The Fireblade Array: 4-Book Bundle

by H. O. Charles

  “No, Lady Calyrish, it shall be we who serve you. The future of the world is in your hands and your husband’s. You will bring unity to our lands. A lasting peace.”

  Blazes, maybe this woman was just as insane as her husband! “And just how are we to do this thing?” Morghiad asked.

  The queen leaned back upon her throne. Although she was shorter than the king and her seat smaller, she

  appeared to tower over everyone else in the room. She held her chin high so

  that her eyes watched them from above her cheekbones. “That is something you will come to understand. You are both young yet...”

  The king grumbled something indeterminable, but it sounded like agreement.

  “...And you have more trials to face, such difficult trials.” She sighed another sad sigh. “Know that we stand behind you, that we offer you our support through your troubles.”

  Morghiad did not know what to say. These people were spouting some very odd things indeed. He half feared that it was some sort of veiled threat,

  though their reasons for doing so were not evident. He offered his thanks and smiled regardless.

  The queen barely acknowledged his response. “With luck, you will be blessed with an – with a child in the years to come, and that will surely bring joy into your lives amidst the hardships.”

  Oh, blood and burned light! That topic had already brought him enough sleepless nights and nightmares of his wife dying in his arms. He would have relished the opportunity to make a child with Artemi, but it was too much of a risk. And he’d heard enough about

  ridiculous, legendary places in Calidell where wielders bore their children and lived. Even if such places did exist, he doubted very much that they would welcome a Hirrahan nobleman and his wife. No. Morghiad was grateful for what he had. He could not lose his Artemi for the sake of an heir.

  At that moment she seemed to be burning from the insides out from irritation. The sooner this ended, the sooner he could put his arms about her and explain –

  “With hope, will and effort,” the queen continued, “all sadnesses can be overcome. Remember that the peace of the world rests in your hands. Remember it always. Now...” She looked toward General Collete. “...I believe this man has something to say to you.”

  He shifted his arms slightly. “You are both to travel to Calidell directly from this palace - today. Once you reach the city of Gialdin, you will be given further instructions.”

  Artemi’s brow knotted. “Do you want us to spy?”

  “Oh Achellon’s fires, no! Weeeesss sooo uuuuum. No,” the king said, chuckling.

  “Then why-”

  “Do not ask me why, Fireblade-” the general snapped, then stumbling to correct himself, “Lady Calyrish. You are to do it. The reasons will become clear to you.”

  Artemi looked to Morghiad, and he knew exactly what she was thinking. They could trust him, and they were hardly in a position to defy his orders. But Calidell... blazes! “I cannot imagine they will allow a Hirrahan across their borders. There will be controls in place,” Morghiad said.

  Collete folded his arms suddenly. He looked as if he did not know what to do with his hands in the

  absence of a pipe. “Then don’t make your nationality obvious.”

  His lidir? They wanted him to cut off his lidir and remove his band? They were a mark of his status, his age! How was a man to be respected without such things? He hardly wished to look like a Calidellian man, not with their childish hair and bare foreheads! Even Collete, a blasted Sunidaran, had the good sense not to cut his hair! Blazes! “Fine,” he said, trying to keep his teeth from grinding together. “We go to Calidell.”

  Collete nodded with approval, and they were led away from the

  throne room with considerably more haste than they had been led to it. Artemi had ireful eyes for him once they were in the open air of the city again. Morghiad led her to the shade of a nearby awning.

  “Don’t be angry with me. It wasn’t – I was thinking of you.”

  She folded her arms and pulled a face. “Then why did you start salivating like a hungry dog the moment she walked in?”

  Morghiad had never seen his wife jealous before. He was quite sure he did not like the feeling of it. “Does it feel like I am lying to you when I tell

  you that the only thoughts in my mind were of you? I am in love with you.” More than that. It was much more than that.

  He could feel her thinking hard, trying to read him as if his emotions did not tell her enough of how he felt! She tilted her head. “I suppose...”

  Morghiad was becoming irritated. Irritated that he had to cut off his braids like a little boy, and frustrated that his earlier arousal had not been satisfied. “Come with me.” He led her into the palace gardens that lay to the right of the main building. They were thick with reeds that were

  taller even than Morghiad, and there were a thousand different colours from the tiny flowers that populated the ground. It had the silence of the desert itself and the air was just as clean. A small, white stone building was hidden among the wizened olive trees, and Morghiad smuggled his wife into it so that he could show her just what he had been thinking about.

  Chapter 14

  It took the best part of a week to reach Haeron, and both of their headaches were becoming insufferable. Artemi saw things whenever one hit, and they were very strange things indeed. Sometimes there were images of Morghiad with short hair and expensive robes, other times there were flashes of people she did not know and places she was sure she had never visited. Her husband suffered them too, and Artemi knew that he feared as she did. It was a symptom of something

  that linked them. Perhaps it was the result of the connection they shared, or the outcome of their impossible relationship.

  She had assumed that tying him to her mind had saved them both, but what if it had been an imperfect fix? Perhaps her power was slowly sending them both mad. Artemi had chosen to walk through the orchard in order to seek some respite from the pain, though she had no reason to believe that it would cure her condition.

  The blossom-filled wood was the only place on the estate that had not borne the changes of the recent

  years. Morghiad’s letter to his father had been explosive in its revelations about pinh farming, and much of the Calyrish’s business had to be quickly diverted into other streams. Cold and bleak though Yarrin was, even he could not hide his shame over his former dealings. Nor had he been able to look at his fine things without feeling guilt over the money that had bought them. His apologies to Artemi had been profuse and emotional.

  Much of the manor’s interior had been cleared, stripped and repainted. It was no longer dark and looming and full of things, but bright

  and empty. It had felt very wrong to Morghiad, and that feeling had infected Artemi too. She stopped walking; she could sense another headache threatening to attack.

  The tree that stood before her looked suitably sturdy, and so she went to lean against it while the agony began its surge through her skull. Blazes, but it was horrible! And it was only magnified by the suffering she felt from her husband. An avalanche of uninterpretable images piled into her head with such force that the wind was knocked form her lungs and her legs trembled. There were so many things,

  so many people who looked at her as if she should know them.

  The images pushed further into her brain, forcing their way into her mind like a cleaver through meat. Artemi put her hands to her temples. She didn’t want it! She didn’t want any of it!

  Her eyes burned, her teeth felt afire... her whole head was –

  Artemi dropped to the ground, her limbs no longer responsive to the demands she made of them. She could hear the sounds of people running toward her, but all she could see were the images of men and women whom

  she was sure she had met before. There was something so familiar about them... something that tugged at her heart.

  Grey light stole the darkness from her eyes and she qui
ckly became aware that her throat burned from aridity. So thirsty! She felt as if she had just walked a thousand miles through the desert. A glass was planted in one of her hands as she struggled up from her prone position. The rest of her mind was a jumble, but the hand that

  brushed hers was immediately identifiable. “Morghiad?”

  “I am here,” he said quietly. There was something in his voice...

  Artemi downed the liquid rapidly and tried to focus on him. Blazes, the man was dressed like a Hirrahan! She grinned at the sight of it. Although, amusing as it was, he still managed to look handsome in his roughened, black twists of hair. Morghiad could have shaved his head and painted his entire body yellow without having to worry about how he looked. It was almost an annoyance.

  He smiled back at her, but it was a weak smile. Something was wrong. Why? Here they were, both alive and together. Artemi had never known the reassurance of their connection during the return of her memories before. It was much more pleasant than the usual mess and disorientation she had felt in previous lives. But still he appeared... unsure. Artemi searched his features for a moment.

  The eyes still glittered the same green as the leaves of the forests, and his jaw bore the dark stubble of several days without shaving. There was still a mark of arrogance that had been left to him from this life, but his face was the

  same. The same good looks that he had handed to their children.

  Tallyn.

  Oh... The thought carved straight through her heart, unsealing a void within. It was cold, depthless and empty, but stone-hard. “He’s gone.” And yet she had always known it. In that subterranean chamber of her soul, she had known that he had been dead for some time.

  Morghiad pulled her to him and held her tightly as she began to weep. It came out in uncontrollable bursts of wailing and tears that lasted for hours. It hurt. Blazes, but it hurt!

  Darkness had come by the time she ran out of tears. There were still a few drops of saltwater left upon Morghiad’s cheek, which she wiped away swiftly. She could not recall seeing him cry before, and it was not a sight she wanted to witness ever again.

  “I see shadows,” he said.

  Artemi scanned the area about her, but could perceive nothing in the darkness. They had been taken to Morghiad’s room whilst unconscious and accepting their memories, but no lamps had been lit and the shutters remained closed against the moonlight. “Where?”

  “Everywhere.”

  Artemi sprang to her feet and began to pace the circumference of the room. She could feel the apprehension in her husband, but could neither smell, see nor hear anything threatening.

  “No, Artemi-” He reached out to pull her back to the bed. “-They are... it’s something of that monster. It died and came back, only now it has more heads. It’s still inside me.”

  Morghiad had whispered about those shadows in his sleep on occasions, but of course, she’d had no idea of their implication at the time. Burn fate! If it had been a thing with

  arms and legs and a face, Artemi would have slashed it into a thousand red, painful pieces of agony by now.

  She formed several globes of light from The Blazes and allowed them to hang in each corner of the room. All darkness was obliterated. “You have me.”

  “Artemi – what if it keeps coming back with more heads each time I am reborn? Not all men and women can have the minds to deal with being vanha-sielu. What if I am too weak for it?”

  “You are not weak.”

  He did not respond, and his

  mind felt as if it were full of doubts.

  “I did not marry a weak man.” She took hold of his jaw so that he could not look away from her. “I need you to be strong now. For me; for our children.” Only two children. Only two lived. How long before they met with their deaths? Artemi was used to outliving everyone, but her children... She quashed the thought violently. “We must go to them.”

  Their preparations to leave were rapid in spite of their tiredness, though Lord Calyrish insisted upon talking to her husband alone for some time before they left. While Artemi waited,

  she watched Morghiad’s stream of emotions closely. It was strange to sense the affection and genuine respect he held for the man who had raised him. It was really not so far-removed from the relationship that the other Morghiad had known with Hedinar. She felt the two men embrace briefly, and then her husband came out to join her in the stables. Something new weighed upon his mind, but for reasons she did not understand, he chose not to speak of it.

  “You’ll find Valina in the box at the end,” he said, “And I’ve no doubt that Silar will have arranged for our

  swords to be provided to us at some point in our travels.”

  He was right. Artemi’s blood horse was nuzzling the feed bag when she looked over the stable door. “That man has become far too powerful for his own good.” Wait. “Why did he send us to our deaths?”

  “A very good question.”

  “And he must have known that Tallyn would...” She couldn’t say the word.

  “Indeed.” Of course, Morghiad had already considered all of these things. In addition to his rather sharp mind, he had waited beside her while

  she slept, and had dwelt upon such problems already. So, why had Silar not stepped in to save their son? Her heartbeat quickened. What if he had seen what The Daisain had seen? “Silar’s not like him – he wouldn’t...”

  “I know, my heart. He’s not. He’ll have a good reason.”

  Artemi nodded, and they saddled up to ride hard for Calidell. The provision Silar had made for Artemi’s gale swords and daggers to be returned to her, in addition to Morghiad’s sword of white stone, only became apparent when they made camp at the Hirrahan border. Morghiad leaned against one of

  the trees while he was hitching the horses, and all of the blades fell from their hiding place in the branches above. It was more than a little disconcerting, if not an impressive feat of planning.

  And as for Morghiad’s lidir, he chose to keep them. “It is my identity now,” he said, “and it is something that the people of Calidell must accept.”

  But acceptance would not be an easily won thing. As she and her husband rode through the brilliant white gates of their former city, many people did not recognise him, and those that did gawped in confusion. Some still

  recognised her, and irritatingly, some still remembered that they liked to prostrate themselves before her. There really was no need for it!

  “This city is more populated than I remember it,” Morghiad remarked.

  He was right. The streets heaved with people of many statuses and professions, and a much smaller proportion of them were portly than had been in the previous decades. “A country gains wealth, and more people will want to be a part of it.” No doubt Medea knew how to handle the situation. Artemi had every confidence

  that her daughter would make an excellent queen.

  A very familiar group of faces met them when they arrived at the palace gates. All of the remaining soldiers from Artemi’s squad were present and together, with Orwin at the head of them. Blazes, they even had a uniform of their own! Artemi made sure to embrace each of them in turn, even Korali di Certa. She looked... different somehow. Much older than she ought to have looked, certainly.

  Koviere was the first to offer his condolences to them, though Artemi rather wished that he had not done so.

  It was the last thing she wanted to think about here.

  “How did it happen?” Morghiad asked softly.

  The men looked between each other for a moment, before Beetan said, “That’s the thing. We don’t know. He was just found in his room. No poison, no injuries, no assassin. Nothing.”

  Artemi’s thoughts went immediately to the Law-keepers, and she knew that Morghiad was thinking the same. Her death would have looked the same here when they had called her back to The Crux. Why would they do

  this? To punish her for her disobedience? She changed the subject to ask after her daughter
, and was soon led into the white, crystalline hallways that had been her home for so long.

  “Are you going to keep those?” Orwin asked Morghiad, looking at his hair.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s going to take some getting used to.”

  Morghiad merely frowned at him.

  There were more tears when they met with Medea, who also seemed to have aged centuries in her eyes. But

  she was beautiful, and she stood as tall and proud as any queen Artemi had ever seen. She was far more beautiful than that Sunidaran wench!

  But someone was missing, or rather, two people. “Where are The Hunter and Silar?”

  “I dismissed the former. Tal dismissed the latter after you died.”

  “Why?”

  Medea became quiet for a moment before she said, “Because he sent you to your deaths! And The Hunter, well, he made some decisions I did not agree with. Rahake is our general now.”

  Artemi could not hide her confusion. Rahake was good, but The Hunter had so many more years of experience. And Silar... “But surely Tallyn must have known - Silar would have had to make the decision to send Morghiad and I to our deaths. He would have had his reasons. Where is he now?”