by Grace Draven
“His people once called him Cededa the Fair, then Cededa the Butcher, and then they called him no more.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Still seated as she left him, Cededa shoved the Senet board off the bed. “Yielded and conquered.” Like all things in this interminable existence, it was a hollow triumph.
The mist that had carried Imogen outside the palace seeped into the chamber and stopped in front of Cededa. He watched as it converged and thickened, melding into the spectral form of a woman dressed in the gown of a Mir aristocrat.
Her voice was a zephyr’s breeze through trees, a shifting of many voices that spoke as one. “What did you tell the girl?”
He rose from his place at the table. “I told her of Mir.”
The wraith’s shape changed, twisting in on itself in an agitated spiral. “She will hate you now, and she will leave.”
Cededa’s short huff of laughter held no humor. “She’s free to go if she wishes. She has no interest in the Waters and none who’ll believe her if she tells their tale. My debt to her mother will be repaid if she leaves of her own choosing.”
“She can redeem you.”
He smiled. “I’m beyond redemption, Gruah. You know that.” He cocked his head. “When did you stop hating me?”
A ripple passed through the ghostly shape. “When you began to grieve for us, Cededa. The king you are now should have been the king to rule us then.”
“A fine wisdom I realize now, four thousand years too late.”
“Four thousand years ago, you wouldn’t have listened to such wisdom.”
The mist began to thin, sinking to a shapeless, swirling tide. It floated toward the door, pausing at Cededa’s “Wait.”
He waded into the vapor until it floated around his knees. “Will you ever forgive me for Mir, wife?”
A pale ribbon separated itself from the vaporous mass. A chill caress drifted over Cededa’s cheekbone.
“No, Sire. Such a thing isn’t possible—not now. ”
He sighed. “Indeed.”
The ribbon retreated, swallowed into the greater mist. It floated out the door, disappearing into the cloisters’ shadows. Cededa followed its path until he reached the palace doors. Once outside, he surveyed the city cloaked in darkness. Imogen was nowhere in sight. Above him, the moon hid her mocking face behind a veil of clouds.
A distant sound teased his sensitive hearing. Imogen. Somewhere in Tineroth, Death’s handmaiden wept for the massacred.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
After crying her eyes out on the palace steps, Imogen fled into the city’s heart. Two months in Tineroth and the eerie hush no longer bothered her. Now, it was a boon. There were none to wonder or remark on her flight as she made her way to the library and sat down on the toppled column Cededa had used as a seat when he first brought her here.
Imogen gave a humorless chuckle at the sight of the omnipresent mist drifting toward her. Tineroth’s spectral custodian, and Imogen’s watchful guard. It blanketed the steps, pausing at her feet. A sudden pressure rested against her ankle. Imogen looked down to see a full water skin next to her. She lifted it, took a healthy swallow of water and rinsed her mouth several times.
“My thanks.”
She didn’t expect an answer and jumped when the mist suddenly rose higher, separating itself into distinct forms that shifted and swayed with the steady breeze.
Imogen scrambled to her feet. Before her stood a virtual crowd of wraiths, their pellucid features obscured by the play of shadow and moonlight. Still, she made out what looked to be an army. Men armored for battle, helmeted and carrying both shield and sword. They hovered behind a small group of women with children at their side. A stately figure, pride evident in the set of her insubstantial shoulders, drifted closer to Imogen.
She raised a spectral hand and pointed to the side. Imogen followed her direction. The air rippled and shadows realigned themselves, lightening to become floating images of things that once existed in Tineroth.
Cededa as he’d once been—darker-haired and blue-eyed with sun-bronzed skin. Haughty, merciless, scornful. Each trait was stamped on his sublime features. The scene changed. Tineroth, still whole but falling, her streets teeming with angry mobs and fires in the distance. Another city, razed to rubble. Blood ran in rivers down streets littered with broken bodies. A crowd of women and children huddled in a room with a vaulted ceiling. One, a stunning woman with the bearing of a queen, stood defiant before a murderous army.
The images flickered, changing twice more. Tineroth as she was now; Cededa, pale and altered by the Waters, reclined on a broken throne. The last scene had Imogen moaning behind her hand. A great bonfire with Cededa at its center, lashed to a cut timber. Silhouettes danced around the pyre, swaying drunkenly as the Undying King burned and shrieked his agony to a deaf heaven.
New tears coursed down Imogen’s cheeks as the images faded. The ethereal woman raised a hand as if in farewell. The figures behind her bowed. They all shifted, losing form until they were once more a single vaporous shroud.
Imogen trailed after the mist as it led her back to the palace. Cededa waited on the lowest step, haloed in moonlight. His still features revealed nothing of his thoughts. Imogen wished she could be so unflappable.
“Who are the people in the mist?”
He gazed past her to the mist drifting away from them. “I see Gruah has revealed herself to you.”
Imogen started. The last wife. The one he called his judge and punisher. “I saw soldiers, women, and children. A woman of distinction stood foremost among them. Was that Gruah?”
His mouth tightened. “Aye, it was. It is. She was a princess of Mir whose first allegiance remained with Mir. It was she who raised the rebellion against me and consorted with the Tineroth mages. Her sorcery and theirs made Tineroth as you see it now and imprisoned me here. The others were the women of her court and their children.”
“And the soldiers?”
“Those who cut them down. They followed me into Mir and did my bidding. They remain in Tineroth, restless spirits who still do my bidding.”
Tineroth, broken and but not entirely abandoned, only haunted. “Why do they linger here?” She scowled. “Did you raise some spell to trap their spirits?”
He matched her scowl with one of his own. “No. Before she died, Gruah cursed us all. The men loyal to me will find no rest until I do.” He sighed. “But a curse demands a sacrifice of its wielder. Gruah remains with me as well, as do the women and their children who died beside her. A bargain made to insure I’d never forget what I once did.”
The revulsion and horror that had consumed her earlier lessened. Cededa’s light eyes almost glowed in the night’s gloom. Dispassionate before, his expression was now one of abiding sorrow and regret, acknowledgement of an act that left a permanent stain on his soul. Sudden insight made her heartbeat stutter.
“My bane. You draw it from me as poison from a wound and take it onto yourself.” Her eyes narrowed. “You aren’t immune as you say.”
His soft chuckle lacked any humor. “I didn’t say that, Imogen. You did.” He crossed his arms. “No, I’m not immune, only resistant and only by the Waters’ grace. I die a little more each time you touch me.”
“You bastard,” she whispered. “You would make me your redeemer.”
He’d likely been called names far fouler than “bastard” in his long life and in circumstances far more hostile, but he flinched for a moment at her insult, or maybe the betrayal in her voice. An echo of all the betrayals he participated in over the years.
“Don’t flatter yourself, Imogen,” he snapped. “No man, woman or god can redeem me now. Even if I’m to die, it will simply be to escape the prison of Tineroth. However, the wraiths who wait in twilight with me will find peace once I’m dead.”
Imogen rubbed her eyes and looked to where the mist hovered nearby. She remembered Niamh, the silent pleading in her eyes that Imogen end her suffering with a merciful yet fatal touc
h. Was this so different?
She stared at Cededa, a king immortal but not invincible. A flawed, weary man. A man she loved despite all she’d just learned. “I want to go to my rooms.” He stood and bowed as she passed. The weight of his gaze rested on her back long after she left him on the steps.
As usual, warm water and freshly laundered cloths awaited her. Imogen shed her skirt and tunic, bathed and slid naked beneath the bedcovers, almost numb with grief. She fell asleep, clutching the pillow Cededa had used the night before.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
In the darkest hours, the Undying King entered her room on silent feet and stood sentinel by her bed, admiring her beauty. The knowledge of his sins had aged her. Fine lines marred her brow, and she muttered in her sleep.
He wanted to reach out, draw her into his embrace and somehow force her to believe that Cededa the Butcher was as dead as Cededa the Fair. Only the ghosts remained to haunt him and remind him of a past evil for which he’d never receive absolution.
As if she sensed his regard, her eyes fluttered open and she rolled to her side to face him. They gazed at one another long moments before she lifted the covers away in wordless invitation.
Forgiveness. The gesture nearly sent Cededa to his knees. He stripped and slipped beneath the covers to gather Imogen’s warm body close. She spooned against him, still silent but pliant in his arms. He buried his face in her hair. The memory of her accusation echoed in his mind.
“You would make me your redeemer.”
How very wrong she was. “I would make you my wife,” he whispered in her ear. “My only wife. My beloved wife.”
Melancholy thickened her voice, and her fingers lay cold over his. “I don’t want to hate you the way they did.”
His chest constricted. “I don’t want that either, Imogen.” He squeezed her hand. “I’m no longer that man.”
“Aren’t you?”
Cededa pressed on her shoulder until she lay on her back, face tilted to his. Tear tracks silvered her pale cheeks. “No, I’m not.” What else was there to say?
Imogen sighed and closed her eyes. “Everything you’ve done in your long years, everything you feel, is part of who you are now. The question is whether or not the greater part is the man who committed atrocities or the one who regrets them.”
He wanted to tell her that regret and guilt ran through his veins like death ran through hers, but he stayed silent. That question was hers to answer for herself.
Her hand drifted down his arm in a languid caress. “I never thought I’d meet a king,” she said in a sleepy voice. “Especially a fabled one.”
Cededa hugged her to him. Her breathing slowed, and her body grew heavy against his. “I never thought I’d hold Death,” he whispered in the darkness. “Or beg her love and mercy.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Dradus’s nose bled red streamers onto his silk tunic, and his skull threatened to split from the pain, but those were minor discomforts compared to the euphoria coursing through him. An ancient bridge shimmered to life under the power of complex sorcery. It stretched across the gorge, still insubstantial but solidifying with each passing moment. A bridge that connected him to fabled Tineroth and her surely substantial treasures.
The company of Castagher soldiers behind him cheered. After weeks of idle waiting while he cast spell after spell to reveal the bridge, they were restless, eager for battle and ready to conquer the city behind the heavy mists obscuring the forest on the crevasse’s opposite side. Dradus nodded to the captain of the guard.
“Remember, the men are welcome to whatever loot they can carry out, but they can’t forget their mission. We bring the girl back to Hayden, alive.”
The captain frowned. “If she’s cursed as you say, it will be a challenge to transport her.
Dradus shrugged. “A small matter. Leave it to me. Just be sure not to let her touch you when you catch her.” One eyebrow rose meaningfully. “It’s easy to subdue an unconscious captive.”
“Aye, I see your point.” The captain gestured to his troop. “I’ll tell them to prepare. We ride to Tineroth at your signal.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
A familiar shrieking sent Cededa bolting out of the bed and into a dead run for the door. Tineroth’s warning. Someone had breached the city’s ensorcelled boundaries.
Startled awake by his abrupt movement, Imogen blinked groggily as he threw open the door and raced into the corridor. He was halfway down the stairs by the time she made it to the landing.
“Cededa, what’s wrong?” Her shout didn’t slow him down. He leapt the stairs three at time, heedless of his state of undress and bare feet, fueled by a towering rage that edged his vision in crimson.
“Intruders!” He called back. “Get dressed and follow Gruah. She and the others will take you to a safe place.”
He sprinted to the armory. His armor waited inside, along with his favorite weaponry. Years of fighting wars made him quick and efficient at donning harness and buckling straps. He needed no squire to help him and soon stood dressed to face whoever crossed into his city uninvited.
Cededa glanced back once at the palace, hoping Imogen didn’t linger there. If treasure hunters invaded the city, his palace was the worst place to hide.
Fleet and silent, he traveled along familiar streets until he reached the city’s gates, open now to reveal the bridge. Cededa snarled at the sight of armed men and horses. A wizard rode in that group, one powerful enough to force the bridge into solidifying. He clenched the glaive pole he held. He’d kill the wizard first.
He waited until the horses thundered through the open gate. The city’s hush exploded into a rush of shouts and motion as Cededa plunged headlong into the mass of horseflesh and men. Equine screams and agonized shouts followed his attack as his glaive sliced the air, the flashing blade cutting a bloody swathe through men and animals.
Spurred on by rage and the guardian compulsion triggered by the Waters, Cededa leapt into the air. He landed nimbly on a horse’s back long enough to swing his glaive in a lethal arc, decapitating two men in a single swing. Blood sprayed the air and him. A battle cry sounded behind him. He jumped to the ground, meeting the mounted soldier who charged him, sword raised high. The horse bore down on him in full charge. Cededa tipped the glaive, swinging it like a club so the weighted metal end slammed into the animal’s forelegs. It squealed, crashing to its belly and skidding across the cobblestones. It rolled, crushing its rider beneath it.
The melee intensified. Swarmed by men and horses, Cededa plowed through the ranks, killing and maiming in a sea of carnage. He’d broken his glaive but didn’t pause. The clang of metal striking metal echoed through the courtyard as he hacked and cut with axe and short sword.
He leapt over bodies, slashing his way to the back ranks milling around him in a confused chaos. Horses reared, their hooves pawing the air above his head. He shoved a soldier into the path of one of the crazed animals and heard a scream cut short by a dull thud. There were at least a score of men left, and he had every intention of killing every last one of them. He shrieked a Tineroth battle cry and slammed into their ranks with renewed fervor.
Battle frenzy roared through him, a blood heat undiminished by time. He was a warrior king bred of countless generations of warrior kings. This was his city, and he meant to defend her and the woman he claimed as his.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Cededa’s warning echoed in Imogen’s ears.
Intruders? Oh gods, she prayed. Please let him be safe. The horror of his immolation would forever be emblazoned on her memory. No one, no matter their actions, should have to suffer that twice. She dressed, warning off the mist when it tried to help her. “I think not,” she snapped. “I’m going fast enough.”
She sensed its impatience, its concern. The spirit of Cededa’s wife took form and motioned her to follow. They sped through the palace, navigating dizzying twists and turns that left Imogen disoriented and hopelessly lost. She finally emer
ged through a service door and into an enclosed bailey. The mist no longer gently roiled as before but shot across the bailey and into the street with Imogen sprinting to keep up.
It led her through winding closes as labyrinthine as the palace halls. They entered one of the multistoried buildings. This one was more derelict than most, with half the stairwell crumbled away and the upper floors inaccessible. Or so she assumed.
Imogen swallowed a startled gasp as invisible hands lifted and carried her upward. The vaporous mist surged over her legs and waist, enveloping her in an icy embrace before setting her down in the topmost room. Just as quickly it rolled back toward the door, pausing only a moment for Gruah to materialize once more and make a gesture that could only be interpreted as an imperative “Stay here.”
It slid out the door, disappearing from view. Unless someone possessed the ability to leap nearly two stories to the nearest stair, Imogen remained out of reach. Likewise, unless she wanted to fall two stories, she was effectively trapped.
She ran to the window and nearly cried out at the scene before her. At this height, she had a clear view of the city gates. The bridge had reappeared, stretching across the empty space between the cliff walls. Horses and mounted riders thundered across the span, armor flashing in the sun. Concealed by the mist but clear to her from this side of the gorge, Cededa waited in the center of the massive courtyard just inside the city gates, a solitary defender against impossible numbers. His chainmail shone a dull silver in the morning light, and he leaned on his glaive with all the casualness of a man about to greet an old comrade instead of a hostile force.
The invaders galloped through the gates, and Cededa transformed into a shrieking demon of slicing blades and fury. Bile rose in her throat when he swung the glaive in a back swing. The curved hook behind the blade caught the metal collar of a soldier’s armor, yanking the man off his horse and peeling his hauberk off him like an orange rind. Merciless, ruthless and giving no quarter, Cededa brought the glaive down and was instantly doused in blood.
