“It’s okay to mourn,” Kefier told him.
Enosh snorted. “She’s still alive. I won’t give her that satisfaction. She’d never let me hear the end of it.” He looked up. “How the hell are we supposed to do this, Kefier? You’ve seen how he fights. The man’s not a legend for nothing. Would be that we inherited a little of that size or strength, but unfortunately for us, we had a father who took away all our chances. If Daro didn’t have that bad leg, I would’ve taken him up on his offer.”
“I didn’t think I’d ever live to see the day your confidence was shattered.”
Enosh laughed. “I’m just being realistic. He’s cornered. You don’t face a cornered bear and expect to live to tell the tale.”
Kefier didn’t reply.
They continued climbing in silence. Eventually, his brother cleared his throat. “Between the two of us, I can physically hold against him,” Kefier said.
“It’s your turn to play hero now, is that what you’re saying?”
“I’m just being realistic, too.”
They had reached the edge of the narrow, stone bridge at the end of the spire. Enosh saw Kefier draw his sword. Hearing the voices, he did the same. He caught sight of Jarche with her back to them.
“Please, Ajy,” Jarche said. “Enough.”
Yn Garr was standing in front of her. His face was devoid of expression. He looked up as Enosh and Kefier arrived.
Jarche’s ears flickered, but she didn’t turn to them. “At least hand the child over to them,” she said. “She is just as much yours as all the rest, and she is still alive. It is over now, anyway. What you want—it can’t be done anymore. Did you not hear the beast take flight?”
“Sapphire Orsalian’s on her way to destroy it as we speak,” Enosh broke in.
“Listen to your grandson,” Jarche continued. “You still have a family. It is not too late. Let it go, my love.”
“And what will you do if I cannot?” Agartes asked.
She lifted her hands. “What I should have done a long time ago.”
“An empty threat,” Agartes said, almost sadly. He took one step, his face contorting, and plunged his sword into her belly.
He pulled away and crossed the bridge. Enosh rushed forward as Jarche fell to the ground, her robes soaked in blood. Scrambling, he tried to press against the wound, but knew as the blood gushed through his fingers that it was too late.
She smiled, reaching up to touch his face. Her cold fingers lingered on his cheek as she regarded him with that same, searching expression she used to when he was younger, like she was amazed he could exist at all. “I didn’t think he would actually do it,” she whispered. “He is too far gone. Stop him.”
“I will if you promise to hold on,” Enosh said, trying to break into his usual smile, that arrogant mask that had worked so well before. “We haven’t gone for a meal in Tilarthan for a long time. And you know I’m getting married, right? Yes, again, but you’re invited this time around. You can wear that dress we saw in the store in Kiel, from that Forrehsi tailor. You said you loved it. I never forgot—I’ll have it ordered as soon as we get back. Jarche…”
“Always the optimist,” Jarche said in a low voice. “You cannot will the wind, my boy.” The light in her eyes faded.
The numbness receded, replaced with a sort of desperation he had not felt in a long time. Enosh lowered her limp form, a cold rage building up inside of him. Kefier touched his shoulder. He closed his eyes for a moment before getting up to follow him across the bridge.
They encountered the Emperor’s body in the landing. The Dageian crown was on his chest, a gleaming silver island with five blue gemstones on a sea of blood. He looked like he had been dead for a while—there were bloody footprints on the floor.
Kefier looked across the body and saw Rosha in the corner. Agartes’ hand was on her back.
“I don’t have to explain anything to you,” Agartes said.
“You don’t,” Kefier agreed. “We wouldn’t want to hear it, and nothing you say will change this.”
Agartes lifted his hand, placing it on Rosha’s head. “I didn’t want to go quietly into the night.”
Kefier rushed towards him. Agartes flung his hand out, hitting Kefier with a blast of agan so strong it threw him against the wall. He smashed his head against the window, breaking the glass.
Groaning, Kefier managed to drag himself up just as Agartes pulled Rosha to him. Her eyes flashed.
From the other end of the room, Enosh screamed.
Kefier flung himself towards Agartes. “Don’t touch her!” Enosh cried. He stopped.
Rosha’s eyes flashed again. Her head turned towards Agartes. “Father?” Her voice sounded strange, ethereal.
“Kefier, don’t touch her,” Enosh repeated, his voice a low hiss.
Agartes cradled Rosha’s face in his hands. “Vayna,” he said. “Oh, my dear. I’ve brought justice to these treacherous Dageians.”
“Father,” Vayna’s voice said. “You must stop.”
“Stop? But these people who caused your deaths…”
“They’re all gone, Father. Water under the bridge. Even their grandchildren, if they are still alive, will pass, soon. We all do.”
“How can you say that? After all I’ve done? You do not know what I’ve been through, all I have suffered, to get this far.”
“Father,” Vayna murmured. “It was Gorrhen who betrayed us.”
A deafening silence followed. Kefier could hear his heart pounding against his ears.
“What do you mean?” Agartes’ voice had become a faint whisper.
“Gorrhen thought you had gone too far and feared for our family. He set up a meeting with the Dageians in our home, to trade you in exchange for our lives. I heard and told Mother. She confronted them. They decided to kill us all, instead.”
Kefier felt his skin crawl. The sensation lasted a moment. Rosha suddenly pulled back. She looked at Kefier. “Papa?” she asked, her voice returning to its normal pitch. “What happened? Papa—”
“No!” Agartes cried. “Call her back! Vayna!”
Kefier reached across the room and grabbed Rosha’s arm. “Go to your father,” he breathed. He didn’t wait for her to argue and threw her towards Enosh. He stepped in front of Agartes, blocking the doorway with his body.
“Kefier,” he heard Enosh say behind him.
“More than intentions, all right?” Kefier said, turning to him for a moment.
Enosh swallowed and forced himself to smirk. “Give him hell.” Between Rosha’s protests, he heard him pick her up and begin to run.
Agartes’ sword struck him across the chest. A streak of blood seeped through his ripped shirt. He tightened his grip around his sword and met the next blow.
A parry here, a cut there. Agartes blocked his every move, and for a man his age seemed unfazed by the fury and strength that Kefier threw into his attacks. Kefier found himself bleeding from several cuts before he realized it.
Recognizing that the cramped landing was making it difficult for him to maneuver, Kefier retreated to the bridge. Enosh and Rosha were no longer in sight. He rushed again. “You’re too slow,” he taunted, hoping it would break the man’s composure. “What the hell’s stopping you, old man?”
Agartes pushed him away. “You’re assuming that I want to kill you.” His voice sounded weary. Kefier caught the look in his eyes and realized that he had it wrong all along. They had been tiptoeing in fear of a legendary figure, gone rogue, but what stood in front of him was nothing more than a tired, old man begging for death.
He threw himself forward, using his entire body as a battering ram. His shoulder smashed into Agartes’ chest. They fell off the bridge, into the sea.
Interlude
Cold wind mixes with the creature’s hot breath as it struggles to snatch her off its back. Sapphire pelts fireballs over it, which eventually propels it forward in the hopes, perhaps, that the speed will knock her loose.
It doesn’t
know her. Doesn’t understand. It’s trying to, sniffling at the crack in her sealed mind like a dog locked inside a room, but she will not allow it. She will not let it break her.
There is too much at stake, and not enough time.
She remembers a moment in her life, before her father came to take them away, where she is standing in the little garden with her sister and mother. They are drawing figures on the stone using leftover charcoal from the stove. Their mother’s face is streaked with soot. Moon presses her dirty hands over her own face, giggling at the effect. In the corner, Sapphire frowns.
“You take life so seriously, my dear,” her mother says. She reaches forward to draw a single stripe on Sapphire’s cheek. Angrily, she rubs at it.
“There are more important things I could be doing,” Sapphire says.
Moon’s laughter sounds like bells ringing. “Such as?”
Sapphire, clinging to the creature’s back, does not remember the answer, or even if she answered at all. They plunge into a burst of cloud, and she draws in the image of the surrounding mountains, grey and green, their peaks covered in snow and a thin shroud of orange sunlight. Despite everything, the majesty of it all takes her breath away. It is not, she thinks, a bad tomb, as far as tombs go.
She pulls herself up, placing her hand on Rysaran’s sword, and readies herself. She hears the creature stir; in gathering her senses for the spell, her barriers break.
Do not do this, it pleads, before sending a barrage of emotions through her. On another, it would have worked, would’ve been enough to momentarily stun them in confusion. But Sapphire knows her own feelings too well to be distracted. The spell rushes from her body and down her fingers and into the sword. The creature begs, one last time, and then it is over.
He watches the waves carry the last red speck of Jarche’s blood, mirroring what he feels inside.
Curiously enough, regret does not come into play. For a man who has spent much of his life planning every move with a precision that could build an empire, the unbuckling seems to come as a relief. Agartes could still say he won the game, though the prize is not the one he craves for. He does not know the identity of the latest Dageian Emperor—Cerknars came a dime a dozen. The one in the tower was not even related to the one who had ordered Olfren to march against Hafod.
He thinks about the children. Many of the memories, like the blood, have gone with the tide, but he recalls the night of Gorrhen’s seventeenth birthday, when he sat down with him on the balcony to share their first bottle of wine. Man to man, he said, “There is something about the world you should know before you head on out there, before others fill your head with nonsense that will do you more harm than good. We do what we can, plan our lives out like we know what to expect and what is expected of us, but nothing will carry you further than your own heart.”
He remembers jabbing Gorrhen’s strong chest with his thumb, his face breaking out into a smile. If anyone could carve a path through the world and change it just because he wanted to, it was Gorrhen. “Remember,” he said, not realizing the floodgates he would open by raising his children, his son, the way he did. “The world as you see it was not made brick by brick, every piece falling where it must. What you see is the overlap, what is left when all mistakes have been made—castles built from rubble, broken things passing for whole. A battle lost can be fought again, if you know to pick up the weapons of the fallen and arm the ones who stand. Not many realize this. Most think the fates decide, and like fools let fate dictate the rest of their lives. Follow your heart. It will see you through the darkness and guide you through hellfire.”
Now, he closes his eyes and wonders if he would change anything, knowing then what he knows now. That sour note of sorrow is enough to twist the song. Go back in time, Ajy. Now you are standing in your father’s farm the night you left. Would you have thrown your anger away, returned to him, and apologized? Lived a life unfettered by burdens and died in sleep like he did, surrounded by love?
He clenches his fists. It is not really the sort of question a man like him could answer, not simply. And so it goes. And so…
Chapter Seventeen
Dark shapes seemed to swirl around the grey-blue of the water. Kefier felt the salt begin to sting his wounds. Kicking, he forced himself to swim up. It did not take long. He emerged, spitting out seawater, and made his way to the shore.
Agartes was already sitting on the sand under the bridge by the time he arrived. Kefier saw his sword on the sand and quickly picked it up. Agartes must have heard him, but the man did not turn, even when Kefier began to walk up to him.
“Things were not supposed to turn out this way,” Agartes murmured. His beard was soaked and dripping. “You work so hard, the world yielding like putty in your hands, only to have it all taken away in a single blink of an eye…”
Kefier stopped in his tracks, holding the blade loosely in his fingers. Agartes craned his head towards him. “The wave,” he whispered. “You’re supposed to let it wash over you. It’s too hard to fight it, but I had to try.”
Kefier heard footsteps behind him. He saw Enosh standing a few paces away. Rosha was walking towards them. He held his arm out, but Rosha shook her head. She stopped in front of Agartes.
He looked up at her.
She placed her hand on his arm and closed her eyes. Kefier heard Enosh give out a sound of protest and felt the skin-crawling sensation once more. When Rosha opened her eyes, they were glowing blue.
“She called me herself,” Vayna’s voice said. “The link will not last long.” She reached down, wrapping her arms around Agartes. After a moment of stunned silence, his own arms came up around her. He buried his face in her shoulder.
“It will be all right, Father,” Vayna said. “They have all moved on, and Myar wishes to stay. But I will wait for you.”
She kissed his forehead before returning to Kefier. Enosh stepped forward, his own sword drawn. Agartes looked at the both of them, his eyes flickering. “For what it’s worth,” he murmured. “I didn’t expect less from either of you.”
Kefier felt Rosha’s hand on his. She tugged him down to her. The blue light in her eyes was gone, and she was crying. He pulled her towards him as Enosh lifted his sword and brought it down over Agartes’ neck.
In the distance, they heard a splash. A dark shape receded into the water.
“Looked like a turtle,” Enosh murmured, wiping blood off his jaw.
“Yeah,” Kefier breathed. “Right.” He saw Sume appear from the gardens. She slowed down when she saw them.
“The Dageian army’s here,” Enosh said. “I’m sure Izo As’ondaro will put in a good word for us, but just in case, maybe you should all flee before they decide to hang us for the fun of it.”
“And you?”
He didn’t reply and walked over to meet Sume.
Sume met Enosh’s eyes, feeling her heart constrict in her throat as he smiled back at her. “I hope Arn wasn’t too much trouble for you, my lady,” he said.
“We don’t have to worry about him anymore,” Sume replied. She glanced at the body on the sand. “It’s finally over, isn’t it?”
“In part. We know these things do not end cleanly. Nothing ever does.” He scratched his head. “I have to stay here, speak with Ceres and whoever’s in command about all of this. Run through more paperwork than I know what to do with. The last thing I want to do is be branded as a criminal in Dageis. Plus, I have a wedding to attend.” He turned to her. “You do not have to be there.”
“My lord?”
“I can just as easily hire someone else to stand in for you. Someone prettier and younger, as you once told me.” He gestured towards Kefier. “Go home. All of you. I will take care of everything. Rosha will not want for anything, ever.”
“What are you saying, Enosh?”
“I’m saying,” Enosh said casually, “is that I love you, Sume, but I’m really not a one-woman kind of man. When I get back into the thick of things in Lon Basden, I don’t
know if I’ll be able to help it. Late night meetings, pretty secretaries, nobles’ wives ripe for the picking. He, on the other hand—” He glanced towards Kefier. “I have to warn you, he’ll be impossible to get rid of if you encourage him. He’ll be like a gods-be-damned leech and his personal hygiene is questionable at best. Maybe just take it slow. Play with his heart a little. If I’m to be cuckolded, then by all the gods don’t make it look too easy, for my reputation’s sake.”
They heard a rumble. For a moment, the sky turned black.
“I also have a funeral to plan,” Enosh murmured, gazing out at the horizon. “Complete with ten memorials.” He pressed the corners of his eyes, looked at his fingers, and smirked. “I’ll see you at home, my lady.”
He touched her arm, but didn’t wait for her reply. He walked away.
She turned to Kefier and Rosha, who were both looking at her, having heard every word. After a moment, Kefier held out his hand. Without hesitation, she took it.
Epilogue
A bright, summer morning marked the wedding of Count Enosh Meirosh-sa-Tar’elian to Sume alon gar Kaggawa. Although they were both foreigners, almost four years of servitude to the Dageian Empire paved the way for a citizenship, which gave them the right to hold lands in Dageis, conduct business, and send their daughter to the prestigious university of Eheldeth in the Dageian Plateau. Two letters of recommendations by Adherent Sapphire Orsalian, penned and mailed before her heroic sacrifice at the Battle for Drusgaya, sealed the deal.
It was a small wedding, with only a handful of witnesses to mark the occasion. Count Tar’elian and his beloved signed the papers, accepted blessings from a priest of Endros—the deity of good trade and economy, as Dageian a deity as one could ever be—and came together for a dramatic kiss. He poured wine for all his guests, including his daughter, who stood in the corner with a frown on her face.
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