Echoes of light, p.12
Echoes of Light, page 12
Koren cleared his throat and stepped closer. "Valentina."
She spun around, drawing her gladius, cheeks flushed and lips peeled back. Koren started, for an instant sure she'd attack, but then she exhaled shakily.
"I'm sorry, Koren. I'm . . . jumpy."
He cringed and nodded. "And stabby. Your sword nearly sliced through me like a ham."
Valentina sheathed the blade. "I hate this sword." She looked back at the map, and for a long moment she was silent. Finally she spoke in a soft voice. "Koren, what am I doing? I'm not a soldier."
He stepped closer to the table and stood at her side. He gazed at the wooden pieces. Eagles. Dragons. A single lion. A world aflame. Kingdoms falling like so many sand castles.
"We don't want another soldier to lead Aelar," Koren said. "We want somebody kind, gentle, wise."
"All qualities that would see my enemies crush me in battle," Valentina said. "When the Gaelians attacked us on the road, I . . . I kept trying to stop the violence. I told myself that I'm a leader of peace, of prudence. But Koren . . . the truth is that I was afraid. Every night, that battle haunts me. When we finally reach Aelar, when we face the true might of Gael and the true wrath of Tirus, will I have the strength to lead us?" She sighed. "I'm not like Seneca. He's always delighted in war, spending countless hours training with the sword. How can I do this, Koren? I seek peace, yet it seems I can only achieve peace with war."
Koren raised his eyebrows. "Well, you have me helping you—the greatest warrior in the world, Koren the Conqueror!" When Valentina sighed, he bristled. "Well, Koren the Killer? Koren the Crusher? Fine. We'll settle on Koren the Cuddly. Less intimidating to my enemies, but hopefully comforting on a cold, dark night like this." He slung his arm around her. "Listen, Val. War's scary. I was so scared when I fought the legions in Zohar I nearly wet my armor. My father once told me something that stuck with me. He said that only damn fools are fearless in war. Wise leaders are terrified of violence. That's what makes them wise leaders."
"Then I must be the wisest woman who's ever lived," Valentina said. "I had this dream. The dream of a naive girl. That I would march south through the Aelarian countryside, spreading word of the Republic's rebirth, and that the people would emerge from every village and town to join me. That by the time we reached the walls of Aelar, the country would be united behind me, calling in a loud and clear voice for Tirus to fall. Instead we found those villages and towns destroyed, and the only people following us are whores, jugglers, and crows."
"I saw a haberdasher too," Koren offered.
Valentina smiled thinly. "Valentina the Victorious, inspiring haberdashers to raise needles and march to fight loose buttons."
Koren thought back to that night. The night far in the northern hinterlands, cold and shivering and afraid, when they had made love. Valentina had been so distracted since then, so burdened with her duties. He had rarely been alone with her. There had always been generals, engineers, trackers, scouts, and a hundred other people crowding around her. But Koren had never forgotten the touch of her lips, the warmth of her body, the joy she brought him. Now, finally alone with her, he stroked her hair and kissed her cheek. She stood still, staring at the map, and he gently pulled her face toward his, gazed into her eyes, and kissed her lips.
Valentina looked away. "Koren, I . . ."
He pulled his hand free from her hair. "I'm sorry. I thought . . ."
She looked back at him, eyes soft. "Koren, what happened in the north . . . I was afraid. I was alone. I love you, Koren—as a friend, as a brother-in-arms. But the kind of love you want . . . I gave it only to Iris."
"Iris has been gone for a year," Koren said, trying to keep his voice soft. "I know what loss is like, but—"
"No time can erase what I felt," Valentina said, and now a sharpness filled her voice. "I will not forget her."
"I don't mean that," Koren began. "Not like that."
She nodded, then embraced him. "I know, Koren, and I'm sorry. I loved what we did in the north. I enjoyed making love to you, truly I did. It's a night I'll always remember fondly."
"But not a night that'll happen again," he said.
She walked around the table toward the bed. "Come, Koren. Let's go to sleep. It'll be a long ride tomorrow."
Yet Koren could not imagine sharing her bed, feeling her warmth, her hair tickling him, burning for her and knowing she did not feel the same.
"I need to walk," he said. "I need to feel the night around me."
Not waiting for a reply, Koren left the tent. His throat felt too tight, his legs stiff. He walked fast, staring ahead, ignoring the camp around him.
I shouldn't be here.
He clenched his fists.
Why do I fight with her?
He marched between campfires and tents, heading toward the edge of the camp. As the campfires crackled, he saw again the fire in Gefen. As a pair of legionaries laughed over a game of dice, he heard again the legionaries laughing as Seneca raised Jerael on the cross. As he reached the dark edge of the camp, he saw again the darkness of the slave galley, the black sea Atalia sank into.
His head spun and his chest constricted. He kept walking, passing by the legionaries patrolling the camp, then standing amid the trees. He struggled for breath.
"My brother fights in Zohar," he whispered to the shadows. "And I'm here, fighting with the legions—the damn legions, the same military that destroyed my home, that killed my father. All for . . . what? For her? For Valentina? For a woman who sees me as nothing but another loyal animal, no worthier than her horse?"
He stared into the darkness, wanting to keep walking, to vanish between trees. He could just keeping walking, day after day, living off the land, seeking a way back home to Zohar. Surely even life in the wilderness would be better than this, than fighting for a half-baked dream of resurrecting a dead Republic.
A voice rose beside him. "You're worth far less than a horse, Koren Sela. Soldiers are cheap. Horses cost gold."
He turned to see Avia approaching him. The dark lumer's golden hair spilled out from her hood, and she smiled at him crookedly. Her amulet, an inverted candelabrum, hung against her chest.
"Do you always sneak up on people?" Koren said. "What if I were here peeing?"
"Then truly you'd prove yourself lesser than a horse." She took his hand. "Come with me."
She pulled him between the trees, and they walked into the dark forest, leaving the camp behind.
"Where are we going?" Koren said.
"I'm going to slit your throat in the night, then carve out your heart for dark magic," Avia said.
Koren sighed. After Valentina had all but broken his heart, having it ripped out couldn't be much worse. He followed. The trees twisted around them, roots rose to snag their feet, and jackals howled in the shadows. Avia held a tin lantern, its glow like a pulsing red heart. Soon the sounds of the camp—talking, laughing, clattering armor, and crackling fires—faded, and all the world was but the dank, thick forest. Koren didn't know how he'd find his way back, but Avia kept walking confidently, still holding his hand.
Finally he saw firelight in the distance. He frowned. As they stepped closer, he saw a ring of low fire. The flaming circle surrounded a small clearing. Avia hopped over the flames, and Koren followed. A blanket lay on the ground, woven with images of serpents. Raven skulls dangled on strings from overhanging branches. What looked like a mummified baby, brownish and crinkly and bedecked with beads, sat propped on one branch.
"So you're not big on military tents, I gather," Koren said.
Avia doffed her cloak and hung it across a branch, remaining in a mustard tunic. She spat. "I don't sleep among legionaries. The bastards stink."
Koren gazed at the mummified baby on the branch. "Unlike rotten corpses?"
The dark lumer glared at him. "That's my princess. Don't you badmouth her. She's not rotten."
Koren tore his eyes away, shuddering. He didn't want to know who that baby had been.
"Why did you bring me here, Avia?"
The dark lumer shrugged. "We're both Zoharites. They're fucking Aelarians."
"You're only half-Zoharite," Koren said.
"I'm still not a goddamn Aelarian." Her blue eyes flashed. "We don't belong among them, Sela. We're both just slaves to them."
Koren bristled. "I'm not a—"
"Did Valentina ever emancipate you?" Avia asked. "No? So you're still a slave by the laws of Aelar. I heard how Valentina speaks to you. You're like a dog running at her heel. You fight for her when you should be fighting against her. You should slit her white throat in the night."
"I'm not going to slit her throat."
Avia drew her knife. "Why not?" She slashed the air between them. "A good, clean cut, and a princess of the Empire is dead."
Koren looked at the raven skulls that dangled around him. He had the eerie feeling that they were watching him. "I don't want Valentina dead. I want her to rebuild the Senate, to restore the Republic, and to cast out madmen like Seneca and Tirus."
"That is the senator's daughter speaking." Avia grabbed his cheeks, forcing his face back toward her. "What does Koren Sela, the grandson of a desert king, want?"
"Grandson of a king? Yes. My mother's father was King Rahamyah. But that palace fell to Claudia. All of Zohar cries out under their yoke. What do I want? Freedom for Zohar. My home back. My family back. And . . ."
And Valentina in my arms, he wanted to add. Valentina loving me like I love her. But he could not speak those last words.
"Then we'll fight for these things," said Avia. "For they are what I too desire. We are only two, Koren. But we are mighty. We are a daughter of Luminosity and a son of desert royalty. Together we can bring this Empire falling down."
Her eyes frightened him. Gold light swirled in the blue.
"How?" he whispered.
She dropped her knife and held both his hands. "First you must trust me. As we draw closer to Aelar in the south, all will come clear to you. I promise. This night, all I need is your loyalty. To Zohar. To your family."
"Always," Koren said.
"And to me," Avia whispered. She tugged the laces of her tunic and let the garment fall to her feet.
Koren stood speechless before her. The firelight danced against her naked body. Her skin was pale, strewn with many small birthmarks, and her golden hair flowed to her hips. She grabbed at his clothes, and with deft hands she undressed him, then kissed his lips.
"Let us bind together," she whispered, kissing his ear. "Let us be one."
She lay on the blanket and pulled him down beside her. Koren didn't want this. Suddenly he just wanted to be back in Valentina's tent, lying at her side. But at the touch of Avia's fingers, his body awoke to different desires. He found himself kissing Avia's lips, her neck, her breasts. She wrapped her legs around him, guiding him inside her. Her back arched and her eyes closed. Her fingers dug into his back, and the fire crackled around them. All he knew was her heat. Luminescence glowed behind her eyelids, seeping out, leaking from her lips and fingers, flowing around him, until they were cocooned in light and shadows. She cried out, her fingernails tearing his skin, and her light flared like the sun.
The luminescence faded, and he lay at her side, winded, damp with sweat. She curled up beside him and kissed his chest.
"Now we are joined," she whispered. "Now the world will tremble."
The skulls jangled above, and the mummified baby stared down at him, seeming to grin.
SENECA
On a windy, miserable gray morning, Seneca beheld the ruins of Phedia in the distance.
"Fuck me," he muttered. "My father did a piece of work here."
Only a decade ago, Phedia had been a massive city, among the largest in the world. Hundreds of thousands had lived here along the southern coast of the Encircled Sea, only a week or two south of Aelar. Seneca had seen a model of the city in the imperial palace, built in preparation for the war. Even as a prince of Aelar, a boy who had grown up in the Acropolis, Seneca had marveled at the walls, minarets, domes, porticoes of countless columns, and—grandest of all—the port that had been carved into the landscape, a man-made canal that ended in a ring of water large enough to encircle most towns.
That glory was now gone.
The minarets had fallen. The countless domed houses and temples lay buried under dirt. Only a handful of columns remained standing, the last from a forest of thousands. The only structure that remained intact was the port. Phedia lacked a natural harbor, and so, five hundred years ago, men had dug a canal from sea into land, ending with a ring of water. Once walls, columns, and manors had lined this port, and hundreds of ships from foreign lands would sail up and down the canal, traveling into the heart of Phedia, around the ring of water, and out into the sea again. Today only a few crude barracks rose along the water, the home of the Phedian auxiliary. Today thirty-odd ships anchored here, a mix of cargo barges and Aelarian galleys in service of Tirus.
It's not much of a fleet, Seneca thought. But it'll be enough. It has to be enough.
Imani stood beside him in their chariot. Her eyes narrowed as the army rolled toward the distant ruins, and she flexed her fingers around the shaft of her spear.
"Are you sure about this, Seneca?" she said. In the distant ruins, soldiers were leaping into chariots and forming defensive lines along the wooden palisades that surrounded their camp.
Seneca shook his head. "Sure? No. But I can tell you this of auxiliaries. They hold no loyalty to ideals, only to coin. Any Phedian loyal to his fallen kingdom is dead. My father saw to that. Whoever still lives will fight for whoever pays the best." He gave a wan smile. "I just hope Tirus is a cheap bastard."
In the distance, the Phedian officers were shouting commands, and chariots rolled into formation, and many riders flanked them. Archers lined the palisades. Seneca imagined it must have been an intimidating sight, his motley army rolling forth.
"They're going to fight, Seneca." Imani sneered and hefted her spear. Behind them, their army took battle formation. It was a motley host, a mix of Aelarian legionaries, Nurian warriors, and Phedian barbarians. Combined, they were the might of the Southern Empire, and soon they would rule the world.
Seneca pointed at the distant soldiers in the ruins. "Look at those men. They wear the armor of the legions, and they raise the banners of Aelar, but they're not Aelarian. Here are ethnic Phedians, traitors to their nation, gathered from across the southern desert. They're unwashed barbarians with some armor slapped on, paid with Aelarian coin, and guarding this shithole until Aelar can build a proper city over the ruins. All we need to do is pay them a little bit more, and they'll fight for us."
He looked over his shoulder and snapped his fingers. Several elephants moved closer to his chariot. Prince Adai rode one, and officers of the legions rode others. Each beast was laden with treasures—golden chalices, chests of coins, jugs full of jewels, rolls of silk, and baskets of frankincense. It was a fortune here in the south. It was just a trifle compared to the fortunes awaiting Seneca north of the sea.
He lashed his crop. The four horses that pulled his chariot cantered forward. The elephants followed. The rest of their host remained behind upon the dry landscape. The sea rolled to their right, the water azure patched with green. To their left rolled tan hills coated with scrub, sprouting the odd palm tree.
Phedian chariots formed a line before him, blocking his passage to the port. The chariots were built in the Aelarian style, and the men wore the armor of the legions, but their skin was darker, and tattoos—frowned upon in Aelar—coated their faces and bald heads. Behind them rose a wooden palisade topped with archers.
Fucking mercenaries, Seneca thought.
He tugged his chariot to a halt, and the elephants came to stand around him. Seneca grimaced as he put on his mask of human skin. The fucking thing still stank like a corpse. He stepped off his chariot, grabbed a jug that hung from an elephant's howdah, and stepped toward the opposing army's chariots. On the palisade farther back, the Phedian archers drew their bowstrings.
"I do not come bearing gifts!" Seneca said, tossing the jug forward. It shattered between the two forces, spilling jewels. "This is not charity. This is not benevolence. This is payment. I am Seneca Octavius, son of Marcus, true emperor of Aelar, and I wear the face of your king. You will grow rich and fat fighting in my army." He gestured at the horde behind him. "Refuse to join us, and my elephants will rape your fucking corpses."
The chariots stood still before him, their riders staring, eyes hard, not sure if to bow or charge to battle. A voice rose from behind them, deep and gravelly.
"Make way! Let me see the pup."
The chariots parted, and a man rode forth on a horse. He was a massive brute, so beefy Seneca felt sorry for his horse. Red stubble covered his face, and his eyebrows were the color of fire. He wasn't Phedian, that much was certain. Probably Elanian from the far northern island. Possibly ethnic Aelarian, though Seneca remembered seeing only one Aelarian before with red hair—Justus, the legionary who had struck Porcia back in Gefen a year ago. The boy had screamed like a slaughtered hog when Seneca had ordered him whipped.
Seneca drew his gladius. "Dismount now!" he shouted at the redheaded rider. "Dismount and kneel before me and accept your payment."
Behind him, he heard his archers draw their bowstrings, but Seneca didn't turn to look, refused to look away from the red demon before him. The brute drew two scimitars—curved, ugly weapons that dwarfed Seneca's gladius.
"The only payment I'll accept is your head on a pike and your balls fed to the crows." The man spat at Seneca's feet. "Do you know who I am?"
Seneca snorted. "I don't bother learning the names of outpost warlords." He added a healthy dosage of scorn to his voice, but ice filled his belly and his breath shook. The man was huge, and those scimitars made Seneca want to turn and run. He forced himself to stand his ground. He would no longer hide behind his men as he had done in Gefen.
