Issa’s heart hammered a nervous beat. She’d rarely seen so many priests of the Long Keeper this close, and never the Keeper’s Council. Yet all six of them, including High Divinity Tinush, stood waiting for them behind the altar. Only they—and the seventh man, who wore the dull brown of a Secret Keeper rather than the black of the Long Keeper—wore no masks. Their solemn miens threatened to unnerve her.
Issa and the others halted three paces away from the altar as they’d been instructed. Upon returning from her visit to her home on the Cultivator’s Tier, a pair of Necroseti priests had prepared her for the role she was to play in this ceremony. Now, facing the Keeper’s Priests directly, their words flew from Issa’s mind.
Boom, boom, boom! Issa startled and nearly jumped as the sound of a metal-capped staff striking the stone floor seemed to echo through the chamber. A moment later, a door behind the Keeper’s Priests opened and two figures strode through.
Issa sucked in a breath. The Pharus himself!
Pharus Amhoset Nephelcheres wore a gold and black nemes headdress with an ornamental stole and shendyt to match. A ceremonial mask of pristine ivory obscured his features. On his heels came Lady Callista Vinaus. The Lady of Blades wore her full armor of black segmented plate mail with spikes at the shoulders, elbows, and knees. Yet beneath her helmet, she wore a mask depicting one of the scowling faces that adorned the Keeper’s Statue—the war mask worn into battle by all Indomitables and Keeper’s Blades.
Issa swallowed. The most powerful people in Shalandra, here to witness this. A mixture of elation and trepidation thrummed through the core of her being. The eyes of Lady Callista, the Pharus, and the Keeper’s Council seemed to judge her every move. She had won in the Crucible, but would she fail whatever lay ahead? This was everything she’d hoped for, yet now that she was here, it took all her willpower to still her expression to hide her unease.
The six High Divinities bowed to the Pharus, who nodded once before moving to join the figures assembled to the right of the altar. The Lady of Blades received no obeisance from the priests, but strode without a word toward the armored, war-masked figures to the left of the altar. The Elders of the Blades, the highest ranking military officers in Shalandra. The ones that Issa would serve once—if—she proved worthy.
“We stand here, beneath the all-seeing gaze of the Long Keeper, to bear witness to the second trial of the Blades.” High Divinity Tinush’s voice rang out in the chamber with a strength that belied his age. He fixed his gaze on Issa and the others in turn. “The first, the trial of steel, proved that you five were worthy beyond the measure of your foes. The blades, forged from the very stone beneath your feet, chose you.”
His expression grew stern. “But only those who bear the mark of the Long Keeper may join the Keeper’s Blades and serve the Pharus, his representative on Einan. Step forward, worthy ones, and face the trial of stone. May the Long Keeper have mercy on all of you.”
Jaw clenched tight, Issa stepped forward first as she’d been instructed and moved toward the sandstone altar. She caught a flash of movement from the corner of her eye. The scowling black steel war mask concealed Lady Callista’s features, but the Lady of Blades had leaned forward.
As Issa approached, the seventh man—Arch-Guardian Suroth of the Secret Keepers, she recognized—stepped up to the altar. From within his robes, he drew out a strange-looking object: a metal rod the length of Issa’s forearm, tipped with a red gemstone that seemed to glow in the torchlight.
Issa’s blood ran cold. Bloodstone. The stone numbered among the most toxic substances on Einan. Said to be twenty times more potent than Voramian cinnabar, it could kill a grown man with a touch.
She resisted the urge to flinch, to flee. Her eyes searched the gaze of the Arch-Guardian and, behind the solemnity, found reassurance written there. He never smiled, but there was a hint of kindness written in his strong face. With a barely perceptible nod, he placed the metal rod into the groove cut into the metal horseshoe-shaped cradle.
Drawing in a deep breath, Issa stepped up onto the stair before the altar and, with only a heartbeat’s hesitation, bent to place her face into the cradle, as the Necroseti had instructed her. The glowing crimson stone loomed large in her view and she gritted her teeth as she touched her forehead to the stone.
The stone was hot, hotter than her flesh, and the contact made her skin crawl. Heat surged into her face, her cheeks, and her forehead. She could feel the sizzling, crackling of her skin as the glowing stone burned its mark into her. When she pulled away a moment later, she had to clench her jaw hard to keep from crying out at the pain.
The world spun around her in a dizzying chaos of glowing gemstones, flickering torches, and black-robed figures. A strong hand seized her arm to steady her, but Issa reeled from the terrible effects of the bloodstone’s toxins. It felt as if a fist of iron hammered against her skull, trying to rip her head from her shoulders and claw its way into her brain.
Something hard struck her knees. She forced herself to focus, to return to consciousness, and found she’d fallen to a kneeling position, one hand clutching the altar. The stone was cool beneath her fingers, an island of peace amid the surging, rushing heat flooding her body. Drawing in a deep breath, she concentrated on that single constant. Even as the room whirled in wild circles around her, she clung to the solid, unmovable object beneath her fingers.
Slowly, one agonizing, sluggish heartbeat at a time, the room swam into focus. Tears blurred her vision and her stomach protested, threatening to empty its contents. But Issa swallowed the acid burning in her throat and, with effort, took one deep breath, then another.
The pain faded, the dizziness receded, and Issa managed to stand. Arch-Guardian Suroth kept a steadying grip on her arm until she could stand on her own. At her nod, he released her and stepped back.
“She still lives,” High Divinity Tinush’s words echoed through the chamber.
Issa spoke the ceremonial words she’d been taught. “I have been touched by the Long Keeper.” Her voice sounded small, weak, faint through the pounding of her pulse, but she straightened her spine and lifted her head. “Am I worthy to serve?”
Tinush stepped forward and squinted at her forehead. After a moment, a smile split his aged face. “The Long Keeper has judged her worthy to stand in his halls, to bear the mark of his favor.”
“All praise to the god of death!” the Necroseti in the room echoed in a single voice.
Tinush reached into his robes and drew out a small glass vial that contained a pale red liquid. “This mark proclaims you to be chosen of the Long Keeper.” He opened the vial and dabbed a few drops onto Issa’s forehead. “Let all who see it know that you are beloved of our god, servant of death.”
Issa clenched her fists against the sudden pain in her forehead. The liquid increased the intensity of the throbbing, sizzling sensations, and it took all her willpower to remain upright as the room spun crazily once more. The rest of the priest’s words faded into the dizziness. She moved like a corpse, every muscle tense, as she stepped away from the altar toward the waiting Elders of the Blades.
“Welcome, servant of death.” The Elder spoke in a sonorous voice, and in his strong hands he held out the flame-bladed sword Issa had claimed in the Crucible earlier that day. “With this sword, you swear fealty to the Long Keeper and the Pharus, his servant on Einan. Do you so swear?”
“I swear!” Issa replied without hesitation.
“With this sword,” the Elder continued, “you swear to sever all ties to your past life, to who you once were, and leave behind your old life to become Dhukari, an honor bestowed only upon those who are worthy. Do you so swear?”
Issa hesitated. A cruel thing to ask. She’d snuck into the arena to give her grandparents a better life, and now she was being commanded to sever all ties with them? Yet, if it improves Savta and Saba’s station, it is worth it.
“I swear!” The words brought a lump to her throat. She hated the way she’d left her grandp
arents’ house earlier that day. Will those harsh, angry words be the last they ever hear me speak? No, she determined. She would find a way to speak to them again. She would make things right.
“With this sword, you swear to heed the commands of your officers, to serve the Lady of Blades and the Elders without hesitation. Do you so swear?”
“I swear!” Issa’s voice grew stronger, more confident.
“With this sword,” the Elder spoke the final words of the oath, “you swear to serve the city of Shalandra and its people to the best of your ability, until the Long Keeper chooses to gather you into his arms. Do you so swear?”
“I swear!” The dizziness had faded, replaced by elation as Issa repeated the oaths of the Blades—the oaths she’d dreamed of taking for five long years.
“In the sight of the Long Keeper and his witnesses on Einan, so let it be.” With those solemn words, the Elder drew the huge blade from its sheath and handed it to Issa hilt-first. “Welcome to the Keeper’s Blades, Issa of the Dhukari.”
Elation washed over her like a hot bath, drowning out everything around her as she returned to her place in line with the other accepted Blades. She could see only the golden altar in the center of the room, feel the throbbing pain in her forehead. Her mind barely registered when the Keeper’s Priest called out the next name.
I did it! She found it hard to breathe for the excitement. All her hard work and patience of the last five years had paid off. Her grandparents would be elevated to the Dhukari caste, their lives improved. Yet it was more than just the promise of a better life. Through her toil, blood, and sweat, she had won the right to serve the Long Keeper and her city.
A piercing cry shattered her thoughts. Her eyes refocused, snapped toward the sandstone altar in time to see one of the two Intaji twins crumbling to the stone floor. He writhed and jerked, his body gripped in a paroxysm of agony. His shrieking cries echoed off the walls around him.
Issa’s heart stopped, her breath trapped in her lungs. She could only watch, frozen in horror, as the youth convulsed at the foot of the sandstone altar. No one moved to help him—not the Secret Keeper with the kind eyes, the masked Keeper’s Priests, or the Elders of the Blade. Silent and stern, they waited until his fate was determined by the trial of stone.
Slowly, one heart-rending breath at a time, the Intaji’s spasm quietened to a few weak jerks, a twitch, and finally one quiet shudder. Pale-faced, eyes wide, he lay staring up at the roof, silent and deathly still.
* * *
Issa wanted to be sick. She didn’t know the fate of the twins. Both Intaji boys had collapsed after their trial of stone, and the Necroseti had carried them away on stretchers. The grave expression on Arch-Guardian Suroth’s face told her that the boys’ future still hung in the balance. Not all survived the touch of the bloodstone. Some were claimed by the Long Keeper before they could be accepted into the Blades.
Yet that horror only dimmed the triumph within her, but couldn’t extinguish it altogether. She felt as if she walked in a dream, yet she repeated in her mind that it was true. She had passed the trial of steel and the trial of stone. She had taken the oaths of the Blades and received her sword, the flammards with their strangely undulating blades. Now, she followed the Elders of the Blades down the broad stone stairs and onto the Path of Gold, the broad avenue that spanned the uppermost tier of Shalandra. From there, they would take her to the Citadel of Stone, home of the Keeper’s Blades.
Beside her, the slim Mahjuri girl seemed incapable of taking her eyes off the huge sword in her hand. Even the Dhukari youth had lost his arrogance in the wonder of his acceptance.
The Citadel of Stone appeared exactly as its name suggested: a vast stronghold carved from the golden sandstone of the mountain. Towers, turrets, and a parapet ringed the upper heights, but Issa’s eyes were fixed on the enormous bloodwood gate before them.
The Elders of the Blades stopped at the entrance and pounded on the gate. The rattling of chains and the thunking of huge bolts being drawn echoed through the heavy wood. Slowly, the gate rose and Issa caught sight of the Citadel’s interior.
Fifty Blades in full armor, helmets, and scowling war masks lined the Citadel’s courtyard. They stood in perfect silence, ranks as neat as a bookkeeper’s sums, flame-bladed swords raised in salute.
A huge man with the gold-and-black stripe of a high-ranking officer stepped from the front of the ranks. “Who goes?” came his challenge.
“The chosen of the Long Keeper,” Issa and her two companions echoed in unison.
“Do you bear the mark of his touch?”
“We do.” Issa’s voice rang out loudest.
“Then enter the Citadel of Stone, beloved of death.” The Blade gave a salute—right fist to left shoulder—then marched back into his place at the head of the men lining the courtyard.
It took Issa every shred of willpower not to let a smile broaden her face as she took her first steps into the Citadel of Stone and the new life of a Keeper’s Blade awaiting within.
Chapter Nine
Adrenaline thrummed within Aisha’s muscles as she heard the bandit’s call. From her position, she could make out the rounded outlines of at least five more bandits, each wearing the same rust-red cloak as their leader—a weather-beaten fellow with a hungry expression and greed written in every line of his pock-marked face. Only two carried crossbows, but she had little doubt the rest carried weapons of their own.
With Kodyn by her side, she could take five armed men any day. The crossbows complicated things. Worse, they had Briana to protect, and Briana was clearly no fighter. The Shalandran girl let out a yelp of surprise, setting her horse skittering and dancing beneath her.
Kodyn, however, remained calm, exuding confidence, his right hand hovering close to his sword.
“Hello, friends!” he called out in a jaunty tone that bordered on mocking. “A beautiful day to enjoy the shade of those fine boulders, isn’t it? I almost find myself tempted to get out of the heat and join you. Alas, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover, so we’ll have to decline your kind invitation.”
Aisha stifled a groan. Watch him go and get us all killed! Kodyn had definitely inherited his mother’s wit and sharp tongue.
She scanned the rocks and found two more red-cloaked men she hadn’t spotted before. That made seven—still decent odds, but not with those crossbows pointed at Kodyn.
Back in Praamis, Kodyn had convinced his mother, the Master of the Night Guild, that the Gatherers might attack Briana—intending to either kidnap or kill her, anything to gain leverage over her father. Unless these men wore the world’s cleverest disguise, they looked too rough to be hired assassins. Everything about them—from their ragged clothing, patchwork leather armor, and rust-dulled weapons to their lean, hungry faces—screamed bandits.
“Quite the jaw on you, pup,” snarled the man that had spoken. “Get you into trouble, so ‘twill.”
Aisha’s gut tightened as the bandit’s finger twitched toward the trigger of his crossbow. Not even Master Serpent could dodge a crossbow bolt fired from that range.
“Easy, now.” Kodyn’s voice turned placating. “I’d hate for any of us to go and end up dead, myself and my companions most of all. What say we chalk this all up to a misunderstanding, have a good laugh at ourselves, and go our separate ways?”
“Shut yer mouth,” the bandit growled. His face turned an angry shade of red. “We’re the ones’ll be doing the talking here. Empty yer saddlebags and give us the gold.”
“Gold?” Kodyn cocked his head. “I think you might have us confused with another, richer group of travelers. I saw them when we were riding out of Rosecliff. They ought to be along shortly, just in time for you to relieve them of their valuables.”
Aisha couldn’t believe Kodyn. She’d always known he was cocky, but this bordered on glib insanity. She wanted to reach out and grab his arm, smack him up the back of his head—anything to get him to shut up before he got himself skewered by a crossbow bolt
—but didn’t want to risk setting off the trigger-happy bandits.
Another man sidled up behind the speaker. “Boss,” the second man muttered in a voice far too loud to be a proper whisper, “I don’t think they’re the ones.”
“What do you mean?” hissed the bandit leader, again loud enough for Aisha to hear clearly. “We got the word that they’d be coming this way today. A small company of three, without a Blade to guard them.” He gestured at Aisha and Kodyn with a wave of his hand. “Do any of these three look like a Blade to you?”
“No, but—”
“Shite!” The loud curse came from Aisha’s right. Out from the rocks popped another man Aisha hadn’t spotted. Fear covered his dust-stained face. “Boss, incoming!”
The sound of drumming hooves echoed from behind them. Aisha turned in her saddle to see a mounted rider charging toward them. The wind streamed through his cloak, pulling it back to reveal heavy black plate mail armor and helmet to match. His horse was huge, the largest warhorse Aisha had ever seen. The rider swung an enormous two-handed sword with a strange flame-shaped blade above his head.
“Keeper’s Blade!” cried the man that had spotted the rider.
The bandit leader cursed. “Our man insisted there wouldn’t be an escort.”
“We need to run, now!” said the second man. The others had already begun to scramble away, down the rocks and out of sight.
It took the bandit leader a long moment to make up his mind, but finally he turned and fled after his companions. Within seconds, the bandits disappeared among the boulders and rocks.
Aisha quickly turned her horse to face the charging newcomer. He might have scared the bandits off, but that didn’t mean he was friendly. He could be a worse threat than the ragged highwaymen. He was alone against the two of them, but one look at his armor, warhorse, and huge sword told Aisha they’d be in for a vicious fight if the warrior turned out to be an enemy.
Heirs of Destiny Box Set Page 8