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For Shannon, who often knows my characters better than I do, and who loves them at least as well
PLEDGE OF THE ALTENERAI
When comes my numbered day, I will meet it smiling. For I’ll have kept this oath.
I shall use my arms to shield the weak.
I shall use my lips to speak the truth, and my eyes to seek it.
I shall use my hand to mete justice to high and to low, and I will weigh all things with heart and mind.
Where I walk the laws will follow, for I am the sword of my people and the shepherd of their lands.
When I fall, I will rise through my brothers and my sisters, for I am eternal.
Prologue
A short wall topped with lantern-bearing pylons separated the amphitheater’s descending seats from the outer grounds, and he had yet to advance past it, for the uproarious laughter of the crowd repulsed him. He leaned against the wall in the twilight, frowning at the players who walked the garishly lit stage below. It would have been gracious to excuse the people of Kanesh for failing to mark this day with proper reverence—the struggle had occurred a realm away, after all—but he was not in a forgiving mood.
Two years before, hundreds of the best and brightest of all five realms had perished snatching victory from certain annihilation. Under the leadership of Commander Renik, assisted by the tactical brilliance of N’lahr, the sorcerous might of Rialla, and the farseeing eyes of the fierce ko’aye, the Altenerai had driven back an immense Naor army that had marched into the heart of The Fragments. Yet here there were no parades featuring veterans, no banners marking gratitude, and no songs spilling out to the spirits of heroes—just an unrelated farce to divert the masses.
On stage, two men crept with exaggerated care past a sentry walking with a spear. One of the stealthy pair strove to knock the guard unconscious with a blow, missing when the sentry turned, again when he knelt to dust off a shoe, and yet again when he bent unexpectedly to sneeze. With every failure, the audience hooted in delight.
Kalandra had introduced him to this play, one of Selana’s comedies. And Kalandra had insisted they attend this performance, but he found no sign of her and wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to look. He longed to be away, alone with some wine, somewhere his annoyance was less magnified by the indifference around him.
“‘Such a sentinel, favored by fortune, must meet a fairer snare to be undone.’”
The words were those of one of the play’s intruders, pulling a wig and dress from his sack, but they were echoed by a woman behind him. He recognized Kalandra’s voice, but turned to behold a stranger.
It had been a long while since he’d seen her out of uniform. A winking hairband ornamented her dark curling hair, lustrous and loose. Ordinarily she pinned it tightly back. The lantern, on the pillar behind, set her generously sleeved blouse aglow around her bared neck and shoulders. Flowing pants graced her long legs, and she had donned sandals, ornamented with delicate, sparkling filigree.
“Well, well,” he said, then sketched a bow. “And until now I thought the view across the lake the finest to be had here. You’ve set a new standard.”
“Flatterer. Sorry I’m late.”
He offered only an empty hand, turned over as if it were a small matter.
“No time to change?”
“The patrol ran long,” he replied. The silence grew between them as he failed to admit he hadn’t wanted to make the effort. She appraised him soberly while the audience clapped for the newly feminized actor sauntering seductively up to the guard, then Kalandra lightly leapt to the wall, patting the stones beside her.
He hesitated before joining her perch.
She leaned forward and spoke earnestly, in time with the distant actor/guard boasting to his “female” interest while the remaining thief slipped through the archway behind. “None dare these hallowed halls while I stand guard! No other eye is half so keen as mine!”
The crowd erupted in laughter.
Kalandra smiled at him, and her delight penetrated his gloom, softening and illuminating its source.
“You were late because you were losing time with hearthstones again.” He was so sure of the answer he didn’t phrase the words like a question.
She sighed at him. “Is that what you want to talk about? We’re here together. Isn’t this a better way to remember Rialla than sitting alone in a dark corner with a bottle and a full measure of resentment?”
The crowd was rocked with laughter in their seats.
She always saw to the heart of his thoughts, but he wasn’t going to let that deter him this time. “I’m sick of those damned things. They killed Rialla. The queen and Belahn are obsessed with them, and no one can tell where Commander Renik has gone, except that he’s hunting hearthstones.”
“The commander always makes it back,” Kalandra said confidently.
“Until now he has. Are you going to get lost, too?”
She placed a hand over his. “We need to know where they come from. What they are. How best to use them.”
He swore. “So, you are going to keep at them.”
Her voice lowered so that even he had to strain to hear. “My assignment comes straight from the queen. This is important, Kyrkenall.”
“Screw the queen.”
She flicked him a sly smile. “Is that who you have your eyes on next?”
Kalandra had never let him forget Queen Leonara had overtly flirted with him during a banquet a year ago. The best part had been Denaven’s obvious and impotent rage while he watched farther down the table. Until that moment the reference had always amused him.
“The hearthstones may be dangerous,” Kalandra conceded. “But they’re a significant source of power and the queen isn’t foolish to seek them. The Naor have us outnumbered ten to one, and Mazakan’s still plotting our end. We need all the help we can get.”
“Which is why we need all the Altenerai on the alert, not chasing pretty rocks.”
She frowned. “You’d really rather argue politics than enjoy the play?”
“What I want,” he said, “is for you to be safe.” He realized the absurdity of that sentiment the moment he stated it, and added: “As safe as can be, given our circumstances.”
“You’re treading awfully close to that line we agreed not to cross, aren’t you?”
“No talk of futures. Right. There’s a war on, and we’re in the vanguard.”
“So why agonize over what we can’t control? Should I rend my garments every time you scout enemy lands? We’re not carefree lovers. We have jobs to do. But right now,” she reminded him, “this night, we’re together.” She squeezed his hand. “Rialla wouldn’t want us arguing. We shed enough tears the night she died.”
“You’re right,” Kyrkenall agreed. It was that shared grief that had finally brought the two of them together, a relationship that had surprised him most of all, for he’d been fairly
sure as he came up the ranks that Kalandra hated him.
“I’m usually right.”
He bowed his head. “Very well. I set my worries aside. Your presence before me commands the whole of my attention. My eyes are for you. As well as my lips, and my fingertips.” With slow deliberation, he lifted her hand and gently kissed it.
She repeated the gesture and he felt the light touch of her tongue against his final knuckle before she released it, even as she favored him with a lascivious side glance.
As he moved to meet her lips, the scent of honeyed blossom soaps and the softness of the fabric she wore surrounded his senses. Desire burned bright, like a sun breaking from a summer storm cloud.
She pulled away, laughing silently, and looked into his eyes. Few stared that deeply into those fully dark orbs; he knew they found them unsettling. Her regard always pleased him.
“None can compare,” he announced simply.
“Not even the busty girls you were sneaking around with in Darassus in your squire days?” she teased.
As though measurements equated with beauty. He replied with formal, if slightly exaggerated, sincerity. “Milady, I am a connoisseur who has browsed amongst the lesser wines. You are the rarest vintage.”
“I’d be more flattered by your analogy,” she whispered, “if you weren’t a fan of such syrupy sop.”
He quoted Senala. “‘I seek no solace in your bitterness. I’d find a sweeter wine to while the hours.’”
She laughed aloud—as did the crowd, though they were clearly attending to a different line—and he was delighted by her pleasure.
“Now hop to it, Alten,” she said, and took up his hand again as she dropped from the wall. Apparently they were finished with the theater tonight. “There are moments to seize.”
“Aye,” he said, following. “I treasure every one that we share.”
“Sometimes,” she told him, “you know just what to say.”
“Only sometimes?”
“Yes. Only sometimes. Now come along. It’s not proper to keep a lady waiting.”
1
The Crown and the Emerald
Elenai pressed her forehead to the window frame. Her fingers absently probed the sore spot on her neck where the stiff collar of her khalat had protected her from a mortal blow. With the city healers laboring long over the gravely wounded, none of their spell energy could be spared for minor injuries, much less bruises.
From her squire’s quarters, she studied the jagged hole in the tiles of the stable roof as dusk claimed the sky. She deliberately avoided consideration of the crumbling height of the inner city wall beyond, and the long rows of Naor tents outlined by the fading light. Those who dwelt in the latter had destroyed the former, yet now occupied Darassan land as allies, having sworn their allegiance to her only hours before. Even having been party to the events, she had trouble believing the result wasn’t a fever dream. She hadn’t the mental energy to contemplate the enormity of changes to her life, and to Darassus, and so she lost herself in consideration of the dark breach. Soon the damage vanished in the deepening gray of the surrounding tiles.
She risked a look elsewhere, where the dim building edges stood out against the lighter atmosphere. A few short hours before, the dead had littered the palace grounds and draped the shattered battlements. The bodies had been carted off; twilight grayed the blood that stained the stones and obscured the trampled gardens.
Vanished, too, were the crowds who had gathered to chant her name, the councilors who hastened to grant her a seat among them, and the angry city representatives who’d cried a council seat was too paltry for the woman who had saved Darassus. The old queen, pledged to guard them, had fled. Elenai had stayed and slain the Naor leader. Who else but she, they had said, should sit the throne?
Elenai protested that she was an alten, not a ruler, an answer that satisfied none of her listeners. They continued to bicker without including her. She’d craved guidance from N’lahr or Kyrkenall, but they’d vanished after the commander had held a sobering post-battle meeting. Rylin had summarized his own terrible ordeals, then disappeared himself, leaving no one to advise her but her close friend Elik. She had finally agreed to think over the crowd’s proposal, then Elik hatched their escape by pointing out Elenai needed rest.
That had been true enough. She wished dearly to lie down on her familiar bed, but neither it nor the narrow room around it belonged to her anymore. The squires had insisted her old quarters were beneath her dignity and promised to prepare a new suite. They’d carried away both her dresser drawers and the chest at the foot of the bed that had stored her possessions. She’d lost track of how long the near giddy squires had been absent since they’d begged her to stay “a few moments” in the now barren space, but she felt increasingly foolish for letting them have their way. Kyrkenall would hardly have held off sleep because he didn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. She stared at the simple, yet oh-so-tempting bed a mere arm’s length away and pictured what the squires might say if they found her sprawled across it.
She shook her head at herself. She was barely managing to make the most simple of decisions as an alten. How could anyone possibly think she could rule as a queen?
The rap at the door startled her and she spun, hand dropping to where her sword hilt should have been. It wasn’t. What little remained of her sword had been carried off by squires.
“Elenai? Are you awake?” There was no mistaking her friend Elik’s gentle baritone.
“Yes.” She understood by his question he wouldn’t have been insulted if she’d been sleeping. “Come in.”
There was just enough space for the door to miss the footboard as it swung open. Elik halted at the threshold. He’d combed back his short, dark curling hair, and cleaned up the blood and dust and dirt. A dark abrasion stood out near the cleft of his chin. A bandage was visible beneath his right sleeve. He’d donned an older uniform coat because his new one had been cut to shreds in battle. It still bore the stitched linkage of three silver rings arranged in a chevron over two others. She realized that, as an alten, she had the authority, as well as the responsibility, to suggest him for promotion to sixth rank or higher. He’d certainly earned it.
“Your room’s ready,” he said with a smile. “You’re going to love it. Three rooms, complete with a balcony. And it looks on an inner courtyard, so…” He waved at the window, indicating the battle-scarred vista. “… you don’t have to look at that. It’s Temahr’s old suite,” he added.
The dead alten’s chambers had remained empty since the last war. Her new rooms would be in close proximity to those of N’lahr and Kyrkenall.
“You’ve earned this, Elenai,” Elik declared with quiet conviction, as if guessing her hesitancy. His earnest declaration bore no hint of jealously. Elenai and Elik had advanced in lockstep until circumstances swept her into a promotion from fifth rank to Altenerai, an accomplishment achieved only by Alten Enada in the last fifty years.
The drum of galloping hoofbeats interrupted the twilit still, drawing their eyes to the window.
Lamplight from the sconces affixed to either side of the steps below bronzed Kyrkenall’s black hair as he savagely reined in before the entrance to the Altenerai wing of the palace. It was strange to see him on a brown mare rather than his ever-faithful Lyria; the unflaggable dun had been left behind in Cerai’s little realm in the shifts. Was that just earlier this afternoon?
The archer snatched his black bow from its holster, then flung himself from the wheezing mount and sprinted up the stairs.
Elenai couldn’t guess which of a host of calamities would set the archer moving at such speed, but was already tense with alarm. “I think we’re about to have another problem,” she said.
She and Elik hurried to the main stair and started down the black granite steps. Below, Kyrkenall shouted for Thelar.
As she reached the central floor, a weary-looking third ranker stood up from the duty desk. Elenai sent him to look after Kyrkenall’s h
orse, then followed the archer as he advanced into the central hall, still shouting for the exalt.
“Kyrkenall!” she called. “What’s happened?”
The archer spun to face her and stilled, as if he needed a moment to register her or change his line of thought. Then his pupil-less black eyes fixed her with savage intensity. “I need Thelar,” he said. “He may have Kalandra’s gem.”
Her fatigue-fogged thoughts revolved in a slow circle before she understood. Rialla had told her they might find the alten’s long-lost love associated with a stone. “How do you know?” she asked.
“Rylin found her ring next to a gem on a shelf,” he answered impatiently. “Do you know where Thelar is?”
Elik, at her shoulder, answered. “Exalt Thelar’s in the queen’s office.”
Kyrkenall rushed off. Though her stride was longer than his, Elenai was hard-pressed to catch him. Elik practically ran to keep at her side. He asked softly, “What’s this about?”
She couldn’t answer immediately. How to explain that Kyrkenall had been absent from Darassus for seven years because he’d been obsessively searching for the missing alten Kalandra? And that they’d been told Kalandra was “in the stone on the shelf” through confusing visions from the long-dead alten Rialla? “He thinks he’s found something about Alten Kalandra,” she said finally. “And we know that memories can be stored in special gemstones, because we’ve talked with some of them.”
Elik looked puzzled but held off from more detailed questions as they trailed Kyrkenall.
They advanced past the doors that led to meeting rooms and offices and on into the great hall, turning out of the Altenerai wing just past the Hall of Heroes. All but the most broken of weapons and most badly damaged armor were absent from the walls, leaving the space more blank and lonely than Elenai had ever seen it. Every one of the serviceable items had been deployed in defense of the city and none had yet been cleaned and restored to display. She hoped the treasured heirlooms had survived.
When the Goddess Wakes Page 1