“Do you have a plan?” he demanded, angling toward the steps.
“We’ll use the Rothscard portal to transfer north to Orien’s finger,” she informed him, hurrying to keep up. “From there, we’ll take the stairs into the warrens, just as we did before.”
“What then?”
They entered the castle and crossed the foyer. “Then Kyel destroys the Well.”
“And what about Renquist and Krane?”
Feeling a terrible, sinking ache, Naia halted in her tracks. Darien continued on a few steps before stopping to turn back. Choking on sorrow, Naia shrugged helplessly. “Quin never returned,” she whispered. She had foreseen Quin’s death in one variation of this future. They still had a chance of success. A chance that would have to be purchased with blood.
“Your plan isn’t going to work,” Darien grumbled. “Without the magic field, we’re defenseless. But Renquist will still have the Hellpower.”
Of course, he was right. She’d put so much faith in her vision, she hadn’t thought of that.
“You’re a darkmage,” she said at last. “What do you suggest?”
Pacing slowly back and forth, Darien stared at the ground with a relentless scowl. “We need to distract them long enough for Kyel to reach the Well.” Continuing to pace, he went silent for a long moment. Then he halted and said without looking at her, “I think I can manage that.”
Naia felt a surge of hope. “How?”
Darien’s expression collapsed into something that looked an awful lot like shame. He admitted, “Before you arrived, I agreed to help Renquist with a proposal.”
“What proposal?” Naia asked warily.
He turned away. “I agreed to help him stabilize the magic field by absorbing enough power to release Xerys from the Netherworld. I was supposed to start with Kyel.”
Naia stood speechless, staring at him in revulsion. “And you thought this was a good idea?” she finally managed. She felt throttled by disappointment. Like Kyel, she had allowed herself to hope Darien’s soul might be salvageable. But his admission was a painful reminder of his nature. A reminder she dared not ignore.
He glowered at her. “At the time, yes. I thought it was a good idea, considering the alternatives.”
“And have you changed your mind?” Naia pressed, angry now.
“I have. But Renquist doesn’t know that. I’ll tell him I killed Kyel and absorbed his gift. He will have no reason to doubt me, so he won’t be guarding the Well. I’ll keep his attention focused on me. That should give Kyel time to act.”
Naia felt somewhat reassured. “Then this is the version I saw. We’re on the right path with this plan.”
“That’s well and good.” Darien’s gaze drifted back down the hallway.
Just then, the magic field sprang taut, making the world teeter. Naia’s stomach took a downward plunge. Her gaze shot to Darien.
“It’s now or never,” she warned.
He nodded. “I’ll meet you down by the Citadel. There’s something I have to do first.”
He turned and strode away. Naia stood watching him go, daring to hope.
Darien retrieved the small bronze cylinder from the desk and, pocketing it, left the steward’s office. He walked up the stairs to the guestrooms and found Sayeed’s door. He entered without knocking.
Startled, the officer bolted out of his chair. He crossed the floor in three great strides, catching Darien up in a crushing embrace.
Darien stiffened. But then he relented, taking what comfort he could from the gesture. After a long moment, Sayeed let him go, and stepping back, regarded him with an expression of boundless sympathy.
Darien ignored the man’s unspoken question.
Reaching down, he removed the two sheathed blades that hung from their belt-hoops at his waist. He unbuckled his war belt, the one he’d inherited from his ancestor, Braden Reis. The belt came off with a clatter of steel rings, heavy with the combined weights of the implements it bore. Very deliberately, Darien wound the leather strap around both scabbards. Then he offered the weapons and belt to Sayeed.
The officer’s face went slack. He accepted the gift with great hesitance, opening his mouth to say something. But then he closed it again. He stood staring down at the jewel-encrusted hilts with a look of stricken awe.
“I want you to have them,” Darien said, gazing down at Valdivora, the legendary sword of Khoresh Kateem, and its matching dagger. “They belong to the clans. I won’t be needing them any longer.”
Sayeed looked up with a frozen expression.
Darien continued, “The people of Malikar now have a land to call their own. And a capital to rule it from. Sayeed son of Alborz, when I became Warden, I named you First Among Many. Now I name you Sultan of the Malikari Empire.”
Reaching into the pocket of his cloak, he retrieved the small bronze cylinder that was no bigger than his index finger. He handed it to Sayeed, watching the man’s face as he opened the end of the tube and removed the thin scroll within. Sayeed’s skin went pale as his eyes scanned over the curling parchment. When he reached the bottom of the page, he rolled the scroll back up and replaced it in its container, letting his hand drop limply to his side.
“Brother…” He shook his head, visibly groping for words. “I do not have the ability to express my gratitude. But only the Prime Warden has the authority to elevate me to such a high position.”
Darien gestured dismissively. “After I kill Renquist, I will be Prime Warden. For a short while, at least.”
Sayeed stared at him blankly for another minute. Then, very formally, he went to his knees. He took the hem of Darien’s cloak and brought it up to his face, pressing the fabric to his lips. Darien frowned down at him, feeling repulsed by the gesture.
“Stand,” he commanded.
Sayeed rose from the floor with grace and stood before him, his gaze lowered to the ground—another unwanted sign of deference. Darien reached up and firmly lifted the man’s chin until he was forced to look him in the eyes.
“Never lower your gaze, Sayeed. And never kneel before another man again.” Darien brushed past him, moving toward the hallway. Opening the door, he paused and turned back.
“Thank you for being my brother,” he said.
And left.
39
The Waking Storm
Naia stood in the courtyard, ringed by soldiers and horses. Overhead, dark clouds tumbled toward the horizon. Eerie colors erupted within their depths, spreading quickly across the sky. Jagged forks of lightning speared the ground, followed by rolling thunder that rattled the earth. All around them, the entire magic field lurched and writhed as if in pain.
The horse she was holding crabstepped, looking ready to bolt. Naia ran a hand over the gelding’s quivering neck, attempting to sooth it. It did little good. The beast could sense her anxiety.
The ring of soldiers parted to admit a lone man into the ragged pool of torchlight: Kyel Archer. Naia sighed in relief. She had been beginning to fret he wouldn’t show at all. Now they only waited on Darien. Looking up at the tortured sky, Naia silently willed him to hurry. They hadn’t much time.
Kyel drew up in front of her, a scowl of irritation on his face. The silver weapon at his side shimmered with a kaleidoscope of colors reflected from the cloud-light.
“How is he?” Kyel asked, just loud enough to be heard over the whistling wind.
“As good as can be expected.”
“Is he coming?”
“Oh, yes.” Naia sighed. “He wants revenge. And he needs closure. This is the only way he’ll get either.”
She thought of the look on Darien’s face when he’d cursed the image of her goddess. She couldn’t blame him for his anger, though he had directed his wrath at the wrong deity.
“I hope he finds what he seeks,” he said softly.
The magic field spasmed violently. Kyel winced, and Naia felt the shock of it all the way to her core. The Zakai around them appeared thoroughly unaffected. She glanc
ed back apprehensively at the palace steps.
The magic field quieted, but still trembled on the far edge of normal. The night was cooling around them, and there was still no sign of Darien.
She turned to Kyel. “What about you? What do you seek?”
He stared at the ground. After a long moment, he responded, “I just want this to be over.”
“That’s all? No more?”
Kyel smiled regretfully. “I have eleven tiers of power in me.”
Naia blinked in shock, feeling intense sympathy. She whispered, “I’m so sorry, Kyel.”
He shrugged. “I’m already coming undone. You have no idea how close I came to killing Darien today. No idea.”
“And what if you had?”
Kyel looked away. He stood in silence as the wind rolled over him, whipping his cloak. She waited for him to reply. Eventually, she realized he wasn’t going to.
She asked, “Do you think me evil, Kyel? Because I killed in your defense?”
He looked at her, his eyes studying her face as if seeking there for the answer to her question. “No. Not evil. But you weren’t in the right either.” He sighed heavily. “There must be some middle ground. I just don’t know where it is or what it would look like.”
“I think I know,” Naia said. “And it has nothing to do with oaths, and everything to do with what’s inside. Our decisions define us. Not our chains.”
The ring of soldiers parted again, this time admitting Darien into their midst. He stalked toward them with the dangerous grace of a predator, his body emanating a penumbra of dark power. His black cloak rippled behind him in the wind, and his long, black hair lashed his face. When he reached them, he drew to a halt and stood staring into the distance.
Kyel shot a meaningful glance at Naia, one that seemed to question the man’s sanity. To Darien, he said, “I’m very sorry about your wife.”
The darkmage cast him a leaden stare and said nothing in reply.
“Where’s your sword?” Naia asked, noting the blade’s conspicuous absence.
Darien shrugged. “It was time to give it up.”
A soldier led his horse forward. Another took Naia’s reins and held her gelding for her to mount. She twisted in the saddle, waiting for Darien and Kyel, then clucked her horse forward.
Darien sent his stallion trotting after Naia’s mare. The horses were skittish as they made their way across the palace grounds, perhaps sensing the tension in the air.
Ringed by a squad of Zakai, they turned onto the canal road. As it turned out, the escort was unnecessary. It was past the curfew the occupying military had imposed throughout the city. Rothscard’s streets were eerily empty. During the long ride to the Lion’s Gate, Darien saw very few people about, mostly soldiers. Many of the city’s inhabitants had already fled, leaving their possessions behind. Signs of their passage were strewn everywhere in the streets: scraps of garments and shoes, housewares and children’s toys. Stray dogs and rats rifled through the scattered garbage, emboldened by the absence of humans.
The wind had died down, though the clouds still roiled overhead. Their party rode in silence out the gate and into the thick of the Malikari encampment. Campfires marched toward the northern horizon in perfect, geometric patterns. Beyond them, Darien knew, stretched a struggling train of refugees filing down from the mountains to the north. They would find new homes and new lives, even new customs. It would be a very different society than the one they had left behind. But they would live. Darien felt no small amount of gratitude for that.
They rode for a long time in silence, past the encampment’s long rows of tents bordered by lines of pickets and earthworks. Overhead, the lights within the clouds strobed in time to the pulse of the magic field. An erratic pulse, like a failing heartbeat.
Darien was surprised when Naia brought her horse abreast of his. He glanced over at her, unsure of her purpose. She rode for a moment in silence, her body moving with the slow rhythm of her horse’s swaying strides.
“Tell me about your wife,” she said at last. “Did she make you happy?”
The question caught Darien off-guard. He glanced down, fumbling for the right words to express his feelings. “She did. I didn’t expect her to. She was the singular, most beautiful thing in my life. I ought to have told her that.”
“I’m sure she knew what you felt for her,” Naia said after a moment.
He shrugged. It wasn’t a response. More of an attempt to dismiss her concern.
“Darien.”
The way she said his name made him glance at her sharply.
“In my visions … I’ve seen what happens to you.” She was looking at him with vast amounts of sympathy.
Darien shrugged again, letting her words slide off him. He had no interest in his future.
Naia said, “The most important part of my training as a Harbinger had to be skipped because we simply didn’t have the time. I never learned how much of what I see is safe to reveal … and how much is best held back.”
“Then don’t tell me anything,” he snapped, more sharply than he intended. He already knew what she was going to say, and truthfully didn’t care.
“I think you need to know,” she pressed, reining her mount closer to his. “There are now only two possible versions of the future left to us. And in both versions, Renquist spills your blood in sacrifice. In one version, your death is the catalyst that brings Xerys fully into this world. In the other, it is our only chance to prevail against him.
“But Darien,” she paused, fixing him with a penetrating stare. “I feel certain it will be up to you—and only you—to determine which future comes to pass. All of us—and all the world—will be at the mercy of your decision. You must make the right choice.”
Darien rode in silence for a time, head bowed against the occasional gusts of wind. Eventually, he asked, “So today’s my last day in this world?”
“I believe so,” Naia answered, her expression compassionate.
Darien allowed himself a dark and fleeting grin. “Good.”
She stared at him flatly. It was a long time before she looked away.
The sound of the horses’ hooves became muffled as they transitioned from the packed dirt of the road onto the spongy loam of the prairie. His stallion fought the reins, wanting to stretch its neck down to graze. He had to keep urging it forward. Kyel trailed behind them with the rest of the Zakai, either in a sulk or a gloom—Darien couldn’t tell which.
“What about you?” he asked Naia after a long interval of silence. “Have you foreseen your own death?”
“I have seen my own death countless times. That doesn’t bother me in the least. It’s the loss of others I’ve cared about that saddens me.”
“Quin,” Darien guessed. He knew Naia and Quin had spent time together at the Crescent. He hadn’t realized their relationship had progressed into something more. “I’m sorry, Naia. The gods are brutal, aren’t they?”
“Don’t blame the gods, Darien. That’s too easy. And it minimizes our own responsibility.”
He couldn’t deny the logic of her words. He pulled back on the reins, drawing his horse to a halt. He let Kyel pass him by, then kicked his stallion after him. He followed at the end of their small column the rest of the way, flanked by two Zakai.
They rode in silence for hours.
Eventually, they came to a long line of serrated hills that marched in darkness toward the foothills of the Craghorns. They pulled their horses up just outside the opening of a large gash cut into a jagged hill. A small stream trickled out, feeding a willow grove downslope. There, they dismounted and, unloading their packs, handed their horses over to the Zakai. At Darien’s directive, their silent guard bowed from their horses’ backs and rode away, trailing the spare mounts behind.
“The transfer portal is this way,” Naia said, indicating a deep fissure in the cliffs ahead.
Darien studied the cut warily. He’d been through these same foothills several times and couldn’t reme
mber seeing it before. He asked, “How did you know this was here?”
“I used it when Quin and I left Titherry.” Naia shouldered her pack and set off toward it.
The crevasse slanted uphill at a sharp angle, bordered on both sides by fractured granite. Small, sharp rocks that had crumbled from the eroded cliffs provided an unstable footpath. Naia mounted the slope gamely, leaning forward under the weight of her pack. She was wearing a pair of men’s breeches and a good pair of serviceable boots. Darien was surprised he hadn’t noticed that before. She’d planned ahead.
At the top of the cleft, they came to a water-carved bow in the cliff face. There, Naia waved her hand and muttered a soft string of words. Instantly, the granite wall dissolved to reveal an opening. Darien followed behind Kyel into a dimly lit chamber carved into the cliff itself, taking note of the cross-vaulted arch perched in the center of the room.
“For a thousand years, no one remembered this was here,” he commented wonderingly, shaking his head.
Without pausing for the others, Darien strode forward into the portal arch. Immediately, the world around him shivered and disappeared in a brilliant gush of light.
Darien stumbled out from under the arch, finding himself in a different chamber entirely. Gazing upward, he took in the sight of a dark ceiling riddled with tiny pinpricks of light. He recognized the place. He had been there before, with Azár. It had been the first time he’d ever held her hand.
There was another flash, and both Naia and Kyel appeared at his side. Kyel gazed around, blinking, looking thoroughly disoriented.
This time, it was Darien’s own whispered words that unlocked the doorway. He stepped out into a horseshoe-shaped canyon surrounded by charred cliffs that still bore the scars of his own insanity.
He strode out from the portal chamber then turned back to gaze up at the tall spire of Orien’s Finger. It was from that high vantage he had summoned a fiery holocaust that had immolated Malikar’s armies—men and women of the nation he would later come to defend. With a sigh, he turned his back on the monolith, too weary to confront its silent recrimination.
The Complete Rhenwars Saga: An Epic Fantasy Pentalogy Page 144
