She’d heard many people describe her city as strange, but to her it seemed entirely sensible. Those peculiar, square houses so prevalent in the countryside were the true oddities. They always looked utterly incongruous with their environment.
Her mother led them through the broad, flat farms and into the thick woods where she dismounted before a huge, leaning tree. Once they had hitched the horses she called Medea forward.
The queen took her hand, sending icy waves of Blaze reflections through her fingers. “My daughter,”
she began with a warm smile, “As you well know, the younger siblings of the
Jade’an family must protect the borders of this country when they are of age. This shall be your duty, and it is a duty no less important than your brother’s. That said, you cannot be expected to patrol these lands with any subtlety if your power is visible.”
The Hunter snorted. “I could sense her from the other side of the city!”
Her mother compressed her lips. “That is why we’ve moved away from it for this. Medea, do you consent to having your ability hidden as mine is? It will offer you protection and an advantage against your enemies. But it will also make it difficult for those who care about you to find you. As with the abilities you already have, it must be used with responsibility, morality and caution.”
Bloody blazes alight! A chance to seek refuge from all those nosy kanaala? “Yes!” She barely contained her excitement, a broad grin spreading across her features.
The queen nodded. “Very well. These two men and I shall see to it.”
Medea’s green eyes shifted to those of her brother. She loved him
dearly as any sister should, but surely they weren’t going to trust him with this? A year earlier she would have argued with her mother, but now... now the queen seemed too fragile.
The dark-skinned Kusuru stepped forward and took both her mother’s and brother’s hands, so that they formed a small circle around her. “You have to build a partition within her,” The Hunter instructed, “But it is tied to her mind.” Dancing flecks of light began to float around the queen.
Just what were they going to do in there?
He continued, “This is what the
form looks like...” Something cold and heavy pressed against Medea’s skin. “...But it will take time to work. It has to be allowed to seep into - Blazes, what did you just do?” He broke off contact with her mother, who was wide-eyed and blinking. Fear began to inch its way up the kahriss’ spine. It turned to near panic. Had they accidentally quenched her? Was that possible?
Kahr Tallyn shrugged. “I just did what you told me to do.”
The Kusuru turned to her mother and placed his hands on his hips. “You see what I mean? He’s
more skilful with Blaze than I am.” He nodded towards Medea. “No doubt she’s the same.” In a lower voice he said, “At least he doesn’t force it like his father.”
The queen turned her eyes to her daughter, and a gust of wind caught her red hair. It shone a fiery gold in the sunlight, before dissolving into soft embers as it sank back into the shade. Medea had always been terribly jealous of her mother’s hair; it was so typical of her luck that she’d inherited the plain, black locks of her father. “Med, your brother appears to have done all the hard work for us. You are now a
hidden wielder.” She turned to her son. “Tallyn, I am very impressed. Perhaps your namesake is right. Perhaps I ought to allow you both some greater challenges.”
A smile immediately enveloped the kahr’s features, and his eyes flicked onto Tyshar.
“Not that one. Not yet,” her mother admonished. “Now that our work is done with such efficiency, why don’t we return to the palace for a good fight? It has been a while since I faced another Kusuru...” She smiled at the elder Tallyn.
“As you command, my queen,”
he responded with a handsome grin. Medea watched him closely as he mounted his Calbeni horse, his silveryblue daggers sparkling brightly up his legs like the night stars. A long, red scarf trailed from his waist and fluttered in the breeze. She had read about the Torvalen Hunt the year before, and had been swept away by its tales of bravery and tenacity. Perhaps he would relate the truths of the story to her, if she asked him sweetly enough.
She trailed behind the tail of his mount while they took a leisurely walk back through the woods, and listened in to his conversation with her mother.
“This place is better than Cadra, Tem. The woods here seem to glow with life.”
“It does have an energy of its own,” the queen said with a weak smile. On Tyshar she managed to tower over the combined height of the Calbeni dun and his rider.
The Hunter proceeded to lean across and whispered something in the queen’s ear, something which prompted a look of fury from her. From the smirk on his face, Medea was old enough to guess that it had been inappropriate. How typical: another
man besotted with her mother. She chewed on her lip and cast her eyes to the ground, but felt the gaze of another touch her skin. Her brother was studying her closely.
She pulled a face at him to make him stop, but he only compressed his lips in response. It was exactly the same expression she remembered her father pulling when he disapproved of something. If only he were there to pull such a face now. She was already forgetting what he looked like, which felt strange rather than sad. Expressions she remembered but, as hard as she tried, it had become increasingly
difficult to summon an image of his face into her thoughts. A sound in the nearby woodland broke her reverie. Her mother and The Hunter were motionless on their mounts.
Medea pulled on the reins of her own horse and stayed quiet, watching as the queen’s form became surrounded by glittering light. Their mother rapidly turned to them, whispering, “Take the North Road and get out of here now!”
“But m-” Tallyn protested
“Go! And stay close to Med.”
He glanced only briefly at his sister before booting his animal with a
grimace, and Medea followed closely behind him. She could hear the sound of other hoof beats approaching now, quite a few of them. As they rode away she turned briefly to look for her mother and The Hunter, but could not quite comprehend what she saw. The queen had already begun releasing bolts of fire left and right, into the trees. But the fireballs turned into something else as they flew through the air and, without any warning, flames sprang up along her mother’s sword. They turned from red, to blue and then white. The queen’s expression was one of confusion as she leapt from Tyshar to
face the charging bandits on foot. But something very strange came out of her wielding in that moment. It looked to Medea like a mix of a million mutated forms, all tangled and flowing into one another. Her mother was drawn into it and, in an instant, she vanished.
The air ripped with the sound of screaming energy, and she found herself gliding through the low, evening sunlight. Artemi landed with very little grace on a pile of dead leaves. The creature in her mind was still writhing, baying for power, but it was tired and drunk. She forced it back into a box and locked the lid shut. It could follocking-well stay there forever! She slammed her fist hard into the ground to punctuate the thought.
Pushing herself up with feeble arms, she examined her surroundings. The woodland around her was familiar enough, and it looked as if she hadn’t
been transported much more than a few miles from her last position. The Hunter would be able to deal with those bandits easily enough on his own, though he wouldn’t appreciate the abandonment. And Tyshar would probably aid him with a few kicks and bites.
Artemi stood, dusted off her clothes and began to walk northward. She could have filled herself with Blaze to detect the location of the city, but she didn’t want to risk waking that thing again. Blazes, how was she to kill it? And what a fine gift her husband had so generously left her with! Well,
she wasn’t about to end her own life in an effort to stop this thing. There had to be another way to
defeat it. She stamped firmly on the ground to release some of her anger, but mostly she felt relief for not having burned her friend. She hoped her children had returned safely.
It was a fair walk, but eventually she came to one of Gialdin’s brickcourse roads and began to follow it to the city. A group of guards were gathered up ahead. Odd, she thought as she drew closer to them, they were wearing the old colours of Gialdin: blue and gold. Where was their Calidell
green? Their faces were recognisable; they were indeed soldiers of her army. She stopped to examine them some yards away, and they turned to examine her also. Was this some curious experiment of Silar’s? “Why aren’t you wearing the green and black?”
One of the men approached her calmly. “And who are you?”
“I’m your queen, that’s who I bloody am!” Surely these men knew that!
Another soldier, Gavorna if she remembered correctly, came to join them. “You are, are you? You don’t
even look anything like her.” They chuckled between themselves for a moment.
“Oh I see.” Artemi allowed herself a small smile. “This is some sort of joke, is it? Very funny. Now, let’s go back to the palace. I’m exhausted and I’d quite like to see my children. If you’d lead the way?”
The soldiers spoke quietly between themselves for a moment, but Artemi could hear most of it.
“... posing as the queen is surely an offense?”
“Yes, but she’s clearly insane. Maybe we should leave her here.”
“Crazy or not, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Let’s escort her back and leave it to the general to sort her out.”
Hah! Silar would give them the hiding of their lives for speaking of her in that way! She raised a rather selfsatisfied eyebrow at the men as they moved to surround her. “Time to go?”
“Yes, my lady,” Gavorna said. He mocked a bow and invited her to mount one of their horses. She vaulted smoothly onto the best of the beasts, but her features morphed into shock when another soldier clambered onto the saddle behind her. “What are you
doing?” she hissed at the man.
“Not enough animals, my lady,” he chuckled.
Fine. Let them get into as much trouble as they dared. They could play and act like fools all they wanted, but the repercussions would not be pretty. She grimaced and kicked her overburdened horse into a brisk walk, for once glad that her husband was not here to see this. He would have been very, very angry indeed.
The thick trees passed by slowly, the skeletons of last year’s leaves glistening softly in shafts of light. Gialdin’s forests were very beautiful at
any time of year. The air was too dry and cold to smell of much, but Artemi drank it in deeply. This place always reminded her of happier times. At long last the trees began to thin out, giving way to the small farmsteads and fields that had grown up around the capital. But something was different. Something about them looked slightly... off. “Which gate are we heading for?” she asked her saddle-mate.
“West, my lady.”
West? There were only two farms on the west side, and she was sure that they did not have thatched roofs. And then the city came into view beyond. A great spire reached into the grey skies, and waterfalls clambered up its sides. But it was not the city she had left; it was not nearly so... errant. Shock tore through her body as she recognised it, paralysing her limbs and lungs. She knew this place. This was the old Gialdin.
She watched, wide-eyed as they entered the ancient city through a delicately sculpted gate. The houses beyond were ordered, sensible and regularly spaced. Artemi touched one of the walls as they passed. It buzzed with Blaze fires, not the more elemental source of The Crux. How
had this come to pass? Had she travelled back in time? Was such a thing possible in The Darkworld? She turned to her guard again as they rode. “Ah... the general – that would be General Kantari, correct?”
“Well, since you are the queen, you ought to know that!” He continued to chuckle quietly behind her.
Excitement bubbled up and drowned her anger. Blazes, this could mean a chance to change things! And Hedinar... and all the others, she could save the lot of them before Acher came anywhere near them! Maybe Morghiad too... A huge grin spread across her
face as she thought of what she could do, and she kicked the horse to walk a little faster.
The palace’s stable yard was just as she remembered: glittering, busy and full of the smells of hay. In truth, it wasn’t so far-removed from that of New Gialdin. Just more... conventional.
She was very nearly jumping on the spot by the time the guards came to take her into the palace. She grinned inanely at their blue and gold uniforms while they paced the old corridors, breathing in the air that bounced with the energy of The Blazes themselves. What was curious, however, was that
none of her escort seemed to recognise her. She had been well-known to most of Hedinar’s men, hadn’t she? Artemi turned to inspect one of them. “Your name is Gavorna, correct?”
He blinked in surprise, but nodded. Strange. She was sure he had been a Calidellian man. What was he doing in a Gialdinian army? Artemi shook her head and made a mental note to ask him when she returned to her own time, assuming she could get back. That would be the next problem to solve; she thought she could remember the forms for it. They soon stepped into the great, ivory-walled hall that had been the original throne room. Huge, arching vaults sprawled across the ceiling while golden lamp stands decorated the walls. It was fascinating how heavy and stone-like this Gialdin palace appeared when compared to her own. She suppressed a smug grin as she thought of the Founder Sisters. Amateurs!
The movement of a crowd of guards ahead signalled the arrival of someone important, and Artemi readied herself to see a dear friend who had been long-dead. But she felt the presence of a strong wielder approach, and it wasn’t the tall form of Hedinar
who marched into the hall. It was a dark-haired woman, with steady shoulders and a steadier gaze. She wore a gown of glittering, white silk. Medea?
One of the guards spoke with a smirk, “My lady. We found this woman in the woods. She claims to be the queen.”
Artemi studied the young woman closely. It certainly wasn’t Medea, though her hair was as black and her eyes as green. She was still a beauty, but her jaw was squarer and her figure more willowy. Another Jade’an, certainly. Artemi thought
rapidly of an appropriate response. “Ah, unfortunately these men misunderstood my meaning, my lady.” She made a shallow bow before the frowning men.
“Lieutenant Fireblade. We haven’t seen you here for a while, and you look a little weary. Perhaps you should take some rest in your former quarters.” The woman smiled at her, but it was a very serious smile. “It’s alright, men. You are dismissed.” Who was this woman?
The soldiers bowed and made their departure in irritated silence.
Artemi stepped closer to study
her new friend. She did recognise her from somewhere...
“Are you quite alright? Where have you been all these years? My father wasn’t too pleased with your rapid departure.”
Blazes... “Alliah?”
The dark-haired woman drew her forehead into a series of creases as she pulled her braid over one shoulder. “Yes...”
Alliah! Grown up! Alive! What was this place? Artemi circled the younger woman. She tried to put an age to those green eyes, but failed. “If you don’t mind me asking... how old – I mean – what year is it?”
The kahriss’ frown deepened, and she placed a hand against Artemi’s face. The icy sensation of her power was immediately apparent, and it warmed as the other woman began to wield a sensing form. “You’re not injured,” Alliah said at last. “The year is 3264 PD.”
“The second month?”
Alliah nodded slowly.
So she was in the present. But this wasn’t the present she knew. Had she already saved these people? And if so, where were her children?
“Blasted winds, girl! Wh
ere have you been?” thundered a very familiar, male voice.
Artemi followed its source, and her eyes settled on a tall, broadshouldered man. His lean, swordhardened arms were folded and his excellent body was swathed in dark grey battle garb. Dark blond hair crowned his handsome, stubbleroughened face. “Hedinar,” she croaked.
He raised an eyebrow. “Not gone long enough to forget my name, at least. So that was your Blaze stream I saw so miraculously reappear from nothing. Now, can you tell me just how you managed to engineer that?”
“It only just appeared?”
He shrugged. “Three hours ago. Thereabouts. And there I was thinking you’d died in some overly exciting and epic adventure not fifteen years ago. But here you are. So, what did you do?”
Artemi was beginning to feel her weariness. “I... don’t know. Idon’t understand what’s happened.”
General Kantari grunted. “Right. Well, why don’t you explain to me why you left us in such a hurry, without even bothering with an explanation?”
”I left? When?”
He leaned forward for a closer look, and then exchanged glances with his daughter. “Perhaps you should take some rest. Come with me.”
Artemi fell in with her former leader, and heard Alliah’s light steps behind them.
The Fireblade Array: 4-Book Bundle Page 110
