by Ryan Kirk
The world warped, shattered, and reassembled itself as the energies collided.
The force of the blow knocked Alena off her feet. She landed and rolled, coming up awkwardly against a tree trunk.
She found the two combatants again.
Through all that, the queen had only been knocked back a single step. Surprise was painted on her face.
Alena understood the queen’s strength then. Or perhaps more accurately, she understood she couldn’t comprehend the depths of that strength. The emperor’s punch would have killed a dozen Alenas working together.
Hanns wasn’t deterred, but Alena felt the desperation in his actions. Both fists glowing, he laid into the queen, a combination of blows any wolfblade would have been proud of.
Alena hadn’t realized Hanns possessed such a deep knowledge of martial arts.
The world rumbled.
Trees tore from their stumps and cracked in half with earsplitting claps. A moment later the trees would return, only to suffer the same fate again, trapped in a loop of destruction and rebirth.
Against the chaos, Alena focused on the thread between the queen and the empire’s gate.
It took her several moments to find it again.
Her father’s knife appeared in her hand. She leaped toward the string and cut at it. Her knife bounced off the wispy thread like it was made of steel.
Alena tried again, this time pressing her entire weight into it. She connected to her gatestone and pulled on the strength there.
The knife bit into the thread, slowly.
Off in the distance, the queen screamed in rage. Alena risked a glance. The queen’s eyes were on her, filled with fire, but the emperor held her in an unbreakable embrace.
That wouldn’t last long.
Alena focused on the blade. She thought of Azaleth dying in the dark passages under the mountains. She thought of her family, waiting for her to return.
And the knife cut deeper.
Bit by bit, it cut.
A roar of pain. The emperor.
Alena didn’t dare look.
Another yell, all too familiar.
Somehow Brandt had found his feet. She couldn’t help but look.
The former wolfblade blasted fire from his hands, flames billowing over the queen. She stepped through them, unscathed, and backhanded Brandt through a tree.
With a final heave of desperation, Alena cut through the string.
The queen stopped in her tracks.
Alena had never seen such hate. It was cold, freezing her where she stood.
“Enough,” the queen growled.
The world shattered around them. Hanns fought the change, but could only hold on for a moment.
The trees disappeared, replaced by a freezing void of perfect blackness. Alena felt the air freeze in her nostrils. She imagined being outside on a warm sunny day, but her efforts counted for nothing. “Brandt?” She meant to shout, but her voice came out a whisper.
“Here.” She could barely hear him. Words didn’t seem to carry in this new place.
She visualized appearing next to him, but she didn’t know if it worked. The darkness was too absolute. But when she reached out she felt his skin, cold against hers.
She brought him close.
Next to her, Hanns spoke. “I’m here, too.”
She jumped at the proximity of his voice.
“Where are we?” she asked.
Her question was greeted with silence.
They floated in nothingness. The cold creeped ever closer. Alena lost feeling in her fingers first, then her arms. Her teeth chattered. But somehow she knew the cold would never kill her. It would only torment her.
“Any ideas?” she asked.
Again, silence. For a few moments she wondered if the others were dead.
She closed her eyes. In the perfect darkness, it made no difference to what she saw, but the action helped her focus. She went inside and focused on her breath.
There had to be something.
Alena lost the feeling in her legs. She felt drowsy and had trouble focusing on her thoughts. There was only the pain of the cold and the darkness of their surroundings.
Then she heard it.
A whisper, barely heard, even in the silence of the eternal void.
It sounded like her brother.
She reached out to him, her consciousness stretching along the bond she’d built with him.
Then she found him.
She pulled the others toward her, then Alena dove toward Jace, pulling at the threads connecting them with all her strength.
The void dissolved, light and sound slamming against her battered senses.
The sun beat down on her and she raised her head. She was lying in the grass and Jace stood over her, a concerned look on his face.
She tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come.
Alena’s head collapsed back into the grass and she surrendered to the encroaching darkness.
11
Brandt awoke, sitting bolt upright in bed as he suppressed the urge to scream.
His nightmare vanished as soon as his eyes opened. Had it been the endless darkness, or the cave this time?
Over the past two nights his nightmares had blended together with haunting memories, a repeating kaleidoscope of dark terror. Sleep no longer rejuvenated his body or his soul, and he dreaded the falling of the sun each evening. If not for Ana, Brandt wasn’t sure he’d even seek rest willingly.
Ana woke a moment later, her arm reaching out to him.
Her grip was solid and steady. Without a word, she said all he needed to hear.
Guilt flooded him. She deserved better than this, night after night. Like him, she woke in the morning with bags under her eyes.
The fight in the cave against the queen gave him nightmares, but those, at least, felt familiar. He always relived the battles he fought, but they faded in time. The cave would fade, too, buried by time with all the rest.
But something about the void afterward haunted him. It buried itself in his thoughts and lurked in every shadow. Describing it to Ana had been simple. It was perfect emptiness. But the words didn’t capture the heart of the horror of that experience.
He shook just thinking about it.
Ana held him, silent support against the void, the warmth of her body and the brush of her breath against his arm a reminder that he was here. He existed.
His shivering subsided, but all thoughts of sleep fled. He stood and walked to the window. Their room in the palace was high enough he could look over the wall and into Estern. The night beyond was quiet, but flickers of firelight could be seen in places.
He wasn’t alone.
His thoughts wandered, but they always returned to that endless expanse of emptiness.
“Come back to bed.” Ana’s voice held a hint of request and a hint of an order.
Brandt looked out on the city one last time, then returned to her. She snuggled next to him. “It will pass,” she said.
He grunted, wishing he shared her confidence.
“What’s on your mind?”
“Someday, I’ll have to soulwalk again. And that terrifies me.”
Even confessing that helped. Ana’s ears would be the only ones that heard his fears. He wouldn’t be called a coward, and if the emperor requested his presence in another soulwalk, Brandt would step forward without complaint.
But soulwalking was a reality he feared, wrapped in mysteries he couldn’t penetrate. He understood the basic principles well enough, but his entire lifetime of training counted for next to nothing there. The queen had destroyed him with a thought. The memory of her hand gripped around his organs sent another chill down his spine. “If not for Alena, I think I would still be in the void.”
That was another thought he hated. When one died, one went to the gate. Brandt didn’t have to believe. He’d been there, long before. He’d seen the gate awaiting his arrival, had felt its welcoming embrace. But that void knew no death. Time had
no meaning. Every heartbeat passed in a moment, yet lasted an eternity. Had they been trapped there, it would have lasted forever.
He owed Alena more than he could repay in a lifetime of service. Ana was sympathetic, but she couldn’t understand. No one who hadn’t been there could.
“From the sound of it,” Ana replied, “If not for Alena the whole expedition would have been a failure.”
She was right about that, too. When they had returned, Hanns was horrified. He hadn’t said anything, but Brandt saw enough to guess. Hanns, with the power of two gates behind him, hadn’t won the small victory they’d achieved. Alena had.
Brandt was proud of Alena, but Hanns’ weakness wounded his confidence. Hanns was supposed to be their best defense against the queen.
Brandt pressed the palms of his hands to his eyes, trying to push the thoughts out of his mind. His nightmares would fade. They would find a way to protect the empire.
He had to believe that.
The next morning, a knock interrupted Brandt’s sleep. Ana, already awake, answered the door and accepted a message. She frowned as she looked at it. It bore the emperor’s seal and Brandt’s name. Ana broke the seal and read it.
“The emperor requests our presence for lunch.”
Brandt let out a slow exhale. He’d been expecting a summons, but his stomach still clenched at the thought of facing Hanns again. They hadn’t spoken since the gate.
When the appointed time arrived, they found themselves in a small dining area, a table set for three. Hanns entered last. Brandt studied him. He appeared unharmed, but he refused to meet their gazes. He sat heavily on the final open chair, rubbing his chin before beginning. “I’m sorry.” He held up a hand to forestall objections. “I knew the task would be difficult. I didn’t expect to be overwhelmed so easily.”
Hanns finally looked up. “Have you spoken with Alena?”
Brandt shook his head. When he focused, he could feel the thread between them. But he hadn’t called for her, nor her him. He couldn’t. The idea of being transported into that realm again, even if only to her kitchen, made bile rise in his throat. “She lives. That is all I know.”
“We owe her everything,” the emperor said.
Brandt heard the edge in his ruler’s voice. Apparently he wasn’t the only one unsettled by their encounter.
“Why have you asked us here?” Ana asked.
The question snapped Hanns out of his reverie. “My failure has been instructive. We’ve seen what the queen is capable of. And we know I’m not strong enough. I need another gate.”
“Another gate?” Brandt frowned, trying to remember what the emperor had told them about the gates. He thought only two existed in the empire, and Hanns controlled them both.
Ana’s mind was quicker. “You want us to go to Falar.”
“Yes. In an official capacity.”
Brandt scooted his chair back. “I’m no diplomat.”
The emperor arched an eyebrow. “And you think a diplomat would have any chance with the Falari? I’m sending you because you’re not a diplomat. You’re a warrior, and you know what’s at stake.”
Brandt’s mouth opened and closed, but nothing came out. “There must be someone better.”
“Name them and I’ll send them.”
Brandt couldn’t answer.
The emperor ticked points off on his fingers. “One, you’re familiar with the Falari. Two, you know more about the gates than almost anyone alive in the empire. Three, you’ve proven your loyalty to the empire several times over.”
“None of that makes this a good idea.”
“And you’ll be escorting Regar.”
Brandt blinked. “What?”
The emperor smiled and clapped his hands. Lunch was brought in. The meal was surprisingly simple for palace fare. A hearty chicken stew. Fresh bread and butter, all completed with some wine. An expensive meal, but not ostentatious. Brandt’s stomach rumbled as his eyes wandered over the dishes.
“Eat up,” the emperor commanded. “I’ll explain what I can.”
Brandt dug in without needing further encouragement.
Hanns began. “Several years ago, Regar served along the Falari border. Although Olen will most likely become Anders VII, Regar needed to be prepared, and I needed to see how troops would respond to his command.”
The emperor popped a grape into his mouth. “Initial reports were promising. Regar had always been an,” Hanns searched for the best word, “intense child. That intensity found a welcome home in the armies. Commanders praised his decisions. He earned the loyalty of those he served with and those he commanded. There were some small incidents of disobedience, but compared to his younger exploits, they were nothing.
“Then he got captured in a skirmish. He pushed too far into a Falari advance and lost the support of his squad. He was captured.”
Hanns’ eyes stared off into the distance, the only hint of how those days had affected him. After a moment, he continued.
“He was held for one month. The commanders at the border wanted blood, but I refused to give the order.”
“Why?” Ana interrupted.
“Because one man, even if that man is my son, is not worth the lives it would cost to retrieve him. The line of Anders doesn’t require sons, and I believe Olen the better leader. Don’t misunderstand: Regar’s loss pained me, and I sent diplomats to secure his release, but I refused to send warriors to their death.”
The decision was a cold one, but rational. Brandt remembered his own time at the border. Falar was a mountainous region of the continent. Those who lived there were hard, and they knew the mountains in ways the imperials never could.
As a young soldier, Brandt had gone into those mountains frequently, pursuing Falari raids. Many of his companions had been killed without ever seeing their enemies. The Falari warriors trained extensively in archery, masters of delivering death from a distance.
Those days had led to his first nightmares as a soldier. Going to sleep anywhere near those mountains was almost impossible. More than once Brandt had woken in the middle of the night, the watch vanished as though it had never existed. But the Falar would leave the sleeping untouched, their threat silent but explicit.
Expeditions into Falar never lasted long.
To retrieve the prince, Hanns could have sent the entire army and still failed to save his son.
“I had given him up for dead,” the emperor confessed. “And then a month later he reappeared. He was lean and hard, but he had escaped.”
“How?”
“A story better told by him. Suffice it to say, the journey was not easy, and he came back a far different man.”
“Are you certain it’s a good idea to send him? His feelings are sure to be strained among them again.”
“I expect they will,” Hanns said.
“It’s another test,” Ana intuited.
Hanns grimaced. “Of a sort. I do need to ensure that he is capable of calm and rationality while dealing with the Falari. You two are a large part of that. No matter what role he assumes in the empire, emotion can’t control his decisions.”
“And if emotion does get the best of him?” Ana asked.
“Prevent it from becoming a problem,” Hanns said. “His presence will give the negotiation another advantage. His escape earned him the respect of the Falari.”
Brandt hadn’t thought of that. They didn’t know many details about the Falari, but they seemed to be far more militant than the empire. They respected martial skills, even in their enemies. An imperial soldier caught off guard might have their body mutilated as a warning to others. But a warrior who died after besting several Falari was left untouched where they fell.
If Regar had earned the Falari’s respect, he might be the best person to bargain with them.
“What are our objectives?” Brandt asked.
“I need the gate. I’m willing to consider almost any option so long as they give us that.”
“Do you know wha
t they might request in return?” Brandt asked.
Hanns shook his head. “No. I know they are ruled by a council of elders, but my impression is that they rarely act as a unified whole.”
And that, Brandt thought, was why the empire would eventually win. The line of Anders had unified much of the continent, and Hanns had a whole people supporting him.
Hanns reiterated his points. “I need that gate. It’s the only one left on the continent, and if we’re going to fight the queen, it’s our only option.”
Brandt glanced over at Ana. There was no question they’d accept. Familiar as he preferred to be around them, Hanns was still their emperor. She gave a small nod, though.
Hanns noticed. “Good. Preparations have already begun. I spoke to Regar this morning.”
Brandt and Ana stood to leave. Hanns held up a hand. “One last thing. Should you succeed and come close to the Falari gate, keep a close eye on Regar. I trust him, but the power of the gate is a temptation not to be underestimated. He knows enough about them to feel that temptation acutely. Help him not give in to it.”
“We’ll do our best,” Brandt said.
“It’s all any of us can do,” Hanns replied. “Now let’s hope it’s good enough.”
12
Despite her years in Etar, navigation over the endless plains challenged Alena. Beyond the occasional grouping of trees or a small pond, few landmarks existed to guide her way. Thanks to the motion of the sun she could tell their direction, but little else.
Today they would meet Sooni. Ligt was giving them advice for the meeting, and Alena signed an affirmation, but her mind was in other places. It was stuck in the past, as it too often was these days.
Ligt didn’t push her, though Alena sensed that he wanted to. He gave her space, just as Jace had, ever since her last soulwalk.
She’d returned to the physical world in pain. Then she’d slept for almost a full day. Her sleep was restless, troubled by nameless horrors.
She shuddered every time she closed her eyes, the darkness behind her eyelids a pale imitation of that perfect emptiness.
Only her connection to Jace had saved them.