Equilibrium: Episode 6

by CS Sealey

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Aiyla asked.

  Rasmus nodded, fighting against the urge to weep.

  “She hated that city,” he said shortly, “and my brother wouldn’t want me to cling to his remains.”

  “We could wait until after you return,” she suggested.

  “There’s no guarantee that I ever will,” Rasmus replied, shaking his head. “It must be now.”

  He began to push the earth back into the pit but Aiyla rose and turned away, her eyes glistening with tears. She had removed the bone amulet from around Angora’s neck and wrapped it in silk. She had stood beside her dear friend’s pyre and watched the flames consume Angora’s flesh and turn it to ash. There had been three fires blazing that night. Tiderius had been placed beside Angora, dressed in a fresh uniform of leather armor and blue surcoat. The third pyre had been for Kayte. Her three closest friends gone in the space of a single day.

  When the fires had burned low and then finally gone out, Aiyla watched Rasmus gather the remains of both his brother and Angora and seal them into their decorated boxes. Emil had done the same for Kayte. Aiyla had stood there long after the others had gone, staring at the three black marks on the soil in the castle courtyard.

  Now Aiyla stood on the bank of the river and watched the sun sink over the western horizon. She recalled happier memories of Angora and her mouth twitched into a sad smile. It felt as though she had never smiled before. She heard a dull thud behind her and turned to see Rasmus crouched upon the ground, his hunting knife stuck deep into the trunk of the tree. As Aiyla approached, she heard him gasping for breath and saw his form shuddering with sobs.

  “I can’t,” Rasmus whispered. “I just can’t let them go!”

  Aiyla sat down heavily beside him and put an arm around his shoulders. A lump rose in her throat but she had already cried all her tears.

  “Saying goodbye is the first step toward healing, Rasmus,” she said quietly.

  “I know,” he said, “but – ”

  “Tiderius wanted you to move on. He knew you loved him dearly and wouldn’t want you to dwell on his demise.”

  Rasmus sniffed. “But once they’re gone,” he gestured to the boxes, “there’s nothing left of either of them!”

  Aiyla squeezed his shoulders tenderly. “You know that’s not true. Rasmus…Elaine is everything they were. They’ve left a little piece of themselves here, for you and I to love and look after.”

  Rasmus wiped a sleeve across his eyes and turned to look at her. She smiled solemnly, then wiped away a stray tear he had missed on his cheek.

  “Angora doesn’t belong in the city,” she said. “Becoming one with the earth is a tradition her people held dear. Here, as time passes, the box will decay and she will be as the soil itself, helping things grow. She would want that, Rasmus.”

  “She doesn’t deserve to be buried,” Rasmus croaked, shaking his head. “She should fly free, just like one of her eagles.”

  At the sound of wings, Aiyla looked up and saw a sparrow darting through the air. She watched it dive and swoop after insects and knew instantly that Rasmus was right. After all, Angora had lived half her life in the air, whether on the summit of Alenta Mora or upon the back of a great haladrai. She was of the island people, of the wind and the waves. Her final resting place should not be on the mainland.

  Aiyla nodded and unearthed Angora’s partially buried box. Rasmus watched her, wiping his eyes again with the back of his hand.

  “Then the wind and the sea should take her away,” she said. “Perhaps some small part of her will finally return home.”

  They stood and approached the river’s edge, Aiyla clutching the box tightly. They waited a few moments for the wind to pick up and then took it in turns to let the ashes fall from the box into the wind. Once it was empty, Rasmus returned to the pit and buried the empty vessel beside his brother’s box beneath the tall oak tree. As he worked, Aiyla heard him sniff and saw him wipe his eyes once more. Finally, pulling his knife from the tree, he carved a message into the trunk.

  Here was last seen Angora and Tiderius, 369 TE, beloved parents of Elaine Auran.

  When he was finished, he sheathed his knife, then ran his fingers over the last word.

  “She’ll be all right, won’t she?” he asked quietly. “Without them both.”

  “Elaine will have us,” Aiyla reminded him. “When you go north, I’ll stay here with her. The queen has ensured she’ll have the best wet nurses in the city. I fear she will be quite spoilt when you return.”

  “As she deserves to be,” Rasmus said, laughing slightly. Then his face fell again. “What lies beyond this life?”

  Aiyla was momentarily taken aback by the question. “Nobody knows for a fact,” she said, “though priests will claim they have a higher knowledge than the common man.”

  “Then you have seen nothing?”

  “I’ve never tried to look,” Aiyla admitted. She studied Rasmus with a quizzical expression. “Why do you ask?”

  “I keep wondering where she is…” he said quietly, turning to the river. “She believed in a different religion. Has she gone to a different plane? When I die, will I see her again?”

  Aiyla was quiet for a long while before she responded.

  “We can never know,” she said. “But there is one thing I am certain of, and it is this.” She pressed the palm of one hand to her breast, the other to Rasmus’s heart and looked into his eyes. “No matter where she is, I know a part of her remains in here, with us. While we remember her, while we remember them both, they will never truly be gone.”

  Fresh tears welled up in Rasmus’s eyes and he pressed his forehead against her own, releasing a shaky breath.

  “Then I will never forget,” he whispered, shaking his head slightly.

  “Nor will I.’

  EPILOGUE

  Lounging in the Red Room in the Caervyn warehouse, bathed in the last light of the afternoon sun, Zoran Sable looked, once more, at the unopened package. Lila Leshaid had thrust it into his hands moments before he had left Te’Roek on the eve of its liberation. However, he had been so determined to return to Caervyn and put his experience with the Ronnesians behind him – for which he had not been paid, he reminded himself bitterly – that he had had no desire to open the package.

  It had been four long years since that day and he had heard many conflicting reports about the outcome of the war. Some said the Ayons had been defeated entirely, but others reported that bands of men and women were still resisting the Ronnesian occupation across the Ayon Empire and that Delseroy was still standing defiantly. It did not surprise him that all accounts agreed upon one fact – Lord General Archis Varren had survived.

  Zoran told himself he did not care whether the Ronnesians had been victorious or not but, even so, not a single day had passed when he had not thought of the war and his involvement in it.

  Somehow, Caervyn did not seem the same. Hjorta and the others were not so at ease with him after seeing his demonstration of power, and he saw fear in the apprentices’ eyes more than respect or awe. He had tried to ignore it but a niggling thought pressed him at every quiet moment. Perhaps Varren had been right. Perhaps he did need the company of other mages – to discover the old magics and unlock his true potential. What more could he learn from killing? Nothing. He was already a master of that art.

  To hell with it, he thought, ripping open one end of the package. What harm can her words do now? They say she’s dead.

  He reached inside the package and pulled out a folded piece of parchment. He smoothed it out and began to read.

  Zoran Sable,

  This letter may seem unexpected to you but I have very little time to explain myself. In short, you are the only one I can trust with this. I doubt you will be able to defeat Varren, yet I do not expect you to perish either.

  With this note, you will find two rings. One is the ring with which I was married to King Samian Mensor. The other is my royal signet. I fear that
, when I am gone, both will fall into the wrong hands and be destroyed or hidden away.

  Take them far from Te’Roek, far from the Ronnesians. I hope that, on your travels to come, you may one day deliver them to my child, Samian’s heir, and explain to him his true heritage. I pray that you remain safe.

  Trusting you in secrecy,

  Angora Mensor

  Zoran turned the package upside down and two rings fell onto the table. For a long while, he sat and stared at them. One was a simple band of silver with no decoration or embellishments. The other, however, was a masterpiece of intricacy – a large crimson stone set into a silver band, with coils of detailed silver vines entwined about the gem. The afternoon light caught the ruby, sending scattered rays of bright crimson light across the top of the table and around the walls. For the first time, the Red Room lived up to its name.

  And I thought I had seen the last of the north.

  Zoran Sable thrust the rings and the note unceremoniously into his pocket before rising and striding out of the room.

  ABOUT EQUILIBRIUM (THE COMPLETE EDITION)

  Generations after the Spirits abandoned the world, two mortal empires stand on the brink of a final battle to end a centuries-old conflict. Ayons in the north, Ronnesians in the south.

  Washed up on the shore of a foreign land, Angora is thrust into a war not her own. Proclaimed one of twelve legendary mages – representatives of the Spirits – she is charged with protecting the innocent with magic beyond her imagination. However, when her allies mercilessly misuse their own powers, she begins to wonder which side of the conflict is the more righteous.

  After the abduction of their ruler, the Ayons launch an invasion capable of destroying the Ronnesians once and for all. As the war rages on, Angora's friends fight bravely as strongholds fall before the mighty crimson wave of the Ayon army.

  But when all seems lost for the Ronnesians, a spark of hope is found in an infamous assassin and a fragile rebellion rising from the dust.

  For more information, please visit momentumbooks.com.au/books/equilibrium-complete-edition/.

  ABOUT CS SEALEY

  Carmel Sealey was born in Sydney, Australia, and has a great passion for fantasy. Her brother first inspired her to write at a very young age and she has continued to do so with gusto. The first seed of Equilibrium began to sprout at the age of 15 and the story has been rewritten, reworked, abused, edited, rewritten again, expanded, cut, stitched back together and polished in the dozen years since. Enjoy!

  First published by Momentum in 2015

  This edition published in 2015 by Momentum

  Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd

  1 Market Street, Sydney 2000

  Copyright © CS Sealey 2015

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

  A CIP record for this book is available at the National Library of Australia

  Equilibrium: Episode 6

  EPUB format: 9781760300722

  Mobi format: 9781760300739

  Cover design by Raewyn Brack

  Edited by Kylie Mason

  Proofread by Thomasin Litchfield

  Macmillan Digital Australia: www.macmillandigital.com.au

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