Shadowborn

by David Dalglish

  Last was Candren’s holy mansion and seat of power, built upon the very top of the capitol hill. The Candren Seraphim led the platform of diplomats toward a clearing upon its eastern end. Soldiers waited in long lines stretching from a set of well-lit doors. Bree landed among the rest of their Seraphim, quickly falling to one knee out of respect for the waiting Archon Evereth Dayan and his wife, Lucia.

  The Archon was a hard-looking man, his jaw and forehead square, his hair and beard neatly trimmed. His wife appeared the exact opposite, all soft lines and curved features highlighted by twin braids of blond hair trailing down her neck and chest. They both wore sharp black suits, Evereth with a bright yellow tie, Lucia with ribbons of gold throughout her hair, neck, and waist.

  “Welcome to my home, people of Weshern,” Candren’s Archon said with a smile. “Release your weapons. Calm your nerves. You come as enemies, but I pray you leave as friends.”

  CHAPTER

  4

  The dining table made the one in the holy mansion seem small by comparison. It wound through the grand room in two slow curls, forming a gigantic S. Golden cloth covered its every inch. The wood of the eighty or so chairs was stained exceptionally dark, and the cloth covering their cushions was solid black. Chandeliers hung from long golden chains, their interconnected circles of gold and crystal holding dozens of candles. Real candles, not the false ones the Willers had used. The walls had six gigantic paintings that flowed from one into the other. Candren Seraphim flew over a peaceful spring valley that slowly became an orange and red harvest season, which then melded into a snow-covered wilderness. Above the frost-tinted trees the Candren Seraphim warred in the skies against an invading Sothren army. Corpses littered the ground in the melting spring snow, only to loop back around to the peaceful valley, protected by the ever-present Seraphim.

  “Really puts you in the eating mood,” Kael whispered to his sister. He needn’t have bothered to keep his voice down. By his best guess there were eighty people seated at the table and many more servants hustled about, carrying trays of food and baskets of wine bottles.

  “You’re right,” Bree said. “The demons on the ceiling of our holy mansion are much more suitable for a feast.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Kael and Bree were seated near the upper half of the S, at an awkward distance from the Archon so they’d need to speak just shy of shouting to be heard over the hum of conversation. Kael felt a hint of jealousy toward Clara seated opposite him. Of course she’d look calm and relaxed while eating and conversing with the two Candren lords on either side of her. The lady to her left was absolutely fascinated by Clara’s story of her parents’ rescue and the battle that followed in the streets against the fireborn giant.

  “It can’t possibly be as big as that,” insisted the balding man to Clara’s right. His gray mustache looked about as puffy as his attitude.

  “It was,” Clara insisted. “I watched it throw house walls made of solid stone. At one point it tore up the road itself as if it were a simple carpet.”

  “But how could a fireborn become so big?” asked Lady Clairmont, if Kael remembered the name correctly from their brief introduction. “Do they grow over time? Or did it perhaps eat more than the others? Though of course that begs the question, do the demons even eat?”

  “And what do they eat?” Mustache Lord added.

  Clara smiled pleasantly enough.

  “I’m not sure what or if they eat, but we did see how the giant fireborn was created, didn’t we, Kael?”

  Kael felt a cold slap across his face as he realized he was being dragged into the conversation.

  “Not exactly the happiest of memories,” he said, bothered by how both the husband and wife appeared so amused. Likely they’d spent that harrowing night safely hidden inside their giant mansion, personal guards protecting their lives and possessions. If they’d walked amid the burning towns, heard the screams of the dying, perhaps they’d not view the fireborn giant as a theoretical fascination.

  “Of course not,” Lord Clairmont said, and he twirled his fork in his fingers. “Little of that night was a joyful affair. But the horror of the past is now in the past, and we may continue ever stronger into the future.”

  Another little prick against his skin. The past was the past? Perhaps there was something Kael could do to at least dampen a bit of their excitement.

  “Except it’s not the past,” he said. “The threat is real, Lord and Lady Clairmont, and very much here. The protective dome around us is gone, and after all these centuries the demons can finally reach us. How many of the fireborn wait to attack again, this time with stormborn and iceborn at their sides?”

  Both looked greatly upset by his outburst. Lady Clairmont took a long drink from her glass and then addressed the man beside her as if she just noticed he was there. Mustache Lord’s face reddened as he frowned deeply at Kael.

  “He’s still upset about all the trauma he witnessed,” Clara said, smoothly gliding into the conversation to pull it away from Kael’s prophetical warning. Only her sideways glare revealed her true feelings. “I don’t blame him, either. That fireborn giant was birthed from dozens of the creatures melding together with the bones of the innocent. It was terrible to witness, and I pray that the angels are kind to me so I never see such a monster again.”

  Mustache Lord accepted the pseudo-apology and quickly switched topics. Now thankfully ignored, Kael decided it was a fine time to eat something of the extravagant feast laid out before him. Bored and annoyed as he was, the least he could do was enjoy foods he might never taste again. He sucked on little berries with juice so dark and purple it was almost black. The sweetness awoke a bit more of his hunger. Next was a flat cake with some sort of cream baked into a glaze. One small bite led to him wolfing down the rest. Was this how the wealthy ate every day? Kael decided he should visit Clara more often, particularly during mealtime.

  The conversation dulled around them. Kael glanced up to see the grim-faced Archon Dayan risen from his chair, a wineglass in his left hand, the knuckles of his right steadily knocking against the table. He had begun lecturing those nearest him, and all down the table others strained their ears to hear. With each practiced word, Kael felt more certain this seemingly impromptu speech had actually been carefully rehearsed.

  “Not since the rise of the ocean waters have we ever faced such a threat,” the Archon said. “But together we faced it nobly and cast those demons back to the hell they escaped from. The stars are free. The crawling shadow no longer burns. Let us turn our focus from the past to the future of our people. All our people, of all islands, from the eldest of men to the children yet to be born. Center has held us in a stranglehold for too long. They whispered lies in our ears and left us to die when those lies fell from the skies like fire. Our squabbles between us must end. We battled like dogs over the scraps the theotechs gave us to survive. No longer. Let us turn on our abusive master and with our fangs tear free the key to a better, more prosperous life.”

  Scattered applause and stomping feet soon grew into a standing ovation from the entire room. Rehearsed or not, Kael agreed with the need for a united front, but he disagreed that Center was their only enemy. The shadowborn lurked somewhere in the hidden spaces of their islands. The other troubling thing was how similar it sounded to Johan’s speeches. Did the man whisper in the ears of Candren’s Archon as well?

  Archon Dayan barely reacted to the applause. Instead he took a sip from his glass, nodded to the others around him, and then slid back into his seat. It was as if he fully expected the applause.

  “Truly we are blessed with the greatest Archon of all the islands,” Lady Clairmont said. She was practically beaming with pride.

  “I respectfully disagree,” Clara said, “but our Archon is my father, so I must admit I am biased in the matter.”

  The two laughed politely. Kael took a bite from a buttered roll and wished they could be eating alone, just him, Clara, and Bree. Nothing in the world was s
o terrible as forced small talk.

  To Kael’s right sat a heavyset man, his belt strained by the stomach it tried to keep in. Unlike the Clairmonts, he hadn’t introduced himself when he sat down, and for the most part he had kept to himself. The man took Kael’s awkward silence as an opportunity to jab Kael’s side with his elbow.

  “It was a nice speech, wouldn’t you say?” he asked, an eyebrow raised. His face was as round as the moon and featured an equal number of blemishes and craters.

  “Yes, it was,” Kael said, figuring politeness was his ticket to survival.

  The man wiped at his mouth with his cloth, his green eyes locked on to Kael’s.

  “Of course it’s easy to say things like that now, after Weshern proved such resistance is possible by defeating Center’s initial invasion.”

  That was about the last thing Kael expected, and he nervously glanced about to see if any others had overheard.

  “We’ve just tried to do our best,” he said, unsure where this was going.

  “Of course, of course.” The man leaned closer, his voice still deep and pleasant but his eyes hardening. “But we both know that Weshern is not the reason our islands are preparing for conflict. Another’s been prophesying this war for years.”

  Kael sipped his chilled water, trying to wet his suddenly parched tongue. Johan had always insisted he had people in every corner of every island, but some part of Kael had never let that sink in; it was easy to forget Johan’s influence extended beyond the boundaries of Weshern.

  “Another has indeed,” Kael said, not wanting to be the first to say his name. “Do you know him well?”

  “I’ve spoken with Johan on many occasions. He’s even told me about you, Kael Skyborn.” The man offered his hand, and Kael reluctantly shook it. “My name’s Bartley Harran. I’m Candren’s master of trade.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Kael said, his voice conveying quite the opposite.

  “And I am quite pleased to meet you,” Bartley said. “I’ve heard you were one of the biggest reasons Johan’s movement was able to unite with the royal family.”

  Not exactly how Kael remembered it. He’d been little more than a go-between, perhaps a glorified messenger at best.

  “Whatever aids Weshern,” he said, not wishing to discuss it.

  “And a strong alliance with Johan aids us all, Weshern included.”

  There was a twinge of fanaticism to his every word. Kael wished he could somehow trade seats and escape the conversation.

  “Right now I’d rather focus on our newly built relationship here,” he said. “A unified Weshern and Candren is a powerful thing.”

  “Powerfully irrelevant,” Bartley said. “This meeting here is all show and little meaning.”

  “A formal alliance between Candren and Weshern means plenty,” Kael argued. “We’re stronger together. Elern should quickly follow after Candren joins us and Sothren. Center will almost certainly barter for peace once we are united.”

  “But why should we barter for peace?” Bartley asked. “Peace isn’t what we need. Alliances mean nothing if we return to the old status quo, quarreling for power among ourselves while Center’s chains hold us like puppets. Truth be told, I wouldn’t mind if all four minor islands stopped pretending at being separate nations and instead formed an alliance ruled by a governing council of our Archons. We must sacrifice everything, perhaps our very sense of identity, to ensure we bring Center to her knees.”

  “But what of the fireborn?” Kael asked. “Should we not prepare for another attack?”

  Bartley smirked.

  “I’m sure Marius would love us to focus on licking our wounds and burying our dead. In some ways you could say the fireborn helped him. We’re weak and we’re scared. The Speaker’s likely hoping we don’t notice how badly Center suffered that night. No, we should act now, Kael. Opportunity is before us, just as Johan has predicted. Center and her theotechs are our one true enemy.”

  Anger pulled him from his seat. His hands slammed the table in frustration.

  “You’re wrong,” Kael said, voice so loud he surprised himself. “Center is not the only threat, nor the greater one. Fire demons fell from the sky. Why the hell does everyone think that’s the last we’ll see of them?”

  Those seated nearby quieted, and Kael caught an embarrassed look on Clara’s face.

  “Sit down, Kael,” Bree whispered beside him.

  “Mr. Skyborn,” Evereth said. His cold tone jammed an icicle into Kael’s heart. “Is there something you’d like to share with the rest of us?”

  “No,” he said. “Though I would like to make a request of you, Archon, while I still have your attention.”

  “Please, ask, and I shall do my best as host to accommodate.”

  If the people of Candren were to believe him, he’d need proof, substantial proof. The threat of Center was very real while L’adim was a bedtime story, or at best, a cautionary lesson mentioned in theotech sermons. To obtain such proof, Kael could think of only one location.

  “I’d like entrance into Candren’s holy cathedral,” he said.

  “Why is that?”

  His throat was cracked stone. Kael could barely swallow before he spoke.

  “To visit with the angel inside.”

  Silence thundered around him. A few looked astonished at the very idea. Others stared at him as if he were insane. The worst was the soft, barely hidden laughter of many.

  “The angel,” Evereth said, his voice surprisingly even. “You believe the theotechs have an angel here in their Clay Cathedral? I’m sorry, Mr. Skyborn, but I believe you’ve taken the teachings of the theotechs far too literally. God and his angels lifted us up from the Endless Ocean, yes, but they did so through the technology he gifted to us. The stories of a legion of angels pulling the earth heavenward with silver chains is a beautiful but fanciful retelling.”

  More snickering set Kael’s blood to boil. This was it, he realized. This was what L’fae had asked of him. God help him, he was really going to do it, and on Candren of all places.

  “I don’t just believe it,” Kael said. “I know it. I’ve spoken with the angel L’fae in the heart of Weshern, and through her I witnessed our Ascension as we fled the forces of L’adim.”

  Again the room was shocked into silence.

  “L’adim?” asked the man seated on the Archon’s right, his advisor, if Kael remembered correctly. “Who is L’adim?”

  “The shadowborn,” Kael said. “The true enemy we face. We should not war among ourselves, perhaps not even with Center. We should make peace before the true threat arrives. Already he has struck against us, slaying the angel within Galen to bring the island crashing down. He destroyed the dome protecting us from his forces. The fireborn are his servants, and we are yet to face the iceborn, the stormborn, and the stoneborn. Killing each other only weakens us for the shadowborn’s final assault.”

  His neck was flushed red, and he felt its heat upon his cheeks. All eyes were on him now, the people listening to the stark ravings of a lunatic. What could they possibly think of him? Jealous of his more famous sister, perhaps? Even Archon Dayan looked baffled as to how to reply, but try he did to respectfully address the Phoenix’s brother.

  “The theotechs are still in control of the Beam,” he said. “They have pledged to remain neutral in the conflict between us and Center so long as we leave them be. I will … ask them about your theories, and see if they are comfortable in letting you beneath the Clay Cathedral to search for your ‘angel.’”

  The Archon’s dismissal stank on every word. Kael slumped to his seat, avoiding all eye contact.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “No, thank you,” Evereth said. “Every day we must challenge our preconceptions or the world remains the same, forever and on.”

  Bartley shuffled beside Kael, cleared his throat.

  “Peace with one enemy to fight another that does not exist,” he said. “A shame, Kael. I thought you one of the more le
velheaded ones at this table.”

  Kael stood, his neck flushing red.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t feel well,” he said, addressing no one in particular. He caught Clara’s pitying look and Bree’s smoldering frustration. But it wasn’t their eyes he felt on his back as he fled to his room, but those of dozens of others snickering as he passed, his name whispered as the punch line for a terribly unfunny joke.

  CHAPTER

  5

  Liam stood before Speaker Marius and his right hand Er’el, the icily calm Jaina Cenborn. The three were alone inside Marius’s royal cathedral hall, their voices casting long echoes. Liam kept his arms crossed behind his back and his spine rigid. His military experience locked his face into a calm, confident mask. Everything was meant to convey complete control over his emotions, a mastery of body and mind. Anything at all to help achieve the lie.

  “You had Kael in your hands,” Marius asked. It was the first thing he’d said since Liam began detailing the battle against the Weshern and Sothren Seraphim. “Yet you let him go?”

  “I did no such thing,” Liam said. “His prism was depleted and no rescuers were close enough to reach him before he hit the water.”

  “Yet he survived,” Marius said. His voice was soft, his tone inquisitive. Liam believed none of it. “Why kill him with a fall instead of your fire or sword?”

  Liam straightened further, if that was even possible. He met the Speaker’s gaze without flinching, all the better to sell the lie.

  “Because Kael is a heretic and a disgrace to my legacy. I did not wish him to die a warrior’s death. He deserved to drown—the fate of an incompetent fisherman.”

  Marius glanced at Jaina. Her own face was as carefully disguised as Liam’s.

  “A fitting, if unnecessary, decision,” Jaina said. “But your task was to eliminate the Skyborn children. We did not request anything beyond that.”