Trial of Stone

by Andy Peloquin

  Aisha tensed as the door opened, but relaxed as she caught sight of Nessa. The grey-haired Steward nodded at the Ghandian girl and padded quietly across the plush carpets surrounding Suroth’s massive bed.

  “Briana,” Nessa said in a calm, soothing voice, “I know this is the last thing on your mind, but you need to eat.” She glanced around. “At the very least, let me get you out of those clothes and into something clean.”

  Briana hadn’t washed the crimson from her hands and face or changed out of her blood-splattered dress. She shrugged off Nessa’s hands. “No,” she sobbed. “Just let me be here a little longer.”

  Upon learning of her father’s death, she’d fled to the safety of his bedroom. Her tears stained the velvet pillowcases, but she was beyond caring.

  Nessa tried again. “Please, taltha. A little broth or some fruit? You need to keep up your strength.”

  For answer, Briana only shook her head.

  Nessa’s expression looked as helpless as Kodyn felt. With a little sigh, the grey-haired Steward stood.

  “When she finishes grieving, I’ll have a servant standing by with food and fresh clothing,” Nessa told Aisha in a quiet voice.

  Aisha nodded, sorrow sparkling in her dark eyes.

  As Kodyn watched Nessa slip out of the Arch-Guardian’s room, his eyes fell on the strangely smooth black stone trinket on Suroth’s bedside table. No, not a trinket. An object of indeterminate purpose, yet upon closer inspection, he saw the familiar strange, intricate markings of the Serenii etched into the stone.

  With Suroth’s death, where does that leave my Undertaking? The thought came to his mind unbidden, and he shoved it away, cursing himself for his selfishness. He worried about something as inane as stealing the Crown of the Pharus when Briana had just lost her father.

  The Arch-Guardian’s death made it all the more important for him to stay in Shalandra. Not only because it was a huge setback to his plans to get into the Serenii vaults, but because he felt obligated to protect Briana. He’d brought her home knowing the danger she faced—had he unknowingly caused her father’s death?

  Blaming myself isn’t going to get vengeance for Briana’s father. He clenched his jaw. I’m going to make sure the Gatherers are stopped, once and for all. Even if I have to kill them all myself.

  That would be stupid. He couldn’t take them all on alone. He’d need help—from the Black Widow, certainly, perhaps from Ennolar and the Secret Keepers. They’d want vengeance for their Arch-Guardian’s death as much as Briana.

  But he couldn’t do that if he had to worry about her wellbeing.

  “Briana,” he spoke in a quiet voice, “how would you feel about returning to Praamis? My mother would—”

  Briana sat bolt upright, eyes flashing. “You’re thinking of running?”

  “Never!” Kodyn shook his head. “I’m staying in Shalandra so I can hunt down every damned one of the Gatherers. I will avenge your father’s death, I swear on my life.” He let out a slow breath. “But I’d feel better knowing you were somewhere safe, far out of the Gatherers’ reach. In the Night Guild—”

  “No!” Briana’s response, a defiant shout, surprised him. “I will not flee!”

  Defiance shone through the tears filling her eyes. Her face, puffy from crying, twisted into a mask of determination.

  “The Gatherers tried to use me to cow my father into submission,” Briana said, her voice a half-snarl. “They attacked my home and killed my father. I’ll be damned if I let them get away with that.”

  “But here, you’re in danger,” Kodyn protested. “At least in Praamis I’ll know you’re out of harm’s way.”

  “I will not let them win!” Briana straightened, a hand dashing the tears from her cheeks. “They seek to use fear as their weapons, but they will find I am not afraid of them.”

  The fear in Briana’s eyes belied the firmness in her voice, but Kodyn had to admire her strength of spirit. Despite everything she’d lost, she still stood strong. Or, at least, tried to. It would take her time to grieve her father and come to grips with his death, but just hearing her words brought a sense of peace. She would get through this. And he’d be here beside her to help any way he could. He owed her that much, at least.

  Briana stared down at her hands, still covered in blood, and suddenly she gave a little gasp. “Oh!”

  Kodyn was instantly alert. “What is it?” His hand dropped to his sword. “What’s wrong?”

  “The map!”

  To Kodyn’s surprise, Briana leapt up and darted out of the room. He raced after her, Aisha on his heels, as she rushed into her bedroom. She grimaced at the disaster of her bedroom—the guards had dragged out the bodies, but blood still stained the floor.

  She scooped up the leather scroll tube and turned back to the door. Kodyn’s eyes flew wide as she stooped and dipped a finger into a puddle of crimson.

  “Here.” She thrust the scroll tube into his hands. “Open it and spread out the map on my father’s table.” Tears still rimmed her eyes, but a strange excitement seemed to have pushed back her sorrow.

  Stunned, Kodyn followed the girl back into Suroth’s bedroom, fumbled open the scroll tube cap, and, with Aisha’s help, unrolled Ennolar’s map. He spread the blank scroll out on the table and fixed her with a curious gaze. “What now?”

  Triumph shone in Briana’s eyes as she held up her bloody finger. “The blood is the key!” She pressed the finger against one corner of the paper.

  Kodyn sucked in a breath as the material seemed to absorb the blood from her skin. Instantly, thin lines of crimson began to appear on the papyrus, spreading outward like a spider web. But these lines were neat, crisp, drawn by a confident hand. Beside them were neat annotations written in a language he didn’t understand, but recognized as Secret Keeper script—the same script that filled the book Journeyman Donneh of House Scorpion had stolen from the Temple of Whispers in Voramis.

  “My father called it invisible ink,” Briana told them. “It only works on a particular type of papyrus, made using a recipe known only to the Secret Keepers. The more mundane inks work with the heat of a candle’s flame or acids, but for something this important, only blood can activate it.”

  Kodyn’s mind raced. “So Ennolar did give us the real map!”

  Briana nodded. “He assumed my father would tell us how to use it.” Sorrow flooded her eyes and her face fell.

  Kodyn placed a hand on her shoulder, and Aisha gripped her arm. Briana brushed a tear from her cheek and gave them a sad smile. “I-I’m fine.”

  “You don’t have to be,” Kodyn said. “I know I wouldn’t be if I were you.”

  “Here in Shalandra, we view death differently than the rest of Einan.” Briana gave a little shrug of her shoulders. “Each of us is called to the Long Keeper’s arms when it is our time. If my father is gone, it was meant to be.” She looked like she was trying to convince herself of the words. “He would want us to continue fighting. And he would want me to honor the bargain he made with you.”

  The words, spoken with such strength and determination, caught Kodyn by surprise.

  Briana fixed him with a firm gaze. “I might not be the Arch-Guardian of the Secret Keepers, but I will do what I can to help. Starting with this map.” She bent over the parchment and studied the thin crimson lines and markings. “I can read a few of these symbols, but I’ll need time to fully understand what they’re saying. And I’ll need my father’s private journals.”

  She strode around the bed and set about rummaging through the drawers in her father’s bedside table.

  “My father used two types of ciphers to write,” she explained. “One was the secret language used in the Temple of Whispers, but the other was a special cipher he devised just for the two of us to understand. That way, he could translate everything he wanted to share with me into that code, but the information would still be protected. No one would be able to steal it and the Secret Keepers would never know what secrets he was teaching me. Aha!”<
br />
  Briana held up a thick, leather-bound volume in triumph. “This holds the key to translating the Secret Keepers’ language into our shared code.” She plopped the book onto the bed with a loud thump, opened it, and flipped through the stiff pages. The markings within made no sense to Kodyn, but Briana seemed to recognize their meaning.

  “Huh?” She stopped on one page, which bore six lines of neatly printed symbols. “That’s odd.”

  “What is it?” Kodyn asked.

  “I’ve never seen this before.” Briana ran a thumb along the symbols and read aloud:

  When sword and scepter unite

  The blood of ancients revived

  Child of Secrets, Child of Spirits, Child of Gold

  Half-master seeks the relic of old

  Then Hallar’s blood shall rise

  And sow the final destruction from midnight eyes

  She looked up, confused. “What does that mean?”

  Kodyn’s blood ran cold. He knew exactly what it meant.

  “The Gatherer, Necroset Kytos, he rambled on about some Final Destruction before my mother ended him,” Kodyn said. “He warned of ‘Hallar’s prophesied destruction’, said the world would be washed away in a torrent of blood and scoured by fire.” He frowned. “It sounded like the ramblings of a madman, but—”

  “But if my father wrote it here, it has to mean something!” Briana stared down at the symbols, her lips moving as she read.

  “When we were coming into the city, did anyone else notice the words ‘Child of Gold’ painted onto the walls?” Aisha asked.

  “Yes!” Kodyn sucked in a breath. “And I saw ‘Child of Spirits’ painted on the Artisan’s Tier.” His mind raced. “That can’t be a coincidence.”

  His brow furrowed. “The way Kytos talked about it, he was terrified of this Final Destruction. And it seems your father placed some importance on it as well.”

  “But what does it mean?” Briana’s expression grew puzzled. “Hallar’s blood shall rise? Blood of ancients revived? Sow the final destruction from midnight eyes? That makes no sense!”

  “I don’t know.” Kodyn shrugged. “But if your father put it in his private journal, it has to be important enough for us to find out, right?”

  After a moment, Briana nodded. “He only included things related to the Serenii in here.” She tapped the journal with a delicate finger. “Somehow, that strange poem is connected to the Serenii that built the city thousands of years ago.”

  Eager excitement burned within Kodyn. He’d always loved stories of the ancient race of immortal beings that had disappeared from Einan, leaving only their strange buildings behind. But as Kodyn looked around the bedroom, he realized that the Serenii hadn’t just left buildings.

  “These things,” he gestured to the black stone objects sitting on Suroth’s bedside table, “they are Serenii artifacts, aren’t they?”

  Briana nodded. “Yes, my father was studying them.”

  Kodyn couldn’t help gasping. Serenii artifacts were beyond rare, considered some of the most valuable objects on Einan. Few in the Night Guild could ever boast of seeing any, much less stealing one. Yet here, hundreds of leagues from home, he stood in a room littered with them. He couldn’t help marveling—how much power does this room hold?

  Something strange reached his ears, and every muscle in his body tensed. It was a sound, yet like nothing he’d ever heard before. A deep humming that set his heart racing, piercing to the core of his being. It seemed to come from everywhere around him at once, yet his eyes caught a glimmer of light through the closed doors that led to Suroth’s office.

  Aisha seemed to see it, too, for she drew her assegai just as he pulled a dagger from his belt.

  “Get down!” Kodyn hissed to Briana. The Shalandran girl ducked behind the desk as Kodyn and Aisha slipped toward the closed doors.

  The light in the room beyond grew painfully bright, almost shining through the dense wood of the doors. Kodyn exchanged a nervous glance with Aisha and, together, they reached for the door handles.

  A loud humming echoed in the room, setting Kodyn’s ears buzzing. Two figures stood in the room beyond. One was a youth roughly Kodyn’s age, with the dark skin of a Shalandran and a red-and-gold headband that marked him as a servant. His jaw hung agape. “Hailen, what in the bloody hell did you do?”

  The other figure, the light-skinned Hailen, Briana’s servant, stood a few paces away. Kodyn’s eyes flew wide at the sight of the glowing stone sitting in the boy’s hand.

  “I don’t know,” said Hailen, “but I think I can wield Serenii magic!”

  End of Book 1

  ----

  Kodyn, Aisha, Evren, Hailen, Issa, and Briana’s epic journey continues in:

  Crucible of Fortune (Heirs of Destiny Book 2)

  Chapter One

  The songs of the dead echoed loud in the hall of the Long Keeper, god of death. A mournful tune, as heavy and cloying as the incense that hung thick in the temple, underscored by a shrill chorus of flutes that grated on Kodyn’s nerves. Yet he forced himself to stand still, to remain a firm bulwark for Briana to lean on as she mourned her father’s death.

  Arch-Guardian Suroth, high priest of the Secret Keepers, servant of the Mistress, and member of the Keeper’s Council, lay silent and still atop the golden sandstone that dominated the center of the sanctuary. Death slackened his features and turned his umber skin to a brown as dull as the simple Secret Keeper’s robes he now wore. His strong hands rested atop his chest, a peaceful pose that belied the violent nature of his passing.

  He’d fallen in defense of Pharus Amhoset Nephelcheres and the rest of the Keeper’s Council. Nine Gatherers, members of the death-worshipping cult, had died at his hands before he succumbed to his wounds. Yet one look at Briana told Kodyn that her father’s courage or the heroism of his sacrifice meant next to nothing in this moment. She’d never known her mother, who had died giving birth to her. Now she had lost the most important person in her life.

  And Kodyn had no idea how to comfort her.

  He’d sat by her bedside as she wept, held her hand through her tears, feeling useless all the while. He couldn’t wipe the sorrow from her heart or the pain of loss from her eyes. Behind her pale features and vacant stare she fixed on the body atop the altar, she had to be wrestling against a seething ocean of emotions that he could only begin to understand. He had never felt as helpless as he did now, watching her suffer in silence.

  Aisha, his companion and fellow Night Guild apprentice, stood on Briana’s other side. She held Briana’s hand, lending her strength as well. Sorrow glistened in her almond brown eyes—she hadn’t known Suroth long, but she’d become close friends with Briana over the last few days.

  Now, the two of them were the closest thing Briana had to friends and family in the world.

  The music fell silent as High Divinity Tinush, the oldest member of the Keeper’s Council, stepped up toward the altar. Above his head, the stone-carved face of the Long Keeper stared down at Suroth’s body. The god of death had already claimed Suroth’s soul—all that remained was to commend his flesh to the Crypts.

  “Mercy, change, justice, vengeance, sorrow, joy, and eternity.” Despite his age, his voice rang out loud and strong, echoing off the sandstone walls, ceiling, and floor of the sanctuary atop the Hall of the Beyond. “These are the seven faces of the Long Keeper. Mercy, for death is just the first step toward eternal bliss in the Sleepless Lands. Change, the one inevitable constant. Justice for the deserving and vengeance against the wicked.”

  Tinush bowed his head. “Sorrow, for in passing we leave behind those dearest to our heart, yet with it comes joy in finding peace and rest in the eternity of the Long Keeper’s arms.”

  The hand he rested on Suroth’s pale forehead was spotted with age and tattooed with seven black dots. “Go into infinity, Suroth, secure in the knowledge that the world was a better place for your presence. May you find the peace you deserve.” With that, he bent and placed the
ceremonial kiss on the dead man’s lips.

  The trilling of flutes and forlorn strumming of harps filled the sanctuary chamber once more, and singers took up a funereal chant. Kodyn felt a burden of sorrow settle onto his shoulders at the doleful lyrics. He glanced toward the double doors, which stood open to reveal the lines of people crowding onto the golden sandstone steps that descended the broad stairway carved into the southern edge of the Hall of the Beyond. The golden morning sunlight failed to drive back the pall that hung over the gathered mourners.

  Hundreds of Dhukari, Alqati, Zadii, and Intaji had come to see the Arch-Guardian off. For one so well-respected and revered, the funeral rituals would last hours until the early afternoon, when the Necroseti, priests of the Long Keeper, began the final journey to Suroth’s resting place. According to Nessa, Arch-Guardian Suroth’s household Steward, burial rites always took place at sunrise and sunset. The sun had already fully risen by the time the commotion in the palace after the assassination attempt had died down, so Suroth would be interred beneath the fading twilight.

  That seemed an eternity away. He and Aisha had accompanied Briana just after dawn to the Hall of the Beyond, the temple to the Long Keeper, for the embalming and final blessing rites carried out by the Necroseti. She had sat beside the lifeless, pale-faced corpse that had once been the strong Secret Keeper, holding her father’s limp hand as the priests prepared him for an eternity in the Long Keeper’s arms.

  Kodyn and Aisha hadn’t been allowed entrance into the private room where the body was prepared—only the family of the deceased could enter—but they’d taken up guard in front of the door. Aisha, in particular, had scrutinized every priest that entered the room. After last night’s attempt to kidnap or murder Briana—he couldn’t know which the Gatherers had intended—she took her role as the Shalandran girl’s bodyguard with the utmost severity. More than a few of the lower-ranked priests in attendance had wilted beneath her furious glare.