“That,” Yn Garr said, pointing at Fenri, “has more sense than you.”
“While your words ring with truth, Sir Gorrhen, the disrespect you are showing cannot go unpunished. Let’s not forget that you’re the one who instigated this war in the first place.”
“My disrespect?” Yn Garr roared. “Your lords refused to obey your commands, yet the disrespect of a mere merchant grates on your nerves? Without me, Hafod would have never touched these seas again!”
“So you have reminded us over and over again,” Fenri said. He stepped back into the room, his cloak gliding behind him. One hand was on his sword hilt.
Yn Garr must’ve noticed the same thing, because his face lit up. He spread both arms out. “Are you going to attack me now, boy? You, with that coward’s blood running through your veins?”
“A mere merchant, like you said,” Fenri spat. “Your blood is not worthy enough for my blade.”
“High words, coming from the beggar prince,” Yn Garr said. “Easy enough for supposed royalty to toss words about while the common man dies for your cause. Tell me, Your Highnesses, how many more lives were wasted on this assault because of your lords’ pride?”
“I will form an inquiry surrounding the business, if that will please you,” King Elrend said. “The lords responsible for the retreat will be reprimanded.”
“Oh. Reprimanded,” Yn Garr repeated. He laughed. “Perhaps we can wrap up this reprimand and gift it to the families of those soldiers who died. I see the confusion stirring in your eyes. Did you think I conjured that army up from thin air?”
“Men from Kago, half-breeds and Jins…” Fenri began.
Elrend nodded. “There are always casualties in war.”
Kefier felt his throat constrict at the words. A casualty. A cold number. Caiso had told him, sometime during the last two days, that they had lost eight hundred and twenty-five soldiers overall during the assault. Rosha, bright eyes, lover of books, curly brown locks, was number eight hundred and twenty-sixth.
Eight hundred and twenty-six dead. He repeated those words over and over in his head until they lost all meaning, mirroring the effect of time on grief. Yet the meaning of those words—the truth behind them—did not change. He forced himself to stand, choking his own tears back, and realized that Yn Garr himself was standing perfectly still in the center of that room, his face contorted in an expression that went beyond rage.
“Tarrick told me the exact same thing,” Yn Garr said. His voice had dropped to a hoarse sound. With a speed that Kefier did not know he possessed, he drew his sword and slashed below Fenri’s jaw. There was a moment of silence. Fenri stepped back, both hands around his throat as he tried to contain the spurting blood.
Fenri fell, face-first, onto the ground. Yn Garr stepped on his back and stabbed his spine with his sword.
The shriek that erupted from Elrend’s own throat echoed through the hall. It did not sound human. Yn Garr’s lips twitched into a mirthless smile.
“Sit down if you need to, Elrend,” he said. “It won’t change a thing. This broken body used to be your boy. A casualty, you said. Spent to assuage this humble merchant’s anger.” The body twitched. He stabbed it a second time.
Elrend was sobbing, now. “Stop, please. Stop.”
“It’s too late,” Yn Garr said. “Stopping won’t bring him back.”
“I’ll have your head for this. You—”
Yn Garr slowly walked towards him, leaving bloody footprints on the floor. Elrend drew his sword. Yn Garr knocked it out of his hand. “You’ll what, Elrend, son of Fenrid, son of Elrath, son of Tarrick the Coward, Tarrick the king-elect?”
Elrend scrabbled backwards, hitting the wall. Yn Garr took another step. “You forget the hands that carved the Kag. Not even three hundred years ago, Hafod was nothing more than backwash from the Kingdom of Baidh. People fleeing the shores of their perceived, oppressive master, thinking they could do better. No, you said—in Hafod, we will not have masters, we will all be equal, landowners cannot own both your body and your soul…”
He struck Elrend’s jaw with the hilt of his sword. “I will call the guards,” Elrend hissed.
“If you could, you would have done so by now,” Yn Garr replied. “Your perceived royalty, your lineage, is a sham. The last king of Hafod with any claims to nobility stepped down at the people’s urging. Your lords—lords only by name. Baidhan peasants who staked out the lands before anyone else could, who promised to do better yet forgot so, so easily. What gives you the right to speak of casualties? Every history book speaks of why the only reason Tarrick became king was because the man the people chose to lead wanted to retire to Cael. Your boy called this my war, yet it’s not really, is it? This is Tarrick’s war, over one hundred and fifty years overdue!”
He struck him again. Elrend groaned and crawled after his sword. Yn Garr stabbed his arm into the ground.
Amidst Elrend’s howls of pain, Yn Garr bent forward, his lips hovering over the man’s ear. “I walked away. I gave him the kingdom. He should’ve left it at that.”
“You’ve gone mad!” Elrend gasped. “Are you actually claiming to be Agartes Allaicras?”
“On the second anniversary of his kingship, during a glorious celebration in the New Hafod Auditorium, King-elect Tarrick announced that he means to send surveyors and explorers into Dageian territory. He was warned about the imprudence of such an endeavour. Dageis sent High General Olfren as an envoy to warn Hafod not to overstep their bounds. Tarrick responded by proclaiming war on Dageis, claiming that General Agartes would lead the assault. The people, hearing the name, never questioned it. They could have.
“He should’ve never dragged me into it. His foolishness cost me everything.”
There was a moment of silence. Elrend, gasping, tried to reach for him. Yn Garr allowed him to grab his arm. “How are you still alive?”
A blue haze surrounded Yn Garr’s body. “I will not waste another breath on your rotten family,” he said in an even voice. He pulled his sword from Elrend’s arm. Amidst the man’s agonized screams, he flicked the blade before sliding it into Elrend’s throat. Blood spurted out of the gaping wound as Elrend’s body dropped to the ground.
Yn Garr got up. The round hall looked like the back room of a butcher shop. He turned and noticed Kefier for the first time.
“Are you going to kill me, too?” Kefier asked. His voice sounded a lot calmer than he felt.
Yn Garr snorted. “What have you done to offend me? You won me this fort.”
“At the expense of Rosha’s life.”
Yn Garr turned away. “I was told. We will mourn her properly once Lon Basden is taken. The army will be at your command.”
“I don’t know if I can do that,” Kefier said. “I don’t know if I want to.”
“Nonsense. Take a few days off. I will have your captains take care of it in the meantime.” He kicked Elrend’s body to the side. “Call someone to take care of this mess. I will deal with the Hafed lords.”
Kefier looked at the bodies. “What you just said…” he started.
“What about it?”
“Is it true? Or were you just trying to shock him?”
Yn Garr smirked. “I’m about to proclaim my part in murdering a king and his son for treason against the rightful king of Hafod. For my own sake, I should think I ought to be telling the truth.”
“But how will you prove it?”
Yn Garr’s eyes glowed blue, the same colour as the bottom of a candle flame. “I draw from the agan to extend my lifespan. Any man who dares question it can face me in battle.” He took a deep, rattling breath, and his eyes returned to normal.
Kefier stepped aside to let Yn Garr walk past. As the taller man got close, he paused. Yn Garr placed his gloved hand on Kefier’s shoulder. “You will survive,” he said, his face softening.
“But do I want to?” Kefier asked. He looked away. “You know so much about the agan. Tell me—what happens after?” His eyes flicked back
to Fenri and Elrend, or what used to be them.
“What we know of the agan right now is comprised of garbled theories and hypotheses of what we can observe from this side. Mechanical, technical, tedious things. The Dageians have it down to a science.”
Kefier swallowed. “Jarche tells me that they linger, waiting for us on the other side. That we go, together, to wherever it is we go when this is all done.”
“Ka-eng sentimentality. They have tainted Kag belief.” Yn Garr placed his fingers on his head. “This is all I know: they are here, in the vestiges of my memory. The sound of their laughter. The feel of their smooth faces in my hands. The warmth of their embraces. It is why I refuse to die. If I die, who will remember my children and my wife? Even the books cannot contain their essences. How can mere words capture what they were, what they are, to me?”
“You’re planning to stay alive forever for this?”
Yn Garr dropped his eyes. “Even with the agan, my brain is but mere flesh. I have done the best I could, but things slip by, and I know that forever is…” He paused. “Do you know that ship we used to return from Shi-uin several years ago?”
“Aina’s Breath,” Kefier said.
“It was once called Vayna’s Breath,” Yn Garr said. “Named for my youngest daughter. She even smashed the wine bottle on it the day it was made. But the sea had washed away the letters and the men simply called it by what they could read on the stern. I left it that way, to remind myself what time can do to my own memories. What it has already done.”
Yn Garr’s face tightened as he turned back to Kefier. “If I can call them back to me…”
“Elrend called you mad. I’m repeating his words for your benefit.”
Yn Garr didn’t seem to hear him. “I know what is happening to you right now. I am imploring you to stay. Maintain your composure. What you’ve just seen is only the beginning. I do not doubt that more bloodshed will mark the night’s end.”
Chapter Two
Sume drew back the curtains that separated Jarche’s mattress from the rest of the room. In sleep, the ka-eng appeared like any other. With her long ears hidden into her dark curls, the shape of her face was almost human. Her jaw was a little too pointed, but it was not quite the animal’s muzzle that people who have never seen ka-eng have suggested. Sapphire had been adamant that she be given as much darkness as possible. Sume grasped little about agan-exhaustion except that it was dangerous for everyone involved.
Sume removed the wet rag from Jarche’s forehead, noting that her fever had dropped. The ka-eng’s eyelids flickered at her presence.
“Rosha…” Jarche murmured.
“The landlady made us soup,” Sume said. “Come and have some.” She took a bowl from the tray beside her and stirred it. The smell of chicken broth wafted into her nostrils.
Jarche’s eyes opened. “What happened?”
“You got us away from that despicable wife of his,” Sume said. “At least, for the time being. Thank you for it, by the way. If not for you, she would’ve killed Rosha. I’m sure of it.” She leaned over to place the bowl on Jarche’s lap.
Jarche took a spoonful and drew it up to her nose, sniffing it. “Rosha took off with the beast. I’m not sure she’s safe with it.”
“Safer than she would’ve been if that harpy had her way,” Sume breathed.
Jarche sipped at the soup, grimacing. “Sour. People seem to love sour things in these parts.” She sighed, turning to Sume. “I need to tell you that the things that happened…were not my intention. Putting Rosha in harm’s way was never part of the plan.”
“I know, Jarche. I know you care a great deal for Rosha. I don’t agree with your decision to continue helping Yn Garr—this madness of his puts her life at stake, but…”
“He wouldn’t hurt her. We need her. Would that we had another way. Enosh—I sent you after him, didn’t I? Yet he chose to continue his misguided rebellion against us.”
“Because he doesn’t believe in your cause. Not anymore.”
Jarche pressed her lips together.
“I know what you’re going to say,” Sume said. “Believe me, I’m not as taken by him as everyone thinks I am. But the truth of the matter is that if he had wanted to continue assisting you, he would’ve done it years ago.”
“True,” Jarche murmured. “He hates us. He blames me for being unable to extract him from Nebel’s dungeons. It was his own actions that brought him thus far, yet like a child, he finds no one else to blame but his elders.” She smirked. “And then he encountered Arn. He thought we sent the boy to kill him.”
“You can’t blame him for that. Arn has been trying to kill us all.”
“You’ve met the boy, haven’t you?” Jarche took another sip of the soup. “I believe he is jealous of our fondness for Enosh. He doesn’t quite understand that I’ve cared just as much for him.”
“Jealous seems like a light way of putting it. He’s mad.”
“One word, to define him? Kaggawa, I thought you were capable of a lot more understanding than that.”
Sume dropped her head. “That’s…”
“Arn was raised by a Laidari man who found him as a young child in the Kag wilderness, near the Kiel border. Why he was not set upon by the entities in those woods, I can only guess. He took him home and raised him as a member of the Laidari tribe. The boy…didn’t fit in, as can be expected from someone bearing Dageian and Shi-uin blood.
“I learned about him while trying to track down descendants from Farg of Shiu-in’s bloodline. His mother was one of the women taken from Kazfian during the Dageian invasion of Shi-uin. She was taken as a bed-slave by a scribe who had recently come into some money. A gentle fate, as far as those people were concerned. Her master was kind enough. She bore a child a few years later, but wanting to spare him the fate of life as a mage-thrall—probably because he displayed brief flickers of connection to the agan even as an infant—she tried to have him sent away.
“They paid a man to take him to the Kag, where he assured them he knew someone who would raise him well. A lie—the child never made it to Lon Basden. Never even left Drusgaya. The man abandoned him somewhere in the wilderness.”
“How did he get all the way to Kiel?” Sume asked.
Jarche fingered the edge of her bowl. “A guess, as I told you. I believe a griffon picked him up and took him south, past the Hos Adens mountains and towards Kiel. I believe that it thought of him as prey; instead, it dropped him where he could be found.
“His feeble attempts to use his connection to the agan to repel the creature must have made him more attuned to them. Not long after we took him to live with us in Cael, he found an egg and refused to return. He was giving his father another chance, he said.”
“I know that story,” Sume said. “Sapphire found where he was staying in the woods—one of Yn Garr’s stone-cutters had mentioned that Yn Garr would occasionally split from them on the road from Kiel to the quarries. Sapphire said Yn Garr burned their house down to the ground.”
Jarche licked her lips. “I don’t know the truth of that.”
“If not mad, what word would you have me use for these people you’re with, Jarche? You are not like them at all. Can you not talk to them? Tell them to see the futility in what they’re doing?”
Jarche smiled at her. “Oh, little one,” she said. “I’ve been alive a very long time. All of us ka-eng are. I was banished a long time ago from my people for teaching a human what I knew of the agan in order to turn the tides of war away from our lands. This is all I know.
“I’ve been alive long enough to see the patterns of time on the horizon. What Dageis is doing, and continues to do, threatens to swallow us in a catastrophe worse than the fabric funnel over at Herey. It would distort the flow of agan itself. What would become of us then? I don’t know. Even I cannot live forever.
“The man you call Yn Garr desires nothing more than to reset the order of things. Even a small blow against Dageis can do this. What are lives lo
st, compared to salvation for us all? Enosh knew this, once. I am not sure why he turned away.”
“I don’t understand,” Sume said. “What you’re telling me is that you’ve been alive long enough that the little things no longer matter? Yet what I’ve seen from you in Cael, the way you bake bread…”
Jarche smiled. “My people think that way. We cannot change what will be, so why try at all?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know what you mean, little one.” Jarche’s ears flicked. As if conscious of them, she tucked them back against the pillow. Sume removed the bowl of soup from her.
“I’m telling you these things because I have the hope that you will understand,” Jarche said. “The Orsalian woman is too Dageian and will not. Enosh…I don’t know about Enosh. He grew up too fast.”
Sume watched the way she spoke and suddenly understood. “You love those children. You love Yn Garr. After all you just told me, about time and the agan and the greater good, it comes down to the most basic thing, doesn’t it? You love them and would do anything that would keep you in this life and in theirs.”
Jarche didn’t reply.
They heard the door creak open. Sapphire walked in, a sour look on her face. “Nothing. I can’t find anyone who will take us all the way to Dageis. Barun breathing down on our necks doesn’t help.” She looked up at Sume. “What are you doing there? I thought I made it clear that the prisoner requires rest.”
“I’m doing much better now, thank you,” Jarche replied.
“I wouldn’t call her a prisoner, either,” Sume said. “I think she could walk out of here anytime she wanted to.”
Jarche smirked.
Sapphire’s scowl only deepened. “That’s what Enosh calls her, so I’ll leave it at that.” She looked around the room. “I’m going to need to do something drastic that he’s not going to like.”
Jarche looked at Sume. “Oh dear. Will it make him want to throw a tantrum?”
“Probably,” Sapphire said. She pointed at the basin Sume had been using to help bring down Jarche’s fever. Sume bent over to hand it to her.
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