Circle of Reign

by Jacob Cooper

  Mindok was stunned again. “The tribes are not yet united and you have already made a formal declaration of war?” To the Borathein, your enemy deserved to know your intentions. All the gods demanded honor in the dealings of men, lest one gain advantage by trickery and not by skill and merit alone. The gods had no patience for trickery and would strike down the one who engaged in it. At the very least, your adversary deserved to be made aware of his peril. Once they had been informed, all manner of warfare was acceptable to Vyath. Javelin was the term for this formal announcement, coming from the archaic practice of throwing a javelin or spear into an enemy’s camp with your challenge attached. Often, the challenge was symbolized by a body part of the challenged tribe’s elder or of a member of the ruling family impaled on the javelin. Over time, the ritual had simply become a formal notice of some kind, but it retained its ancient reference.

  “We are strong, Deklar, you speak true,” Prethor confirmed. “But we should not underestimate these people. They defeated our kin and the Arlethians fight on their side. The Arlethians alone would be a formidable challenge.”

  “This is why the tribes must be united. It will take all our people under a united front,” Bellathia countered. “And, we have Alysaar. We cannot be matched in battle as we come from above, cloaked by night.” Alysaar were believed to have exceptional nocturnal vision.

  “Even then, they know we are coming. They will be prepared,” Prethor stated.

  Outside the tent, a duel was being carried out. The insults of men who chose sides as well as the roars of Alysaar were heard, goading on the quarrelers. Thuds and scraping metal sounded through the evening air.

  “But their leader, this High Duke Wellyn, had a counter proposal,” Shilkath continued, ignoring his nephew. “One that would allow us to fulfill the Griptha as well as have the most choice land on this side of the world. It is certain to be the worldly equivalent of the Shores of Thracia. It has already started.”

  “I don’t understand,” Prethor stated. “Are we working with these people or are we at war with them?”

  “You do not need to understand. You must obey and trust your Deklar,” Shilkath scolded the young man whose beard barely extended to the top of his chest. “This Wellyn, the Senthary Deklar, has shown me a great power granted to them by Vyath. It will give us great advantage over the Arlethian scum.”

  A cry followed by a gurgling sound came from outside the tent. Men cheered loudly, announcing the end of the duel. No one in the tent reacted with the slightest bit of concern or interest.

  “It will be at least a year before we are prepared,” Mindok said absently.

  “A full year?” Bellathia asked with some disbelief.

  “Five,” Shilkath corrected. “It has been planned. Timing is everything in this. We will conquer or become extinct by this endeavor.”

  “Can these Senthary be trusted? This Deklar they call Wellyn? What do they get out of this?” Bellathia asked.

  Shilkath could see others present had the same question by the looks on their faces. He let a moment of silence hang before he answered. “There is something in the Arlethian forests they desire. It is of no consequence to us.”

  “Do you trust him?” Bellathia asked again.

  “I believe he will do what he has agreed to do. Beyond that, I expect him to betray us at his first opportunity.”

  FIFTEEN

  Reign

  Day 2 of 1st Rising 409 A.U.

  HEDRON SPOKE IN HIS SLEEP, often waking Reign. She never told him about how she would listen sometimes for hours as he called for their mother and whimpered. She guessed he was dreaming of leaving her, of hearing her screams through the night as they ran from the Kerr hold. The fire’s last embers struggled for life in the small fireplace before which they lay. The twins slept in the main room of Jayden’s cottage while the old wolf shepherd slept in the sole bedroom the meager home offered. It was warm enough despite being nestled in the Gonfrey Forest. The edge of the glaciers was not very far, scaling high into the sky as mighty frozen cliffs. Reign could often not tell where the glaciers ended and the sky began when peering up at them.

  She gently nudged his shoulder.

  “Hedron!” she whispered. He continued traveling in the land of the unconscious. “Hedron!”

  He always slept bare-chested now. The material of tunics easily caught on the scars across his chest, tugging uncomfortably on the puckered new skin. Where the wolf’s claw had struck last Dimming Season her brother now had pink and purple scars raised above his unscarred skin like obtrusive mounds on an otherwise smooth landscape.

  She rocked him a little more vigorously. It somehow made Reign feel closer to her mother when Hedron dreamt of her, despite his dreams no doubt being a terror to him. Reign lost both her parents the night her father had been killed despite the fact that her mother lived for many cycles after. Though she had a perfect memory of her father, Reign had a difficult time remembering her mother’s image, as if she were always seeing her face from underwater. The last time she had seen her mother was indeed from behind tears. It was maddening to her and she would have traded the memories of her father for her mother in a heartbeat.

  “Hedron, wake up. You’re dreaming again.”

  Reign’s own dreams had not faded either in the more than two years since her father’s death. The hooded man with his ghastly appearance, her father’s blood staining the ground he lay upon, the trees cold and dead, unnatural. She did not dream, oddly, of the wolves that had almost taken her and Hedron.

  “Fine,” she sighed in frustration when he would not awaken. “Crimson, wake Hedron, boy.”

  The large white wolf that slept at her feet every night nuzzled over to Hedron, put his snout up to Hedron’s ear and sneezed.

  Hedron awoke with a yell and in a panic.

  “What! What’s happening?” He wiped the side of his face that looked as if it had just endured a miniature hurricane. “I mean, come on! That’s disgusting!”

  Reign had her hand over her mouth, attempting to stifle a laugh. It soon required two hands to hold it in but eventually she didn’t try to contain her giggling and let it out.

  “Funny, is it?” Hedron scoffed. He hit Reign with a pillow and she laughed louder. “And you,” he said turning to Crimson Snow, “blow your filth somewhere else!” The wolf licked Hedron and plopped himself back down at Reign’s feet.

  “Stupid wolf!” Hedron retorted. “Yuck!”

  Crimson made a noise that sounded oddly close to snickering. Reign let out a renewed bellow of laughter.

  “At least you’re laughing,” Hedron finally said. “It’s been a while.” Her laughter proved a bit contagious and Hedron couldn’t help letting out a few chuckles of his own.

  “But seriously, that beast shouldn’t sleep in here. Even his sneezes are hazardous, not to mention the fleas. Put it out in the kennels with the rest.”

  “He’s not like the rest,” Reign said. “He saved us, remember?” She had called him Crimson Snow after that morning when his fur, white as the purest snow, was stained with the blood of smaller gray wolves that had threatened them.

  “More like condemned us,” he answered. “We’re stuck living in a frozen forest with flea-infested wolves and a crazy old lady living all alone. I wonder why that is, don’t you? Why she lives in the middle of a frozen nowhere? I mean, this sort of sounds like the beginning of a fable where the kids’ misery is the moral of the story.”

  “Don’t be silly, silly head.”

  A candle appeared at the threshold to Jayden’s room, illuminating their surroundings.

  “He seems to excel at silliness,” Jayden said.

  The boy moaned with annoyance. “It’s too early yet. Go back to bed,” he urged.

  “I’ll keep my own counsel on when to rise, young Kerr. I cannot remember the last time anyone tried to send me to bed. Not that anyone can sleep with the ruckus going on out here, anyway.”

  Jayden went to the window and looked out
to the sky. “Second moon is about set. Barely an hour of night left as it is. Best be up and to your chores. I’ll get breakfast started.”

  Hedron moaned in protest again.

  “Come on, Crimson!” Reign called, jumping up from her blankets. She and the wolf ran out the door to the kennels where the flocks of wolves anxiously waited to be let free. They snapped at one another and rolled on the ground, playing as all siblings do. Coming to the first kennel, Reign lifted the latch and let the score of beasts free. They blasted from the wooden structure at speed, the morning hunger urging them forward. Crimson was about to bolt off with them but stopped. The large white wolf turned his head back to Reign.

  “Go on, boy! It’s okay.” Crimson bounded after the others into the forest. With the Rising Season now upon them, food would be more plentiful than it had been. She went to the second kennel door and likewise opened it. More wolves bounded free into the early morning.

  “It’s not a pet, Reign,” Hedron scolded as he emerged from the cottage.

  Without taking her eyes off Crimson Snow as he darted into the forest, she said, “No, he’s not. He’s more.”

  “Whatever that means.”

  Reign saw him subconsciously tracing the scars on his chest. She turned to him.

  “You weren’t there, Hedron. I mean, you were there, but you weren’t awake. You didn’t see. Crimson rescued us. He protected us. When I thought you had died he laid his own body over us to shield us from the cold. We are alive because of him.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he admitted, somewhat cowed. “It’s just…I mean, I just think—I don’t know what I think.”

  Reign came closer to him and hugged him. She laid her head on his chest, hearing his heartbeat below his scars and said, “You’re angry.”

  “Yes. Very.”

  “I know. Me too.”

  The twins took the hour before sunrise to clear debris and branches from the immediate surroundings of their home. Hedron brought in a pot full of snow for cooking water and returned with a basin, filling that with snow as well for the day’s cleaning water.

  He’ll have to go farther north to the glaciers before long for snow and ice, she realized. Though the Rising and High Seasons in the Northern Province were still chilly by comparison to much of the Realm, most of the snows did recede eventually except for at the glaciers’ edges. The window for growing crops during these mild seasons was short.

  Reign swept the inside of the cottage with a broom that was made from a staff and long pine needles bundled together at the end. The chores did not take longer than a couple hours at most each morning.

  As Reign cleaned out the fireplace of cinders and ash, she saw her father’s cloak hanging on a rack to the right of the hearth. It had once been shredded but was repaired well enough. The stitches Jayden had used to mend the material were very noticeable, giving it the appearance of a patched quilt rather than a royal garment.

  Any time Jayden suggested that Hedron wear it, the boy always gave some excuse.

  “It’s too big,” he would argue. “And it’s itchy!”

  “It won’t always be too big, young Kerr,” Jayden would reply. “You might as well get used to it.”

  “Why? It’s just a rag now, not even much warmth against the cold.”

  “Not so, youngling. Your house’s sigil is embroidered thereon. The name of Kerr will still be important in this land.”

  “It’s not important to me,” he mumbled. “If we were someone else we wouldn’t have to stay here and hide. Someone would care for us in the Western Province among our own people. I’m not sure they even are our people anymore.”

  “Ah, but you are who you are, dear boy. You cannot change this.”

  “I wish I could!” Hedron retorted. “If my father hadn’t been a traitor—”

  The slap that stung the boy’s cheek was delivered with a speed that belied the old woman’s feeble-looking appearance.

  “You do not know of what you speak!” Jayden snapped. “I will not hear such disrespect from your tongue again.”

  Hedron was silent for a few moments. “It’s just a cloak,” was all he could sheepishly respond with.

  Now, looking at it hanging on a rack instead of around large shoulders, Reign found herself agreeing with her brother. It was a reminder of a life past and gone.

  Breakfast was seared boar again, as it had been for the past half span and two days. They were almost through this batch and Reign was excited to move on to the next store of meat that they’d prepared. With the wolves bringing in fresh kills on a regular basis, meat was never something that they lacked. The twins had become quite skilled at preparing and preserving meat for long periods of time. A bit of hard cheese accompanied the meager meal along with some kind of tea that Jayden was fond of brewing. Reign thought it was disgusting, but it was warm, so she drank it.

  Jayden braided a section of Reign’s ebony hair just behind her right ear while the twins ate.

  “It’s the way mother would do it,” Hedron remarked.

  Reign nodded.

  “Be still girl,” Jayden admonished.

  “Believe me, Jayden, this is still for her. She would squirm and whine the whole time while our mother would try to do her hair. It was a big test of patience for both of them.”

  “She wanted it out of my face,” Reign recalled. “I never knew why but I wish I hadn’t been so difficult for her.”

  “It’s because you’re beautiful, child,” Jayden said. “Your eyes shine when you look up and they sparkle when you smile, rare as that is.”

  “I would always take out the braid as soon as I was out of her sight. I thought it was so foolish. But I like it now.”

  “We’ll be able seed the ground again soon,” Jayden said, changing the subject.

  “Thank the Ancients!” Hedron exclaimed.

  “Really?” Reign asked. “All you did last Rising was complain about the work.”

  “Yeah, but not having vegetables for so long kind of makes me okay with the work now.”

  Jayden nodded. “It’s always satisfying to have the fruits of your labors. Hard work is itself a reward.”

  “I don’t know if I’d go that far.” Hedron smiled.

  “Things don’t just come magically to you in the real world, younglings. Your parents were good to you, but you never had to worry about where your next meal would come from or the clothes upon your backs. Work is a necessity for proper character. There, all done,” Jayden said, referring to Reign’s hair.

  “Mother worked hard,” Reign said as she reached up and touched the braid on the right side of her head. It was tight and smooth.

  “Aye, she did. Raising children is the hardest but noblest work.”

  “Do you have any children?” Reign asked.

  “Me? Children? Now, why would I do a foolish thing like that?” Jayden replied with a wink.

  “That’s not an answer,” Hedron said.

  “Ah, very astute, Hedron. And you’re right, it’s not.”

  Reign looked at Hedron with a surprised but intrigued look. Jayden went back to her meal as if the conversation had ended.

  “So, do you?” Hedron asked.

  “Hmm? Do I what?”

  “Kids. Do you have any kids?” Reign said.

  “Oh, right,” Jayden replied with feigned forgetfulness. “I thought I answered that.”

  “No, you avoided the question,” Hedron said.

  “Correct. That’s my answer. Are you both quite done then?”

  They finished their meals and took their plates to the washbasin.

  “Hedron, you finish up the dishes,” Jayden said. “Reign, come outside with me.”

  “What? No, I’ll go. Reign can do this,” Hedron protested.

  “I’m not sure I asked for further discussion.”

  Hedron turned back to the basin and the dishes as Reign left with Jayden.

  “And after that,” Jayden continued, “you can see to the roof. Clear it of the las
t bit of snow and fix any soft spots or leaks that may have happened during the Low Season.

  Reign heard her brother mumble something about being cursed before she exited the cottage with Jayden.

  It was a crisp morning even with the sun now up. Rare spears of golden light broke through the gray overcast skies and glittered upon the melting snow. Reign missed the canopy of branches and leaves native to the forests of the Western Province and how the veins of the Triarch leaves would sparkle at night. But, she did enjoy seeing the open sky when she looked up as well. The Gonfrey Forest was nowhere near as thick as her home forests and she had a hard time even calling where they now lived a forest of any kind. Before she and Hedron had ventured north, out of the Western Province, Reign had never before been where she could not connect with the forest. It was a truly foreign feeling that widened the sense of being lost within her. She put her palm flush against a tree as they passed by. The bark was rough with crevices and flaked easily at the touch. She closed her eyes and opened herself to the vibrations around her. Nothing. No increased perception was gained.

  “Reign?” Jayden asked. “Are you well?”

  “Yes,” she said, her eyes still closed and palm against the tree. “I’m just—remembering.”

  After a moment, she continued their walk. When they were about thirty paces away Jayden said, “I know what you saw, child.”

  “What I saw?”

  “Yes. It was a monster, was it not? Hidden behind a hooded robe?”

  Realizing what Jayden was now referring to, she started to tremble and shake her head.

  “I can’t speak of it!” Reign pleaded. “Don’t make me!”

  “I never have and I won’t now. You do not have to speak, but I will. And you will hear me. Understand?” She didn’t wait for Reign’s acknowledgment.

  “Your father was more than he seemed,” she began.

  “I hate him,” Reign said, her tone flat.

  “You were not going to speak, girl, remember? But, yes, I know you feel that now. And it is good for the time being. It has changed you and therefore protects you.”