The Raiden

by Shelley Cass

  He stopped then and straightened his shoulders with a hardened expression as he awaited our reply.

  “It sounds like a good idea,” Kiana answered simply.

  “It’s an honourable and appreciated idea,” I confirmed. “There are no others I would trust as highly to guard my back.”

  Thale’s face broke into a beaming smile. “We were concerned you would reject us. Of course none of the Three are inexperienced or helpless, and the Gods chose you for a reason, but we couldn’t allow you to face possible danger alone.”

  “So the men all sent you in here to order us to accept your protection,” Kiana smiled her faint smile.

  “That is the crux of it,” Thale nodded. “Except for Agrudek, who has been muttering over his necklace as if he has been driven to the edge of his wits.”

  Before I could feel my face darken at the scientist’s name, we heard a clatter echo from mine and Noal’s room.

  I laughed. “Poor Noal’s probably awoken only to fall over with hunger.” I stood to check on him.

  “Raiden, this could be my first mission,” Thale suggested. “I could check on him and you and the One could continue your time together.”

  I felt warmth touch my cheeks and was suddenly glad that I remained unshaven, but Kiana’s expression simply appeared entertained.

  “I’ll go settle him back down,” I reassured Thale, quickly leaving for the balcony once more.

  “And, I may have to speak to you further about your guard duties,” I heard Kiana begin to deliver a shattering contradiction to Thale’s proposal as I left.

  “I will be practicing the art of flight while I am here,” I heard her say calmly. “And there is no way I’m going to carry a group of big men along with me. Or at least not just yet.”

  “Ahhhhh ...” I could just imagine the defeat on Thale’s face. “But Griffins …”

  I grinned, knowing she would always have some excuse to allow herself independence.

  Chapter Sixty Nine

  Noal

  I woke suddenly with the feeling of being watched.

  I at once tensed for danger, but instead found a pretty young blonde woman gazing at me.

  She jumped, startled by my quick waking, and slammed a tray of food down on the table in a rush.

  I shook myself alert and rushed to sit up, holding my hands out in a placating gesture.

  “Sorry!” I told the wide eyed beauty. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  She quickly curtsied and spun on her heel to devote herself to wiping at a spot of ale that had spilled from the two tankards on the tray.

  “My apologies, Your Highness,” she said hurriedly in a sweet, nervous voice. I thanked the Gods that Kiana’s close proximity meant the maiden already seemed fluent in Aolen so that I could understand her.

  In a flurry of movement she began to set the table for a meal. “I shouldn’t have woken you. I didn’t mean to look.”

  She sounded mortified and I blanched at the formality in her address.

  I smoothed my hair and noticed that I’d fallen asleep fully clothed, even my sword still belted uncomfortably at my side. But I hardly worried at it.

  “What is your name?” I asked her with fascination.

  Long wisps of blonde hair fell in waves down her back and over her shoulders and she wore a simple, grey maiden’s dress with a white apron.

  “My name is Noal,” I prompted.

  “… Prince Noal,” she corrected me absently, and then whirled back around with a horrified expression to have contradicted me.

  “It loses effect if people have to use my full title all of the time,” I grinned at her, and saw the wariness fade in her stiffened posture. “Imagine if even my closest minders had been forced to shout: ‘Your Royal Majesty, Prince Noal, put down that frog!’ ” I mimicked an admonishing carer for her.

  A wavering smile broke out across her sunny face. “I hardly think I would need to tell you to leave frogs alone at your age,” she ventured, and my grin widened.

  “You have no idea the kinds of things I have to tell him to put down, even at this age,” came a friendly voice at the door, and we both looked to find Dalin stepping off the balcony and into the room.

  She turned quickly, at once curtsying formally to him. “Raiden,” she murmured with reverence, then she scurried to the door and disappeared without having told me her name.

  I sighed disconsolately.

  “Sorry to have spoiled your conversation,” Dalin said as he walked across to me, taken aback. “I didn’t mean to scare her away.”

  I nodded. “You can’t help the way people react to you,” I told him glumly.

  “She actually looked even more like an angel than you do,” Dalin replied, taking a seat at the small table to begin the dinner she’d laid out for us. “And obviously she had enough of an effect on what is normally your immediate appetite.”

  “She was lovely,” I said honestly, joining him without enthusiasm.

  “She will probably be the one to come back for our dishes, and I will likely be gone to visit with Kiana again by then,” Dalin said tactfully.

  And my spirits lifted enough for me to properly enjoy our first quality meal since Sylthanryn as the food disappeared from our plates.

  I tried not to rush Dalin out of the room as he took a painstakingly long time to bathe and to scrape away his stubble before it was my turn to bathe, dress and shave.

  Then when a faint knock came at the door I had enough time to swiftly pat my face dry as the maiden slipped back into our room, this time with a flaming torch in her hand to light our torches. She curtsied shyly, but with a smile.

  “You’re back,” I said, trying not to sound too joyous.

  “I pray you enjoyed your meal,” she returned politely, beginning to light the torches.

  “Not at all,” I sighed, and lowered myself into a red, cushioned chair.

  She paused and frowned with worry. “You didn’t?”

  “No,” I shrugged sadly. “You never told me your name. I was too upset to enjoy the food.”

  She laughed a light, clear peal of laughter. “I could get you something else to see if you enjoy that better,” she tried.

  I shook my head. “It won’t do any good. I need just one word and my heart and appetite will be healed,” I informed her.

  She crossed to my side of the room to light the last torch. “I am just a maid, you have no true need for my name.”

  “Well,” I reasoned, “you know my name.”

  “Yes. Everyone knows your name,” she rebutted.

  “I did also go to some effort for you, so that my appearance might frighten you less than before.” I folded my hands in my lap, reasonable and business-like. “It’s only fair you show me kindness in return.”

  “I don’t think you could ever look frightening –” she began, but then blushed furiously.

  I grinned and she relaxed again. “What else could I do then, to earn the knowledge of your name?”

  She put her free hand on her hip. “You are a Prince. You could order me to tell you.”

  I changed to an offended expression this time. “Abuse my power when I’m having so much fun charming your name out of you? I don’t think so.”

  Her features had softened and she became more at ease. “I can think of nothing else, and I have finished lighting the torches, so I must clear your dishes and leave you.”

  I put a hand to my heart with a pained expression. “You would leave me in torment?”

  “Torment?” she asked. “You have only just met me and I am just one of many maids. You may not even see me again after this.”

  “All reasons that I should know your name and treasure it.” I paused. “Will I really not see you again?”

  She relented, pleased. “I have been assigned to your rooms. You will see me.”

  I brightened. “Then wouldn’t it be pleasant if I could greet you by your name?”

  “If I were doing my job correctly, I would
be unobtrusive enough that you would not notice me,” she winced.

  “How could I not notice you?” I asked. “And I don’t see that your occupation should be a barrier to me behaving kindly towards you.”

  She smiled hesitantly. “Kindness is always appreciated,” she said. “I am Maeve.”

  “Maeve,” I breathed the name. “Thank you.”

  She swept across the room, took up the tray of our dishes, and crossed back to the still open door. “I will see you tomorrow.” She cast deep brown eyes over me with one last smile. “Goodnight.”

  Then she was gone again and I flopped back happily in my chair. “See you at breakfast,” I announced optimistically to the spot where she’d been standing.

  “Oh dear,” Dalin remarked dryly when he returned later and caught a glimpse of my face. “Does that expression warn me I should make myself scarce after every meal now?”

  I nodded. “You would really only be in the way if you were here,” I told him winsomely.

  He dropped down across his bed. “It is fortunate that I asked Kiana if I could join her for breakfast,” he mused.

  “Yes!” I exclaimed eagerly. “Very fortunate!”

  And Dalin was still rumpled from sleep and squinting against the light in only his hurriedly pulled on trousers when I propelled him down to Kiana’s room the following morning.

  “I feel unfortunate,” he grumbled unclearly as I tossed his shirt to Kiana while he groaned and sank down onto her bed. He assumed much the same position he’d been in before I’d rolled him off his own bed.

  “You’re lively this morning,” Kiana told me as I skipped back onto the balcony. Then I heard her say to Dalin. “But you’re not.”

  I was tactfully leaning on the balcony when I heard the faint knock and Maeve’s light footsteps.

  “Good morning, Maeve,” I couldn’t help beaming when I saw her, and her own smile in return made mine grow wider still.

  “Did you sleep well … Noal?” she asked in her melodious voice as she set down the tray for breakfast.

  “Not at all.”

  She gave a good-humoured gasp. “And why ever not?”

  “You have told me nothing but your name. I couldn’t sleep from wondering about you.”

  “Ahh,” she pondered. “Never fear. You will have a long, tense day today. That will tire your mind for tonight.”

  I shook my head. “What if wondering about you distracts me from my prophesied duties? It could put the world’s fate in jeopardy.”

  Maeve tapped her high cheek bone with delicate fingers. “After facing the Sorcerer’s creatures and travelling all the way here on your Quest, you would let yourself be distracted by a desire to know more about me?”

  “It seems a shame,” I nodded, half mesmerised. “But you must see that it’s critical you tell me about yourself when there’s so much at stake.”

  “It wouldn’t be a fair exchange,” she reasoned. “I – and everybody – already know all about you. An adopted Awyalknian Prince, part of the Three.”

  I grimaced. “You know some things, but none of that really describes me. However it does mean you must provide me with some superficial details about yourself until we’re even.”

  She looked intrigued. “I would be interested to learn what more there is to you than all that.”

  I grinned. “To help make us more even, I need just one fact about yourself for now. It will keep me going through the day so that I can be the prophesied Prince you know me to be.”

  “One fact?” her petal-like lips quirked up thoughtfully.

  I nodded. “For today.”

  She tapped her fingernails on the table she’d set the breakfast out on before her face brightened.

  “One fact is that I will be helping the other maids to make the beds of every room on this level when you are out. I have a very different role in life to you.”

  I crinkled my nose. “That’s not the kind of fact I meant,” I protested.

  “It’s a fact all the same,” she told me. “A fact of life.”

  “Is that part of your daily routine then?”

  Maeve held up a finger. “No cheating,” she admonished. “You said just one for today.”

  “Yes, but I’m expanding on that one fact now. That’s well within the rules.”

  “Is it?” she laughed lightly. “Well in that case, yes, I do that among other things each day.”

  “What other things?” I prompted her audaciously.

  “Other things … like picking out what lovely garments you will be wearing to the feast held in your honour tonight,” she said. “So if you cheat too much I may have to pick you something with Griffin feathers.”

  “Griffin feathers?” I asked weakly, “I’d die of the stench.” I felt my shoulders droop slightly as I realised that a feast for dinner meant I probably wouldn’t see her again for the rest of the day.

  “You must have your breakfast then,” Maeve pulled out the chair I was meant to be sitting in pointedly. “You’ll need your strength.”

  Every sense within my body was aware of how close she was as I moved to be seated in the chair she stood behind, and she leaned across quickly to straighten the cutlery.

  “Just one more fact?” I pleaded, gazing up at her face.

  Maeve slowly picked up her tray again, and I felt sure she wished she could stay with me in that moment too.

  “I love flowers.” She withdrew from the table. “Despite the risk outside, I travel down the mountain every day when my noon chores are done just to roam the valleys for a short while.”

  “And now, I will be able to get through today,” I told her confidently.

  Maeve smiled warmly before she made her way to the door once more and was gone from the room.

  At once the grand bedroom seemed suddenly less brilliant, and I felt an odd tugging in my chest that suggested I was in trouble. It suggested that perhaps from now on everything would be less brilliant whenever Maeve had to walk away from me.

  I forlornly poked a berry with my fork, and when I bit into it, its juices were not as sweet as usual.

  Chapter Seventy

  Noal

  Thorin and Thale flanked us as we followed Warlord Aeron back down the mountain, descending along the stairway that overlooked the cliff and sea.

  We trailed the Warlord quietly until we reached a lower level door that led us through a watch tower and then on to outside.

  A fresh breeze carried the scent of salt to my nose and I heard the thunderous crashing of waves and the rushing of the wind even before we had left the tower stairs to stand upon sand.

  “Gods,” I uttered under my breath, forgetting the stitch in my side as I stood next to the equally stunned Dalin, Thorin and Thale. We were dumbfounded by the expansive, shifting water before us, and had to stop to at last properly behold the wild, rolling ocean up close. “It’s like a bathing pool for the Gods.”

  “Its size seems an impossibility, yet it is part of reality all the same,” Thale shook his head.

  “Everything in Jenra seems to exist on unbelievable scales,” Thorin agreed, watching while waves lapped against a wide strip of dazzling white sand that sparkled in the early morning sun. “It is incredible.”

  The sand stretched along the bottom of the mountain cliff, but ahead of us the water appeared to reach further than the sky did – the amazing blue-green mass melding with the horizon.

  “It’s dangerous,” Kiana warned, and I noted how in the distance there were large waves crashing and breaking in tumults of white foam, a sign that the splashes lapping at the shore were but mere demonstrations of the power of the ocean.

  Small fishing boats navigated their way along the coast, but I doubted that the Jenrans had ever developed larger vessels to explore the furious seas, because no stories of mortals finding the lands beyond had ever been told.

  We all tore our eyes from the spectacular view only when Aeron cleared his throat. “It is certainly wondrous and treacherous at the s
ame time,” he said, and then gestured for us to follow him down a long pebbled trail at the base of the cliff wall, only stopping us as we approached a large cave opening in the rock face.

  “These are the ocean caves of Miridoon,” Aeron said in his deep voice. “Only Jenran eyes have seen these caves for generations. They are one of Jenra’s greatest secrets and it is only under these special circumstances that today our Council will be held here. Before entering Miridoon, you must pledge to never betray this secret to anyone beyond the rest of your party, who have all passed the test. The power surrounding this place will make your pledge binding, and will also impact on your comrades.” He paused, regarding each of us. “If you are willing to pledge, you must simply say: ‘I shall never divulge the secret of Miridoon’, and you will be allowed to pass inside.”

  Kiana didn’t hesitate to pledge confidently, and each of us repeated the pledge before Aeron nodded, satisfied, and again gestured for us to follow.

  I felt bubbles of nervous excitement as we stepped into the cool darkness of the cave, and then a strange tingling crossed my skin.

  We found three archways to different tunnels and followed Aeron to where a flickering golden light glimmered through the entrance to the middle arch. The middle arch opened into another cave-like room carved out of rock and adorned by countless stalactites and stalagmites.

  King Durna and eleven of his twelve Council members were seated in what appeared to be an ancient ring of rock chairs circling a perfectly rounded and smoothed rock table.

  But it was the walls of this cave that caught my attention because, filling every spare space on the rocky surfaces, there were dazzling images. They were artworks in such vibrant colours and drawn in such detail that they seemed real, and could not possibly have been drawn by mortal hands.

  I shivered as I saw that in many of the images there were three figures. The three of us.

  Aeron took his seat as the twelfth Council member and I tried to refocus.