by Jordan Rivet
11.
Berg Doban
LATER that afternoon, Sora paced across the royal council chambers, waiting for Berg Doban. She had spent the whole morning in meetings. She was restoring Vertigon’s laws—with a few modifications of her own—to what they had been under her father. She had swallowed her dislike and enlisted Tull Denmore to win over the last of the nobles. Even Lady Zurren, whose husband was off with the army, had fallen in line when her powerful ally fell. Sora had appointed Lord Roven her chief advisor, and Lords Morrven and Samanar were jockeying for her attention in a way she hadn’t seen since her father’s reign. They had even abandoned their worship of Lady Tull in order to court Sora’s favor.
Though she still didn’t fully trust him, Sora allowed Master Corren to keep acting as Fire Warden. She wanted to stop the dispersal of Fire to Rafe in the Lands Below as soon as possible, but she couldn’t cut the Vertigonian army off from their power source. A slow withdrawal was likely the best course of action. Without Lima’s looming presence on the royal council, it was easier for Sora to carry out the delicate negotiations required to eliminate any remaining support for the invasion. She felt in her element during these meetings. All the groundwork she had laid over the past months was finally proving useful.
Berg Doban usually assisted her from the shadows, but he had asked to see her in person today. She had blocked out the entire afternoon. If he only needed to speak with her for a few minutes, she would see if Kel was free before her evening appointments.
Watching Kel die—as far as she knew—had simplified things. She loved him, and she wanted to be with him for as long she could. Having him in her life made her feel deliriously happy and viciously, painfully afraid at the same time. She could hardly breathe at the thought of losing him again. They had more battles in their future, more threats to face, but when the fear threatened to drown out the joy, Kel was there to kiss it away.
Apparently, they’d been spotted kissing in corners a few too many times. Now that the Castle Guard knew about their growing relationship, the rest of the mountain would find out soon enough. The rumors may damage Sora’s reputation, but she didn’t care nearly as much about that as she should. Selivia would be proud.
A knock sounded on the door, and Berg lumbered into the council chamber, his solid bearing belying his skill as a swordsman and a first-class dueling coach.
“My queen, I hope you are okay.”
“I’m fine.” Sora took his hand. “I’m sorry we haven’t had many opportunities to talk these past few days.”
“There is always more work to do.”
Sora smiled. “I’ve noticed that.” She went over to a small table beside the door holding a pitcher of wine. “Would you like a drink?”
Berg accepted the stone goblet, which looked small in his strong fist. He made Sora think of her father. He had always seemed larger than life too.
“What did you want to speak with me about?” Sora asked.
“I must leave the mountain, my queen.”
“What? Where are you going?”
“I have work to do in the Lands Below.”
“I . . . I thought you were supposed to protect me,” Sora said, fighting down a burst of fear. “For my father’s sake.”
“Yes, my queen.” Berg bowed his gray head over his goblet. “Your good father made this mountain a place of peace for me. He is giving me my new life, but I must repay him still.”
“By leaving?”
“You are safe now,” Berg said. “Your people love you as they loved your father. But my work is not done.”
Sora wasn’t sure why the idea of Berg leaving the mountain filled her with dread. She had more supporters than ever before. Despite Lima’s hints about a coming danger, she couldn’t hurt Sora anymore. But Berg had been a stalwart friend. She’d feel less safe without him working in the shadows. And Lima’s allusions to future dangers scared her far more than she cared to admit.
“Before you go,” Sora said, wanting to hold onto Berg’s comforting presence a little while longer, “will you tell me how you came to know my father?”
Berg looked at her for a moment, his bluff face expressionless. She wondered if she had presumed too much about their friendship. Then he smiled.
“That is a tale for the telling, my queen.”
“Won’t you have a seat?”
They refilled their goblets and settled at the huge council table together. Berg ran his hand over the grain of the polished wood. The table had been constructed of a single massive tree and transported halfway across the continent from Cindral Forest. This was where Berg’s story began.
“I am coming from Cindral Forest,” he said. “In my youth, I was foolish, eager to see the world. I have some skill with the sword, you see, and I believed it would make me a great man. I trained every day. Sometimes I trained at night too. My people would shout at me to take a rest, to stop using the trees as targets and scaring the—the animals with the clang of my blade.”
Berg paused to take a sip of his goblet, and Sora wondered why he had stumbled over the word “animals.” Many mysterious creatures lived in the depths of Cindral Forest, and she didn’t pretend to know about all of them.
“Cindral Forest is a place for beautiful craftworks,” Berg continued. “We are making tables, fine papers . . . You know this, of course. Merchants travel through our lands each spring to collect our wares, and they bring with them tales of faraway lands.”
Berg looked up at the tapestries lining the walls, displaying images of the Lands Below: Trure, with its vast plains and wild horses. Pendark, with its murky canals and the glistening Black Gulf full of ships. Soole: a rocky, red land of proud cities and secretive people. And Cindral Forest: a region at once enchanted and cursed, full of more secrets even than Soole. The Cindral Forest tapestry was the most vibrant of all, with vast trees and flashes of colorful birds crossing the woven sky.
“A merchant came to my home,” Berg went on. “Like the others, he spoke of distant lands. He wore a coat of gold and offered riches as if they were nuts fallen from a tree. He came to watch me train. He is even joining my exercises, though he never showed me his true skill. While we dueled, he is filling my head with pictures of glories beyond all I could desire.”
“You ran off with him?”
“So I did. When the merchant rode away, his wagon creaking with the riches of my forest, I sat beside him. I told no one of my leaving, so sure was I that I’d return soon with riches and stories of my own.”
“How old were you?”
“Eighteen.”
“That’s my age.”
“Yes. I was a child and a man together.”
Sora buried her face in her goblet, the smell of summer wine spinning her head. She knew that feeling well: the sense of being too young and too old at exactly the same moment. She wondered when—if ever—such feelings passed.
“The merchant and I traveled to Pendark,” Berg said. “He was my friend and companion, but he was not as kind as I once thought. My speech then was not good. Even now, I do not speak your tongue with ease.” Sora knew the Cindral Folk came from across the Ammlen Ocean, and they were one of the few peoples on the continent who did not speak the common tongue. That was part of why they remained such a mystery within their forest. “The merchant brought me to his friends, to men who made bargains with me, gave me gold—but not too much—and a place to stay. I did not know how they would use my sword until I already had a debt.”
“Were you a pen fighter?” Sora asked. She had read of the pen fighters who fought for gold and glory in the bloody Dance of Steel.
But Berg shook his head. “Not so. Such a contest would have been better for me. I was to use my talents only for the gain of these men.”
Sora was confused. “Who did you fight then?”
“Kill, my queen. I was sent not to fight but to kill. Whoever the merchant and his friends called enemy. Man after man, but not in a fair game of skill. No. It was for gol
d without honor, blood without glory.”
Berg’s face tightened with regret. So he had been an assassin, and a reluctant one. It sounded as if he had lived in Pendark during one of its many periods of internal conflict. He must have seen—and done—terrible things. Sora could only imagine what that must have been like for a young man with no money, no family, and limited knowledge of the local language.
“Why didn’t you just leave Pendark?” Sora asked.
“I was not the only killer working for these men. I feared them. One day I would try to leave, I knew, and they would send a man to kill me too.” Berg sighed, his shoulders heaving with the weight of his past. “I trained every day. I watched these fighters. I studied so that one day I could go, and these other killers could not defeat me.”
“Did you manage it?”
Berg shook his head. “My skill was great, but the more I killed, the more I saw I would have no home anymore. The Cindral Folk have no love for killers, no need for men of the sword. I killed and killed, and I knew there was no place for me. And then,” Berg looked up and met Sora’s eyes, “then I am told to kill another young man. Your good father.”
Sora drew in a sharp breath. She imagined a young Berg Doban, already hardened by his work as an assassin, who felt as though he could never return home, being sent to kill her father. She knew her father had traveled to Pendark in his youth, but she’d never been told this part of the story.
Berg scratched his stubby fingers along the polished table. “‘He is a prince,’ my masters said. ‘He is young and soft,’ they said. ‘He will be no match for you.’ I tried to do as they said. I found this young prince. He was visiting at the university. He had many friends there, friends from Vertigon and from Pendark, and he treated his guard as a friend too. I knew this prince and his guard friend were no match for me. But they fought still. I dueled with the prince’s guard—Bandobar—as you know—and I was the winner. I hit him on his head, and then it is just me and the young prince.”
Sora gripped the table, leaning forward. She pictured her father, as tall and handsome as Siv, with the same merry warmth, facing off against a mysterious assassin who had just knocked out his bodyguard.
“What happened next?” she said breathlessly.
“I did not kill him,” Berg said simply. “I looked at this young prince, with kindness in his gaze and his friend fallen at his feet, and I did not want him to be dead.” Berg cleared his throat. “He asked me my name. He spoke a few words with me in my own tongue. His speech was so bad I almost could not understand, but they were the first Cindral words I had heard for years.”
“So you decided to let him go?”
Berg grunted. “Well, I did not kill him, and then his friends from the university found us. They are defending their young prince friend with great energy. One used his Water magic on me. He is trying to tie me up, to drown me, whatever will stop me from killing his friend. But your father said no. He walked up to his Waterworker friend and told him to stop. He told his Fireworker friend not to burn me to ash also.”
Sora frowned. “His Fireworker friend?”
“The Fire Warden Zage Lorrid.”
“Of course. I forgot they had been friends for so long.”
“Yes, my queen,” Berg said. “King Sevren was always good to his friends.”
“So he stopped them from killing you with their magic?”
“Yes. He said, ‘This is my friend Berg. We could kill him, but instead let us help.’” Berg cleared his throat again, and Sora thought she caught a glimpse of moisture on his lower lashes. “Then Good Prince Sevren gave me gold. He and his friends helped me escape from the city, even when my masters tried to stop them. They were great and strong together. And this bad merchant could not stop them.”
The importance of what her father had done to win Berg’s loyalty was not lost on Sora. Her father could not wield, but he had spoken words of peace and reconciliation, words of goodness, that had brought the Fire and Might Wielders into check. He had wielded a power that was separate, a power that was better.
“With the gold, Sevren said I could go home, if I wished. But I could not go with so much blood on my hands.” Berg clenched his hands into fists on the table. “I said this to him, and he told me of another place, a place of peace where I could use my skill and my sword for glory without blood. He told me of the duelists of Vertigon and the mountain I could call my home.” Berg’s fists relaxed, and he took Sora’s small hands in his. “He was more than the Third Good King. He gave to me a home, you see. For this I am vowing to protect him and his children for all my days. I . . . I failed. I was so worried about his reckless son that I failed when he himself—”
“You did everything you could.” Sora squeezed his hands. “I would never have survived the past few months without your support. And now we’re winning!”
“This is so. But I have one more job to do. It is time for me to go.”
Berg stood to leave, clearing his throat with a growl like a velgon bear. He walked to the polished wooden doors with heavy steps. He had been watching out for her family before any of them knew they were in danger. He had taught Siv to fight, trained the New Guard to protect him, and worked tirelessly to support Sora’s every effort. And he had done it all with the burden of his long-ago transgressions hanging over his shoulders. As much as Sora didn’t want him to leave, he had a right to seek his peace wherever he thought he’d find it.
“Where will you go?”
Berg paused, his thick shoulders silhouetted against the doorway. “Have no fear, my queen. I am a loyal friend of the Amintelles still. Another of these Amintelles needs my help.”
Before Sora could say another word, the door closed behind him.
12.
The Desolate Coast
THE road between Fork Town and Fort Brach ran between the sea and the southern slopes of the Linden Mountains. The first stretch of the Coast Road lay roughly parallel to the Ridge Road Dara had taken months ago while she and Vine searched for Siv.
The route was far less idyllic than the Truren plains. The historic tension between Soole and Pendark discouraged people from building towns, and the harsh landscape wasn’t well suited for farming. The emptiness gave the Coast Road an eerie, oppressive feeling. The heat weighed on them, only occasionally alleviated by breezes off the sea.
They had precious little time to linger anyway. After the promises they had made to Commander Brach, it was of utmost importance that they reach the fort before the Fireworkers. Selivia was in Brach’s hands, and even without Latch urging them on, they couldn’t give the Soolen commander reason to doubt their commitment to their bargain.
“Just a few more days,” Siv told the men each morning. “Soon we’ll be eating the famed Soolen rawfish and frolicking with bullshells in the sunshine.”
“Actually,” Latch began, “we don’t have any bullshells in—”
“Did I mention Fort Brach is stocked with the finest Purlen wine? I’m sure they’ll be happy to share after we save them from the marauding Fireworkers.”
Siv shot Latch a pointed look. Dara knew he was worried they would lose the few soldiers they had. Captain Lian still believed his dying king’s wish for peace in the continent meant they should follow Siv, but the others weren’t quite as devoted to their fallen monarch’s memory.
“Not sure what we can do about the Fireworkers anyway,” Detsin muttered.
“We need good soldiers,” Siv said. “And I’ve never traveled with a finer bunch. My lady Dara will handle the Fireworkers. Now, who wants to race me to the next ridge?”
Dara still wasn’t sure she could overpower her father, but it would be impossible if he established a foothold in the fort. The Brachs’ Watermight supply combined with the Fire would save them, but only if Dara could actually get to it—and control it better than she had last time. She worked with Rumy’s Fire every day to prepare for the confrontation. Cur-dragon fire was not as easy to use as the Fire that flowed
through the veins of Vertigon Mountain. She had to master the wilder substance before she came face to face with her father.
Latch often rode beside her while she trained, but without any Watermight, all he could do was talk about the power. Soolens used different tactics than Dara had learned from Wyla and Siln in Pendark, and she gleaned a lot from these conversations.
Latch also told her everything he knew about the Cindral Forest dragons in case she needed them to carry Watermight into battle for her. He claimed the Cindral Forest dragons were different from the true dragon Selivia had described to him through Vine’s Air channel, the biggest difference being that they didn’t breathe Fire at all. Dara doubted she’d have more luck controlling any variety of the creatures than the princess had.
“But it’s like Wielding,” Latch explained. “We bend the dragons to our will. Some say the skill uses the Air, but it’s difficult to be certain. The Brachs alone apart from the Cindral Folk themselves know of the dragons.”
“Until now,” Dara said. “Plenty of people must have spotted them flying back and forth between your father’s army and his Watermight supply. The secret will spread.”
“I guess it will,” Latch said. “But not everyone can work with them. That’s why I think it’s an Air skill.”
“Maybe you should be telling Vine about them then,” Dara said.
“She’s been busy lately.”
Latch cast a suspicious look at Vine and Vex, who rode a little apart from the main column, deep in conversation. Vine reached out to touch Vex’s sleeve, and her trilling laugh made his face light up as effectively as a Fire Lantern. They were becoming increasingly enamored of each other, but Dara’s wariness of Vex had only grown since they decided to make their stand in Soole. She worried his eagerness to reach out to Commander Brach—his former liege—meant he had ulterior motives she hadn’t yet discovered.
Still, Dara’s vague unease over Vex was nothing compared to her worries about her father. Vine had managed to reach a Sensor in the ruins of Rallion City who told them more of his movements. After razing the Truren capital city and killing every member of the royal family he could find, Rafe had sent the Fireworkers out in smaller parties to subdue the surrounding villages and estates while he marched off with the bulk of his army. He was systematically working his way through the lands that had already been conquered once by Commander Brach, easy pickings for a man bent on stomping his opposition into ash.
