The Heir of Ariad

by Niki Florica

  The words hung tattered in the air between them, laced with a challenge that should have stung him, should have kindled him to action, to anger, to some feeling of something that his rival seemed to expect.

  But for the first time in all his life, Kyrian felt nothing.

  He pulled the knife from his belt. Whispered, “This belongs to you.”

  A gift from Camuel, the Robin had said.

  From the grandfather who would never return.

  The Robin deflated. His gaze flickered between the knife and Kyrian before one hand reached forward to accept it, crusted fruit still clinging to his forearm, red as the blood beneath his fingernails. He regarded Kyrian through red-rimmed eyes that gleamed with something wild and unsteady, the spattering a bloodstain on his dusty, thin-worn shirt.

  Kyrian had seen into this creature’s soul.

  He had stepped into his hidden past and tasted the darkness that dwelt there.

  The moment lagged. The Robin swallowed, his hands white and trembling.

  When he turned away, Kyrian followed. The song of Robinsdwel died slowly behind them.

  Rydel was breaking. Clutching trembling hands to his chest, struggling to remember how to breathe, fighting to make clarity of the hazy blur from which he had awoken to find his knife pressed to the Skyad’s throat. His thoughts were a ragged, foggy circuit. He had given his word. He meant to honour it. He was bound to honour it. He was a creature of his vows, as his grandfather had been. A shudder traced his spine.

  He had tried to kill him.

  He had tried to kill the Skyad.

  The golden light was too bright, too scorching in his vision. His head ached; his fingers, pressed white and bloodless, had not yet ceased to tremble, chilled with the blood that was suddenly cold in his veins. In his ears the cries of Robinsdwel echoed incessantly, shaming him, scorning him, casting him aside. You have no place with us. Leave us in peace. Camuel himself was not so bothersome as you.

  He flinched, remembering the voices, the eyes, recalling the sting of fruit and of words no span of time could ever purge from his flesh, his heart, his memory. Still he could see them, the sea of merry folk garbed in red-plumed tunics and crimson-sashed gowns, regarding him through irascible eyes as he stood above them, an enlightened prophet, a raving fool. You have no place with us. His eyes had clashed then with the Skyad’s. The black, unguarded gaze of the Silver intruder whose tarnished sword was grander than any Skyad blade Rydel had seen, and whose pale, stormy visage had never learned to lie.

  His flesh erupted in chills and he buried trembling hands beneath his arms.

  That was where his memory became a haze of darkness.

  The beast in his chest gouged his ribs with feral talons, stirring the wells of hate within him, reminding him with each rigid step of all that the Skyads had destroyed, all that they had stolen from him. Reminding him of his people, merry in their revels only as long as their provisions could last; of his homeland, gasping and withering in silent agony; of his grandfather, felled somewhere beyond the Nirtuikann Wood with a Skyad blade syphoning life from his chest.

  Of a simple, silver chain, swinging freely in its place about one Skyad’s neck.

  He swallowed. Cringed. Dug his fingernails into his arms until pain sparked in his flesh. Death to the Skyad, hissed the darkness within him. Rydel gritted his teeth. No. Death to the traitor. He shuddered. No . . .

  He had given his word. He meant to honour it. He was bound to honour it. He was a creature of his vows, as his grandfather had been . . .

  Rydel had killed before. Buried Skyads before. One more and this war between hate and guilt would end. One more and perhaps the faces of the dead would cease to haunt his nightmares, night after night after sleepless, tortured night.

  A shudder traced his spine as the world grew cold, the gash in his soul tearing wider, darker.

  One more death. Just one.

  One more and Rydel of Robinsdwel would be free.

  Thirteen

  Thunderfoot watched in silence as his warriors swarmed from the Greyship and onto the Rosghel Cloud, working swiftly to tie frayed mooring lines to the vacant Silver harbour. He waited upon the deck, arms crossed before his chest, relishing the silence, dreading the encounter to come, his palm still aching where the point of his knife had sliced a vow in blood. The harbour was abandoned, a forgotten stretch of cloudy shore lined for leagues with Silver crafts . . . one of which, he coolly observed, belonged to Captain Melkian.

  He stepped over the gunwale after lengthy hesitation, his warriors long since diminished into grey flecks against the pale, sunlit backdrop that was the city of Rosghel. Blissfully alone for the first time in an eternity, he convinced himself that the mooring lines were in need of verification and busied himself another moment with the knots that could not have been firmer if he had secured them himself.

  Procrastinating, he knew. He did not even attempt to deny it.

  Still, perhaps it would be prudent to inspect the ropes once more . . .

  He was half-stooped over the first mooring post when his eyes snagged upon the figure in the vessel two south of his own: dark-haired, white-cloaked, regarding Thunderfoot through sharp, grey eyes that held more secrets than the pale orbs of the Usurper himself. Thunderfoot gritted his teeth, straightened, and cursed himself for not having seen the warrior before.

  “Captain,” he grated.

  “My lord.”

  Thunderfoot’s disposition blackened as the failure of his mission rose once more to the surface of his thoughts, stirred by the question in Melkian’s eyes, the question duty did not permit him to ask. He scowled. “You may rest in peace this night, Captain, for you shall be grateful to know that our mission was fruitless. The fugitive Silver has not been seen within five hundred leagues of the Rosghel Cloud, and for the sake of the alliance, I have decided to abandon our pursuit until further notice.”

  The captain’s performance was seamless. “My sympathies.”

  Thunderfoot snorted. “Do not waste your breath.”

  Melkian’s grey eyes turned to the sails billowing lightly in the breeze, white against the stark blue sky. “If rumours guide me rightly, you have discussed my loyalties at length with the inhabitants of this city. You know, then, that I have told you nothing but truth.”

  Thunderfoot frowned. “So it would seem.”

  A chilled moment passed in which Melkian’s cool focus dipped to the knot Thunderfoot had been examining, gliding over the tightly wound cord and rising again, ironic. “You are diligent, I see.”

  Thunderfoot would have been defensive had he not been so thoroughly disgusted with himself. He folded his arms once more, concealing his bandaged hand. “This is your vessel?”

  Melkian nodded, turning to adjust the silver sails.

  “It is rather small for the captain of the guard.”

  He shrugged. “It is something of a pleasure-craft. Remarkable as it may seem, I once intended to sail to the very ends of the Skies upon these sails.”

  Thunderfoot’s brows rose.

  The captain’s smile was ghostly. “A fantasy,” he finished quietly, “but the children loved it.”

  A strange, sharp pain pierced Thunderfoot through his ribs as he stood, watching this captain, this Silver who had surprised him, who had changed so drastically since last they had met in Rosghel. In the Storm Realm he had anticipated the bright-eyed, fire-hearted warrior who had fought beside Brondro Tarmilis upon the Bloodmours. He had expected the fierce, reckless soldier whose heart was stout and his quick tongue stouter. He had imagined the young Silver noble he had met then, so long ago, when both of them had been foolish and ambitious and brave, destined for leadership, for glorious purpose.

  He had not expected this. This captain, this Melkian of Rosghel, this wise, reticent husk of the warrior Thunderfoot had once known. Though his eyes were still grey they were duller with memory, his features still fair but too heavy, too sober, as if the very weight of the world itself reste
d upon his uncrowned brow. A sadness lurked in the grey of his eyes, in the corners of his lips, in the straight, steadfast erectness of his spine beneath the captain’s uniform. He had once been Brondro’s truest friend. He had raised the tarmil’s children.

  A shadow crossed his heart, and inwardly Thunderfoot lamented that these dark days should be his to bear, to suffer. He had killed for this place, for this position of lordship, but who was he to claim it? Who had he been to spill his master’s blood and take up the fate of the Storm in his place?

  He could not even summon the resolve to report to the Usurper.

  “Your people say you have governed Rosghel since the Usurper’s silence began,” he remarked, stifling the thought. “Their respect for you, I must confess, is covetable, Captain.”

  Melkian dipped his head. “I act only as my King would will, my lord.”

  Thunderfoot smirked at the ambiguous title. Oh, but he was clever.

  “It must be a grave burden, indeed,” he continued, “to perform the will of a king whose face is masked by palace walls and voiceless decrees. Tell me, has it occurred to you that this world may no longer be able to await the Usurper’s blessing? Surely you are not so superstitious as your people, to believe one mad tyrant could prevent a Silver garrison from sailing north unbidden, and fetching the Rains against his will.” He steeled his gaze, tone dripping irony. “Your kinsmen seem to think him a phantom.”

  Melkian cast him an unreadable glance before turning his back and rifling idly through the coiled white ropes lining the deck. “I would advise against speaking ill of the king,” he replied.

  Thunderfoot’s lip curled. “And why is that?”

  The captain paused in his labour for a moment, a fraction of a breath. He turned to face Thunderfoot with an expression of perfect fascination, as if surprised to find that, like all the world of Ariad, even the Storm Lord did not know what came to pass behind the Rosghel Gates, beneath the shadow of Ariad’s bane, where the king’s name was terror, whispered in darkness. Where the rain-fetchers waited, neglecting the Rains.

  Melkian of Rosghel slowly frowned. “You wish to know, my lord, why my people do not defy the law of the king, why his name is uttered with caution and his works with whispers by night. Three years ago I awoke to find his decree upon the threshold of my door, the wax yet hot and pressed with Tasnil’s seal. He has no messengers, no runners of his own. How the parchment came to be there is a question that you, I am certain, may answer yourself.” His tone turned vaguely taunting. “I relayed the statute to the people. They did not approve. A host of warriors, two score strong, chose to defy the king’s decree and journey north to fetch the Rains for Ariad, as is the duty of the Rain Realm. I was not among them.” His eyes glinted in the sunlight. “At the time, the fate of Ariad was not a concern I could afford. They departed in the dead of night, beneath the darkness of the year’s fifth newmoon. I did nothing to prevent them. In truth, I hoped for their success.”

  Melkian had forgotten his menial tasks. He now stood motionless, mirroring Thunderfoot’s pose, his voice low and quiet and flat, as if a thousand retellings had numbed him to the tale, drained him of emotion.

  When he spoke again, his words had already danced across Thunderfoot’s thoughts.

  “Forty warriors departed from Rosghel, my lord. At dawn the ship was moored in this very harbour. Every one of them was dead.”

  A slow chill crawled Thunderfoot’s spine as two sunken, milky eyes swam across his vision. “Dead.”

  “It seems, my lord,” Melkian finished coolly, “that you have been misguided. Tasnil the Usurper has not been seen for twenty years . . . but no soul in this city is so foolish to believe that he does not haunt our steps.”

  Thunderfoot swallowed; the captain turned away, returning his attention to the small, time-worn ship that had never borne him to Skies’ end, never spared him from his fate.

  His palm ached. He felt something graze his shoulder but when he turned, there was only silver mist.

  The Robin had walked so long in shuddering silence that Kyrian was scarcely surprised when he paused, grasped a tree trunk, and vomited onto the forest floor. He waited in patient silence, watched the wretched creature heave and gasp, clasped his hands behind his back and glared skyward until the sounds of retching faded into pants. The Robin, hunched upon his hands and knees, drew himself up, scoured refuse from his chin, and continued onward without a glance in Kyrian’s direction. He stifled a snort.

  Fine.

  The detour to Robinsdwel had cost them precious time. Kyrian had trailed the Robin for hours through the treetops, striding along the wooden planks that had grown increasingly precarious the farther they had drawn from the city. His ever-considerate guide had chosen a path through the branches, allowing Kyrian the added delight of searching for his green shadow every second breath, as if listening to the creaking of the ropes beneath his weight had not been torture enough. He had descended from the treetops on a fraying rope ladder and walked until first moonwatch in perfect, unbroken silence. His right eye was rendered useless by the dimness of twilight, he was dusty, he was impatient, and he was ravenously, voraciously hungry.

  In short, the Robin could retch to his heart’s content.

  Kyrian’s pity had expired long ago.

  When the silent shadow ahead of him erupted in a coughing fit, Kyrian’s patience snapped. “Oh, for all the Skies, Robin, give yourself a rest. We have already missed our aim. Another moment shall hardly doom us.”

  The Robin grasped hold of a near-standing oak and bowed over his knees, wheezing ragged coughs, his hand white and trembling against the bark. Kyrian half-expected him to retch again. He blew out a breath, crossed his arms, leaned against a tree to watch the creature’s shuddering shoulders, then turned his eyes skyward when he realized he had been watching them for the greater part of a long and bitter day. The Skies were a distant black canvas beyond the canopy, pricked here and there with a spattering of stars. No clouds, Silver or otherwise. The Rain Realm was moving west.

  The coughing spasm released the Robin and he slumped against the tree, breathing hard. There was a satchel slung over his shoulder, carried from Robinsdwel and bulging alongside the water skin tied to his belt. He unbuckled the pouch and produced a mutilated crimson fruit, dripping juice down his white hand.

  Kyrian cleared his throat. The green eyes slid darkly to him.

  He barely unfolded his arms in time to catch the projectile midair.

  The fact that the fruit was bruised and oozing scarcely crossed his mind as the cool flesh slipped down his throat, his first morsel since Werdumon. In another time he might have been repulsed by the bitter taste, the hint of rot upon his tongue, but now he saw only a meal, a blessing. He could not afford to be fastidious.

  The Robin lifted the water skin to his lips and swallowed. After a moment of hesitation, he withheld it darkly to Kyrian, as if he felt some obligation to atone for the knife, the threats, and the day of silent misery.

  “I am not thirsty,” Kyrian said blandly, surprised to find it was not a lie. “Keep it.”

  The Robin’s expression soured. Insulted, perhaps. Or spurned. Kyrian cared not which.

  By shadow and faint moonlight they continued through the trees until the whisper Kyrian had not heard begin grew to a roar in his ears, and the forest broke abruptly for the muddy, moonlit riverbank. Far to the north and south the silver band of the Nelduith coursed, a shining ribbon of pure starlight, uncoiling into the distance beneath an onyx sky. A tuft of cloud blotted the sky to the east, but Kyrian could see from its shifting shape that it was empty of Skyads, a vacant wisp. Still, he had to fight the urge to don his hood and melt into the river mist, the cloud tugging at his consciousness as if Thunderfoot himself glowered down from its edge.

  The Robin paused upon the brink, his toes overhanging the river. “The Caralim crossing,” he said plainly, arms folded at his chest as if to conceal their shaking. “The sole bridge for leagues, north or s
outh.”

  Kyrian squinted past the creature’s green-draped shoulders and into the glowing spray, wondering if the bridge was, in fact, invisible, or if the defectiveness of his right eye had blinded him completely.

  Then he saw it. A narrow arch of crumbling stone, white and slick with spray, disappearing into the cloud of the Nelduith mist. Fragments were missing, large portions fallen to lie alongside the narrow remainder, islands of stone for the river to pummel as it passed. All that remained of the crossing was webbed by fissures and cracked chinks in the stone, between wide gaps gasping with the river’s moonlit breath.

  Kyrian stared. “This is no crossing. It is death awaiting any creature foolish enough to test it.”

  “I assure you, Skyad, it has withstood the wear of ages. It shall not fail you this night.”

  The Robin’s shoulders were pulled so taut his shoulder blades were near to touching. His hands remained tucked beneath his elbows, eyes fixed upon the river, and his flesh, stretched too tightly over slender bones and gaunt features, seized Kyrian with the sudden, eerie sense that he was speaking to a corpse.

  “What is wrong with you, Robin?” he heard himself whisper, to the shadow, the wraith at his side.

  The venom-green eyes did not stray from the Nelduith. “You should not have come to Robinsdwel.”

  He avoided Kyrian’s stare for a long, uncomfortable moment, his expression empty, black flecks swimming, shrunken, in the bed of his eyes. One hand rested upon the satchel slung over his shoulder, bulging with the rejected fruit he had gleaned from the streets of Robinsdwel, which his cruel, carefree people had turned to a weapon against him. The cruel, carefree people he was still fighting to protect.