by Niki Florica
Rydel of Robinsdwel’s face spewed hatred. “But how? How has it passed to you? You?”
“You are a fool, Robin.” Gilvonel of Dunbrielle spoke suddenly, drawing Kyrian’s gaze to the stone upon which he sat, thoughtful eyes blue and keen. “We are, all of us, fools, for our ignorance to the truth that lies here, before our eyes. This Skyad half-blood, this warrior, bears the Sword of Kings—the only evidence that is needed to confirm his virtue. If the King himself deems him worthy I shall not doubt, nor should any among us who claim to follow Aradin.” He paused, expression meditative. “All the same, the Robin has spoken rightly. The Sword vanished long ago with the one named Tarmilis . . . and as Kyrian of the Rain Realm bears the Sword of Kings before our eyes, I am inclined to believe that he must have Brondro’s blessing.” His face was framed by dawn light, a pale silhouette. “Perhaps both his blessing . . . and his blood.”
Kyrian stared at him, suddenly struck by this Naiad who seemed always to be listening, whose words were so carefully weighed before spoken aloud. This Naiad whose voice lingered still in the shadowy reaches of the cavern, with a wisdom unmatched by the ancient kin at his side. This Naiad whose clear blue eyes and proud, kind face were so alike to Elillian’s.
Kyrian nodded, holding his attention with a surprised stare. “He is my father.”
“Your father?” the Robin breathed, but Kyrian did not look at him. The world was blurring, and the echoes of the cavern were roaring within his skull beneath the drum of his heart in his ears.
He felt Elillian’s hand on his forearm and realized he had stumbled forward. She clutched his arm, eyes round with concern. “Kyrian?”
“This creature claims to be a half-blood Skyad and the son of Brondro Tarmilis,” Ranril protested frostily. “Are we to believe that Brondro of the Skies was, in fact, a mere Green?”
“No,” Gilvonel answered readily, graciously sparing Kyrian the effort. His blood was pounding in his ears, the cavern was growing dark, and only the heat of the Sword’s hilt in his hands and the support of small Elillian were lending him the strength to stand. “As we have long known,” Gilvonel continued, “the Adamun survived the Massacre of Men, and their remnant now dwells in Werdumon, protected by the power of the Naiads and the warriors of Jacondel. The year of Brondro’s disappearance into the Green Lands, a new chieftain arose among them. Midian of the Adamun—a warrior, and a Man.” Gilvonel raised his chin. “I have dwelt too long within the bounds of this world to place my faith in coincidence. Brondro Tarmilis is no Skyad, and no mere Green, but a Man, leading his people in their secret haven beneath a stolen name. And before us stands his son, Kyrian of the Rain Realm, half-blood Adamun and Silver.” He straightened, case complete. “The Heir of Ariad.”
The tallest of the Naiads, the first to speak, stood and nodded his agreement to Gilvonel, then to Kyrian. “The Heir of Ariad,” he consented, dipping his head in respect. “By Aradin’s will, so let it be.”
Swallowing, Kyrian nodded his thanks.
A second Naiad stood, long grey hair hanging straight about his shoulders, tied in simple plaits at his temples. “The Heir of Ariad,” he echoed, mirroring the first.
One by one the Naiads of the Council stood, nodding their respect and agreement to Kyrian in turn, proclaiming the words he himself had spoken but did not believe, honouring Aradin’s chosen with their trust. Gilvonel stood with them, murmured the words as one of them, but it was clear to Kyrian then, in the blur of his weakness, that he was greater, wiser by far, than any standing at his side.
“Welcome, Heir of Ariad,” Gilvonel said, raising a hand to his heart.
Kyrian met his eyes and nodded, hoping his gratitude could be expressed without words, for he had not the strength to speak them. He gasped as a spike of pain tore through his shoulder and rippled through his every limb, and the world was fading into darkness when at last Ranril of Dunbrielle stood, raised a hand to his chest, and nodded in reluctant respect.
“Welcome, Heir of Ariad,” he whispered, relenting.
Kyrian nodded, but could no longer see beyond the blanket of darkness overshadowing his sight. He heard the Naiads file beneath the falls, vanishing behind the glistening curtain as if they had never been, freeing him from the condemnations that had bound him to the floor of the accused. He heard Elillian, calling his name, drowning beneath the roar of his heart and blood and pain.
The last Naiad vanished from the cavern, accompanied by a soft sputter of the crystal falls. The trial was complete. He had earned the faith of Dunbrielle.
Sword slipping from his slick hand, Kyrian collapsed.
Elillian shouted her father’s name and fell to her knees beside Kyrian. He pushed himself onto hands and knees, gasping for breath, the fingertips of his right hand blue against the stone. “Kyrian,” she called to him, hoarsely, desperately. “Kyrian!”
Her father was swift to answer her call, and he descended the stair in hasting strides to kneel at her side. “He has lost much blood. Already he has endured far longer than I thought within his strength.”
Kyrian coughed raggedly, the sound dying in a wheezing gasp. Elillian gripped his good hand in hers and called his name, to no avail. His right side was soaked black with blood from the wound in his shoulder, the wound that should have been bound long ago had she not been a proud, reckless, impertinent—
“Elillian,” her father said gravely, “you are the healer. What do you wish me to do?”
She swallowed, a chill snaking her spine at the sight of the blue fingertips against the cavern floor. She never should have left him. The Heir was dying before her eyes. “Ready a pavilion. We will bring him.”
“We?”
“The Robin and I.”
Rydel of Robinsdwel’s brow twitched, but he offered no protest while her father was present, and Elillian vowed to tear the knife from his sheath and hold it to his throat before allowing him to abandon Kyrian here. Gilvonel nodded gravely and whispered the healing words he had once passed to Elillian, many years before the drying of the rivers and the silence of the Rains. “Hyrylith, Heir, di Aradin ythal.”
Kyrian coughed and grimaced, and Gilvonel departed in haste to obey Elillian’s command.
“Water, Robin,” Elillian commanded, already racing through the symptoms and treatments of an ailment that she, in Dunbrielle, had never before seen, blood loss being a product of wounds, which were products of weapons, which were products of war. Elillian was utterly beyond her experience.
But in a world dying of thirst, water was a likely place to begin.
The Robin had made no move to assist her, so Elillian released Kyrian’s hand to ascend the flight of stairs in leaps, lifting her gown to avoid sprawling onto the cold stone. Beneath the falls she cupped her hands and watched her palms fill with the crystal liquid, then descended the stair as swiftly as she dared with the pool balanced carefully between her fingers. Kyrian was panting on hands and knees, sweat pouring from his brow, and he startled when Elillian knelt before him and held the water to his lips. “Drink.”
His black eyes were dull. Glazed. He swallowed a mouthful, and Elillian allowed herself to breathe, but then he was coughing, vomiting the liquid onto the stone and pushing her hands from his face. “No more,” he gasped, shaking his head. “Please, no more.”
“You must drink, Kyrian.”
“No.” His shoulders heaved. The yellow pool beneath him expanded.
“He does not thirst,” the Robin said plainly, drawing her eyes to where he stood, arms crossed, eyeing the scene as if it were a performance, staged for his entertainment.
Elillian fought the urge to strike him. “He must,” she insisted. “We have seen no rain for near four years, Robin. He must thirst. Everything thirsts!”
“No,” Kyrian gasped, dragging a hand over his stained mouth with a grimace. “No more.”
Her precious pool lay now in a dark stain upon the cavern floor, soaking the hem of her gown, but Elillian was only vaguely aware of it. Her
thoughts lingered far away, between the verses of a prophecy once spoken by a King who had conquered death itself. The prophecy Tasnil had fought to smother before hope could take root within the kingdom’s heart. He alone shall claim the throne from evil tyrant hidden, And he alone shall taste, untouched, the waters long forbidden . . .
“Kyrian,” she whispered, sweeping away a strand of dark hair as his eyes sought hers, hollow and sunken in his ashen face. “Kyrian, you must tell me: when did you last drink?”
He cringed, as if the effort of thinking pained him. “I cannot remember.”
“You must.” She cupped his face in trembling hands. “Please, you must try to remember.”
A moment passed. He closed his eyes, and when again he opened them she could feel him slipping away, gaze hollow and murky as he fought to cling to consciousness. “The Nelduith,” he whispered hoarsely. “I drank of the Nelduith, once, days ago . . . none since.”
A flood of relief blurred Elillian’s vision, and she found herself smiling through tears. “No,” she whispered, “no, Kyrian . . . of course. The Heir has tasted the forbidden waters and escaped unpunished . . . Kyrian, you shall never thirst again.”
Weakly he smiled, then sagged onto his elbows, still fighting, but fading.
“Help me, Robin,” she whispered to the Green. “You must help me to save him.”
She glanced up to find his back turned to her, a slender silhouette against the curtain of the falls. He was leaving her, walking away, abandoning the Heir of Ariad. “Robin!” she cried, eyes stinging when he did not halt. “You must help me, Robin! Have you no honour?”
He ascended the first stair, moccasins soundless on the stone.
Elillian was upon the edge of hysteria. “This is our king!” she screamed through bitter tears. “This is our king, you wretched, miserable worm!”
Rydel of Robinsdwel halted, and she watched his shoulders straighten through blurred vision and hot tears. He turned to face her, eyes dark in the shadow of his brows, and his voice was eerie as he offered his quiet reply. “He is not my king.”
Elillian stared at him, not caring that tears and mucus were trailing down her face, not caring that her cheeks were pulsing with heat, not caring that her hair was slipping loose of its knot and hanging damply about her face. She wanted to strike him, to grasp his throat in her hands and scream his cruelty to the very world, to claw the innocent expression from his face until he pleaded for mercy. But suddenly a damp hand closed about hers, and Elillian looked down into the face of the Heir, and every drop of anger drained from her heart at the sight of his weak smile.
He withheld a hand to the Robin, holding a shining, silver chain. “Take it, Robin,” he hoarsely said. “Take it, return to your people, and let this war be ended.”
On the edge of her vision, the Sword of Kings began to glow, golden and silver and white. The Robin’s jaw tightened, and the light of the falls upon the chain reflected in his eyes, like a flame of longing in shadowy green. His gaze did not stray from the necklace as he descended the stair, stooping to lift the chain from Kyrian’s blue-tipped hand with the reverence of a crown-bearer. Elillian felt the cold hand go limp, watched the eyes roll backward into an ashen face, and for too many breathless moments she sat, numb, wishing for someone else to take command while she stayed at his side, clinging to his hand.
The Sword shone violet and silver upon the cavern floor, and then Rydel of Robinsdwel was kneeling at her side, eyes green and grave and guilty.
“My lady,” he whispered, clutching the necklace, “what do you wish me to do?”
Eighteen
Between the Robin and Elillian it was a long and arduous trial to bear Kyrian of the Rain Realm from the Cavern of Peace, across the stepping stones, and onto the shore of the Guilyra Cauldron. More than once they were forced to halt and wait for him, in the light of the sunrise, while he vomited onto the muddy bank again and again and again, each time rising a shade paler, a touch weaker, his breaths hot and ragged in her ear. The Robin bore the majority of the weight; she was almost surprised that his slight frame could bear it. But he offered no complaint as the Silver slumped against him, his gaze keen, hard, and unblinking.
Her father had kept his promise. The pallet in the healing pavilion had been prepared, along with a full washbasin and a replenished supply of all the herbs and instruments that Elillian so seldom needed in the haven of the Peacemakers. The Robin deposited his charge onto the pallet and raised a hand to knead his neck, awaiting her instruction.
Kyrian moaned.
“He is fading, my lady,” the Green said, needlessly.
She frowned at him. “Keep him awake.”
Kyrian was clutching his right shoulder, breathing through clenched teeth on the pallet, his face as deathly pale as the robes upon which it was laid. Elillian peeled his hand away, her heart stalling when she saw his palm stained black with his own blood. Oh, Aradin . . . Aradin please . . .
“My lady,” the Robin said again, with the slightest tinge of urgency, “he is fading.”
Elillian swallowed and swept the hair from her face. Kyrian’s hasty binding was black as his glazed irises, dull through slitted eyes. “Yes,” she answered breathlessly, frantically. “Yes, yes, I know. All right, Robin, if you may be trusted to slice away this binding . . .”
If he caught her slant against him, his blank face gave no indication, but he promptly took her place and began to work the blood-soaked cloth.
Elillian rounded the pallet to sit at Kyrian’s side. His eyes were open, but his face was twisted in pain and she found she could hardly look at him without feeling the blade of guilt in her chest. “Kyrian . . .”
He grimaced, and the Robin glanced apologetically at her before continuing. The dark eyes slipped closed and she called his name again. “Kyrian!”
The weak, courteous response. “Yes, my lady?”
She grasped for something, for anything, to hold his notice. “Tell me . . . your eye. What happened to it?”
“My . . . my eye?”
“One is fairer than the other.”
He gazed at her vaguely, and she wondered if he understood. A long moment, then, “A fight.”
She brushed a sweaty strand of hair from his cheekbone. “A fight?”
He nodded slightly, features contorting. “The Last Fight,” he whispered.
The Robin had abandoned all attempts to untie the binding by hand, but she scarcely noticed when he unsheathed his knife and began to saw at the cloth with his blade. “Why is it the last fight, Kyrian?” she said softly, repeating it when he did not respond. “Kyrian? Why the last?”
His eyes opened again, and she was struck with the vague sensation that she was being humoured. “Melkian,” he answered raspingly. “It is Melkian’s name . . . not mine. Not the last. Not anymore.” The Robin tore the last tendrils of cloth from his shoulder and Kyrian shouted in pain. “Just a fight, Elillian,” he growled, through clenched teeth. “It was only another fight.”
“Gently!” Elillian chided the Green, fixing him with a bitter glare.
The creature returned it levelly but said nothing.
Elillian turned back to Kyrian and felt her vision blur at the sight of him, of his ashen, almost translucent skin, of his right hand lying grey and limp at his side. Her eyes stung. She felt her face contort and bowed her head, retreating beneath the protective shelter of her half-tied hair. “Kyrian . . . ,” she whispered, the words dying in a gasp. “Kyrian, I am so, so sorry . . .”
A pathetic sob leached through her lips and she was painfully aware of the Robin’s judgment upon her, until a hot hand about hers drove all thought, all feeling from her mind.
The Heir of Ariad lifted her fingers to his lips with his burning left hand, his eyes never wavering from her as he gently kissed her knuckles and whispered, “I know you did not faint.”
It was an apology, a compliment, a plea for her forgiveness.
It was the last thing he spoke before his
dark eyes rolled back and did not return to her cries.
She was dimly aware, through the haze of hot tears, of the sound of ripping cloth from the direction of the ever-silent Robin. When at last she gathered enough composure to release the Skyad’s white hand and claw the hair from her face he had removed the last of Kyrian’s mutilated right sleeve and most of his shepaardskin tunic. The black silk beneath he had sliced away with the one green knife that, evidently, remained of a pair.
She glanced up in time to see his features harden like resin. “My lady.”
Elillian tensed, and followed his eyes.
From the puncture wounds where a shepaard’s fangs had sunk deep into his shoulder, a web of black veins had appeared. Dark and raised beneath his skin, they laced his flesh, ran down his right arm, and trailed across his chest to claw in dark tendrils at his heart. Some had begun to climb his neck, dark veins stark against the pale white of his skin, and the blood seeping from the fang wound was thick and black.
Elillian covered her mouth with a hand.
“What must be done?” he asked flatly, his hands stirring restlessly before settling crossed.
She swallowed. “I . . .” Drew a ragged breath. “I need my father. Bring him, Robin. Please.”
He dipped his head, and for the first time she noticed the green-leaf necklace shining at his collar. When he moved to obey she grasped his arm, fiercely and firmly, forcing him to halt and meet her eyes with something that resembled fascination in his empty, colourless face.
“Robin,” she breathed, as he gazed down upon her. “Robin, you cannot abandon him.”
A deliberate blink. She counted the heartbeats between his breaths. His forearm was wiry with taut sinew, and she allowed her fingernails to bite his skin beneath his cuffed sleeves.
The slightest inclination of his head was the only perceptible answer. A nod, perhaps. Or nothing.
She released him and watched as he slipped past her and through the pavilion entrance, dawn lighting his hair fiery red. Elillian sank to the pallet and dragged a hand across her face, Kyrian’s breaths ragged and deafening in her ears, and prayed that Rydel of Robinsdwel would, if nothing else, obey her last command before he left the Heir forever, and never looked back.
