“What do you have to say?”
An air of surprise was about him as he gazed up at the man responsible for the deaths of so many. No words came out until Vad’Alvarn prompted him with a wave of his hand.
“I think she is right. Where we both live, life will go well.”
“If I cared about that, I would let you go on the general principle. I spoke of her idea that there needs to be no more killing in order for me to insure my rule here.” He rested his fist on the arm of the chair.
“She is wrong. Kerlan will become a kingdom of corpses before we will stop fighting against you.”
“So bold.” Those words came from Navar who stood at the back of the room with his back against the great doors of the hall. Despite the fact he certainly only whispered them, they carried through the room gone silent during the exchange.
“Extremely,” Vad’Alvarn responded before rising up from his seat.
The mother made a whimpering sound and shrank away from the rising king, nearly pulling Clara down to the floor as she went.
When Vad’Alvarn stopped, he stood directly over the young man who spoke of defiance and corpses. “Is that truly what you believe?” The question was only just audible to all who cared to hear. Most shrank away as if they did not.
“I truly believe it.”
The king’s hand had become claws as he listened, their points lacerating the flesh of his hands where it had not shifted into scales. With one hand he reached out and took a hold of the man’s head, watching as the blood poured from the places where his claws pierced all too easily.
With a chocking cry, the man thrashed as Vad’Alvarn lifted him for all in the room to see.
“If a kingdom of corpses is necessary to prove my sovereignty, then a kingdom of corpses I will make.”
He tossed the man at Clara’s feet. She stepped back pulling the mother with her to keep the blood from soaking into their shoes. After a moment of staring at the corpse, she turned her eyes on Vad’Alvarn who held them for a few moments before putting his back to her and returning to his chair. Once he sat down, he made a single gesture. All the other swords fell at once, beheading each of the others who had shown themselves willing to attempt to defy his rule by subterfuge.
A hundred tongues stood silent though their hearts beat frantic at the sight.
Clara carefully untangled herself from the other woman before coming to her now dead husband’s side. She placed a kiss on his forehead, murmuring his name into his skin before she pulled away. Her hands dripped with his blood as she curled them into fists at her side.
“Monster.”
It was no more than a word but it carried, picked up by a dozen other lips which said it not as a statement but a question. Clara glanced back at those in the room, her eyes wild. Then they were once again on Vad’Alvarn who sat with his booted right heel on his opposite knee. Her tongue slipped from her mouth, revealing a flash of teeth before it ran across her lips. The word worked its way around the room and back to her. She said it again.
“Monster.”
The woman moved across the space toward him without the training of the warrior arts, but it held the strength of someone who had watched all they cared for disappear into the cracks between the stones of the floor. Vad’Alvarn let her come, hearing the far away scraps of swords again being drawn in his defense. His men would defend him with their very lives, of that he was certain. A single woman was of no true consequence. Before she reached him, he’d stood to his feet. His hands clasped her wrists as her hands, now seemingly harpy claws, sought his eyes.
“MONSTER!”
“Yes?”
With that word, the fight fell from her dropping to the floor with her tears. Her body sagged limp and it was only his grip keeping her upright. Vad’Alvarn pulled her close, resting her head against his armor.
“I will make a kingdom of corpses if it will bring me back the one I lost.”
The strange tenderness was enough to bring a new hush, once again brimming with fear, sweeping across the room. None could be truly certain how to react to this. Those who still stood found themselves kneeling without thinking, anything to keep from drawing the eye of this creature. When he swept from the room, he half-dragged the nearly unconscious woman with him. Her slippers slid across the floor, a soft sound underlying the heavy thud of his footsteps.
Navar appeared at his elbow, the ghost of a smile haunting his face.
“Are you going to keep her?”
His voice was quiet over the sound of Clara’s light sobbing.
For a long moment, Vad’Alvarn did not respond, letting his second shadow him down the hall toward the rooms he had taken over in the manor.
Navar slipped ahead of him to get the door to the rooms, throwing them open with theatric flair. He stepped inside and settled to one side of the door, waiting as Vad’Alvarn dragged the woman with him and settled her on the bed, letting her curl into the fetal position there.
“I do not know,” Vad’Alvarn admitted, crossing his arms over his chest just below his crest. “She’s strong. A match for her husband.”
“He went into death well.”
“He did.”
Clara shifted on the bed, her arms coming round to comfort her as a child. Her breathing had slowed, the sobbing quieting until she fell asleep. However she might have felt about Vad’Alvarn, the exhaustion of loss was enough to steal her consciousness away.
“This campaign will take us away from here very soon.”
“I know this, Navar.”
“Of course you do.” The jester chuckled at the tone his master took. “Yet you always have a weakness for strong women.” He examined his fingernails as they spoke.
“I know that also.” The legend stood over the edge of the bed, watching the woman sleep, aware of her in a way she would not understand. He saw her face and her form, but he also saw something deeper. There was a touch of something that awakened the monster in him. It sought its own. Knew its own when it felt them. Yet those who were like it were not enough. It had to have the single one which completed it.
The one he would perhaps never see again.
“A kingdom of corpses to give me back the one I lost,” he repeated over her form, reaching down to run one finger along her skin. “I won’t be keeping her, but I will not give her over either.”
“I did not expect you to, my lord.” Navar bowed deeply before sliding out of the rooms, pulling the doors shut behind him.
3
Sorren looked one way up the hall then down the other way, certain the sound of his breathing would give him away outside his older sister’s private chamber. Yet she didn’t come swirling out to capture him like the mountain wendigo he knew she could be. Stepping lightly, he entered her chamber, his head a swirl with thoughts of mischief. Of course it would be mischief what else were little brothers good for, after all? The small light globe she kept near her vanity was nearly dark, the fire inside banked to keep it from going out while she was gone. Within the halls of Sartol, light was precious in its scarcity. The tunnels, and even the living quarters, became pitch black when the lights disappeared. Sorren didn’t like it at all. Her vanity mirror reflected a touch of the glow and a shadowed version of Sorren’s face as he slipped forward.
Jalcina had left her comb out on the vanity, a long strand of her hair still snarled in it despite the cleanliness of everything else. He slipped the comb off the table with trembling fingers, his tongue poking from between his lips in concentration. Don’t drop it.
In the next room, Jalcina’s bedroom, something stirred. Sorren’s body froze but his head swiveled toward the sound, drawing in a hurried breath and holding it until his small chest ached. When nothing came of it, the edges of his lips curled slightly, peeking out like his confidence as he slid the comb fully off the vanity. Then he took in a deep breath, held it, and shrieked at the top of his lungs.
In her bedroom, Jalcina laid half-asleep, her mind full of images surround
ed by a blue-silver light. Her dreams have been like this often in the past few months. The fabric of her dream was cut clean, snapping her into wakefulness. She is on her feet nearly before she realized it, stumbling at the edge of the bed.
“What?” Then Sorren’s following laughter poked her brain. With a growl, she sprinted into the room just in time to see the back of her brother as he rounded out of the room, heading into the corridors of the main house of Sartol. The little thief was gone when she got out the door but his laughter echoed back to her along the stone halls. Jalcina ran toward the sound.
Half a corridor ahead, Sorren glanced over his shoulder, knowing she would be there in just a moment. He was not disappointed. His feet went as fast as they could, pounding away at the stones as his laughter gleefully flitted back down the hall to his sister.
Taking in a full breath and letting it out in an imitation of a dragon’s breath, Jalcina ran faster, roaring at her brother.
“Come back here!”
Sorren just threw his head down and kept running, hooting his laughter to the world. He slid past the first man to appear in the corridor, one of the several guards found throughout the many tunnels. However, he barreled directly into the second. The smashing of their bodies coming together echoed, right along with Sorren’s cry of surprise and the young man’s less distinguished grunt of pain as he hit the stone floor.
Jalcina was only steps behind, coming around the corner when it happened, and had thought enough to bring herself to stop before she ended up joining the jumble of limbs on the floor. Lecern laughed, beaming as he righted himself to a sitting position. He then wrapped little Sorren in a firm embrace.
“What’s this you’ve got here?” He took up the comb from its place on the floor, twirling it in his fingers. “Stealing from your sister again, is it?”
Sorren made a grumpy face, crossing his arms over his chest, pouting at the loss of his prize.
The young man offered the comb to Jalcina who stepped over and knelt down to take it, slipping her fingers along Lecern’s brow as she did so. He flushed, feeling the touch of heat on his neck though her hands had been on his forehead.
“It would seem we are well-met in this hall, Lecern.” The understated giggle in her voice made Sorren pout all the more. With a wriggle, he pulled out of Lecern’s arms.
“I’m going to play now.”
“I thought you were playing?” Jalcina swept him up into an embrace, squeezing him until he protested. At the sound of his protest, she twirled him once and then put him down.
“Stay away from the cliffs.”
“Going.” He was gone with more hooting laughter, running again with the abandon of the far too young to know any better.
“And where are you off to?” Jalcina asked, offering her hand to Lecern to get him up off the floor of the hall.
“To see your father, truthfully, with hopes of seeing you after.” With an easy motion, he put his arms around her, pressing her warmth to his body and inhaling the faintly gemmed smell of her hair. “And if it were anything less than my Father’s business, I would stay here with you a while longer and enjoy your company.”
“What could be so urgent?”
“I don’t know, but it bears the seal of Berlman.”
“The sprawling city of the plains?”
“Yes. Now I have to go.” Lecern pulled away, lingering only with the edges of his fingers against her skin. “Meet me on the cliff after? We can watch the sunset.”
Sunset. The word tingled through her like the vibration of a mandolin string.
“Of course. I’ll be there.” With a bow, he started back toward the study of King Mordaen of Sartol. Though Sartol was a small kingdom, it did still rate a king. The man did his best to take care of all of those who fell under his wing, which were any freeholders who found themselves living in the mountains or in the valley where Mordaen’s own people chose to live.
The king’s study, his place of meeting, was modest, barely more than single room stacked floor to ceiling with books and papers. A single desk hunkered at one end of the room, not forgotten but rarely used. Mordaen rarely wrote his own letters. Jalcina, whose hands were steadier with such a small implement as a writing quill, tended to write his letters for him. Lecern knocked on the heavy door before pushing it open with his weight.
“Sir Mordaen?”
There was no response directly causing Lecern to call again. The second time, Mordaen answered him from behind him.
“Lecern?”
The man standing there was tall, bearing with him the handsomeness built from appearance, personality, and prestige. Silver hair allowed to float free around his head like a halo.
“What can I do for you?”
“My Father sent this up.” Reaching into his shirt, a comic look of dismay crossed his face. Where was the note his father sent with him? Under the eye of the king, he searched his entire person. “I must have dropped it.”
“Then I suppose we ought to find it.”
Mordaen smiled, gesturing for Lecern to precede him back the way Lecern had come to find the lost letter.
“Do you happen to know what it was?”
“It came from Berlman. Father said it was important and I should bring it to you at once. I ran into Sorren in the hall, running from Jalcina. He’d stolen her comb again.”
Mordaen was no stranger to the antics of his children, but kept his thoughts to himself, hidden behind quiet lips.
“Sorren must have taken it.”
“I have no doubt. Thought it was a game certainly.” The pair walked the halls together. “We’ll just have to get it back from him.”
“He said he was going to play. I suppose that means out in the valley. How are we going to find him?”
“With a dog.” Mordaen changed directions and pulled Lecern along with him. “His favorite dog will be able to find him anywhere in the valley.” The older man jog; the younger matching pace with some effort. The housing area for the dogs was not far from the one for the horses, meant to keep them out of the weather and give them some space to run without turning them loose in the valley itself and running the risk of them becoming feral without supervision. “He’s probably not gone far after all, you just ran into him?”
“Yes, sir.” Lecern chose not to mention his dallying with Jalcina before giving in to his duty and coming to the king with his news. There was no reason for the older man to object, he himself spoke well of the match between them, but there was no reason to draw attention to how much of a head-start Sorren might have thanks to his longing heart.
The mingled scent of horses and dogs competed with the air blowing into the space for dominance. One side the hot, strong smell of animals. The other a valley breeze with a touch of chill as if Spring were only still in its infant days and not Fall in its final throes. Lecern covered his mouth with one hand as the king strode in, his hands now clasped before him.
With a whistle, Mordaen drew the attention of every dog in the wide space, looking specifically for the black and tan markings of his child’s favored animal. The large intelligent eyes gazed up at him with adoration, his tongue lolling out from a maniacal grin. It sensed something important, and perhaps fun, coming.
“Come, little one.” Mordaen lifted the dog who endured it patiently and then capered when set back on its paws with a wuffing bark. “Find my son.” The dog stared up at him with liquid eyes, then with another wuff, lowered his nose to the ground and sniffed at it experimentally. At a trot, he headed back the way Mordaen had come, but rather than returning to the stuffy, human filled rooms of the tunnels, he headed toward the tunnels leading up into the valley, picking up speed to a trot which clicked his claws on the stone.
Once again jogging, Mordaen followed, Lecern bringing up the rear taking big whooping breathes to clear the smell out of his nostrils. Out in the rocky soil right outside of the tunnels, the dog picked up speed again, dropping his nose to the ground at intervals in order to find the scent
he was searching for. In the middle of his run, a mouse scampered across his path and the dog stopped, tail up, before changing direction to go after the mouse now no longer scampering but running as fast as its little legs would carry it away from the would-be predator. The dog, undaunted, kept running.
“Damnit!” Mordaen’s expletive was hardly a surprise considering their assistance had just gone haring off into the valley grass following a mouse of all things. The two men pulled up short, watching the grass part around the two running creatures. “SORREN!”
The sound of the king’s voice boomed around him reaching for a number of yards.
Sorren thought he heard his Father’s voice calling his name on the wind, though he ignored it to begin with. There was no reason he should be trying to find him, except perhaps to punish him from once again bothering Jalcina. His sister could sometimes be so horrid when it came to little jokes like him taking her comb. With a grumpy expression, he crossed his arms over his chest and ignored the voice. If he was searching for him to punish him, it could wait until dinner. By then, father would have forgotten and he wouldn’t get into trouble at all. All he had to do was hold out. Then he heard it again, calling, the sound rolling across the valley with the heaviness of thunder. Again, Sorren just hunkered down closer to the tree he sat beneath and clamped his teeth over his tongue.
That was when his dog popped up with a mouse caught between his jaws. The animal shook the mouse to show it was truly dead and then deposited it at Sorren’s feet. With a bark, it wagged its tail waiting for its share of praise.
The bark gave him away. Two minutes later, Mordaen walked up to where his son hid, his own arms crossed over his chest. He looked down on the show before him and could only shake his head. His son was rolled over on his side, giggling, his dog licking his face.
“Sorren…”
The younger man glanced up and then scrambled to his feet, hiding his eyes by concentrating on the tips of his boots. He struggled to control his breathing after laughing with his dog.
Chains of Fate (The Fate Circle Saga Book 1) Page 2
