The Heir of Ariad

by Niki Florica

  “That is not—”

  “Has he, Kyrian?”

  He sighed. “No.”

  Brondro stood unsteadily, braced himself upon the anvil table with both hands. “I thought as much. He told me once he didn’t want children.” He choked on a miserable laugh. “And he raised mine.”

  Kyrian winced. He had not known that.

  “And you,” Brondro continued, swiping tears from his cheeks, steadying himself upon the anvil. “I abandoned you and Salienne. I drove your mother to death and abandoned you to life as . . . as orphans. Orphans and half-bloods and the children of a traitor.” His back was turned, rigid, head bowed low. “Skies, Kyrian,” he whispered. Shaking. “What have I done to you?”

  Kyrian groped for words, found none, cursed himself, looked away. His hands were tinted red with blood. The stains haunted him from his bruised knuckles, conjuring a memory of icy blue eyes and a bloody, lifeless, misshapen face staring emptily at the sky. He pulled his bracers over his knuckles and realized his hands were shaking. Murderer, fugitive, coward, liar.

  Liar?

  Brondro’s shaking breaths filled the silence between them as his sooty hands rose to his hair. He was broken and crumbling and falling apart, but he had asked for the truth. He deserved the truth.

  “Do you truly wish to know?” Kyrian heard himself ask, clenching his red-stained hands.

  His father’s eyes rose to his. His face was still streaked with tears, but his eyes were bright and brown again, hard and shining and strong.

  “Tell me, Kyrian,” he pleaded softly. “Tell me everything.”

  “The alliance is sealed. Thunderfoot and his forces now have full liberty in Rosghel. They shall be as much a part of this city as you yourselves, so I suggest you grow accustomed to them.” The Silvers murmured in disgust, scowling and whispering in their loose, haphazard ranks. Melkian chose to ignore them. “They shall walk among us, eat among us, share both our city and our resources. We are now allied forces, despite the wars of the past. The Storm Realm is no longer the enemy.”

  They stood about the pale fountain that lay between the palace and the watchtower entrance. His warriors were brooding, expressions dark, eyes downcast, shoulders rigid. Indignant, reluctant, proud. He understood. They were Silver warriors, honourable servants of Aradin’s great city. An alliance with the Storm Realm was akin to exchanging pleasantries with Tasnil the Usurper. He wished he could tell them that every word escaping his lips was rehearsed, a speech pressed upon him by the Storm Lord for the prevention of further conflict between the realms. The words were rancid upon his tongue but he spat them, as was his duty, even as his mind screamed curses upon his own treacherous voice.

  When the Silvers dispersed their indignation was tangible, but he ignored it as he turned to the watchtower and realized, with a cold chill, that he stood in the very place at which a Grey had been beaten to his death. He looked down, scanned the white cloud.

  No blood. Avel had done his duty well.

  The keeper awaited him behind the ledge within the watchtower, bottle in hand, and when Melkian sat he wasted not a moment in shoving a filled goblet into his rigid hand. He drank heavily, then choked on the realization that the goblet was not, in fact, filled with melsith. “What is this?” he coughed, eyeing the glass dubiously even as heat warmed his throat.

  Avel winked. “My secret supply.”

  “This will only worsen our thirst,” Melkian protested halfheartedly. “And it is forbidden.”

  Avel cast him a glare. “Execute me. Just drink it, Melkian, before I do myself.”

  Smiling greyly, Melkian drank, savoured the burning mouthful, and allowed his eyes to drift to the open doorway of the tower.

  He froze.

  Kyrian stood there. Not a grown warrior but a ten-winter champion, his tunic torn and a stream of blood flowing steadily from his nose. He was attempting to slip through the front manor door and past the sitting room in silence, but Melkian heard the metallic protest of the bolted lock and looked up from his half-braided bowstring to call his name.

  Kyrian appeared in the sitting room doorway. Dragged a fist across his filthy face and left a trail of blood. “Hello, Melkian.”

  “Where have you been?”

  He fidgeted. One eye was sealed black by swelling.

  “Kyrian.”

  A juvenile scowl. “Fighting.”

  “Fighting.” Melkian glared at him and tossed the unfinished bow onto the windowsill on which he sat. “Kyrian, do you pleasure in ignoring me? I told you—”

  “You do not understand, Melkian. He challenged me. Do you wish me to be a coward?”

  Melkian rolled his eyes. “This is not warrior training, Kyrian. These are childish contests.”

  Stubbornly Kyrian folded his arms and squared his young shoulders, one eye gleaming. Ever his mother’s son. “I am good at this, Melkian. You know I am good at this.”

  “That does not make it honourable.”

  “How do you expect me to earn their respect?”

  “Oh, I do not know, Kyrian, but beating them bloody is no place to begin.”

  Brondro’s son scowled, blew an exasperated breath, and vanished from the sitting room doorway to the sound of footfalls upon the staircase. Melkian sat in silence for a moment, frowning to himself, and it was both impulse and guilt that drove him to call the child’s name. Kyrian materialized in the doorway, impatient. “Yes?”

  Melkian crossed his arms, met his glare. Sighed. “You won, at least?” he asked, finally.

  Kyrian’s teeth flashed. “I always win.”

  “Melkian? Captain Melkian?” He startled to find Avel’s blue eyes glaring at him from beneath furrowed brows. “Skies, Melkian,” the keeper muttered, “where do you go?”

  “I am sorry,” he muttered, heat pouring into his face.

  Avel regarded him thoughtfully for a moment, brows tight. “You have not slept, have you?”

  Melkian ground the heels of his hands into his eyes. “No.”

  Avel sighed. “You are wearing yourself to threads, Melkian, and you know it. This city demands too much of you. The captain of the guard is not meant to fill the place of a king.”

  “I am not the king.”

  “Oh, spare me. You keep the peace while Tasnil rots behind palace walls, Melkian, and you know it to be true. But you cannot continue this way. You cannot be our ruler, judge, and protector—”

  “Avel, I do not have a choice.” Melkian propped his elbows on the table and frowned. “Rosghel is lost. Our king is a phantom that watches us starve with each passing day. Our streets shall soon be infested with Greys, Aradin has become a myth, and the Silvers question my loyalty to justice while Kyrian remains a fugitive. I cannot fail them now. They need a sane authority.” He buried his face in his hands. “Skies, Avel. Where is Aradin? How long must we wait for him to fulfill his promise?”

  “Melkian,” Avel replied, “listen to yourself. You know why Brondro was forced to disappear.”

  Melkian blew out a breath. “To protect the Sword of Kings. To bear Aradin’s blade as far from Tasnil as was possible.” He looked away. “And to preserve it, protect it, until the Heir of Ariad arises to claim it.”

  Avel nodded. “You believe in the Heir of Ariad?”

  Melkian sighed. “Yes.”

  “You believe he is coming?”

  A weary smile. “Yes, I do.”

  Avel nodded decisively and replenished his own goblet with a conspiratorial smirk. “Let us hope, then, that the one Aradin has chosen to free us will have more faith, Melkian, than you.”

  Kyrian fell to his knees in the dust outside the smithy door, alone beneath three gleaming moons, mad with the guilt that was killing him, unravelling him, one restless, peaceless heartbeat at a time. His father still did not know. Not everything. Because Kyrian was a coward. A liar.

  He tore the bracers from his wrists, cursing himself, hating himself, flexing his hands as the leather cuffs fell to the dust. He held th
em to the light, stared at the red stains he could not escape, could not hide. Tore at them, scored them in the dust, clawed at them while they mocked him from his white hands, glowing scarlet in the moonlight.

  “You cannot wash them away, Kyrian. You cannot undo what is done, cannot pay, cannot hide. Your sin shall find you. It demands a price. It does not forget. This is the way of wickedness.”

  Kyrian started and reached for a sword he did not have. “Who are you?”

  “You know who I am, Kyrian.” A rustle in the moonlight. “Did you like my water?”

  Kyrian frowned, scanning the shadows for the woodsman. “The water meant to kill me?”

  “No,” the invisible woodsman chuckled. “Not to kill you, Kyrian. To choose you. Already your purpose is in motion, already the time draws near. You cannot escape your calling, just as you cannot escape the Grey blood upon your hands. Only through One may you find peace . . . and purpose.”

  “Who are you, woodsman?” Kyrian growled, shakily. “Tell me who you are!”

  “Kyrian,” the smiling voice replied, “You know who I am. Why do you forget all that Melkian has taught you? The stain is the mark of your sin, and it demands a price. Deception cannot conceal it, nor can a lifetime of goodness appease it. Only One may pay the price, may free you from your sin.”

  Kyrian drew a wavering breath and forced himself to stand. “What do you know of my sin?”

  “Kyrian,” the woodsman replied, “there is nothing I do not know. You seek forgiveness, peace . . . purpose. You seek me.”

  He was shaking. Curse the Skies, he was shaking. “Tell me who you are.”

  Dying leaves drifted upon the woodsman’s soft laughter as hazel eyes shone from the shadows.

  “Seek me, Kyrian, and I promise you shall find me. You already know who I Am.”

  Deep in the heart of Rhos-Arpal, Tasnil the Usurper sat draped over Aradin’s throne, so still in the light of the dying torches he could have been a statue carved from gloom. He was bathed in flickering shadow, one palm still dripping from the oath in blood that had sealed Rosghel’s alliance with the Storm Realm. He felt no pain. Not in his hand, nor his heart. Feeling had died in him long ago.

  In his bloody hand he held a ring, rolling over and over again between his finger and thumb, dainty and feminine and inlaid with celestialis stones, glittering dead white in the torchlight. It had cost him an ogre’s weight in cirras. The stones he had found and carved himself. The silver had burned in fire for days.

  She had never worn it.

  His blood trickled from his hand to stain the throne scarlet. Drip . . . drip . . . drip . . . The curtains, heavy black, were drawn as ever over the windows, but still he heard life from beyond the panes, life and laughter in Rosghel’s darkened streets. Countless warriors exchanging posts beneath the torchlit tower, countless maidens stealing moonlit moments with the wretches they thought themselves to love.

  Tasnil’s palm drew tauter as the laughter rang shrill, reverberating in his skull.

  He had only ever desired one.

  The ring rolled ever between his fingers, its silver band and crystal stones now damp and dark with blood. He heard the laughter, saw the smiles, watched in his mind her raven-black hair, tossing in the wind as she leaned forward to kiss the blacksmith, as she drove an iron spike into Tasnil’s very soul and left him there, to bleed. To watch and wait and hate, while she placed in another creature’s hands the heart that belonged to him.

  To him.

  Deep in the heart of Rhos-Arpal, Tasnil the Usurper bled alone. In his hand was the ring she had never, never worn.

  Drip . . . drip . . . drip . . .

  In a cavern deep in the mines of the Adamun, Brondro Tarmilis was bathed in the flickering golden glow of the Sword of Kings. Praying, thinking, mourning the death of his love. Wondering if his dying world would have suffered less if only Jasmiel of Rosghel had chosen Tasnil over him.

  Seven

  And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.

  -Exodus 3:4

  The secret Adamun village of Werdumon was hidden between the walls of a great red gorge, fenced by towering cliffs over which the dying forest keeled to peer into the canyon. Brondro’s forge stood upon the northern cliff overlooking the village, a small smithy carved from the cliffside and cleverly concealed by the undergrowth. He led Kyrian along the edge, westward, toward the river. Peering over the precipice Kyrian could enter the lives of the Adamun, watching as they laughed and lived, survivors of a tragedy, protected by the canyon walls and the cloak of the loyal forest. Their Green blood was his, but for the first time in his life he felt utterly, starkly Silver.

  They emerged on the riverbank in the light of midday, the Nelduith glowing like liquid fire in the blaze of the beaming sun. Fast and strong it flowed, into the distant south, its rushing song filling the air as if to fill the silence left by the birds and beasts that should have been there to accompany it. Kyrian squinted into its glow, remembering the sight of the Lands from the Skies, of the great, silver ribbon that rent them in two, south to their heart, then west toward the Azure Sea. Brondro watched him remember, smiling. “Better from here, is it not?” He knelt on the bank, trailed a hand in the crystal waters, tossed a handful in his face. “What?” he asked when he caught Kyrian’s stare, teeth brilliant white against the black of his face. “Kyrian, it is forbidden to drink, not to touch.” He shook droplets from his brown hair with a wink. “I assure you, the Naiads will not intervene.”

  Kyrian knelt on his heels and trailed a hand in the stream, amazed by the sheer abundance of the one treasure Ariad starved for with each dry day and thirsty night. “I cannot believe it,” he mused. “So much, beyond our reach.” His bracers slipped. He pulled his sleeves down over his knuckles.

  Brondro shrugged. “One grows accustomed to it. The river Naiads are among the last loyal races to Aradin in this world. If the Nelduith dies, they shall die with it. We find other means.”

  “Even the Skyads are beginning to suffer. The thirst must be torture in the Lands.”

  Brondro nodded thoughtfully, watching the river. “Waiting can be torturous, yes. I know it better than most. But he is coming, Kyrian. Soon, I know. He is coming to end the wait.”

  Kyrian frowned. “Who?”

  “The Heir of Ariad.”

  “Oh.”

  One brown brow rose. “You do not believe in the Heir?”

  Kyrian rolled a stone between his fingers, avoiding Brondro’s eyes. “I did, once. Perhaps I do still. I do not know. If there is truly an Heir to destroy Tasnil and free the kingdom and save us from thirst, I shall follow him if he arises.” He shrugged. “But I shall not be surprised if he does not.”

  “Did Melkian teach you this?”

  “No. Melkian believes.”

  “I thought as much.” He swept the droplets from his face with a forearm, leaving his features hopelessly streaked, and settled onto his elbows. “Kyrian, I know what they say of me in Rosghel. Melkian told me when last we met many years ago. They call me a traitor. Tarmilis.” His nose wrinkled. “They say I stole the Sword for myself, to claim its power. Yes?”

  Kyrian dried his hand on his knee. “Yes.”

  “Of course, without Aradin the Sword was of absolutely no use to them, but such things are meaningless to Skyads. Take no offence, Kyrian, but your mother’s people can be impossibly stiff-necked when they feel betrayed.” He shook his head. “But I suppose you know the tale.”

  Kyrian half-smiled. “I am willing to hear it again.”

  “Good,” Brondro laughed. “I was going to tell it whether you wished or not.” His brown eyes shone in the light of the morning sun.

  “I was young, Kyrian, sixteen winters, the youngest of eight sons and the unglorified village blacksmith when Camuel arrived. You’ve heard of him—Camuel of Robinsdwel, the Green messenger of Aradin who could walk upon the clouds.�
�� Kyrian nodded. “He had been sent to find a Man for Aradin’s purpose, knowing nothing of the mission or the one he sought. But Camuel had faith, Kyrian, far surpassing mine. He followed Aradin’s guidance to my village, where he spoke with each of my brothers. But in the end—” he shrugged—“he chose me.”

  Kyrian tossed his stone into the air and caught it, smiling. “It must have been strange.”

  “It only grew stranger. I was leaving my home, my life, to follow the King into a purpose neither I nor Camuel knew. And somehow I was expected to make Rosghel believe I was a Skyad.” He snorted. “I almost fled for my life when Camuel told me that, but he seemed certain Aradin would protect me. And he did. Somehow a young, sun-browned Adamun blacksmith became the second Green to walk upon the clouds . . . and somehow Rosghel believed I belonged there.

  “You know the tale, Kyrian. I became Rosghel’s blacksmith. Your mother was my apprentice, and Melkian my first Skyad friend. King Aradin spoke often with me, bidding me to wait in patience for the time of my purpose. I obeyed and I waited. Tasnil was a well-respected young warrior at that time when he became the Rain Lord. He was kind enough to me then.”

  “But he turned away from Aradin,” Kyrian supplied.

  Brondro’s face darkened. “Pride, Kyrian. He grew too strong too quickly. Aradin warned him, but Tasnil was too proud to hear. He turned his back upon the King and, finally, as forewarned, Aradin turned his back upon him. He left Tasnil, vanished with the Sword of Kings, never reappeared in Rosghel . . . not to Tasnil, at least.” Brondro paused. “But to us he was everywhere. He took different forms, appeared and vanished, dwelt in the inexplicable, the invisible, but always he was there.

  “It was years before he appeared again, in the form of a Peasant. I did not at first recognize him but he knew me, and I found the truth for myself soon enough. When Tasnil discovered it, he came to Aradin demanding his favour again, but the Peasant-King told him only a repentant heart could find redemption. It drove him out of his mind.”