by Tammy Salyer
In a brutal wave, it hit him: in under a thirty-night, he’d lost his family, many of his friends and fellow Knights, his freedom, and now his home. Was anything worth such a price?
Chapter Twenty-One
Fourth Phase Venerate Sveinkí Edizriis, son of the Fourth Line, pushed the pale foreigner he’d apprehended forward another step across the canal bridge toward the Citadel Suprima. The woman emitted a grunt but with a shrill hissing sound that made Sveinkí’s teeth grind. This was the fifth Ravener of Battgjald the Dyrraks had found skulking through the city, and he knew how pleased the Domine Ecclesium would be at her capture. The last one hadn’t lasted as long as they’d have liked under questioning, and this one gave them a chance to learn more about the foreign Verity. The previous spy’s body had stunk like refuse when they’d immolated it after she died.
It had been foolish of this foreigner to try to hide within Elezaran, the Dyrrakium Empire’s capital. Few knew the art of spycraft better than the Dyrraks, and they remained ever vigilant in flushing out those who’d come from the lesser kingdoms to spy on them. The Dyrraks’ self-exile didn’t mean they were foolish enough to believe those kingdoms would forget about them. This foreigner would have been rousted sooner if she’d not hidden in the gutters for so long, as if any information of use could be found there.
Unfortunately for Sveinkí, the Domine Ecclesium was with the fleet at the moment, once more spreading Dyrrakium’s faith and devotion to the rest of Vinnr at long last. The Ecclesium had left the empire headed by his regent. The younger, albeit temporary, Nazarian had nothing to offer Sveinkí. She would only be in the seat of power for a thirty-night or so—the Dyrraks had placed many bets on how long it would take to subjugate the lesser kingdoms, but no one believed it would be more than a thirty-night—and was not endowed with the power to promote him, a promotion well earned by his unearthing of this Ravener. But he could wait until Ivoryss was tucked neatly into the folds of Dyrrakium’s dominion, a fresh kingdom of people to make worthy of Vaka Aster’s gifts. The Ivoryssians had fallen very far from their faith, according to Dyrrakium’s spies, but that would change once they were embraced by Dyrrakium and taught true devotion.
The Ravener slowed again, and again, Sveinkí helped her along. If he had to guess, he’d say the woman was being stubborn, testing him. It was a little thing, a test like this. Sveinkí hadn’t failed any of the Phases he’d tested in, he wouldn’t fail a starveling prisoner’s ill-advised trials. These foreigners, so strange, so pallid, so lanky—it was more than a little surprising to him that any Verity’s creations could be so frail and so…off. But who was he to judge a Verity’s creations?
“Push this body again, creation of Vaka Aster,” the Ravener hissed at him, “and I will show you the true meaning of dominion.”
It was the first time the Ravener had spoken, and it unnerved Sveinkí. Prisoners in Dyrrakium knew their place, and he’d never been spoken to before like this. But it wasn’t the threat that sent a cold tingle washing over his skin, it was the way the prisoner seemed to have been listening to his thoughts. Impossible, he told himself. She’s clearly been in Dyrrakium for some time to know our ways this well. It was unsettling that someone who stood out so much could have stayed hidden long enough to learn the Six Aspects of the Dyrrakium people. Sveinkí decided the first line of questions he’d ask would be how the Ravener had managed to do it.
But for now: “Silence yourself, unworthy,” he warned, yanking the ropes tying the woman’s wrists behind her back to pull her off-balance. “You do not speak unless required.”
They reached the walls of the citadel, and he called to the wall guard. “Venerate, tell the Regent Ecclesium we have a new creation of Balavad in our midst. I’ll take her directly to the vaults.”
The young Third Phase venerate nodded at Sveinkí’s command and yelled at the door guard to open it. Shortly, Sveinkí led the captive deep below the citadel’s main floor into the dark, cold vaults where important prisoners were held.
“I’ll be back to discuss your interests in Dyrrakium after I’ve taken a meal,” he told the prisoner as he showed her into a cell. Unable to resist, he gave the woman a final shove. “You just relax for a bit, get cozy in your new home.”
The prisoner stood staring at the back wall of the cell as Sveinkí locked it. She didn’t move, simply remained upright and rigid, as if she’d become a standing corpse. She didn’t turn around.
Sveinkí watched her for a moment, his nerve endings chilled once again. He was going to enjoy making this one talk, he decided. As he turned away, the prisoner spoke.
“Has the Domine Ecclesium returned yet?”
Sveinkí stopped and looked back at the prisoner, equally surprised she thought he would answer her as he was she knew the Ecclesium’s status. “You can’t be feeble enough to believe I’d tell you that.”
“Then your purpose is served,” came the Ravener’s sinister hiss.
Infuriated, he stepped closer to the prisoner’s cell, ready to teach the woman an early lesson about obedience and servility to a son of the Fourth Line. As he did, the woman turned toward him and somehow crossed her cell and reached the bars in an instant. Sveinkí had a moment to think the woman moved like a bat in the dark, lit only by torchlight, one moment on one side of you, the next it was caught in your hair, biting at your neck.
And of all frightening and dangerous things there were in the world, the only thing that made Sveinkí’s skin crawl were bats.
He flinched away from the bars, but the woman’s face was before him, looking down into his own. Her eyes had gone black, black as used-up embers, black as a starless night, and they transfixed him. Pale, almost transparent teeth, sharpened to points, flashed in a wicked grin. The woman’s hand was suddenly around his throat, gripping vise-like, holding him in place. A black miasma began to fill the cell, seeping through the bars. It pushed itself like a worm into his nose, and it felt like acid. He opened his mouth to yell, and more vapor spilled down his throat.
He felt the hand release him, felt himself falling, and the last thing he heard was the creature’s monstrous hiss…
Chapter Twenty-Two
Under Eisa’s direction and with the Dyrraks’ efficiency, they had the essentials from Vigil Tower packed and loaded aboard the Dyrrakium ships before Hallumbrum. Vinnr’s cold moon, barely a sliver, and the few lights still remaining in Asteryss left the city feeling empty, almost haunted, as if Balavad had won.
Despite the city’s foreboding pall, a sense of vindication pervaded Eisa’s spirit. Everything she’d wished for was coming true. Vaka Aster had returned to Vinnr, the Knights Corporealis were relocating to Dyrrakium, where they should have been from the beginning, and she would once more be among her own people.
Everything she wanted—
So why did she feel as if more was wrong than right?
There was too much her companions weren’t telling her. About Vaka Aster, about Ulfric. She knew it as surely as she’d known that day on the Vigilance that the vessel had been abandoned. The galling part was how long getting those answers had had to wait. The Dyrraks’ timing may have saved the Knights from a nasty end, but it had left her further in the dark.
In the streets of Asteryss, most of the illuminate orbs had been broken, but a few remained to light the way to Asteryss’s largest port, where the Dyrrakium ships awaited them. The commoners had gone home, seeking whatever broken and fearful sleep they might get. They knew they could not stand up to another hostile force, and their Arch Keeper had remained barred behind Aster Keep’s gates. Like a coward. Who would lead these people once the Dyrraks had gone? She wondered. And why did she care?
At the main gate to the shipyards, they passed a squad of Dragør Marines. They were wisely not trying to stop the Dyrraks’ procession, simply observing. She recognized Commander Brun, having crossed paths with the woman on occasion in the Conservatum. The commander looked as Eisa would have expected. Beaten, but not defeated. Unlike
the Arch Keeper, Brun was one of few among the commoners Eisa had developed a grudging respect for. A woman with the unbendable spirit of a Dyrrak. It was a pity her faith was weak.
She peeled off from the line of Dyrraks and approached Brun.
“Commander,” she said.
Brun scowled. “Knight Nazaria.”
“I imagine you haven’t sent any Wings in the air since the Dyrrak air fleet’s arrival.”
Apparently, Brun’s sarcastic side was triggered by the impotency of her position. “And lose the last of our scouts when the Dyrraks decide to kill some innocent Ivoryssians? Whatever gave you that idea?”
Tempted to simply turn and leave, Eisa steadied herself. “You have a Wing Marine, Rekkr is his name, still at Mount Omina. I seized his scout to get here. When we’ve left the city, you’ll want to send someone to retrieve him.”
“You mean you left him alive? How civil of you, Knight.”
Eisa looked over her shoulder as the last Dyrrak carrying the Knights’ supplies passed by. Was it worth saying it? She decided it was.
“I know your people have suffered, Brun, and having your shores and city so easily overcome by people you think of as treasonous scoundrels must chafe you. But you’re wrong about the Dyrraks. These are Vaka Aster’s chosen, and our maker is simply returning to those who most deserve the honor. Perhaps, in the maker’s absence, you Ivoryssians will finally learn what it means to be worthy.” Brun’s face began to pinch and wrinkle like a sour apple left to dry too long beneath Halla, and Eisa knew her famous fury would soon follow. Before that happened, she continued. “But remember, the Dyrraks could easily have decimated this broken city. Could have, but didn’t. We, they, are not the people you think. The common history is wrong, and it always has been. The Dyrraks never tried to usurp the Yor throne, and they didn’t cause the Cataclysm. They are not given to treachery the way the rest of the peoples of Vinnr are. It isn’t their way.”
“They certainly ran and hid like they did,” the commander spat. Then she seemed to consider Eisa’s statement. “Or so the history books tell us,” she added, her tone flatter.
“Listen to me. I am history, not a book dictated and written by people who either don’t know the full story or have reasons to change it. And I’m telling you, they were not guilty of what they were accused.”
“Then why…” Brun stopped and seemed to reconsider her first question, then asked a different one. “Why are you telling me this, Knight?”
It was a fair question, but she chose not to examine the deepest of her reasons at the moment. “You’re better than your leader, Commander. Watch her. Keep her in check as much as you can. Don’t let her incite a war with Dyrrakium. Ivoryss, even Ivoryss allied with Yor, can’t win. Rebuild and forget whatever insults you think Dyrrakium has given you. It’s the only chance Ivoryss and Yor have.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Don’t act a fool. If Dyrrakium were going to take the lesser kingdoms’ thrones, the dust would already be settling by now.”
Brun held her eyes and after a moment gave her a curt nod. Eisa moved off without another word. Inwardly, she grunted at herself. Why had she told Brun so much about the Cataclysm? Maybe it was for the best. The world had changed. Ivoryss needed to be prepared for the new order of things, and perhaps that started with Vinnr’s true history finally coming to light.
After the ships were loaded, Eisa returned to Vigil Tower alone to collect the Knights, as well as the unexpected group of thirty-three Himmingazian commoners, and one Himmingazian…Knight? It was an astounding turn of events that Vaka Aster had ordained a man of another realm as servant to her, another of many such events she had yet to learn the full story of.
Yet, as she thought of the one called Bardgrim, something Griggory had said bubbled to the surface of her mind. …without Lífs’s Scrylle and all her artifacts to undo the banishment, and a Himmingazian Mystae with a strong spark to perform the steps necessary, the vessel cannot be restored. This Bardgrim was now a bearer of a Verity’s spark, a fully ordained Knight Corporealis. And what was a Mystae but simply another word for Knight?
Clearly this is the Bardgrim who stole the Scrylle from Griggory, she thought. The pieces to restore Himmingaze seem to be coming into place. That is, if Bardgrim knows where the Scrylle is now.
This new fact sent a slight tingle of anticipation through her. She’d given up hope of saving Himmingaze, but maybe she needn’t have. Yet, as incredible as it was, Eisa put it aside for now. Vinnr and Vaka Aster came first. Once they were safe in Dyrrakium, she’d think more about it.
Stepping into Vigil Tower, possibly for the last time, she found the main hall occupied by the Himmingazians as if they’d been conjured by her thoughts.
Himmingazian refugees.
As the Cataclysm had scaled up after Yor’s usurpation, Eisa had spent a short time in her homeland to prepare them for the skirmishes to come. While there, the Yorish and Ivoryssian traders and ambassadorial troupes had been rounded up and held in detention, either to be traded for Dyrrak hostages or sent back to their own homelands if the war they all feared was coming could be averted. The refugees had no doubt suffered. So many of the Dyrrakium people who’d been on the mainland in Yor and Ivoryss had been maliciously and unjustly attacked after the coup on Yor’s throne that the Dyrraks had had little mercy left for the unworthy kingdoms’ people in return.
These Himmingazians didn’t look as bad as those captives had, but they didn’t look good. Their green skin color made them look ill at the best of times, at least to her eyes. Yet a quick glance was enough to tell her they weren’t at their best, despite having been treated well and given a safe place to await their return home.
“Knight Nazaria,” Bardgrim called to her. He still wore the ancient blade called Winter’s Bite, hallowed by Vaka Aster in the Dastrart Age, if she recalled correctly. Though, he wore it on his right hip, and she’d already noted he was right-handed. This man, whatever else he was, was no fighter. “Ulfric asked me to wait for you. Are the ships ready for everyone?”
She eyed him, fascinated despite herself. “You stole the Scrylle of Lífs from Griggory, correct?”
This caught him by surprise. “I, uh, well, I—you know, it was—”
She cut him off. “Where is it now?”
His brow creased and he sighed. “Gone, I suppose. When I saved Ulfric and the Ravener stabbed me, everything got a bit hazy, so I don’t remember much. But they say Balavad’s ship exploded, so I suppose the Scrylle did too.”
Saved Ulfric? What would he need saving from? He’s Vaka Aster. “Don’t be daft. A Scrylle is as resilient to fire and force as a star. If it’s not in Vinnr, it’s at the bottom of your Never Sea. Pity.”
His penetrating look told her he was having trouble believing it was truly pity in her tone, but she didn’t care. He was just a Himmingazian, like all Himmingazians, and she’d already judged their worthiness.
At that moment, Stave’s voice came from the far entrance. “I’m telling you, Ulfric, the interrealm well is the better route, it is. Stuck in the middle of the Verring Sea with a bunch of Fenestros-fondling Vaka Aster flatterers isn’t a good place for—” He stopped abruptly when they saw Eisa.
Ulfric approached, his face grave. “Is the Dyrrak fleet ready to disembark?”
He’d put on a bulky set of eye shields, like the kind he wore when grinding lenses but made of a strange glass, flint glass perhaps? She could no longer see his eyes, and his skin had resumed its typical coloration, no longer glowing with a faint blue light. She could almost believe she was speaking to her old friend the Stallari again, if not for what she’d seen earlier that day.
“Vaka Aster,” she replied, “the Dyrrak fleet awaits you.”
One edge of his mouth turned down, the same way it always had when he was dissatisfied. “Just…it’s still me, Eisa. I’m Ulfric, as ever.”
“But—” She’d been about to say You’re not but stopped. It was a relief t
o be able to think of him as the same person she’d known for fifteen hundred turns, after all. If he insisted on being informal, she couldn’t refuse. “All right. Is everything ready here?”
Stave jumped in. “The well, Ulfric, like I said. The safer route.”
“No, we’re going to live among the Dyrraks. It’s better that we begin now. And other than Eisa, none of us has gone through the interrealm well to Dyrrakium in ages. Only she knows what awaits at the other end.”
Though she couldn’t see his eyes, she could feel their weight on her through his eye shields. “The well is unchanged,” she answered. “The chamber in the Citadel Suprima hasn’t been altered at all.”
“See there,” Stave said. “We could be in Dyrrakium before morning if we take the well, we could.”
“Are you afraid of the sea?” Eisa mocked.
He scowled at her, seemed about to resist responding, then couldn’t. “Let me put it to you this way. If those skin-maulers you call kinspeople so much as twitch the wrong way, me’n Ulfric and Safran and Roi are going to be sailing that ship on our own, and the sharks of the Verring Sea are going to feast like they never feasted before on an exotic Dyrrakium delicacy.”
“What kind of delicacy?” Bardgrim cut in, uncannily naive for someone who’d been ordained by Vaka Aster.
Eisa’s eyes shot to the Himmingazian, and Stave too shut his blustering mouth. Bardgrim merely stared at them as if to ask What did I say? She realized, to her surprise, he was feigning idiocy simply to distract them from another argument. Perhaps not so stupid, then, she mused.
“Stave, get Mallich and Safran. It’s time to say goodbye.” Ulfric put a hand on Eisa’s shoulder, giving her the tiniest of nudges, then said to Bardgrim, “The ’Gazians need to stay directly behind me. Follow close. We’ll ensure their safety.”
