by Giles Carwyn
She concentrated on her breathing. If she didn’t control herself, they would see right through her. This was what she was here for. This was her purpose. Trent possessed a certain greatness, despite his faults. It was her job to shore up his weaknesses and expand his strengths. That was what being a Zelani was all about, to take ordinary men and make them great. To take great men and make them legends.
Trent’s lack of self-confidence drove his cruelty. If there was anything a Zelani could bolster, it was a man’s self-confidence. Perhaps Shara was the missing piece that he lacked.
She left her thoughts and realized that Trent was staring at her. He even leaned toward her as though he was still drunk, excited by his prize. Simple desire was flattering. She had long since grown used to that, but Trent’s lust was filled with something darker, a rage. Narrowing her eyes, she watched him closely. She had overcome greater hurdles than Trent.
“You will leave by week’s end,” Krellis said. “That should be plenty of time to prepare. I have some new information that will point you in the right direction. And Milgon has been sorting through maps and stories in the archives. He will make copies of what you need.”
“Yes, Father.”
“So that’s it,” Krellis continued. “I leave the details to you.”
“Thank you, Father. I won’t let you down.”
“I know you won’t.” He put a hand on Trent’s shoulder and paused. It seemed to take him a moment to work up the words. “I wanted to say, son…” Krellis started. “I wanted to apologize. I know that I sometimes seem cold to you. My father was always very strict with my brothers and me. I should have known better than to follow that man’s example, but…”
Shara looked at the man and caught the flash of an image that snuck around his defenses. A young man stood before his own father. He hid a dagger behind his forearm. Shara forced the image from her mind and concentrated on the task at hand.
Krellis looked to his son and shrugged. “We are what we are trained to be, but I wanted to say that I’m proud of you, Trent. You’ve made a man of yourself.”
Trent seemed to grow two times his normal size. His jaw squared off handsomely, and he looked ten years older.
“Thank you, Father.”
Shara caught another glimpse of the image from Krellis’s past. A young Krellis and his father were arguing, though she could not hear the words. The young man desperately wanted something. He asked his father for it, begged him for it. But the man spat at his son’s feet and turned his back.
The Brother of Autumn closed his eyes and pulled Trent into a sudden, crushing hug.
The young Krellis spun his dagger around and thrust it into his father’s back.
Trent cried out in pain.
Krellis pulled back, holding his son at arm’s length. His thick, bushy brows pushed together.
“What’s wrong?” Krellis’s eyes narrowed. “You’re hurt.”
Trent shook his head. His started to cough and his knees buckled. A drop of blood spattered on his hand.
“Gods!” Krellis cursed.
Shara moved to Trent’s side.
“Take him to the chair,” Krellis demanded. He strode to the door and shouted down the stairs, sending the nearest guard for a healer. In a moment, Krellis returned.
“What happened?” he demanded.
Shara set Trent on a chair and dug deep into his mind, ignoring any rights to privacy. She saw why his emotions were so jumbled, why he had drunkenly leaned toward her. The boy was delirious. His face was ashen, and his eyelids drooped.
“I, uh, fell,” he said, licked his bloody lips.
“Fell? Dammit, boy, where did you fall from?”
“The, uh, the Spire.”
“What?”
By the Seasons, Shara thought, it was a wonder he didn’t die on impact.
“What were you doing up there? And how did you fall?”
“It was…uh…Brophy.”
“What about Brophy?”
“No, not Brophy. It wasn’t really his fault.”
“What do you mean it wasn’t his fault? What happened?”
Trent labored for each breath.
“We took a girl up to the Spire. Wanted to impress her. Wasn’t Brophy’s fault. He didn’t mean to.”
“Mean to what?”
“To push me. We fought, that’s all. I mean, not seriously. We…do that sometimes. And…we were drinking. Siren’s Blood. And he…the girl. He thought Femera liked him better. She wanted me. Not him. That’s all. She asked him to leave. He wouldn’t. I stepped between them and he got mad at me. Shoved me. And I…I landed wrong.” He closed his eyes languidly and opened them again. “I’ll be all right.” He offered a weak smile. “Real men can handle their drink, right?” He gave half a laugh, coughed up more blood.
Shara swallowed, looked at Krellis. His face might as well have been stone.
“Brother, the healer,” the guard said from the doorway.
“Send her in!” he demanded.
The guard nodded, and the healer appeared. She moved quickly to Trent’s side. She was an older woman, painfully bony, with thinning hair. She had the look of the House of Winter.
The woman poked Trent gently in the side and he cried out. She kept a grim, tight-lipped expression, but Shara could feel the matter-of-fact despair that flowed from her. The healer stood up and motioned Krellis to the other side of the room. Shara stayed with Trent, but strained to hear their conversation.
“His entire abdomen is filled with blood,” the healer said. She shook her head. “There is nothing—”
“You heal him, or you’ll find yourself hanging from a rope,” Krellis said in a low voice.
The healer lifted her chin slightly. “Brother, he is too far gone. I could give him dried grayfish to thicken his blood, but it isn’t nearly enough. That he is still alive is testament to his strength. It is only a matter of time.”
Krellis slapped the woman across the face, knocking her to the floor. She cried out in surprise and pain, gazing up at him with wide eyes.
“Fix him,” Krellis growled. He took a step forward.
Shara ran toward them.
“No, Brother,” she murmured, breathing a calming cycle. Krellis’s emotions burst out of him, into her. She breathed in his anger, cooled it, and sent it back to him as a river of calm. “Come with me,” she murmured. “Come back to your son.”
Krellis followed her across the room. The healer scrambled to her feet and fled.
“I’m hurt…” Trent muttered. “Been hurt all morning.”
“It’s all right, Trent,” Shara said. “You’ll be fine. We’ll get you some help.”
“Thanks, Shara…You’re so pretty…” His eyes flickered shut, then opened again. “Father…”
“Yes…Trent?” Krellis replied, his voice husky. He took his son’s hand. His fierce, dark eyes glistened.
Krellis’s father lay dead on the floor. The young man dropped his bloody blade and collapsed to his knees.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you…with your problem.”
Krellis shook his head. “Quiet about that. It doesn’t matter now.”
“Don’t…blame Brophy. It was just a…Not his…Not his…f…,” Trent tried to say, but didn’t get the words out. His head lolled back against the chair, bloody mouth open.
He breathed raggedly for a few more minutes before he died.
17
THE AFTERNOON sun filled the balcony with warm light, causing the curtains to glow like spiderwebs. The rest of the room was thrown into shadow. Trent’s bier stood on the balcony, a dark silhouette against the glowing light. Krellis bent over his dead son, hands gripping the edge of the marble.
“I gave orders that I was to be left alone,” he rumbled.
“I disobeyed them,” Baelandra said.
Surprised at her voice, he turned, drawing a long breath and staring at her. His eyes were shadowed, lost in his wild mane of black hair. She could barely see
his face through the gloom. She wanted to hate him, but hate slipped through her fingers when she heard of Trent’s death.
Krellis grunted and turned back to his son. The man moved like a bear sluggish in winter. She had never seen him like this before.
Light on her feet, each motion a delicate balancing act, Baelandra walked up to the bier. Her breath caught in her throat. Trent was so still, so pale. His lips were ash gray and his eyelids were as white as seafoam. For all his faults, Trent had always filled a room with his energy. That spark of life was gone now, utterly gone.
“Oh Krellis…” she murmured, looking up at the anguished giant that she barely recognized. What if it were Brophy on that bier?
She reached across Trent’s body and placed a hand on Krellis’s cheek. His great tangle of hair parted, and he looked at her for a moment, his red-rimmed eyes glazed with tears. Slowly, he turned his head and kissed her palm.
“Oh Krellis,” she said again. She stepped around the bier lightly at first, but then she rushed into his arms. He enveloped her and let out a howl of anguish. His great, shaggy beard rasped against her cheek. He made a strangled sound, as if he would cry but didn’t know how.
She grabbed his tortured face and pulled it down to hers, kissed him. She kissed him through her own helplessness. She kissed him with a desperation she didn’t understand. He responded fiercely, crushed her to him as if she could save him from drowning.
“He was a good lad,” he whispered into her neck. “I should have…should have told him.”
Baelandra felt his tears come at last, wetting her cheek. She shuddered and whispered into his ear.
“I love you. No matter what, I will always love you.”
18
BROPHY STARED at the chamber pot. The sides glistened red with sloppy usage. A faint pink stain marred the wall behind it. He hadn’t paid any attention when he had been there hours ago. He had heavier problems to shoulder, or so he thought.
As promised, Brophy had returned shortly after their conversation, but Trent was already gone. At first, Brophy thought Trent was trying to run away from his punishment like he had as a child. He went immediately to all the places Trent might hide and spent hours searching the city. But now, as Brophy stared at the chamber pot, he wondered if he had misjudged.
Brophy closed his eyes a moment. He took a deep breath and opened them. He should go to Krellis first. Brophy dreaded facing Trent’s hot-tempered father, but if Trent was injured, Krellis had to be told. Trent would do almost anything to avoid a confrontation with his father. He had to be found, before he did something stupid, especially if he was hurt.
Brophy left the room, heading down the stairs to Krellis’s study.
The house seemed overly quiet in the long afternoon shadows. Brophy walked down the stairs one at a time. He knocked lightly on Krellis’s door, but no one answered. He knocked harder, but again no answer. Turning the handle and opening the door a crack, Brophy peered into the dim room.
Krellis’s desk had been moved onto the balcony. There was something large laid on top of it, but Brophy couldn’t see what it was. He was halfway across the room before he realized it was a body.
“No!” Brophy whispered, running to the edge of the bier. Trent was laid out flat, with hands were crossed over his chest. Brophy hovered there for a moment, hands outstretched. His fingers stayed an inch away from Trent’s face, but he couldn’t bring himself to touch the body.
It had to be a joke, some sick joke like Trent would play on him. Brophy grabbed Trent’s tunic and crumpled against the bier. He buried his face in Trent’s chest.
“Why?” he whispered. “Why did you take us up there, you idiot?”
Brophy leaned back and stared at the ceiling, his hands like claws. He wanted to scream, but tears came instead. He cried until he had no rage left for the stupid things his friend always did. He cried until he had no tears left to cry.
Brophy finally left the bier and leaned against the balcony railing. He stared over his beloved Ohndarien. Brophy was empty, washed clean. He didn’t even turn around when someone stepped into the room.
Heavy footsteps crossed the marble floor to Trent’s bier. Brophy slowly looked at Krellis. The Brother of Autumn was wild and disheveled, like a shepherd warrior from Faradan. His hair stuck out at all angles and his beard was a tangled bramble.
“Tell me, boy,” Krellis said. “Was Trent’s death an accident?”
“What?” Brophy’s brow wrinkled. He shook his head. “It wasn’t suicide, if that’s what you are asking. Trent jumped, but I’m sure he didn’t mean to hurt himself.”
Krellis’s stern expression betrayed none of his thoughts. “Then why did he jump?”
Brophy shrugged helplessly. “He was drunk,” he said, his voice barely steady. He swallowed, tried to get a grip on his sorrow. “And ashamed. Siren’s Blood makes you feel like you can’t be hurt.”
“I know about Siren’s Blood.” Krellis’s face finally softened, and he slowly shook his shaggy head. He closed his eyes and let out a long breath. When he opened his eyes again, he looked at Brophy, but not unkindly.
“What about the girl?”
Brophy looked away. “I tried to stop him, but I got there too late.”
“What do you mean, too late?”
Brophy looked back at Krellis. He didn’t know what to say.
“What happened with the girl?” Krellis demanded.
Brophy’s gaze went to Trent. “He was drunk, sir. He didn’t know what he was doing. I don’t think it was his intention to go so far with Femera.”
Krellis looked down at his son. The huge man flexed his fingers several times and made a fist. “Are you telling me that my son forced himself on the girl?”
Brophy’s chest hurt. He nodded.
“Trent said the girl fancied him. He tried to protect her, and you pushed him off the Spire.”
Brophy stared at Krellis and shook his head. “No.” He turned to look at Trent, and closed his eyes. Of course he lied, Brophy thought. He always lied.
“Are you telling me that my son lied to me with his dying breath, blaming his best friend for crimes that he himself committed?”
“No,” Brophy said, trying to find the words. “Trent was always scared to talk to you. He and I, we were going to explain everything together. He didn’t want you to think badly of him.”
Krellis clenched his fist. “You’re a bad liar, Brophy. You always were.” Brophy winced to hear the exact words Trent had spoken to him just yesterday.
The wind blew a lock of hair across Trent’s face, and Krellis brushed it back into place. “My son fell far short of who we wanted him to be. All the excuses in the world won’t change that.”
“But he could also be good,” Brophy protested, “at heart.”
“Good at heart,” Krellis murmured. He seemed to look far away, to the future or the past, Brophy couldn’t tell. “If only that mattered.”
The Brother of Autumn rested a hand on Brophy’s shoulder.
“You’re a brave lad. Honorable.” He paused. “I would have been proud to have you for a son.”
Brophy said nothing.
“Sometimes I wish you had been my son.” He shook his head. “But fate is not always kind.”
Krellis turned and walked away. “But some things are more important than a son. Trent’s death made me aware of that. Perhaps I waited this long for him.” Krellis waved a hand in the air, let it fall limply to his thigh. “I don’t know.”
He turned and his eyes leveled on Brophy. His voice became deep and resonant, the voice he used to train Ohndarien’s soldiers. “Trent pointed the finger at you. With his dying breath he accused you of murder and rape, and I will let it stand.”
Brophy squinted his eyes, turned his head as if that could make him hear better. “What?”
“You will be tried and executed for my son’s murder.”
Brophy suddenly couldn’t breathe. “You said you believed me.”
&
nbsp; “I do.”
“Then how can you…?”
Krellis’s gaze bored into him and for the first time, Brophy saw a mindless rage in the man’s eyes.
Brophy glanced around for a way out. He considered the balcony, but it was too far to jump. He caught sight of Krellis’s sword and scabbard hanging from a peg on the far side of the room.
Krellis followed his gaze. He smiled. “You’ll never make it, boy. No point in trying.”
Brophy leapt over the bier. He hit the ground running, reaching out to grasp the hilt.
He never even got close.
19
SHARA WALKED through Baelandra’s front door into the garden. She reached out with her mind to touch the young soldier who stood beyond the front gate. He was handsome, small but well built, with dark eyebrows and a long, straight nose. The soldier was probably from Kherif, and he carried himself like a boy trying to look like a man. He wanted her, but he was also afraid of her. Good, she thought. Let him be afraid.
She walked toward him along the marble path. The gate swung inward at her touch. The soldier looked surprised that it hadn’t been locked.
“Shara-lani,” he said, with a slight bow.
“Yes.” She looked him in the eye, but he wouldn’t meet her gaze.
“Brother Krellis requests your presence at the Citadel.”
Shara set her lips in a thin line. Just yesterday she would have rushed to the Brother of Autumn at the slightest beckoning, but now he was the last person she wanted to see. Krellis was going to try Brophy for his “crimes.” Baelandra was enraged. She had spent the whole day at the Citadel trying to speak with Brophy. Shara knew it was useless.
A part of Shara wanted to comfort the Brother in his time of anguish. She might be able to steer him back toward wisdom, but Brophy’s life was at stake. She couldn’t risk putting herself in Krellis’s power until she knew Brophy was safe.
“I am to escort you there immediately,” the soldier continued, motioning for her to follow.
Shara finally caught the young man’s gaze and held it, timed her breath to match his. She reached out and put her palm on his chest. Each time she breathed in, she pulled a piece of the man’s reluctance into herself.
