Winter's King

by Bryce O'Connor

  Reyn went red at that, but seemed to think better of responding. Instead he peered around Raz to Syrah again, who was looking confused.

  “Syrah,” he said again, his voice awash with relief, and he acted like Raz was nothing more than a pillar in his way, moving around and reaching for the woman once more. “I was so worried. I knew you were alive. I knew you couldn’t have—”

  “DON’T TOUCH ME!”

  Syrah’s shrill scream took them all by surprise. Raz snapped around, turning just in time to see the woman—her face contorted in horror again—recoiling from Reyn’s seeking hand as it made to reach for hers, scrambling back to the very head of the bed. He started to move forward at once, planning to grab the man by the collar and throw him back into the paired Priests still standing uselessly by the door.

  Syrah beat him to it.

  As Reyn, taken aback by the outburst, started to ask her what was wrong, the Priestess panicked. She was already as far away from the man as she could get, her eye staring at his outstretched hand, her back pressed against the mortared marble.

  When it didn’t stop in its approach, she broke, throwing her scarred arms up in panic as she screamed again.

  The crackling blast of magic was so strong it slammed Raz into the wall at his back. Reyn, who was closest to her, was thrown completely off his feet, falling once more to the floor and skidding back over the stone until he collided with the shins of one of the Priests still lingering by the open door. The chairs that had been set on either side of the bed were tossed up and tumbled in the air, and it was only via the quick reflexes of the other Priest that the one Raz had been sitting in split in two over the man’s casted ward rather than crashing into him.

  “SYRAH!” Raz roared, throwing his arms up in front of his face as the magic continued to rip about him, snapping through his ears and wings like a windstorm. “ENOUGH!”

  At his words, the storm died.

  When Raz brought his arms down again, he found Syrah still huddled against the very back edge of the bed, one shoulder against the wall, her arms wrapped around her legs as she pulled them to her chest. She was shaking, her eye wide and staring at Reyn through the white hair that was falling across her face.

  “I’m sorry,” she was whispering into trembling knees, not looking away from the man as Raz heard him get up behind him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “Syrah…” Raz said again, gently now, easing himself towards the woman. At once her gaze snapped to him, but she gave no hint of further panic as he approached. On the contrary, as he started to crouch down beside the bed, she scrambled forward, away from the stone at her back.

  Before he had a moment to think on what he was supposed to do, the woman had thrown her arms around his neck, pulling herself up onto her knees on the bed, and buried her head into the smooth, scaled skin above his collar.

  She clung there, for a time, as Raz stood half-crouched. She wasn’t crying now, he could tell, but she was still shaking, her body jerking and shivering against his, her breathing coming short and fast.

  Deciding there was nothing else for it, Raz carefully brought his arms around, encasing her in a firm, comforting embrace.

  “It’s all right,” he said into her ear quietly, one clawed hand brushing through her uneven hair slowly. “It’s all right. We’re fine. Everything is fine.”

  Syrah, in response, only nodded into his shoulder.

  It was a while, it seemed, before her breaths became steady again and she looked up once more. When she did, she dropped back to sit on her heels on the bed, and Raz let her go. She didn’t move far, one hand still resting against his chest even as she turned to look at Reyn and the other men.

  All three of them were staring at her and Raz with open mouths, the Priests red in the face while Reyn just looked as though he had been kicked in the gut.

  “Reyn, I’m so sorry,” Syrah said to him once more, though the grief in her tone told Raz she was apologizing for something much more than just her lashing out a minute before. “I… I can’t… What they did… I… I just can’t…”

  Whatever her desired effect might have been, Syrah’s words certainly had some impact on the young man. Reyn’s face went from pale to green, then almost grey. He gaped at her, his mouth moving silently, seeking and failing to find the words that would deny what she was trying to tell him, his eyes moving between her face and the hand that was crumpling the loose cloth of Raz’s shirt.

  When he finally managed to speak, his voice was like the hoarse moan of someone who’d just been told to expect their own death.

  “B-But, Syrah,” he started, stumbling on the words, “I need to—I came to tell you…”

  He trailed off and, with what seemed like a great effort, swallowed.

  “What happened?” he asked after another moment, his eyes pleading, seeking answer in hers. “Please. I need to—I need to understand. Your hair. Your eye…”

  Raz felt himself tense at the question, but Syrah’s fingers curled softly against his chest.

  “I’m s-so sorry, Reyn,” she choked, the words not coming easy now. “I can’t. I just ca—”

  “What in Laor’s name is going on in here?”

  Every head turned, then, as a threesome of men hurried into the room through the open door. At their head was Jofrey al’Sen, looking furious as his gaze took in the small space, the broken and knocked over furniture, the Priests still standing meekly along the front wall, and Reyn, pale and shaken between them. Behind him came Cullen Brern and the one Raz only knew as “Elber.”

  “Priest Hartlet,” Jofrey seethed, his tone even despite the wrath all could tell was upon him as his eyes settled on the man. “You are clearly under the delusion that your misdeeds in the past days have gone unnoticed. It’s my understanding that you were to be confined to the infirmary until such time as you were in a fit enough condition to stand before the council and address the allegations made against you.”

  For all Jofrey’s importance and eloquence, his voice might have been the buzzing of a fly on the ceiling for all the notice Reyn took of it. The Priest was still staring at Syrah and Raz, his cheeks rapidly recovering their color. Even as Raz watched, the man’s face shifted, transforming over several seconds from miserable realization to something very different, hateful and embarrassed. He made no response, his eyes fixed on the hand Syrah still had resting over Raz’s shirt.

  He was quiet for so long, in fact, that Jofrey started to snap at him again. Just as the High Priest began, though, Reyn turned on his heel and limped out the door, one hand on his ribs as he shouldered his way between Brern and Elber.

  “Hartlet!” Jofrey bellowed, turning to watch the man go. “Who gave you permission to leave? You’ll stay and—!”

  “Let him go, Jofrey,” Syrah interrupted him quietly, her face mournful when Raz looked down at her. “I-I think he’s had enough punishment for the moment.”

  Jofrey, too, looked around at the woman’s words. He still appeared irate, but much of the heat left his face as he took Syrah in again, seeing her kneeling on the bed beside Raz.

  His gaze dropped behind his spectacles to eye Raz’s freed hands, loose on either side of him.

  “I thought we had an agreement, Master Arro,” he said in a slow, calm tone that said he wasn’t at all in the mood to deal with another situation at the moment. “I allowed you to remain with Syrah without restriction, and you stayed bound.”

  “He didn’t free himself,” Syrah said, and a good amount of the anger that seemed to have just left Jofrey looked to have found itself abruptly in her tone. “I did. I don’t have much of a taste for chains at the moment, least of all around the wrists of the man who freed me from them.”

  There was no accusation in her tone, but all the same the three men looked suddenly somewhat ashamed of themselves, exchanging quick glances before meeting her eye once more.

  “All the same,” Priest Elber said, “if Valaria finds out Arro is walking abou
t the Citadel unbound…”

  “If the viper has something to bitch about, tell her to take it up with me,” Syrah snapped, her hand finally leaving Raz’s chest as she eased herself down to sit more comfortably along the side of the bed. “It’s about time I give her something to choke on, I think.”

  Raz might have imagined it, but he thought he saw the barest hint of a smile dart across both Jofrey’s and Cullen Brern’s faces.

  “As…uh…delightful as that confrontation might be to witness,” the master-at-arms said following a fake cough to hide the amusement, “I’m afraid it will have to wait. Carro is asking for you.”

  At that, Syrah looked stunned. “You’ll let me see him?” she demanded, her tone something between delighted and suspicious. “When? Why?”

  “We will,” Jofrey said with a nod. “He’s being kept in the larders. In the same place he freed Arro from, as a reminder of his offense.” He nodded briefly to Raz, though more so in acknowledgement than any unkindly fashion.

  “A reminder?” Syrah demanded, looking suddenly furious, but Raz cut her off pointedly.

  “You didn’t answer the question,” he growled, his eyes set firmly on Jofrey. “She asked you why?”

  It was Elber who answered.

  “In exchange for the truth,” the man said with a frown. “Carro has admitted to his crimes, admitted to the betrayal of our laws. He allowed Talo Brahnt’s life to be ended before it was due, condoned the killing of tribesmen in order to clear a path to the Citadel, and played his part in the murder of however many Master Arro—” he said the words with what was almost disgust “—had to cut down in order to retrieve you from the Kayle.”

  Raz’s spine tingled as the man finished, but it was Syrah who spoke first.

  “Jofrey,” she said, looking to the new High Priest. “He had no choice. Have you spoken to him? Has he explained the circumstances?”

  “He has,” Jofrey said gravely, and for a brief moment he looked mournful. “All the same, Syrah, the law is clear. Whether by choice or by design, Carro knowingly stole away Laor’s greatest gift.”

  “He stole nothing,” Raz snapped, gnashing his teeth. “Carro only acted as was necessary for the preservation of your lives. I am the killer. If you seek to punish someone, punish me.” He smiled, then, grinning nastily at Elber in particular. “Or give it a try, at the very least.”

  “You are not of our faith, and therefore are not bound by our law,” Jofrey said evenly, not even blinking at Raz’s underhanded threat. “Beyond that, we won’t pretend we are not grateful to you for returning Syrah to us.”

  Cullen Brern nodded at that, and the distaste across old Elber’s face actually faded somewhat.

  Raz, though, just frowned, turning his back on the men and extending a hand to Syrah.

  “If you’re so grateful,” he said, not bothering to look at them as he helped the woman shakily to her feet “then we’d like to see the only man who seems to have any sense among you.”

  XLVI

  THE PATH down to the Citadel’s dungeons-turned-larders was brighter than Raz might have imagined. He’d had an image in his head of what “dungeon stairs” should have looked like, fed by a childhood of stories and years spent coming to understand the evil the darker half of the world was capable of. Rather than a dark and gloomy descent into cold misery, however, what Raz found was a steep, well-lit flight of stairs that led down and down into the earth, as warm and clean as any other part of the Citadel he’d seen, replete with chains fastened in iron loops at hip height to act as railings. Syrah walked between him and the wall, one hand following the chain as they took the steps, the other firmly looped under his right arm. No one spoke as they drew further into the mountain, just as no one had spoken since they’d left the room.

  When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Raz found himself in a more familiar setting. He hadn’t recalled the way there—having been unconscious at the time the council had had him incarcerated—but as they turned right and left into the main hall of the dungeons he gained his bearings. The unconscious forms of Reyn and the two Priests who had been guarding his cell were obviously gone—replaced by half-a-dozen stern-faced sentries—and the rubble Carro had made of the two doors had been cleared from the floor. In addition, at the very back of the wall, the shadows seemed to have deepened, and it was a moment before Raz realized the heavy darkness was actually an illusion caused by scorch marks blasted into the stone.

  Looks like Carro’s runes did their job, he thought with a smirk as Jofrey led him and Syrah forward through the line of guards, Brern and Elber trailing behind them.

  The High Priest took them straight to the door Raz expected him to, or at least the great hole in the wall that had been a door. A pair of tough-looking older Priests nodded respectfully to Jofrey when he passed between them, their eyes following Raz and Syrah curiously as they stepped into the cell after him, Raz ducking under what was left of the granite overhang. Here, too, he saw that the mess he had made of the larder had been mostly cleared away, what refuse remained having been shoved along one wall of the large room. In its place, a group of men and women stood to either side, faces set as they turned to see the group arrive.

  Between and beyond them, seated on the stone bench that Raz had first woken up on when he’d come to in this place, was Carro al’Dor.

  “Carro!” Syrah gasped in relief, pulling her hand free of Raz’s arm to hurry forward as quickly as she could on unsteady legs. Raz, staying with Jofrey, Elber, and Cullen Brern a little ways back from the rest of the council, saw that Carro looked little worse for wear. His robes had been taken from him, making him appear somewhat less clean and regal than he might have, and his hair was a bit more tussled than usual. His left arm was still slung across his chest, and his right was secured to the wall behind him by a short iron chain, ensuring he wouldn’t slip away.

  When he made Syrah out in the dim light of the candles, Carro smiled broadly.

  “Hello, child,” he said warmly, getting to his feet as best he could to meet her. “To say I’m pleased to see you would be the understatement of a lifetime.”

  Syrah, for a moment, looked as though she wanted to throw her arms around the old man’s thick neck. At the last moment, though, she seemed to think better of it, coming to a foolish stop just out of his reach. Her hands were open, like she wanted to reach out and touch the Priest, but something, some invisible force, was holding her back. Raz wasn’t at all surprised when Carro frowned in confusion, scrutinizing the woman.

  The confusion, though, was almost instantly thrown aside in favor of shock.

  “Your eye,” Raz heard the Priest exclaimed. “Syrah, what—?”

  “It’s nothing,” Syrah told him quickly, leaping on the opportunity to shove aside the awkwardness of the moment and simultaneously ignoring the mutterings from behind her as some of the others—who must not have seen her since she’d returned—noticed her injuries as well. “I’ll count myself lucky that this was most of what I left behind. Are you all right? Have you been treated well?”

  “Of course he’s been treated well,” came an impatient drawl Raz recognized at once. “What do you take us for, girl? Beasts?”

  “No,” Raz growled before Syrah had time to reply, his eyes finding Valaria Petrük in the group. “Fools. Dunces who have locked up the only man to have done anything useful towards the goal of pulling you out from under the Kayle’s boot.”

  “When your opinion is wanted, creature, we will ask for it,” Behn Argo spat, turning to face Raz and looking abnormally sure of himself. “I imagine you’ve just finished cleaning the blood from your claws. Disgusting. How do you feel, knowing y-you—?”

  He spluttered to a stop, eyes dropping down to where Raz’s arms rested, crossed over his chest.

  “He’s free!” Argo practically howled, taking a step back. “Laor save us! The lizard has freed himself!”

  “Jofrey!” Petrük seethed, she too shrinking away to half-hide behind Ben
ala Forn and a bandaged Aster Re’het. “What is the meaning of this?”

  “You’ve already chained one of my rescuers to a wall, Petrük!” Syrah snapped from behind her, turning away from Carro to face the woman. “I wasn’t about to let you fetter Raz just because your prejudices won’t allow you sleep soundly while he walks free!”

  “You?” Petrük demanded, whirling on the Priestess. “Are you insane, Brahnt? This thing attacked me! How dare you—!”

  “QUIET!”

  Carro’s roar took everyone—except Raz, who had seen the man’s face twist in anger as the old woman spoke—by surprise. Many jumped, turning to face him.

  “Your jabs and insults aside, Valaria,” Carro snarled, easing himself down to sit upon the stone bed once more, “I am tired of your poison. We had this argument half-a-dozen times after the consecration room, and I can only imagine how many occasions you’ve brought it up since I’ve been down here. Furthermore—since Raz has not been thrown back into a cell since his return—I also assume your accusations have been met with the same fatigue by the rest of the council. Therefore: SHUT UP!”

  His words seemed to vibrate through the room, and Raz was fairly sure he was the only one who could see the pink tinge that had crept into Petrük’s withered cheeks. All the same, the Priestess puffed herself up, all too ready with her reply.

  Jofrey cut her short.

  “That’s enough,” he said in a firm, tired voice, stepping forward, into the group. “Valaria, your opinions will have more weight regarding other matters we must discuss. And Carro—” he frowned at the Priest “—until such time as you have been sentenced per the council’s ruling, I recommend you keep yourself in check.”

  Carro, in response, merely shrugged.

  “I’ve admitted my crimes,” he said in a voice that was just as worn down as Jofrey’s. “Sentence me, and be done with it. I knew what I was doing the moment I sent Raz into the snow.”

  “Gladly!” Behn Argo said with a harsh laugh, but Syrah’s shout overcame him.