To the queen’s right, in the other throne, sat a tall man with short waves of slightly darker, reddish hair. His eyes flashed spring-leaf-green in the chamber’s light. Another son, presumably. His looks conformed to ideals but, again, were not necessarily beautiful. Both rulers appeared to be
addressing the needs and concerns of their people, but Artemi’s eyes were quick to spy her younger son.
“We’ll send you a company of guards to deal with your problem in the interim,” she said calmly to a kneeling man before her, “This is an issue felt by the whole country, and we are facing some difficulty in tackling it. Lord-General Forllan and his men will attend Irfendh within the month to see these bandits personally. That is the best I can offer.”
“My lady,” The commoner gave her a small bow, “We thank you for your kindness, but we shall require at
least a hundred men to disperse them once and for all...”
She frowned and turned to a dark-skinned man at her left. Now, he had a fascinating sort of beauty about him. “How many can we spare, captain?”
The captain rubbed at his jaw for a moment. “Sixty soldiers. No more.”
“Find another ten, Rahake. It seems we have an extra Kusuru to make up the numbers in Gialdin.” Artemi flicked her dark eyes towards Khasha. Only ten men? Was that all she thought him worth? The elder son was watching him now, he noticed, with a stare so intense it could burn through rock.
“Thank you, my lady,” the townsman said before he grovelled appreciatively and was dismissed.
Artemi Fireblade quickly turned her attention to the new arrivals, and rose smoothly from her throne. Her new stance revealed a very elaborate variation on assassin’s garb: black brocade overlaid with golden threads. Its dark colouring seemed to be at odds with the effervescence of the rest of the room. She approached Khasha with a warm smile. “Good to see you,
brother. And good to see you too, Kahr Kalad of House Jade’an. Would you care to tell your worried mother where you’ve been?”
The boy affected a very good impression of innocence. “In the city.”
“I caught him stealing kefruit from members of your public,” Khasha said in soft tones.
Artemi’s brow immediately darkened. “Stealing? Again! How many times have I told you, not everything is yours.”
Kalad pouted. “It should be.”
“Don’t answer me back!” Artemi moved her eyes back to
Khasha. They looked... tired. “I must deal with this unruly child of mine. I’ll see you at dinner this evening. Tallyn and Tallyn will look after you until then.” Another Tallyn? Who...? The elder son stood from his throne, and only a small leap of logic was required to establish that she had named him after The Hunter. Artemi turned and dragged her sullen offspring into the embrace of another glowing corridor.
Another tear burrowed its way free of her eye and trickled down her cheek. Smooth-hewn rock arched over her head, and a marble plinth sat implacably before her. She had not visited the tombs for the best part of a year, fearing that the misery they brought her would re-awaken the monster. But she felt weak, and lost.
Kalad was pushing every boundary she set, attempting to break every rule she imposed and she was exhausted by it. Silar and The Hunter were good with him, but they were not his father. They did not have the voice that would make anyone take heed and listen; nor did she. Blazes, when had she become so unsure of herself? “I hate you,” she whispered at the cold stone. “You were an idiot to believe Dorlunh! A stupid, selfish and arrogant idiot!”
The marble said nothing in response to her insults. Artemi stood and wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. It was time to attend the
dinner she so diligently hosted each week with her closest friends and family. It was usually a loud affair, and sometimes drunken. The D’Avrohans were away on duty in the midlands, which meant it was likely to be even more raucous than usual. Artemi wasn’t in the mood for it.
She sighed and stepped towards the entrance, and felt the presence of a wielder drawing near. A dark shadow moved down the tunnel beyond. It quickly resolved into a golden-haired woman. Selieni.
“I thought I’d find you down here,” she said softly.
“And what is it you need me for?”
“Nothing.” The younger woman pushed her lamp of Blaze to the other side of her head. “I wanted to check that your mood wasn’t sufficiently low to have you blasting fire at innocent people again.”
Artemi pulled a face and began walking back to the tunnel exit. “So you have been gossiping about me since your return. Surely you have adventures of your own to relate?”
“Romarr and I saw many things.” Her face was downcast rather than excited.
“And yet...?”
Selieni chewed her lip. “I don’t love him, my lady.”
Artemi stopped and placed her hands on her hips. “And what do you expect me to do about it? I’m not a marriage maker!” Fires of The Crux burn her, how she hated counselling people!
The younger wielder stepped closer. “That’s not what I meant – I... I need your advice.”
The queen gave the girl as confused a look as she could manage.
“I – if I cannot love a man, how can I ever have children?”
“Oh, light!” Artemi rolled her eyes. “And tell me, why do you want the same burdens with legs as I have?”
Selieni shrugged. “I just do.” She paused. “To make me complete. It is what women do.”
“To make you complete? A woman? And tell me, what is a blazed woman when you see one?”
The blonde’s eyes were wide. “Ah...er. Well, like you and me?”
“Why?”
“W-w-we look and sound like, er... women.”
Selieni’s ignorance was disappointing, and it only served to
irritate Artemi’s negative mood. “When I grew up in Rhofin, they considered me a woman because I was good at hunting. In Forda the same skills made my family define me as a man. In Jarho it was the length of my hair, and in Sokiri it was what I wore. Womanhood is society’s decision. What you do with yourself is yours.” “But men cannot have babies.” “Nor can many women. Let me impart my advice then, Miss Mori. Children do not make a woman complete, nor do they make a woman. They are not necessary; they are a bloody irritating luxury. Nor do you
need to marry or love or become the world’s greatest beauty in silks just because you have two wobbly things strapped to your chest.”
The younger woman blinked. “Bu-”
“But I had my children because I loved my husband.” Because I wanted him to live forever. “He was everything, but I would be a fool if I said he made me complete. I was more of a woman, if you want to call it that, before I met him.”
“What?”
“If it is completion you desire, find a cause that pleases you. And try
not to break Romarr’s heart.”
“I just thought... when you found the cave...”
“That it was a sign for you to start breeding?” The queen sighed. “It is a good thing that kanaala can know their mothers. It ought to be possible elsewhere, there are others like it in the world.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Eight more. All guarded. Lost with time.”
“Oh.” Selieni became introspective. They made their way into the upper halls in a blissful silence, which the younger woman only broke
to say, “You really believe this has weakened you?”
“It has broken me into a thousand pieces.”
“Could have fooled me,” Selieni muttered. The quiet after those words was a relief.
Artemi painted on her broadest smile when she approached the dining room, and took a deep breath. The doors opened before her in a sweep of white glass, and the brawl of her friends was made apparent. Romarr, Vestuna, Tallyn Hunter and Khasha were sharing jokes in a very old dialect of Sokirin, clinking their tankards. Each man shot a measuring glance at her when she entered. To their right were
her son and daughter. Kalad had been sent to his room to contemplate his actions, though by now he had probably charmed one of his minders into setting him free. He had learned that particular trick very early on from General Forllan.
Seeing her eldest son and daughter as adults still surprised her every time she realised it. Her son was already everything she had expected, but her daughter... Medea was far from a disappointment, but she always seemed to hunch in the hope that no
one would see her. To their right sat Silar, who was nursing his pint quietly. He gave Artemi a small smile as she approached him.
Artemi took her seat next to the general, and poured herself a drink. She’d already finished half of it by the time the rest of the group had taken their seats. Koviere joined them partway through the first course.
“Bandits, Temi. Bloody everywhere,” he boomed, before tucking into a meaty leg of chicken. “Rahake’ll be out all night dealing with them.”
That was a headache she could
do without at the present moment. Over the past decade she had endured more than enough conversations about thieves and cutthroats. She tried to change the subject. “Does anyone have any advice on unruly children? I am fast losing patience with Kalad. I just don’t understand where he gets these behaviours from.”
Tallyn Hunter looked at Romarr, and Romarr looked at Khasha, who in turn looked at Vestuna. Smirks grew upon each of their faces, smirks that grew to loud laughter. Even Vestuna, who rarely cracked any sort of smile, was hammering hard on the table, tears running down his cheeks.
The Hunter finally managed to gain some control over himself, though not much. “Do you remember the time...” he asked the other Kusurus between chuckles, “...When she stole The Daisain’s throwing daggers?”
Romarr nodded quickly. “And she was so afraid of being caught she hid in the roof for two days!” More laughter followed.
Even Silar started to smile. “Is this true?”
Vestuna was by now doubledover, unable to move.
Tallyn Hunter calmed himself
enough to answer the general’s question. “Aye, it’s true. When she was seven she stole my boots too. I didn’t see them for a year. Said she took them because they made her feel grown up.” He collapsed into another fit of giggles.
Artemi rolled her eyes. “That was different.”
“And then there was the missing stew spoon,” Romarr continued. “Which she’d kept because she thought we ate more than she did!”
“Enough,” the queen said tersely. “You’ve made your point.”
Romarr was the first to regain
his ability to speak. “Kalad will turn out fine. Don’t worry.”
Artemi stamped down on her exasperation and, once the laughter had died, attempted to change the subject again. “So Khasha, where have you been these last few centuries?”
He snapped out of whatever reverie had taken him, and met her eyes with his own dark gaze. He was a peculiar-looking man, halfway between wind-cut and sun-smoothed. A twisted rope of dark brown hair trailed down one shoulder. “Asterid, as it happens.”
Koviere ceased chewing.
“One of my more dramatic
deaths,” the queen muttered.
Khasha’s eyes lit up with the fires of The Blazes themselves. “So it was you! I knew it. You used the blade of fire, didn’t you?”
The giant was looking at her out of the side of his square face. “You put the red castle there? Why didn’t you tell me?”
She cast her eyes around the table and twisted her mouth. Medea seemed to be watching The Hunter closely, but he was making every effort to avoid her gaze. Curious. “There’s not much to say. I was in the purple and white. We were overrun. I tried to
help everyone escape, but I suppose I ended up transporting ourselves and the Dirusi to that cave.”
Vestuna had reclaimed his more typical look of unimpressed remoteness. “And where did you transport the city?”
“Kemeni mountains,” Koviere said in unusually soft tones.
Romarr started choking on his food, which only drew an annoyed glance from Selieni.
The Puzzler, as Khasha was sometimes described, sat back and folded his arms in thought. “That’s three, four-thousand miles?”
She had never transported anything so far, nor moved anything so large. How she had done it was still beyond her understanding. “It doesn’t matter,” Artemi replied. “It paid us no favours and every one of Asterid’s soldiers lost their lives.”
“Not every one,” Koviere stated, “Many of the men there claimed to be descended from that army. They venerated the ruins as if they were filled with the bodies of gods.”
Artemi did not like to think of the men who lived down there. Not after what they had done to her husband.
“One goddess,” Silar chuckled.
Khasha sank back into his dream world, his eyes barely focusing on the objects around him.
The Hunter leaned forward. “Speaking of Blaze streams that miraculously re-appear, Mirel’s sparked up today.”
The queen’s heartbeat quickened, and she set down her mug before her hand started to shake. “Why did no one tell me of this earlier?”
“You were busy.”
Oh, light. “I have children to protect now.” Mirel would almost certainly execute Medea rather than
leave the threat alive, and her sons... Artemi did not want to think about what Mirel would do to her sons if she reached them.
Silar’s worried eyes hinted that he had already considered several possibilities. “You say Mirel’s Blaze stream suddenly appeared. In the same way as our queen’s did?”
The Calbeni nodded. “Perhaps she has been world hopping, too.”
Had Mirel found a way of following her? Another Mirel from another world, perhaps? But why now, nine years later?
The general’s face was a mess
of frown lines. “I don’t like it. We need to start preparing for her and her damned creatures. She’ll know we’ve been waiting for her, and she’ll aim to reach the city before we’re ready. Sky Bridges. We need to place some scouts to watch the nearby ones.”
Khasha snapped out of his dream once more. “You know about those?”
“That’s your fault,” Artemi admonished. “Perhaps you were too lost inside one of your imaginings when you enlisted the help of a wielder, and left her knowing the blasted forms!” That slip of knowledge had caused her
more than enough problems in this life.
He wound his twist of hair between his fingers. “I haven’t used a Sky Bridge in over five-hundred years, and that was with you. The things are falling apart.”
Artemi blinked. “What?” Khasha shrugged. “It wasn’t me, Tem.”
He had no reason to lie. “Then who...?”
The table fell to silence. Artemi was sure that the Kusurus were the only men to be both vanha-sielu and kanaala. Dorlunh would never have revealed such a treasured piece of
knowledge without good reason. He believed in his duty to protect the world, no matter what the cost. But the Sky Bridges had been old and falling out of use for millennia and few had the knowledge of them. So how was it that a kanaala could live a single life that long? It defied all logic. She would have to ask Demeta about the man she’d met in more depth.
Khasha took a sharp breath as his mind solved one of his puzzles. “Dorlunh killed your husband.”
Both of Artemi’s children froze with the words, and Koviere spat out the ale he’d just quaffed. He looked as
if he was about to correct the Kusuru but, upon seeing everyone else’s reactions, he turned his great, questioning eyes to the queen.
Vestuna’s reaction was not too dissimilar. Romarr looked to the floor, but Selieni’s face was quick to fill with disbelief. “He died killing eisiels,” she whispered.
“Just wonderful! Thank you very much, Khasha!” Artemi stood and slammed the table surface for emphasis. She dearly wanted to bite the idiot’s insensiti
ve, blundering face off. She turned to Selieni and Koviere, whose faces were suffused with horror. “This stays between the people in this room, and must not be spoken of again. No one else can know. Especially Kalad. He is too young to understand.”
Selieni’s expression did not soften in the least. “And you allowed Dorlunh to get away with this?”
She had to some degree, but she had children to worry about. “I’ve had to postpone my vengeance.” And Dorlunh would not be an easy man to track down, not to mention impossible to kill. Every time Artemi considered it she became disheartened by her powerlessness.
“But why would he have killed Morghiad?” the wielder pressed.
“Stupid prophesies,” the queen spat. “He read so much rubbish he started to see meaning in it where there was none.” And Morghiad had believed him, which meant her words made the former king sound like an idiot. Her husband had never been a fool. “Morghiad knew there was a part of himself he could not control, and he wanted to protect us from it. He used Dorlunh to destroy the monster he feared.” How many more times would she have to explain his actions?
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