“Gralt, retrieve the carriage,” Dalanar said to the other man. “I will stay here and ensure Lady al’Westryl is looked after.”
The second guard saluted and disappeared into the dark.
“Dain, Emperor Krane was murdered,” Helena went on with no preamble. “I know that isn’t what you’ve been told. As he often did, Krane had gone to oversee one of the battles and, returning from the front, he was murdered by a group of rebels. Pelion was following him with some companions, and they found the bodies of the royal guards and the Emperor himself.”
Dain was too stunned to say anything. It didn’t matter; Helena spoke on, almost as if to herself now.
“Afterward, Artur’s enemies struck. They used his resignation as ‘evidence,’ and then produced a cache of weapons and armor he’d stockpiled—completely unrelated, of course. They argued that whoever killed the Emperor knew his habits, and none knew them better than Artur. They even had witnesses claiming to have overheard him planning the operation.
“None of it was true. Though Artur argued with the Emperor at times, he was loyal. He wasn’t a schemer, he detested intrigue and dishonesty; but the fabricated evidence was compelling and, with his father’s blood on his hands, Pelion was impatient.” Helena spat the Emperor’s name from her mouth like a bitter apple seed.
Dalanar shifted his feet. His boots were familiar to Dain. They were lined with fur and extended almost to the knee. Focusing on something known to him, even a pair of boots, felt good amidst this torrent of new information. Dalanar squinted after the other guard.
“He ordered Artur’s execution, and the death of his kin; the entire al’Westryl family.”
Tears ran down Helena’s face. She made no effort to dry them.
“Artur’s lieutenant, his replacement as the Emperor’s Sword, argued against it. He couldn’t save Artur—Pelion wouldn’t hear of it—but he threatened to resign if the family was harmed. Many of the army’s senior officers pledged to follow him.
“Eager to keep the army intact, Pelion agreed to spare our family. He stripped us of all but a tenth of our lands and wealth and banished us from the capital. In return for sparing us, the lieutenant…the lieutenant put Artur to the sword himself. It was the death Artur wanted, an honorable military death. Before he did it the lieutenant made a final pledge to his mentor to care for his family, and to cement that bond, he married Rivane, your mother, and took her into the Highlands.”
Helena reached over and took Dain’s hands in her own. The tears continued.
“Out of respect for Artur, your father saved us.”
Dain’s mind fumbled over her words. Arranged marriages weren’t unusual, not among the nobility, but he’d always assumed his parents had married for love. They’d never acted any other way. His confusion must have shown on his face.
“It wasn’t like that. Your father met Rivane while serving Artur. They had fallen in love years before,” Helena said. “They would have married regardless. Artur was very proud of Harren. His finest student. He already thought of him like a son.”
“So I have more family on your side, then? An uncle?”
Helena’s face turned dark again. She wiped the tears away and then continued.
“Breson didn’t manage our loss well. He had a wife and a son a few years older than you, and he withdrew from public life to mask his shame. He lives in Murgandy still on the small estate. He and his family are happy, I suppose. I don’t get to see them often. Too many memories ride on my coattails. Memories of his father. Memories of how wonderful life was on the old estate.”
Silence filled the space between them as Dain’s mind raced with all that he’d heard. It made sense that his parents wouldn’t tell their children this story. How could they?
“Your guards are from the Highlands. They serve Father,” Dain said.
“How did you know that?” Helena asked.
“The boots aren’t right. Not for here. They are just like the ones we wear in the mountains.”
“Clever,” Dalanar said. “He takes after you, my lady. I was born in the Highlands, young sir, but I serve Lady al’Westryl.”
Gralt returned then with a carriage. Dalanar offered an arm to Helena and led her to it. For the first time, Dain noticed how frail she was. She seemed to have grown older through the night, as if telling her story had drained her of life. He realized he’d barely talked at all. He offered his own arm opposite Dalanar and the guard nodded his approval.
“Thank you for telling me this, grandmother. Honestly, until I came here, I didn’t think much on mother’s family. She didn’t talk about you,” he said, avoiding her eyes. His mother must have been too embarrassed to speak of it.
“It is to be expected. Too many memories for Rivane as well, I suspect. We all live with loss in our own ways. I wish there were more time so that I could ask about your studies and your parents.”
“How can I find you? I have a little time on seventh days. I could stop by and we could talk more.”
Helena gave him a sad little smile and touched his cheek. Her fingertips were papery and cool. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible. Once a year only, Emperor Pelion allows me to leave home for no more than two days.”
“I could visit you at your home, then. I’ve a fast horse who could make it in plenty of time.”
“Your horse would need more than speed to visit me. He’d need wings,” Helena said. “As part of the agreement to spare Artur’s family, I was banished from the Empire. My home is on Illiack.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Galena-The Present
Koren couldn’t believe her good fortune.
First the orcs performed exactly as expected, tying up the tower’s defenses and allowing her and her guards to skirt by. Her normal means of entering the enchanted lands had been unavailable, and the orcs were needed as fodder to distract the tower from her crossing. Without them, the tower’s enchanted defenses would have felt her party’s passing, but now anything they sensed would be written off as the fumblings of the orcs.
In the second stroke of luck, their horses had required rest at an abandoned farmhouse, and thus they had narrowly avoided meeting a rushing column of cavalry as it rode to the tower’s defense. She wished the elves well. The orcs were useful tools, but they didn’t belong in her lands. Once the valley was conquered and the Master returned, the orcs would be destroyed. She smiled, looking forward to it. She planned on killing One Eye, that ignorant brute, herself.
Topping all of that, Mirr’s outer gates were unguarded. Her father Elam would have been horrified at the lack of security for his capital, but tonight it suited her purpose well.
Koren could recall every line on her father’s face; its image was crystallized in her mind. Yet she felt nothing for him. It was just another dead man’s face, and she remembered neither fondness nor love for him—nor for her brothers, nor for her people. She knew true desire now. True love. The Master had shown her. Only in his presence did she feel anything.
She and her guards rode through the empty gate without slowing.
They set a quick pace through Mirr’s silent streets. Several hours of darkness remained, but she needed to see to her companion’s accommodations well before dawn.
The city seemed as it always had, though she noted her mother’s gardens looked a bit neglected. She would see to their care soon enough and punish those responsible. It seemed the caretakers had grown lax in her absence.
It didn’t strike her until they’d almost reached the castle that so far she hadn’t seen a single elf. There should have been workers cleaning the streets or storekeepers readying for the new day or craftsmen preparing their workshops.
Without rulers to lead them the people have grown slothful. A problem easily corrected with a dose of discipline. And Koren excelled at discipli
ne.
Finally, she spotted a pair of guardsmen at the castle gates. Each held a steel-tipped pike, butt down and propped against a shoulder.
“Who comes?” the first of them challenged.
“The mistress of the castle returns. I left here a princess years ago; I return a queen, ready to shepherd my people when they need me most.”
Both guardsmen exchanged confused glances. They lowered the long pikes from their shoulders.
“Elam’s line is dead. They’ve been gone for years now. Who are you?”
“I am Koren.” She removed her hood. “And I’ve come to claim what it mine.”
Neither guardsman spoke. Koren sensed their continued confusion. She considered taking action, but killing them wouldn’t help her through the gate. One of her hooded companions started forward and she stopped him with a wave.
“It’s her,” a third voice said. A grizzled guardsman leaned out of a nearby window.
“Wallach, I’m surprised you aren’t retired by now,” Koren called. Wallach had watched over her as a child.
“Forgive me, Princess Koren, but I’m surprised by your reappearance, Your Highness. I’d heard…I’d heard that you were no longer among the living,” Wallach said.
“What do we do, then?” the first guard asked.
“Let her in, it’s her home,” Wallach said.
“But I don’t know if Councilor—”
“Didn’t you hear him? Let me in. This castle is mine,” Koren said, cutting him off. “I won’t ask nicely again.”
Koren’s hands itched for her daggers. Entering the castle with fresh blood on her hands wouldn’t be wise, but if this fool angered her further…
A metal chain started to rattle, and then the gate slowly rose. The two guardsmen parted, one on either side of the gate. They eyed her warily as Koren and her guards rode through.
The courtyard was darker than she remembered; only a few lonesome torches lit the gloom. Avoiding the main castle, she went straightaway for her own quarters in the East Tower.
Taking the key from her pocket, she unlocked the door and entered. Cobwebs hung in thick clouds over her furniture, but everything remained as she’d left it. She climbed down to the basement and then opened the door to her torture chamber. Her companions followed her inside. They would be safe here in the dark.
The skeletal remains of an elf hung suspended in chains. The one who’d started her on the path to the Master. She couldn’t remember the dead elf’s name. It hardly mattered.
“The sun will rise soon,” Koren said. “Wait here and gather your strength. I too must rest, but I will see to your needs before night falls again.”
The six hooded shapes gathered into the deepest shadow at one of the room’s corners. Her companions were young, still growing, and they would need to feed before the following nightfall.
Koren retreated and headed for her rooms above. She barred the door from the inside to prevent intrusion, then settled into her own dusty bed. Compared to the hard floor of Baelzeron’s cave it felt like sleeping on a cloud. In the back of her mind she could still feel the connection to the Master, though it was stretched taut and razor-thin by the distance. That would change with his rebirth into the world. Koren felt the heat of anticipation at the thought.
Together they would transform the valley into their own image. Her people would finally fulfill their true purpose and obey him as they were always intended to. Many would be hosts for demons, and others, if they proved themselves useful, could serve them. A mighty, eternal empire would rise. One that Baelzeron would rule with Koren at his side. Future generations would say the empire began with what she planned here. They would say that Baelzeron was the empire’s father, and she its mother. She would have power the likes that no Golden had ever seen before her, and that no Golden would ever see after her.
But first, the wood elves must perish. For their sins against the Master and against her, they would all die.
Dreaming of her great empire to come, Koren drifted off to sleep.
It seemed like only minutes before she jerked awake. Surely it wasn’t morning so soon. She glanced out a nearby window to check the time. The moon hung low on the western horizon. The sun would soon rise. Her eyes scanned the room, trying to locate the reason she’d awakened.
A knock rang against the door. Wary, Koren approached it. She put her ear to the wood and heard nothing. Then another knock came.
“I was not expecting guests,” Koren said.
“Let me in, I risk much coming here,” a voice answered, muffled through the wood. It was a voice Koren recognized. She opened the door and then closed it swiftly behind her visitor.
“Why aren’t you in position? You were to keep an eye on her no matter what,” Koren said.
“I couldn’t use the normal channels. I couldn’t risk any delay in our messages. There have been developments. Things you must know before tomorrow. They have moved faster than we planned for.”
“Tell me, then,” Koren said.
“What happened?” Alpere said.
“The orcs attacked en masse,” Gashan replied. The man was tired, Alpere knew. He’d ridden hard all night, fought a battle, and ridden hard again all day to return to the capital. “Hundreds of them hit the tower. They had siege equipment and some sort of beast with them.”
“Siege equipment? They’ve never come prepared before, and now we have…her back in the castle,” Alpere said. “What do you mean by ‘beast’?”
Gashan removed some of his armor and set it on the floor beside him. “The princess and her father named it a demon. I saw it myself and can hardly argue with the description. It had a toughened hide, row after row of fangs, and horns. It certainly did not look like anything I’ve ever encountered before.”
A demon. It had appeared at the same tower they were inspecting with an army of orcs in tow, and it had appeared just as she had returned—seemingly from death itself. Alpere was too old to believe in coincidence. Where others saw luck, he looked for planning. Often, he found it.
“Who is this ‘she’ you speak of, Councilor? Who has returned?” Gashan asked.
Alpere’s thoughts returned to the present. Gashan had ridden straight here without pause; the guardsman hadn’t heard the news. There would be time enough to sort out demons and orcs later. The current crisis would soon boil over into chaos, and he could not allow that to happen.
“Koren has returned.”
“What?”
“She arrived a few hours after you left. Rode in with armed guards, headed straight for the castle, and disappeared into her old quarters. No one has seen her since.”
“Our guards didn’t think to stop her?” Gashan asked. The color had drained from his face.
“Why would they? We never told them to bar her from entering. Until the last few days, we were all convinced she’d died with her father.”
Gashan grew silent. He stared into the small fire flickering in Alpere’s hearth. Koren had slaughtered Gashan’s best friend and former commander, Jakob, for failing to protect Prince Haldrin. And now Gashan had allowed Haldrin’s killer, Baron Gladstone, to enter Mirr in peace, and he’d just saved the real cause of Haldrin’s fall, Jin, Koren’s half-blood niece, from certain death. Things really couldn’t get any worse for the guardsman.
Not that it’s any better for me, Alpere thought. He too had cause to fear the volatile Koren. More than once she’d made it clear that his death would bring her pleasure.
“What do we do?” Gashan asked.
“We proceed as planned. We need Jin to claim the throne against Koren now more than ever. Koren would have us back at war within a week if the generals listen.”
“Will they follow her?”
“I don’t know. We’ve said all along that we ow
e allegiance to Ulric’s family line. We’ve gotten the army to renew their pledges of fealty to the same.”
“Koren, though. That was before we knew that murderous creature still lived,” Gashan hissed. He raised a hand to his mouth and then let it drop to his side. “Creator help us.”
“Indeed.” Alpere refilled his teacup and added sugar. “This may work in our favor, however.”
“How?”
“Jin is no longer choosing between helping or abandoning us. She’s now choosing between helping us and placing a bitter enemy of her people on the throne.”
“And if both claim it? That seems the most likely outcome.”
“Jin is Gallad’s daughter, and the crown would have gone to him after Elam’s death. Her claim is the stronger one.”
“Not everyone will see it that way. She isn’t of pure Golden descent. Whatever you may have told Jin and the Baron, there are plenty of Golden who believed—who still believe—that Elam was right to keep us separate. If there weren’t, he never would have succeeded.”
“Granted, but those are generally the older elves, many of whom have died out. You’re right, though—Koren will have plenty of supporters.”
“So what do we do now?”
“We tip the scales in our favor.”
The hour had grown late. The waning moon soared overhead and the city slept. Heavy beads of wax clung to the candles.
Jin looked out over the sleeping city. In the night’s still hours Mirr didn’t seem so different from the forest. An owl called. Many peoples held superstitions about owls, Jin knew. Most believed them to be evil spirits returned to plague men and steal away their dreams. The wood elves considered them sacred; the night’s hunter supreme.
“Illiack? The prison?” Jin said.
Paladin's Fall: Kingdom's Forge Book 2 Page 18