Rules of Ascension: Book One of Winds of the Forelands

by DAVID B. COE

  He still smelled her perfume on his clothes, though the scent was mingled now with the smells of blood and vomit. Closing his eyes, he could see her face, her smile. Closing his mind to the screams, he could hear her laughter. He could almost taste her lips on his. He had been with her only a few hours, but somehow she had managed to touch his heart, as though Adriel herself had been guiding her hand.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, as if she might hear. “I don’t know what happened, but I’m sorry.”

  She deserved his tears, if only he had some to give.

  He sat for what seemed to him a very long while, though he had no sense of how much time was passing. At one point he thought he heard the bells ringing in the city. The sound was faint, and it was hard to be certain with the cries echoing off the walls, but he had heard them earlier in the day and he thought he recognized the cadence whispering like a soft wind. He couldn’t begin to guess, though, which ringing he had heard. Midmorning? Midday? The prior’s bell? How was it possible that within the span of a few hours, the passage of time could cease to have any meaning for him?

  He must have fallen asleep—how he managed it with the screams and the manacles biting at his wrists and ankles he couldn’t fathom—for he awoke with a start, jerking his arms painfully. It took him a minute to realize what had disturbed him.

  The screams had stopped.

  The door to the dungeon opened with a loud creak. He heard voices, one soft, the other louder and harsh. Then someone started down the stairs, slowly, as if unsure of each step.

  “Tavis?” a voice called.

  “Xaver?”

  Tavis tried to stand, but his legs were stiff, and his chains were so short that he couldn’t push himself up.

  “Are you all right?” his friend asked. He was still on the stairs. Tavis could see him peering in his direction, looking young and afraid.

  “I need help getting up. These shackles make it difficult.”

  “Of course,” Xaver said, hurrying down the rest of the steps and crossing to where Tavis was sitting.

  He took hold of Tavis’s arms and hoisted him to his feet. Tavis gasped at the pain in his legs and shoulders, falling back against the wall and closing his eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” Xaver said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “It’s all right. I just need to rest a moment. I don’t know how long I was sitting there.” He opened his eyes. “What time is it?”

  “A few hours past midday. They should be ringing the prior’s bells soon. I would have been here sooner, but the guards kept me waiting for a long time.” He shrugged. “I still don’t know why.”

  He must have heard the midday bells. Less time had passed than Tavis thought. He glanced up at the stairway, but it was empty. Xaver was alone.

  “I guess my father couldn’t bring himself to come.”

  “It’s not like that,” his friend said, shaking his head. “He went to speak with Aindreas, but he told me he’d be coming to see you later.”

  “He probably believes I killed her.”

  “He doesn’t, Tavis. None of us do. You’re no murderer.”

  Tavis let out a short, high laugh that sounded bitter and desperate to his own ears. “I wish I could be so sure.”

  Xaver’s eyes widened. “Aren’t you?”

  “How can I be? Look at what I did to you.” He lifted his hands in front of his face, making the chains ring like coins in a pouch. “Look at my hands. Her blood is still on them.”

  “You said you liked her, that you cared for her.”

  “I did like her. I think I could have loved her. I don’t think I killed her, Xaver. Truly, I don’t. But I don’t remember anything.” He looked away. “And you know how I get when I’m drunk.”

  “We talked about that, your father, Fotir, and I. And we all agreed that there’s a great distance between what you did to me and what was done to Brienne.”

  “My father really thinks that?” He was almost afraid to believe it.

  “Yes. That’s why he’s with Aindreas: to convince him to begin a search for the real murderer.”

  He felt hope budding within his chest, like a seedling fed by a warm rain in Amon’s Turn, and he moved with all the speed and ruthlessness he could muster to crush it before it took root. There was no room for hope in this dungeon. This was his fate. He had seen it.

  “He shouldn’t bother.”

  Xaver stared at him. “What?”

  “He’ll never convince Aindreas of anything. And I’ll only leave this dungeon on the day of my hanging.” He could barely get the words out without gagging on them.

  “Don’t talk that way, Tavis. Your father—”

  “My father can’t do anything for me. No one can.”

  “That’s not true!”

  He wanted to turn away, to end this conversation and go off by himself. But the chains held him. “You don’t understand, Xaver,” he said. “This is what I saw in my Fating.”

  His friend looked like he was going to be sick. “You saw Brienne’s death?”

  “No, not that. But this dungeon, these chains. This is where I’m supposed to be. This is what the gods have chosen for me.”

  For a long time, Xaver didn’t respond. He just stood there, chewing on his lip, his eyes fixed on the stone wall. After some time, he began to shake his head, and he met Tavis’s gaze again.

  “I don’t care,” he said. “So what if the Qiran showed you this? There’s no law that says you have to accept your Fating as the final word on your future. You didn’t kill her. I’m sure of it. Which means that you don’t belong in here, regardless of what the stone said.”

  Tavis wanted to believe him, but he didn’t dare. Xaver seemed to sense his doubts.

  “Just don’t give up, Tavis,” he said. “At least not yet.”

  Tavis nodded. “All right.” He hesitated, but only for a moment. “Don’t tell my father. Please.”

  “About your Fating?”

  He nodded again.

  “I won’t say a word.”

  They fell into an uncomfortable silence. Tavis sensed that his friend wanted to leave—who could blame him?—but that he felt he should stay.

  “Is there anything I can do for you?” Xaver asked, after some time.

  “You mean aside from helping me escape?”

  Xaver smiled, though it quickly changed to a grimace. “You know what I mean.”

  “I don’t think there’s anything. Although if you could get them to lengthen these chains just a bit, it would help.”

  Xaver’s face brightened, as if he were eager to take on any task at all. “I’ll do what I can.”

  “Thank you.”

  His friend cleared his throat and glanced up at the door at the top of the stairs.

  “It’s all right, Xaver,” Tavis said, trying to smile. “I’ll be fine.”

  “I’m in no hurry. I can stay as long as you want me to.”

  “I know that. But you can do more good out there, helping Fotir and my father find the person who did this.”

  “You’re certain?”

  No. I’m terrified of being alone in this place. “Yes.”

  “I’ll come back tomorrow. I promise.”

  Tavis held up his hands, making the chains jangle again. “I’ll still be here.”

  Xaver grinned. He gripped Tavis’s shoulder and gave a squeeze, before turning and starting up the stairs.

  Seeing him leave, Tavis was gripped by a cold panic that made him tremble.

  “Xaver!” he called, before he knew what he had done.

  His friend stopped, and even came back down a step or two.

  “Yes?”

  “What did you see in your Fating?” he asked. It was the first thing that came to mind. “With all that happened, I never did ask you.”

  Xaver shrugged, looking uneasy. “There wasn’t much to it.”

  “Please,” Tavis said. “I want to know. Was it a good one?”

  The boy hesita
ted. “Yes,” he finally said, as if he was confessing a crime. “It was a good one.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Tavis—”

  “Will you marry?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is she very beautiful?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what else?”

  There was a long pause. Then, “I’m to be a captain in the King’s Guard. If you believe the stone,” he added, no doubt for Tavis’s benefit.

  Why couldn’t I have had such a Fating? “That’s wonderful, Xaver,” he said, and he meant it. “I’m happy for you. At least one of us had a good Fating.”

  “You’re going to get out of here, Tavis,” Xaver said fiercely, like a man trying to convince himself. “We’ll get you out.”

  He could think of no response, so he simply said, “Goodbye, Xaver. Come to see me again soon.”

  “I will.”

  Xaver climbed the rest of the stairs and pounded twice on the dungeon door. After a few moments, the door swung open and he left. It closed again, with a sickening crash, and Tavis heard the bolt thrown.

  He closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the wall. And as he did, the screams began again.

  The last time someone had kept him waiting for even close to this long, it had been Aylyn during Javan’s visit to the City of Kings several years before. Patience had never been one of Javan’s stronger attributes, but on that occasion he had managed to keep his temper in check. Aylyn was king and it was a king’s prerogative to take as much or as little time with his audiences as he saw fit. That Aylyn was also a Thorald, possessing the arrogance for which all the Thorald kings were known, only made his willingness to inconvenience his guests that much less surprising. So Javan had waited, and, of course, when he was finally admitted to the king’s hall, he addressed Aylyn with all the graciousness and humility demanded by the occasion. For regardless of what he thought of the king himself, he had been in Audun’s Castle, standing before the Oaken Throne.

  This day, however, was an entirely different matter. Javan was waiting for a Kentigern, not a king, and there was far more at stake than merely his pride and his time.

  He had been pacing the anteroom to Aindreas’s chambers for hours. He had heard the bells rung at midmorning and again at midday, and still the duke refused to see him. The two guards who first met him at the door and told him to wait had long since been replaced by a second pair, even taller and more muscular than the first. Soon it would be time for these men to be relieved, and still he waited.

  Probably Aindreas had come and gone from his chambers a dozen times since Javan’s wait began. There were no less than three ways to get to Javan’s own chambers in Curgh Castle, for just this reason, though that didn’t make the situation any less galling.

  His daughter is dead, said a voice within his head. Shonah’s voice. Can you blame him for not wanting to see you?

  “And what of Tavis?” he mumbled, drawing dark looks from the guards. “Isn’t he a victim here as well?”

  Is he?

  Javan faltered, halting for just an instant in midstride. There it was: his deepest fear, staring at him like one of Bian’s demons from the dark recesses of his mind. What if the boy really did kill her? What if all the evidence—the locked door, his dagger in her chest, her blood on his hands—proved just what it appeared to prove? What if the boy’s recent behavior, rather than being an aberration, was merely a prelude to this atrocity?

  He had told Fotir and Hagan’s boy that he believed Tavis to be innocent. Certainly he wanted to believe it. But in his heart, he was forced to admit, he still wondered. Which promised to make this meeting he sought with Aindreas that much harder.

  As it was, facing the duke just hours after Brienne’s death promised to be painful and awkward. There would be accusations, threats, talk of vengeance. But if he went into that chamber still doubting Tavis’s word …

  Javan shook his head, shuddering at the thought. Yet what could he do? His fear remained, undeniable, unmovable.

  So when at last the door to Aindreas’s chamber opened, and the massive guards stepped away, revealing the slight figure of Kentigern’s first minister, Javan did the only thing he could. He pushed away all his doubts about Tavis, and thought only of Shonah. The boy’s death would be the end of her. He knew it with a certainty that rendered moot the question of Tavis’s guilt or innocence. He had to save the boy, despite his own doubts and no matter the evidence. For Shonah, and, if he was to be completely honest, for himself as well.

  “The duke will see you now, Lord Curgh,” Shurik said, his expression solemn and distant.

  Javan started toward the door, but the Qirsi raised a hand, stopping him.

  “You’ll have to leave your sword out here.”

  At first Javan thought that he had heard the man wrong. An Eibitharian duke always wore his sword, particularly when meeting with another lord, be it a duke or one of the lesser lords. He had even worn his sword to meet with Aylyn.

  “You’re not serious,” he said.

  “Of course I am. We have already seen what Curgh violence has wrought. We won’t chance the life of our duke as well.”

  “That’s absurd!” Javan said, struggling to keep his temper in check. “My son is innocent and I am no murderer!”

  The man shrugged. “I’m afraid I must insist.”

  “Insist all you like,” Javan told him. “But I won’t remove my sword. I am to be king of this land. I don’t answer to the likes of you.”

  He took a step toward the door, but the two guards moved to block his way, drawing their swords as they did.

  “You have no choice in the matter, my lord,” the Qirsi said, his voice so calm that Javan wanted to strike him. “If you do not remove your sword, you won’t see the duke.”

  It was an annoyance and little more, a defeat that signified nothing. But it was a defeat, and it stung. He sensed the Qirsi’s amusement as he removed his belt and scabbard, and once more he wanted to hurt the man. Instead he handed him the sword and then followed him into Aindreas’s chambers, like a prisoner.

  The duke was standing at his window, his bulky frame keeping most of the light from the room.

  “Leave us,” he said, without turning.

  The first minister bowed, then left, closing the door behind him.

  Aindreas turned at the sound of the shutting door. His eyes were red, his face pale except for a bright red spot on each cheek. Javan had never seen him looking so poorly.

  “You’ve been waiting to see me.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Javan opened his mouth, then closed it again, unsure of how to answer. Wasn’t it clear? Didn’t the morning’s events demand a meeting?

  “So we can discuss … what’s happened,” he said at last.

  “Your son murdered my daughter. What more need we say?”

  “I don’t believe he did.”

  “Yes, I know. You told me the same thing this morning. I believe I called you a fool and a liar.”

  Perhaps the Qirsi had been wise to take his sword.

  “This is a terrible tragedy, Aindreas,” Javan said, fighting the impulse to respond in anger. “I’m deeply sorry for you and Ioanna. Brienne was a lovely girl. The Underrealm will shine like the sky with her light.” It was the traditional epitaph, but it seemed truer than usual in this instance. For as long as he lived, Javan would remember the girl in the radiant dress she had worn to the banquet. As queen she would have been adored throughout the land.

  “Do you know that’s the first time you’ve expressed any sorrow at all at Brienne’s death.” His voice broke when he spoke the girl’s name, but he recovered quickly. “Until now you’ve shown no regret at all. You’ve done nothing but defend your son.”

  He didn’t doubt for a moment that this was true, and he felt ashamed.

  “You’re right, Aindreas. I should have said it earlier. My deepest apologies. No parent should ever have to see what you a
nd Ioanna saw today.”

  “Nor should a father have to live with the knowledge that his son is a monster.”

  Javan closed his eyes briefly. He wanted to rail at the man, but he knew it would do more harm than good. “I honestly believe Tavis to be innocent of this crime,” he said, as evenly as he could. “I understand that all you saw in that chamber has led you to believe him guilty. Were I in your position, I’d believe that as well. But you don’t know the boy.”

  “I know that he attacked his liege man.”

  He should have been ready for this. Fotir had warned him. But still the words struck him like a fist to the gut.

  Aindreas smiled thinly at what he saw on Javan’s face, though the smile was fleeting and when it was gone, he looked even sadder than he had a moment before. “You’re not to blame, Javan. Neither is Shonah. Sometimes fine breeding and wise guidance aren’t enough to save a child. There’s a darkness in your boy that even Morna couldn’t light.”

  Javan understood that the man was trying to be kind, that under the circumstances it was an act of uncommon grace and charity. He knew as well that Aindreas was right, at least in part. There was something dark in Tavis, though he didn’t know its source. Still, he wanted none of Aindreas’s pity.

  “You’re wrong,” he said. “No matter what you think you know about him, I assure you Tavis isn’t capable of such butchery.”

  “Did he attack his liege man, as your Qirsi told mine?”

  “Yes, but he was drunk at the time.”

  “There was an empty container of wine found beside the bed.”

  “That doesn’t mean—”

  “Enough!” Aindreas said, balling his fists until his knuckles turned white. “My daughter is dead, killed by your son’s dagger, in a bed she shared with him! He is a murderer, and he shall be dealt with as such!”

  “Aindreas, I am asking you duke to duke, as the man who will soon lead Eibithar, to allow me to look into this matter before you do anything that cannot be undone. Tavis is in your prison. He can’t leave Kentigern, and he can’t hurt anyone. Keep him there as long as necessary. But let’s not compound this tragedy by executing the wrong man.”

  “You’ll find, Javan, that justice in Kentigern is swift and absolute. No one in his right mind would need any further evidence to conclude that Tavis killed my daughter. You seek only to delay what you know is inevitable, and I will not allow it.”