Bladesorrow (The Agarsfar Saga Book 1)

by D. T. Kane

  Taking a deep breath, he commanded himself to think with his head. Was it really the Temple’s fearmongering and revisionist history that bothered him? He objected to that on a casual level, of course. Like one might be upset upon hearing of a casual acquaintance who’d been robbed. Not right, but hardly distraught.

  No. What really troubled him was something more basic. More personal. The thought of Jenzara leaving Ral Mok. He fully intended to stay here until his parents returned. And return they would—Elsewhere take Mapleaxe and his doubts. But he’d always just assumed she would remain here with him. Maybe even succeed her father. This place was lonely enough even with her here.

  He grasped at the necklace he always wore tucked beneath his shirt. Ten rings linked by a length of fine gold chain. It’d been his father’s—one of the few things Raldon had ever mentioned concerning either of Ferrin’s parents. Holding it tight often helped him work through complicated problems. It was probably just his imagination, but the cool metal seemed to send a calming energy reverberating through his mind when he squeezed it.

  Yet, tonight it offered no clarity. The sense of loss he felt at the mere prospect of Jenzara leaving clung to him, as did the lingering sensation of the Grand Father’s stare, the memory like a sweaty shirt clinging to flesh on an oppressive day. He picked at the back of his tunic in spite of himself and headed towards his room, trying to vanquish both Valdin and Jenzara from his thoughts.

  10

  Jenzara

  Oh Agar! My beloved Agar! Curse upon the Aldur, for abandoning us so. And curse this shadow that has brought me such woe!

  -From Tragnè’s Oral Histories

  SHE’D ALWAYS HAD A knack for dreaming.

  Jenzara knew that was an odd way of thinking. But it was true. She might not be any good at channeling, or books, or blades, or anything else useful. When it came to dreams, though, she was certain none were better. Well, perhaps not none, but very few at least. Whatever was on her mind before she lay down to sleep at night, she was virtually guaranteed to dream of it once slumber took its hold of her. This wasn’t always a blessing. More times than she could count, she’d gone to bed angered or frightened or worried over something, and the dreams that had come were of the most awful, vivid kind.

  But more often than not, they were filled with the pleasant, drowsy musings one has while drifting to sleep.

  The experience was nearly always the same. Somehow simultaneously knowing she was dreaming, and yet not. Enjoyment in the blissful unawareness of the dream’s fiction, yet also reveling in the fantasy.

  She’d mentioned it to father once. Her affinity for dreaming. Verbally, he’d dismissed it as a fancy. “A handful of unconnected, perplexing events can cause us to invent patterns where none exist,” he’d said. But there’d been something in his eyes that had left her convinced there was something special about her dreams.

  After the day she’d had, she needed some sort of comfort. First that embarrassment with Jeremyck, then the outright shame of her display before the visiting Parents. Working in the kitchens after that, and finally heading off to what she’d thought would be a few moments of respite at the chapel with Ferrin, only to find him as combative and unagreeable as she’d ever seen him. He was never easy to get along with, but usually she at least enjoyed his company. He couldn’t have picked a worse night to act like a rock-headed ox.

  Improbably, the best part of her day may have been the aftermath of Ferrin’s insulting dash from the chapel, leaving her alone with the Grand Father. She’d been mortified. Just hours before, she would have sworn nothing could have ever been worse than the humiliation of failing in front of the Grand Father and some of his closest advisors. But those moments following Ferrin’s ungracious exit had been awful. She’d found herself wondering how to explain his actions and was ashamed to admit that she was pretty certain she wouldn’t have stood up for Ferrin at all had the Grand Father asked.

  But he hadn’t asked. He’d watched Ferrin go for a moment, then turned back to the mosaics he’d been studying. There had been a calm in him, like one who knew what he wanted would all come in good time. She’d almost thought he’d forgotten her presence, but right before she was about to tiptoe out, he’d invited her to sit with him, never turning from the tiled artworks.

  She’d hesitated, but couldn’t have refused. The way he’d looked at her that morning had been unsettling. Made her skin writhe. But he’d been nothing but respectful in the chapel. They’d sat for some time in silence. She’d felt slightly silly, the torches all extinguished, barely able to see. The Grand Father had seemed content, though, as if her mere presence had been some sort of comfort.

  Then the lights had come. It had taken her several moments to realize the gooseflesh on her arms had been caused not by the night air, but the Grand Father’s channeling from the freshly risen stars. The lights had danced across the walls of the chapel, as if the sky had come to earth to play amongst the mortals. Stardust mingled with the mists of water vapor from the elemental shrine, the moon blazed like a chandelier. The infinity of space had surrounded them until it seemed as if they must have gone far away. To a better place.

  It had ended as abruptly as it began. The Grand Father had risen, a smile on his lips. Not the posturing grins he’d given to father earlier. But genuine satisfaction. Almost joy.

  “Thank you,” he’d said, the only words either of them had uttered the whole time they’d sat together. He’d then wished her a good night and dissolved into the shadows of the suddenly all-too-ordinary night, leaving her in a state of awed confusion.

  The Grand Father had been nothing like she’d thought he would be when she and father had met him that morning. She would never say it aloud, but he’d seemed pompous and inauthentic. And somehow terrifying too. She shuddered in remembrance of the look on father’s face as they’d departed the meeting.

  Yet, he’d also been a complete surprise in the chapel, though in entirely different ways. There had been a love in those stars. And sadness. Terrible loss and woe, somehow transformed into a thing of beauty. It brought a tear to her eye.

  Only later had it occurred to her that she’d missed an opportunity to ask him of her mother. The thought had followed her all the way to bed and slumber. And sure enough, just as always, dreams of her had come. Real ones too, Jenzara was sure. Memories her mind dredged from the depths of her subconscious, from before she was old enough to remember, at least while awake.

  The day had been bright, sun shining down on the large mall of the Symposium in Tragnè City. A sky of azure blue had been overhead, with none of the dreary shades of red that stained the skies of today. The Mall was a vast expanse of green grass, crisscrossed by walking paths. There was the occasional vendor stand, selling refreshing drinks or the latest fashions. The enticing cries of merchants carried on the day’s gentle breeze.

  But the Mall was mostly just open space for the public to gather and talk, and watch the lessons Keepers bestowed on their students, the novices and junior and senior docents. The space was exposed to the sky and enclosed by massive stone columns on all sides. Within the columns were the Keepers’ rooms and private meeting places. And their vaults, where they kept many of the land’s strange and wondrous treasures. The western end opened onto the Quadrangle, Tragnè City’s main square, with the Temple directly across from the Symposium and the Senate to the south.

  Her mother had been clad in a loose-fitting tunic of pale blue, a full-length version of Agar’s golden lion embroidered down its left side. Her chestnut hair had been tied back in a braid, leaving her violet eyes free to study the fencing students before her. A short sword was at her hip. The leather belt from which it hung was unadorned, emphasizing the splendor of the weapon itself. Elemental steel. A feat only achieved at the Symposium forges, through the combined efforts of a master smith and one or more elemental adepts. As the metal caught the sunlight it glowed with all the elemental colors at once.

  “Stop,” her mother said to
a pair of dueling pupils, both young women. Each was nearly grown, perhaps a year or two younger than Jenzara herself was now. Her mother moved in to adjust one of their stances.

  “You’re beyond the basics now,” she said to the student, a thin girl with straight blonde hair the color of afternoon sunshine. She peered at Jenzara’s mother through brilliant blue eyes and a narrow face.

  “I’ve drilled into you for years that you’re always to begin with River. It’s balanced. Safe, but not conservative. Allowing equal opportunity for defense and to take advantage of opponents’ errors. But you’ll never win a fight with it.”

  She drew her blade.

  “The River stance owes its name to the fact that you can flow seamlessly to all the stances from it and back. For instance,” she surged into an arcing strike that sliced the air directly before the student’s face. The girl jumped back, startled fright flashing in her eyes. Jenzara’s mother settled into a crouch with the sword across her body. A guard position.

  “Downpour Smolders Upon Burning Ashes,” Jenzara murmured in her head. She’d often whisper the name of each stance to herself as her mother performed it. She loved watching her flow through the forms.

  “River stance to Blaze stance, resolving to Stone stance,” mother explained. “Balance. Attack. Defend. And remain ever alert. On the battlefield vigilance is all that stands between you and a blade between the eyes.”

  The girl nodded, but her mother was already in motion again. Like a dancer, her guarding blade turned into an attacking sweep that seemed destined to take the girl’s legs off at the knees. But at the last moment her blade gleamed emerald and Jenzara felt the prickle of mother’s earth channel. Rather than maiming the girl, the blade’s suddenly blunt edge merely tripped her. She fell to the trodden ground of the sparring ring.

  “Ashes Blow on the Wind,” Jenzara whispered.

  “Stone stance to Smoke stance. And—” her mother squared herself to the fallen student and held her sword to her throat. “Whispered Sorrows. Sun stance. If you see your opponent assume it, you’re too late. And if you assume it, you’d better be certain you can finish the kill. Or—” her mother’s sparkling eyes danced over two men who approached down one of the mall’s many footpaths, “—or certain that your opponent will be fooled into thinking you’ve given up.”

  Her mother looked down to the fallen girl and sheathed her blade. Then she offered the student an outstretched hand. The girl frowned at it for a moment, then sighed and accepted her offering, allowing herself to be hauled up.

  “I do this not to embarrass, but because I care, docent. Better you fall here a hundred times where you can still walk away with your life, than once in the service of our great land. A death in the service of Agarsfar is an honor. But given the choice,” her mother shrugged, lips a hard line, “I’ll take life over honor by death. There are many other ways to achieve honor. And I want every single one of you to have the skill necessary to be able to make the same choice.”

  A shudder had gone through Jenzara at that, hearing her mother speak of life and death. She had stared beyond the girl to the rest of the students, who’d all gathered around to watch the lesson. Steely seriousness filled her mother’s gaze. Then her face broke into a smile that had swelled Jenzara’s chest with joy.

  “That will be all for today. Same time tomorrow. We’ll work on your Samruna, blending of blade and channeling.”

  The students bowed to her mother, then dispersed. Several students passed the pair of men approaching her mother. They paused to bow their heads and raise their practice swords before them in salute.

  “Grand Master Keeper; Light Master,” they all murmured, reverence in their tones. One of the men was father. Jenzara smiled at the youth his face still held. There were still lines at the edges of his eyes, as if he’d born more responsibility than any man his age ought to have endured. But the rest of his face was smooth, and his tawny hair bore not a single strand of gray.

  The delight father’s appearance brought her had been short lived, though. Jenzara’s face had gone gaunt as a cracked tombstone when she’d realized who accompanied him.

  “Raldon.” Her mother smiled and embraced father.

  “Suzahne,” father replied. A chill rippled through Jenzara at the sound of her mother’s name.

  Then her mother turned to the other man.

  “Grand Master Keeper Bladesorrow,” she said to him, no real formality to her tone despite using the man’s title. Her smile remained and Bladesorrow returned it, blue eyes sparkling in the sunlight. At his side hung a blade made of the same glowing steel as her mother’s, its hilt fashioned into the roaring likeness of a lion’s head, enameled in gold and sapphire. He moved as if he’d been born with a sword at his hip.

  The mere thought of that weapon made Jenzara ill.

  Then her mother had looked down to the man’s arms and Jenzara’s horror had grown. He held a child. She was perhaps two years old with dark hair and amethyst eyes that matched her mother’s.

  “And how is my little Keeper in training?” Her mother had cooed. “My little Jenzara.”

  The child—Jenzara’s infant self—had giggled and reached out to her mother. Under any other circumstance, the dream would have filled Jenzara with gladness. But at the child’s glee, the man holding her had let out a deep laugh of his own, full of the joy one can only experience when witnessing the unrestrained gaiety of a young child.

  The man’s laugh had pounded her ears, snapping her eyes open like the untuned string of a dulcimer. She’d sat bolt upright in her bed, panting, bed sheets damp and tangled about her.

  Taul Bladesorrow. The Betrayer. Had held her. Laughed with her mother like they were old friends. And held her. Judging by how old she’d been in the dream, it couldn’t have been more than a few weeks later that the man had led the expedition to Riverdale, promising peace with the North, only to betray all of Agarsfar instead and killing those who’d accompanied him.

  Including her mother. The woman he’d laughed with on that bright, sunny day on the green grass of the Symposium, before the very students her mother had dedicated her life to training.

  Jenzara still sat there in bed, barely able to breathe, chest rising and falling much too quickly. Then, as if struck by lightning, she leapt upright, nearly tripping over her drenched sheets, and began pacing the narrow length of her room. Her gasping breaths were like the pleading cries of a landed fish in her ears. She mumbled to herself, unable to process what she’d seen. It just wasn’t fair. She’d had a good life. A normal life. A happy life.

  And he’d taken it from her.

  She shoved open her door with such force that it bent at the hinges, crashing against the wall to which it was attached. The commotion hardly registered in her mind. She stalked down the hall, fury radiating from her more hotly than the torches that lit the hallway. Her path took her straight into the Great Hall. Several braziers, burning low at this late hour, supplied the only light, a scent of charcoal hanging in the air. Shadows played over row upon row of tables, some already set for the welcoming feast that was to be held for the Parents on the morrow. They’d wished to pitch their tents out on the green, rather than sleep in the guest quarters off the Hall, so they’d have more room for their thrice daily ritual prayers.

  But even the Parents were of little interest to her at the moment. One of the late-night maids let out a yelp of surprise at her appearance. Jenzara ignored her, stomping toward the passageway behind the raised dais at the head of the Hall. One turn. Then another. And she stood before a solitary door. She turned the handle, ready to storm in like a winters’ eve gale. But even through her rage, she’d presence of mind to take a shallow breath and knock.

  “Enter,” responded a voice from within. Without further preamble, she threw open the door and stalked in.

  She’d always liked father’s study. It was longer than it was wide, walls lined with shelves crammed with tomes and writings on every imaginable topic. There was a l
arge window at the far end overlooking the courtyard and main gate. Before the window was a sitting area where, as a child, she’d spent much time, doing classwork or just basking in the sun’s warmth. In her current state, the memory did nothing but mock her.

  Father sat at his desk, a pair of spectacles balanced on his nose. Several tomes of varying sizes lay sprawled on the massive piece of carved maple from the Laughing Woods that was as much art as it was functional furniture. Behind it, father displayed a blade that had been gifted to him by Grand Master Keeper Rikar Bladesong himself. It was the one thing about the room she’d never liked.

  He looked tired, as if he’d been worrying over something. That was atypical, and nearly gave Jenzara pause despite her anger. But the titles of several books on his desk wiped away any mitigation father’s expression might have otherwise warranted. The one nearest him was innocuous enough, Traveling Using the Elements, though she’d no idea why he was wasting time with it. No one had been able to use channeling for travel since the Age of Heroes. It was said that, at one time, a group of elementalists attuned to all five elements could come together and weave portals that allowed instantaneous travel from one place to another. But that secret, if it had ever been possible, was long lost. And since it allegedly had required use of all five elements, none even spoke of it now.

  She thought nothing more of that title. Two other books sitting near father’s elbow were what drove her ire. The Lessons and Mysteries of the Fifth Element. What was he doing reading such volumes?

  “Jenzara,” father said, looking over his glasses. His lips twitched in an expression that was about as close as he ever came to a full smile. His eyes were always more expressive than the rest of his features, and they were full of warm greeting that would ordinarily have caused her to immediately feel at ease.