The lonesome crown, p.46
The Lonesome Crown, page 46
As you know, the Aalavarrè Solas roam the north. It is time. You should go to them now, for they summon you with sacrifice and blood. What other doors to the underworld may Hragna’Ar yet still open? And who among us holds the key? You and Aeros Raijael shall come together again under the Atonement Tree. I have foreseen seen it. Bloodwood brothers reuinited. Fire. Lakes of blood. And the bones of the human dead piled to the heavens. Your destiny awaits you. Remember your oaths! For you are the Dragon!
The writing was in the same handwritten script as every note Tala had received from the Bloodwood. From Seita. And this note is proof that the Vallè princess and Val-Draekin work together in secret combinations.
Tala sat with her back against the cold stone of the basin, wondering what to do, wondering if she should just destroy the note. She let it crumple in her clenched fingers. Who do I warn? Who do I tell? She had said little to anyone about what she had overhead between Seita and Val-Korin, knowing she wouldn’t be believed anyway. There was so much about that conversation that was almost daunting, overwhelming; some of it she had even forgotten. And that was what vexed her most. Could Val-Draekin have killed Delia? The thought had crossed her mind more than once.
Tala was so lost in dark thoughts that she almost failed to see her older sister padding silently toward her. Jondralyn was clothed in naught but a pair of tan pantaloons and a white shirt. Her sword was hooked to the leather belt at her hip. And her Silver Guard armor was crammed into the canvas sack slung over her shoulder.
“What are you doing?” Tala asked, standing, hiding Val-Draekin’s note crumpled in her clenched fist.
“I’m leaving.” Jondralyn headed toward the farthest ivy-covered wall and flung the sack of armor up and over the seven-foot stone barrier, where it landed on the other side with a muffled clatter. She began to climb the ivy-choked trellis leaning against the wall.
“Leaving?” Tala went numb all over.
“You mustn’t alert the others,” Jondralyn said in a rushed whisper as she reached the top of the trellis and wall.
“Are you going back to the castle?” Tala asked.
“No.”
“Then where?”
“I must go wherever I must go and do whatever I must do. And that is for me to know and no one else.”
“You are going to Savon to find Lindholf and those weapons the barmaid claimed he has,” Tala stated, suddenly aware of the situation. “You believe Delia. You believe that our cousin is there with the weapons of the Five Warrior Angels?”
“I’ve seen it in my dreams,” Jondralyn answered, straddling the top of the wall. “And I refuse to deny what I have seen, no matter what Val-Draekin or Hawkwood say. Hawkwood once claimed that it was written in The Moon Scrolls of Mia that the Princess and the Assassin would be together in the end. But now they say things that contradict all that, that it is all a lie, the scrolls and the scriptures.”
“You’ve been fighting with Hawkwood again?” Tala asked.
“Yes, we fought. He thinks I went to sleep without him in the far room. He stayed in the bar, Val-Draekin with him. I hear what they say when they think I am not listening. They say I am full of foolish whims. They think I have learned nothing from my past mistakes. They think I am brash, impulsive, reckless, crazy.”
“And sneaking off to Savon in the middle of the night will prove them wrong?”
Jondralyn did not answer.
“Do you not still love Hawkwood?” Tala asked.
Pain crossed Jondralyn’s face. Anger. Regret. Shame. “Even the most wonderful of things can come to a bitter end, Tala. I will not stay with someone who thinks my ideas are crazy.”
“So you will just run away?”
“I am not running away. I am going to Savon, to find our cousin and get back the weapons of the Five Warrior Angels.”
“You can’t go alone.” Tala felt a lump growing in her throat, knowing her sister’s impulsiveness and pride were going to get her killed. She wondered if she should tell her sister about the note to Val-Draekin she’d found, questioning if it would do any good. “At least let me come me with you.”
“No.” Jondralyn’s answer was quick, firm. “I must make this journey on my own. I must follow my own heart this time. Follow my dreams. My visions. I shall find out for myself what is true and what is not. I shall no longer rely on the words of others or ancient texts. And if what I believe is true, then I shall take the weapons and stones of the Five Warrior Angels and use them to fight our enemies. And I shall not be held back.”
Jondralyn’s words stung.
“Do you truly think that I will hold you back?” Tala asked.
Without answering, Jondralyn flung herself the rest of the way over the ivy-covered wall and was gone. Tala could hear her muffled footsteps retreating into the night. She wanted to rush back into the saloon and tell Hawkwood and Val-Draekin that her sister had foolishly run off into the night with naught but her sword and armor for companionship. Hawkwood and Val-Draekin were right to be concerned. Jondralyn had learned nothing from her past mistakes. She was still brash, impulsive, and reckless. Watching her sister so easily disappear was a bitter lesson for Tala. She wondered if people could really change who they fundamentally were. If Glade Chaparral had changed, it was only for the worse. Had Lindholf changed? Had Lawri? Have I? She thought of jumping the wall and running after Jondralyn herself.
But Nail stepped out into the courtyard. He walked toward her, hands in the pockets of his brown leather pants. It warmed her heart to see him. “I cannot sleep,” he said. “It’s too dank and too dark and too hot in that saloon.” He looked around the courtyard, flicking blond hair out of his eyes. “Not that this courtyard isn’t just as dark. But the air feels cleaner, cooler.”
“My sister just left,” she said in a rush. “Climbed the wall and just left.” She pointed to the ivy-covered trellis Jondralyn had climbed. “She’s headed to Savon. She believed the barmaid. She said she will find my cousin and find the weapons and stones and use them to fight Aeros Raijael. She felt it was her destiny.”
“And what do you think?”
The question took her aback. She had never had a man ask her what she thought before. “I think my sister is foolish, destiny or not.”
“Destiny is naught but blue smoke on a battle-ax,” he said.
“What does that mean?” Tala squinted in confusion. “Val-Draekin said that to Jondralyn earlier.”
“Nothing, really, just something the Vallè likes to say. I think it means everything is an illusion.”
She met Nail’s gaze. “I know he is your friend, but I do not fully trust Val-Draekin. What he was saying to Jondralyn about how all scripture is naught but a fraud.”
“That is just the way he talks about everything,” Nail said, a haunted look growing in his own eyes. “He is a skeptic, as my master would say. Val-Draekin relies on logic and reason in every decision. Even after we went in search of Blackest Heart and Afflicted Fire, he always talked about how he never believed in any of it, yet still he and Seita went on the quest just for the fun of it, the thrill of the adventure.”
She thought of the note Val-Draekin shared with Seita, with the Bloodwood who had tormented her so. She thought of the conversation she’d overheard between Seita and Val-Korin before Seita killed her father. “I do not trust Seita or Val-Draekin.”
Nail straightened his back, flicked the hair out of his eyes once more. “I have faced death and traveled many hard miles with Val-Draekin. I trust him more than anyone. He is a good person.”
Nail was so honest with his answers at all times. Never once had he capitulated to what she might want to hear. Tala wanted to hug him for just being truthful with his feelings on the matter of Val-Draekin, even if she knew them to be wrong.
Nail met her gaze. “There is something about Seita, though,” he said. “In our journey together to the Sky Lochs, I always felt she was not telling the truth. She lied to Stefan and me about who she was from the start. I, like you, do not trust her.”
Something niggled at the back of her mind every time he mentioned Stefan. But in hearing his admission about Seita, she felt a pounding heart. And that was when she told him everything. She told him of the Bloodwood who had stalked her in the secret ways, the games involving Lindholf and Glade, the murder of Sterling Prentiss, the poisons she’d fed Lawri, the journey with Glade under Purgatory, how she found out Seita was a Bloodwood assassin, the conversation she had overheard between Seita and Val-Korin and all that entailed, how the Vallè maiden came to possess Blackest Heart and Afflicted Fire, how she had lost them to Gault Aulbrek.
She unloaded every burden and secret she had been keeping in.
When it was over, she felt as light as a butterfly floating. Relieved. But Nail looked fraught with both heartache and worry. He looked as if he now carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. She wondered if he believed her. I need him to believe me!
“Stefan is truly dead, then,” he said, face ashen with pain. “Seita was with Stefan when he died. Bronwyn claimed that she and Cromm came upon Stefan’s body and took a black dagger off him, along with his bow, the bow he had named Gisela. But Seita was there when Stefan died.”
And then it hit her. What had been bothering her for so long. Why any mention of Stefan struck such a chord in her.
“Stefan and the black stone!” she blurted. “They are part of Seita’s story. Before she killed her father, Seita told him that a black stone was missing from the satchel she took from Stefan. She put another stone in its place. A fake stone.” She was speaking in a rush now, trying to gather her thoughts. “Val-Korin was upset with Seita because she had replaced the real angel stone with a fake. It is partly why she killed her father, I think, because he kept going on about all her failures, criticizing her.”
She grabbed Nail by the shoulders, gazing into his eyes intensely. “What if Bronwyn and Cromm took the stone from Stefan along with the bow?”
“It’s possible, I suppose.”
“Cromm sucks on a black rock daily.”
“You think the oghul has been sucking on one of the angel stones this entire time?” Nail asked. “What made you come so quickly to that conclusion?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’ve been figuring out stupid puzzles for so long now I’ve developed a knack for it.” Then she let go of his arms as another thought stormed into her mind. “Delia claimed she saw a white stone, a red stone, and a black one. Jondralyn should know that it is a fake angel stone she chases. We must go after her.”
Then the reality of what she was saying hit her. She leaned against the stone basin, running her hands through her hair in frustration. “But how do we know for sure that Cromm actually has a real angel stone?”
“Well, there is one way to find out,” Nail said. “We ask him where he got the black rock. If he got it from Stefan’s body, then we know.” He turned and headed toward the back door of the saloon. “I will go get him. Wait here.”
* * *
Nail returned to the courtyard with Bronwyn and Cromm. Tala, still at the stone basin, was surprised to see that all three of them were dressed for travel.
Nail wore what few bits of leather armor he had brought with him from the north, plus some other armor Hawkwood had scrounged up for him in the Val-Sadè. He carried an old Silver Guard sword at his hip—the blade he had been practicing with.
Though it was a warm night, the fierce-faced Wyn Darrè girl wore her green travel cloak. Her shortsword was at her belt and the quiver of black-hafted arrows was slung over her back. She also carried the black bow in one hand—the bow named Gisela. The oghul wore his thick leather and chain-mail armor, daggers and stilettos once again tucked away in various parts of his belt, boots, and pockets. His square-headed war hammer was strapped to the leather baldric over his shoulder.
Cromm also sucked on the black rock in question. The gray-faced oghul saw Tala staring, jammed two thick fingers between his lips, and plucked the stone out. He dropped it atop the stone basin. It was covered in both slime and spit and a terrible foul stink—bad breath mixed with smoke or something worse, Tala imagined.
“You think it is a star stone Cromm has been sucking on?” the oghul grunted.
“I thought Nail had gone daft when he first asked us,” Bronwyn said.
“Can you wipe it off?” Tala asked Cromm.
The oghul snatched the stone back up and rubbed it roughly over his leather armor, then handed it to her. It was still dirty, but it fit warm and perfect in the palm of her hand, though it felt odd holding it, wrong in a way. Not even a flicker or glint of starlight twinkled off its black surface. Overall it was a lifeless object, dark and dusky and rootless and seemingly full of naught but endless despair and death. She shuddered. Could such an inert and empty thing really be an angel stone? It still smelled strongly of smoke, either that or something in the city’s dock district was burning.
She asked Cromm, “Did you take this stone from Stefan Wayland when you took his bow?”
The blunt-faced oghul cast a concerned glance Bronwyn’s way, then looked back at Tala, nodded, and grunted, “Yes. Cromm already told Nail that he did. Told him inside the saloon just now. Cromm not surprised. Most rocks wear out in short time. But this stone keep its shape, no matter how hard I suck. Elsewise I would throw it out long ago.”
Tala held out the stone for Nail’s inspection. He looked at it with mild disgust, the rancid stench of the thing likely hitting his nose now too.
“Cromm knew protecting the marked one would also lead to great treasure.” The oghul snatched the stone from the palm of Tala’s hand and thrust it back into his mouth, sucking. But the strong scent of smoke still lingered in the air.
“Let him keep it in his mouth,” Bronwyn said. “He likes it. Besides, it’s safer there. Ain’t nobody looking for an angel stone inside an oghul’s mouth.” Tala couldn’t argue that fact. “Nail also told us that Princess Jondralyn left,” Bronwyn went on. “He told us that you wish to find her and tell her about Cromm’s stone.”
“Aye.” Tala nodded.
“Then we will go with you.”
Tala looked at Nail apprehensively. Nail shrugged. “I think it would be best if we did not travel alone,” he said. “They are both good in a fight. We could use the protection. And they are good at requisitioning supplies and horses, which we will need.”
Tala didn’t see any harm in having them along. And Nail was right. They would need horses and supplies. “What about Lawri?” she asked.
“Lawri will be safest with Val-Draekin and Hawkwood,” Bronwyn said.
Tala couldn’t help but agree. “Then let’s be off. There is no reason to linger. We need to find my sister. She was heading for Savon. We climb the wall where she did.”
Cromm strode toward the ivy-covered wall. The others followed. Nail climbed the ivy-covered trellis first. His armor and sword scraped against the rock as he slid over to the other side. Bronwyn clambered up the wall behind Nail.
A loud clatter and commotion sounded from the direction of the saloon. The smell of smoke was now heavy in the air.
“It’s on fire!” Bronwyn said, standing atop the seven-foot-high stone wall and looking back toward the saloon. Both Tala and Cromm turned. Flames were shooting from the roof of the Filthy Horse. Smoke was pouring from near the top of the saloon’s back door. “Bloody Mother Mia,” Bronwyn exclaimed, a little louder. “It’s burning up.”
Lawri! Tala’s mind screamed. Her cousin was inside the burning saloon. I have to save her! She felt indecision near to panic seize her.
Suddenly the back door burst open, black smoke billowing into the starlit sky. Val-Draekin stumbled out, coughing, choking. He carried Lawri Le Graven in his arms. He set her gently in the grass in front of the stone basin. Lawri was gasping for air, soot smeared over her blue shirt and leather pants.
Tala ran to Lawri and helped her cousin to her feet. The gauntlet attached to Lawri’s arm was hot to the touch, and Lawri’s eyes glowed green under the mask of soot covering her pale face and tawny hair. “I can’t breathe,” she wheezed.
The flames shooting from the roof were crackling loud. The air was hot. Val-Draekin was struggling for breath, face black with smoke. He spied Bronwyn and Cromm behind Tala and Lawri. “It looks like you three already made it out,” he coughed.
Tala stared at the smoke boiling from the open back door of the saloon. She could feel the heat of the fire consuming the roof against her face. “What’s happening?”
“Glade Chaparral and about fifty knights busted through the front door of the saloon,” Val-Draekin answered in a rush. “Silver Guards and Dayknights. They attacked Hawkwood and me. Burning sconces were knocked from the wall in the scrum. Set the place alight. Hawkwood held the knights off and I ran into the back rooms and grabbed Lawri. I couldn’t find Nail or Jondralyn.”
The noise of the fire had turned into a crackling roar. Val-Draekin headed back toward the smoking saloon. “Nail and Jondralyn?” he called back. “Where are they?”
“She’s… they’re… still in the saloon,” Tala lied.
“I’ll find them.” Val-Draekin whirled and rushed back into the wall of black smoke pouring from the back door of the building. I just sent him to his death! Stunned, Tala just stood there staring at the spot where the Vallè had disappeared, feeling the heat of the fire and smoke blaze against her own flesh. How many lies are in me? How many will die because of my deception? Sterling Prentiss? Val-Draekin? Numerous prison guards? Where does it end? She heard the sound of fighting coming from the building now, sword clanking against sword, the shouts of men.
Cromm picked up Lawri and raced toward the ivy-trellised wall. He lifted her up toward Bronwyn. The Wyn Darrè girl knelt on the lip of the wall and pulled Tala’s cousin to safety. Lawri dropped over the stone wall to where Nail was waiting on the other side. “I got her!” Tala heard Nail’s shout.
Two knights came bursting from the smoke-filled back door of the saloon, a helmetless Dayknight and a soot-covered Silver Guard. The two men stumbled to the grass, falling to their hands and knees before the stone basin, choking for air. The soot-covered face of the helmetless Dayknight looked familiar to Tala.
