A Prince Among Killers

by S. R. Vaught; J. B. Redmond

  As always, the Sabor offered little in the way of response, but Aron heard the boy mutter quick thanks to Cayn.

  After a moment, Aron did the same. Cayn, the Brother, the Goddess—he wasn’t certain who had chosen him, but it seemed prudent to speak to all of them, just in case.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  ARON

  The news of Aron’s encounter with Platt seemed to sustain Dari for a time, which gave Aron a sense of relief. She told Aron she felt like she had been granted a reprieve, that she at least had a reasonable chance of finding her twin before Platt’s warriors located her, especially since they had been unsuccessful thus far.

  It didn’t take long, though, for disappointment to return. When night after night of searching turned up nothing, Dari seemed more unhappy than ever, and Aron would have done anything to please her, including doubling and tripling his efforts in their graal training sessions.

  What do you see?

  Dari’s voice floated like sweet music through Aron’s senses, heightened by the depth of perception he enjoyed on the other side of the Veil. He tried to focus on the lyrical notes of her speech, on the gauzy warmth of her spiritual presence beside him, but it was no use. He couldn’t do what she was asking him to do, and he hated himself for it.

  Aron slid back to full awareness and opened his eyes, taking in the stone floor and bearskin rug beneath him, the stone walls of Dari’s bedchamber, the fire blazing in her hearth, and Blath sitting in a chair by the far window, staring away from them, into the gray light of the cloudy day. Aron’s fingers traveled down his leg until he touched the polished gray cheville that marked him as a Stone apprentice. The smooth, banded agate he now wore seemed perfect to his eye, more complex than he ever imagined colorless rock could be, and he knew its contours, shades, and hues so well he might have had this very cheville since birth. Like the gray tunic and breeches he wore, it was part of his life now, a fact he accepted. His cheville, his apprentice’s clothing, the never-ending ache in his muscles from training and the additional exercises he took on to improve himself, the bruises on his back from his latest round of extra “training” with Galvin Herder… at least those things were simple and easy.

  Dari was not, and neither were her demands.

  The outer surface of the rock felt cool to his touch. Dari’s room was cold despite the fire, but she was so close to Aron, sitting almost knee to knee, that he wondered if her presence kept him warm.

  What do you see?

  The question echoed through the faint mental connection that remained even though Aron was no longer in a meditative state.

  “Nothing,” he said aloud. “Well, nothing but you and Blath and your bedchamber and the light coming through your window. I can’t see Iko in the hallway, but I’d wager he’d yelp if I stuck a burning stick beneath the door.”

  Dari’s eyes opened, and Aron stared into the dark, glittering depths. No matter how tired and sad she had become over the days and weeks and cycles of fruitless searching for her sister, she remained endlessly beautiful to him.

  “Aron, you have been at Stone for a year and a half.” Dari rubbed the sides of her head, then fidgeted with the peridot cheville—a fake, fastened by clasps—that she kept on her ankle during waking hours. “You have mastered the basics of regulating your body and thoughts, of healing yourself and others from minor accidents and wounds, of understanding the world around you in new and deeper ways. You’ve even become skilled at tasks like reading the nature of legacies and concealing your own mind-talents from any who might try to pry. What stops you from using your graal to look across distances on the other side of the Veil?”

  Aron’s cheeks warmed even as his belly tightened. He tried to use some of that regulation of body and mind she had taught him and shrugged in response, hoping his expression remained as placid as Stormbreaker’s always seemed to be. “Perhaps it’s a talent I don’t have.”

  “You’ve done it before.” Dari gazed at him, and Aron was aware she was searching for the truth. Maybe sensing it, like he was supposed to able to do so easily. “You could do it again, but you don’t choose to try.”

  With a frown, Aron did his best to keep a dense cloak about the innermost workings of his mind. He even repeated the words to a traveling song to himself, over and over, to keep her from prying too deeply through the trace of mental connection they shared. That was, of course, futile, at least where Dari was concerned.

  “You don’t… want to view the countryside of Eyrie from the other side of the Veil. But why?” She stared at him all the harder, her black eyes bright with frustration and confusion. “Stormbreaker and Lord Baldric value war news, especially what they can learn from sources other than the endless streams of messengers and demands from Thorn and the dynast rulers.”

  Aron almost regretted their proximity now, as it would be easier to ignore Dari or mislead her from across the room. Perhaps from somewhere else in the vast compound of Triune. “It’s almost the sixth hour past middle-night, though I can’t see the sun behind the clouds. Time for weapons practice, and the High Masters’ apprentices are to meet at the horseman’s armory. I should go—but I’ll double my efforts tomorrow.”

  Dari’s scrutiny didn’t ease. “Are you frightened? Do you think harm might come to you if you focus your mind-talents on viewing the miles around this castle?”

  Aron glared directly at her. He straightened himself on the floor, speaking faster than he intended—and louder. “Of course I don’t fear harm. Not harm to me.”

  Blath glanced at him as if to appraise his level of threat to Dari, then went back to staring out the window. The bells along Triune’s battlements begin to ring. It was a simple pattern—two quick rings, then a long toll. More messengers were arriving. Likely with more tidings of how Lord Brailing and Lord Altar were succeeding in their march across Dyn Mab. Aron didn’t want to hear any such news, and he didn’t want to discuss with Dari his feelings about traveling above Eyrie on the other side of the Veil.

  He focused on the ringing bells and tried to ignore the sense of pressure in his mind. Too many nights now, he had suffered from new and bloody nightmares—or were they fantasies?—of slaughtering the Brailing Guard. Any of them. All of them. Then being killed by Lord Baldric for his oathbreaking. And then there were his worst dreams, the darkest ones that made him wake Zed and bring Iko running into the bedchamber to make sure he wasn’t being murdered. The ones that left him cold and shaking and wide-awake for nights on end. Those were about the godlike creatures he had seen in the Shrine, or about being locked in Endurance House, chained to a wall, screaming as some winged mocker bore down on him to spit poison and dissolve him into a bubbling mass of blood and melting bones.

  It made no sense, really, his unreasonable fear of Endurance House. Stormbreaker had never consigned Aron to serve time there, preferring teaching, lectures, and hard physical labor for his discipline. Zed had been to the punishment building several times, as had many others, and they had all come out unmarked and unscarred, though they didn’t discuss much about the experience.

  It’s different for everyone, Zed had told him. There’s nothing there at all. It’s just a place to think, to face yourself, and evaluate your choices, that’s all. For me, I don’t like all the silence and stillness.

  Though at that moment in Aron’s life, silence and stillness just might have been welcome.

  “You fear you’ll see the Brailing Guard and break your word to Stormbreaker and Lord Baldric—and me.” Dari’s confusion shifted into awareness and at least partial understanding. “You fear your own temper.”

  Aron looked away from her, toward the chamber door. His jaws locked, and he could offer no response except a rough bunch of breathing as the anger he had worked so hard to shed surged into his chest and up his throat. Even thinking about the Brailing Guard made him consider oathbreaking and vengeance, yes. He had no doubt his urge for retribution would overcome him if he caught even a glimpse of the murderers who h
ad slaughtered his family.

  Dari’s fingers fluttered against his elbow, and even so long back on this side of the Veil, the contact was almost excruciating. The heat of her fingers on his skin made him twitch and drove his words farther from his own reach.

  “But that’s why I’m here, Aron. That’s why I’m helping you, in case something like that happens. I won’t allow you to lose control.”

  Aron clenched and unclenched his teeth, forcing his mouth to work under its own power once more. He kept his eyes on the door, on escape, and his heart beat faster. “What if you can’t stop me, Dari?”

  Her fingers fell away from his arm, and her soft laughter cut him as deeply as any dagger. “I don’t visit the full strength of my graal on you, but only so I don’t overwhelm you. If I chose to overtake your essence on the other side of the Veil, you would be powerless to stop me.”

  Aron blinked at the door, heat rising and waning on his face. He knew from his encounter with Platt that she was probably right, perhaps even understating her abilities. Yet her assertion humiliated him. Strangely, it also soothed him. He didn’t know whether to offer her thanks or stalk out of the chamber.

  Why did he always feel so confused and stupid in her presence?

  “Please don’t feel any shame with me.” Dari’s soft tones made him look at her again, despite his embarrassment. “I know these lessons weren’t your choice—that very little has been your choice. But mastering your legacy is perhaps the most important task you have at Stone.”

  “Why?” Aron almost shoved himself to his feet, then decided that would be childish and kept his seat. “I’m not allowed to use it, and if Lord Baldric has his way, I never will be.”

  This made Dari sigh, then frown. “I know he’s the Lord Provost of Stone, but Aron, your graal isn’t like Stormbreaker’s. My cousin was right. Your mind-talents could be used, I think, if properly controlled.”

  Aron shook his head, relieved, at least, that his cheeks weren’t so hot anymore. “I don’t understand.”

  Dari raised her arms and gestured, like she was drawing down the sky. “Stormbreaker’s emotion brings weather to him, or generates aspects of weather where none should exist. Even if he could channel it and direct it against one person, or a group of people—or into some far more benign task such as stopping a dangerous storm—the consequences would be far-reaching for all of Eyrie’s climate. We couldn’t predict what effect it might have, either locally or across the entire land. There is no such thing as using his graal safely. As a rule, there is no controlling a merging of natural phenomena and graal. His legacy is more a curse than a useful talent.”

  Aron still felt hopelessly confused. “And my legacy is useful?”

  “It could be.” She lowered her arms and let her hands rest in her lap once more. “There are ways to employ it in limited fashion. For example, you could truth-seek when everyone being confident of the truth might facilitate peace or agreement. And you could be present for important meetings, and share with your friends and allies any insight your graal gives you—the kind that happen without you even seeking them.”

  Aron tried to imagine this, then realized in times past, that was probably how Brailings served the ruling lines—when they weren’t the ruling line.

  “I also believe you could use your graal to avoid killing, to save lives.” Dari spoke more quietly, as if she might be telling a secret. “Though again, such a use would have to be very limited.”

  It was all Aron could do not to laugh. “Lord Baldric wouldn’t agree with you. Stone never uses unfair advantage. You heard him.”

  “I’m not talking about hunts or combat, or even Stone business.” Dari sighed again, fell silent, then focused her dark, sparkling gaze on Aron’s face. “When the time comes, Lord Baldric may not be present to make your choices for you. All I can tell you is, robbing a human being of free choice, truly taking a person’s will, is a violation. It could be a murder of the soul. You will never use the full measure of your graal without being changed by it. Yet there may come a moment when using it is the right thing, for the greater good of someone else, or even Eyrie itself.”

  Aron’s mouth came open, and it took him several long moments to add up her words in his mind. The embarrassment came creeping back. “I’m an oathbreaker waiting to happen.”

  Dari narrowed her eyes. “You aren’t.”

  Aron could have sworn he heard the rest, the not yet that Dari kindly kept to herself.

  “It’s still half an hour until weapons practice begins.” She tugged at his tunic sleeve. “Try one more time to travel over distance with me. I’ll help you—to prove what I say about being able to help you if your resolve weakens.”

  Aron intended to refuse her, but he wasn’t much good at that, and he saw little point in pretending he could walk away from her wishes. So, moments later, he was seated in front of her again, breathing slowly and deeply, pushing himself back toward the Veil. He didn’t think he could relax enough to comply with the task she had set for him, but he would try.

  Soon enough, the world took on a louder quality, with colors flaring brighter, and the tiniest details of his surroundings growing large and obvious. He could count the legs on the tiny spider spinning its web between Blath’s foot and the warmth of the hearth. If he studied the busy creature long enough, he would be able to see the fine hairs on those legs, maybe even smell its acidic, spidery scent. The stones under Blath’s feet were dusty. Blath’s soft leather boots were dusty, too. His mind was fully on the other side of the Veil now, yet his body remained safe in Dari’s bedchamber, contained behind the thick walls of the High Master’s Den, and ultimately Triune itself.

  Focus, Aron, and be at ease. Dari’s thoughts were controlled, muted, almost a whisper, yet commanding nonetheless. Here. Come with me.

  Aron turned his attention to her, glancing at her only from the corner of his eye, so he wouldn’t get caught up in just staring at her. The dull green energy, the disguise she kept around her legacy, blazed a sharp peridot with crimson flecks.

  The essence of Aron’s head snapped backward as something like red and green fire flowed across him, turning into dozens of hues and shades. It was hot and heavy, pressing in on him—yet cool at the same time. Comforting. Then relaxed and gentle, like the feel of holding Dari’s hand.

  He risked a full glance at her face, or the strong, sharply defined essence of it, and saw that she was smiling. He was captured by the curve of her lips, the lift of her cheeks, and the depth of her eyes, even though he knew such things weren’t exactly real or accurate on the other side of the Veil. Dari seemed as much herself as ever, and he realized that it didn’t trouble him as much as it should have, the fact that she had completely overpowered him, taken control of his essence, just as she said she could do.

  It’s not unpleasant, he thought, forgetting to keep the appropriate guards around his own mind. The words came out loud inside the shell of rainbow light covering them both.

  Dari blinked from the noise.

  Aron gave her an apologetic look and controlled himself better as she took them out of her bedchamber and lifted their combined awareness over Triune. She kept them below the clouds, as a bird might try to fly if forced into the air during such weather, but of course the patches of mist and rain did not touch them at all. Aron was usually a bit cold on the other side of the Veil, but not this day. Half-absorbed by the sensation of being so close to Dari, wishing he could hear her thoughts to know if she enjoyed being close to him, Aron made himself look at the Stone stronghold below him.

  The cloud-choked sunlight that had seemed so gray before he came through the Veil, it was bright now, playing off damp branches and roof thatch. He felt himself squinting, even though he knew his body was well warmed inside the bedchamber, so close to Dari’s hearth. To his right, in the clusters of huts that comprised the quarters for the sheltered, children wrapped in rain leathers were already at play or chores, plowing through puddles and mud. Smoke billowed
from the main kitchens nearby, along with the smells of baking pies and bread. The archery and knife ranges were deserted, but a small crowd had begun to gather further to the south, toward the horseman’s armory. These were the regular apprentices, boys and girls Aron had little contact with, since the apprentices to the High Masters were kept to themselves for living and training.

  Aron studiously kept his attention away from the structures on his left. He wouldn’t have minded seeing into the House of the Judged or the Judgment Arena to the far south, or even the courtyard of the main gate and keep. It was the structures closer to him, Endurance House and the Shrine of the Mother, that put him off. He was grateful that Dari didn’t seem to notice that as she took them higher, through the billowing gray clouds, and higher still, until they broke into the bright morning sky.

  The flood of blue-white brightness flowed over Aron, touching him inside and out, filling him with a wild energy and hope he so rarely felt when his awareness was bound firmly into the flesh of his body.

  Now you lead, came Dari’s urging. Take us far. Anywhere. Whenever you’re ready, imagine us heading toward the ground, through the clouds.

  Aron pulled his mind this way and that, soaring upward, then imagining his arms stretched outward like he might be a Great Roc in flight. Dari’s laughter echoed inside their shell of light, along with his own.

  I didn’t remember this part, the freedom, Aron admitted, carefully modulating the force of his thought so the words would remain quiet and private, within the energy Dari had extended around them both.

  It is wonderful—but it can be dangerous to some. Dari always seemed to speak so effortlessly, her voice so calm and flowing. In such moments, Aron’s troubles and worries seemed so far away they didn’t even feel real to him, and he had no desire to join with them again. I have known some of my people to stay too long in this state, and never wish to return to their physical essence.