by Meagan Hurst
The Price of Survival
Journey of an Arbais Mage: Book Two
By Meagan Hurst
Table of Contents
The Mithane
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Shalion
About This Series
Acknowledgements
About The Author
The Mithane
“Zimliya, where are you?”
The words surprised him, as he hadn’t meant to speak them aloud, but as he glanced out one of the windows of his study, the Mithane dismissed his concern. He was alone, for now, and as such, it was unlikely anyone had overheard him.
Following his Keire’s demise, the Mithane had found himself under tight restrictions regarding his freedom. Chevello had been with him for millenniums as his Keire, and they’d been friends for longer still. As a result, the two of them had had a level of respect and trust for their respective positions and expertise that the Mithane would not be able to mirror with his new Keire for some time, if then. There was an air of something he couldn’t entirely identify within his kingdom, and the Mithane was uncertain the current would pass without leaving the damage of a storm in its wake.
And he wasn’t the only one who sensed it. Right now, the only time he was allowed any sort of privacy was when he was in this study—the Arriandin was considered enough of a match for the majority of the threats that might appear—or in his private wing. As much as he despised the tighter restrictions, the Mithane was also aware Chevello’s demise would be read as a weakness, and his power could be tried readily if a weakness was suspected. Still, the Mithane felt his Keire was overreacting. The only person who could easily reach him was still missing.
“If you return, Zimliya, you may not return to find the same allies in power,” he murmured softly, once again speaking aloud without meaning to. But if Zimliya did return, and things had shifted as he suspected they might, Zimliya was unlikely to be kept out of Arriandie.
When Zimliya was in their world she could—and did—infiltrate any part of Arriandie she wanted, but that was in part because the Rangers had been the second residents of Arriandri, and the Arriandin still acknowledged them—still protected them. That, and the fact the woman was far too crafty at getting in and out of places than he was truly comfortable with—well, if she had been anyone else. Zimliya was entirely trustworthy. Despite what she said regarding trust and friendship, the Mithane was well aware of the fact that Zimliya both trusted him to a point and considered him more than just an ally. It was one of the few lies she told herself, and so far, everyone who knew her was willing not to press the issue.
He simply sought even more from her. He had never asked—would never ask—her to join his people or any of his forces, but he had asked her to consider allowing him to adopt her in a human fashion. She’d panicked—he’d expected that—but she hadn’t truly turned him down. Instead she had listed any and every reason she could think of regarding why his offer was improper and dangerous. Since that day he hadn’t asked again, but since Zimliya had never responded to the offer, he knew it meant something to her.
There was a flash of light from the study doors, and he sighed before gesturing them open. His new Keire, Lytriesi, bowed formally—perfectly—and the Mithane bit back the desire to tell his Keire that formality was neither needed nor wanted in such a private place. The knowledge that there were guards within hearing distance kept the words from escaping. He had, at least, managed to get his Keire to speak without going through the verbal dance the man had insisted upon for the first several months of their interactions.
“The Mithani and that Dragon have returned from Tezérac for the evening,” Lytriesi announced coolly. His voice was carefully neutral—as was his face—but as he still refused to call Nivaradros by his name, the Mithane knew he still heavily disapproved of Nivaradros’s presence in their kingdom.
“Were there any problems?” he inquired softly.
“No more than usual, according to the Mithani. Apparently assassination attempts are to be treated with the same concern as a change in the weather. The Mithani is placing far too much trust in a being who has previously been an enemy.” Now the tone was exceptionally impartial.
“Part of the value in this, Keire, is the fact that Nivaradros is doing this without a reason all of us can comprehend. A being with a known end goal is less trustworthy than a being whose desires are more flexible. His motives are likely to be truer than they would be if he was doing it for a price. Thank you for the report, Keire. Make sure Nivaradros has permission to walk the halls if he wishes to speak with me. No more than one Alantaion is needed as an escort.”
Black emerged sharply as streaks through Lytriesi’s eyes. “I do not feel that is advisable.”
“Keire, if he was going to harm us he already would have. He has spent months with my son and humans after all. All the Alantaion escorts we could assign to watch him would have little effect if he truly wanted to kill me. I am not defenseless, however, and Nivaradros knows this. I am not happy with his presence here either, but he serves a purpose and I will not insult him by taking away any of the allowances I offered when I first invited him to stay here.”
Lytriesi’s eyes flashed again, but he bowed and left rather than argue. Chevello hadn’t been afraid to argue with him when they disagreed, but the Mithane was also aware Chevello would not have disapproved of Nivaradros’s current presence in Arriandie. It made the loss of his friend and former Keire all that much sharper. Something else he could share with no one. No one, except Zimliya, but that was dangerous to share with her for entirely different reasons. If she knew, she would blame herself for Chevello’s demise. He could not allow that to occur.
Turning his thoughts away from the two beings he had lost so recently, the Mithane turned his thoughts back to Nivaradros, and the Dragon’s offer to watch and protect Shevieck.
He’d accepted the Dragon’s aid with reservations. Nivaradros was an exile and had an unmatched temper among his kind. He also had a history of being unsocial and murdering even those of his own race. The Mithane had lost thousands of his people to the Dragon’s wrath over the millenniums, and then Nivaradros had taken even more from him: his wife and their unborn daughter.
Yet, now, Nivaradros was protecting the son of the same line he had tried to destroy. The Dragon was guarding Shevieck with the same attentiveness he had shown while protecting Zimliya. The Dragon’s protectiveness with Zimliya he understood; the Dragon’s willingness to extend the same protection to Shevieck, he did not. The Dragon had to have something he was chasing, but the Mithane was still uncertain he knew what it was, and he needed to be a step ahead of Nivaradros.
The first month Nivaradros had been looking after Shevieck had been—by the Mithane’s estimation—rough. Nivaradros had flown in daily to take a portal with Shevieck to Tezérac in the very early days of that month, but something had happened—he still wasn’t privy to the details—after which Nivaradros had insisted on personall
y flying Shevieck to the human kingdom. Dragons, in general, were extremely unwilling to fly others around. They considered being asked the highest insult any ground-bound being could offer them, and Zimliya was the only being the Mithane had seen any of the Dragons carry. Yet, now, Nivaradros flew his son without complaint. Something, the Mithane was certain, had occurred with the portal, and the Dragon obviously felt portals were too much of a risk to use again.
There had also been three assassination attempts in that first month—several more had occurred since then, including, based on his Keire’s report, one this evening. He intended to learn more about the attack through a more reliable source than his son. Zimliya had had the foresight to negotiate communication between him and a couple of Rangers in Tezérac, and they reported incidents without softening the severity of the danger.
And according to those Rangers, Nivaradros was irreplaceable as Shevieck’s advisor. Allegedly, when Shevieck had been given paperwork to sort through with the human regent, Mechail, it was Nivaradros who didn’t let anything slip past the human or Shevieck. From taxes, to land disputes and grievances with the developing government, Nivaradros advised, and refrained from reacting with violence of any kind.
The Mithane sighed and poured himself a glass of Alantaion wine. After the incident that had caused Nivaradros to fly Shevieck to Tezérac daily, he had offered the Dragon use of a wing to make the Dragon’s life easier—travel wise—if he desired. To his astonishment, Nivaradros had politely accepted the offer, and despite the Mithane’s initial concerns over having Nivaradros in Arriandie, Nivaradros had managed to soften some of his people’s anger and distrust.
Nivaradros did, however, struggle with the humans. He was doing his job superbly, but the Dragon had taken to coming to visit him in private to safely defuse some of his frustration. It was difficult on both of them to interact, but they were each making the effort, and the Mithane used his interactions with Nivaradros to judge the Dragon’s true intentions with the woman he considered to be his daughter. He suspected the Dragon was after Zimliya’s heart, and with Zimliya’s fragile state of mind, he didn’t want Nivaradros destroying her.
Yet the Dragon he had spent the last eight months with was not what he expected. This Dragon, this version of Nivaradros, was safe. At least for Zimliya. The Mithane couldn’t forgive him for the past, and a part of him wanted to thwart any blossoming relationship between the Dragon and Zimliya. A memory surfaced though—as it had so many times in the past few months—and he sighed. Perhaps none of them truly knew Nivaradros after all.
He stared at the bodies that were charred and in pieces. Members of his personal Guard, sent to protect his wife while she traveled to visit an old friend, had been slaughtered for no reason. He knew who was behind the attack, and the fury that filled his veins had rarely been equaled. Nivaradros. That damned exiled Dragon had struck. His people had been nowhere near the Dragon’s lands and, yet, they were dead. His wife and unborn child—a daughter—were dead.
“You’ll pay for this, Nivaradros,” he promised softly. “This time, Dragon, you’ll get what’s coming to you.”
Of course, Nivaradros hadn’t. When the Mithane had reached out to the Syallibion ruler at the time—Zyrhis’s father—for help, he’d been not only refused, but persuaded to wait. The Syallibions hadn’t been interested in starting a war with Nivaradros, and without their support, the Mithane knew his odds at killing the Dragon were slim unless he had wanted to lose more Alantaion lives. Zyrhis’s mother had also pleaded—privately—with him not to go to war with Nivaradros. It had been her words, unexpected as they were, that had truly kept the Mithane from acting. She’d known something about the Dragon—he was certain of it—and though she’d never confided her reasons to him, he could guess.
“Oh, Zimliya, what have you gotten me involved in?” he breathed. “And where are you?”
She’d been gone eight months now, and all the futures he’d foreseen had put her return, her demise, or her deciding to stay where she was, in a time frame of two months prior. His ability to follow her as a seer had failed within the last three months; her presence had been gone from the world for too long. What it meant, in his mind, was that the woman was either dead or lost to them forever. He secretly hoped she was still alive and simply living the rest of her days out in the world she had fled to, because he preferred to hold on to hope than to surrender to despair over something he doubted he would ever know.
Unfortunately, that meant Nivaradros would eventually no longer protect Shevieck. It had been a short term agreement, and the Mithane was only willing to lie to the Dragon for so long. Not to mention, it was dangerous to try to deceive any Dragon, much less Nivaradros.
“Zimliya, you really should have returned to us,” he murmured. “We need you.”
A gust of wind suddenly tore around his study, and the Mithane turned to face the window it had entered through. A window that was now open. A figure was outlined by the window used to enter Arriandie in an unconventional way. Dressed in the deep black of the Rangers, and hooded against even his sharp Alantaion eyes, the individual seemed to watch him, judging him briefly, before a gloved hand reached up and pushed the hood back, revealing cool blue eyes and a familiar face.
“Hello, Mithane,” the woman whispered softly as her eyes flickered to their insecure color of ice. “It has been some time,” she added in a tone that told him she didn’t want to be here, but felt honor bound to come. Had he been a mortal, his mouth would have been hanging open in astonishment at the sight of her, but while he had not expected her return he would not disgrace himself by showing so much surprise.
“Zimliya de la Nepioa,” he breathed while allowing a soft smile to grace his features. “Welcome back,” he said with feeling.
He had wanted to say, ‘Welcome home,’ but a look at the woman’s eyes told him she did not want to be home in the world of her birth. Those eyes also told him she had found something while she had been away that had made returning almost impossible for her. He was still astounded she was here at all. At the sound of her full name, a familiar grimace of annoyance brushed across her features briefly before she smoothed the disgust away behind a mask he knew well.
“Z,” he corrected gracefully as his smile softened further.
At her nickname—or the one nickname she had yet to attack anyone over using—Zimliya’s expression thawed enough to allow a smile. It was a bitter, pained, and lonely smile, but it was better than the stiff mask her face had been a moment ago.
“Thank you,” she replied after a careful pause.
He offered her a nod, but moved to look her over. Even as cloaked as she was he could evaluate her condition to a point. She had gained weight since the last time he had seen her. Little of it, but she had regained all of her former muscle, and judging by her form, she had added more to it. As she had been destroying herself during the last crisis to keep the world alive, the Mithane was relieved to see she had had the time to regain some of her health. He was also immensely pleased to see her dressed as a Ranger—he knew she hadn’t worn such clothes for many of the months she had been missing.
Her brown hair hadn’t been recently cut. The hair that had once barely circled her ears was now long enough to be pulled back. He wondered if she would keep it so, cut it short again, or let it grow out. He had never personally seen her hair allowed longer than below the bottom of her ears, but Kitra of the Rangers had once informed him Zimliya’s hair had once been midway down her back. It had been only when she had first come from Tenia, and he suspected she had cut it in an attempt to forget that part of her past.
Her eyes stayed icy as he examined her, but she made no move or sound during his blatant examination of her condition. She had clearly resigned herself to this before she had arrived. Yet as another wind gust threatened to tear about the rest of his office, she let out a disgusted sound and moved to pull the window closed. It ended the assessment abruptly and well before he liked.
S
he knelt with ease to begin to pick up the papers her arrival had sent happily flying around the room. Her immortally crafted and magicked sword—Kyi’rinn—didn’t impede the fluidness of her motions. Her several other obvious weapons likewise did not impair her attempt to clean up the mess the wind had made when she’d come in through the window.
“I can pick those up later,” the Mithane told her softly. She paused, fixed him with a cold stare, and then resumed her work in silence, causing the tension between them to sharpen. He did, however, get down and assist her with the papers.
It took the better part of fifteen minutes to gather them and reorganize them on his desk. Unfortunately, he noticed Zimliya took no interest in the documents she helped him collect and separate; before she had left that had been one thing he could always count on from her. Now she merely placed his papers in piles based on their title or relevance and she did it from a distance. A cold feeling of worry finished working its way into his heart. This was not the woman who had left eight months ago, and he had no idea what to make of her.
He reached to touch her shoulder out of alarm and found himself on the floor with Kyi’rinn pointed at his heart. The coldness in Zimliya’s eyes was not something that had ever been there before, but when she saw him staring at her in bewilderment she let out a soft cry of surprise and sprang away from him as though he had wounded her. By the time he stood, the sword was away in its sheath and Zimliya’s hands were held up in silent surrender and apology. Now that was something he knew.
“It’s fine. I shouldn’t have startled you,” he said immediately.
The woman’s eyes were shadowed with guilt despite his reassurance. “I thought I was getting better about that. I rarely attempted to even hit anyone—” her voice trailed off, and he mentally added ‘where I was’ to the end of her words.
“It’s fine,” he repeated with a small smile. “I am not even bleeding,” he added with an air of calm he knew she couldn’t see past. When his words failed to evoke the response he wanted, he closed the distance between them with care. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked softly, expecting a sharp and cutting ‘no.’