heat into the cool mountain water.

  Oenghus paused, squinting ahead. “Stay here,” he ordered, unslinging his shield and unhooking his hammer. Isiilde’s ears stood straight and alert as her guardian moved forward, disappearing between the thick trees.

  Isiilde wandered to the bank. Ancient stone steps clung to the edge. A fallen pillar marked the ruin. She thought it might have supported a bridge at one time. Something caught her eye, and she wandered farther, conscious of Marsais on her heels, and another—Rivan.

  A ring of redwoods gathered in a cluster. One was burnt and hollow but nonetheless alive and thriving. She peered timidly into its shadows.

  A snorting huff was the only warning. The shadows exploded. A boar charged from the hollow and Isiilde threw herself to the side of the opening. The tusked keg slid and turned, madly scraping dirt to gain traction. And then it came back for her.

  Marsais stepped in front, fingers flashing, but Rivan was quicker. He thrust his sword into the beast’s ribs, and the boar ripped the hilt from his grasp, turning towards its attacker. Rivan tripped over a root, and threw up his shield as the boar pounded into him.

  The boar was too close to Rivan for Marsais to throw a bolt. Unwilling to risk hitting the paladin, he dropped his weave, grunted in annoyance, stepped forward, and drove the heel of his boot into the pommel of the protruding sword. The blow forced the blade deeper, and the boar thrashed and twitched, until it stilled, falling on top of Rivan and his shield.

  The others ran into the grove in time to see Rivan on his back, struggling under three hundred pounds of dead boar.

  “Didn’t I bloody tell you lot to stay still?” Oenghus growled, dragging the boar off Rivan.

  “We got bored,” Marsais shrugged. “Besides, Isiilde found us dinner, and Rivan killed it. Huzzah.”

  “No, I didn’t—” Rivan began, but Marsais stepped into the hollow, weaving a light rune. Isiilde followed. The tree’s hollow was empty, save for a few creeping spiders and salamanders. The interior was spacious and tall and the earth was soft and yielding.

  “These trees are extremely resistant to fire. They’ll continue to thrive long after their core is hollowed.” Marsais ran his fingers over the charred innards. “We ancients are a hardy bunch, aren’t we?”

  Isiilde did not think he was talking to her.

  “And look,” Marsais pointed, “someone has used this as a campsite before.”

  Isiilde followed his gaze to a little hole in the side that appeared too perfect to be caused by coincidence. “Who made it?”

  “Someone very tall,” he quipped.

  Isiilde grinned, and she felt a presence behind her, heavy and glaring. She turned to find her guardian.

  Oenghus poked his head inside. “Can you come and look at what I found, Scarecrow, or do you already know?”

  “I do.”

  “Well I don’t,” said Isiilde. “Do I want to?”

  “It’s not near as pleasant as this.”

  “All the same,” Acacia said from the entrance. “I’d like to see. And coincidently, there is another untouched patch of strawberries that the boar seems to have completely left alone.”

  “Luck follows a faerie,” Marsais smiled.

  Isiilde wasn’t sure about that, but her stomach reminded her that she was starving.

  While Rivan and Lucas dragged the boar away from camp to skin and gut, Isiilde picked a handful of strawberries and hurried after the others. She caught up to them in front of a crude totem that had been carved into a pillar. As he’d said, Oenghus’ discovery wasn’t nearly as pleasant as hers.

  A mass of grotesque images and a spidery filigree of foreign runes twisted the totem’s surface. Leering eyes watched from the stone. Something dark and filthy had been rubbed onto the fangs and beaks of the carved faces. Isiilde tried not to think what that something might be, but she had her suspicions.

  “A border marker,” Acacia noted, looking to Oenghus and Marsais. “Is it the Ardmoor?”

  “No, see this,” Marsais traced an image of a foul looking bird. “It’s the Suevi—we’ll stop for the night.”

  ❧

  After a chilly dip in the river, Isiilde lay on a flat rock that had been hoarding sunlight all day. She basked in its heat. For the first time in five days, she felt clean, and was drying nicely. Sunlight caressed her limp body and her tired feet dangled over the edge into the water. It was bliss. Blue jays sang in the trees, and insects hovered over the sluggish water, while fish darted underneath.

  A pile of strawberries, mushrooms, and nuts lay beside her, and she ate as she watched Marsais bathe and fish.

  “Do you want to try, my dear?”

  She shrugged, and sat up. “Do you think it hurts the fish?”

  “Death?”

  “The getting there.”

  Marsais considered her question as he scrubbed the grime from his forearms. Numerous cuts and bruises marred his body, but none were serious enough to warrant a healing. “You hit me with the same bolt the other day.”

  Isiilde frowned, eyeing the spidery bruise that had blossomed in the center of his chest and spread along his ribs. “Did that hurt?”

  “Only
because I lived.”

  “And it’s a good thing.” She started weaving, and Marsais quickly pulled himself on top of the flat rock beside her. His naked proximity distracted the nymph, and she forgot her weave.

  “It must be very cold,” she grinned. “Aren’t you worried the captain will look over here?” Isiilde glanced at the shore, but the only one with his eyes towards their fishing spot was Rivan.

  “Hmm, as you so delicately put it, there isn’t much to look at currently. Now concentrate, Isiilde, or I’m going to have you retrieve the fish.”

  Isiilde’s fingers flashed, and she held the weave while she scanned the water for a fleeting shadow. A fish zipped into view.

  “Wait!” Marsais’ warning came too late; she unleashed the tiny bolt with a flick of her wrist. A jolt of electricity slammed into the water, and a surge of tingling energy traveled up her legs.

  “Blood and ashes,” she cursed, pulling her feet out of the river. Her toes were numb.

  “That’s why I didn’t teach you a more powerful weave,” Marsais chuckled, slipping back into the water to retrieve two fish that had floated to the top. The nymph glared, and hurled a lesser bolt at his back. His coins chimed, and her bolt careened to the side, brushing a nearby boulder.

  “Hmm, and that’s the other reason, although you handled yourself well with the Reapers.”

  She did not like being reminded of the Reapers, or anything in the past, for that matter. Isiilde bunched her oversized shirt up to her thighs, and eased her legs back into the water. The sun caressed her skin, keeping the foul memories at bay.

  “Is it true what Rivan suspected?” she asked. “Were you the first king of Vaylin?”

  “There were men before me—I suppose my father was, but I am the one who united a land of warring clans, so history remembers my name. How many fish do you want?”

  Isiilde glanced at the two slimy trout and decided they weren’t very big. This time, before sending a bolt into the water, she withdrew her legs and waited for Marsais to hoist himself up on the rock.

  “You know,” he continued after two more fish floated to the surface, “my history in Vaylin isn’t something that I want known.”

  “Because of how Shimei, and even the paladins, view Vaylin?”

  Marsais nodded, and hopped back into the river. “Vaylin didn’t become what it is until after the Shattering, though we were at perpetual war with Kiln—a lot like Nuthaan is with the Fell Wastes.”

  “Only Nuthaan has good reason.”

  Marsais paused in front of her, pursing his lips in thought. Sitting on the rock as she was, they were eye level. “If Nuthaan was not fighting with the Fell Wastes, then they would be fighting with someone else.”

  “Weren’t the Fell Wastes always so barbaric?”

  “No, it was once part of Nuthaan.”

  Isiilde blinked.

  “Time has a way of twisting everything.” He scratched at his scar, and she gripped his hand, replacing her own over the wound. Marsais closed his eyes with a sigh.

  “Is it true that the first king went insane?” she asked softly, curling her fingers in the damp hair scattered across his chest.

  “Yes he did,” he replied. “The first king began having visions, and he failed his kingdom, most of all his family, when they needed his guidance.”

  “You have children?” The question elicited a stab of pain in his heart—of grief and loss. Yet, outwardly he was perfectly composed.

  “Not anymore. I had three daughters.” He smiled in memory. “And an infant son. My Oathbound, son, and two daughters perished during the Shattering. I—” His voice caught, and his eyes flickered. “I failed my remaining daughter in the months that followed. She died.”

  There was depth to those two words, horror and revulsion and utter despair. Isiilde wrapped her arms around his neck and drew him near. “Even the gods fail, Marsais,” she whispered in his ear. He buried his face in the curve of her neck.

  When his breath evened, and his heart calmed, his lips moved against her skin. “My dear, you could make a man forget anything.”

  “Even that he’s standing in frigid water?”

  “Hmm, that, but apparently not the seven foot Nuthaanian currently glaring at me from shore.”

  “I don’t care,” she smiled, and proved it with a kiss.

  ❧

  Isiilde stopped at seven fish. Marsais carried them off to clean, leaving her lounging on the warm rock to braid her hair. The stench of roasting boar, even cooking underground, rolled her stomach.

  “Are you finished catching fish?” Acacia asked from the bank. Isiilde nodded. The captain had already removed her armor, and now she proceeded to remove the rest of her clothing. Acacia’s shoulder, Isiilde could see, still pained her and the bruises were further testimony to the captain’s discomfort. The reeds along the bank offered some cover, but Isiilde could still see the men moving inside the circle of redwoods.

  The captain was as weathered as Marsais. Deep scars crisscrossed her taut flesh and sleek muscles rippled with movement as she slipped beneath the water. The warrior came up, running a hand through her shorn hair with a face that was as impassive as ever.

  “I’m a soldier, Isiilde. Modesty is a luxury in an army,” the captain offered.

  Isiilde blinked in surprise. Only a week ago, she had not been aware of modesty, or the eyes of men.

  “I can vouch for Marsais as a gentleman, but Oenghus has his own definition. He has already stolen a number of glances,” the last was said with a loud, carrying voice that reached her guardian’s ears. He quickly found something else to do.

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “It doesn’t bother you?”

  “Wouldn’t you look if Rivan stripped on shore?”

  Isiilde clicked her mouth shut. She would look. “It’s more curiosity.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I think Oenghus likes you.”

  “I think Oenghus likes anything with breasts.”

  Isiilde grinned.

  “May I ask you something, lass?”

  “You already have.”

  The paladin leveled her pale blue eyes on the nymph, clearly unamused. Isiilde cleared her throat and nodded.

  “My comments the other night appeared to anger you.”

  “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to make the fire do that. It just does.”

  “Apology accepted,” Acacia inclined her head. “Since there is no fire here, I feel fairly safe in asking you why you became angry when I mentioned a nymph’s mark?”

  Isiilde shifted, and rubbed her neck, feeling the weight of the collar and the presence beneath her skin. She reached for Marsais through their bond, taking comfort in the burning sun that was him. He looked up from the bank, and met her eyes. The brief touch fortified her.

  “I wasn’t angry with you, Captain.” Isiilde turned slightly, brushed aside her braids, and let her shirt slide off her shoulders, revealing the top half of the fiery serpent that curled around her spine.

  “This is my mark, the bond I share with Marsais,” she explained. “But when Stievin—took me by force, the mark was around my neck. It was a suffocating collar, like being chained beneath a man you abhor. It was worse than the attack. My mind was barely my own. I could feel him inside of me, along with all his thoughts and desires.”

  The usually cool, unaffected paladin paled. “I had no idea,” Acacia whispered. “The other nymphs I’ve met appear content—happy even.”

  “Am I so different from the others?”

  “Very much so,” Acacia admitted. “None of them write or read, and they definitely don’t use the Gift. If you ever meet another nymph—you’ll see what I mean. To be sure, nymphs are beautiful, but they’re so oblivious that it’s easy to view them as less than human.”

  Isiilde frowned. She felt more awkward and out of place than ever before. Through the years she had often imagined being with her kind, as if there were an untouched grove somewhere with a group
of lounging nymphs, waiting for her to rejoin them. But now, if the captain was to be believed, it seemed a foolish fantasy.

  “Do any of them play King’s Folly?”

  Acacia arched a slender brow. “I can barely play the game. Can you?”

  “It’s my favorite game.” Isiilde shrugged, and decided she could not contain her curiosity any longer. “Where did you get all those scars?”

  The captain laughed, and pointed to a scar on her back: a jagged splotch of white skin. “This one is from a Reaper’s bite—while I was traveling through the Bastardlands. And the other one was from a Formorrian axe. If I hadn’t been wearing my armor, I wouldn’t be bathing in this freezing water. And this—” she pointed to a circular scar on her rib, “is from a Wedamen arrow.”

  “You’ve been all over the realms, then?”

  The paladin nodded. “Nearly.”

  “What about the ones on your forearm?”

  Acacia grinned, an easy smile that made her seem human. “A particularly fierce kitten that my youngest daughter brought home.”

  Isiilde’s melodious laugh drifted into the air, melting with the stirring breeze and dancing with the leaves. All eyes fell on the shimmering dream, and the men stopped to stare at the creature on the rock. The forest sighed, the beasts paused to listen, and the wood spirits stilled—all was at peace.

  Twenty-three

  “WHERE DO YOU put it all?” asked Rivan as Isiilde tossed the bones of her fifth fish into the fire. “No offense, but I took you for a picky eater.”

  Isiilde stared at the man through a barrier of flickering flames and a red glow. “I was hungry.”

  Rivan smiled awkwardly, cleared his throat and returned to his polishing duties. The paladins had collected the dripping fat from the boar to oil their armor.

  “I’ve always wondered that too,” Oenghus snorted. “I’ve had sons who ate less than you, Sprite.”

  “Maybe I’m not done growing,” she said hopefully.