Blackmark (The Kingsmen Chronicles #1): An Epic Fantasy Adventure Sword and Highland Magic

by Jean Lowe Carlson

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  “Alden!” Olea snapped upright, a bitter waking in her chamber's darkness, her nightshirt soaked with sweat. She'd not known she’d slept until just now. Tears tracked down her face and made a puddle of wet in the hollow of her throat. Olea did not wipe them away, instead pausing, every sense prickling in the night. Honing her hearing, she listened a moment. Something had woken her, but now all was quiet, only soft whispers of air moving through her open window. Her dark-adjusted eyes took in every corner of her common cell, one hand ready upon the longknife in its sheath beneath her pillow. But there was no sense of an intruder, only these unsettled dreams from everything Vargen had told her the night before.

  Suddenly, a soft sound came at her ironbound door, like the tap of a single finger. Knowing that it had been this small sound that had woken her, Olea rose fluidly, clad only in her thin undershirt and underwear, longknife to hand. Pacing quickly to the door, knife poised to pierce a throat, she threw it wide. Dhenra Elyasin blinked in the torchlight of the soldier’s hall, at the knife ready to take her throat.

  “Forgive me, Dhenra!” Olea hastily lowered her knife, stepping back from the door. The Dhenra took a shaky breath, then just as hastily stepped inside Olea’s bare rooms, glancing furtively to either side as she entered. As a precaution, Olea checked the corridor also, but the Dhenra had timed it perfectly, avoiding the night-patrols. Although she had slipped her guards again. Olea made a mental note to give them a dressing-down, and put Aldris on the Dhenra's watch personally until the coronation and wedding were over.

  Olea shut the door. She struck a phosphor match, lighting three candles upon the mantle to push back the night. Setting her longknife upon the mantle, she turned to face her liege, sinking to one knee. But the Dhenra was distracted, pacing restlessly about Olea's sparse quarters. Stopping in front of the only decoration in Olea’s simple room, she eyed a five-foot gilt-framed wall mirror. A gaudy piece, Olea had asked the Castellan to have it removed a number of times, and a number of times he had agreed with a demure smile, but it had never been done.

  A gripping sensation hit Olea's gut. She was certain, suddenly, that the mirror provided a way for someone to watch her rooms, just like Vargen had seen behind the walls of Roushenn. A deep fear shivered her. The Dhenra stared at the mirror now, watching her reflection. Olea wondered if someone were watching back. If someone could hear their conversation in this tiny room, entirely visible in that mirror’s spying oculus. And suddenly, she was very aware of her words, of keeping this conversation, whatever it was about, clean of anything that might threaten the Dhenra’s life.

  “Dhenra, how can I serve at this late hour?” Olea prompted.

  “Such starkness,” Elyasin’s gaze rested upon the mirror, seeing the entire room. “It is a wonder to me that you would choose to live this way, Olea, with but a single ornament upon the wall. But I suppose it was how you were raised, wasn't it...?”

  “Kingsmen have no need for idle treasures.” Olea murmured, then raised her voice formally, ready to ask Elyasin to walk outside somewhere. Somewhere they could really talk, where Olea could disclose everything Vargen had told her. “Dhenra. I—”

  But Elyasin halted Olea with an upraised hand, and her next words were a surprise. “Did he come here?”

  Olea’s eyelids flickered, and even that was far more than her training should have allowed. “Who, Dhenra?”

  Elyasin’s gaze was chastising. “You know whom I mean.”

  His face was near, his storm-grey eyes so close. Olea sighed, her dream rising to punch her in the gut. “Alden.”

  “Did he come here? Did my brother spend time with you here?”

  “Sometimes.” Olea sighed. This was ancient news, and if someone was listening, there was nothing here to threaten Elyasin. “He would slip his guards, just like you do, and put out the rumor that he was whoring and drinking in the King's Quarter.”

  “I miss him.” Elyasin sank down regally upon the bed. Her hand passed over Olea’s buckwheat-grain pillow. “I can’t believe his death was nearly two years ago. I miss him more than father. Sometimes, I feel like he’s just around the next corner. If I walk the right hall, or find the right suit of armor, Alden will be inside, waiting to surprise me.”

  Olea’s mouth quirked despite the unshed tears that choked her. “Alden was a troublemaker and a rogue.”

  “He loved you.”

  Olea took one long, slow breath. When she had composure, she came to sit upon her hard bed next to Elyasin. “Elyasin. What’s this all about?”

  The Dhenra flushed, her body tight with misery. “I miss him,” she murmured. “I miss him, Olea, and no one knew Alden like you. It should be him taking father’s throne, with you by his side, making him strong like you always did. How am I supposed to do this alone? Who will stand with me… to help make me strong?”

  And suddenly, Elyasin was shattering, falling into Olea’s arms with renting sobs. The Dhenra was a proud woman and a fighter, so much so that Olea forgot she was still young, just twenty-one. Olea wrapped her arms around Elyasin, and the young woman reached up to hold her, just as they had upon receiving the news of Alden’s death. Tears threatened and Olea blinked them back. She leaned against the headrest with a sigh, cradling the Dhenra.

  “I couldn’t protect him,” Olea whispered, her voice rasping. “I was supposed to protect him, so he could protect you. So he could be here for you. We both failed you... I’m so sorry, Elyasin…”

  “It should be Alden ascending the throne. He was prepared to rule.” Elyasin’s words were soft in the night.

  Olea sighed, stroking her Dhenra's unruly golden locks. “He chafed at it. It was his duty, not his desire.”

  Elyasin’s breathing had settled. She snuggled close, one cheek to Olea’s Inkings. “He only desired you. His protector. His Kingswoman.”

  Olea’s hand paused. Their conversation had suddenly edged upon the deadly. “It's late, Elyasin. You should be in bed. Guarded.”

  “I am in a bed. And guarded.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Tell me about the day you met,” the Dhenra murmured.

  “I've told you over and over, Dhenra.”

  “Tell me again. It gives me strength.”

  Olea sighed, her dreams too near. She resumed stroking Elyasin’s hair, the young woman cuddled close. Metering her words carefully, she spoke at last. “He first saw me upon the practice grounds nine years ago. I was twenty-one, and Inked, and placed in the Palace Guard from my ability with weapons.”

  “You were very good with the sword, and with dual longknives. So Alden said when I asked why he had promoted you.”

  “It’s uncommon for a Guardsman to receive a promotion from the royal house. Usually that’s left to the Captain-General.”

  “Alden said you were a better swordsman than Captain-General den’Norrin. Even back then.”

  “Did he?”

  “He said you beat den’Norrin in three bouts back to back.”

  Olea chuckled. “I did. And then slapped my Captain-General on the butt with the flat of my sword after the third bout, just for spite. I wasn’t a model Guardsman. But just before the captain was about to skin my hide, Alden stepped onto the field, bare-chested and ready with his own sword. He waved den’Norrin away and grinned at me. And he said, come on, then, let’s see what you’ve got.”

  “He got more than he bargained for.”

  “I beat him five for five.” Olea smiled, enjoying the remembrance. “He insisted upon it, even though he was getting weaker. I drove him to his knees on the last bout, got my blade to his throat. Den’Norrin was furious. He motioned ten men forward for raising a blade to my Dhenir, but Alden waved them off. He just knelt there, watching me. I couldn’t move, couldn’t take my blade from his throat. Fury coursed through me. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to take from King Uhlas what he had taken from me. But I was paused. Something about Alden was too beautiful, too fierce, too wild, and it
held me. At last he whispered to me, and it was his words that broke me.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said, do it, if you want to. I would understand. I dropped my blade. I couldn’t kill him, even though a part of me craved it.”

  “For your people?” Elyasin’s voice was soft, murmured into Olea’s nightshirt.

  Olea nodded. “I was angry back then, Dhenra. I cultivated rebellion and spite because I didn’t know what else to do.”

  Elyasin cuddled close. Soft fingers stroked Olea's Inkings, and Olea startled at the Dhenra's touch. “You still aren’t, are you? A yhulen-thorn, father used to call you, like the story of the Yhulen-Thorn and King Trevius’ Sleep. He was furious when Alden promoted you. He gave Alden an earful in front of the Chancellate. My father never was very fond of you, was he?”

  But Olea stared at the mirror, recalling her dreams. In the silence of the moment, she knew she had to tell her Dhenra everything that could be told, right now. Uhlas’ secrets had run them all into blind corners. Alden had paid the price for it, and so had Olea, then finally the King himself. And now it was Elyasin who was at risk. It was far past time, that she hear everything. As long as it didn’t threaten her current safety.

  “Dhenra. You have to know something.” Olea murmured, taking a risk. “I thought Alden was the one who changed my life that first year, promoting me, giving me responsibility, trusting me. But I found out later that Uhlas had told him to do it, in secret. And Captain-General den’Norrin had secret orders directly from your father to tolerate Kingskinder, as did the other military Generals. We were not to be harmed in the ranks.”

  “What?” Elyasin’s head raised from Olea's shoulder, one golden eyebrow arched. “I thought my father hated you! The scene he made in front of the entire Chancellate when Alden promoted you!”

  “Was a ruse.” Olea murmured. “Your father and I were actually very close… in our way. Though we could never meet openly, we developed… an understanding. Over time.”

  “What do you mean?” Elyasin whispered, her body tense.

  Olea took another deep breath. “I first saw your father in the palace Annals, just a month after I came to the Guard. In those days, I was ardent to prove his Summons unlawful. I unearthed tome after tome of law. I was obsessed, believing there had to have been some mistake in the King’s Summons. But the more I looked, the less I found, just like you have noticed now.”

  “The Annals have been scrubbed of any mention of the Kingsmen and any law relating to them for nearly thirty years.”

  “Just so.” Olea agreed. “But as I lingered in the shadows of the archives, so did someone else.”

  “My father.”

  “Uhlas came many a night, dressed in black, perusing tomes like I did.” Olea murmured. “Guards never attended him. He never approached. But his attention gave him away. He was watching me. He approached me that midwinter’s eve at last, when I was drunk. We spoke of Alrashesh and his Summons, briefly. I was hotheaded, but he was cool, appraising me. Just a few weeks after that, he engineered for your brother and I to meet, to fight in the yards, so Alden would fall for me. And I for him, eventually. Uhlas knew our hearts better than we did at the time, Dhenra. And he did it to keep us together, to keep us both safe. He knew of you and I also, of you learning Kingsmen battle-arts from me, even as secret as we tried to be. And a few months after that… I found two slender tomes in the stacks. They’d been left in a pile of books I’d sequestered into my alcove. Uhlas was lingering nearby, watching, when I discovered them. He never spoke a word, but he smiled. He'd planted them for me to find. I'm certain of it. Two volumes from his personal collection…”

  Olea's gaze fell upon the ragged stack of books in the corner. Those two tomes, hidden deep in the pile, she had smuggled out of the Annals. Two slender cobalt leather volumes that spoke of the true Line of Kings, the original Alrashemni whose blood filled the veins of the Alrou-Mendera royal house. Uhlas's veins, Alden's veins. And Elyasin's. All of them, Alrashemni by blood. Uhlas had known it, had pointed Olea to the proof of it, those two tomes that chronicled house after house, all the way back to the founding of the nation, when the Alrashemni immigrants finally made peace with the native Menderian tribes. A history that went all the way down the royal line, the Linea den’Alrahel. The Line of the Dawn. The Line of Kings.

  Olea’s own family line.

  Olea needed to move them. They weren’t safe in her quarters, nor anyplace in Roushenn, not like she’d once thought. But if she moved them, someone might see. Her eyes flicked to the gilt-edged mirror. The candles had burned low. A blush of dawn lightened her solitary window. The trill of a fhrel-wren blossomed somewhere outside.

  “We have to get you back, Dhenra. You have courtiers to meet in a few hours.”

  “But you've hardly begun telling me about my father! And what about these books he ensured you'd find?” Elyasin sat up, suddenly tempestuous.

  “It's not safe to talk here.”

  “What?” Elyasin followed Olea's glance, confused. “What do you mean?”

  “I can't say more now, Dhenra. Please, trust me. Invite me out for a ride tomorrow.”

  “A ride?” Elyasin blinked. “I don't have time for a ride tomorrow! My schedule is packed solid with meeting suitors and discussing trade!”

  “Make some excuse.”

  “Captain.” Elyasin pulled away, an angry formality settling about her. “You will tell me the rest.”

  Olea's stomach clenched. If someone was watching, listening, anything more she might say could mean her Dhenra's death. And so Olea chose to abide her Dhenra's formidable wrath, which she could feel coming like a thunderstorm. “Dhenra. With all due respect. I will continue my story upon the morrow. Invite me out for a ride.”

  “You are defying a direct order from your liege, Captain.” Elyasin's eyes tightened, her lips set in a grim line. Olea saw again, how similar the two royal siblings had been. One a panther in the dead of night, the other a lioness. Elyasin was capable, a born ruler despite the weakness she berated herself for. She had taken over the realm as her father went slowly senile after Alden’s death, becoming bedridden from his supposed madness before he, too, succumbed. Though Olea had her suspicions about Uhlas’ death, his King’s Physician killed only a month before Uhlas’ own demise. It was all too convenient to have been coincidence. Far too convenient. And now, there was only one thing the tempestuous Elyasin would understand.

  Olea slid from the bed and knelt, one palm to her Inkings in a Kingsman bow. “Dhenra. Alden trusted me for a reason. Our hidden courtship had passion, but always I was his guard, even while we slept. I am your guard now. And I withhold information from you at this moment because I deem it unsafe to disclose.”

  “If you are withholding information that is vital to my realm, Captain-General, I will have your head for it!” Elyasin raged, not to be undone by Olea's plea. “My father kept secrets from me, and now I find Alden did, too. And you! You, whom I've always trusted, have kept secrets from me for years. Now I see the truth. Roushenn holds secrets deeper than the mountain, and from its liege! Secrets as elusive as the Ghost of Roushenn! I could have you thrown in the cells for hiding important information from me. The Kingsmen Summons is an issue of security. And finding out these secrets my father kept is vital to me holding my throne. You've raised my ire, Captain. Whatever secrets you and Alden found out, you will tell me. Now.”

  It was a scathing tirade. But Elyasin had no idea the danger she would be in, should such information come out within the walls of Roushenn.

  Olea growled, her temper flaring to match her liege as she rose. “Alden was sent to Ghrec with the merchant fleet to keep him safe! Far away from Roushenn! I was thrown in the cells because someone found out about us! And when Castellan Lhaurent revealed our affair before the Chancellate, Uhlas’ hand was forced. Whether it was Lhaurent who exposed us, or someone else who was spying, I don't know. But either way, it forced your father to part Alden from
his protection! And in that gap, both son and father were killed, one undone by treachery and the other by what I believe was a slow poison! So I withhold information from you now because I deem it unsafe, Dhenra. Please. You have to trust me. And we have to get you back to your rooms before anyone knows you've been here!”

  Olea seized her Guardsman's shirt from a nearby chair, yanking it on. Then her breeches, kneeboots, and jerkin. Her fingers raced up her shirt, lacing it nearly to her collarbones, covering her Inkings as she buckled her cobalt leather, then slinging on her baldric. Olea tousled her blue-black curls viciously, then turned, regarding her almost-Queen. To see a thoughtful woman now before her, Elyasin’s hot temper simmering, but less.

  Elyasin’s gaze flicked to the window. It was going to be a hot summer day. Olea could smell it in the air, could hear it in the way a chorus of wrens and ululi had begun their tirade now in force. “Take me back to my rooms,” Elyasin murmured. “We will continue our conversation later.”

  “As my Queen commands.”

  But those green eyes flicked back, razor-keen. “I’m not your Queen yet. But when I am, we will have some frank discussions, you and I. And you will tell me everything I ask. And you will tell me everything that I don't even know to ask. Are we quite clear, Captain?”

  “Yes my liege.” Olea nodded, letting out a single breath to bleed off the last of her own temper. She had come close, tonight, to being thrown in the cells. She could see it in the vibrating tension that rippled through the Dhenra, that set Elyasin's fine jaw, that made her temper flare.

  Olea pushed it aside. Elyasin could be pissed that vital information was being withheld from her tonight, but she would be alive. Olea strode to the door, hauling it open, glancing both ways. She heard no boots to either length of the soldier’s hall, and Elyasin whisked out quickly when she nodded. Closing her door, Olea offered her arm, but Elyasin raised her chin and strode forward, denying Olea the honor of acting as escort. Suppressing a growl, Olea fell into step behind her liege. She had never been allowed to walk next to Alden, either, despite everything. Olea was just a soldier.

  But once, monarchs and Kingsmen had walked side by side. And once, the kings of Alrou-Mendera had known they held Alrashemni blood. A secret that had pushed Uhlas into the shadows, that had made him paranoid after his Kingsmen had been tricked, fallen to treachery in his very own palace. A secret that Uhlas had trusted her with, and her alone, knowing that of them all, perhaps she was the only one who could do something about it. Who could protect what was left of the Alrashemni royal line. Elyasin. Herself. Elohl. Olea strode down the hall of low-burning torchlight behind her Dhenra. One hand touched her sword, scanning the niches and shadows for threats just as a true Kingsman should for her blood-kin liege.

  CHAPTER 18 – ELOHL