The Fireblade Array: 4-Book Bundle

by H. O. Charles

  anyone else. That had to be the first clue.

  And then there was Artemi’s promise. Three children by him; not one, three! Not that he was ungrateful, but she’d been convinced there would be three. And she would not die because of them, she’d said. Had they somehow undone that foretelling, or had it only implied her survival? He needed to talk to Silar about this. Damn him! He’d better have his head screwed on well enough to know he shouldn’t leave.

  Morghiad dragged himselfand Artemi from the water, and staggered to the exit with her. He carried her to the underground tombs, only recently dug out from the bedrock, and placed her gently on a cold slab of pale granite. She was still the most handsome woman in history, and it seemed cruel of the world to

  present him with such perfection, only to take it away for another twenty years. He leaned forward and kissed her lips. They were still soft and full, but cold. He kissed her fingers and wept over them before he finally tore himself away. Another twenty years, he thought, and it felt wrong. All of this felt very wrong indeed.

  There were boxes and servants and piles of things outside Silar’s rooms when he arrived there. Inside, most of the walls were empty and the shelves bare. Morghiad strode through to the bedroom, and found Silar seated on the edge ofhis bed with his head in his hands.

  “You should stay.”

  Silar raised his reddened eyes and tearstreaked face to look at him.

  “This

  wasn’t your mistake,” Morghiad

  insisted. “I was wrong to say it.”

  When he finally spoke it came out as a whisper. “You know what happened to her?”

  “No.”

  “Ask yourself, what is the point of my being here if I can’t prevent things like this?”

  “You are here because you are a brilliant general and a friend.” Morghiad began to weep again. He couldn’t stop it. “I need you. And I need you to help me find out what happened to her.”

  Silar bit his lip and stood suddenly. “I’m sick of this! How many more times do we have to wait for her like prisoners serving our sentence? Bloody follocking Achellon, she’s supposed to be harder to kill than we are!”

  “It seems it is not something we can always control.”

  “No,” the general growled, “No, it is not.”

  Morghiad folded his arms and blocked the doorway. “Will you stay?”

  Silar shook his head, desperation marking his eyes. “This place is too much of her – it is her. Fine, if you want me to solve your mystery I will. ButI cannot promise more than that.”

  Morghiad nodded slowly. “Thank you. Think on something for me. Perhaps it wasn’t a person who killed her, or even an eisiel. Some other force of nature may have come for her. And perhaps it doesn’t think like we do.”

  “Oh bloody blazes, Morghiad. You haven’t gone mad again, have you?” He stared at him closely, and Morghiad met his appraisal with a flat look. “Maybe not,” Silar said

  eventually, “But listen, even if that were true, what do you expect me to do about it?”

  “I just want you to think about it. Something somewhere was better-served with her dead.”

  Silar folded his arms and huffed. “People don’t always die for a good reason, or any reason at all. You know that as well as I do.”

  “What you mean is, some battles are meaningless, some murderers are without motive and often it is unjustifiable. But listen, Si, there is always a how to the manner in which people die. And if someone we care about – someone as unique as she is - dies for no apparent reason at all, you can be damn sure there was a good reason behind it.”

  Understanding crossed the general’s

  features briefly, and he nodded. “You felt nothing when it happened – from her?”

  Morghiad shook his head. “Nothing.” That was it now; he’d started the chain of thought in Silar that needed to be started. “Where is my son?”

  “Onsa and Caala have been minding him in your rooms.”

  “He’s not with Toryn?”

  Silar’s lips thinned as he drew his mouth tight. “Best you don’t cross paths with him at the moment.”

  Caala was soothing a sniffling child when he returned to his sun-filled chambers, and Danner was looking unusually glum for a wolf.

  “At last, his bloody father decides it’s time to bloody well show up!” Caala stomped over to Morghiad and plonked Tallyn firmly in his arms. “Hmph!” she said as she stormed out of the room.

  Onsa was watching quietly in the corner, her feet tucked under her skirts, her hair just as wild as ever. Tallyn writhed about in his father’s arms, clearly wanting to be free, so Morghiad set him on the floor. He seated himselfin a nearby armchair to watch Tallyn waddle about, and returned to his deep thoughts. He had not wanted this for his son, to grow up without a mother as he had. How was he to raise his son alone? Artemi should have lived instead; she always knew what to do when he didn’t, and was patient when he was not. Or blazes, what if that dark thing came back? What if it became hungry again? He felt sick to the stomach with those thoughts, and he

  realised Tallyn had made his way back to the main doors. The boy was hammering his small

  The light was shining so fiercely into the room that it must have been midday, and high summer. Had summer truly arrived so quickly? The shutters had to be closed, or maybe someone needed to block out the sun altogether. She waited a moment for her husband to do it, but when he did not rouse,

  she waved her hand around in the bed to prod him. Her hand found only air. Artemi propped herselfup and looked around, squinting in the light.

  She was not on a bed. At least, it was not a bed of soft sheets, but rather a bed of leaves. “Morghiad?” Where was he? And why was she in a wood? She stood on wobbly legs amidst the bright glow, leaning against a nearby tree. “Morghiad?” Artemi stumbled forward through the woods, searching for any sign of him and her son. “Tallyn!” This woodland was impossible! There was little or no undergrowth... and where were the animals? Where was the breeze? And why was it so bloody bright? “Morghiad?” Her head was so full of fuzz she couldn’t feel him - she couldn’t sense where he was. She pushed forward

  through the hot light, and eventually came to a clearing. The blasted thing was even brighter against her eyes.

  “Farhan Artemi, so good of you to join us,” said a cool, commanding female voice.

  Artemi recognised it from somewhere, but couldn’t place it. And Farhan: it was a term she hadn’t heard for a while. Artemi stepped forward onto the soft grass, shading her eyes. She could just about make out four figures, their faces obscured by the bright glow.

  “Shade and night, Artemi! At least have the presence of mind to make yourself decent before us!”

  She looked down at her body. It was indeed naked, but where were her clothes? “I don’t have anything to wear.”

  She heard the low voice of one of the

  other women whispering, “She has been there a long time... she may have forgotten.”

  “Forgotten what? Where my clothes are?” Her eyes had begun to adjust to the light a little more, and now she could see the four figures comprised three women and a man. There was something familiar about all of them. She moved forward once more.

  The first woman spoke again. She had long, golden hair, but something about her was old - much older than Artemi was. “It seems you are still a little disorientated. We shall see to your clothing.”

  Abruptly, a veil of light sprung up over her skin, spiralling along her arms. It wasn’t made with Blaze, whatever it was. Artemi walked cautiously toward her new hosts, blinking and squinting at them in the most

  graceless way. “Where is this?”

  “This is the crux, Farhan Artemi. It is your homeland.”

  Again, it tickled something in her memories, but she wasn’t sure what. “Crux of what?”

  “Why, everything!” a woman with raven-black hair and a sharp nose said.

  Artemi glanced to the man bri
efly. His face was round and pallid, his manner sour. His presence did not put her at ease. “This is the centre of the world?”

  “She really is confused, isn’t she?” the third, grey-haired woman said. She was by far the eldest of the group.

  The man folded his arms and pulled a grimace. “How long is this going to last? She is irritating like this.” Brindon. That was his name,

  Brindon. Artemi knew that she did not like

  Brindon at all.

  “Then help me to remember. Why amI here?”

  “It was time for you to return,” the grey-haired woman chimed.

  The golden-haired woman – Taranna, or was it Tiranna? – spoke next, “Your punishment was complete.”

  Artemi’s confusion only deepened. “What punishment? Punishment for what?”

  The women all exchanged glances. “You defied us, Farhan Artemi. You refused to accept your responsibilities and you dishonoured your parents.”

  Her parents? Why would her father and Sindra be upset with her? They’d been on excellent terms when she’d dined with them the week before. And Morghiad had even shared a joke with them that evening; he’d made Toryn laugh, which was a blazed breakthrough! She’d rewarded her husband very well for that afterwards. It made her cheeks redden to remember it.

  Tiranna continued, “We sent you to the Darkworld to learn your lesson.”

  “What’s the Darkworld?”

  Brindon scoffed at her question, drawing a scowl from Artemi.

  “Farhan,” the grey-haired woman said softly, “Your ten-thousand years there is complete. You are forgiven. It is time for you to honour your obligations here.”

  Oh, blazed light! They meant her home! Her home was the Darkworld... and this was... it was Achellon! Artemi fell to her knees then.

  She could not feel The Blazes in her mind, or Morghiad. He was no longer there. And Tallyn! “Send me back. Please, whateverI did... send me back there!”

  The middle woman, Kufya, opened her fire-filled eyes wide. “You want to go back there?!”

  Artemi nodded vigorously. “Yes, yes. My punishment is not yet complete. I must return.”

  “Out of the question,” Tiranna said. “It is time for you to meet your obligations now. You must take a husband.”

  “I already have a husband!”

  Brindon pulled a snarl, and the elder next to him placed a calming hand on his arm.

  Kufya cleared her throat. “That liaison hardly counts.”

  Blazes, she remembered now. She remembered what she had done. Artemi closed her eyes as she thought back to the time before, when all she’d known was the warm embrace of The Crux: a world of light and peace and pleasure. You must marry Brindon, they’d said, to keep the lines pure. And when her children were ready to mate, her fire would be extinguished, her duty done. But marry him? No wonder she’d always hated betrothals! You must learn your lesson in the Darkworld.

  Ten-thousand years of suffering and pain amongst the fireless. An array of deaths for you to endure. Well, she had learned a thing or two during her time there. “I will not marry that man.”

  Tiranna’s face filled with fire. “You have no choice.”

  Fine. If she wanted to play it that way... Artemi leapt at the golden-haired woman with all the speed she could muster. Every technique that the men and women of the Darkworld had shown her was still sharp in her memory, and she was deadly even without her weapons. But something slammed her back into the earth, something beyond Blaze. It was a power she was not yet permitted to touch. She fought to raise herself, but failed miserably. She was trapped!

  “Farhan Artemi,” Kufya said, “There you may have been powerful, but here you are still a child. A wilful, disobedient child. You will do as you are told. Your line will continue with your firstborn.”

  Artemi felt her fury bubbling. “I already have a child!”

  “The less said about that halfling cat thing the better!” Tiranna spat.

  “He is the son ofa king!”

  “It is the offspring of a Darkworld nothing!”

  Brindon muttered to the grey-haired woman, “You said that couldn’t happen.”

  “It wasn’t supposed to,” she whispered back.

  Artemi roared at her intended, “His father is more of a man than you could ever be!” And to the rest of them, “I will not marry your disgusting, Farhis son!”

  Kufya tried to calm her. “This is more important than what you want, or what you think will make your selfish little heart happy-”

  “I will not do it! Not this! Not ever!”

  Tallyn was still scrabbling at the doors when Morghiad returned to his rooms, and he still looked as miserable as Morghiad felt. He snatched his son up into his arms and bade the two minders good night.

  Their apologetic looks told him that the child’s behaviour had not improved. Clearly Tallyn had continued to howl after his mother and search for her beyond the doors. Morghiad sat with his son for a moment, watching as the child’s gaze repeatedly returned to the doors. His eyes were bright green and large, but his

  hair shone dark red and gold. No doubt he would have his fair share of admirers when he reached adulthood, and being the kahr would only add to his problems. But that was twenty years from now, when he was most likely to meet his mother again. They’d know each other only as adults. Tallyn stretched towards the door once more, trying to call for her.

  “She’s not there, Tal,” he whispered.

  But Tallyn was just as stubborn as Artemi, and ignored him.

  “Fine. I’ll show you.” Morghiad hefted his son into one arm and walked out, into the hallway.

  Its walls glowed a beautiful iridescent blue in the darkness of night, providing enough light to see without torches or Blaze. “You see. She’s not here.”

  Tallyn wriggled for escape again, reaching for something at the end of the hall.

  “If that is where you want to go, that is where we’ll go.” He’d walk this whole, blasted castle if it meant his son would stop searching. At least he seemed more optimistic than his father.

  Morghiad had failed to uncover anything of note about his wife’s death through his investigations, and Silar’s efforts had so far only resulted in his permanently withdrawn nature. Of the last few days, the general had only been vocal about the matter of the funeral, which Morghiad insisted be delayed. It just didn’t feel right; it wasn’t the right time for that.

  Tallyn seemed to be getting rather excited about their journey, even flashing a few smiles as they descended the great spire of the

  palace. Following them was the wolf, and he bounded behind with barely suppressed energy. Bats and nightdaws flitted around the structure in near silence, their only sound an occasional click-click—click. The white flicker that darted past the windows in soundlessness betrayed the presence of a hunting owl. But Tallyn ignored it completely; his eyes were transfixed on the route ahead. He was growing cold, so Morghiad wrapped the edge of his cloak about his son and cuddled him a little

  tighter.

  When they reached the bottom of the spire, Tallyn pointed the way towards the open gardens. These were half-courtyard, halfcultivated areas with lean trees, soft grass and fingers of white crystal that glittered from their own light. The ancient panther appeared to roar toward them from its great height, but the sound of the moving river around it was soft and calm. They ambled through these winding gardens for a time, moving between the organic sweeps of a palace buttress or walkway support. Morghiad had almost expected the city to succumb to its impossibilities when Artemi died. But it had stood, and the walls remained impervious even to her Kusuru blades. Only, it felt... colder somehow.

  Eventually they came to a rise in the neatly cropped, perfectly green grass. Tallyn led his father to circle the mound twice, before deciding that the middle of it was the place to stop.

  “I don’t see her, Tal.”

  His son writhed in his arms to be set free, and Morghiad duly obliged by placing the
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  child on the lawn. Tallyn bumbled forward about a yard, and then sat down, babbling in his peculiar child’s language. He was hypnotised by the ground.

  “She’s not under there,” Morghiad explained, “The tombs are forty yards over th-” Of course, her burial place was not below here, but the chamber of light and fire... that would be somewhere in this area. Why would Tallyn think his mother was in there?

  “Come with me.” Morghiad lifted the infant to his shoulder and carried him back to the tower, down into the earth and toward the cave. There were torches that punctuated the darkness of the tunnel, and their flames were dragged toward the light source. He still didn’t understand what the cave really was, or why it was there. Perhaps one of his ancestors really

  had constructed it to save the mothers of kanaala, or perhaps it was something whose original purpose had been forgotten through time. In any case, he had a sense that generations of his family had been born here. Danner started whimpering behind them, which wasn’t a good sign. The animal was fearless in most situations, and protective in all. “Stay,” he instructed the wolf. It dropped its muzzle and waited obediently.

  They made it to the smooth, blue door, and Morghiad pressed his hand into the shallow depression. It brought them immediately through to the light-filled chamber, which looked even brighter than ever. And Tallyn’s reaction? He fell into the deepest, soundest sleep he had enjoyed for months. Morghiad almost felt like laughing, or at the very least