Tassariel moaned as the ship rocked upon another swell. She was sure this would be the one that capsized the rickety wooden vessel. She clutched the edge of the bucket with damp fingers, averting her eyes from the stomach ejections already sloshing around inside.
For some reason, Elos chose this, of all moments, to surge forward into her mind.
“Something the matter, my dear?”
Fighting the rumble in her esophagus, Tassariel muttered, “The sea was much nicer from above the clouds. There, at least, it didn’t try to kill you.”
“Kill you?” The icy presence surged out and back in, as if testing the waters of sensation. “Nonsense. This is barely even a storm.”
“How comforting.”
“Is that sarcasm I hear? How dare you! Such behavior is most unbecoming the holy vessel of Elos!”
She stiffened, her sickness forgotten as a wave of shame swept over her, more violently than the very real waves crashing into the ship’s deck. “Apologies, my lord. I didn’t mean any disrespect.”
“Oh, come on. You had to know that was a joke.”
The shame turned to fury in an instant. She pressed her lips tightly together, then took a deep breath before answering. “Sorry. I’m not in a joking mood.”
“It’s a flaw of yours, I’m sure. Too much seriousness is bad for one’s health, you know. Didn’t anyone tell you?”
“No valynkar would, that’s for sure.”
“That flaw is systemic, I’m afraid, despite my most persistent efforts to prevent it. Alas. All children outgrow their parents. I suppose it was only inevitable you people would end up as aloof miscreants.”
“Miscreants! I wouldn’t—” Further words were forgotten as the ship lurched again. Tassariel lost her tenuous hold on the remainder of her stomach contents.
After a mark had passed, and no further expulsions seemed forthcoming, she rolled onto her back. The cot beneath her dug its fists into her spine, but she was too exhausted to care anymore. The bare walls of her cabin, lit only by a single wick lantern swinging wildly with every wave, closed around her, spinning. She shut her eyes, but it did little to stave off the dizziness.
Three days under sail. Halfway or better, the captain says. I’m not sure I could take much more of this.
The cramped confines only worsened her feelings of bondage and imprisonment. Ever since Elos had taken refuge inside her, it seemed she’d not made a single decision for herself. Try as she might to be obedient to her god, the constriction on choice would soon drive her mad.
“So,” she said to the empty room, “you’re not happy with the direction my people have taken.”
“Hardly.”
“There’s something, at least, we can agree on.”
“Why do you think I chose you?”
“Wait, you chose me? I thought it was only because Gilshamed tampered with the ritual that you were able to come to me the way you did.”
“Well, I chose him, too, but his was a much smaller part to play. You know, despite your difference of opinion on most matters, the two of you actually have a lot in common.”
“Is that so.”
“That didn’t sound like a question.”
“It wasn’t.”
“I see. Good to know my inflection receptors are still in working order. But aren’t you curious as to how you and your uncle are similar?”
“I don’t see how you could think that. I can’t imagine two valynkar more different than he and I.”
“Oh, there you go again. Focusing on all the wrong things. Surface things. Deep down, where it matters, you both desperately want to make the world a better place.”
Tassariel popped her eyes open. She pondered the statement and found that she could not disagree. “All right, then. Supposing that’s true, wouldn’t it be in your best interest to tell me all of your plan, so I can prepare well in advance of any obstacles that present themselves?”
The icy presence throbbed within her. The lantern above her swayed a full cycle every two beats. She counted forty-three swings before Elos answered.
“I see things . . . differently. You know how small the waves below you seemed from up in your domicile? Well, I’m as high above your city as your city is above the world’s surface, and then higher still. I see farther, deeper, more thoroughly than you can even imagine. I say this not to boast but to inform. I observe, categorize, evaluate patterns, calculate odds, then extrapolate likely conclusions. I cannot see the future, as I have told you, but I must act as if I actually can. To do otherwise would be to give in to despair.”
Tassariel swallowed the growing lump in her throat. “I understand, my lord.”
“I don’t think you do.”
“Perhaps not fully, but I’m beginning to. All I ask, going forward, is that you don’t blame me for my inquisitiveness. I only seek to extract some measure of control over my own fate, however slight it might be.”
“Fair enough. But I must ask something of you in return.”
“What’s that?”
“Do not think me cruel for withholding information. If you couldn’t already tell, there’s more at stake here than you can be allowed to know. Please understand that all I do, I do with that in mind. Sometimes, the greater good leaves no room for small kindnesses.”
Tassariel nodded. She took the words of her god and wrapped them around her soul, making of them a lifeline she could cling to when all else seemed bleak.
She had a feeling that she would be needing it often.
CHAPTER 11
The blizzard raged into its third day, with no end in sight. Draevenus struggled forward through the snow, which rose to his knees in the easy places. He had cast a spell about himself to ward off the worst of the cold and the wind, but he could feel the effects starting to wane. He hesitated to renew it. The chill in his bones warned him that the environment was worse than what he felt. Far worse. And any energy expended on sorcery was energy he didn’t have to keep his feet moving forward.
I am not going to let a little weather defeat me.
Draevenus remembered Zorvanya’s gift at last. He reached into a pocket for some of the winterweal, threw a handful into his mouth, and began chewing. The effect was immediate. It didn’t eliminate any of the cold’s bite, but it did at least take the edge off. Forgiving her in his mind—a little bit anyway—he trudged onwards.
After another mark, or another toll—it was difficult to tell—he heard a sound behind him that made him stop and turn. His own tracks had already disappeared not two paces away, scoured clean by the icy tempest.
Also missing was his companion.
The noise sounded a bit like a voice, but he didn’t quite trust it. With nothing but wind to fill his ears these last few days, he’d begun to have auditory hallucinations, phantom sounds so real they nearly drove him mad.
The noise came again, clearer this time. A deep voice, faint and stuttering, calling out. Draevenus dashed back along his erased trail.
A few moments later, he came upon Mevon, barely staggering forward. The man’s bearskin coat seemed a single cloak of frost. Draevenus soured inside as he realized he hadn’t been keeping close to his companion.
“H-have t-t-to stop,” Mevon said.
If Draevenus’s own weariness was any indication, Mevon had to be in terrible condition. He was pretty sure those Hardohl blessings would heal frostbite but would drain the man’s stamina to do so. Mevon’s sunken, frost-rimed cheeks spoke volumes about his state. The man barely hung on.
We need shelter.
He immediately energized and began crafting a sorcerous dome around them to block off the wind. “Hold still,” he said. “I’ve got to make sure nothing touches you.”
Shaking, Mevon nodded.
Around them he pulled at the surrounding snow, piling it upon the do
me, layer by layer, until it formed a solid barrier of ice a hand thick.
Mevon slumped to a knee.
Draevenus resisted the urge to rush forward. Contacting a void right now would sap all his energy, sorcerous and otherwise, making his efforts meaningless. “Lie down, Mevon. Take off your pack. Can you manage that on your own?”
Though he moved with all the dexterity of a man on his deathbed, his companion complied. Draevenus cut a few holes around the outside of the shelter, to ensure they didn’t suffocate, and conjured a dozen flaming orbs, placing them carefully in an oval around Mevon’s sprawling form. The effort taxed him. Darkness shimmered at the edges of his vision.
Shaking away his exhaustion, Draevenus circled Mevon and pulled two logs from the man’s pack. They were frozen solid. He risked another spell to thaw them, tottering against a wave of dizziness as he did so. Next came the hatchet. Aching fingers made the work longer than necessary, but he eventually turned one log into kindling and the other into four arm-thick wedges of wood.
He knelt, clearing a patch of ground in the snow, and arranged the sticks into a cone. With a weak gesture, he pulled the flaming orbs on the near side of Mevon’s body and arrayed them beneath the kindling. Draevenus sighed in relief as they caught fire.
Once the flame crackled steadily, he pushed a larger piece into it, then slumped onto his back, chest heaving with labored breaths. He peered sideways. Mevon, rolled onto his side and shivering, fought to keep his eyes even halfway open as they gazed into the flames. Draevenus snagged a bear steak from his own, smaller pack, skewered it on a dagger, then propped it up over the fire. The dome, warming comfortably now, soon filled with the aroma of sizzling meat.
“Sorry,” Mevon said after a time. “I never meant to be a burden to you.”
“Nothing to be sorry about,” Draevenus said. “If anything, it should be me apologizing to you. I nearly left you behind, after all.”
“I fell behind. I should have been able to keep up.”
“Nonsense. I’ve got an unfair advantage in that I can shield myself from the worst of the elements. You’re pretty good at absorbing damage, but even those blessings of yours have their limits.”
“So I am discovering.”
Draevenus smiled, relieved that Mevon seemed to have at least a small measure of his humor left to him. It was a good sign. He flipped the steak over, juices spattering on the coals.
Later, after they’d both filled their bellies with warm food and arranged their bedrolls comfortably, they leaned back on their elbows across the dwindling fire from each other. Draevenus felt rejuvenated, and Mevon appeared to have recovered from the effects of his exposure. As best as he could tell, it was still early afternoon. They had plenty of time to kill.
“So,” Draevenus said, “what does the great Mevon Daere actually do in his spare time?”
Mevon rubbed his chin, eye glazed in thought. “That’s a good question.”
“What, no hobbies? No pastimes? Not every toll has to be about the mission, you know.”
Mevon raised an eyebrow.
“It’s true,” Draevenus continued. Then, he realized something about his companion that had never occurred to him before. “That’s why you came with me, wasn’t it? You saw an end to your purpose, the life ahead full of uncertainty and doubtful meaning and far too much free time. You feared that more than death.”
“Yes.”
“Life isn’t always about purpose, though. About achieving some goal.”
“Then what is it about?”
“Mevon, if you can answer that, you’ll be the wisest man who ever lived.”
The former Hardohl managed a tight smile at that. “What about you? You’ve walked upon this world for twenty lifetimes or more. Surely you’ve picked up a useless skill or two along the way?”
“Hundreds, probably.”
“Probably?”
Draevenus shrugged. “Only the most important events seem to keep inside my memory, in the place where I can recall them at will. The rest is just . . . mist.” He chuckled. “I think I tried my hand at woodcarving once, though.”
“How did that turn out?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Hmm. Must not have gone well at all.”
“Probably.”
“What did keep, then?”
“What do you think?” Draevenus sighed, sagging onto his bedroll. “Killing.”
Mevon, thankfully, merely nodded.
Draevenus closed his eyes. Who am I to think I can judge a god for all the things he has done? I, who have so much blood on my hands. More, possibly, than any other living soul.
The wind howled around the outside of their shelter, but Draevenus found no answer in the cold, uncaring storm.
All it held was fury.
In that, he found something in common with it.
“This,” Jasside said with an eyebrow raised, “is your capital?”
Prince Daye Harkun shrugged. “More or less.”
Though more sizable than any of the towns they’d passed on the way, Taosin was barely large enough to be a city. Most of it would fit inside a single district of Mecrithos. Half the buildings were burnt-out, and the other half appeared to be built from the ashen bones of the first. The air, as they rolled down the muddy path that passed for a street, reeked of sweat and char. Refuse clogged the runoff channels. For every person going about on normal affairs, three or four faces were crammed into alleys and stairs.
“What happened here?” she asked. “I thought all the refugees were back in the valley?”
“All? No. Those were just the ones longest separated from their homes. These here are mostly fresh. It takes time to find a more permanent solution.”
“What about the buildings? It looks like you were attacked.”
“We were.”
“Care to elaborate?”
He sighed, clearly not wishing to revisit the tale he was to tell. Jasside didn’t rescind the query, though. She needed to know.
“For it to make sense,” he said at last, “I think it best to start from the beginning.”
Jasside nodded, gesturing for him to continue.
“Almost a year and half ago, the nations gathered in response to—” He furrowed his brow, then turned his head to glance back at Vashodia, who rode on the wagon, behind them. He grunted. “Can’t believe I didn’t see it before.”
What happened a year and a half ago? Then, she remembered. The Shroud. Of course. The whole world must have felt its collapse.
Their eyes locked, and somehow, the awareness of each other’s knowledge passed between them. The prince broke his gaze away first. She could almost swear he blushed. “Yes, anyway,” he said finally. “Representatives had met to discuss the event when the Panisian royal family was assassinated. Witnesses claimed it was soldiers from our nation that did the deed.”
“And was it?”
“We don’t know. Our king and all of our princes barely escaped the summit with their lives, but no sooner had they returned to San Khet—that was our previous capital—when a southern assault force laid waste to the city.”
“How did you escape?”
Daye shook his head. “I wasn’t in that city.”
“I thought you said all the princes were there?”
“Yes.”
“Then . . . ?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “In Sceptre, we choose our leaders based on character, competency. On courage. Not because someone was lucky enough to be born to the right parents. My brother and I were being groomed for princedom. Once all the others died, we took it upon ourselves to step up into that role.”
“I see. But that doesn’t explain the devastation here in Taosin.”
The prince looked away. “Some other time, perhaps. We’re almost there.”
As they approached, the two guards flanking the gate stiffened, then bowed. Daye dipped his head towards them. They straightened, eyes narrowing on the prince.
“Is my brother in?”
“Yes,” said the one on the right, in a gruff voice. “He’s where he should be. My lord.”
Jasside caught the subtle interplay, the slight hesitation before the honorific, the tightening of Daye’s jaw. They perceived a man not doing his duty and challenged him without breaching courtesy. The prince did not dress them down for it. Interesting people, these Sceptrines.
“Foreign guests,” the prince muttered, gesturing to Jasside. “Powerful guests. They needed personal attention.”
The two guards eyed her for a moment, but their gazes soon drifted past, gaping for a beat, then narrowing. Angled downward. She didn’t need to look to know that Vashodia approached from behind. Probably had her head exposed, too.
The soldiers waved them in without further protest.
As a trio, they marched through the gate into a shallow courtyard, tiered with spiked barricades manned by fierce and alert-looking soldiers, ready to repel anything short of a full-scale invasion. Daye returned bows with another pair of soldiers, but the exchange stayed brief, wordless, as the men pulled open the steel doors.
They stepped into a hallway lined by torches. The sudden narrowness caused Jasside to bump shoulders with the prince. She gasped as she felt her power momentarily sapped.
And, perhaps, for other reasons.
“Sorry!”
“Sorry!”
He smiled at her. “Best if we go single file, I think.”
Jasside nodded, catching her breath. “Lead the way.”
As she settled in step behind him, she wondered at her reaction. True, it was always surprising, and a little unpleasant, having her power taken away so casually, but she had felt little fear. She’d gotten to know the prince during their journey and had learned enough about him to know he wasn’t the type to take advantage. She thought she might have actually begun to trust him.
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