Ruins of Fate (Fate Circle Saga Book 3)

by Alledria Hurt

  "Tell me what is really going on," she said. He watched her keep her hands visible in front of her, a sign she meant peace, at least for now. If they slid out of sight, he knew to prepare for battle. Surprise had always been a potent weapon among killers. Versa, though named the Trusted, was known to use it to her advantage.

  Telling her would change things.

  Kendrick scoped her lines. She would not be put off. He had a simple choice: Let her in on his plans or do away with her. He waited a heartbeat too long.

  Versa's advantage lay in her training. In combat, he had no preparation. The only way he got the drop on others was through starting spells before they appeared. With her striking at his face, he had no time for that. He flicked his head to one side and missed her smashing a bone in his cheek. Of course, that did nothing to stop her from pressing into his space. Even without a weapon, she had all the advantages. Kendrick stumbled backward, hitting the floor with a thud. Versa leapt on him and planted a foot in his crotch. He screamed.

  The door boomed as something hit it. Someone heard him.

  "Help!" he cried. Versa moved as if she heard nothing, walking up his body as he tried to pull away and shield his face. The small magic he used to hide his breaking features dropped and she hit him square.

  The thudding took on a sound like a heartbeat as those outside worked on the door.

  Kendrick grunted beneath every hit she leveled on him. The warm smear of her blood mingling with his enticed him unexpectedly. He finally managed to get his long arms inside her guard and shove her away.

  "Versa, please."

  She crouched so close, but her spirit kept its distance. She calculated from behind a mask of stone. She loved him.

  He lost her.

  "I won't tell them," he said.

  "Don't worry. I will," she said. When she rose, a fluid motion, she wiped her broken hands on the front of her shift, their blood creating a mad pattern down the front. Kendrick watched her go to the door. If he said nothing, she would die. He stretched his hand to her as she undid the locks clicking each of them out of their places allowing it to swing.

  "Versa," he whispered as the guard came rushing in. She did not resist. If she had, there would have been bodies.

  The guard captain could have asked what happened, but he looked at Kendrick lying on the floor and Versa standing in blood stains and asked,

  "Will you fight?"

  "No." Versa did not cower, keeping her eyes level and empty. Kendrick used the overturned chair to right himself then climb up from the floor.

  "Leave her," he said.

  "Sir, this must be done."

  "I said, leave her."

  "She has dishonored her station."

  "Twice," Versa offered.

  "What?"

  "I betrayed the Immortal. I allowed her killer to escape the night he came."

  Hiding his face, Kendrick waited for her next words. If she said anything about him… He didn't know what he would do. The bodies would stink to the heavens.

  Xasan looked from her, calm and in control, to Kendrick who felt on the knife's edge of panic. What did he want, Kendrick wondered, trying to school his face back into some semblance of surety. His world felt more and more like sand the longer he stood there without words.

  "Take her away," he said finally dismissing her with a seeming wave before dropping into a chair and hiding his face. Once they were alone, Xasan stood over him.

  "She could have given you away."

  "She didn't."

  "How long before she does?"

  "I cannot wait."

  The Captain had no sympathy in his gaze and Kendrick expected none. He chose the man specifically because his loyalty was for sale and there was nothing he wouldn't do in order to fulfill the desires of his greedy heart. It made him easy to keep.

  "I could arrange her an accident in her cell."

  "No. She has to face her death in front of everyone or there will be talk. If we execute her with the other one, then it will look as if we are simply eliminating a conspiracy, which aids our cause." Weary of the thought, Kendrick closed his eyes. Seducing her had been a mistake. He should have gone with his original plan of making a play for the Immortal herself, even if he had little chance of making that a reality.

  "Then we will set her execution?"

  "Yes. Have word sent out. We will execute them both by fire in the ritual place. Let their burning corpses perfume the sky in honor of Ancel."

  "I will see to it, Voice." He turned to leave. "Shall I send someone up about your injuries?"

  Kendrick had forgotten about the blood. In light of her choices, he could not be expected to remember.

  "Yes, but not immediately. Give me time to compose myself."

  And to insure he could hold his glamor in place again before he had to face another person. It would not help him at all if carelessness found him out at this stage.

  The door shut and he didn't get up to lock it.

  "Versa," he muttered putting his head back in his hands. "What have you done?"

  It took him several minutes before he could rise from his seat and when he did his legs crumbled. Weakness invaded his every limb and he laid on the floor allowing the coolness to soak into his skin. He needed help.

  There was only one person he could turn to now and she would curse his weakness as the fault of her womb.

  No matter. Dragging himself across the floor, he reached the edge of the mirror stand and used it, while it wobbled under his weight, to come back to his feet. Once he stood, he pressed the edge and breathed the spell to find his mother wherever she would be. He had no choice but to take the risk he would find her in the street or around others. His life depended on it.

  "Mother, help me."

  Those words cost him the last of his ability and he crashed to the floor taking the mirror as well with a clatter.

  The physician found him lying there over an hour later, checked his heart and breath, and called for assistance to get him to his bed.

  When Kendrick woke, his mother sat at his bedside having brought a chair out of the sitting room to be near him. The physician was gone, but Kendrick felt the pull of bandages.

  "Will I have to kill the physician?"

  "He assumed the damage to your face came from your former lover and your emaciated condition a side effect of your most harrowing rise to power, so I doubt it."

  She had come from something public, she wore the colors of Layric, the Burning Island family he was born into. Where had she come from, he wondered. How had his missive reached her? The questions must have been in his eyes as she reached over and placed her chill hand on his forehead.

  "You are commanded per the physician to rest. Your condition isn't irreversible, but fragile. I'm sure there are some on the council who are now wondering if perhaps the choice of you as Voice was a poor one. It seems ever since your rise, things have done nothing but gone wrong and now you've apparently had breakdown and been sleeping with a newly acknowledged traitor. I think you've done yourself a bit of disservice."

  Kendrick turned his head away. The last thing he needed was a litany of his failures.

  "On top, and perhaps the worst, you have allowed a powerful impostor to the crown to escape on your watch."

  With a sigh, he turned back.

  "You must be aware that was an executed plan by our enemies."

  "Planned or not, she's gone and she's powerful. In the hinterlands who do not know the powers of the Immortal so well, any power will seem as if her deity is confirmed. You made a dangerous misstep in not killing her immediately."

  "If I killed her without knowing what would happen to the souls, I would have perhaps had a worse problem."

  "Yet it would have been one problem, and perhaps an easy enough one, instead of many."

  With a grunt, Kendrick tried to sit up.

  "There is work to be done."

  "You have to rest."

  "I need to feed and I cannot do it here.
"

  His mother appraised him before relenting.

  "If I take you out of this place, it will be after dark. It will conceal everything better, so lie down and wait."

  There were moments when Kendrick wondered what caused his Father to chose his Mother, a foreigner in his land who came from the people he sought to destroy. Those thoughts faded whenever she turned the eye of command on him. His Father loved power, surrounded himself with it, and a woman who understood not only the power of herself but of the command of others would certainly intrigue him. Kendrick always wondered if perhaps that was why he himself sought women of power. He had attempted the Immortal and found her unwilling. Versa had been less powerful, but much more willing. Then there was the strange girl, the impostor, Jalcina. Power sang in her blood different from the Immortal Leviana but still more than strong enough to make him wonder at her origins.

  She came from Sartol which even after 300 years remained a mystery at the edge of the world. A small mountain kingdom that kept to itself. Even after they were conquered, nothing truly changed as it was with most places. Lord Mordaen, Jalcina's Father, fought to his last. A memorial to him and his valiant effort stood in what could be called their city, as every home in the center of the kingdom was built into the mountainside. Few came from there and those who chose to go there rarely returned.

  Nalcet, however, was not far away if one knew where to look and those who left the city of mages often vanished with little or no trace by choice. Those few who were found again generally turned up in Backaran trying to practice arts forbidden by Nalcet and being eaten away by their unhealthy desire and the madness of the dark city. Backaran kept his well hidden and offered few anything. He preferred to take and destroy. Nalcet offered power, strength, and knowledge in exchange for obedience.

  Under his Mother, he learned the price of power under someone else meant always being subject to their ambitions. Hence his current state, facing possible death, for a prize he didn't even truly want to reap. He settled back on his elbows.

  "How long until dark?"

  "Long enough. Be patient."

  He narrowed his eyes and said nothing. Her mood, unhappy already, had gone sour. There would be no reasoning with her until she came around again, so he laid down and shut his eyes.

  "I need the Daughters involved in the executions."

  "Why? Not trying to save her, are you? I told you she needed to be disposed of…"

  "Not for her, for him. I need him alive."

  "What does he have that you need?"

  "The location of the true Seal."

  "Are you certain?" The wheels turning in his mother's head were obvious but quiet.

  "As I can be without breaching the man's mind and I'm too weak now to try. Maybe after I've fed."

  "Once you've fed, you can take what you want and then you can execute him too."

  "Something will go wrong."

  "Nothing can go wrong with something so simple. He is weak. Once you are strong again, you will overpower him and none of it will matter." Her coddling tone made him wonder if she thought him a boy again in need of comfort. Of course, given her sitting at his bedside after he had been collected off his floor like a child after an accident, perhaps he deserved that. He let his mind drift to the sensations of his skin under the light sheet and the scent of Versa clinging to the fabric.

  He lost her. Of course, he never had her. She served her purpose. Now she would serve one more before she burned out on her pyre taking the blame for a treason he instigated. Was there remorse or pity in him for her plight? Some. He would miss her and maybe even mourn the loss of someone he once considered taking back to his home. However, the truth could not be ignored, she was not a mage, could not become a mage, and would find herself with nothing as soon as he let her step foot within the range of his Father. Better to watch her die with dignity intact.

  Yes, much better.

  "What are you thinking?" His mother's inquiry brought him back to the world outside his thoughts. He slitted his eyes to take her in.

  "Nothing important. Letting time pass."

  "Shall I tell you what I've been up to then?"

  "I see you have come from somewhere requiring you wear the house finery, so I assume it was something of import."

  She chuckled and laid a hand on his shoulder.

  "Nothing so crass as arranging the rest of your life. I've left that to your Father. However, as soon as I heard about your misstep with the escape of the impostor, I thought it would be wise to hear what gossip there was being bandied about in the higher circles."

  He waited for her to get to the point. The gossip of those outside of the council did not interest him. They were flies buzzing around a three day old corpse at best.

  "You know the temple at the base of the Summit trail? Of course you do. Apparently a woman fought someone there who then turned around and vanished before all who saw."

  Kendrick raised an eyebrow at the idea of someone disappearing in broad daylight.

  "Yes, indeed. There are those who say it was Ancel himself and the woman he fought the impostor you seek. Such talk of a religious experience. Vada Kimstain was beside herself over it, but of course you wouldn't know that she's the biggest child of Ancel there is. They aren't exactly your breed."

  Nalcet and Ancel had their differences, long before Kendrick was ever born, and he didn't question it.

  "No, they are not. Was there anything else?"

  "I'm sure there will be more, but I'm not out there to hear about it now, am I? You'll simply have to make due. It would explain why your Father has been so quiet."

  Kendrick's appearance at Backaran brought out the Mad City's ire, that much he knew. Whether or not it had led to repercussions on his Father's side he had yet to find out. All he had gotten since then had been silence, so there was a good chance things were still being smoothed over. Once they had been brothers, now they tolerate one another. Forever longing for each others throats, but unable to rip them out themselves.

  "Backaran was less than pleased when I tracked Leviana there."

  "You entered his bounds without leave to possibly attack someone staying under his protection. Be glad he didn't flatten you where you stood."

  "I am, by all truth."

  "Good. It was a poor decision. One of several you've made in your zealotry. Think before you act."

  "First I must think, then you chide me for taking too long. Which is to be?"

  He heard himself at twelve, early in his training, and wondering if he would ever reach the height he would attain for his parents' ends.

  "You know by now there is not answer to that. Only the needs of the moment. Stop being petulant."

  There again, her demeanor of command brought to bear. Kendrick smiled. She would never be less than what she was. He hoped she never was.

  "Will you still prepare to aid me at the execution?"

  "Are you expecting something?"

  "I feel the Morel Eye open upon me," he said.

  She frowned. "Ill omen."

  "Things have been ill much for me of late. Will you do it?"

  "I have pledged everything to this cause. What's a few foot soldiers?"

  With that settled, he allowed himself to relax again. The sense of foreboding refused to depart, he would insure things went as he anticipated. Now he only had to wait for nightfall.

  The Lie of Strength

  The rise of the dark over Arathum brought with it an awareness of how the city changed as day drew further and further away. To say the city was not safe was not true, if one knew where to go and what to do. However, where Kendrick went was dangerous and he sought it for that. He wanted those he fed upon to be those who would not be missed. Not those with plights they struggled from but those who thought themselves predators in a world where they had yet to meet one.

  Wearing none of his court finery, Kendrick pretended to stumble through the streets. He looked shabby, his cloak a bit tattered, his boots worn at the
toe and heel. Just the way a man down on his luck, but still surviving would be. Someone who might be missed by only a long-suffering wife and an ever growing brat. The kind of man who got waylaid outside of drink houses for drinking too long and not returning home when good sense said so.

  His revulsion for feeding continually warred with the sheer pleasure of it. He tore from the essence of those he supped on and the draw grew stronger the longer he waited between them. Had he been in Nalcet, cradled in the marble arms of his father, he would have gone to the well and drunk his fill of the essence of the very city as was his birthright. Once, there was talk of a well in Arathum, guarded by Ancel himself. Kendrick never found it because he didn't search. If Ancel knew he walked his city, the God did nothing about it, but to tempt more would be foolish and Kendrick was not an utter fool. Occasionally the maker of poor choices but no fool.

  His mind slipped to Versa as his eyes shifted down the street with its glowing pools of light from windows. He could not have hunted with her. In fact, he could not hunt with his mother whom he left behind in a greater establishment more toward city center where she could play cards and smoke a pipe undisturbed by his rough business. In truth, he didn't think his mother cared for him doing this, but accepted as a necessity of his position. Were she as tied to the well as he had been, she might have understood it better, but she was not born to it. Nalcet had taken her in. Offered her power, but kept much of it for himself.

  A poorer man with far too bright eyes watched him as he passed by a building column.

  Those eyes said addiction rode him with burning spurs.

  Kendrick felt a breed of sorrow for him as the man stepped out with his knife thinking perhaps he would make an easy time of taking from another. If only he understood what a terrible choice this was.

  Combat being an unfamiliar thing for Kendrick, he let the man come until he had him by the throat. They tussled but Kendrick made no true attempt to get away, both letting and accepting the other had the upper hand. Finally they were face to face and Kendrick saw every broken blood vessel in the man's face and smelled his rank breath as it ghosted up his nose.