by Kim Wedlock
Copyright © 2019 by Kim Wedlock
All rights reserved.
This book, its cover image or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.
First Printing: 2019 Amazon Publishing
Bristol, UK
www.KimWedlock.com
@KimWedlock
The Devoted
Book Two
The Sah'niir
Kim Wedlock
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Thank you. Truly.
Prologue
The air shuddered beneath the clamour of crashing porcelain.
Priceless amphora toppled from ornate pedestals to shatter across the decaying ground, sending fragments of antiquity scattering over marble, vanishing amongst the creeping greenery.
Paintings the size of a man dropped heavily from the walls; gilded filigree frames bent and dulled as they struck the rubble, while sharp edges tore canvas and severed haughty silver faces.
A statue of onyx; carved with such impossible perfection, the seductive, dancing figure could have completed her pirouette at any moment, but dropped lifelessly instead at the jerk of the rug beneath its dais, helpless to its obliteration.
Another substantial portrait plummeted at the splintering impact of a body thrown into the wall, but the surrounding destruction continued unobserved, the cacophony overshadowed by grunts, bellows and roughly cut curses. The frame landed just a hand's breadth away.
With a bitter and oblivious wince, Rathen snatched together his bearings and moved to shove himself free of his entrapment, only to be pinned right back into the crumbling wall before he could even shift his weight. Anthis set upon him in a flash.
He was undeterred by Rathen's hands as they pushed, slapped and scrunched his face, nor his knuckles as they pummelled his jaw and ribs. His once-astute green eyes were clouded by a desperate frenzy, fuelled by something Rathen could easily guess at but didn't dare try to understand.
His fist cracked into Anthis's cheekbone, jerking his head to the side. But Anthis didn't falter. He roared, his fevered assault undying while the sleek, sharp, unadorned dagger cut through the air. It moved as though sentient, dragging his hand along with it in its hunger for blood. Somehow, the steel failed to find him.
Rathen fought to shove him away, but his every effort only pushed him deeper into the plaster.
The blade neared for another attempt. Rathen grasped his forearm. They grappled, and he struck with his knee. He hit. But it wasn't his target, for again Anthis didn't react. He tore his arm free.
Rathen's palm slammed immediately into his forehead and his foot hooked around behind his heel. The daze lasted for half a second, but it was enough. He jerked his foot and Anthis collapsed, clawing for Rathen on his way down.
He seized the opportunity to escape.
Within a moment he was back under rabid pursuit, the historian trampling parchments, books, relics and blankets in his hysteria. Neither noticed another of the walls begin to melt and slump.
Several scrolls lay open side by side across the fractured ground, their every face graced by tidy, slender lettering accentuated with long and flourishing streaks, yet shaped with angles just jagged enough to betray the harshness of their pronunciation. A handful of illustrations were nestled among them to enlighten the subjects, wonderfully elegant images of unrecognisable objects and places, beautiful in their own right. But whatever their significance, their intention was lost.
Rathen stared at the cryptic markings through the jittery firelight, the dead sun's shine still cold and weak in the midnight sky. His eyes tumbled from one parchment to the next, picking out what few shapes and runes he could recognise in an attempt to draw as much meaning from the jumble as he could. His tired vision strained, but he continued scanning the scripts, over and over and over again. He closed his mind against the hopelessness that twirled in circles through his gut.
Giggling rose nearby. It was a wonderfully alluring sound. But he ignored it. He also ignored the deeper and just as vacant chuckle that followed.
He read for the thirty seventh time. The thirty eighth. Upon the forty first, he stalled, his warily thoughtful frown deepening. He then took up two of the scrolls, rose to his feet, and approached the makeshift wall of fallen portraits, panels and side-turned tables that divided the decrepit room, from behind which the giggles continued to roll. He rounded it, and ignored the three naked, faceless women surrounding the shirtless young man.
"Anthis." He crouched beside him, paying no attention to the illusion that turned her fascinations onto him, nor the void-black holes of nothingness that severed her body and half of her head. He pointed to one particular line on the parchment, "what does this say, right here?"
Anthis snickered stupidly as one of the women ran her silver fingertips lightly along his collarbone.
Rathen shoved the parchment into his face. "Anthis."
He gave it a cursory glance before returning his full attention to the women. "'Hang'."
Rathen pushed the second scroll in front of his nose. "And this?"
He looked again, but his attention slipped before it landed, stolen by another of the horrific yet benign figures as she began kissing the scar tissue over his abdomen, despite having no lips with which to kiss.
Rathen slapped his head. Anthis looked back with the expected absence. "'Grain'."
"You're sure?"
"Mmm..." Again, his attention fluttered away.
Rathen rose, his eyes returning to their scouring of the scrolls, and retreated to his side of the slowly flooding room.
Rathen thundered around the divide. "Where is it?"
Anthis scowled back at him. "Where's what?"
"My blanket. Where is it?"
"Why would I know?"
Rathen's poisonous expression darkened. He stormed across the iced floor and violently shoved him aside, away from his crude bed of broken panels and torn tapestries, and snatched the third blanket that had been hidden hastily behind an upturned chair.
"No, that's mine!" Anthis lunged forwards, but Rathen easily shoved him back.
"Four blankets," he snapped, holding it out of his reach, "two bodies. It isn't hard."
"You don't need it!"
"I'll freeze!"
"Use your damned magic!" He lunged for a second time, and again Rathen pushed him away. Anthis's footing slipped. He steadied a heartbeat later and shot Rathen a murderous look, the undying madness that had been overridden by arcane pleasures elbowing its way back to the forefront. "Cocky bastard. Half-elf. Half-breed! You freak!"
"You'll live." Rathen turned away.
Anthis spat and dove forwards.
Evading was impossible.
They dragged one another down, punching, clawing, cursing and kicking. The glistening ice that was scarred first by the black marble floor that lay half-hidden beneath was soon spattered with flecks of crimson.
Anthis wept. He hugged his knees, shrinking deeper into the concealed nook among the debris of the dividing wall, sobbing silently in terror. He could hear the crashing, the shattering, the ripping, and soon the crackle of fire, close one moment, distant the next; right upon him and then from the furthest edge of the derelict hall.
Sepulchral cries rent the air, streaked for a moment with desperation, then nothing more than savagery.
Fierce claws skittered over marble with impossible speed, approaching him, passing him, and veering off to the furthest side before another scream pierced his ears and another piece of history shattered into dust.
Anthis did his best to choke back his cries. He was hidden, but he
would be found.
Another shriek, and, somehow, Anthis summoned the courage to move. But the blanket of oppressive, primordial dread reclaimed him at once, and he crumbled beneath the desire it evoked to freeze as the monstrous claws returned. He drew himself in further, deeper into his hiding place, and squeezed his eyes shut tight against the image of the abhorrent visage. A desperate prayer fell silently from his lips, to any god that would listen, as he rocked himself against the ferocious and plaintive, booming, inhuman cries.
Neither paid heed to the overgrown tree roots that snaked their way in through a widening crack in the wall.
Chapter 1
At first glance, the city of Rega appeared quite untroubled - perhaps even at ease. People nodded and smiled politely at one another as they passed in the narrow streets, and greeted eagerly familiar faces with whom they shuffled beneath projecting roofs to exchange gossip out of the rain. Others toughed out the drizzle to browse the goods on the cramped market stalls, haggling wherever possible, though the selections of meats, vegetables and cautiously covered spices weren't as varied as they could have been, while everyone in between kept to themselves, heads bowed beneath weather cloaks as they made their way to their destinations without troubling anyone, lost in their own thoughts.
It was only after lingering in the marketplace for half an hour, with eyes and ears wide open, that one eventually noticed the shadow of tension blanketing the city. A shadow that, once revealed, was quite impossible to ignore. It tainted everything; it followed everyone around like a spectre, lingering behind smiles and pleasant greetings. People cast looks that lasted a fraction of a second too long, shoulders stiffened as they neared strangers, conspicuously brief sideways glances accompanied whispered gossip, the merchants' hawking had less heart.
It crept into Petra's muscles. She forced herself to release the breath she'd been unconsciously holding and tugged her hood down a little lower over her face, her blood red hair tucked back out of sight. She peered as coolly as she could at the array of flowers that lined the front of the shop, local blooms, unlike food and game, unaffected by the demands of war, and tried to keep her hands from seeking the hilt of the single dagger concealed within the back of her cinch. So unarmed, she felt positively naked, and painfully vulnerable. But Garon had insisted.
She couldn't help another impatient glance across the square towards the bootblack's bench. It was obscured by a twist in the road, but she could see the polish-stained boy kneeling at its foot well enough. He didn't rise or turn despite the weight of her eyes on him.
Tightening again, she dragged her gaze back to the gerberas. She glanced over six more times before the boy finally stood and accepted with far too much animation a large, shiny coin for his trouble, and his customer at last stepped down and into sight. She abandoned the shop and the hopeful stares of its merchant immediately.
"Well?" She demanded once she'd wended through the isolated crowds, but Garon's rigid expression offered little promise. Her shoulders sagged, and she fell into step beside him as he headed back across the market, adjusting the bag of recently procured food on his aching shoulder. She wondered why she'd expected anything more from his encounter than polished boots.
They remained silent until they neared the city gates, where the only ears in such dreary weather belonged to soggy guards and urgent citizens who sought to complete their business and return as quickly as possible to the comfort of their homes.
"People are uneasy," Garon finally murmured when the road ahead was clear of all but two crestfallen sentries. "But it's not just Doana or mages. The tribes are moving closer. Local hunters have tripped some of their traps in the woods, and two have died."
Petra nodded stiffly. "So I overheard. But what can be done? Their issues aren't our business. At best, the soldiers can patrol the borders, but if they want to move closer, any effort we make to push them back will just drag us in."
"I'm inclined to agree, but it can't go on." He cast her an askance look, swift and severe. "Don't tell Eyila."
"She already knows what's going on out there."
"But she doesn't need to hear of this."
"If she wants to get involved, let her. The right is hers."
"And you would charge in after her. Your presence alone would get all of Turunda involved."
"Is that concern?" She asked flatly.
"For everyone else."
She rolled her eyes and folded her arms, growling 'of course it is' beneath her breath. "Fine," she spoke up. "I won't say anything. But don't think she's stupid."
"I don't think she's stupid. I think she's reckless. You both are. And there are far bigger things at stake at the moment than tribal conflicts."
They left the city gates, making a show of pulling their cloaks tighter about themselves against the rain while watched far too closely by the guards, and followed the rough, wet roads at a justifiably hurried pace until they were back in the cover of the outlying forest. Once hidden among its shadows, they veered right and tracked through the trees, dropping their hoods at a safe distance beneath the canopy's shelter. The patter of raindrops against broad leaves undertoned the warm air, muffling the sounds of life undiscouraged by the downpour. But though it surrounded them and seemed increasingly deafening the longer Petra focused on it, preferring that to the thick silence that encapsulated the two, neither missed the deep, flat, mournful sound of a horn blown in the distance.
Garon stopped immediately and halted Petra with a swift, barring arm. They both held their breath, straining their ears through the incessant drizzle for any answering calls, but there came no further blasts, nor shouts, nor wails. It was a long moment before they dared to continue, stepping far more lightly along their winding route as they scoured the surroundings for the traps they'd heard mention of in the city. They breathed the slightest sigh of relief when the trees finally parted for the thick, knotted trunk of an old oak up ahead.
They slipped carefully down into the long-dead stream bed that bowed around its roots, and found as they followed it a cloaked figure standing upon the opposite bank. Petra slowed and frowned. "Eyila?"
The figure turned and fixed them both with eyes of shocking ice-blue. They were sharp, though a wisp of arcane distraction remained at their edges, and Petra found herself feeling a sudden and immense guilt beneath the gaze, though she wasn't sure why.
"This," Eyila declared bitterly, "is you cityfolks' fault."
Petra sighed in defeat. The horn. Of course she'd recognised the horn.
Even in her anger the tribal girl swept gracefully down the stream bank, returning to the substantial recess within the old, gnarled roots, her bronze face still troubled as she muttered something about trees and dropped heavily upon her blanket. "Find anything?" She asked just as shortly as the others followed, and Garon shook his head. "I'm not surprised. Your White Hammer has nothing to do with the Arana, as I understand it. Why would they know anything of their plans?"
"I never said they were associated with the Hall," he reminded her dispassionately, dropping the bag of food behind the bedrolls before searching out his waterskin. "They're contacts, not colleagues. People who see and hear things; people in a position to collect, compare and corroborate information."
Eyila frowned.
"People no one notice and talk around without thinking they'll repeat it to anyone else," Petra clarified. "Like bootblacks, apparently."
"What's a bootblack?"
Garon sighed tiresomely and returned his waterskin to the pile, then, without a word, turned and walked off into the trees. The others watched him go.
Eyila's eyes shifted onto Petra, whose unreadable gaze lingered after him. "He's still--"
"Mhm." She sighed and shook her head in self-reproach, leaning over for her own flask. She shrugged disparagingly as she unstoppered it. "It's just the way he is. I don't know why I expected anything else."
"But he kissed you."
"He did. And since then I've been little more than
a density in the air." She took a draught and shrugged again. "But I get it. This is serious. It's been three weeks and we've seen and heard nothing of Salus since we escaped that accursed place, and while he's certainly up to something, all we've managed to uncover in that time is that he's been giving his orders by proxy and it's making some of his subordinates nervous. How Garon's contacts learned even that much still eludes me, but the fountain cleaner he spoke to in White Heath also knew an awful lot about the workings of the palace's wine cellar. Regardless, it took Kienza two days to find us after we got out, and if the Arana actually has translocators - which they must for him to have gotten to Dolunokh so suddenly - then he probably returned to Turunda far sooner than we did. He said he didn't need the Zi'veyn anymore, so he's most likely turned his focus onto his new plans instead, and for the sake of everyone, we need to uncover what they are." She shook her head as hopelessness began creeping over her. "But without Rathen, the Zi'veyn, or Anthis and his damned educated guesses, we're... Ugh, and we're almost certainly being followed..."
Eyila nodded slowly. "Have you talked to him?"
"Oh Vastal save me. Leave it alone, Eyila! I don't know why he kissed me - something in his head must have broken on that island. Just forget about it! I have!"
She studied the duelist for another long moment, then nodded slowly again. "All right." She turned her attention onto the bag they'd brought back and began rummaging through its contents.
"Do you think they're okay?"
She looked back up at Petra's suddenly softened tone and found her staring off for miles into the forest behind her, her hazel eyes steeped in even deeper fret. She set the bag aside. "I'm sure they're fine. Neither of them are fools."
"But the place was tearing itself apart when we left..."
A sadness flickered across Eyila's brow, at which she lowered her hood, shook free her asymmetrical white hair, and turned her face into the subtlest breeze that seemed to rise from nowhere. Her expression eased as its cool ribbons caressed her cheek, but she didn't manage to smile. So when she looked back, she forced one. "They're fine. I'm sure of it. Though I admit that I'm surprised by your concern for Anthis."
