Fractured (Lisen of Solsta Book 1)

by D. Hart St. Martin

  “Let us both hope you’re right.” But the only hope Ariel could muster up was the hope that Opseth possessed enough hope for both of them.

  “Would you worry less if I promised to keep watch on the necropath?”

  At the woman’s offer, the tunnel opened up a bit, and the air began to flow again. “You can do that?”

  “It shouldn’t be difficult to find that soul again now that we’ve made contact.”

  “Then I am in your debt, Watcher.” Ariel untied the small pouch heavy with gold solurs from his belt and handed the agreed payment over to the woman who had transformed his dream into reality. “And I do pay my debts.”

  Opseth rose from her chair, took the pouch, and with a nod, she left Ariel, alone, contemplating the imminent passing of power. He grinned in infinite delight. Nothing, no one could stop him now. No Order of Ascension Decree existed; none was required. He was the only Heir.

  Nalin paced, back and forth, up and down the hall just outside the infirmary while Jozan leaned against the wall, watching him. The captain had headed out to send a guard back down to fetch the day pack discarded in the midst of chaos, and the healer had vanished on some unknown mission, leaving him and Jo alone. He had to tell her, but he couldn’t find the words. So, he paced, the documents Flandari had entrusted to him in the scrollkeep in his hand, and strained for a way to speak words he’d been forbidden to speak until now, all the while struggling to hold off the grief ripping his heart apart.

  “Nal. Stop.”

  He pulled up in front of Jozan, and she studied him.

  “What is it?” she asked and reached out, touching his arm to comfort him.

  “Did you notice the necropath?”

  “Yes.” She paused, and waited for him to continue, but his tongue had tied itself into a knot. “Nalin, what about her?” she urged.

  “Do you remember my telling you that this trip was more than it seemed and that you’d know soon what I meant?” At the time, Nalin had expected a moment of reckoning, but not like this, not accompanied by all this pain and confusion.

  “Yes, I remember,” Jozan replied.

  “Well, here’s how it is. Right now that necropath is learning, I hope, that she’s Flandari’s true Heir.”

  Jozan coughed, nearly choking, and pushed away from the wall to stand up straight. “What?” she asked, eyes wide.

  “Ariel’s twin, secreted away, after their emergence from the pouch.”

  Jozan grabbed his arm and pulled him over to the wall, bringing them within inches of each other. “How long? How long have you known?” she whispered.

  “Two years or so.”

  “Creators.” She let go of him, but her voice remained soft. “So now what?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied, shaking his head. “We made a lot of plans, but we didn’t plan for this. I don’t know.” His gut twisted, and the muscles of his shoulders and neck seemed to solidify. Had Flandari tried to warn him? Had what she’d said on the barge about him ordering the sooth to destroy the old versions of the documents been a warning? It had. He’d known it, but he’d dismissed it. “I just don’t know.”

  The thump of boots pounding up the stairs distracted him from these questions he’d already asked himself at least a dozen times and still couldn’t answer, and he turned as the captain emerged from the rock-hewn stairway. The guard stopped before them and saluted, fist to chest. “The pack will be here shortly, my lords,” he announced.

  “Good,” Nalin replied.

  “Nal?” Jozan said, cocking her head in a way he recognized after a lifelong friendship. She was about to do something for his own good even though he might not like it, and it would be useless to try to stop her.

  “Whatever it is,” he said, “the answer is no.”

  “Captain?” she continued, ignoring Nalin and looking directly at the guard. “We have a situation, and we need some tactical expertise.”

  “My lord?”

  “Jo, don’t.” In the past, Nalin had watched her throw herself into circumstances before she knew what she was doing, and in the main, he’d smiled and let her do it because the only person it was likely to hurt was herself. But not this time.

  She turned to him. “Nalin, he knows things we don’t, and he’s loyal to the Empir. I think he—”

  She paused as the latch on the door to the infirmary was lifted from within, and they all froze. The door opened, and the girl, the necropath, stepped out. She held Flandari’s sheathed sword to her chest, and her sea-green eyes, flashing from her pale, lightly freckled face, gazed first at Rosarel, then at Jozan and then, finally, at Nalin himself.

  “You’re Nalin Corday?” she asked.

  He cleared his throat. “Yes.”

  “My lord,” the girl replied with a nod of her head.

  “And this is Jozan Tuane, the heir of Minol.” Nalin gestured towards Jo with one hand, and Jo nodded. “And Captain Rosarel of the Emperi Guard.”

  “We need to talk,” the young hermit said.

  “Is there someplace private?” Nalin asked.

  Her eyes focused in on him. “In there?” she replied, nodding towards the infirmary door. Nalin stiffened. It wouldn’t have been his first choice, but it might be the safest.

  “That’ll do,” he replied reluctantly. “Jo?”

  “Of course,” she said, looking unusually serious. “And Nal?”

  “Yes?”

  “The captain?”

  He turned to Rosarel who stood there patiently, showing no hint of concern or curiosity. If Flandari had lived, she would have moved forward with her own arrangements, but her plans had disintegrated with her murder. Despite his misgivings, Nalin had to admit that the captain’s advice might prove to be useful. “All right. Captain, in here, with us.”

  The captain nodded, and the hermit led them back into the infirmary. The Empir’s body lay still on the cot, and Nalin shivered in the presence of his dead mentor. He suspected the rest felt as he did; none of them moved very far into the room.

  “I assume you know,” he said to the girl who only nodded, maintaining her firm embrace on the sword. “Then, Captain…” He took a deep breath. “…here it is. This hermit is Ariannas Ilazer, Empir Flandari’s Heir.”

  The captain didn’t blink; he didn’t flinch. He simply turned to the girl and with a nod said, “My Liege.”

  “Oh, please,” the girl said, her voice nearly cracking. “Just Lisen. I’m just Lisen, all right?” She looked at each of them in turn. Nalin felt for her, but if she couldn’t step in and assume her role, then perhaps Flandari’s faith had been misplaced.

  “These might help.” He handed her the scrollkeep, and after a brief hesitation and then the shifting of the sword to one arm, she reached out and took it from him. “Go ahead. Open it,” he urged her.

  He watched as she slipped the leather tie from around the metal button and pulled the top from the ’keep, leaving it hanging by its hinging strip. With deliberate care, she reached in and pulled out the fine parchment sheets, reading the one on top which Nalin knew was the Decree. She gasped as she began, then read until she finished and finally looked up and spoke.

  “She signed this today.”

  “Yes,” Nalin replied.

  “And what if I tell you I don’t want this stupid honor…this…legacy you’ve brought me? What if I refuse it?”

  Nalin sighed. This should have been Flandari’s fight. “And what if I tell you that your brother is a bully and a tyrant, that he lacks any of the constraints of a wise ruler, and that he has no love for hermits?”

  “A bully and a tyrant, huh?” she replied. “How do you know I’m not like him?”

  “I don’t, but I doubt you’re any worse.”

  “That’s reassuring,” the girl responded absently as she looked back to the Decree.

  “Lisen,” Jozan said, stepping in, relieving Nalin of the burden of reassurance, “I think Nalin is trying to say that your life may be in danger whether you reveal yo
urself or not. When he says that Ariel has no love for the hermits, what that really means is he possesses a fear of hermits that verges on the pathological. He may decide to move against them, and then the lives of all your friends here may be forfeit.”

  “Great,” the girl mumbled.

  “What?” Nalin asked.

  “Nothing,” she replied, shaking her head. “So he really hates the hermits that much?”

  “Almost as though he knew the truth,” Nalin replied.

  “Does he?” She sounded panicked.

  “No, he doesn’t,” Nalin said and then went on with difficulty. “We haven’t much time. If your mother weren’t lying there dead, she’d order you to come and that would be the end of it.”

  “And you?” the girl asked.

  “I can’t order you to do anything,” Nalin replied. “But I can ask. Please. Join us.”

  She looked down at the Decree and then looked back up at Nalin. She returned to the Decree and shook her head slowly. Then, finally rolling the scroll back up, she placed it back in the ’keep and raised her head. “There doesn’t seem to really be a choice.” She shrugged. “Yeah, I’m with you.”

  Everyone stood there stunned by the thud of finality in her tone. Nalin couldn’t think of anything to say, and apparently neither could the other two. At last he recovered his wits and pushed forward.

  “Unfortunately,” he said, “we must now come up with an entirely new plan.”

  “Because, of course,” the captain interjected, “the Empir’s death changes everything.”

  “Yes,” Nalin agreed. “So first, the return to Avaret.”

  “We might want to consider delaying the Heir’s return, my lord,” Rosarel suggested.

  “Whose return?” the girl asked.

  “Yours, my Liege,” Rosarel replied kindly.

  “Oh.”

  “But why?” Nalin asked.

  “Because,” the captain continued, “we need to know what happened here before we reveal her existence there.”

  “I know what happened here,” the girl said, and they all turned to her.

  “What?” Jozan asked when Ariannas hesitated to go on.

  “The assassin was pushed.”

  Nalin gasped, but Jozan only nodded.

  “Pushed?” the captain asked.

  “Undoubtedly by a rogue,” the girl replied. “The servant may have been bought as well, which is what the Empir believed. But before coming up here, I went to the servant in the courtyard, and as I reached in to try to help her, I encountered a presence. Scared the crap out of me.”

  “Did this presence sense you?” Rosarel asked, ignoring the strange word in the middle of her sentence.

  The girl hugged the sword even closer, looked over her shoulder to the Empir behind her, then returned to them. “It tried to read me, but Hermit Eloise pulled me free.”

  “Damn,” Nalin said.

  “For something this momentous,” the girl went on, “for the assassination of an Empir, it probably took months, maybe even years, to condition this woman. And she probably had no idea what she was doing until she’d done it.”

  “Would it have been possible for her to fight it?” Jozan asked.

  “If it’s done slowly enough, carefully enough, she’d be unaware that there was something there to fight. That’s why, of all the talents, pushing is the only one forbidden without exception. It’s usually channeled into necropathy.” She punctuated this with the slightest smile.

  “Then,” Nalin began, cleared his throat and tried again. “Then, you could do this?”

  “I suppose I could, but I wouldn’t,” the girl replied and then grew impatient. “But that’s not my point. Someone pushed, someone who had access to this woman over time. Find that someone, and you find the true assassin.”

  Rosarel shook his head. “No, find the one who hired that someone, and you find the true assassin.”

  “Ariel,” Jozan whispered, as though saying it made it real.

  “Well, then, that decides it,” the captain said. “Do either of you doubt who was behind this? We can’t take her to Avaret. Not now. Not yet. Ariel can’t know the truth until she’s ready.”

  “Ready for what?” Nalin asked.

  “Yeah. Ready for what?” the girl echoed apprehensively.

  “Whatever attempts he may make to retain the throne,” Rosarel replied.

  “Oh,” the girl mouthed softly.

  Nalin turned to the young Heir, watched her pull inside herself. He returned to Rosarel. “Do you have a better idea?”

  “Well, someone must accompany the Empir back home, and that someone should be you, my lord.” He nodded towards Nalin.

  “Go on,” Nalin said.

  “And the Heir must leave separately—via the ferry and around Miyora Bay, I think—and head someplace, anyplace other than Avaret.”

  “Where?” Nalin asked.

  “Halorin?” Jozan suggested.

  “Yes, Halorin is ideal,” the captain agreed with a nod

  “Halorin?” Nalin shook his head. “No. Not Halorin.”

  “We can disappear into the population in Halorin, my lord,” the captain argued.

  “But it’s a population of outlaws!” Nalin protested.

  “My lord,” the captain responded, his tone measured, “in the eyes of many, we are now outlaws.”

  “And what will we do in this Halorin?” the girl asked.

  “Captain?” Nalin said, turning to him. He’d made the suggestion; let him explain it to her.

  The corners of Rosarel’s mouth turned up in what could be a smile or just as easily a grimace; Nalin couldn’t tell. “I’ll train you to defend yourself.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’ll teach you weaponry and hand-to-hand combat.”

  “It can’t come to that,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m no warrior.”

  “You can learn,” the captain said gently.

  “And in the meantime,” Nalin added, surrendering to the inescapable, “your existence will remain a secret known only to the four of us and to the sooth.”

  “The element of surprise,” the girl said.

  “No,” the captain said, and Nalin swore he heard sadness in the single word. “The element of safety. You saw how easily the Empir was brought down.”

  “So we’ll disappear into this population of outlaws.” She was coming to it slowly.

  “Yes,” Rosarel replied.

  “When do we leave?” she asked.

  “My lord?” Rosarel said, turning to Nalin.

  “It’s your plan,” Nalin replied.

  The captain nodded and turned back to the girl. “We will set out in two groups. Before first light, you, myself and Heir Tuane will head via ferry into Tonkin, then over the mountains, and from there to Halorin. The holder and the other two guards will accompany the Empir’s body back down to the dock and from there to Avaret.”

  “How long will it take to get to this Halorin?” the girl asked.

  “A week or so.”

  The girl made a face, crinkling up her nose, then nodded. “Then I guess I’d better get packed.” She started for the door, then stopped and turned back. “I don’t have anything to take. Except this robe and the sword.”

  Nalin smiled. “The Empir brought some tunics. I’m having them brought up here.” She nodded, turned, and this time she managed to leave.

  “I have to muster some supplies,” Rosarel said, and he, too, left.

  Jozan started to follow him out, but Nalin stopped her. “Jo, a moment?”

  She turned back. “Of course.”

  “I need you to do something for me.”

  “What?” Jo asked.

  “The girl needs an education, and not just in fighting techniques. She needs an understanding of her duties as Empir. And protocol. And life in court. Creators, there’s so much she doesn’t know.”

  Jozan pulled back a bit, studying him in the candlelight. “Of course, Nal.” Her blue eyes narr
owed.

  “I mean it, Jo. She has to be taught.”

  “You said you knew two years ago, right?”

  Nalin started at this abrupt change of subject. “Yes, two years ago. Why?”

  “Tell me. What were Flandari’s intentions for you and this girl?”

  “What?”

  “She must have said something, implied something,” Jo said. “Because up until two years ago, you and I…well…you and I had intentions, or at least I thought we did. Then you backed away. I didn’t know why, but I left it alone because I didn’t want to lose a friend. But that was it, wasn’t it?”

  He took a deep breath, then blew it out slowly. “She never said anything, but I suppose it was implicit in her confidence.”

  “Well, finally.” She smiled, to his surprise. “I thought it was me. Imagine. Flandari seducing you with power.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Nalin protested.

  “I’m sorry. Of course it wasn’t. And don’t worry, Nal. I’ll do all I can to help her out.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Just one thing, though. What if, after all of this, the girl doesn’t want you?”

  He shrugged. “If I’ve done my duty and gotten her on the throne, I’ll be content. Now we’d better get going. And not a word outside this room.”

  She nodded, and they stepped from the infirmary. Outside two hermits waited to prepare the body for its return to Avaret, and Nalin averted his eyes as they passed by.

  CHAPTER SIX

  WHAT THE SOOTH KNEW

  Citizens and Emperi Council,

  Flandari, Citizen of Garla and Empir, Holder of Prea and Forn, and Protector of Thristas, gives Greetings,

  In this, the twenty-second year of our reign, on the third day of the second month, I hereby decree the following Order of Ascension.

  My first-emerged, Ariannas, shall inherit the responsibilities, rights and title of Empir. She, whom I have not seen since her emergence, should note that the responsibilities are given before all else.

  Further, as is the custom, the Holding of Prea shall pass to the Empir who succeeds me.

  To Ariel, her twin, the Holding of Forn.