Embers

by Ronie Kendig

Haegan jerked his head up—and immediately regretted it. “It’s true.”

  “Then why aren’t you hurt, if they boiled clothes off you?”

  “Because—”

  “Hey,” Praegur said, tapping Haegan’s leg and nodding toward the gate.

  The meaty Zoijan stood close to an Ematahri woman and touched her shoulder. With a nod, she smiled at him.

  “What’s Thiel doing with the likes of him?” Laertes asked.

  Haegan froze as the realization washed over him that the woman in leathers, the woman he’d thought an Ematahri, who behaved with affection toward this ravager was indeed Thiel. With another nod to the barbarian, she turned into the corral.

  On his feet, Haegan searched for some sign of coercion. Of being forced . . . but she wasn’t forced. She hadn’t been escorted to the corral, had she? In fact, she seemed to move about freely.

  “What’s going on, T?” Tokar asked, his voice coated with suspicion and wariness.

  Haegan glanced to Zoijan and found the warrior glowering once more.

  “Listen.”

  “We’re all ears,” Tokar bit out.

  For once, Haegan was with the turbulent boy. He closed up their circle around Thiel, intentionally not turning his back on the fierce warrior.

  “We will go before the archon,” Thiel said. “You must all remain silent. I will answer and speak to him. I alone.”

  “I’m not understanding things,” Tokar said. “Like how you know so much about these people. And how they know you.”

  “It’s more than that.” Haegan quickly connected the facts. “They respect you. You’re”—what was that Zoijan had said—“etta . . .”

  “Etelide,” she said softly. “It’s my Ematahri name. They know”—she nodded to Zoijan—“and respect me because I lived with this clan.”

  “You what?” Tokar growled. “And you didn’t tell us? We attacked them!”

  She held up a hand.

  “Etelide,” a deep rumbling voice spoke from behind. Zoijan. “It’s time.”

  Irritation and what seemed like some level of panic churned through her features. “There is more, but once we enter the Inner Chamber, do not speak.” She met each of their gazes. “That is my task. And mine alone.”

  “Why?” Haegan asked. “Because of this kedar-thing?”

  She gave a slow nod.

  “Zoijan said you wagered your life.” For me.

  She stepped closer, then hesitated. Looked to the others. “I want to speak to him, please. Go on. We’ll follow.”

  Scowls and surprised expressions raked Haegan as the others started for the gate.

  Thiel inched even closer and touched his hand. “Promise me, Haegan, that you will control your anger.”

  As they stood toe to toe, Haegan noticed the light sprinkling of freckles across her nose and the gold flecks in her brown eyes. Noticed the golden hue to her complexion, so obviously a Northlander, with that dark brown hair.

  “Haegan.”

  “I pro—wait.” He frowned. “Why are you—”

  “It’s imperative. Will you trust me?”

  “Thiel, this makes no sense.”

  “Trust, Haegan. It’s about trust. Will you trust me?”

  “Yes, but how? What are you talking about?”

  She squeezed his hand. No, she was squeezing something into his hand. Haegan scowled, but she smiled. “If you feel your anger rising during the—once we go in there, swallow this.”

  “What is it?”

  “Just promise you’ll swallow it. I’ll need your help, but not your anger.” She leaned in, her expression softening. “Will you promise to swallow it? I have to trust you with this, Haegan.”

  “What is it? How will it help you?” He tried to look down, but she held his hand between hers. Whatever it was, it felt large. And hard to swallow. Like the pit of a peach or cordi fruit.

  “You said you’d help me and trust me. Did you lie?”

  “No!”

  “Then you’ll swallow it.”

  Something about her expression tugged at him, as if a tether had been tied between them. “Yes.”

  Relief washed over, parting her lips as she took a breath. “Good.” Her eyes seemed to gloss. “Thank you.” Her chin started dimpling. As if she was about to cry. She clenched his hand. “Thank you.”

  With that, she turned and left him. Left the corral.

  Zoijan waited there, his countenance more fierce than ever before. “Move, boy!”

  24

  Haegan was led to the front of a large Ematahri gathering before an enormous shelter. Too large to be a tent, it was more of a pavilion. As he inched closer, nudged by the all-too-tight grip of Zoijan, Haegan slid the large pill into his pocket. At least, he hoped it was a pill. She hadn’t called it that, but what else would she want him to swallow?

  “Say nothing and do nothing,” Thiel whispered to Tokar and Praegur, who towered over her, agitated and alert. A glimmer of challenge glinted in Tokar’s eyes, and Thiel must’ve seen it too. She arched a warning eyebrow at him. “No matter what is said or happens—”

  A shout rang out, and the thick crowd of warriors surrounding them snapped to attention, facing the pavilion entrance.

  “Do nothing.” When neither of her friends acquiesced, Thiel threw another glare at them. “Do you understand me? Do no—”

  “Do not ask me to stand by if they attack you,” Tokar snapped.

  “I asked nothing. I commanded you!”

  Tokar’s face darkened. Haegan might have found it amusing had the situation and Thiel’s measures to assure their compliance not yanked at his inner alarms.

  “What good will it do if you are killed?” Tokar asked.

  “And what good is it if we are all killed? Then what of Hae—Rigar?”

  “Rigar?” Tokar scoffed, then lifted his chin and set his focus on the structure. “I care not. He’s naught but trouble. If it weren’t for him, we’d be in Hetaera by now, enjoying hot ale and a warm fire.”

  “Swear it, Tokar,” Thiel demanded with a ferocity that made Haegan blink. “Swear you will do nothing.”

  From within the great pavilion came the sound of drums, drawing Haegan’s attention from his friends and toward the flaps adorned with gilt vines and green jewels in a pattern of the Ematahri crest—wings encompassing a fist clenching a sword.

  “Abandon sword and strife. Enter the sanctum of the Archon!”

  Thiel hauled in a breath and slowly let it out between her lips as the flaps snapped back. Her reaction concerned Haegan. How long had she lived among this clan to be so intimate with their customs and even their language? It must’ve been years.

  The large pit at the center of the tent crackled and hissed, its welcome also a warning. Thiel seemed to cringe and swallow hard as the press of the warriors forced them forward. The twin warriors appeared at her side, severing her from Haegan and the others. The stream and Zoijan guided the boys to a boxed-off area, but Haegan never removed his gaze from Thiel, who was escorted to stand at the edge of a large hole in the ground.

  “What’s that smell?”

  “Wild boarbeasts. That’s their cave below,” Zoijan explained.

  Haegan jolted. “Boarbeasts!” Though he could not see the monsters, he heard their snorts and smelled the foul odor rising from the pit. They lusted for blood, and with their razor-sharp tusks, they killed any quarry they stalked. Much like the Ematahri.

  Thiel stood unyielding, her gaze on the tri-level wooden dais directly in front of her. The first platform spanned ten hands and sat empty, unlike the second with its matching levers on each side. And the highest boasted a seat of power with an intricate design.

  “Braided wood and steel—the symbol of Ematahri power,” Zoijan said, “The wood for our lands. The steel for our hearts.”

  “That explains a lot,” Praegur mumbled.

  Jaw set tight, Thiel gazed straight ahead. But then she shifted, angling her head slightly to the right. Her lips moved,
but the distance and din of the crowd made it impossible to hear what she’d said to the warrior.

  The man seemed to snarl his reply, the curl of his lip proof of his attitude. Haegan wanted to punch him. The rhythm of the drums produced a writhing dance that seemed to make the pavilion pulsate with energy. Shouts. Drums. Thumping. Haegan’s head pounded.

  On the other side of the great gathering, the crowd parted and a lithe woman emerged. Draped in a pale green dress with a shimmering overlay, she paused and stared apathetically at Thiel. Black-as-night hair hung in flower-adorned ripples, woven in a thick braid over her bare shoulder.

  Haegan looked to Thiel, surprised to see recognition flicker through her eyes.

  “Verilla.” Zoijan’s voice rumbled in Haegan’s ear. “My sister and consort of the archon. She was once as a sister to Etelide.”

  Then an ally, perhaps?

  When the woman’s green gaze slid over Thiel like an icy bath, Haegan knew there would be no ally. Not in that woman at least. Verilla lifted the pale sheath overlay of her dress, climbed to the top of the dais, and stood beside the seat of power, placing long, elegant fingers on the finial.

  A horn blast silenced the thrumming chatter of the pavilion.

  Haegan jerked at the noise.

  “Grow a spine, boy.”

  • • •

  The sudden intrusion of the horn signaling the archon’s entrance squeezed Thiel’s confidence as the curtain behind the dais parted and a stream of warriors—the archon’s blood-brothers, his fiercest fighters—stalked up a flight of invisible steps at the rear. They flooded out around the seat of power, forming two perfect arcs sweeping from the braided throne to the edge of the upper tier.

  Gripping the waist-high iron cage that held her, she stole a glance at Zoijan. The warrior was Cadeif’s best friend. So where was Cadeif? Why had he not shown himself since she’d confronted him in the woods?

  A creaking noise seemed to move the ground beneath her feet.

  She shifted, but with a loud crack, a cage of mahrki—a hollow, steel-like reed—snapped around her. The dirt beneath her feet seeped through slats of wood. Wild panic punched the breath from her lungs as she grabbed the waist-high barrier.

  Snarls and grunts reached up from the darkness, making her squirm.

  The twins, Raleng and Ruldan, marched forward and stepped onto the second level of the dais, each taking position beside a lever. They bowed to each other, then pivoted and faced the crowd. With a stomp, each moved a hand to his heart and the other to a lever. “He fights on wings. He wields the sword. He has been chosen. Yield now to him!”

  A resonating shout thudded through the room, then the warriors chanted, “He has been chosen! To him swords we yield!”

  A flurry of movement to the side drew her attention. Laertes writhed against a warrior, his face crimson, his legs blurring as he kicked. Thiel moved to the side, trying to capture the lad’s attention, to beg him to keep still. The warriors would not hesitate to kill him if he broke free. Her finger curled around the bars encasing her. She pushed her unwilling gaze to Haegan, who stirred. She silently willed him to calm down. It would be disastrous if he didn’t. The pill. Please remember the pill.

  She motioned to Praegur to silence the boy, but the large, well-muscled teen angled his neck, and she saw then the blade resting there.

  Tokar . . . He stood stiff, his back arched. A warrior held him at dagger-point, too.

  Anger soared through Thiel. She jerked to the front, ready to demand they release her friends. Instead dark brown eyes that had once probed her soul stopped her short. “Cadeif,” she breathed, her anger washing away in the shock.

  Wreathed in a tangle of black coils, his face seemed at first soft. Until she recognized the intimidating cloak and the bindings crisscrossing his chest, dark red—literally dyed in the blood of his enemies.

  Cadeif. Cadeif was the archon? Her heart beat harder.

  And he stood now to hear her claim. Her promise of protection over a man.

  O Beneficent One . . . have mercy on me! If she had hoped for an ally among the Ematahri, she had been foolishly naïve. Seveired was dead. Cadeif—he was dead to her as well.

  He whirled around, deliberately flipping the long tail of the cloak in her direction. It snapped the air. He strode up the dais and took his place on the seat of power, cutting an imposing figure. Always had. But especially now that he led not just his clan, but the entire Ematahri nation.

  A lot had happened since she left nearly two years ago.

  He leaned to the right, elbow propped on the armrest. Intense disapproval radiated off him as he stared her down. “Etelide, you claimed Kedardokith,” he said decisively, his voice booming in the now-silent space.

  “I have,” Thiel replied, feeling small. Vulnerable. As she had four years past when she stumbled into the Ematahri camp, starving and terrified.

  “And you recall the rites involved in this sacred oath you’ve claimed?” He eased forward, his eyes narrowing. “Is it not wrong for a woman to claim two warriors to her bed?”

  Thiel started. Two warriors? To her bed?The accusation hung putrid before her nostrils. Set aside the fact Haegan was far from a warrior . . . she’d had no warrior to her bed. She’d been too young. They had been forbidden.

  Worse, Cadeif had just stained her honor before the clan. “I have made no claim or move of such a nature.”

  “But you have,” he barked, slapping the armrest and pushing to his feet. “Kedardokith is a lifeoath.”

  “Y-yes, I—”

  “And this twig of a boy . . .” His thick muscles rippled as he motioned to Haegan. “You would bind yourself to him?”

  “No, I—”

  Cadeif stepped forward, his left foot now on the lowest tier, flanked by the twins. “Then you deny him before your brethren?” In his eyes she saw a spark of hope, one mirrored by the slight lift of his chin.

  He wanted her to deny Haegan.

  Her every step in the woods had been carefully placed so she would not cross paths with this clan of the Ematahri. To avoid the warrior she now stood before. “I would speak, Archon,” she said, lowering her gaze . . . to the bars of the boarbeast den.

  “Speak.”

  Thiel slowly raised her head, her gaze still down. “When I arrived here four years past, a brave warrior prevented his brothers from raping and murdering a pitiful girl with no home and no hope.” Slowly, deliberately, she met Cadeif’s eyes, remembering that day. Remembering the way he’d saved her. “By claiming Kedardokith, he saved my life. But I was an outsider to whom the rules did not necessarily apply, so Seveired gave me a choice—remain with the brothers, or be delivered to a village.”

  “And if I recall,” his deep voice rumbled as he stalked down the dais to the ground, “you chose to stay.”

  He’d always been able to make her heart race. And looking into his eyes would work against her as it always had. She inclined her head. “I chose to stay.” He had been the reason she made that choice. His kindness, his laughter, and in the end, his attraction—and hers.

  “And you were accepted.” Another step closer.

  “I was.” She held her shaking hands tightly before her so he wouldn’t see.

  “And you grew and fought. Became one of our own.” As he circled the den, his voice grew firmer, until he stood within reach of her. No longer could she see the bars of the den. Instead only the cords binding his chest and upper arms. The ones that marked him as the archon. The mightiest, fiercest of the Ematahri.

  “I grew.” So had her feelings for him. “And I became one . . .”

  “Do you find us repugnant now?”

  “No!”

  “And yet you withhold your eyes from your archon.” His words were quiet and soft, mostly likely not heard by those at the farthest reaches of the Great Hall.

  Her gaze traveled up his broad chest, past his thick neck, straight up to the dark-as-night eyes that had cocooned her heart and mind every time she lo
oked into them. “I meant no insult, only deference and respect, Archon Cadeif.”

  Cadeif inched forward. She twitched, swallowing hard against his nearness. He lifted a hand slowly, each inch stalling her next heartbeat. His large, calloused fingers traced the side of her cheek. She drew in a breath, surprised that what she had left, what she remembered, still existed. He still cared. She had not expected him to understand. And she’d broken a half-dozen Ematahri customs returning. Could she truly be welcome back? Would he—

  “And yet!” The storm raged once more, his breath hot and angry against her cheek. He nudged her back then pivoted and stomped back to the dais as he said, “You left your brothers. Without a word or explanation. You broke faith with our people. With me.” He glared from his throne. “You were forbidden from our borders and yet you return with these”—his lip curled and disdain dripped from them—“these twigs who could barely heft a sword let alone wield one.”

  “I did not mean to cross the border. We were . . .” It did not matter. She must seek mercy for her friends. Her life was in Cadeif’s hands. “They are my friends. We were trying to make our way north—”

  “Yes, make your way through Ematahri Nation. Through our lands! Lands we are right to defend. And what does your pale friend here do but slaughter twenty of our brothers.”

  Thiel pulled in a hard breath. Twenty?

  “What?” He cocked his head with a smirk. “Did you think I did not know? That I could not taste the spilled blood of my own brothers? That we could not smell the terror burning the air?” His arms drew back, his chest heaving. “And you would have me give his life to you? A life that is our right to wipe from Primar in penance for twenty Ematahri lives?”

  “Cadeif, please—”

  “Know your place!” he shouted, his visage marked with fury.

  Thiel pulled in on herself, realizing her mistake too late. “Have mercy, Archon.” Trembling, she noticed a soft glow to her right.

  Haegan! She snapped her gaze there. His brow was knit tight. His lips taut. His hands . . .

  No, please. Haegan, take the pill. Please take the pill. This . . . this could not happen. She could not let Haegan kill Cadeif and her friends here, even if they’d forced her to leave.