“From his maps, Thaddeus thinks we should have reached some kind of exit near Lintesh by now,” Elyasin glanced to the scribe’s sleeping huddle.
“A nice thought,” Luc chuckled, a wry smile lifting lips. “But I think this whole place is engineered to get lost in. We’ve been in these tunnels three weeks and still found no exit. All the branchings just turn back on themselves like some enormous underground glyph. We take branch-points, Thad marks them with chalk, and after a few days we wind up right back at the main tunnel. A true and maddening labyrinth.”
“So it seems,” Elyasin sighed. “Apparently, Morvein wandered down here like us, the first time. Seeking the Giannyk from her vision who could teach her how to create the Rennkavi’s Goldenmarks. And the second time with her Brother Kings and the Rennkavi candidate to find the White Ring and work the Rennkavi’s Ritual. But Ghrenna still can’t remember Morvein’s travels through these tunnels, not precisely.”
“What happens if we find this place?” Luc held Elyasin’s gaze. “The White Ring from Therel’s seeing-dreams? Ghrenna wants us to perform the ritual to bring the Rennkavi and save our continent from war, but what if it doesn’t work? What if it all goes wrong—”
“Like it did for Morvein?” Elyasin finished Luc’s thought. He’d not been the only one thinking it. Fear moved in her deeply, a shadow of Hahled Ferrian’s emotions, as Elyasin’s gaze strayed to the wall’s image with its gaping darkness.
“Thad’s been learning Giannyk from the walls and his codices, and from when Ghrenna speaks it at night,” Luc spoke as if picking up on Elyasin’s thoughts. “He knows which sigils mark the main tunnel from branch-points now. We won’t stay lost down here. All this has got to lead somewhere.”
“How do you stay so hopeful?” Elyasin asked.
Luc gazed down from his lean height, a complicated look in his eyes. Sliding one hand up, he stroked her cheek. “You keep me hopeful. Your passion. Your dedication. You’re a true Queen, Elyasin, and you lead us like one, even if we aren’t much of a force to lead.”
“Luc—” Elyasin flushed, flustered at Luc’s closeness.
A grumpy growl came from across the grotto. And then, from the lump that was Therel, “Fenrir rhakne! Can’t you both keep it down?”
“Time’ta wake?” Thaddeus peeked bleary eyes from his bedroll at Therel’s growl, fishing for his spectacles on the verdant moss.
“No.” Therel rucked back down in his blankets. “Go back to sleep, Thad.”
“Luc,” Elyasin stepped swiftly out of Luc’s embrace, her cheeks hot. “I think my husband needs a morning treatment.”
“No, khrakane vishken! I’m up. Kotar’s balls...” With a groan, Therel pushed to sitting, his pale mane mussed from restless sleep. But as he set one hand to the moss, something scurried over his hand. As if water had legs and a tail, the three-foot translucent lizard could barely be seen by the grotto’s fey light, but Therel’s reflexes were fast. He snatched up the creature: longer than his forearm, it hissed as it whipped a barbed tail. With a snarl, Therel dashed the creature’s head against a rock, but the barbed tail scored him. Almost instantly, the scratches began swelling with poisonous red lines.
Therel tossed the lizard aside with a growl and cupped a hand over his injured one. Luc was already striding over, catching up his King’s poisoned hand. Slipping into a healing-trance with his chin lifted and eyes closed, Luc tended the wound as he’d done for the party countless times. As Elyasin watched, the red lines in Therel’s flesh rolled back.
“Damn menaces.” Therel cussed, remaining still for Luc’s ministrations. Elyasin stepped over and picked up the dead lizard by its neck. In the dim light, she could see the opalescent heart and white blood slurrying its last through the creature’s veins. Crimson poison streaked through the tail-barbs from a gland near its gonads.
“Well, at least we have breakfast.” Elyasin quipped, trying to make light as she laid the lizard upon the luminous moss. With quick motions of her belt-knife, she soon had it disembowled, the poison sacs teased out from beneath the tail and the red-streaked underside cut away. Parceling what was left into five pieces, she handed them around. “We should be thankful. A little meat helps us stay strong down here.”
“Tastes like chicken,” Thad agreed, digging into his section with an amiable appetite. The scribe was always ravenously hungry, and something about that simplicity made Elyasin smile.
Ghrenna had risen at last, and accepted her portion from Elyasin, currying her white waves back from her face to eat. Though rumpled from sleep, her pale beauty seemed to shine by the grotto’s light like the moon over a highmountain lake. The curling white sigils and script that poured over Ghrenna’s collarbones and down beneath her shirtsleeves to her palms held a haunting glow. Her high cheeks were flushed and her lips full, an unnatural brightness in her cerulean eyes, framed by long lashes. Ghrenna’s nights were full of sighing passions, but it was as if she gathered strength from every dream of Morvein’s life. Her body was trim with muscle, her fingers strong when she reached out to take her meat. Curvaceous and fey, something about her seemed even more hale down in this place than when she had strode into Fhekran Palace so many weeks ago.
But it was a dangerous strength. As if something inside her moved too fast. Something that blew her where the dreams took her, like a fell wind – something that produced a feverish shine in her eyes. Elyasin’s gaze connected with Ghrenna’s as they ate and those cerulean depths bored into Elyasin, arresting. A chill wind rushed through Elyasin’s flesh, or perhaps a wind of fire, burning her up inside. Elyasin had a roaring feeling in her body, like needing to lead an army into battle or leap into icy meltwaters to cool the burning in her chest.
She shivered and her gaze broke from Ghrenna’s, the feeling dissipating though not gone. Elyasin’s gaze strayed to Ghrenna’s white keshar-claw pendant, to the grey and red fire-opals, then to the sigils of amethyst set with onyx that ran through the white claw. Something about it arrested her, and it was only with a will that she hauled her gaze away, back to her meal.
Elyasin crunched through the delicate bones of her meat until only the lizard’s skin-oil remained upon her fingers, which gave them a translucent sheen. She licked the lemony oils and the normal appearance of her skin returned. Finished with breakfast, all were rising – packing up bedrolls, stuffing them into rucksacks. Pulling on boots and buckling pelts on over down-padded jackets for another day of walking the underground halls.
The simmering feeling inside Elyasin did not diminish as she dressed in her buckled fawn leathers and pulled on her sable boots. Clasping her golden keshar-claw pendant, she found the inlaid sigils burning beneath her touch, as if they radiated her own inner fire – a wyrric fire that rose from the Brother Kings.
A fire which responded to the fell wind of Morvein’s command.
CHAPTER 3 – ELOHL
Leaning upon the balcony rail, Elohl stared out over the alabaster Palace of the Vine and the olive groves. Fenton’s storm was gone from the morning sky. Only a few wisps of cloud remained, scudding away on a high autumn wind. The seasons changed slower in the Valenghian lowlands, but Elohl could smell snow on the breeze from the heights of the Eleskis to the west. Summer was over, and as he gazed out over the ripe tilthlands of Velkennish Valley he saw oaks and white ash changing to autumn’s golden tones.
Still entirely nude and not seeming to care, Fenton leaned his elbows on the balcony rail next to Elohl. Heat simmered from Fenton’s wiry body like a smoldering volcano, as if he couldn’t quite contain his Khehemni wyrria. Curling across Fenton’s back muscles, Elohl watched his fire-red Wolf and Dragon inking slowly roil and fade. Elohl turned to face Fenton, leaning back against the railing with his arms crossed.
“Fenton. We need to talk. I’m finally remembering the events of the past weeks, but what I don't remember is how the Valenghian Vhinesse snares me. When I see her, when she touches me—”
“You’re besotted.” Fenton's eyes held a
dark calm as he looked over, though he rubbed his fingers together out over the rail as if ridding them of a nasty sensation. “The Vhinesse has a powerful wyrria, Elohl, an ancient ability of the Oblitenne royal bloodline in Valenghia. It’s a mind-wyrria, but propagated through the senses, and it makes people forget. Who they are, what they love – and why they should oppose her.”
“Oblitenne. Like obliterate.” The word fit as Elohl tasted it, raw.
“A drugged obliteration of both body and mind is their house gift.” Fenton gave a harsh sigh. “It’s rare, and the Vhinesse ascended to her position because she carries it in spades. She’s got sensorial-weaves coming at you the moment you lock eyes with her. Once you touch her skin, you’re hers – heart, head, and cock. The rest of your euphoria is all her fucking drugs...”
Elohl’s cheeks flamed again, ashamed at the things he’d ordered Fenton to do. “She’s fascinating, Fentleith. Her eyes, her voice – when she speaks, it tinkles with silver bells like a fur trapper’s sleigh. It chimes through my head.”
“Call me Fenton, Elohl,” he corrected mildly. “We can't have you calling me something else around anyone who might know me. Thank all that’s holy, you’ve only called me Fenton around the Vhinesse, and she hasn’t known enough to ask for my true name.”
“Do you change your name?”
“Every few decades.” Fenton waved a hand idly. “I change my name and find a new area of the world to live in. But the Vhinesse’s attributes – are they not affecting you right now?”
“Not right now.” Elohl shook his head, rubbed the back of his neck. “I feel clear since your storm. But I woke this morning thinking of the white spire, Fenton. I couldn’t recall it exactly, but I knew I was supposed to be there. It was as if I was looking through a set of filthy jeweler's lenses. And the sensation of being in the spire with Ghrenna helped clear me.”
“Interesting.” Fenton rubbed his chin, combing his short beard with his fingertips. “Your mind cleared from thoughts of Ghrenna and my exhibition of Khehemni wyrria. That’s never happened before.”
“You losing your shit or me thinking of Ghrenna?” Elohl gave a sidelong smile.
Fenton gave him a grin back, his brown-gold eyes finally lit with a natural humor. “Both, you irritating fuck. Is that any way to talk to your great-grandfather?”
“Is that any way to address your Rennkavi?”
Fenton laughed. Leaning against the railing, he gave Elohl a smile at last. “You know I consider you a friend, don’t you? You may be my blood and Goldenmarked, but I’m not a father-figure to you. Not much of one to anybody, really...” Fenton trailed off. As if reading Elohl’s earlier thoughts, his head turned, gazing down at the olive groves far below.
“I know.” Elohl spoke at last, sober. “You were a friend to Olea in the same way, and I appreciate that.”
Fenton faced the railing again, leaning on his elbows. He sucked in a deep breath and let it out in a sigh, his gaze faraway. “Olea was the best thing in my world, Elohl. I knew she was my kin, of course, my bloodline, but I never felt like she was a daughter – more like a friend. I should have been teaching her about life, but... she taught me. She was the best friend I had found in many a long year, even among my own kin. Loyal, upright, honest, heartfelt...”
“She was my best friend, too,” Elohl turned at the rail, settling into a similar posture. Together, they shared a gentle sadness, full of things spoken too late.
“Sometimes I wish my granddaughter Ennalea had never fallen in love with your father,” Fenton’s voice was soft in the curling breeze. “Lea was Alodwine, but I had to cut her loose when she wanted to become Alrashemni for your father Urloel. The Alrashemni could never have discovered what she really was, especially marrying a Rakhan. She was Khehemni blood, my blood. The Alrashemni would have killed her.”
“I'm sorry.” Elohl murmured.
“I’m not. Not anymore. She loved him, and it wasn’t my place to interfere. I’ve done enough meddling in my family’s affairs over the centuries.” Fenton heaved a sigh, not explaining his cryptic words. He gave a shiver at the rail, and his shoulders dropped as he released the last of his tension, his red wyrric inking simmering out to nothing. He turned and gazed at the window he had shattered, a wry smile lifting his lips. “Haven’t done something like that in centuries.”
“Did it feel good?” Elohl eyed him with a slight smile.
“Felt fucking amazing actually.” Fenton laughed, a good sound. Reaching up, he curried both hands through his gold-brown hair and laughed again. Turning, he clapped Elohl upon the shoulder, then gestured through the shattered window at a table laden with foodstuffs inside. “Anyway, we can’t plan our escape without breakfast. Shall we?”
“Might as well.”
Elohl stepped toward the open balcony doors, his stomach giving a fierce growl. He’d had nothing to eat during their grotesque endeavors of the night prior. He and Fenton stepped lithely to the table, Fenton picking up a bite of everything in his fingers and beginning to eat with his regular voracious appetite. Glancing over the spread, Elohl noted marinated kippers, green olives, sliced pear, quince, persimmon, and red currants with a pale salami. There was no flatware, but there were silver goblets and an ewer of water next to a ceramic crock. Elohl lifted the lid of the crock and sniffed, inhaling a bitter aroma from the hot, dark beverage within.
“We’ve not had this before. What––”
“Thank Shaper!” Fenton inhaled and his face opened in relief. “Kaf-tesh, a relative of the coffee plant, but native to Cennetia. Purges the system of poisons and intoxication.” Fenton poured two ceramic cups, mixing in honey and cream. “And it's a muscle and mind-stimulant. But don't take it black. Black’ll kill you.”
“Poisonous?” Elohl accepted his cup, cradling the warm ceramic.
“No. Just damn bitter!” Fenton grinned, far more like his old self at last. They clinked mugs, and Elohl sipped. His chest quickly flooded with ease from the bittersweet brew, tasting like coffee with roasted chicory and dandelion root. A sharp clarity took him, lightening his mood; energy filled his muscles, far better than coffee. He sipped gratefully, feeling a dull headache from the threllis roll back. Elohl joined in picking through fruits and delicacies, as Fenton cleared more than half the platter in short order.
“So now we play the Vhinesse’s game,” Fenton sipped his beverage, devouring an golden autumn pear between sips and licking the juice from his wrist. “Until we create a chance to either kill her or escape. She’s been asking a lot of questions, Elohl, night after night. I’ve hedged her off the best I can, but she’s taken our gear and must have found our signet seals from Queen Elyasin and King Therel. I’ve mentioned we’re ambassadors – there was no getting around that one – but she thinks we were on a diplomatic mission to rally the Elsthemi mountain-tribes and just got fucking lost on the glaciers. I told her we stumbled into a cave and found an old Alranstone inside, that it put us through here. Plausible enough. Those damn things are riddled throughout the Bhorlen Mountains, and unpredictable as hell.”
“It merits asking,” Elohl sipped as he picked through a bowl of sweet black telmen-berries, “why hasn’t she killed us yet, if she thinks we’re ambassadors from Elsthemen?”
“Playing with us is far more fun, I imagine,” Fenton snorted, refilling his beverage. “And though she’s at war with Alrou-Mendera, her peace treaty with Elsthemen under Therel’s father has held, so far. But Vhinesse Aelennia Oblitenne has a fairly ruthless reputation, and it’s warranted. Now that you’re clear-minded, we need to pretend she still has a hold over us. From what I know of her these past twenty years she’s sat the throne, her wyrria affects everyone, though men more so. I’ve been careful to act affected. Though I’ve been sullen in the sack, but she seems to like me sullen and slightly violent, which is interesting. Anyway, we need to discuss why Bhorlen’s portal-arch sent us here. He said it would lead us to what we needed most. If we’re here rather than in the Heathren Bo
g at Purloch’s House, perhaps it means there’s something in the Palace of the Vine that we need.”
“Does her touch affect you?” Elohl asked, curious. “The Vhinesse?”
“I lose my concentration a bit.” Fenton’s eyes sparked with gold as he leaned his chair back on two legs and cradled his ceramic mug. “Enough to make my cock rise. But I don’t let my wyrria flare in her presence, no matter how fucked I get on drugs and her sensorial pleasures, Elohl. She cannot know who or what we really are. She’d use us, snare us any way she can for her wars. Fortunately, you’ve not had cause for your Goldenmarks to spark while we’re around her. And she knows nothing of what they are, thinking their origin only a pretty story you tell to impress her. Fortunately, she can’t smash in and read our minds, not like a Kreth-Hakir, only influence our senses and––”
Fenton got no further. A click of the latch and a whoosh of air came as the pale ashwood doors were pushed inwards. In she strode, the Vine of Valenghia; dressed in a white gossamer gown of lace studded with tiny emeralds, she was pale perfection. Her silvery hair was swept over one shoulder in an ornate braid strung with bells that tinkled as she moved. A delicate silver circlet of pearls and emeralds rode her brow, her creamy collarbones bared to her décolletage. High cheeks and full lips held a flush like devil-berries in the snow, and her pale eyes with just a drop of blue sparkled as she swept forward. Elohl saw her dark-lashed gaze flick to the smashed censers in the fireplace, then to the shattered window, her silver brows rising. But the evidence of violence in their chamber did not break the Vhinesse’s stride as she moved to her kept men.
“My Brigadine falcons!”
Arms outstretched in welcome, she stepped to Elohl. Clasping his fingers and stretching up to give him a kiss, she stroked his Goldenmarked skin as her lips found his. Elohl was aware this time of the melting sensation that took him when they touched. One moment he was himself, and the next, he was water cascading down rocks. The perfume of her body wreathed Elohl, fresh like citrene and wintermint, exhaling from her skin and wrapping around him. It didn't even cross his mind to deny her. Silvery bells chimed in his mind, calling him to her sweet flesh. Stepping close, he wrapped his arms around her slender body, kissing her deep. His pulse raced with the taste of her. His hands drank in that exquisite skin. He'd never needed anything so desperately in his entire life – the fragrance upon her neck and her soft lips on his, her delicate tongue licking into his mouth.
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