For Khouren Alodwine alone were the walls of Roushenn of no import. For him alone were walls of no import whatsoever, and it had been thus the entire length of his four hundred and twenty-six-year span. Into the fey luminescence of the Hinterhaft he plunged, and then back to wan midnight torchlight, and then through a larder, snatching up a hunk of bread and a small round of cheese as he went. Through closed cendarie doors, through ironbound locks and stout frames, through walls of solid byrunstone and halls of polished marble, no barrier restricted him. His body flowed through everything he touched, as if the barrier had suddenly turned to a thick-flowing water. And in truth, his ease of passage was like that of stepping through a waterfall, only a sense of pressure upon him, and a popping of the ears.
Silent as a ghost, he slipped through the darkness. Clad in the darkest storm-grey, so flat it was nearly black, he wore ancient garb, of a fashion long-lost to history. The garb of the caravanserai, the Berounhim who had led his clan out of a brutal desert war, into a far green country, free of fear at last. Though that had all been before Khouren was born. Five hundred years before. But his wrapped garb recalled theirs, silken, bound tight about the hips and around his tall, soft boots. Swaddling fabric covered his head beneath the leather hood of his jerkin, a shouf of the caravan-striders, pulled up over his nose and leaving only his grey eyes to pierce the night. Beneath his buckled leather jerkin and weapons harness was a shirt of the softest black silk, the kind one had to trade for from Ghrec these days. Charcoal gloves left no trace of skin bare to the deepest black of the night in the bowels of Roushenn. Twin longknives of an ancient, sickled variety rode his back, rather than a sword.
Khouren had never mastered the sword, not like his grandfather. Knives were better for the darkest work of night, in close, confined spaces like Roushenn’s halls. But Khouren maintained a part of his mind upon his feet as he traversed the palace. He had to maintain something of his mind upon his feet when he walked upon anything but the earth itself. Or else he would fall through man-made structures entirely. It had happened. He’d broken his share of bones, and fortunately his long life also included mending quickly.
But in these halls, Khouren was through anything in moments, silent as a ghost and often surprising servants and guards just as if he was one. From which the most amazing tails of Roushenn’s hauntings had sprouted.
The Ghost of Roushenn. What a laugh.
The House of Alodwine, the original Scions of Khehem, had always possessed the most peculiar gifts. Though sometimes slow to awaken, their wyrria of Werus et Khehem yielded formidable abilities. And alone among them, Khouren had somehow acquired his oddity, along with House Alodwine’s longevity. Oh, his bones were starting to protest as he snaked through the halls. Sometimes his knees would creak, and at times his fingers and joints would ache, especially if he indulged in ale or sweets. But the blessing of his ancient clan was this firmness of body and mind, for more years than perhaps they should have lingered.
There weren’t many of them now, the Alodwine lineage having its own particular curse of the difficult bearing of children. But their longevity had made them suspicious, and so did the House of Alodwine live in the shadows. Some had sided with the Khehemni over the years, their original bloodline. Some had sided with the Alrashemni and beaten Khehemni back, opposing the atrocities now committed by a people who had forgotten their bloodlines.
But most had simply declined to engage the ancient war.
Because they alone remembered the truth.
Khouren’s mother and her father, and all the lineage of Alodwine, kept secrets. The true tales of the Thirteen Tribes, of the Prophecy of the Golden Marks and the Rennkavi, and of the Great Union to Come. Of all the hope through these bitter years of warfare, waiting for the one who would unite them at last, who would undo the vast wrongs done long ago in Khehem.
And forty years ago, when a lost palace page had accidentally stumbled himself into Khouren Alodwine’s domain, the wyrria within the lad strong enough to open a passage through the palace walls to the Hinterhaft, Khouren had seen. He had seen the Goldenmarks upon the boy’s flesh. And he had stepped from the shadows, and knelt before his true Rennkavi at last, the one who would Unite them all in glory.
Now, his feet hummed to be doing the will of his Rennkavi. Tomorrow was to be a day of glory, Khouren thought as he stepped quickly through muted halls lit blue by orbs weaving high above like drunken moths. Tomorrow was the day his Rennkavi would take command, though he let the Khehemni Lothren believe they were still in charge, for now. Tomorrow was the day all worlds would tilt, all perceptions shift, all foundations be shaken.
And his Rennkavi would step into that dearth of leadership, a phoenix to be crowned in glory, uniting all the peoples at last.
Khouren stepped quickly through dark halls, slipping through another wall, into his Rennkavi’s private rooms. There upon the ornate desk was the item he’d been promised, just the same as ten years ago when the Alrashemni Kingsmen had come to Roushenn. A small glass vial, plain, it could have been clear water, or a tincture made of distilled white wine with medicinal herbs. But this wasn’t for healing. Khouren stepped quickly over the plush silk carpets to the fantastically carven desk, his fingers lifting the vial. Unbottling it, he wafted it beneath his nose. The faint smell of rotten citrus made his stomach churn. He stoppered it tightly, and slipped it into his leather belt pouch.
Turning to the darkened fireplace, he found the second item. A large bronze censer hung there upon a chain. An unnotable item, used sometimes for burning healing incense when one was ill. He retrieved it from its iron hook, then hunkered at the yet-warm coals, brushing back ashes until he found some still glowing. Khouren twisted the censer open, raked in a few coals, then assembled it, holding it by a short length of chain so it wouldn’t swing. Turning, he stepped to the nearest wall and melted into it, back the way he’d come.
Stepping briskly through the fey blue passages behind Roushenn’s walls, Khouren tried not to think about the price of blood that would be paid tomorrow at the coronation.
Only about the glory of the Great Unification, come at last.
His next stop was an errand for his grandfather. And partly for his Rennkavi. And partly for himself. Setting down the bronze censer in a dark section of Hinterhaft hallway, he slid through a wall into the deepest shadows within a barred cell, and came to stillness. Well out of the torch’s reach at the guard station of the Upper Cells, no light found him. But Khouren’s eyes were adjusted to the dark. His charge tonight was lit, crowned with the halo of the flames in their brackets behind her. Reclining upon her pallet near the bars, her black curls shone blue in the nimbus of the unsteady light. Her face was angelic, hard like queens of old with her striking cheekbones and sharp jaw, yet soft with that kissable mouth, her skin that somehow remained white despite all the time she spent out in the sun upon the Tiers.
She slept. Khouren loved watching her sleep. Ever since his Rennkavi had bid him keep an eye upon her and report back, ten years ago when she arrived at the palace, he’d enjoyed his duty. Sometimes she would twist in her sheets and cry out, sweating with nightmares, and those times Khouren felt his heart riven for her, how she suffered. Sometimes she would surge, flushed and scraping away her blankets in the dead hours of the night, arching as she took her Dhenir in dreams. Khouren loved to watch those moments, to see how she rode her beloved, even now, two long years past his death. Sometimes he would place himself within the wall, only his eyes out to watch her, touching himself as she spasmed and cried out in a terrible bliss. Sometimes he’d done that when she’d actually been with her callous princeling, jealous and seething to watch her fucking another man.
She was his. She wasn’t, but she was. No one could appreciate her like Khouren could. No one knew the pureness of her lineage, not so broken and fractured as that pretty sun-haired girl who now sat the throne, not for much longer. No, this creature before him was his true Queen. And now as he watched her sleep
, her straight brows knit in a slight frown, a troubled look he’d seen her make many a night.
Khouren had the urge, as he always did, to soothe her.
Sliding forward in the darkness, keeping to the deepest shadows, he made no sound in the night. An impeccable silence was his, practiced over hundreds of years. His breath he could pause and his heart he could slow to his will, giving nothing of himself away to her formidable wyrric hearing as he moved closer. In her deepest sleep now, she breathed steady and slow, a pattern Khouren had mapped over the years. She would not wake, not unless something startled her. But the guard was drowsing at his station and the palace was silent in the deepest dark before the coronation day dawned, with a bloody sunrise as it soon would.
Now was his time, and hers, to be together. His grandfather had bid him keep her safe, and it was not precisely against his Rennkavi’s orders, so safe was how Khouren would keep her. At last, he’d gained her side, next to her pallet bed. She hadn’t stirred. Reaching out, Khouren did as he’d done a thousand times before, brushing his bare fingers gently over those beautiful curls. She sighed in the night. Her little frown eased. A rapturous peace stole over her face, lifting the corners of her lips. Oh, how she smiled for him. It filled Khouren with such light, his heart bright as a thousand suns to feel it, that smile, that benevolence. She had never been Goldenmarked, it was not her who was called to be his Rennkavi, but if it had been, Khouren would have followed her beyond the grave. Of royal blood from two ancient lines, Khehemni through her mother, Alrashemni through her father, she was the same as his Rennkavi. Just the same. Except he’d been Marked and she had not.
Khouren smiled gently in the darkness, still brushing his fingers tenderly over her curls. Just the barest touch, as if a breeze of the night stirred them. She sighed for him again, curling deeper into her thin blanket upon her pallet. She turned her face up, feeling him, sensing him. But still she dreamed deep; Khouren had timed it perfectly. Her smile was bliss, her face beloved for him, all for him. Every time he had touched her, just like this, she’d shone like sunlight upon water, all for him.
Her lips fell open with a soft sigh. She made a subtle writhing movement, wanting. Slowly, without making a sound, Khouren leaned down, until his lips hovered over hers. She turned her face up more, a small sound issuing from her throat. Slowly, Khouren lifted his other hand to her jaw, touching his fingertips to that luminous skin, a caress of wind. She mewled again in her dreams, feeling him. Wanting him. And like the night wind, Khouren lifted his chin, whispering his lips over hers, tasting her, breathing her in. Lingering, he gave her peace and took his own with that kiss, in the deadly silence of the cells, nothing to disturb them.
When it was finished, she sighed for him, her lips curling into a sweet smile. Khouren’s lips were so near hers, drinking her in. “I love you.” He whispered to the night.
She snuggled down into her thin blanket, smiling, beatific. “Alden…” She sighed.
Khouren lifted his chin, nuzzling her nose, just a little, just like the Dhenir had once done. “Always.” He murmured back.
And then he rose. And like a dream, melted back into the wall, to watch over her until dawn.
CHAPTER 35 – ELOHL
Blackmark (The Kingsmen Chronicles #1): An Epic Fantasy Adventure Sword and Highland Magic Page 54
