Elohl’s eyes snapped open, awake to a yell from down below. His first thought was that he felt amazing, every sinew at ease despite having apparently slept all night atop the high bluestone column, out in the elements. And feeling the sunshine blessing his skin now with warmth, a sweet breeze full of spring foxglove and linden wafting around the column, his mind strayed to a place of deep ease. He felt good, such as he’d not felt in a long time. But his mind sharpened suddenly, alarmed as another yell came from down below.
“Hey! Are you asleep up there?!”
Elohl’s tension eased. If Eleshen had been under attack, she’d not waste breath chastising him. And as he listened, he heard a muffled, “Dammit, Elohl, how do you climb so well…” waft up on the warming air.
A scuffling came from the base of the plinth. Elohl peered over the side. He watched Eleshen’s fruitless attempts at climbing for a few moments, finally unable to stop himself from chuckling. Like a thick canvas had fallen away from his mind, he found himself enjoying the brightness of the new day, and similarly enjoying Eleshen’s antics. She placed a bad foothold, and went sprawling on her pretty ass again, having ascended not even a foot above the ground. A natural, amused laugh rolled out from Elohl’s throat.
She gazed upwards, shading her eyes with one hand. “Very funny! Just sit up there all day and laugh at me bruising my ass! Ha, ha! What are you doing up there? And how the hell did you get up this thing?” Testy now, she slapped the stone with one hand.
Elohl chuckled again, loving how fierce she was, how unabashed. “Hang on, I’m coming down…” He stood and stretched languidly, breathing deep of the morning breeze. It was warm already, even up on the ridge as they were. Elohl blinked, trying to remember his dreams. Perplexed, he found them fleeting, just out of mind. All he recalled was a feeling of expansiveness so blissful that it lingered today, as if his heart was as wide as the sky, as light as the dawn. He thought back to waking in the night, remembered the pulsing of the column and feeling called to climb. But that was where the memory stopped, and Elohl supposed he had simply fallen asleep once he’d reached the lookout.
Rolling his shoulders, he shook out his legs and stretched his arms and hands, pushing worry away. It was too beautiful a day. He backed down over the side of the column. With graceful ease, he made it to the ground in moments, not a single hold out of place. Eleshen’s eyes were wide as he dusted his hands off at the bottom.
“Aeon’s brows, Elohl, where did you learn to do that?”
“You learn to climb trees fast when your twin is always hunting you down.” He grinned rakishly. He felt rakish this morning, and gazing at Eleshen now, he suddenly wanted to take her in his arms and kiss the Halsos out of her until she squeaked and hit him for mercy. He reached out, netting her at the waist, pulling her close, wanting her.
“Practice my ass.” Eleshen grumped good-naturedly, grinning at his attention, their argument of the previous day all but forgotten. Elohl knew that she was coming with him now, and that was that. And strangely, he felt fine about it this morning. Pulling her in for a kiss, their lips were just about to meet when Eleshen’s fingers suddenly flew to the neck of his shirt, pulling the laces open. “What the…? Elohl!”
Elohl chuckled, a very masculine heat in his body. “I know you’re coming with me, even if it means following ten paces behind the whole way to Lintesh. And I’m alright with it now, honestly—”
“No, Elohl! What happened to you?!” Her face was shocked, her fussy fingers all over his shirt, tugging it out of his breeches. “Take this off…!” Laughing, he moved his fingers to her bodice-laces, but she slapped them away. “No! Elohl, your skin! And your wounds are gone!”
“What?” Confused, Elohl glanced down at his chest where his shirt now bared a goodly patch of chest. There, where it should have just been his black Inkings and white blade-scars and the new red gash, whorls and scripts in gold flowed out from the black, up below his collarbones, disappearing beneath the fabric. Elohl shucked his shirt quickly. With the wind licking at his skin, he saw his body made anew. Like a spider’s filaments, his body was limned with tenuous filigree, sweeping arcs of gold as fine as Eleshen’s hair, radiating out from the Kingsmount and Stars, cascading across his chest, curling up below his collarbones, cresting up over his shoulders. Lines of gold dove down from his Inking, too, marking the centerline of his abdomen like the blade of a longsword, diving in thin lines below his belt and lower. And where the lines went, they formed patterns, arcane sigils surrounded by a flowing script in a hand so minute it was barely recognizable as language.
And all of his slashes from yesterday were utterly gone, as if they had never been.
“By Aeon’s hands…” Eleshen traced the markings of gold with light fingers. She wound behind him, tracing unseen markings from his shoulders all the way down his spine and up his nape into his hairline at the base of his skull. Her fingers lingered in the center of his back, tracing a pattern with a vaguely circular shape up over his shoulder blades and around his spine.
“Elohl!” She whispered at last. “It’s beautiful… the front is uncanny, but you should see the back!”
“What is it?” He murmured, too stunned, gazing at the lines of script upon his front.
“A dragon! And a wolf… fighting…” she murmured to the breeze.
Something in Elohl went cold, and the bliss of the sunny day dimmed. “Describe it for me.”
“They’re… well, they’re trying to kill one another! The wolf has the dragon’s neck in its jaws, and the dragon is disemboweling the wolf with talons, but it seems perfectly balanced…”
“As if neither is actually winning.” Elohl breathed. He could see it all, every nuance of it. Every part of it just the same as it had been upon the Deephouse doors of Roushenn so long ago.
“Precisely! But there’s more… they fight inside a ring of flame, but it’s more than fire, it’s the blaze of the sun! With thirteen flaming spokes, lighting their battle. Aeon, Elohl…! What do they mean? What happened to you up there last night?”
Elohl turned back towards the monolith, regarding the towering Alranstone. Standing behind it as they were, he could see nothing of the carven eyes upon the other side. Moving like a sleepwalker, he circled around, gazing upwards, already knowing what he would see. Already feeling it vibrating in his body, just there, like the hum of bees in a field so distant you have to listen to the wind to hear it.
And there it was, the corner of an eye open near the ground. He circled further, his breath catching. The lowest eye was fully open. All the eyes upon the massive plinth were wide in the morning sunlight. One had an iris of malachite, one an iris of flat jet. One was white moonstone, one a sunlight-flooded citrine. One was the red fire-opal that had gazed upon him before at the top of the column, one was blue lapis. And the center eye upon the column carried every color within its veins, reflecting a radiance so bright that it outshone diamonds.
Eleshen gaped next to him. “Well, they weren’t like that yesterday.”
“Were they like this when you woke?” Elohl breathed.
“Honestly, I didn’t look. I was too worried about where you had gone.”
Thrumming filled him, building in his sinews. Certainty. That somehow, this was his path, right here, right now, through this Stone. It was aware of him now. Aware, and docile. Elohl reached out a hand, placing it on the massive plinth. And when his fingers contacted the Stone, all seven eyes upon the column blinked.
Eleshen whistled. “Do that again.”
Elohl put his other hand to the stone. The column blinked again.
“Do you think we can travel by it now?” Eleshen whispered.
“Get your things,” Elohl murmured, “and get ready to travel.”
Eleshen nodded, one quick dip of her chin. Hastily, she moved off. Elohl heard sounds of her whisking through the grass, jangling her pack, stuffing away pots and bedrolls. And though he wanted to help her, something held him. He stood there, transfi
xed, eyes closed now, feeling the Stone, leaning into his palms. Almost, something came to him. A flash of a stern countenance, maybe. A feeling of purpose, like someone goaded him, challenged him.
And suddenly, Eleshen was back, one pack upon her, the other dragged across the overgrown flagstones. “Elohl? Are you all right?”
He blinked, realizing he’d been deep in trance. “Fine. Are you ready? Prepare for pain, Eleshen. This won’t be pleasant. And shuck your pack. Just hold it between your knees.”
She waved a hand dismissively, handing his pack over and then dumping hers, doing as he suggested. “Women know all about pain. Don’t worry about me. Let’s do this.”
He set his hands to the Stone again and she did the same. Elohl closed his eyes, digging into that trance, feeling the Stone’s sight crawling all over him, pulsing now, demanding. Demanding so many things, but first of all, that Elohl travel.
“All right, I’ll do it, you bastard…” Elohl breathed out at no one. “I’ll take it.”
He’d not known why he’d spoken those words, rather than the ones he’d been trained to since childhood, the words Alranstones supposedly responded to. But he needed say no more. In a clap of thunder that split Elohl’s ears, he was sucked in. Twisted through, folding and writhing, on the edge of screaming madness, pain ripped and gutted him. And just when he thought death had come, just as he was succumbing to it, it spat them out unceremoniously upon the other side, in a sprawling heap in the wooded grotto near Lintesh that Elohl remembered all too well. They sprawled into the tall grass. Gasping, Elohl could do nothing for a few moments, his body stunned. Feather-blume was in season, his mind noted from faraway, the tall wispy fronds obscuring the rest of the forest. Little keens of pain came from Eleshen at his side. But at last, his faculties returned, though everything still ached like it had been burned. He rose to his feet, offering Eleshen a hand. With a grimace of pain, she took it and rose.
“Let’s never do that again…!” She growled through gritted teeth, picking up her pack and slinging it on.
“What if we have to?”
Eleshen blinked, stopped, stared at him. “Do you have some plan you’ve not told me about since you dream-climbed that damn plinth? And got all those by some fucking magic no one will ever understand?” Her fussy fingers poked at his new markings, where they could still be seen above his jerkin’s high collar, a few tendrils creeping up the sides of his neck, though his jerkin’s cross-over flap was now buckled high and tight. “Yesterday, you were a gruff, troublesome man, Elohl. But today, you’re changed. Don’t tell me you can’t feel it. That Stone did something to you.”
He gazed at her, comprehending and yet not. A flicker of dream pushed through, suddenly. A man standing tall before him, decorated by sigils in red and white. But just as Elohl focused upon it, it slipped away. “Am I changed?” He murmured.
He hadn’t exactly been addressing Eleshen, but she nodded decisively. “I can’t put my finger on it yet, but you seem… lighter. More purposeful. Whatever that thing did to you, you’re less lost now, I’d wager my boots on it. Well? What now? What plan did that damn Stone dump into your brain? It better be a good one for all that misery we just endured!”
Elohl hefted his pack from where it had fallen on the ground when he sprawled through the stone. “I don’t have a plan, Eleshen. Other than collecting my pension and finding some Guardsmen to speak to, someone who might have known Olea. I’m a loyal Brigadier, honorably discharged. My name will be in the lists. I am instructed to pick up my papers of discharge at the West Guardhouse, and my discharge pay. So we’ll start there.”
Elohl started off through the copse of woods, angling left to follow the stream as it coursed out of the grotto away from the Alranstone, down the forest’s slope towards the city. He knew the way by heart, etched within him all those years ago, though his pain of those memories seemed distant today. As if the ice that lived within him had been sloughed, worn away, warmed. His long strides were easily matched by Eleshen’s short, quick ones. Soon, they were through the Kingswood, the sloped margins of the forest breaking to level fields as they approached the Watercourse Gate of Lintesh.
The gate was bustling with activity, people passing with carts and oxen, some higher lords moving through upon horseback. The land was dry this far down from the mountains, and on the edge of the Elhambrian Valley, it was hot with the sweeping fugue of summertime. Crickets chirruped to their passing. Cicadas whirred in the oaks that dappled the way at the edge of the forest. Elohl and Eleshen strode from the fields and onto the bluegrey grit of the thoroughfare, joining the activity that kicked up dust beyond the massive gates with their fanged portcullis high above, embedded into the towering guardwall of the First Tier.
The whole thing looked like a wolf’s maw to Elohl suddenly. He halted, staring at it, watching people moving in and out beneath those cruel iron fangs, engulfed and regorged by the beast, its jowls of stone wide. Eleshen paused at his side with a quizzical look. Elohl’s attention drew into his shoulder blades, the spot behind his heart humming, prickling. But it was only a vague discomfort, nothing that signified immediate danger.
Elohl squared his shoulders, adopting the pose of command he used with his climbing team. Glancing down, he made sure the crossover flap of his military jerkin was properly buckled. The thin lines of gold upon the sides of his neck would raise eyebrows, but only because it was unusual. Inking was not common in Alrou-Mendera, but there were places on the borders where customs had come from other lands. Soldiers were often Inked in various ways, especially if they had traveled.
He strode forwards, towards a knot of guards that stood by idly to keep the foot traffic and carts flowing. Fishing out his discharge notice from his leather belt-purse, he walked up to a likely guard with blonde hair and a stern, no-nonsense face, and a posture of strength that spoke of rank. The man noted his approach with cool interest, his eyes flicking over the small amount of gold that could be seen upon Elohl’s neck, before noting Eleshen with obvious pleasure.
“Business in the King’s City, Soldier?”
Elohl nodded and handed over his notice. The man scanned it, then looked up, his eyebrows raised with respect. “High Brigade? Honorable discharge of completed service? We don’t get many of these. Follow me, please, Lieutenant.”
The stocky guard left instructions and the rest saluted him, confirming Elohl’s suspicion of his position. He led the way, dodging and weaving through the mid-afternoon traffic of the Tradesman Quarter. Carts and people lingered at the colorful awnings of market-stalls all along the upsloped main avenue, leading towards the higher Tiers of the city, nestled in the embrace of the encircling Kingsmount. Pennants with the cobalt crest of House den’Ildrian fluttered in the hot breeze, lofted upon tall wrought-iron poles at intervals between solid buildings of ancient bluestone. Some of the buildings in this poorer Quarter were ornately gabled and fluted, carved straight from crags of the mountain, but the area was dominated by lower four-story affairs built of hewn stone blocks. Here and there were houses of thatch-and-beam, crammed in among the rest like an afterthought.
The broad avenues had been expertly designed long ago, their blocks tightly-fitted though deeply worn from the passage of traffic over time. Dust gathered, swirled up into the air with a reek that smelled of city, unclean to Elohl’s nose. Sweat and horse, shit and piss, the iron tang of smelted metals. Elohl swatted at a fly trying to lick sweat from his neck. But despite its brusque, impersonal nature, the city around the palace had the easy feel of summer. Wash lines extended from nearly every window, fluttering like festival flags. Folk laughed, worn faces smiling as they drank ale, listening to a bard belting out a humorous song on a tavern porch for the midday meal. A troupe of Travelers performed at the fountain ahead, tambourines chiming, drums pounding as a sextet of tumblers launched each other into the air.
Elohl stared around him, seeing such a different city than he remembered. That night it had been full of ghosts, but
today, it was full of life. A life so hot and bright that something warm glowed in his chest. Something purposeful and good, that made him smile as he saw a tiny girl clearly enjoying the hell out of a ripe sour-melon. Bright green juice was all over her chubby little cheeks, being wiped at to no avail by her scolding mother.
Something bubbled up within him, and Elohl laughed. Eleshen blinked at him, stunned.
The soldier escorting them looked over, a grin upon his face. “Feel good to be home?”
“Lintesh isn’t my home. But it feels good all the same.” Elohl found he was smiling.
“So were you a rope-man, Lieutenant?” The solider spoke again.
Elohl shook his head. “Lead-hand.”
The man’s blonde eyebrows nearly crawled off his face. “Not many lead-hands make it ten years.”
“I’m the first in three seasons.”
“Seen some action?”
Elohl nodded. “Skirmishes the past few summers. But the Red Valor tend to not assault the border when the snows are more than ten feet deep in the low crags.”
“And in the high crags?”
Elohl smiled at the man. “High pass climbing is all snow, all the time. We pick our way up frozen gorges and waterfalls. Gotta watch out in summer, though. Usually the waterfalls aren’t as stout as they seem.”
The man blinked. “You are one ballsy—” he glanced briefly at Eleshen, “—gentleman.”
Elohl laughed, his heart soaring to the brightness and noise. He clapped the fellow on the back. “Whatever you say. I’m just glad it’s over. Time for me and the missus to settle down. Once we get my King’s Pension.” It was a light ruse, but one that was needed right now, just in case Elohl was still being followed.
The guard’s gaze slid to Eleshen, admiring, who smiled indulgently. “Are there any farms or inns for sale in the area, my good man?” She quipped, playing the ruse.
The Guardsman dipped his chin. “Not that I can say, missus. I just keep the gates. You’ll have to see the King’s Castellan, Lhaurent den'Karthus, about the buying and selling of property in the region. The King’s Household keeps all those lists.”
“And whom do I see about my pension?” Elohl asked, making conversation until he could delve deeper into asking about whether this fellow knew about Olea.
“The Captain-General should be in the West Guardhouse right about now. She’s the one to see. Her secretary can’t dispense funds without her present, so if she’s not there, you’ll have to wait a bit. But there’s plenty of shopping and amusement in the Central Plaza, good taverns, too. The White Wheat makes a great lamb mitlass, not to mention has a private contract with the Jenners for their best pale ale every season. Lots to do while you wait for Captain den’Alrahel.”
Elohl pulled up short, stunned. “Captain?” His mouth fought for words. “Your captain is a she?” His heart hammered his chest, his senses soared wide, hoping. Fearing.
“Yeah! Most beautiful goddess of the sword you’ve ever met! But don’t tell Captain Olea I said that. She’d gut me, knives fast as she has and temper three times as quick! And a word of advice? No matter your feelings on the Kingsmen Treason, don’t mention her Inkings. She got ‘em, she flaunts ‘em, and she’ll not give you your pension if you get nasty. I’ve seen it. Here we are! The Central Plaza. West Guardhouse is just there, across the way. Enjoy Lintesh, Brigadier! You too, milady.”
With a salute to Elohl and a bow over Eleshen’s hand, he turned away, threading off into the throng. Elohl was left with his gaze pinned to the main gates of Roushenn Palace, looming between two towers of stone. The Guardhouses were austere, made of solid bluestone carven out with arrow-slits, topped with niches aplenty for a whole host of archers to rain hell down upon any invader. The massive wall above the gate was crowned with trebuchets, more spaced along the turrets of the wall, all glinting in the sunlight, well-oiled despite having never been used in recent memory.
But it was not what caught Elohl’s attention. The throng that dappled the broad market-plaza with its sprawling byrunstone fountain might as well have not been. There, far across the plaza, standing at the foot of the steps to the West Guardhouse, was his life. His feet sped, swift over the cobbles. Sound died away. Thought died away. There she was, stretching in the sunshine like a cat, currying her fingers though her tangle of blue-black curls and fanning that river of hair from the back on her neck in the sweltering heat. His gaze focused past her Guardsman's jerkin, to her Inking so brazenly displayed. To her slender-muscled height, beautiful as a sword. Closing the distance, he saw the sea-grey of her eyes now, so clear, so luminous.
Olea had always seemed that way, like her very being had been spun of pure light.
A smile Elohl hadn’t felt in ages blossomed over his face. He shucked his pack to the dusty flagstones. And in two final, running strides, he had closed the distance. She gasped, her eyes wide. But she had no more moments to react as Elohl scooped his twin into his arms, pulling her close, smelling her blue-black curls, feeling every part of her come back to him. Joy flooded him. Peace. Crushing her close, he felt her, all of her, so beautiful. Her body was thinner than he remembered, corded with sinew. He could feel ribs beneath her cobalt jerkin, as if she wasn’t eating well. He pressed his lips to her wayward curls, crushing her close. A sense of completion overtook him as he felt her lips upon his jaw. Elohl tasted salt. It took a moment before he realized he was crying.
“Elohl!” She breathed, her arms fierce around his neck. “You came!”
“Olea.” He murmured into her tousled hair. “Aeon… where have you been?!”
“I’ve been here! I’ve been here the whole time!” She squeezed him, fierce. “When you stopped writing, I… I thought… But your name never came off the lists, no one ever reported you dead or missing…!”
Elohl pulled back, gazing down into her lovely grey eyes, the storms in them roiling to match his own, but lighter, safer. His twin. A part of his being, a part of his very self and yet not. Emotion flooded out of him, drowning him, lifting him, cracking whatever remained of his ice in sheets and sending it shuddering through his veins in a blissful tremor. He seized her face, rough and tender, kissing her brow, pressing their foreheads together.
“I never stopped writing, Olea! Every month, I wrote…”
“What?” Olea pulled back, her eyes red-rimmed. “But… I stopped getting letters eight years ago!”
Trepidation rippled Elohl’s gut. “I stopped getting yours at the same time…”
Olea’s grey eyes suddenly went hard and flicked around the wide plaza. “Not here. Inside.” She hissed suddenly. “Hold your tongue until I say it’s safe. Too many people may have seen us.”
Olea stepped out of his arms, brusque, as if nothing had happened. She turned and leaped the stairs to the guardhouse in a few long strides. Elohl followed, perplexed, Eleshen quiet upon his heels. Once they were inside in the stifling gloom, it was all business. Olea accepted Elohl’s notice of discharge, filing it in one of the many racks of scrolls and tomes that ringed the ample first level. She returned with a formal writ, had it witnessed by herself and her young secretary and stamped with a seal, her manner still efficient, kind but distant. She left the room. Elohl heard the clanking of a lockbox. Returning, she handed over a King’s Note in Elohl's name for the majority of his pension and the rest in gold and some smaller change in a leather pouch. Coin changed hands. A formal thanks was given in the thick heat of the guardhouse.
Olea was escorting him and Eleshen to the door, when she leaned in swiftly and murmured, “Follow the man at the fountain. I’ll be along.” Then she clasped Elohl's arm as if they were strangers, and shut the guardhouse door.
“Some homecoming! What was that all about?” Eleshen growled.
“Not now,” Elohl murmured. “Follow me.”
She shrugged, then followed in his wake through the throng in the plaza. Elohl scanned the crowd, wondering whom Olea had meant. But before he’d so much as turned i
n a circle, he suddenly felt a prickling blossom through his sensate sphere. He was being watched. He turned, his gaze sharpening upon the near edge of the fountain. And there, lounging upon the rim and staring at a potter’s stall, sat a man who was clearly Alrashemni. Broad-shouldered, thick like a mountain, he was all stone and strength, his black curls shining blue in the sun.
The man at the fountain stood as they approached, his gaze skating over Elohl, then Eleshen. Turning, he moved his bulk off through the crowd, dodging carts with an ease that any other man his size could never have mastered. His movement confirmed what Elohl had already known. That he and Eleshen were in good hands.
He let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. Winding through quiet alleys, then dipping back into the city throng under the gate-portcullises, they wound their way back down through the Tiers to the Tradesman Quarter. The man disappeared down an alley, and when Elohl turned in, he saw the double-doors of a workshop open at the end. With a glance at Eleshen, who had been increasingly silent all this while, he strode forwards, feeling out for any threat. But there was none as they gained the end of the alley. Elohl and Eleshen slipped in the doors and out of the muggy heat into a cool, well-drafted workshop that smelled of silver tang. Inside, the mountainous man studied Elohl, leaning with arms crossed at a workbench. The forge-fires were unlit in his shop, a soft gloom suffusing the space, lit by a filtering of light down from high panes of smoky glass set all along the shop’s apex. At last, the man took one knee. He put a hand to his side where a sword should have been, and fingers to the scars upon his chest, where an Inking should have been.
“Alrashemnesh ars veitriya rhovagnen,” he recited formally. “Alrashemni are welcomers of truth.”
Elohl shucked his pack by the door and took a knee also, making the same motion, one hand to a longknife at his hip as his sword was currently strapped to his back. The other palm went to his buckled leather jerkin, over his hidden Inkings. “Alrashemnesh ars veitriya rhovagnen.” He returned. It was a common start to Alrashemni negotiations. “I also welcome truth, and will speak whatever I can.”
The man rose, a kind smile lifting his scar-riven face. “You look just like your father, lad. Elohl, is it? Your sister said to expect you.”
A strange peace filled Elohl, gazing upon this man, knowing who he was, feeling the truth about him, shining and gentle. “You knew my father?”
He gave a small smile. “Some. Urloel was a great man. I hadn’t the occasion to meet him more than thrice, when he visited Dhemman to meet with our council, but he was tremendously wise, and patient. I’ve never seen such an accomplished negotiator. You should be proud, lad. He was a shining example of how we all should be.”
A choking feeling gripped Elohl’s throat, to hear such kindness, to feel it touching him, bolstering him. But there was no burn of anger anymore, and no freeze of calm. His emotions came naturally today, in a ripple that moved out from his heart and made him murmur, “Thank you.”
The big man nodded, stern but kind. “You’d be a Rakhan now—”
“I don’t wish to be.”
“Still.” The man’s deep grey eyes bored into Elohl. “It’s yours by right. By training. I can see the depth of leadership all over you, lad. I can feel it, deep in my heart. You’re Urloel’s son through and through. Hardship… has only honed it.”
Tears pricked Elohl. Eleshen was silent at his side. Her fingers stole out, clasping his lightly, a comfort. Elohl found he had nothing to say. Thoughts swirled in his mind of a time long gone, seeing how his life might have unfolded. Something must have shown upon his face, because the big man took a massive breath, then sighed it out.
“Forgive me.” He murmured. “I didn’t mean to—”
But just then, Olea strode in through the workshop’s heavy halberd-wood double doors, her curls wild. Elohl couldn’t stop himself from smiling with relief in his heart, singing his life like harp strings. She came straight to him, and Elohl wrapped his twin in his arms, fierce. She embraced him back, fervent, clutching him close.
“Elohl...” Olea breathed at his cheek. “Aeon be praised!”
“I told you I would find you.” He murmured in her ear, kissing her temple. “I told you I would always come for you. No matter what happened. No matter how far apart we are…”
He heard Olea's choked sob, felt her shudder as she gripped him. “You don't know how hard it's been, without you...! Feeling that you were alive but without any confirmation of it!”
“When I find out who was waylaying our letters...” A fierce anger rose in Elohl at last, raging hot in his gut. Protective, he clutched Olea closer, never wanting to be separated from her again. And in this moment of fierce love, he felt a stillness wrap he and Olea both, a moment of calm emptiness. Olea heaved a massive breath, then sighed, pulling back at last. Elohl set his lips to her forehead and she leaned into his kiss, eyes closed, breathing quietly.
“I love you.” Elohl murmured, feeling it, all the ferocity of it, all the pain, all the bliss.
“I love you too, Elohl.” Olea murmured. “I love you so much!”
But rather than indulging her emotions further, it was Olea who pulled back, setting her hands to his shoulders, regarding him with a frank intensity that was frightening in it levelness. Elohl saw his own hardship, his own maturation staring back at him, ten years honed, ten years of Halsos’ Hell. Olea had weathered it, same as he. And come out fighting with a natural strength and righteousness, the presence of a commander and the steadiness of one. Elohl had always had to fight his inner rage, to be glacial and calm. But Olea had steadiness in abundance, the true leader for war.
Brisk and efficient, she gave him a small shake at the shoulders. “We have information that must be shared, Elohl. I'm afraid you've come home under a strange moon. The interference in us keeping contact is not the only atrocity that's been brewed against the Kingsmen all these years.” Her hands fell from his shoulders and she turned, glancing at Vargen. “What did I miss?”
“We were just introducing ourselves,” Vargen rumbled gently. “But I didn’t get your name, milady?” He smiled, welcoming, to Eleshen.
Eleshen flushed noticeably. If she’d taken a step out to shake Vargen’s hand, Elohl was certain she’d have bumbled it. Even so, she flicked her long honey-blonde braid distractedly, managing to get it tangled in her pack-strap. She hauled it out, ripping a number of strands of hair, all with her wide eyes pinned to the big Kingsman.
“Eleshen.” She cleared her throat, speaking louder. “Eleshen den’Fenrir.”
“Welcome, Eleshen.” Vargen’s lips lifted. “Welcome to a Council of the Kingsmen. Though you bear no Inking, I can see you are a friend. But be warned. Anything you see, hear, or do in our presence may put you at risk. It should be your choice, to stay for our council or no.”
She cleared her throat again. “Well. Forgive me, big man, but I’ve already been involved in two assassination attacks on the road since meeting Elohl. And I’m thinking that I’m safer here with the three of you in this workshop than anywhere else in the nation! So. I’ll stay put. Thank you very much.”
“Assassination attacks?” Olea’s grey eyes were livid. “What? Who?”
“I don’t know who.” Elohl murmured, reaching out to steady her with a hand to the shoulder. “And I don’t know why. But my life has been attempted a number of times these past years, Olea.”
She blinked at him, perusing his face, his skin, his forearms where he had his shirtsleeves rolled up from the heat. He saw her note the blade-scars on the backs of his forearms from fighting, though his other wrist-scars were still hidden. Her gaze traveled up, noting how his jerkin was fully buckled, even in this heat. Her gaze lingered upon the sides of his neck.
She blinked. “Did you have yourself Inked with gold-leaf? Where in Aeon’s blazes did you have that done…?”
Elohl felt himself smile. “Those happened yesterday. Well, last night, actually.”
Olea raised her
eyebrows. Elohl filled her in on the seven-eye tower and of his golden Inkings, giving her a succinct briefing as if they had never spent years apart. He watched Olea become more and more astonished with every word. When Elohl had finished, she reached out and touched the golden marks above his collar. Indulging her, he reached up, unbuckling the crossover flap of his leather jerkin, pulling it open, unlacing his shirt so she could see the pattern’s tendrils at their fullest, where they commingled with his true Inkings.
“Holy gods all above…” He heard Vargen utter softly.
“I always thought there was something special about you.” Olea had reached out, her calloused fingertips tracing the sigils and whorls of finest gold, lingering over the lines of minute script. “Mother used to say it. Protect Elohl, look out for him. He has a wyrrian way about him.”
“There’s more on my back.” Elohl murmured. “A sigil of a wolf and dragon fighting. Inside a flaming sun.”
Olea’s gaze flicked up to his, stunned. “Like the emblem in Roushenn’s throne room…! And upon the Deephouse doors.” Her grey eyes went distant for a moment, and Elohl saw thoughts burning through her like a wildland fire. Her brows knit. “Elohl. We need to speak privately. I have some… information I need to share with you.”
Vargen's boulder voice interrupted them as he cleared his throat. “This conversation requires dinner and ale. Allow me to go out to the tavern down the street. I will fetch whatever we need tonight. Eleshen, would you care to accompany me?”
Olea’s smile was filled with relief at the Kingsman’s tact. And Eleshen for her part, flushed to the roots of her hair. “I’d be honored to,” she stammered, beaming. She glanced Elohl’s way.
“Go.” Elohl murmured. “You’ll be as safe with him as you’d be with me. Safer, maybe.”
She nodded, a complex emotion sliding through her. But when Vargen offered his arm, she took it as escort, and the two of them issued out through the double doors. Vargen glanced back to Olea and murmured, “Look for us within the hour. If we’re not back, ask the weaver across the alley. She has a reliable network of street lads, they’re good at finding people and gaining information.”
“I will.” Olea murmured.
Vargen nodded. He and Eleshen moved off, shutting the massive doors. Once they were gone, Olea turned back to Elohl, serious in the filtering gloom of the workshop. “Elohl. I have to tell you something right away. Other information about our kin’s disappearance will come out when Vargen returns, and you will hear everything that has so startled me these past few weeks, since Vargen and I made acquaintance. Since the Dhenra bid me re-open the investigation I was once making into the Kingsmen treachery with the Dhenir right before it killed him. But I have something else I must say first.”
Elohl blinked. It was a tirade of information, spilling from his sister’s lips. Startling information that made his heart jump, eager to know, eager to hear. “What do you mean? What have you found?”
“Later. For now, you have to know…” Her grey eyes shone with light, with ferocity. And with fear. “That you and I are of the King’s own line. That the surname den’Alrahel is ancient, and once it was blended with the crown. That men and women of House den’Alrahel, Linea den’Alrahel, have actually sat the throne, Elohl. And that House den’Ildrian is closely related. They have Alrashemni blood, Elohl. King Uhlas. Dhenir Alden. Dhenra Elyasin. And ours is no less royal.”
Elohl’s lips had fallen open. His mind roiled, denying it, wanting to forget what he had just heard. But like a storm, it built within him, churning, spinning, burning. A fierceness and a light came with it, a feeling of knowing. A face surfaced in his mind, a stern, wild face. Whorls of red and white Inkings.
Rennkavi.
Elohl’s legs turned to water. He stepped aside, sat heavily upon a workbench nearby. And like they’d been called, his Inkings began to itch and burn, searing upon his chest, prickling upon his shoulders and all down his back. “Royal?” Elohl whispered.
Olea had come to sit beside him. “King Uhlas told me. He knew. He gave me two tomes of the Alrashemni royal lineage, back to the founding of Alrou-Mendera.”
“But… our blood is thinned…” Elohl’s mind fought desperately for excuses, but his golden Inkings surged, thrumming.
“Not as thinned as Elyasin’s.” Olea breathed. “You and I still carry abilities, Elohl. Strange ways. Like the stories of the ancient Alrashemni. It’s the King’s line that has thinned out.”
“But they hold the throne. We’re sworn to them. The family who killed our people.” His eyes flicked to her.
She nodded. “So we are, Elohl. And I hold to it. I want no throne. I will never challenge Elyasin. She is our Queen-to-come, and I will fight for that with my very last breath. But this secret has been worth killing over. Someone knows. They’ve been trying to kill us all. The Kingsmen Summons was not given by Uhlas. He had nothing to do with it. He was deceived, as we were. I’ve had my share of assassination attempts, too. But they never get close enough, surrounded by Guardsmen as I constantly am. I’ve not told Elyasin about them…”
“Perhaps you should.”
Olea waved a hand. “She doesn’t know about all this. Not just yet. It places her in danger, and I can’t speak about it within the palace walls.”
“What do you mean? Because of palace spies? But you’d hear them coming, hear them hiding in the alcoves…”
“No. I don’t.” Olea’s gaze was frank upon him. “And that’s part of the concern. What Vargen will tell you when he returns is horrible, Elohl. Prepare yourself for it. Our kin did not leave Roushenn alive, of that I am now certain.”
“They’re gone.” He breathed softly. Some part of him had known. Some part of him had always known that it had been their last day, that morning he had escaped Roushenn.
“They’re all gone.” Olea murmured, reaching out to clasp his hand. “But we’re not. And the Dhenra’s not. Though someone wishes we were.”
Blackmark (The Kingsmen Chronicles #1): An Epic Fantasy Adventure Sword and Highland Magic Page 31
