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

by Jean Lowe Carlson

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  Torchlight flickered in the brackets along the stone wall as Aldris den’Farahan offered a flagon of klippas-ale through the bars of Olea’s cell. The Upper Cells still smelled like a prison, damp with rot and rat droppings, but at least they were warm as a potato cellar rather than a glacier. Olea’s dark cell had a cot with a decent pallet of fresh straw, plus a thick wool blanket, a ceramic basin with a fresh pitcher of water, and a proper chamber-pot with an actual lid. It was generous, really, compared to the cesspit starkness of the Lower Cells. Aldris’ casual stance seemed amused as he leaned up against Olea’s bars, but Olea could see his vast worry beneath.

  “Pissed off the Queen. Nice move, Captain.”

  Olea took a long swig before handing the flagon back, worry and anger ripping through her gut, making it hard to even keep down the ale. “She’s not Queen yet, not for another six days. Dammit! She needs me up there to protect her, Aldris, not rotting away down here all week!”

  Aldris shrugged, took a swig. “Seems she doesn’t think so. Thinks she can just protect herself, apparently. Maybe she’ll wind up stuffed in a trunk on her wedding day…”

  Olea leaned on the bars, arms crossed, giving Aldris her best scowl. “That isn’t funny.”

  He grinned, handing the flagon back, but his grin was dire. “She gussies you up all fancy, then shits in your stew? You must have pissed her off good. Everyone knows you’re her favorite. She allows you liberties she doesn’t give anyone. The men call you the Dhenra's Champion, did you know that?”

  Olea scowled. “Some champion. I can’t do anything for her from down here!”

  “What got her lace in a bunch?”

  Olea shook her head. “Don’t ask me about it.”

  Aldris smiled knowingly. “The same don’t ask me that gets me and Fenton covering your shifts two to one while you sneak off all around the palace and the city? Where have you been going, Olea? I was gonna have you tailed, but Fenton and I talked, he thought it was a bad idea. Said you’d hear me and chuck me down here in the cells!” Aldris laughed, amused at his own joke, then took a swig from the flask, still chuckling.

  “Fenton was right,” Olea glowered at Aldris. “You two stay out of it. It’s the Dhenra’s business, not yours.”

  Aldris shrugged, gave her the flagon. “Boys who took you in told me they overheard you and the Dhenra shouting before I got close. Something about investigating the Kingsman disappearance.”

  Olea’s stomach gripped hard, to know that Elyasin had been loud enough to be overheard when she had gotten livid. Olea’s secret was out now, that she was investigating the Kingsman disappearance. If those Guardsmen had heard, it would be all over the barracks and guardhouses by sundown. And if they knew, it was a short eavesdropping before the veritable army of household maids, cooks, porters, and everyone else knew, like Lhaurent. Olea tried to shake off the feeling of being watched. Glancing at the walls of her cell, she squinted past the bars to the shadows of the torch-lit hallway. She was becoming as paranoid as Uhlas had been at the end.

  “Captain?”

  Olea roused herself, gave Aldris a forbidding glare. “I said it's the Dhenra's business. Leave it be. And shut up any fool mouths that you hear passing that information around.”

  Aldris nodded, but his green eyes were narrowed now. Olea saw him warring between asking her another question, which could get him reprimanded, and shutting the fuck up. Olea handed the flagon back through the bars, but Aldris just looked at it, still warring internally. Finally, he shook his head. “Keep the drink. I gotta get back up to the banquet. Fenton is getting lonely guarding the Dhenra’s pretty ass. Anything you need, Captain? I’ve arranged for a bit of the banquet leftovers to be brought down later for you.”

  Olea shook her head, then thought better of it and reached through the bars, grabbing Aldris by the blue jerkin, pulling him in so close their lips nearly touched.

  Aldris raised his eyebrows, grinning. “Last kiss?”

  “Shut up and listen.” Olea snapped. Aldris den’Farahan’s smirk was instantly wiped clean, replaced by that cool calculation and keen mind Olea had promoted him for. “I believe Elyasin is in danger. Very serious danger. This week is the most serious. I have reason to believe Dhenir Alden and King Uhlas were both murdered because they had a personal connection to the Alrashemni.”

  “Personal?” Aldris murmured, betraying surprise. “How personal?”

  “Blood-kin personal.” Olea hardly breathed it.

  “Fuck.” Aldris’ bare murmur summed it up nicely.

  “If I’m right,” Olea breathed, “they’ll try to strike Elyasin, and do it before her Queen’s Writ is signed, before she’s technically able to rule on her own without the Chancellate. Triple her guard. From now on, either you or Fenton plus one of my six best are there like flies on pigs, whether she’s awake or sleeping. Trust nothing and no one.”

  Aldris’ eyebrows rose. “Damn. I mean… shit.”

  Olea growled and yanked Aldris closer, barely breathing her words. “Roushenn holds its secrets, Aldris. Closer than any of us ever suspected. There are passages behind every passage, passages we know nothing of, and can’t control. Keep an eye on the walls and mirrors. The walls of Roushenn move. They fucking move and I don’t know who or what controls it! Only that it secured the end of the Kingsmen. All of them, annihilated, in a single night. They never escaped this palace, Aldris. The fucking Kingsmen, the most talented fucking fighters on the entire continent, couldn’t escape Roushenn. They died here. These bluestones aren’t what they seem. And I think Castellan Lhaurent knows something about it. I think he knows what the walls can do… or maybe has access to it. And assassins… where we can’t find them.”

  She let Aldris go. He gaped at her, blinking at Olea like she had gone mad. “Are you fucking serious?”

  Olea narrowed her eyes. “Do I look serious?”

  Aldris nodded slowly, slipping into a deep grimness. “Yeah. You look really fucking deadly, actually. You look like you mean every fucking word you just said.”

  Olea yanked her new shirt down, the laces undone now that she was no longer guarding the Dhenra. She widened the gap, baring her Inking. “Then hear me. Never forget what I am, Aldris. I am an Alrashemni Kingswoman to the death. And Elyasin is my King. So swear me to Aeon and all the Gods, if anything happens to her, I will begin a bloodbath until my blade runs through every last throat involved. Are we clear, Guardsman?”

  Aldris nodded slowly, and his green eyes held no laughter. “Clear as diamond, Captain.”

  At her nod, he turned swiftly, moving off down the flickering hall at a jog to see her orders done. Olea sank back against the bars with a growl, feeling caged. Worry gnawed at her, set her to pacing her five-by-five cell like a beast. Tousling her hair violently, she found herself ripping at the strands, something she’d not done since she was a child. A tingling feeling skittered over her again, like roaches on her skin. Olea halted, breathing silently, listening. But she didn’t hear a soul, other than the young first-year Guardsman currently on duty trimming his fingernails with his knife.

  The sensation of being watched dogged her as she began to pace again. Olea tried to breathe past the clenching in her gut, past the feeling of paranoia, past her rage at being in here, past her terrible fear that something was about to happen now that she was caged. She was pacing the five-square of her cell for the umpteenth time when her tray finally came down from the banquet. A Guardsman carried it, but he was not a mere soldier. Trim and wiry, her First-Lieutenant Fenton den’Kharel had a spring of vicious speed and strength to his step as he approached, a fluidity of movement like lightning over ice.

  Not a man of many words, Fenton slid her tray along the stones into her cell via the pass-through. He hunkered, interlacing his calloused fingers expectantly, dark brows brooding. Olea hunkered also, squatting to eat from the tray with her hands. The roast goose was still warm, smeared liberally with peach chutney. A fennel salad with roasted
honey-nuts went into her mouth as fast as the goose. It had been a very long time since breakfast, and Olea found herself eating quickly, memories of starving in the Lower Cells nearly two years ago crowding close.

  Her cell had not been as nice then as it was now. Not by far. Fenton watched her eat in silence, and when Olea finally wiped her mouth, his eyebrows rose expectantly.

  “Is Aldris guarding the Dhenra?” Olea asked.

  Fenton nodded, his gold-brown eyes thoughtful by the torchlight. “She’s asleep. Aldris and den’Thanut will take watch until noon tomorrow. I convinced the Dhenra that security was needed inside her rooms at night and attending her person closely, just two for the duration of the week. I placed a guard of four on each door to her suites, and we’ve got three men on the walls watching her windows. They’ll rotate every six hours.”

  Olea leaned back against the bars with a sigh. “It’s not enough. We have to get her out of the palace entirely. Dammit!”

  Fenton traced a pattern in the dirt on the stones with one well-calloused finger. “What’s this about, Olea?”

  Olea grimaced. “You’d think I’m insane if I told you.”

  He continued tracing, but his attention was sharp upon her. “I’ve seen a lot of things in my time, Captain.”

  Olea nodded, her gaze roving over his brown hair that still showed no spot of grey, that face that was chiseled but still vaguely smooth, those quiet, gold-brown eyes that were given to silence. “How old are you, Fenton?”

  His smile was secretive, wry. “Older than I look. Younger than I feel sometimes. Wise enough to know insanity and den’Alrahel don’t connect. You’ve always been steady and loyal. Everyone knows you’d be the first to die for the Dhenra, as you were for the Dhenir. You and Uhlas may not have had much love between you, but you’d die for his heirs, and that’s plain.” His fingers traced on. Olea noticed the pattern stabilize into a Kingsmount and Stars in the dust by the bars. “What I mean to say, Captain, is that I know what you’ve been up to.”

  Olea scowled. “Everyone knows now, dammit.”

  He nodded quietly, tracing another pattern. “What the Dhenra said today confirmed it, yes. But I knew before then. Aldris wanted to tail you, but he’s too sloppy. I know it wasn’t wise, but sometimes I’m not known for being wise.”

  “You’ve been following me.” Olea blinked, stunned. She’d not heard a damn thing.

  Fenton nodded, still tracing. His gold-brown eyes were knowing when he looked up. “I’ve seen the silversmith, seen his scars. I’ve seen your brother and his pretty woman, I followed them to the Jenner’s compound yesterday. I know you’ve been poking through the Unterhaft. I know…” He stopped suddenly, evaluating her, then falling quiet for good.

  “Out with it, Lieutenant.”

  His eyes were wary. “I’ve followed you quite a few times, over the years. And the Dhenir, too, back when he would wander at night. And I follow Elyasin, regularly, sometimes without your orders…”

  Fear ripped through Olea. Quickly followed by a vicious anger. She snarled at the bars, gripping them hard, feeling the heat of fighting animals roaring through her. “Whom do you serve, cur?!” She snarled. “To whom do you give all this information?!”

  But Fenton shook his head quickly, calm. “I am First Lieutenant Guardsman, Captain. It is my duty to know where my lieges go. I report to my Captain-General, and to her alone. Unless my lieges are in danger.”

  “And then to whom do you report?” Olea growled like a menacing dog.

  Fenton put one hand to his heart, his eyes holding hers as he sidled close to the bars. Olea saw his fingers quickly undoing his jerkin buckles and shirt laces, always immaculately attended to. She realized he was close enough that if anyone was watching in the torch-dark hall, they could not have seen what he was doing. At last, she saw what he wanted her to see, the Kingsmount and Stars plain upon his chest, but strangely done in red ink instead of black, a small bloody nick upon the center of his chest like someone had scored him with a blade. But Fenton had never had a Kingsmount and Stars before. Olea had seen him without his shirt in the practice yards countless times. She fought to keep her face neutral for anyone who might be observing, despite her immeasurable surprise.

  Fenton was a careful man, and now she knew why. He was Alrashemni. Some kind of secret, underground Alrashemni.

  “I am one of you, and yet I am not,” Fenton whispered low and soft, confirming her thoughts. “I report to the shadows, Olea. But not the shadows of Roushenn. We were close to the throne, once. We are close still, but not as close. Not in the way that matters. But you are. With Elyasin, just as you were with Alden. It was … fitting. You and the Dhenir. His death was a tragedy for us.”

  “Who are you? How many others of you are out there?” Olea could barely breathe.

  “Enough of us. But not here. Not now.” Fenton’s visage was fierce, feverish with dedication.

  “Aldris? Is he also...?”

  Fenton nodded once, slowly. Olea’s world spun like a badly-made top. Shadows flickered all around, menacing. That lingering sensation of being watched had crept back, itching between her shoulder blades, raising the small hairs at the back of her neck. And suddenly, Olea knew they were at war. Whatever this was, whatever was happening here, if it had driven Fenton to expose such a secret, then all her fears were founded.

  All of them.

  “Find my brother, Fenton.” Olea's voice cracked with a sudden urgency. “Find Elohl. Tell him what has happened. Tell him the Dhenra needs protection. Now. He’s the fastest swordsman I know. He needs to be close to her. Especially at the coronation.”

  Fenton nodded quickly, fingers racing back up his lacings and buckles. He leaned very close to the bars, his next words barely a whisper of sound. “Olea. I have to tell you… what you found out about the walls…”

  It hit Olea like a staff to the knees. “You knew?!”

  Woe smote him. “I did. I had to keep that secret, for reasons I cannot give. But you must understand, your assumptions are correct. Lhaurent keeps an army behind the walls. I’ve been in the Hinterhaft. I’ve seen it. But you cannot flush him out of that labyrinth, Olea. He has…ways… of keeping himself safe if he retreats there. Which I assure you, he can do at a moment’s notice. Be wary of him. Be very, very wary.” Fenton’s gold-brown eyes were drowning now, drowning with some emotion Olea didn’t understand. He reached through the bars, stroking her face gently, his thumb lingering at her lips.

  “I fear for you,” he breathed, “trapped in here. But I can’t get you out, not right now. I swear to you, though, that someone is watching you… someone… who will get you out, if any threat comes. He would die for you. Just like I would.”

  Something cold dove into Olea’s gut and made a deep, dark home there. “Fenton… what are you talking about?”

  He shook his head, his touch falling from her face. “I can’t say more. But trust me. Please. I will go straightaway to your brother, get him into the Guard for the coronation. We’ll keep Elyasin safe. I promise.”

  Fenton’s jaw tensed. Reaching through the bars again, he took Olea’s hand. Lifting it, he pressed a kiss upon her fingers, his demeanor ferocious, deadly with his promise. He nodded again, as if confirming it all, then spun on his heel, and was gone up the shadowed stairs as fast as Olea could blink.

  CHAPTER 23 – DHERRAN