Paths of Alir (A Pattern of Shadow & Light Book 3)

by Melissa McPhail

  She frowned at him. “Ever so cavalier, Carian vran Lea, but if T’khendar falls, so soon will fall all of the Realms of Light.”

  Gwynnleth cast her a sideways look, tawny eyes narrowed speculatively. “What do you mean?”

  “T’khendar is a buffer, Gwynnleth, my fair sister of the skies.” Mithaiya turned her blue-eyed gaze out across the land as if seeing far beyond the mountainous horizon. “The Malorin’athgul were never meant to know about Alorin or any of the Realms of Light. These realms the Maker fashioned with permanence intended. Yet somehow the dark creatures of Chaos found Alorin, and in that knowledge they grew lust for our fair realm. Yet they know joy only in unmaking. Having found Alorin, they would have set their teeth into its tender flesh had they not been immediately brought within her bosom.”

  “I’m confused. We brought them here?”

  Mithaiya shrugged a delicate eyebrow. “How they arrived is of lesser importance. The Mage and his Council made T’khendar to ensure the Malorin’athgul couldn’t reach Alorin from the plane of Chaos, where their power is greatest—T’khendar now stands in their way.”

  She smoothed a strand of dark hair from her eyes. “We drachwyr now patrol empty skies seeking those aetheric places where the walls between Chaos and T’khendar grow thin, that the Second Vestal might shore them up so our fortress remains strong. Do you see? T’khendar is a fortress—Alorin’s fortress—the last bastion between the chaotic fringes of the cosmos and our precious realm.”

  Carian sucked on a tooth as he considered her. “What I don’t get is if the damned creatures are already in Alorin, aren’t they unmaking it as we speak? Isn’t that the bloody problem?”

  “At this point, with the knowledge they have, it would be much worse for us if they were outside the realm.”

  Gwynnleth grunted. “I cannot fathom how.”

  Mithaiya arched a brow. “Floating among the stars of Chaos, they’re capable of unmaking worlds, but inside the realm they can claim only a fraction of their power, for elae is strong here and forms a natural counterpoint to deyjiin. The realm cannot be unmade from within, sweet sister-kin.”

  Mithaiya smoothed her flying hair back from her eyes again and looked Gwynnleth over with them. “You still do not see, do you? Inside Alorin the Malorin’athgul are deadly; their presence is corruptive and disrupts the Balance, their intentions are ever aimed towards engendering chaos, and their power remains formidable. But outside…outside the realm, where they could draw upon the endless power of Chaos to unravel Alorin’s ether? Outside, dear one, they would be catastrophic.”

  “So you’re saying it’s a boon to us that they’re in our realm?”

  Mithaiya exhaled a discontented sigh. “Better within than without is all I’m saying.” The drachwyr turned to Carian then. “But I would we spoke of more cheerful things. I have some news.”

  Carian gave her a lusty grin. “I will pay handsomely for it.”

  Her eyes sparkled darkly. “Indeed you will.”

  “What news?” Gwynnleth prodded with a glare at Carian.

  “Your friend Fynnlar val Lorian will live, despite the grievous wounds he sustained at the ambush in the Kutsamak when his cousin Trell and all of his men were also taken.” Mithaiya frowned slightly as she added, “The zanthyr Vaile risked upsetting the Balance to Heal him. Fynnlar will stay at the First Lord’s sa’reyth while he recovers. In the meantime, the First Lord’s allies search for Trell of the Tides.”

  Carian’s felt his mood sobering like a sudden dead calm. “Still no word where they’re holding Trell?”

  Mithaiya shook her head. “We know only that the prince was taken to Radov. Unfortunately, the Ruling Prince of M’Nador has many fortresses, many prisons in which to bury his enemies alive. But the First Lord has eyes and ears throughout the realm, and all are watching and listening for news of the prince’s whereabouts.”

  “Well, that’s something at least.” Carian had grown fond of Trell of the Tides, and he bristled at the idea of the prince falling into the hands of that lunatic, Radov, or worse, his psychopathic wielder, Viernan hal’Jaitar.

  Carian caught a floating lock of Mithaiya’s dark hair and spun it between his fingers. “My lady…we should retire if I’m to pay you for this information today. Soon I must be off.”

  She met his gaze with her very blue eyes. “Off? To where?”

  “Rohre and myself are attending a feast thrown by Niko van Amstel, High King of Treason, Treachery and All Things Ignoble. The Great Master, unfortunately, has forbidden me to gut and castrate him—not necessarily in that order should I not exactly disobey his command.”

  “Niko van Amstel.” Mithaiya’s eyes narrowed like a cat’s. “He lays his bed with Dore Madden, and the two ever were about seditious lovemaking.”

  Gwynnleth frowned at them. “I know these names.”

  Mithaiya turned to her. “No doubt you do. They are two of the so-called Fifty Companions, of whose number the Espial Franco Rohre also belongs.”

  “But Franco serves the First Lord,” Carian pointed out.

  “As do many more, though few know each other in this troth as yet.”

  Carian flicked Mithaiya’s blowing hair from his eyes. “What—you mean other Companions are sworn to the Vestal also? Who?”

  “You will come to know them, I believe, by their alliances.” She stood and pulled him to his feet—close, so that their bodies pressed together. “You have a debt, Carian vran Lea. I would see it repaid.”

  The pirate eyed her hungrily. “Let thy bosom release its godly nectar my way.”

  Mithaiya flashed a fang-sharp smile and slid past him toward the roof’s edge and the waiting balcony.

  Carian swept the hair from his eyes and looked to Gwynnleth to find her glaring at him. “What? Amithaiya’geshwen means the Bosom of God’s Nectar—”

  “Get off my rooftop.”

  He grinned. “Take care of yourself, birdie.” Then he jumped down to the balcony and his waiting lady-love.

  Six

  “No man can achieve a praiseworthy life unless he listens to the whisper which is heard by him alone.”

  – Emir Zafir bin Safwan al Abdul-Basir,

  Unifier of the Seventeen Tribes of the Akkad

  The Sacred City of Faroqhar, seat of the Empress of Agasan, languished beneath the fourth day of a lashing late-winter storm. Sitting atop the highest hill opposite the Sormitáge campus, the domes and towers of the sprawling Imperial Palace made brief appearances among the overcast, while the occasional golden glow peaked through from many a lighted window.

  “It’s really raging out there,” the Empress Valentina van Gelderan noted to her lover as they lay upon her ornate marble bed entwined in the aftermath of lovemaking. Rain dashed itself against a wall of glass-paned doors, while lightning flared in brief displays of brilliance and shadow, a turbulent dance set to thunder’s forbidding rhythm.

  The Adept wielder Marius di L’Arlesé twirled a lock of Valentina’s raven hair around one gold-ringed finger. “I remember when you wore it like this,” he murmured with only a hint of the weariness that plagued him these days, “long and flowing…free. Ah, to be so young again.”

  Valentina turned her head to better smile upon her Consort. “I was a girl then, and already smitten with you, the most promising wielder to walk the halls of the Sormitáge since Arion Tavestra.”

  Marius held up his hands and observed the thin gold bands that graced all ten of his fingers. Every ring had been hard-earned in trials that had often lasted not hours but days. He’d gained the last of his rings in the aftermath of the Adept Wars, when some knowledge yet remained. Now, three centuries after the slaughter of the Hundred Mages, it was a rarity to find wielders who could claim even a handful of rings.

  “Marius…?”

  He lifted his eyes back to her and realized she was still waiting for his response. “A man in full, yes.” He gave her a soft look. “Yet when it came to matters of love, I was but a boy who fash
ioned himself a man, and you…” His expression turned chastising. “You were a tigress, relentlessly pursuing me across the years until you made me your own.”

  Valentina regarded him lovingly. “You’d already stolen my heart; what choice was left to me?”

  “Ahh…” Marius exhaled a sigh and lay back on his pillow. “If only I’d known the burden its possession would prove.”

  Valentina arched an ebony brow. “You’re not so aged as your tone implies, mio caro—surely no less virile in this moment than the day you first worked the Pattern of Life.” She ran a finger along his sideburn and added with a slight smile, “No matter the silver you let come into your hair.”

  Marius sighed. “We can trick the body but never the mind, Valentina.” He turned his head to gaze into her colorless eyes. “My soul feels the ever-lengthening ages.”

  “My, but you’re maudlin tonight.”

  He grunted. “Centuries have passed since I first worked the Pattern, and though my love for you remains undiminished, I confess no similar sentiments towards life in these times.”

  Valentina frowned. She slipped from within the curve of his body and stood to retrieve her robe. Marius followed her with his eyes, noting as ever that her form was more exquisite naked than garnished with the diamonds of her imperial gown. Incredible that this vision had produced eleven offspring; such was the power of the Pattern of Life to restore youth and vigor to the body, even if not to the enduring spirit inhabiting it.

  “What troubles you, Marius?” Valentina’s voice carried a husky, melodious resonance that always stirred his blood. “These wistful musings are hardly like you.” She tied the waist of her silk robe and walked across opulent carpets toward the wall of glass doors and the storm.

  Marius sat up and spun his feet over the side of the bed in one smooth motion. He pushed a hand through his dark hair, barely touched of grey at the temples, and looked up at her under his brow.

  Scarcely a day had passed of late without a particular argument sprouting between them, and though he loathed bringing it up again, he couldn’t keep it from his thoughts—the matter pressed upon his conscience like an arrowhead beneath his armor, with every motion grinding its way further into his flesh. “You know my mind, Valentina.”

  Even as he said it, he wished he could’ve withdrawn the words.

  “And you know mine.” She turned him a level look over her shoulder.

  Marius shook his head. “Valentina, Ansgar is conspiring against you.”

  “No doubt he is.” She cast him a rueful smile. “But I will not bring war against the Danes without provocation—without proof.” Her gaze was steady, her tone uncompromising. “Why must you plague me with this matter? I publicly granted Ansgar clemency to rebuild his father’s domain, and I cannot be seen to renege on that promise, especially not so soon.”

  “It’s been seven years, Valentina. Time enough for a young king to become embittered by the sanctions leveled in punishment for another man’s crimes.”

  Her gaze remained uncompromising. “Denying one covenant calls all into question—overnight I’d have a dozen would-be dictators biting at my heels. Would you risk the stability of the empire on the whispers of spies?”

  Marius leaned to brace elbows across his bare knees. “You’ve acted on whispers from the Order of the Glass Sword before, Valentina, and with less provocation.”

  “Spies trade in whispers. Offer me proof of his treason, Marius. Then I will act.”

  Marius felt frustration rising inside him. Was the Empress losing her taste for war? The thought increasingly troubled him of late, especially with the inexplicable darkness he perceived on the currents. Then again, he remembered too well the way she’d looked upon the young Dane as he’d stood humbled before her throne. “Mayhap your own emotions on the matter confuse you, Valentina.”

  She spun him an icy look over her shoulder. “Marius, you forget your place.”

  Marius bit his tongue rather than provoke her further. In all their years together, they’d never faced such discord between them. It only heightened his sense of unease.

  “The currents show nothing to substantiate the Order’s claims of high treason from the Danes,” Valentina pointed out stiffly. “You said as much yourself.”

  “I said I didn’t know what they showed.” He remained frustrated by his inability to understand the strange influences he’d been seeing on the tides of elae. Something odd was happening in the far north, near the Dane’s city of Kjvngherad—this much Marius had ascertained—but he couldn’t explain the darkness he saw.

  The burden in their discord lay upon his shoulders. Had he been able to bring her any shred of proof—blood on stone, ink on paper, treason upon the currents—anything she might hold before the Patrician Senate, there would be nothing to discuss.

  Marius frowned and lifted hazel eyes to view his Empress across the room. She stood regarding him regally from her position at the windows, a slim figure in white silk, with raven hair and eyes like the diamonds of her famous throne. There were times when Valentina seemed simply Valentina and not the poised figure of the Empress of Agasan, but such glimpses of the mere woman—of the girl who’d claimed Marius’s heart so many decades ago—were few and far between.

  “If not the currents, Valentina,” he reasoned, holding her gaze, “surely your Sight has shown you something.”

  He saw the tightening around her eyes, but she smothered this response with a cool brushing away of her hair and turned to look outside again. “My Sight…” she repeated after a long silence, her tone unexpectedly astringent. “My Sight, Marius, is…blurred.”

  It pained her to admit it—Marius saw this at once, even as a number of ill-fitting pieces fell into place for him. This then was the crux of the matter, the reason for their quarreling. Never before had the Empress’s Sight defied her, and long had Valentina relied upon it to govern her decisions. Without it, she was blinded.

  As was he, without the currents to guide him.

  Marius stared at her upon this thought. “This cannot be a coincidence…that your Sight eludes you while the currents also defy my reading? What are the chances of us both being so blind, Valentina?”

  She turned him a look over her shoulder.

  “It’s Kjvngherad. It must be.”

  She barked a laugh. “Ansgar? You think him capable of obfuscating my Sight? A mere na’turna?” Valentina shook her head, and he read much from her grim expression. “This treachery has but one obvious source: the realm is out of Balance, and elae is dying.”

  Marius eyed her sharply. “Dying our race might be, Valentina, but it’s been waning for centuries. This is new. This is different. And I daresay it’s manmade.”

  “I would like it to be so, mio caro, but we cannot deceive ourselves—”

  “Are we?” he challenged, straightening. “We have no more proof that this obscuring is a product of Balance than one of direct malfeasance aimed against us.”

  Valentina frowned as she considered him. “I’ve no knowledge of anyone being able to confound the Sight.”

  Marius stood and walked to her. “Nor have I.” He brushed a strand of long hair off her shoulder and settled hands around her slender arms. “But I’d never heard of a wielder creating a realm whole-cloth out of the ether before Malachai…did…”

  When he failed to finish the thought, Valentina looked at him curiously. “What is it?”

  Before Marius could put words to explain his idea, a knock came twice upon the outermost doors to their chambers. “Aurelia!” The guard used the Empress’s formal title. “High Lord? Pardon my interruption, Your Grace—a missive has arrived for you.”

  Releasing Valentina with a look that said their discussion wasn’t finished, Marius donned his robe and crossed the distance between bedchamber and sitting room with long strides. He sent a flow of elae into the doors to unbolt the latch, and they swung open just as he reached them.

  A Praetorian stood in the portal, resplendent i
n his red-violet cape and elaborately etched silver cuirass, yet for all his weaponry, he was no more impressive in breastplate and greaves than Marius di L’Arlesé in the simplest of garments.

  “High Lord.” The Praetorian gave a respectful bow. “This just came for you.” He held out a red leather case inscribed with a well-known seal.

  At last, Marius thought. The report from the Order. He took the case and thanked the guard, then walked slowly back to the bedchamber while working the trace-seal that bound the leather. Unfolding the parchment inside, he began to read…

  After a moment of silence, Valentina turned to him and found him standing still in the middle of her sitting room. “What is it, Marius?”

  Marius frowned as he read. “The Order reports visitors in the night to Kjvngherad, and two Red Guard were found dead upon the rocks at the fortress’s base.”

  “Treason?”

  “The Danes said a storm must’ve claimed them, but the Order is investigating further.” Marius scanned the rest of the report, which detailed shipments into and out of Kjvngherad and the odd comings and goings of the Danes’ young king. Suspicious, but not enough to prove ill-doing.

  Marius flipped to the next page and continued reading, whereupon he lifted his gaze to Valentina. “Three more Adepts of the Fifty Companions have been found murdered.”

  Valentina arched an ebony brow. “This is becoming an epidemic. Who have we lost this time?”

  “The Order’s operative included descriptions of what was left of the bodies he found. Here.” He held out the report to her. “Read for yourself.”

  Valentina crossed the distance and took the parchment from him. While the Empress looked it over, Marius returned to the bedside to retrieve his clothes.

  Valentina’s gaze became ever more troubled as she read. Lowering the report, she looked to him and shook her head. “I fear we are facing the beginning of the end of days.”

  “It wasn’t divine vengeance that shredded those Companions, Valentina,” Marius remarked with some asperity. He had donned his white shirt and was now attending to his pants. “Not unless Cephrael takes the form of a Whisper Lord.”