Embers

by Ronie Kendig

  Thiel gave a nod. “Rest then, Rigar. We’ll camp soon. At this pace, we’ll reach Luxlirien in a week.”

  His tutor had made frequent trips to the Light City, and he’d heard his father had as well. Staying there meant risking exposure. “I can’t stay there. Not for long.”

  A smile tugged the left side of Thiel’s lips up. “Neither can we, tunnel rat. We set for the Northlands during the full rise.”

  “Northlands?” Haegan cringed. “I need to get to Hetaera.”

  Confrontation crouched in her gaze. “Nobody wants to go there these days. The Ignatieri—” She broke off.

  Thiel watched Haegan, he eyes narrowing. “The Great Falls.” She smiled when he tensed. “You want the healing waters.”

  5

  The embers of time spark and flash but they, like all else, smolder and extinguish.

  Alas, it had happened far too quickly. Sir Gwogh held his robes as he descended the stone spiral staircase. His booted feet carried him quickly through the lower servant’s passage to the kitchen, which was in an uproar over the events of the last days—including the Fire King’s abrupt return to the keep. As Gwogh strode past the thick cook and his assistants tending the second meal preparations, Gwogh beseeched Abiassa to keep him from failing. Again.

  He hurried through the kitchen door into a small courtyard and through the vegetable garden. His leather soles crunched over the dirt path as he made his way to the gate at the back of the bricked wall that traced a formidable line around Fieri Keep. With a grating sound, the key slid into the iron lock. Twisted. He tugged back the bolt.

  A scrappy boy in rags straightened from beneath the tree across the worn path. Shifting from one foot to another, he traced the road then castle walls with his gaze.

  Gwogh extended a silver dallion.

  The boy stared at it. “Flames,” he whispered.

  “The parchment,” Gwogh prompted, stuffing kindness into his weathered features to lessen the severity.

  The boy drew the paper from a half-torn pocket and handed it over, snatching the coin in quick exchange. Without a word, Gwogh turned, secured the gate, and entered the keep. Inside, he tucked himself into an alcove above the servant’s quarters and pulled out the missive. Red wax stamped with a flame promised only two sets of eyes would see this message, his and the sender’s. He broke the seal and read the single line: The Spark takes the quickest route to ignition.

  Gwogh let out a breath he’d held for two days and leaned against the warm stone wall. Their proximity to the Lakes of Fire forbade the chill inherent in most stones. With his old bones and the evil he faced, he welcomed the warmth. He crumpled the parchment and looked down the passage, lit every twenty paces by torches fed off the natural gas pumped through slender troughs in the stone. Never consumed yet always consuming.

  He lifted his hand, twisted his wrist and opened his palm. With a flash and puff, the parchment disintegrated. The uneducated might call his gift, his training, majik. It was not. The source was more pure, divine—when used and guided by Abiassa. There were, of course, those who had abandoned Abiassa and perverted her gift. Incipients. Their champion sought to overrun these very walls—Sirdar of Tharqnis and his puppet, Poired Dyrth.

  Evidence incinerated, Gwogh headed toward the meeting hall. What happened to young Haegan should never have come to pass. He’d given every effort to make certain the boy was protected. Somehow he’d failed him. But it would not happen again.

  As he rounded the corner and reached for the rail to ascend the last flight, he heard whispers. Hurried, frantic ones chasing each other down the dark passage. Gwogh paused, and cocked his head, listening. Sounded like . . . Adrroania.

  The realization pulled him backward. He eased to the side, peering around the corner toward the royal residence. Queen Adrroania, resplendent in a buttery yellow gown, stood in the light of an intersecting passage. Hair rolled and tied up at the back, she wore the ceremonial crown fashioned with rubies and citrines that resembled dancing flames. The headpiece was worn only while holding court or attending the Fire King. Today was such a day. The two would meet with the Council to discuss the plight of their children, the heirs.

  Adrroania glided past him without notice or comment. She sailed, it seemed, right over the black marble to the chambers where she and her husband would hold council. And she carried herself as if nothing were amiss.

  All these years, all the service he’d surrendered in the hopes of guiding the Flames within this family—especially to guide Haegan after he was lost to his family, lost to the poison—had it all been for naught? The boy lived a pittance of an existence. Relegated to the towers with no visitors save his sister, his mother, and, on occasion, his father’s top general, Kiliv Grinda. King Zireli had entered the passage once each year—on Haegan’s birth morn. But only until the prince reached the age of acceptance, fourteen. Zireli had not darkened those halls again until his return yester eve with the Valor Guard.

  Had Gwogh wasted a whole decade educating Haegan, teaching him? Even now he wondered if the plan he’d put into play was in vain.

  Abiassa . . . dare I hope that there is hope? “I am old, Daughter of Flame,” he whispered.

  And it is your ageless wisdom from Me that is needed now more than ever before, old friend.

  He’d had a feeling she would answer as such. With a sigh, he lumbered to his feet. Decided to take the servant’s passage to the council hall, mayhap slip in unnoticed. Remain in the shadows and watch. Avoid conversation with the Brethren. They’d long ago closed their meetings and doors to him, when he was sent out to tend to a poisoned princeling.

  When he gained the rear entrance, two servants waited in the butler’s passage, heads down, staring at their trays. Prepared trays. Food going cold.

  Incensed, Gwogh asked, “What—”

  “Did you think I would not discover your betrayal?” a voice roared from the inner chamber.

  Stilled, Gwogh hauled in a breath. He knew that voice. All within Seultrie knew that voice. Zireli! He rushed to the heavy wooden door that stood ajar and peeked through the sliver of an opening. The private antechamber, paneled in rich, dark searage—a fieri wood that had undergone a meticulous process of scorching till it blackened, then coated with a thick glaze—sat outside the council hall.

  King Zireli, fierce and formidable in his red and black uniform of the Ignatieri, towered over a kneeling Adrroania. “How could you do this? To me? To Zaethien?”

  Adrroania shook her head. “I did not.”

  The king glowered, his robes riffling the air as he spun away from her in a rage. “I have it here, the proof that you granted Cilicien audience with Kaelyria!”

  “No, I—”

  Face red, Zireli spun and thrust a hand at her.

  Though he did not touch her, Adrroania cried out and threw her head back. The bejeweled crown tumbled off and clanked to the floor. Her chest heaved amid her sobs. “Please! My love!”

  And Gwogh knew. Knew Zireli held his own wife in the halo, an invisible force of tingling fire that paralyzed its target. Could crush its captive, if wielded just so.

  Grief tugged at Gwogh. The fragile tendrils of this family, of this line, this powerful race, teetered on the brink of collapse. And though Zireli blamed his queen, Gwogh knew the naïve but beautiful woman had not conspired against her own children. Not this time.

  “Zireli, please,” Adrroania gasped beneath the halo. “I love our children. I would never betray you or them. Kaelyria asked for training—”

  He stepped sideways toward her, his face crimson. “I train her! I assign tutors. Not you. Not anyone else. Ever!” His shoulders rose and fell raggedly as he seemed to struggle against the torrent within himself. “I warned you—before they were even conceived. In doing this, you have betrayed me!” He slammed the heel of his hand toward her.

  Adrroania flopped back a half-dozen feet. She slumped to the ground, groaning, her long, delicate fingers seeming to dig into the marble. But
she was free. Free of the halo.

  “Our daughter is a cripple, Adrroania—the heir!” Zireli’s voice roared off the high dark rafters of their chamber. “The defender of Seultrie in my absence! The one who is to sit on the High Seat. The one to protect the Nine Kingdoms against Sirdar and his Fallen. Augh!” Veins bulging in his temples, Zireli spun, crossed his hands, and then flung them outward in a giant X formation.

  Windows shattered. Silver toppled. Curtains ruffled. The concussion sent ripples of heat roiling over Gwogh. The door in front of him snapped back. Thumped him in the head. Pain exploded through his neck and temples.

  Fool, he chided himself. That’s what comes of eavesdropping. Touching the quickly forming knot on his forehead, he stepped into the private chamber.

  “This, this is why I alone choose their tutors. This is why. How could you—?” Zireli flung himself around, rage mottling his face as his hands went out again.

  With a yelp, Adrroania curled in on herself, prepared for her husband’s fury.

  “My king,” Gwogh breathed, aware he’d breached protocol yet willing to brave the assault. After all, technically he was not their subject. The submission he gave was done out of respect for this royal family.

  Zireli stumbled, the momentum of his anger tumbling over him. Another flashpoint bubbled up. He aimed his rage at Gwogh.

  Who held out his palms, rotated his wrists and shielded himself as the blast barreled across the great hall. Flames licked the walls around Gwogh, but nothing more than a warm breeze wafted through his beard and gray hair.

  Surprise trickled through the Fire King’s expression, lessening the rage.

  “Direct your anger, sire, at those responsible,” Gwogh spoke softly.

  Zireli’s nostrils flared. “And who would that be?” He held out his hands again, and Gwogh could not help but flinch. “Show them to me, and I assure you, my anger will burn against them! Tell me who conspired with my son to steal his sister’s gifts.”

  “My lord,” Gwogh said. “Your son is a good man, and I can assure you on my life that he had no knowledge of what would happen in the tower.”

  “Were you not his protector? Why did you not protect, accelerant?”

  “I was rendered unconscious to prevent my interfering.”

  Zireli’s blond brows lifted. “You accuse Kaelyria.” His anger simmering amid the words that held warning. He raised his chin, his breath slightly uneven.

  “No.” Gwogh dropped his gaze, offering humility and submission. “It is my belief even the princess did not fully understand what would happen in the transference.”

  “Transference.” Zireli’s hands went to his head as he turned, the hunger to believe his daughter’s innocence plain in his torment. “You confuse me, Sir Gwogh. You suggest transference, yet all accelerants know it’s forbidden. Yet you accuse my daughter of—”

  “Whether it was the princess or not, transference was effected. The results are in that tower, King Zireli.”

  “You believe her . . . innocent, then?”

  “Naïve, sire. Yes.” Relief almost pushed a smile into Gwogh’s face. “I also believe that many have been manipulated in the events that have taken place.”

  “Who?” Challenge roiled through the king’s eyes. “Name the traitor.”

  Gwogh would not give more fuel to the embers of rage that burned in the Fire King. Not yet. Not until he knew beyond a shadow. “That is what we must find out, my lord.” Though Gwogh had made no decision regarding the queen’s guilt, he suspected she was more a pawn than a perpetrator. The man who used the gentle queen’s grief over her crippled son against her was probably the same one who’d convinced the princess that transference was a gift. Not the curse it truly was.

  Zireli stood still, eyes narrowing in understanding. When the king’s hands lowered, Gwogh felt the squeeze in his chest lessen. Zireli had been the fiercest Ignatieri in centuries. The control he had over the Flames, the power he could exert, was unlike any other. Handsome, with his golden hair and blue eyes, he’d been a ready candidate for the throne and the hearts of the people across the Nine Kingdoms, not to mention the desire of women vying to be his queen. But with his power, with the intensity of his wielding, had also come a quick and fierce temper.

  Zireli’s lips quirked, making his strong jaw jut. “What do you know, my old friend?”

  6

  Four excruciating hours sitting on a stone bench did nothing for aged bones and weary minds. Especially Gwogh’s. Because he had plans. Knew what must be done. The tedious dialogue among the elect, with which he no longer stood, gave him ample time to feed his plan, to weed out errors made in tactics, and water the hope that it might actually succeed.

  Gwogh removed himself from the large hall as the council adjourned, sharing a meaningful look with King Zireli and Queen Adrroania as he did. Rarely had he seen Zireli use the gifts against his queen, but the tearing of the fabric of their kingdom had sheared the tightly woven cords of their family. In spite of it all, the weight on the monarchs was not evident in the meeting, except to Gwogh. They presented a forbidding front. Nothing decisive came from the hours-long meeting with the High Lord Marshal and his minions. Sitting there, aware that he had once numbered among the Ignatieri, Gwogh praised Abiassa he had fled their ranks before he could fall into the political machinations.

  He climbed the stairs, grateful to be out from under the eyes of the accelerants. Up the spiral stairs into the lone tower chambers he went.

  The princess’s handmaiden sat with her feet drawn up as she stared out the same window he had while standing vigil over Haegan. And now, Kiesa would spend her days the same way, guarding her princess. The grief almost proved too much for Gwogh. Kiesa was young, of childbearing years. She should attend court with her lady. Find love. Maybe even a little adventure. Not sit, daydream, and wait as years ate the paralyzed body of the princess.

  When Kiesa noticed him, she shoved to her feet. “Sir Gwogh.” She gave a small smile and nodded to the bed. “She’s resting . . . finally. For the first time since . . .”

  “I’m sure it is a shock to be bedridden and immobilized.”

  “She says it’s a thousand times worse than she imagined,” Kiesa whispered, her chin tucked. Her eyes glossed. “It’s awful, watching her cry so much.”

  Gwogh touched her shoulder. “It must be hard on you, too. You couldn’t have known about her plan. Otherwise I know you’d have stopped her.”

  Her gaze shifted to the stones.

  “Ah.” Disappointment tugged at him, though her duplicity was no surprise. Kaelyria had always been a persuasive, strong-willed child. Gwogh sighed. “If you plan to escape the king’s anger, you’ll need to hide the truth better. Did I not know how convincing the princess could be, I would extend my own chastisement.” He considered Kaelyria, sleeping like an angel. One of the most beautiful women in the kingdom, just like her mother. “Tell me what you know, Kiesa. How did this come to be?”

  “I . . .” Her gaze darted to Kaelyria. “She forbids me to speak of it.” Conflict pinched the girl’s brow. “I can’t betray her. Especially now. Please understand.”

  “But you know.”

  Kiesa ducked.

  “Would that you—”

  “Leave her,” Kaelyria’s soft, firm voice interrupted. “She will not speak of it, nor will I.”

  Resignation clung to the very tapestries in the room. “Princess,” he said, unsure where to start. How to convince her. But then . . . he couldn’t, could he? In her boiled the same fire that raged in her father. Perhaps not the anger, but the bullheadedness. “I want you to understand, child, what your actions have cost your family.”

  “You forget yourself, accelerant.” She sniffed. “I know the price—can you not see where I lie?”

  “Ah, only thinking of yourself again.” Gwogh nodded. “Let me enlighten you. Your father very nearly seared your mother today in the private council chambers.”

  Kaelyria’s eyes flicked to him.<
br />
  “He learned that Queen Adrroania granted permission for Cilicien to tutor you.”

  “She did not grant anything—she . . . acquiesced.” Sorrow laced her words as she licked her lips. “I would not stop hounding her.” Kaelyria’s gaze drifted to the leaded glass. “I saw a way and pursued it with all the fire gifted me by Abiassa.”

  “And then—you threw that gift away.”

  “I did not throw it away,” she hissed, then closed her eyes for a moment. “I . . . lent it to Haegan.”

  “Lent it?”

  “So he could be healed.” She could not, would not hold his gaze.

  “For all your breeding,” Gwogh said, struggling to stem his anger, “you do not lie well, princess. I know why you did this—the real reason.”

  A hardness formed around her blue eyes. Resolve.

  Gwogh traced the stone walls with a longsuffering sigh and shook his head. Had he not thought this through, determined his path already, he’d scald her ears with a chastisement the like of which she had probably never heard. “But for now, I will let you hold that secret.”

  Uncertainty flickered through her brows. “Why?”

  “Because, child, unlike you, my priority is this kingdom. Your parents. All of Fieri Keep, Seultrie, and Zaethien. It cannot afford to fall. Too much will be lost.” Too much.

  “What . . . what of Haegan?”

  “Ah,” Gwogh said with a laugh and glanced down at her. “At last you think of the poor boy saddled with things he was not ready to face.”

  “We are nearly the same age—he has the same knowledge as I, if not more!”

  “Haegan has been cooped up here with books and an old man!” Gwogh shook his head. “I fear the reality assaulting him as he makes his way through Zaethien. And I pray—you might join me, princess—that he does not encounter any incipients. Or that no one would recognize the son of King Zireli.”

  Her breathing grew quicker.

  “I wonder what would be done to him if somehow Poired Dyrth learned Haegan was out there. All alone. Ignorant of what pursues him.” Gwogh clucked his tongue. “Imagine, if they found him. What they’d do to that boy. His heart so gentle, so firm. But so very naïve.” With a sardonic smile, he winked. “That won’t last long, I assure you. I wonder, though, would Poired Dyrth kill him or torture him? Now that I think of it—no, Dyrth would have far too much fun slicing off pieces—”