Sevenfold Sword: Unity

by Jonathan Moeller

  “Good,” said Ridmark. He looked around the battlefield. “I suppose we ought to…”

  “Forgive me, Shield Knight,” said Seruna. “But there is one thing we must attend to first.”

  Lord Rhomathar looked at Seruna and nodded in approval, and Rilmeira opened her eyes and straightened up.

  “What is it?” said Ridmark.

  “Lord Kyralion,” said Seruna. “I regret I must ask this of you, but there is no one better suited to bear this responsibility.”

  Kyralion inclined his head.

  “The Unity asks you to take the crown of the Liberated as our king,” said Seruna.

  Calliande felt her eyebrows climb halfway up her head.

  “What? Why?” said Kyralion.

  “Because you are the only one of the Liberated who is immune to the consensus of the Unity,” said Seruna. She glanced at Third. “Lady Third has changed the Unity and the Liberated themselves in ways we do not yet understand. But for centuries, we were guided by the consensus of the Unity and the mind of the High Augur, and in the last twenty-five years, that brought us to disaster. I fear the High Augur refused to see the truth of the catastrophe that faced us, and because of that, we did not act as decisively as we could have.”

  “And what have I done to merit a crown?” said Kyralion, baffled.

  “You took great risks on our behalf,” said Rhomathar. “The High Augur sent you to find the woman in flames and bring her to us, and you did. If you had not, the Liberated would have been extinguished today.”

  “I loved my mother with all my heart,” said Rilmeira, “but she was wrong about the muridachs, and she was wrong about you. She sent you to find the woman of flames in hopes that you would never return, but you did. You were the bravest of us, Kyralion. You were the only one able to defy the consensus of the Unity and the High Augur. None of the rest of us could.”

  “In ancient days, the Liberated had kings,” said Seruna. “We thought the Unity had no need of kings, but this has proven us wrong. What we need is a king who can stand outside the Unity, who can ignore the consensus when it is wrong.”

  Kyralion took a deep breath and looked at Ridmark.

  “Such a duty is a terrible burden,” said Ridmark, his voice quiet, “but you are well suited for it, I fear.”

  Kyralion’s golden eyes shifted to Third.

  A strange expression, almost like longing, went over her tired face, but she nodded.

  “Then so be it,” said Kyralion. “I will accept this responsibility. I pray to God that I am equal to it.”

  Chapter 23: Freedom

  Three days later, Kyralion received the crown of Cathair Caedyn and married the Lady Rilmeira in the Court of the Sylmarus.

  By necessity, it was a short ceremony.

  There was so much work to be done. Calliande and Kalussa had labored for those three days, healing the wounded gray elves who could be saved. The gray elves had looted the camps of the muridachs, seizing vast quantities of supplies and enormous quantities of bronze. Cathair Caedyn would not lack for metals for years. The gray elves who had skill with elemental flame turned their attention to burning the countless thousands of muridach corpses that lay piled upon the battlefield. Best to burn them before a new plague spread among the gray elves.

  Tamara assisted with the work where she could, using her earth magic to turn the ground to quicksand and letting it swallow the dead muridachs. The fields outside the walls of Cathair Caedyn would be a graveyard of slain muridachs, their bones bleaching in the sun for years to come. Tamara found herself unsympathetic. If the muridachs had stayed home rather than issuing forth to destroy a weakened and dying kindred, they would not have met their grim fates.

  Especially when that weakened and dying prey was infused with unexpected new strength.

  But work stopped for the coronation and the wedding. Tamara watched as Kyralion and Rilmeira pledged their troth to each other, and as Kyralion accepted the duties and responsibilities as the King of Cathair Caedyn. Of course, the rituals and ceremonies were conducted in the gray elven tongue, which Tamara did not understand.

  She found both her mind and her eye turning towards where Tamlin stood next to Ridmark.

  Tamara had almost seen Tamlin die during the battle. He had nearly seen her die, and if he had not leapt into the fray before her air magic manifested, she would have been slain. Tamlin would have seen her die for the third time. He could have lost her again.

  She might have lost him before she had ever really gotten to know him.

  But she did know him, didn’t she? Her past lives had known him, even if she did not remember. A battle was a horrible thing, Tamara reflected, along with the attendant loss of life.

  But it did have one great gift. A brush with death had made her consider what was important to her.

  What mattered to her.

  What she wanted.

  Tamara wanted to know the truth about herself, about how she had been split into seven lives, but she found that she wanted something else just as much.

  ###

  Third did not go to the wedding or the coronation, but instead stood on the battle-scarred wall of Cathair Caedyn, gazing to the north. The smell of ashes and soot and charred muridach flesh filled her nostrils, and her eyes wandered over the wreckage of the siege camps and the towers, across the distant green wall of the Illicaeryn Jungle.

  She still heard the song of the Sylmarus inside her skull. It was different now, stronger, healthier, rejuvenated. And it also sounded familiar. Third supposed that was because she had left part of herself inside the Sylmarus and the Unity, even as the Sylmarus had left a piece of itself inside her blood.

  Idly, she raised her right hand and drew on the power in her blood, calling the sword of blue fire. It appeared in her hand, the veins beneath her skin glowing, the blue light of the weapon falling over the white stone of the rampart. Calliande had said that the manifested sword could cut through nearly anything, much like the Seven Swords.

  Third released the blade, and it vanished into nothingness. Summoning the weapon took at least as much effort as using her power to travel, and she could only use it for a short time. Still, it would be a highly useful ability.

  Her journey to Owyllain had changed her in ways that she had not expected.

  Which was why Third wanted to be alone with her thoughts.

  A boot rasped against the ramparts, and she turned her head to see Ridmark climb up to join her.

  Third wanted to be alone, but she was nonetheless glad that he was here.

  He crossed to her side, and they stood together in companionable silence for a while, watching the jungle.

  “We should leave tomorrow,” said Third at last.

  “Yes,” said Ridmark. “I would have preferred to leave at once, but better to let the muridach survivors flee to the Deeps first.”

  “Perhaps you should carry Nerzamdrathus’s head upon a lance,” said Third. “It may scare the other muridachs away.”

  Ridmark looked at her.

  “That was a joke,” said Third. She considered. “Mostly. It would work.”

  Ridmark snorted. “Likely it would. But then we would have to smell rotting muridach all the way to the Monastery of St. James. I would be content if I can go the rest of my days without smelling muridach fur again.”

  Third smiled a little. “I am in full agreement.”

  “Will you come with us?” said Ridmark.

  Third blinked in surprise. “Of course I shall. Why would I not?”

  “Because you saved the gray elves,” said Ridmark.

  Third shook her head. “Kyralion saved the gray elves. He is the one they need, not me.”

  “You are the one who saved the gray elves,” said Ridmark. “Kyralion found you, but you saved them. And you neither destroyed nor saved the Unity, but remade it. The gray elves have the power to travel as you do now, albeit only a few times a day, and they can disconnect or reconnect themselves to the Unity at will.�
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  “I am glad of that,” said Third. “Would not the Unity be hellish? To hear the thoughts and emotions of your neighbors at all times? The Unity is a great advantage in battle, yes. But to be joined in such a fashion for all your life…no. No. That is a form of slavery. Enslavement to the emotions of your neighbors.”

  “And you value freedom,” said Ridmark.

  She met his eyes. “I was a slave for longer than Owyllain has existed. No one values freedom as a freed slave does. Let the gray elves join the Unity as they will, and let them disconnect from it as they likewise wish.”

  “You gave them that,” said Ridmark. “Do not mistake me, I am glad you are coming with us…but the gray elves would welcome you for as long as you might wish to stay.”

  “Yes,” said Third, “but I am not a gray elf. My home is in Nightmane Forest with my sister.” She blinked a few times. “And Kyralion’s home is here.”

  Ridmark nodded.

  “I am not a gray elf,” said Third. “I might have saved the gray elves, but I am not one of them, nor will I ever be one. And Kyralion wed Rilmeira. That is as it should be.”

  “You didn’t come to the wedding,” said Ridmark.

  “I did not wish to,” said Third. “Rilmeira and Kyralion are suited to each other. She will be a good wife and a good Queen. She will give him children, something I would not have been able to do.” She kept blinking. Her eyes felt strange for some reason. “I would not wish to settle here, and Kyralion would not want to leave his people. No. This is for the best. I would not…I would not…”

  She could not seem to get the rest of the sentence out, and her eyes kept blurring.

  “Third,” said Ridmark, surprised. “You’re crying.”

  “Am I?” She lifted a hand to her eyes and felt it come away wet. “I…I suppose I am, at that. What a very strange thing. I do not want to stay here, and yet…”

  Ridmark hesitated, and then lifted his right arm and put it around her shoulders. Third flinched, then relaxed, rested her face against his shoulder, and cried in silence for a while.

  Oddly, that made her feel better, and her roiling emotions settled.

  “I still do not like to be touched,” said Third at last.

  “I know,” said Ridmark. “If it helps, we’re never doing this again.”

  Third laughed at that, but made no effort to move away.

  “I forgave my father,” she said.

  “Your father?” said Ridmark, puzzled.

  “Inside the Sylmarus,” said Third. “The magic of the Sylmarus…I think it reflected my own mind back at me. And what it saw inside me was how much I hated my father. That is what the Sylmarus offered me. To stay in the darkness with my father and make him suffer forever.”

  “What changed your mind?” said Ridmark.

  “You did,” said Third. “Mara did. Jager did. Calliande did. Kyralion did. You and the others are more important to me than a man who has been dead for ten years.”

  “I’m glad,” said Ridmark.

  Third took a deep breath and straightened up, stepping away from Ridmark. “I am fine. Truly. I would not have wanted to stay here, and Kyralion and I would have been ill-suited to each other.” She shook her head. “It is just that…”

  Ridmark waited.

  “I sometimes wish,” said Third, “that I was something other than what I am.”

  “I wish you hadn’t suffered as you did,” said Ridmark, “but I’ve never wished for you to be someone other than who you are. Not ever.”

  “Ah,” said Third, and she smiled. “You are going to make me cry again.” She shook her head. “A thousand years old, and I am crying like a child.”

  “That is a good thing,” said Ridmark. “Did the Traveler ever shed tears? Or the Warden? Or the Sovereign? No. A thousand years old…and you still have a heart and a conscience, Third.”

  “Maybe,” said Third. “But…I do not want to stay here. I wish to finish my task from my sister and High King Arandar and return you and your family home to Andomhaim.”

  “Yes,” said Ridmark. “We’ll finish this together, and then return home.”

  ###

  After the ceremony was over, Tamlin found an empty house and sat on the floor, holding a cup of wine.

  God and the saints, but he was tired. He couldn’t complain, though. He had come through the battle unscathed, and they had won the fight. Even if Tamlin lived another hundred years, he would never forget the sight of the gray elves tearing through the muridachs in flashes of blue fire. He had thought the Battle of the Plains between King Hektor and King Justin had been the biggest fight he had ever seen, but Tamlin had been wrong.

  Hopefully, he would not see another battle of that size.

  He had looked for Tamara but hadn’t been able to find her. Likely she was with Calliande and Kalussa. He would have thought she would be with Magatai, but the Takai halfling had been leading a group of gray elven warriors in toasts. Tamlin wondered if the sensation of a hangover spread through the Unity as emotions and feelings did and decided he would rather not know.

  The gray elven wine burned against his tongue and made his head swim a little, but Tamlin would have only one cup. Tomorrow they would leave to continue their oft-interrupted journey to the Monastery of St. James, and Tamlin needed a clear head to protect Tamara from any dangers that might show themselves.

  A pity that Aegeus wasn’t here. Tamlin missed his friend. Aegeus had always fought hard and then celebrated just as hard once the battle was over. He would have loved the wine of the gray elves. They would have gotten drunk on it together, and then marched with hangovers the next day…

  “Tamlin?”

  Tamlin looked up, startled out of his thoughts, and saw Tamara standing in the doorway to the street.

  “I didn’t startle you, did I?” said Tamara.

  “You did,” said Tamlin, getting to his feet, “but that’s all right. I was simply drinking by myself. Hardly a good habit, I’m afraid.”

  She hesitated. “Then you are alone?”

  “Yes,” said Tamlin. “I just wanted to sit and think for a while.” He smiled at her. “But if you want to interrupt me, I won’t mind.”

  “Good.” Tamara closed the door behind her and propped her golden staff in the corner. “I…we almost died during the battle, Tamlin. Several times.”

  “Yes,” said Tamlin.

  She shrugged out of her long coat and put it on the floor next to her staff. It had to be heavy, but it never seemed to trouble her. Though removing her coat let Tamlin note how well her trousers fit her legs.

  “That made me think,” said Tamara. “About what was important to me. About what I would regret if I died.”

  Tamlin nodded. “I understand that. I have regrets, my lady.”

  “Yes,” said Tamara. “I don’t want to add to them. Or to mine.” She took a deep breath, seeming suddenly nervous. “Which is why I want…I want to make sure there is one less thing to regret.”

  She slipped out of her vest of scutian hide. Tamlin’s first thought was that she must have been warmer than he had thought, and then she grasped the hem of her shirt, lifted it over her head, and dropped it to the floor, and suddenly Tamlin couldn’t think about anything else.

  He stepped closer and took her hands. She looked up at him, her face flushed, her lips parted, her mismatched eyes enormous.

  “Are you sure?” said Tamlin, his voice hoarse.

  “Tamlin,” she whispered. “You’re my husband. I’m sure of that. Show me that you’re sure, too.”

  He grasped the waist of her trousers and slid them down her legs, and she helped him out of his clothes. Tamlin supposed he ought to do more with the sheathed Sword of Earth than to drop it on the floor, but right now he didn’t care. Soon they stood naked before each other, and Tamara looked…

  He had never seen her naked before, but she looked just as he remembered.

  Tamlin could hold himself back no longer, and he pulled her close
and kissed her long and hard. She answered him with a moan, her arms wrapping around his back. A short time later he lowered her to the floor, his cloak serving as a blanket. The feel of her body was both new and familiar, and he both remembered and experienced anew the rapid draw of her breath, the touch of her fingers sliding against his back, the way her hips rolled to meet him. He remembered how her eyes popped open wide when she finished, and a few moments later every muscle in his body went rigid as stars exploded behind his eyes.

  After, they lay in a tangled heap together. Tamlin’s breathing slowed at last, and he pushed the sweaty hair from Tamara’s face and kissed her.

  “Yes. Yes, I’m sure,” Tamlin said, and Tamara smiled at him.

  Chapter 24: Quest

  The next day, Ridmark and the others came to the Court of the Sylmarus one last time before departing for the ruins of the Monastery of St. James.

  The Sylmarus looked different now. The green glow beneath its bark had been replaced by a blue one, the light the exact same color as the blue fire that swirled around Third when she used her power to transport herself. But the tree looked healthier now, the black tumors burned away by the transformation that Third had worked upon it.

  Kyralion and his Queen awaited them at the base of the Sylmarus, along with Lord Rhomathar and the Augur Seruna. Both had taken up the role of advisors to the new King of Cathair Caedyn. Ridmark walked towards them, Calliande at his side. Third, Calem, Krastikon, Kalussa, Magatai, Tamlin and Tamara walked after them. Tamara and Tamlin walked hand in hand, and Tamara kept smiling at both Tamlin and at nothing as if she had a secret that pleased her.

  “My friends,” said Kyralion. “You are leaving today?”

  “We are,” said Ridmark. “You have your duty, and we have ours.”

  “Though I am pleased that our duties overlapped for a time,” said Calliande, her expression the cool mien of the Keeper of Andomhaim. “The New God and its Maledicti, it seems, are our mutual foes, and we dealt them a sharp defeat. Especially if we are correct and Qazaldhar cannot take a new body so long as Krastikon carries the Sword of Death.”