The Blood Wars Trilogy Omnibus: Volumes 1 - 3

by T. A. Miles

  “Leave me alone,” Korsten whispered. “Please.”

  Merran waited, then stood and left the room. Korsten glanced over his shoulder to see him gone, then slowly bent over his lap and softly wept.

  He had fallen asleep again without knowing it and awakened to find himself still in some state of existence. He hadn’t eaten, he was sure of it. After more than three months he should have been not only completely emaciated, but completely dead. It must have been magic keeping him alive. It must have been magic enabling his muscles to work after so long not using them.

  Korsten sat up slowly in the bed he was coming to know, finding himself unexpectedly alone. Breakfast or a meal of some kind had been set out for him, the bread and apple already cut so that it wasn’t necessary to leave him a knife. Bastards.

  He looked across the room at the wash basin that was still there and thought about drowning himself, but that seemed like too much effort at the moment. His tormentors had probably emptied it anyway. Merran had probably done it himself. Surprising that he didn’t find a way to throw the water on Korsten, just to wake him and remind him of his presence. He’d been nothing but an unreasonable irritant since the moment Korsten set eyes on him. He might have been considered an ally at one point, but then … Hedren died and Markam … and…. Korsten thought about the last moment he could remember with Renmyr. He recalled Renmyr kissing him. He recalled seeing red … feeling hot…. A ribbon of pain flared at his neck and he lifted his hand reflexively. His fingers touched what was evidently a wound of some kind. Not bleeding, he discovered after rubbing at it lightly and examining his fingertips. Still, it felt unhealed, warm even. It might have been infected. It seems you missed a place, Merran. I could run a fever as a result of your carelessness and die. I’ll thank you for that hope, but not for anything else.

  Korsten pushed away the bedding someone had thrown over him while he lay unconscious and swung his legs slowly off the wide mattress. He caught a glimpse of crimson in the thin white curtains and glared at the insect clinging to the transparent fabric, impervious to the breeze that sent a chill over Korsten’s bare skin.

  Well, not bare. I still have these obscene markings that some deranged, perverted soul scribbled upon me. And you think that I’m troubled, Father. If I could see the look on your face now … gods, I can only imagine what you’d be thinking.

  On impulse, Korsten touched one of the marks upon his left arm and tried wiping it away. It didn’t even smudge. He gave up quickly, unconcerned with how he looked. He wasn’t planning to live another day. If the balcony wasn’t up high enough that leaping off it would break his neck, then he was going to hang himself with the bedding. He was not going to live, knowing that he had killed Renmyr, knowing that Renmyr was dead.

  You were everything to me. I hated Haddowyn when I first arrived. I learned to love it for your sake, because you did. You brought me out from beneath the shelter of my books and though the world you showed me wasn’t perfect, it was worth living in because you were there. I could endure anything for you … and I can endure nothing without you. It hurts to breathe, Ren. I can’t bear the pain, though I may deserve it.

  A strange sensation held the tears Korsten was on the verge of shedding. He felt oddly as if he were not alone in the room, as if someone had just said something to him. Something important.

  He looked over his shoulder, toward the room’s door, to be sure no one had entered. The door remained closed and the room empty, save for himself … and a single winged creature that didn’t even have the sense to be outside doing whatever creatures of its like were supposed to do. It certainly hadn’t spoken to him.

  For some reason he thought just then of Merran reprimanding him for having a closed mind. Before that thought could finish forming he was thinking of Renmyr again, forgetting to cry as he saw his lover in his mind’s eye, holding him, kissing him more passionately than comfortingly. Renmyr’s family … all of them were dead. They’d been murdered, every last person in the house. All but Renmyr, who had said … who’d responded strangely to Korsten’s sympathy for his terrible loss.

  You weren’t afraid, Ren. You were in shock … I thought. You were … weren’t you?

  Korsten felt his eyes welling with tears, but he didn’t cry. He couldn’t as his thoughts stuck on those last awful moments at the Camirey manor.

  ‘We will be together now,’ you said. Not in death. That wasn’t what you meant, was it? But what else could you have meant? No … this is madness.

  Korsten shook his head, as if the action would erase the thoughts. He wasn’t even sure what he was thinking or why he was thinking it. Renmyr was dead. He died because…. Korsten recalled losing consciousness after his body overheated without explanation. He didn’t remember anything beyond seeing Renmyr lying dead before him. And now he had a strange vision of Renmyr rising from the floor. He saw himself still lying down, as if he were someone else looking upon the scene, a helpless witness. Renmyr stepped slowly toward his fallen lover, looking silently upon him. He said nothing. He did nothing. After only a few moments, Renmyr walked away.

  He left. Korsten stared at nothing for several moments, blind in his sudden state of awareness, that didn’t make any sense and that somehow could not be denied. Slowly, he lifted his hand, pushing back the limp red curls that had blocked half his vision. He saw no better for the action as his eyes became flooded with tears. He drew perfectly still with his hand at the back of his neck, staring at the floor beneath his naked feet. Heavy drops slipped down his face one at a time. This was not despair or even shock, but an all-encompassing sadness that stemmed of a truth he didn’t want to accept, but could not banish. He could move, but he didn’t want to. His thoughts were not a painful swirl of agony, but suddenly very clear and hurting him in a very different way.

  Ren…. Long hours passed. Korsten didn’t move from his perch on the edge of the mattress. He looked at his environment. A spacious, well-dressed though not overdressed room of pale stone surrounded him. The dressing came in the form of intricately woven rugs on the floor and on the walls there were detailed tapestries. A large fireplace with a low warmth smoldering in its arced maw put a dry whisper in the air. A trilogy of windows as tall as doors was draped with the same transparently thin material as the bed curtains. A balcony lay beyond, a blue day beyond that. The sky discolored gradually … blushing … bruising … darkening … becoming night.

  At some point, the tears stopped, though Korsten couldn’t say when or why. He felt no better. Although, in all honesty, he felt no worse. Honestly, he felt nothing. He knew there was pain, but he had gone somehow numb to it … resigned to it perhaps.

  Finally, Korsten moved. He stood without conscious effort, found a stack of clothing upon the chest at the end of the bed, and dressed mechanically. The clothes were unfamiliar, in every aspect. Rather than the refined and expensive wardrobe Korsten had been used to all of his life, he found himself slipping into simple white breeches over white stockings, lacing them before pulling on a short, sleeveless tunic that was also white with a high collar. There was no belt, but he didn’t seem to need one. The breeches laced snugly and the tunic came down to his waist, fitting close. Snatching up a pair of knee-tall boots of soft ivory leather, Korsten padded in his stocking feet across the room and came to a mirror standing in the corner, near to the wash basin. He expected to look positively ghastly in his pallid garb and otherwise covered in strange markings. However, he was surprised to find not only that the outfitting had an aesthetically sleek effect on his already slender frame and that it contrasted with his vivid hair in a surreally pleasing fashion, but that the black characters previously etched upon his skin were no longer there.

  Korsten stared at himself, curious about the individual he saw there, who he recognized but didn’t know. This was not the son of an imperious nobleman, the self-appointed scholar hiding in his uncle’s library, the friend and assistant to a governo
r … the lover of his lord’s wayward son. This was someone else. Someone distantly connected to that person, netted in the web of pain and unhappiness he had spent his young years weaving helplessly … but also deliberately.

  Such a vain, foolish creature you are. Now, finally, you understand pain … and love. The two are even more connected than you imagined in your selfish misery.

  Red fluttered over his left shoulder. Korsten looked at the butterfly in the mirror. “Analee,” he whispered. “Who sent you to me?”

  The Seminary seemed a very old place. Very old and quite large. Korsten walked its long, labyrinthine corridors with no idea of where he was going, but somehow knowing that he wasn’t lost. He didn’t follow the bright-winged insect fluttering constantly near him, but seemed to be moving with her, like friends strolling a familiar path together. There was nothing familiar about this path, however, and Korsten was not prepared to accept that he had befriended a voiceless, if not thoughtless creature that would fit in the palm of his hand. True he knew her name, but perhaps that was because he had subconsciously given it to her. He couldn’t say, but he was in no mood to debate the matter and so went along with what felt like instinct at the moment.

  There were stairs at two places along his blind path and he had taken them down. At ground level, Korsten happened upon a room that felt out of doors and may have been, but that the flowering vines had overgrown a maze of latticework to such a degree as to form a living ceiling. Korsten could feel the cooler air of night outside as he stepped into the garden. He could hear chirping insects louder in this place and he could see patches of moonlight upon the path underfoot, where grass grew along the edges and between the cracks. He traveled that path slowly, having no destination until he suddenly arrived at it. A particular strand of deep red lilies, drooping as if in slumber, just like all the others … all the countless others that filled the peculiar garden. These flowers were identical to their neighbors, near and distant … and yet they were different somehow.

  Korsten stared at the lush, crimson buds before him for several minutes, before slowly reaching out for one of them. Contact came cool and smooth as silk, an unexpected pleasure to the skin. He cupped the closed blossom gently in his fingers and lifted it like one lifts the chin of a child or a lover to look into their eyes. Vague images of a face came to mind. Young, beautiful … dark skin, dark hair … eyes a deep brown, like rich earth … full lips, lush like the folded petals currently balanced on the tips of Korsten’s fingers. Before he knew what he was doing, Korsten leaned forward and touched his lips to the lily he was holding.

  He drew away startled, cool moisture upon his lips. He stepped back, letting the flower slip from his hand.

  “Her name was Adrea,” someone said. Korsten recognized the soft voice and suddenly the beautiful man it belonged to. He didn’t look at him, but saw him in the corner of his vision when he came to stand beside him. “She was a Mage-Adept, in line to replace a Superior, if and when he passed away. She worked with red, the color of—”

  “Blood,” Korsten interrupted without intending to.

  Green eyes viewed him askance, only briefly. “Yes,” the man said. “But in the sensual aspect, not the mortal aspect. She possessed a very strong gift of Allurance, one that became even stronger over time and which enabled her to master many difficult spells connected to her chosen range along the spectrum of magic.”

  “Chosen,” Korsten echoed softly, somewhat dubiously.

  “Yes, chosen. Chosen by her predecessor, but also by herself. She chose red and chose it for you, as displayed in the remarkable shade of your hair and your bond mate’s wings. The gods chose brown, the color of earth, of awareness, not of the magic within, but of the magic without … as is evident in the depth of your dark eyes. You elected to nurture that inborn talent … Reasoning, through books and study. The gods chose brown for Adrea as well and interpreted that awareness outside of oneself as Empathy, sensitivity to the world around her unlike what most of us know. I have the gift of Empathy myself, but I am sensitive to individuals rather than to nature. It is all connected, you see, but still separate. No one mage can master the entire Spectrum. We must divide it amongst ourselves. The varying combinations are merely indications of our personalities and the potential we have for understanding some things better than others.

  “Adrea chose red for herself because she had a gift that would have forever remained dormant otherwise as it related closely to no other color. And you, Korsten, chose white, symbolic of the spirit, of one’s inner being. That surprises me, I have to admit.”

  “Yes, it surprises me as well,” Korsten replied. “I don’t recall making any such decision.”

  “But you did,” the exceptionally blond man said, sounding mildly amused. “In fact, you are remarkably, if not alarmingly decided. You must have a talent inspiring you to do so.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Those clothes were brought to you in the neutral color of gray. All undecided mages, those summoned to us or who come to us as Apprentices, wear gray until they have decided on the color scheme for their career in magecraft. Your wardrobe is white because you made it so.”

  “Magic?” Korsten asked softly.

  “A subconscious spell,” the green-eyed man answered. “You will never wear another color, but don’t worry. It suits you nicely.”

  Korsten frowned, not only at the man who’d implied he was vain enough to care, but also at the fact that his implications were all too true. He recalled what he’d been thinking when he looked at himself in the mirror; relief. Relief that he didn’t look as miserable as he felt and that the unsightly spell markings were gone from his skin. As if it mattered. Not that long ago he was committing acts of self-mutilation with dull blades.

  “I prefer sarcasm over despair, I think,” the blond man said next, while Korsten absently rubbed his healed wrist. “Though there is still a great deal of pain, at least I can smile over it.”

  Korsten didn’t. He said simply, “Merran told me about you. He said you’ve been sharing my burden with me.”

  “I have been.”

  Korsten looked at him directly now. “Why?”

  The lovely blond man turned slowly to face him. A soft smile reflected in his very green eyes. Such a look threatened to steal the breath from Korsten. The man’s look and manner and voice; all were angelic. “How else could I understand you? How else could I and the others protect you from yourself?”

  “If you understood me, you’d have let me die,” Korsten said with sudden resent. “I don’t care what you say; I didn’t choose to be here. I don’t belong here.” He felt his scowl softening helplessly. “I belong with Ren … and he’s … he….”

  Korsten stopped himself, staring at the angelically fair man before him, watching a tear slip down his cheek at precisely the same moment one streaked his own face. He didn’t know what to think at that point. He was mesmerized by the idea of his own emotions reflecting so precisely in someone else, a stranger.

  It was Ashwin who broke the spell, wiping away the tear on his own face, and then reaching for Korsten. Long, cool fingers slid over his cheek and lingered there. “If you forsake this duty, Korsten, you will be in turmoil and suffering for the rest of your days. Stay here, with us. Master your talents, understand the duty that has been placed upon you … and keep others from suffering as you have.”

  Korsten lifted his hand to the one at his cheek. While a moment ago he might have torn it away and had something scathing to say, now he simply lowered his hand alone after a brief, almost meek touch. He lowered his gaze as well.

  Ashwin’s hand slipped behind his head and he drew Korsten near. He slid his other arm around Korsten’s shoulders and rested his face lightly upon Korsten’s hair.

  The fragrance of a sweet spice, blended with the warmth of the Mage-Superior’s chaste embrace, clouded Korsten’s senses. He allo
wed himself to be held, to be comforted by this stranger who was not only human enough to cry, but to have a heart beating softly beneath his breast. Korsten listened to it for what felt like a long time before finally calming and pulling reluctantly away from shelter he did not expect to find.

  “Forgive me,” he said with a sudden respect for this strikingly elegant and compassionate man.

  “There is nothing to forgive,” Ashwin answered. “We all arrive here in various states of confusion, often in pain. Perhaps we would not be so inclined to fight the Vadryn if we were not on such intimate terms with our own suffering.”

  “I do want to stop them,” Korsten said suddenly, truthfully, he thought. “I did. When I finally could admit what was happening in Haddowyn, that Merran was right … I wanted to help. My reasons weren’t entirely selfless, I’ll admit, but….”

  “Reason at all is reason enough,” Ashwin interrupted gently. “I believe you will discover, with time, that your reasons are not so selfish as you seem to think now. I think you are disoriented, above all, displaced by this turn in events. The Seminary is your home now, Korsten, and your fellow mages are your family. Take your place among us. You are more than welcome.”

  “Why are they all red?” Korsten asked the first person he encountered the very next morning.

  Merran hesitated as he entered the room, closed the door slowly behind him, and stared at the empty bed for several moments before allowing his blue gaze to find Korsten perched on the vine-covered balustrade rimming the balcony.

  “The flowers,” Korsten clarified, looking back over his shoulder at Vassenleigh when he was sure Merran had spotted him. He’d been debating the matter since leaving the garden, and Ashwin, last night. The sun had come up over a city largely known throughout Edrinor as a necropolis and Korsten still had not made sense of the matter, the flowers or the fact that he had been, one way or another, drawn into the world of magecraft. “If there are so many different colors along the spectrum of magic and the flowers either lament or keep dead mages, why should they all be red?”