by Ronie Kendig
“And . . . they’re all ladies?”
“Aye.” Wait. Did she mean every woman was a lady? Or that all on the council were ladies? “No. That is—only women are among the Ladies of the Heart, if that is yer question.”
She smiled, her eyes sparkling like ice on fresh-fallen snow. “Aye.” But then something shone in them. “So, the women are the . . . the women are in charge?”
“Ingwait would like to think so,” he said, then lifted his shoulders in acquiescence. “They oversee the daily activities of the Heart and the Tooth.”
“The Tooth?”
“Legier’s Heart”—he looked around the large room—“is here. And the Cold One’s Tooth—the lesser mountain farther north, whose spine embraces Ybienn.”
After sipping her juice, the metal cup dark and dingy against her fair complexion, she sighed. “Clearly, I have much to learn.”
“Haven’t we all?” He retrieved his fork to finish his midday meal. “Much is done differently here and for good reason.”
“Such as?”
He pointed his fork around the hall. “Due to limited ventilation, cooking fires are restricted to this hall, so we eat communally. Everyone serves a function. The women lead and govern social affairs—bindings, births—”
“The Choosing.” She smiled, and it seemed a knowing smile. Mischievous.
In truth, it surprised him. “Ye taunt me, Princess. Not many dare.”
27
Legier’s Heart, Northlands
She had crossed the line. For a moment, she had been able to abandon the grief and longing for her family, most of whom no longer existed. Haegan was down in Ybienn, doing what she did not know, though she prayed to Abiassa that he was preparing some sort of retaliation against Poired for murdering their father.
“I beg your mercy, Cacique.” Kae stared at her half-eaten meat and vegetables. “Your reprimand is just. I had no cause—”
His hand rested on hers. Large, callused. Strong. Warm. She missed warmth. It’d been in her bones, in her abiatasso from birth. Now . . . gone. Because of a tragic, misguided mistake. His touch sparked memories of her father. He’d done the same many times over when she’d grown frustrated or become impatient during a lesson.
“We are friends, Princess.”
She dragged her gaze from his hand to his eyes. Dark, curly hair framed an olive complexion hedged in by a thick beard. His features were not hard but seasoned. Experienced. It made him seem sturdy, reliable. Aye, handsome. “Then use my name. Please.”
Aselan swallowed and withdrew his hand. “’Twould not be right.” His gaze skidded around the room. “Ye are still heir to the Fire Throne, and here, that is what ye represent. An enemy with a very long reach.”
She caught his meaning, though she wasn’t sure he intended it to reveal itself. “They fear me?” Why did that upset her so? Most of her life she had walked in authority with the Flames and her station. It was as much a part of her as breathing. “But I can neither sense the Flames nor wield. I am stripped.”
“They fear what ye represent—and how are they to know with certainty that ye have not the ability to wield? ’Tis . . . uncommon that a powerful accelerant such as yerself would lose her abilities. That she would then come to the Heart—foreign territory—with no intent.”
They doubted her. Kaelyria stared at him, her heart pounding. In truth, she was not used to being doubted. Or questioned. “And do you, too, think this?”
Aselan leaned forward, resting his arms on the table and burrowing closer. She thought the move was meant to inflict sincerity, but it came across as severity, for his shoulders were broad and thick. His arms well muscled. He lifted his eyebrows and looked over her shoulder. “They are my people, Princess. I am responsible for the thousands who live beneath the mountain. ’Twould be foolish to not at least consider the possibilities.”
“What?” She heard the pitch in her voice and didn’t care. “What possibilities?” This time, she leaned forward. “That I’m here to boil this mountain to slag? That I’m gathering information on how to best take your people down?”
His left cheek muscle twitched, his gaze resolute.
Her breast heaved with the pain of hurt and shock. “To what end, Cacique? To what end would I do that?”
“Lovers’ quarrel?” came a taunting voice from behind. Aselan’s second officer—what was his name?—dropped into a chair next to his cacique and immediately a tray of food found its way to him.
Aselan shoved to his feet. “Make sure she returns to her cave when she finishes, Byrin.” His stony expression hardened as he turned to her. “Princess.”
Kae watched him go, hating the way her eyes stung. Humiliated at his dismissal. Beneath the hurt, she discovered how . . . personal it all felt. His reproof. His rejection, which hurt most. She respected and admired him.
“Winning him with yer fiery charm, Princess?” Byrin peppered his food, then added some salt. Then more pepper. “What? Did ye spark him?”
She flashed the man a glare. “I can no more wield these days than you . . .” She stopped, unsure what to call him. “How am I to address you?”
“Address me?” With a chunk of meat halfway to his mouth, he hesitated then added yet more pepper.
“Yes, what title?”
“Handsome? Devilish? Rogue?” He stuffed the meat into his mouth.
Irritation rolled across her shoulders. “Have you no title as the cacique’s right hand?”
“He has his own hands, Princess. He doesn’t need mine.”
Futile. It was futile. Everything was futile. Weariness clawed at her, and she suddenly found she had no humor for entertaining or enduring these people any longer. “I think . . . I grow weary. I would like to return to my”—she could not bear to call it a cave, which seemed so much like a prison—“room.”
Byrin chewed his food, then glanced toward the kitchens and waved. A girl started from her post as he turned his attention back to Kae. “He’s a cacique, a chief. Do not expect him to be yer best friend or lover. Thousands in the Heart depend on him.” He sucked on his teeth, then stabbed a potato with his fork. “He gave his heart away once, and it got bludgeoned. Won’t do it again. He’ll stick to the icehounds for warmth at night.”
Shocked again, she lowered her chin, cheeks flaming. “I neither expected nor asked for a lover, or friend, Master Byrin.”
“Master?” He snorted and shook his head. “Throw away those high-born ways, Princess. They get ye nothin’ here.”
Carilla was there.
“Get her back to Hoeff,” Byrin said without looking at either of them as he sawed a purple vegetable in half.
The girl wheeled her from the room. Shivering with indignity and a chill from the cool passage, Kaelyria hugged herself and silently screamed away her tears of humiliation.
“Don’t be giving them no mind, miss—er, Princess.”
Kaelyria worried the edge of the heavy blanket draped across her useless legs.
“They’re the warriors. They’re like that.”
She understood. She’d fallen in love with a warrior, in her former life. Graem . . . Where was he now? Had he fallen in the battle at Fieri Keep? Why was she only now thinking of her Jujak?
Because, though she could not admit it then, she could be honest now. Graem had been a piece of her rebellion against her father’s injustice toward her and toward Haegan.
A pack of younger men huddled in the narrow junction ahead. They were indiscreet about their stares at her. Their laughter barreled out as one got pushed to the front. He squared his shoulders and started toward them.
Kae’s first instinct was to spark them. But then an icy fear cocooned her in the realization that she’d lost that ability. She swallowed. For the first time she didn’t feel safe. She drew the blanket to her waist and knotted the heavy wool in her powerless fists.
“Go on with ye,” Carilla growled, waving her hands at the men. “Or I’ll be telling the cacique.”
“Ye’re a hag, Carilla.”
“At least I got a brain, Vorku. Now, go on.” Carilla caught a small boy by the shoulder and placed something in his hand, whispering in his ear. The lad shot up the stairs like an arrow. “There,” she said, turning back to Kae. “Hoeff will be here soon.”
“Are . . . are they all like that?” Kaelyria watched the half-dozen men hovering farther back, but not moving off as instructed.
“They’re getting all wound up,” Carilla said as she sat on the iron steps, her skirts gathered about her legs. “It’s the Choosing. Does that to their weak brains.” She laughed.
“What is it?”
Carilla’s gray eyes widened. “Ye don’t know? It’s only the most important event each cycle.”
“Why?”
“The Ladies hold a great celebration, and the whole Heart joins in. There’s food, music, and games for a full week! On the night before the last, we all get to go into the great hall for dancing and feasting. The women who are given permission by the Ladies are allowed to choose a man for binding.” She stabbed a finger in the air. “But only those men who lay their daggers on the table at the feast.”
“It is very different in the Nine,” Kaelyria said, her thoughts on the wily Jedric, who had given her chills. “I was pledged to a man I hadn’t met, and then when we did meet, I wanted to run away.”
“Blazes,” Carilla muttered, shaking her head. “I wouldn’t want to live there! Here, the women do the choosing. They pick their man. Then they go to their chosen that night. If he accepts, they . . .” Her eyes darted around.
“Oh.” Realization crackled through Kaelyria. She’d thought they went to them on the dance floor, but this . . . “Isn’t that . . .” She swallowed. “In the Nine, you could be arrested for entering a man’s room alone.”
“Only on this night ’tis allowed—and only if ye have his dagger. Ye must stand on the threshold until he accepts the dagger back.” Carilla waved a hand. “The next night, there’s the Joining Ring. That’s when those bound are presented before all Eilidan.”
“Have you done it?”
“No,” she said with a grin. “But I go this year.”
“Do you have a man in mind?”
“Oh, ye cannot tell a soul who ye’re choosing. That way, if the man refuses, nobody knows but the two of ye. Yer name is clear and so is his.”
“Does that happen often?”
Carilla laughed. “And what girl would admit to being rejected?”
28
Outside Baen’s Crossing, Kingdom of the Nine
“Don’t stop! Don’t stop!”
Haegan slowed and glanced back down the sloping hill to the city. Twin full moons shone brightly, and he easily saw the dispatch of horses flooding out of the wagon gate. If those riders caught up with them, or if he fled to the shelter of Nivar Hold, there would be war between the Nine and the Northlands.
The thought pulled him around. He couldn’t let that happen. Not because of him. There was too much war and bloodshed to come. Kingdoms had to unite against Poired. Division helped only the Dark One in his quest to subjugate all of Primar for Sirdar of Tharqnis.
The world would be in ruin.
Because of me.
Tokar came about, shouting, “What are you doing?”
“I can’t bring trouble to Ybienn.” The future if he went north, took shelter with the Nivari, was perfectly clear to him. “I will not.”
Graem joined them. “Baen’s Crossing will seek a blood price for the child.”
“It wasn’t me. I didn’t kill the boy.” The face! He could not get the boy’s face out of his mind—brown eyes like Thiel’s, outsized teeth like Laertes. “I didn’t kill him, but I will not be the one to bring war to Ybienn. Not when I can help it.”
Heat faded to his left. Haegan detected it a split-second before he saw the tiny explosion. A spark, meant to incapacitate him, as had happened before.
Annoyed, he flicked his finger and sent his own spark, the two colliding in the air like a clap of hands. “Tempt not my patience nor temper this hour, Drracien.”
“I had to try.” He looked out over the lands with a heavy sigh. “If you go north—”
“They will blame Ybienn,” Haegan said.
“Then we must stay in the Nine.”
Haegan’s heart slowed, the tendrils of heat spreading over his arms and losing the concentration in his hands. Balancing. “Agreed.”
“Are you both mad?” Tokar asked. “There is nothing for leagues, and we are pursued. We must seek the safety of the Nivari.”
And hand victory to Poired. “No.”
“This is lunacy!” Tokar shouted, his anger strangling good sense. “We must go—the Nivari are waiting. We can debate what to do next when we’re safe across the border!”
“I will not have their deaths on my head as well.” But an idea sparked.
“Haegan.”
He gazed east, where moonslight caressed the jagged spine of the mountains that gave birth to the Great Falls. It seemed the place that had irrevocably altered his life, mocked him still. Glittered at him, taunting.
“The Falls.”
Haegan snapped his gaze to the accelerant. So strange to have a solid ally in Drracien at this hour. “We know it—”
“Know it? We fled it. We nearly died in it,” Tokar yelled.
“Indecision is about to kill us,” Graem growled.
“Haegan.”
He realized his name had been called before—Praegur. And there was warning in his tone. Haegan looked back to where Praegur sat atop his horse, facing north. Staring. Squinting. Haegan followed his gaze, but he saw nothing save the great Black Forest that separated Ybienn from the Nine. Two miles between them and that forest.
Wait. Something . . . the trees were swaying.
A vibration wormed through his body as he searched the branches from one side to the other. Again, the trees moved violently. “What’s going on?”
“Haegan, the patrol!” Tokar shouted.
On the knoll, the men of Baen’s Crossing were closing in.
“To the Falls,” Drracien said.
“The Nivari are closer,” Tokar countered.
“Haegan, this isn’t good.” It was Praegur’s voice again.
“No,” Haegan said. “We’re not going to the Falls.” Devastation waited for them if they fled. He felt in his bones. No . . . not his bones. It was deeper. What was deeper than bones?
Abiatasso.
Warmth spread through him, churning. Stay. Stay, and I will defend you, Fierian. But the others . . . Haegan turned to them. “Please. You go to the Nivari. I don’t . . . I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Drracien snorted. “Don’t try that, ‘this is for your own good’ muarshtait. We were set on your path for a reason. We stay.”
Tokar let out a loud, frustrated growl. “Form a perimeter around him!”
Startled, Haegan watched as his friends encircled him. “No—”
“Quiet,” Tokar shot over his shoulder. “And if we die . . .”
“I won’t let that happen.”
“Getting sentimental?” Tokar taunted. “I might have to write this down. But first—think you could summon those Deliverers to help out?”
“It doesn’t work that way.” Haegan wasn’t sure how any of it worked, and he could not escape the distinct feeling that he didn’t control any of it either. He was a puppet on this stage like everyone else.
Hooves thundered as horses rushed up the knoll. There were at least a hundred men, the heat of them buffeting Haegan’s senses.
Interesting.
He had plenty to draw from should he have to defend the others.
“We are the Dagger,” a man shouted, his horse stamping forward. “You will surrender yourself, Haegan Celahar—”
“Prince Haegan,” Drracien corrected. “He does not take orders from a city patrol, he commands them!”
“Not until he’s formally recognized
as king and crowned in Hetaera,” the man said. “Prince Haegan, come forward or we will draw you out.”
Draw me out? They seemed unusually calm. Too calm to be arresting an accelerant blamed with murdering a man and child.
“That man was not who you believe him to have been,” Haegan said, trying to negotiate his way out.
“And the boy?” came a deep voice that sounded like rocks in a barrel.
“I did not—” The words caught in his throat. “The boy was murdered by another accelerant—the man I was chasing killed him to distract me.”
“Then you admit you are responsible for his death?” the gravelly voice said. “The penalty is death.”
Haegan stared. “What?”
“Calb, easy,” the leader muttered to the side.
“He killed my boy!”
The words thudded against Haegan’s heart. “No!” He’d never be able to dislodge that memory seared into his mind. “I beg your mercy—”
“Mercy?” Calb spat. “I want your blood!”
“Careful,” Drracien snapped, his hand a halo of light.
“Drracien, yield,” Haegan said.
“That sounded a lot like wield,” Drracien threatened, but the words were empty as the halo snapped closed.
Cold. A very cold chill at his back.
Haegan didn’t want to appear to ignore the Dagger, but the odd sensation sliding down his spine drew his gaze to the side.
“Surrender yourself, my lord,” the leader said. “You will face trial.”
But Haegan held up a hand, his eyes on the south. Saw a wake dancing in the moonslight. Someone was wielding, but the glow was wrong. Not gold and red. Greenish-brown. Like dirt or moss.
From the dregs of earth and bodies therein
Come the sons of darkness and Zer’En.
Brown, green, and twisted hues,
Wield our Flames with icy cues.
“Incipients!” Drracien’s shout stabbed the night.
Panicked, Haegan spotted a volley that roared into the sky. It looked like a river of fire, sailing up into the darkness. But it wasn’t just one. There were at least five or six incipients sending their dirty brown flames skyward.
Haegan jerked the reins and faced the leader. “You knew.” It seemed the volleys hung in the sky forever. “You knew the man I killed was an incipient. You knew!”
