Lightfall, p.40
LightFall, page 40
Aric was standing over the marshal’s body, and though I wanted to be gone from here, I sidled up beside him. “Such a terrible loss for Lisel and for the rest of the Living Lands.”
“And perhaps a terrifying gain for Claeve.” He spread one hand above the corpse, his wintry eyes churning with shadows. “There’s no blood on Vreas. He wasn’t killed by a sword. His aura was stripped from him, unbroken and pristine.”
I shivered. “That is terrible, but… The demons have taken other auras.”
“A rampaging demon rips an aura to shreds, consuming most of the energy, scattering some.” He glanced at me. “If Claeve controlled the consumption of the marshal’s aura as I used to during a Feast for the dragon, there may be demons that’ve taken on some of Vreas’s strength and strategy.”
I blanched. “You told me demons twist people they touch, corrupting them. Are you saying demons take our abilities, our memories, all of that, when they take a life? That they become us?”
He shook his head. “Not quite like that. But what lingers in an aura that isn’t simply torn to pieces empowers a demon in ways that mere scraps don’t. That’s why the pure auras of Chosen Ones let me control the dragon. She is colored by and reflects the spirits of the Chosen Ones, their goodness, their willingness to sacrifice for others. Those spirits let me bend her and bind her to fight for us.”
Swallowing hard, I continued, “So if Claeve took Vreas’s aura, the demons he fed would reflect the marshal’s spirit.”
“He was a bold, purposeful warrior, an inspiration to his fighters, and loyal to his lord to the death,” Aric confirmed. “Also a master of battle with instinctive skill and decades of experience. Now that may be used against us.”
I grimaced. “Doesn’t it seem unfair that the one trick we had against them—the dragon—they stole to use against us?”
He didn’t quite smile at me. “Tell me, little thief, what are the rules of stealing?”
“Same as the rules of war and seduction, I suppose, or anytime there is hunger.”
We stared at each other a moment, both of us knowing how we’d been starved. And if we’d seized the briefest taste of pleasure, would that memory be a blessing or a curse?
Though the building the king had chosen for his shelter had once been among the largest in Velderrey, it had not aged well, the fallen stones letting through the faint but ceaseless whine of the wind. A couple of palace servants, slumped wearily and confused, as if leaving the palace had stripped their identity, watched blankly as we passed. To my surprise, Mikhalthe was alone in the cavernous space, his sword—which should’ve been good and sharp by now—laid bare on a length of raw silkha in front of him. He put his hand on the hilt when we approached, but otherwise didn’t look up.
Aric stopped when we were still more than a blades-length away. “You already heard,” he said flatly.
When the king glanced up with narrowed eyes, I wondered that Aric didn’t clarify, but something in Mikhalthe’s brooding expression reminded me they were brothers, after all. They knew each other in ways others never could even if that the bond had been torn apart a long time ago.
“Which is worse?” His voice shook almost imperceptibly. “Losing the throne? Losing an old friend? Losing faith?”
“It can all be bad,” Aric said.
The king sat back with a curse. “Blade to bone, brother, I can always trust you to remind me of the dark.”
I glared at the king of the Living Lands. “None of this is Aric’s fault. He’s done everything demanded of him, everything forced on him, never wavering—”
“Silence, child,” the king snapped. “You’ve spoken enough over your betters.”
“My betters?” I snorted. “Heyo, we seem to be all in the same haunted hovel together.”
Aric laughed. “Don’t bother, Mikah. She won’t be silenced or stopped.” He slanted a glance at me. “For which we should be alternately aghast and grateful.”
I narrowed my eyes at him too, not sure of his intent. “I can be silent and still when the moment requires. But sometimes only screaming and stabbing makes sense.”
Aric gazed at me solemnly. “True enough.”
The king glanced between us, his lip half curled in an annoyed snarl. “Is this a wooing, here, in the ruins of a fallen lightkeep?” He shook his head, his golden hair falling around him in waves like the grains that had once graced the Widening Leas. “This is neither the time nor place.”
“Also true,” Aric said with a perversely cheerful grin. “Not to worry though as we skipped the courting and went straight for the consummation.”
“But there are no vows between us,” I assured the king, whose jaw was hanging agape. “So you won’t be granting a nobody a place in your palace—if you still had a palace.”
“I think he has more immediate concerns,” Aric mused. “Or perhaps not.”
“You shouldn’t torment your brother when he has lost his throne, one of his advisors, and his faith,” I murmured.
“Perhaps he should value more what remains,” Aric said implacably, staring at his brother.
The two men glared at each other over the sword. “Enough,” the king growled.
“So Feinan tells me too,” Aric said. “And yet I still want more.”
The king rubbed both hands over his face. “With Vreas and Kalima gone, I’m clearly weakened.” He dropped his hands to his lap, empty palms clasped together. “The horde isn’t the only one who wants to see me fall.”
Aric nodded. “I’ve heard and seen,” he said quietly. “Sometimes I’ve walked among them, unknown, after flights with the dragon or back here in the lightkeep, and I hear them wanting more. But is there anyone better to rule the Living Lands?”
The king stared at him. “I could have you beheaded for asking. That is treason.”
“It’s just a question,” Aric countered. “And a review of our available resources, since they seem vanishingly few to me.”
After a tense heartbeat, Mikhalthe sagged back. “There are always cousins and even more distant relatives with a claim to the Radiant Throne. Not to mention those who’ve spent the last few hundred years grumbling about the Lyrac Accords.” He grimaced. “More power to them if they can snatch it back.”
“You have some possibilities before that,” Aric said. “After all, you don’t yet have a consort.”
The king’s moody eyes flared wide and snapped to me. “Certainly you’re not suggesting—”
I jerked back in horror. “What? Certainly not!”
Aric lifted an eyebrow. “Someone with more of an army, I’d suggest.”
I lifted my chin. “I can bring you at least half of the alleys of Sevaare,” I informed them haughtily. I hesitated, then added, “Maybe more, after a trip to your treasury.”
Though that little smile played around his lips, Aric shook his head. “They’ll need to be already trained, preferably with their own swords, considering that our treasury and our armory are currently in the hands of the enemy.”
The king tilted his head. “It may come to that though. We may need all the people of the Living Lands to fight alongside us, with weapons and blessings both.”
Of course I’d meant it half in jest, but once he said it, I swallowed hard. I’d had my times of resentment against the higher-ups who never seemed to have a care for those like me, but I had to admit, I’d never bothered my head about the fate of the kingdom, so maybe our mutual antipathy was earned, unlike their inherited wealth and my purloined coin. But any such ill will could last no longer.
“Maru Deep,” I blurted. “They have an array of eligible offspring who would sometimes come to mingle with Sevaare’s scions. And I’ve heard tell they’ve aspirations beyond the sea.”
Aric gazed at me. “You don’t suggest your own lady as queen?”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “Lady Dyania was Chosen for reason. She has the skill and spirit to rule the Living Lands. But…it seems to me that ruling the kingdom consumes as much as commanding the dragon.” I grimaced. “I would not wish that upon her. And I hope you find one to make the sacrifice with a willing heart, not tricked or coerced.”
They both stared at me. Then the king shook his head. “You have a clear sight and wisdom, child.” His gaze slipped slightly to his brother. “At least in some cases.” He slouched backward. “I cannot believe I am taking courtship advice from you two.”
“You would’ve taken it from your advisors and the haloria,” Aric pointed out. “At least you can be sure we have only the good of the Living Lands in our hearts when we marry you off.”
The king looked down at the naked sword. “And that is its own sort of trick and coercion.”
I rolled my eyes. “With all the dancing and wintryberry cordial you can suck down,” I reminded him. But then I relented. I could’ve had all the ale I wanted if I’d stayed with the innkeeper, and I’d chosen my freedom instead, hadn’t I? “From the stories I heard in the market square, the daughters and sons of Maru Deep are beautiful and shrewd and trained to rule, but you can ask Lady Dyania for her impressions.”
The king sighed and traced one finger above the broadest width of the blade, right beyond the hilt, his skin not quite touching the naked blade. “This sword has been defending the Living Lands since the Great Gorging when Ormonde sought it from the Rokynd,” he said. “It has been dulled and even broken, yet every time it is forged anew, always with these words etched here to remind its wielder of our vow.”
Aric looked away as he recited, “The point, the edge, the weight. Let the bearer’s be the blood.”
I glanced between them. “So the first king of all lightkeeps of the Living Lands commissioned a sword to be wielded by his bloodright descendants forever. Somewhat better than being borne by a demon dragon, I suppose.”
“Ormonde was the only one to do both, but that was the age of heroes.” Aric sighed. “Still, as much as we glorify him, the precepts for ruling a kingdom should be written down elsewhere than the base of one sword.”
Mikhalthe snorted. “It’s been written down in more books than anyone could read, shuffled away into haloric closets and the like. If we don’t lose everything to the horde, it’ll be as much luck as anything.”
I wrinkled my nose but decided not to hold forth with my thoughts on luck. I was pleased when Aric scoffed for me. “Claeve hasn’t relied on luck. He didn’t rely on fairness or faith either, just more fighters. So send those riders, brother, and collect the king’s due. We’ve fought for our whole lives, you and I, and we’ve no reason to think ourselves beaten yet.”
As inspirational speeches went, it lacked Dyania’s gentle determination or even Kalima’s threat of damnation, but the king straightened, so maybe Aric knew at least that part of his half-brother better than the rest.
The king looked at me. “The daughters and sons of Maru Deep, you say? Uniting the mountains and the sea… Has a nice sort of ring to it.”
I doubted that would mean anything to the horde, but if it made the path more palatable to the king, all the better.
As the two men hashed out a few messages to be carried by the riders, I paced restlessly.
Our first day of exile was coming to an end, and soon it would be night when the nobles and the people of the lightkeep would want lights and food, at least something to drink. When I mentioned that to the king and the prince before me, they blinked, and I had to hold back a scornful snort. As if perilous battles or poetic ballads would matter if all the people were dead of hunger and fear.
I shook my head. “I’m going to go find the palace steward. See if I can help there. An innkeeper in Sevaare once taught me how to stretch a pot of water, three tubers, and a pinch of salt to feed a drunken throng, so I guess I’ll see what I remember from those days.”
Aric closed the distance to me, taking my shoulder in a tight grip. “Watch yourself. Claeve of the crimson cloak didn’t send the horde after us immediately, but there’s nothing to say he won’t. And an attack from without might not even be as much of a threat as the desperation within.”
Swallowing hard, I nodded. “I’ve stretched hope farther than I’ve stretched yams. I’ll see if I can do some of that too.”
As if his disbelieving brother the king wasn’t right there, he crashed his mouth down over mine, the kiss as hungry as an exiled prince and more satisfying than any wintryberry cordial. “I’ll find you later,” he whispered, staring down at me, and though I couldn’t see past the dragon scars across his eyes, I tasted his vow, wild and sweet.
“You watch out for lesser noble daughters desperate for a husband,” I warned him. “The kingdom is full of dangers.”
He smiled. “Go, before you speak some other impossible nonsense.”
I curled my lips inward, as if I could hold onto his kiss. Because I didn’t fool myself. Just as the king would make sacrifices in this battle, so too would the prince, and even I. Whether the dragon took him or a princess or some other threat, I knew better than to trust the dream where I had someone at my side.
As the shadows gathered in the fallen lightkeep of our exile, I walked out and didn’t look back.
Remember, neither the treasury nor the haloria—nor the king, for that matter—actually feeds the High Keep.
~ Private letter from the steward upon his son inheriting the position
CHAPTER 29
CLAEVE AND THE HORDE did not attack that night, nor the next, nor the next. He didn’t have to, not when we were doing such a good job of weakening ourselves from within.
As Aric had said and I’d already known, not everyone who’d escaped the High Keep had the spirit to work together in our much-reduced circumstances. There were harsh words exchanged over the limited water in the casks, and fisticuffs about the stew—which was actually quite good, I had to say. The palace steward, who’d inherited the position from his father, had been quite open to suggestions from the head cook who—despite not having the advantages of a High Keep upbringing—in the midst of our flight across the plains had made note of some wind-burned grasses with enough dried seed heads to thicken our meager stores. There’d only been a bit of frightened whining from those sent out to harvest it. And there’d been only one stabbing so far, inflicted by the old noblewoman with the forks. It hadn’t been a lethal blow, what with the weapon being a fork, but she claimed the overconfident young courtier who’d tried to take her heavy fur would think again before stealing.
Though the king pardoned her after a harsh warning that everyone heard, I knew both he and the old woman were wrong. Warnings and even stabbings wouldn’t stop the thefts and likely worse when people became too despairing.
Aric told me, one night when he returned to our cramped little watchtower after a day of advising the king, that there were more than a few palace folk missing from the roster in Velderrey. Whether they’d fallen in battle or were still trapped in the High Keep, hiding or imprisoned, been lost somewhere in the Widening Leas or fled to make their own fate, no one could be sure. Or maybe Claeve had made the same offer to them that he’d given to us amid the wrecked caravan—join me and your aura will shine on—and of their own volition they stayed with the horde in the High City, choosing to be dreadmarked.
Before we fell asleep, huddled in our shared cloaks, Aric said, “I thought I would live out the rest of my days and die in the dragon’s hold. In some ways, this is harder.”
I tried to curl all the way around him, as if my scrawny limbs could protect him. “My merciless grasp is so odious?”
“Odorous, maybe,” he countered.
Heyo, now he had a sense of humor?
“Could be worse,” I whispered. “You could be king.”
His chuckle ruffled my hair. Since that first devastating time, we hadn’t coupled, being too busy during the day and then too tired—and, yes, filthy—to seek that solace beyond some kisses and a desperate embrace that even the too-short hours of exhausted sleep couldn’t break. But somehow this felt even more intimate: sheltering together against a threatening storm.
Of course, the storm would soon break over us and either kill us or merely change everything, and then, either way, these quiet, protective moments would end. But for now, I would cling to them—to him—and cherish every breath, even the slightly musty ones.
“I am not a prince anymore,” he pointed out. “Not without the dragon.”
My heart stuttered. Not a prince? Was that true, just because we were here now? “Is your brother not king if he’s not sitting on the throne?”
His arm tightened behind me. “I think we’re going to find out.”
The threat and possibility swirled in my mind. “Why is the king’s sword not an animdao blade? If it’s had such a long, illustrious life, shouldn’t it have gathered an aura of its own by now?”
His shrug lifted my head for a moment. “All the l’Thine kings since Ormonde have struck the sword hard and deep in the hopes of kindling an animdao blade. But neither deaths nor desiring does the deed. If that’s all it took, everyone would wield such a weapon. Even the Rokynd have no answer for the mystery. They say they can mine the coldest metal from the darkest earth, forge it in the brightest fire until it shines, but the animdao comes for reasons of its own.”
My own little animdao knife was tucked away in my boot, wrapped in its silkha so it wouldn’t bother Aric, but I wondered that it had come to me. What reason, indeed.
Still, a mystery that wasn’t mine, so I went ahead and fell asleep, my head cushioned on Aric’s shoulder, his arm never letting go.
I spent the next days digging out an old well with Lisel’s crew. I wasn’t the strongest, but I’d never minded tight quarters and filth so they sent me to the bottom to do the dirty work behind her indefatigable hewing. In contrast to the cramped space and clanging pickax, she was distant and quiet—mourning, I supposed, for her father and brother. When we took a break to let other hands heft out the rubble we’d cleared, I showed her an old coin I’d spotted in the detritus that had clogged the well.
