The Blood Wars Trilogy Omnibus: Volumes 1 - 3

by T. A. Miles

  “And I wonder where you’ve gotten to,” he murmured as he folded the note and found a discrete place to set it on a stand beside the bed. With a quick glancing over of the undisturbed blankets, he turned to leave, turning back as a corner of yellow-white caught his attention. The parchment lay very stark against the dark bedding—he should have noticed it immediately. He cited himself silently and picked up the creased paper, which Cayri had left for him, as was evident in the words written upon it.

  I’m still working at an audience with the governor. The Lady Ilayna has requested to meet with me a second time. So soon after our conversation, it seems strange, but whatever the circumstances are, they require attention. Irslan has information about his uncle that he’s willing to share with us. Talk to him. And take care in your investigations.

  Vlas shook his head after reading. He had only an hour—less than an hour by now—and Irslan wasn’t home, besides. Whatever Irslan had been withholding or had lately learned about Vaelyx, Vlas had a strong suspicion that he’d already gleaned some of that this evening and what he hadn’t discovered, he would before their visit to the Islands was over.

  Standing just inside the assembly hall, Vaelyx watched Ersana speak to people who were gathered because they were unsure. Some may have been afraid and seeking comfort. Others were not entirely afraid, but still seeking reassurance that the gods were on their side in this. Years of bodies disappearing and turning up with their souls scraped clean from them was enough to unsteady anyone. Who was stealing the life out of bodies and to what ends? Vaelyx believed he knew … or that he knew enough to learn the full truth, but he wasn’t foolish enough to go alone. He had hoped to have the aid of mages years before now. He had hoped to have the support of his friend, but both hopes were snuffed out by betrayal he couldn’t prove. Not yet, at any rate. He had a mage with him now and he hoped that one was enough. He knew there were more present. Through Dacia, he had a vague recollection of two or more others. The red of one stood out prominently in his mind and from time to time he thought he heard a voice to pair with it. Stranger than that, he thought he felt that voice. It didn’t match with Mage Vlas, but the very young-appearing man was a match for the vision he and Dacia had shared in a dream. She had seen the Islands, one in particular. She had seen a golden-haired man in blue. She had seen … something else, something he opted not to share with the mage and constable.

  Vaelyx took in some of the smoke-filled night air as it mingled in the hall and let his gaze seek out his daughter. She stood as she often did; oblivious to most of the world around her. Three nights following the dream, she’d run off. A demon tried to take her. He’d heard about it from Stacen after the fact. He knew it was his fault because she always behaved erratically after having close contact with him … through the working of magic he knew he should not have been tampering with. Magic was the only tool he could find to use against them, though. He had someone better equipped with him now and he would leave Dacia alone. Ersana and the coven would protect her and she could go on believing that Ersana was her mother and never consciously thinking about her father. Twenty-one years ago, he was lucky to regain his own soul, luckier still to have returned to the city with a child he should not have brought into the world. This was going to end now. If he could not have an effective hand in stopping the war itself, this would at least go no further. Indhovan’s decay would come to the surface.

  The directions indicated in the note Cayri had received in the library brought her to a street directly beneath the governor’s mansion. It seemed bold of Ilayna to ask her to come almost to the doorstep, but then she suspected Ilayna hadn’t. She couldn’t make the determination based on penmanship, as she hadn’t seen the lady’s pen, and the note was not particularly gendered in its essentially neat style. It was purely her intuition suggesting that Ilayna was not the one behind this request. If she was wrong, she would be relieved. She felt that if Ilayna had contacted her again so quickly it would be a step closer to the governor.

  As she mulled the possibilities over, she stood beneath the shadow of the building behind her, studying the city’s seat of power. The manor stood on a slight rise above the streets surrounding it. A stone wall with an iron gate surrounded the house itself, which consisted of six generous stories and was fashioned in a wide configuration with many windows. A good many of them were lit, as were posts along the wall. It was beneath one of those posts that she saw one of the few other souls exposed beneath the deceptively tranquil night sky. She recognized him immediately and had, in all honesty, expected this.

  As if he’d been waiting for her to notice him, Deitir Tahrsel stepped away from his house and across the street, toward Cayri. He had the look of a man who was determined, but the feel of one who was uncertain.

  She waited for him to arrive and politely greeted him.

  He stood still for several moments simply looking at her, words ebbing upon lips that opened slightly against the weight of those words. He didn’t know where to start. Or perhaps he didn’t know if he should.

  “I know you find it difficult to trust me,” Cayri said.

  He opened his mouth and took in a breath as if to spit fire at her in his defense, but he caught himself and said less aggressively than his expression and sense of protection would have it, “It isn’t that.”

  Cayri tried to help. “Then what is it?”

  He continued to look at her and she returned the gaze steadily, calmly. Very gradually, the young man relaxed, enough that he lowered his eyes before continuing in a voice that was, in spite of him, very gentle. “I’m worried for my father.”

  That surprised Cayri. She had anticipated him mentioning the other parent. She tried to keep her own tone more considerate than interrogative. “Why?”

  Deitir hesitated. “He’s not been the same lately.” He looked back toward the house. “I know it’s all this talk of war that’s been weighing on him since I was a child, but … recently it seems that much worse. He rarely speaks to anyone, not even me or Mother. When his deputy and the chief constable approach him about important decisions, he puts them off. When my mother tried to bring up the subject of you and your fellows tonight, he said something that I can’t forget.”

  Cayri didn’t take her gaze from Deitir and so met his when he looked at her again. The contact seemed to further relax him, despite his hostility toward her—or the idea of her—before.

  “That’s why I sent for you,” he said.

  Cayri nodded to acknowledge that, then asked, “What did he say?”

  Deitir hesitated again, seeming to summon the strength to repeat the words his father had spoken. “He said the sea is going to take all of us.” He smiled nervously after the words were out. “I know it doesn’t seem like anything, but the way he said it.”

  Cayri couldn’t help but to recall the account of Haddowyn and she hoped dearly that yet another leading position had not been usurped by their enemy. “Deitir,” she said and gently laid her hand on the young man’s arm. “Please, take me to him.”

  His defenses fluttered to wakefulness again, causing him to almost draw back from her, but she held onto his arm and made her request again.

  “Let me try to help him,” she said. “Please.”

  A flash of emotion swept across his face which made him appear in that moment even younger than he was, and he asked, “Can you?”

  She felt awfully that she couldn’t guarantee that she would. She let her hand slide down to his and squeezed it with as much reassurance as she could offer. “I’ll try.”

  Deitir accepted that with a nod and squeezed her hand in return. He drew in a breath to steady himself and let go afterward, turning toward the mansion. “This way,” he said.

  Cayri walked with him across the street, believing that this had been his intention when he’d requested the meeting. There seemed no other reason for him to request her presence directly outside of his
home. She understood the stress he must have been under, watching his parents in their respective states of stress and unlikely attitude, and listening to that of others as they openly sought counsel and direction from his father. Perhaps some of them were looking to him to take over in his father’s lack of presence to the role of governor. Undoubtedly, Deitir found that premature. Without an official handing down of office, he would have to preempt the transition and Cayri had even less doubt that Deitir wanted to do that. She wondered if Tahrsel’s deputy had pressed for it.

  The guardsmen at the gates opened the grounds to them immediately when Deitir arrived. He stepped through with an authoritative air that better suited the angry youth she had witnessed in the shrine garden earlier. He had a very confident gait. Cayri had difficulty keeping up with it as they traversed the open stone yard to the tall, double doors of the main house. They sat embedded beneath articulate relief work that appropriately and eerily depicted the people of the region and the sea.

  A doorman opened one side of the doors obediently and Cayri was ushered inside. The front hall was well lit and deep. A grand stairwell wrapped two sides, branching off at the second floor. A massive chandelier painted golden blossoms of light onto polished brown tiles. Two high, squared doorways lay to either side of the front room and through one of them passed the Lady Ilayna. She’d retired into a gown for the evening, but sacrificed none of her strong presence for it. Her eyes fixed sharply on her son, who paid her a defensive frown, then both seemed to admit defeat in the moment they each looked toward the stairs.

  Ilayna swept across the hall in her evening attire. “I requested the meeting for tomorrow morning,” she said with some apology directed at Cayri.

  “Tomorrow might be too late,” Deitir inserted.

  “Urgent matters are better attended early,” Cayri said to both of them. In secret she included all of the belated decisions that had been made in this city.

  Ilayna acceded with a nod and sighed. “I’ll take you to my husband.”

  Cayri followed the woman to the stairs, noting that Deitir came along, though at a distance.

  “If he orders you to leave the city or declares you under arrest, I’ll handle it,” Ilayna said. Her tone was agitated. “Though, truthfully, you’ll be lucky if he says anything to you at all.”

  “How long has he been this way?” Cayri asked.

  “How long has he been settling into inaction? Years. How long has he been acting like a total stranger?” The aged woman looked over her shoulder at Cayri. “Only in the last few weeks.”

  “How should I introduce myself?”

  “Not as a mage, thank you for asking. Just give him your name, if he asks it. If he presses, you’re a friend of mine.”

  “All right,” Cayri said.

  At the top of the stairs, they went right, down a tall passage with framed portraits to either side along richly paneled walls. A tall, paned window provided a frame for the city in its gentle sprawl toward the sea.

  Ilayna stopped at a door situated to the left of the passage. She knocked only to announce her entrance while she opened the door. The study beyond was a large, yet cozy arrangement of dark wood in the walls and furniture with accents of deep blue and red in the carpeting and drapery. Across from the door sat a wide desk with a tall, large-boned yet lean man behind it. Short-cropped gray hair contrasted against brown skin that age had pulled somewhat from a broad facial structure.

  “Raiss,” Ilayna said, prompting for the elder’s attention.

  “I hear you, Ilayna,” the governor said in a tone that came across relaxed and unstrained, but with threads of impatience weaving through it. “I heard you when you opened the door. It seems extraneous to announce yourself vocally as well.”

  The look on the lady’s face was one of unhappy resignation. Cayri could feel a similar reaction from Deitir, who he remained in the hall behind her.

  “You brought someone with you,” Tahrsel noted. “Who could it be and more importantly, what does she want?”

  As the governor was finishing out his statement, he lifted his gaze from the desktop and looked at Cayri very lucidly.

  “This is….” Ilayna began.

  But her husband raised a hand to preclude introduction. “No need to tell me. I’m quite sure she’s capable of telling me herself.”

  “Raiss….”

  “Leave, please,” he said and though the request seemed abrupt, he maintained his relaxed manner of speaking. “Let your guest and I get acquainted free of your opinionated interruptions.”

  Ilayna released a frustrated sigh and directed Cayri into the room ahead of her. “Perhaps he’ll let you get a word in. He seems very talkative now.”

  “Thank you, Ilayna,” her husband said dismissively and also with a light edge of sarcasm to match the one Ilayna laced into the end of her own words.

  Cayri nodded to Ilayna to convey her appreciation and hopefully some assurance that she would do all she could. Ilayna’s response was simply to leave and to close the door firmly behind her.

  “A man is beside himself when his wife thinks him insane,” Tahrsel said soon afterward. He looked up at Cayri again. “Reasonably so, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Times are trying,” Cayri offered, on behalf of both husband and wife.

  “Yes,” Tahrsel agreed in a mildly dubious tone. “They certainly are that.”

  Cayri decided to step closer.

  As she did so, Tahrsel raised one hand as if in invitation and said, “Please, come in. Have a seat.” He leaned back in his own, resting his elbows on the arms of the chair and folding his hands in front of him. “Would you like anything to drink?”

  His attitude was acerbic and impatient, if not distrusting. Cayri opted not to sit down and politely declined the offer of a drink.

  “What about something to eat?” the governor asked next and his tone was not of genuine offering. When Cayri failed to respond immediately, he added, “No? Money, then. Take it all, if you’d like it. Take this house, too, and the entire damned city directly out from under my blind eyes.”

  His light brown eyes were looking at her intently and his words were sharp, but he didn’t appear upset. He retained a calm posture and didn’t raise his voice beyond its naturally projecting register.

  “That is what you believe is going to happen, isn’t it?” he continued. And then he asked abruptly, “Who are you with? Which side of this mess have you come to represent and what makes you think I’m not doing everything in my considerable power to protect this city?”

  Cayri took the opening she was given. “The danger may be greater than you know.”

  Before she was finished speaking, Tahrsel shot up out of his chair and swept the books and papers in front of him off the desk. “I know the danger!” he shouted, showing anger that let her know he was not possessed, if she’d yet doubted. His display was far too spontaneous and humanly emotional, something the Vadryn struggled to mimic. Or it may have been easier for mages to see through their displays. Regardless, she detected more of fear than of simple agitation or the territorial rage of a demon over its vessel. “I know, better than anyone, the threats pressing against this city! From the war, from the damned witches, from the activists who think that their scurrying around hurriedly and haphazardly putting together ideas and theories they want to call progress is helping anyone but themselves and their egos … The Alliant Cities hound me constantly for men, for supplies … for whoever can shuffle on weary legs to the borders dragging behind them whatever they can reasonably carry. The coven reminds me at every opportunity that the gods have a singularly vindictive act of destruction in store for all of us defilers of nature. And the activists … what they want, I cannot even tell you but if I hear another word from them I’ll have the entire lot of them arrested, including my wife!”

  He looked to the door with that last statement, project
ing his voice enough so that Ilayna might hear if she were in the hall.

  Cayri allowed a space of silence to follow his outburst. She felt that the man had been needing this; some outlet through which to vent his frustrations. He must have felt isolated by the circumstances surrounding him, finding it difficult to address the most important concerns let alone all of them at once. He wasn’t possessed by demon, but by anxiety. Still, it seemed unlikely that the man Cayri envisioned through the attitudes of his wife and son would have sat letting stress compound for twenty years or more. Both indicated that they felt Tahrsel was behaving unnaturally, just as Vaelyx had expressed in his journals. While he may not have been possessed by one of the Vadryn, it was still possible that something was weighing him down, trapping him in a helpless state of distrust and paranoia. He was alienating himself. She doubted very highly that the man would allow her to touch him and enable a spell to calm his emotions.

  “What’s coming from the sea?” she decided to ask. Though her tone was patient, she meant for the directness of the words to disarm him into answering over worrying how she might have come to such a question.

  Tahrsel looked at her, giving no insight as to what may have been happening in his mind with the newly relaxed expression on his face. He seemed aloof suddenly and perhaps finished with their conversation.

  “Who are you?” he asked her suddenly. There was an instant when he seemed interested in knowing, where it may have been urgent that he know, but then he glared. He straightened from his desk and folded his arms behind his back, very calmly yet very acidly continuing his questions. “What do you know about what’s going on in this city? What could you possibly know?”