The Sworn

by Gail Z. Martin

  Tice and Allestyr are well, and I keep them busy handling my affairs and running the castle. I’m well-recovered from my sickness of last year, and the hunt was good this year. We hunted more than usual to cull the herd. One bright spot is that we won’t lack for venison.

  I’m anxious for Cam to return to Isencroft. I value his counsel and rest easier knowing that he’s at my back. I console myself with the thought that Isencroft has endured dark days before, and that we are a resilient people. I hear of Margolan’s troubles, and I grieve that you and Tris have come to your throne in such turbulent times.

  Plague has not yet taken hold in Isencroft, but such things are just a matter of time. We can’t possibly police the entire border, and refugees fleeing Margolan are sure to bring the sickness with them sooner or later. We’re preparing as best we can.

  I trust that you’ve heard from Carina, so I won’t repeat her letter at length except to say that she’s well and quite ready for her twins to be born.

  I pray for Chenne’s favor on your child, and know that he’ll make a fine king someday. Please give my greeting to Tris, and encourage him. The weight of the crown is great.

  I miss you. Send word when you can, and remember Isencroft in your offerings to the Lady.

  With love

  Kiara sighed and set the letter aside.

  “Bad news?” Tris asked, coming back to her side from the window.

  “Nothing more than the usual, but that’s enough.” She stroked Cwynn’s wispy hair and the baby stirred contentedly at her touch. “Some things I knew from Carina’s last letter, about Cam being recovered enough to travel, and that she’s feeling well despite the twins. But Father was honest in his other news, and it’s not good.” She handed the letter to Tris and was silent as he read it.

  “Your father is one of the shrewdest kings in the history of the Winter Kingdoms,” Tris said when he had finished the letter. “If anyone can guide Isencroft through stormy times, it’s Donelan.”

  Kiara nodded. “Maybe I just have a better idea now what the crown really means. When Father was sick, I ruled from behind the throne for months, with Tice and Allestyr to help. That was hard enough, but now that I’m queen in fact as well as function, I understand even more why Father often seemed distracted, and why he took to the hunt so hardily when he was free from his duties.”

  Tris leaned down to kiss her head. “These times will pass. You’ll see. They’ll be just a bad memory by the time it’s Cwynn’s time to rule.”

  Kiara turned away. “If it ever is.” She paused, and looked down at the sleeping baby. “He looks so perfect, but there are times when he wakes in a terror, eyes wide and screaming, as if he’s seen horrors. He won’t be comforted when that happens, no matter who holds him or what we do. When the fit takes him, he screams for candlemarks. Thank goodness for the servants!”

  “Perhaps it’s poor digestion. If the healers can’t give you an answer, ask the cooks and the serving girls. They’ve got babes of their own and they must have ways to quiet them.”

  Kiara looked toward the empty fireplace as if she might see an answer in its depths. “Perhaps. But I think there’s more to it than his digestion. Ula and Seanna can quiet him when no one else can reach him. He watches Ula as if he can hear her, and I swear he can feel Seanna’s touch, although she isn’t solid enough to hold him. Could he have your power so early?”

  Tris shrugged. “I don’t sense power in him at all. Not that I’d expect to—he’s far too young. But when I touch him with my magic, he feels different somehow. It’s not what I feel from people without magic, or what I sense in other mages. It’s as if he’s blank to me. And I’ve set wardings around these rooms. If any ghosts or dimonns tried to enter, I’d know. Perhaps you’re seeing more in his tempers than what’s there.”

  “Perhaps.” She was silent for a moment, and then she worked up the nerve to say what had been on her mind all morning. “We need to think about having another one—”

  Tris turned toward her, eyes wide. “You can’t be serious!”

  “Completely.”

  “No. Absolutely not. It’s too soon. You won’t have your strength back.”

  “Aren’t I a better judge of that?”

  “No. You’re far too likely to do the brave thing for the good of the throne.”

  Kiara saw real concern in his eyes. “A second heir might ease the tension in Isencroft, if we had one son who could take the crown in Margolan and one who could become king in Isencroft. The idea of a joint throne fuels the Divisionists. And it’s been fodder for people like Curane, who don’t like sharing the Margolan throne with Isencroft.”

  “Curane is dead. The plague’s the danger now, and it doesn’t care who’s king.”

  Tris knelt beside her chair and met her eyes. “I nearly lost both of you the night you gave birth. I don’t ever want to come that close to losing you again. You had a hard time of it, almost from the time you got pregnant. I don’t want to risk it.”

  Kiara smiled and leaned her head against his shoulder. “I love you for that. But as you’ve said so often, kings don’t get the choices other men have. Especially if… if something isn’t right with Cwynn, then there needs to be a second heir, just to continue a joint throne.”

  Tris touched her cheek reassuringly. “You’re borrowing trouble. Cwynn’s growing well, and I’ve heard you complain that he has a healthy appetite.” He sobered. “I know that what you’re saying is logical. My head agrees with you, but my heart doesn’t, not yet. Please. Let’s see what the next months bring. The choices may be clearer then, if we have any choices at all.”

  A quiet rap on the door ended the conversation. Tris went to answer it, as Cwynn stretched and Kiara moved to quiet the sleeping baby. Ban Soterius stood in the doorway. Even when not dressed for battle, everything about Soterius marked him as a soldier, from his stance to his dark brown hair, short-cropped for a helm.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, Tris, but we’ve got a problem.” Ban Soterius, now Margolan’s youngest general, had been Captain of the Guard the night King Bricen was murdered. Along with Harrtuck the guard and Carroway the bard, Soterius had helped Tris escape with his life from the coup that claimed the rest of his family. Soterius and Carroway had been childhood friends of Tris’s, and along with Harrtuck, they went willingly into exile to protect Tris. When Tris launched the campaign to take back Margolan’s throne from Jared the Usurper, Soterius had rallied an army from those who had fled Jared’s depredations or deserted Jared’s corrupt army. His courage had earned him the rank of general, and his friendship with Tris placed him among the king’s most trusted advisors.

  Tris let himself out of the room quietly. “What’s wrong now?”

  Soterius sighed. “We’ve just gotten word of an attack on a village a candlemark’s ride south of the city.”

  Tris frowned. “Who?”

  “A better question might be ‘what.’ ” Soterius’s face was grim. “The patrols discovered it when they found a boy stumbling down the road, covered in blood. I heard the account from the soldiers who saw the boy themselves. They were pretty shaken up about it. According to the boy, something came out of the old barrow near the village and went on a rampage.”

  “Rogue vayash moru?”

  Soterius shook his head. “Not likely. For one thing, the boy said it wasn’t solid. He said it was a shadow that changed shape, but it was real enough to flay flesh from bone and to rip heads from bodies.” He paused. “When it was daylight, the soldiers investigated. They found the village as the boy said. Everyone was dead.”

  “And the boy?”

  “After that night, he hasn’t said another word. The healers tried to treat him, but the wounds are festering. He’s going to die.”

  “Where is he?”

  Soterius gestured. “Come with me.”

  Two of Tris’s bodyguards fell in behind them as they quickly descended the steps. They left the large, grand entranceway to the palace Shekerishet a
nd crossed through the bailey to the guard tower. The sun was just setting. “We didn’t want to bring him into the palace for fear of contagion,” Soterius explained. Harrtuck, now Captain of the Guards in Soterius’s stead, met them at the tower door.

  “I thought you’d want to see this,” Harrtuck said, but his raspy voice sounded shaken. “I pity the lad.”

  Tris glanced over his shoulder toward Dugan, one of his bodyguards. “Find Mikhail. He’ll have risen by now. Bring him. I’d like him to see this. And send Esme to me.” Dugan took off toward the palace. Tris returned his attention to Soterius. “You’ve had Esme look at the boy?”

  “Esme says it’s not something her magic can heal.”

  Prepared for the worst, Tris followed Soterius into one of the rooms usually used as a guard’s bedchamber. He caught his breath at the sight of a still, small form on the bed. A young boy in his middling years lay pale against the sheets. His eyes were tightly closed, as if against nightmares only he could see. Esme had cleaned the boy’s wounds, but blood seeped through bandages that covered his arms and chest, and a nasty gash sliced across one cheek.

  “You wished to see me?” Mikhail’s soundless approach made Tris startle, although he knew the vayash moru seneschal could move quickly and without noise. Mikhail was one of Lord Gabriel’s brood, on loan for as long as Tris required his service. Since the vayash moru were immortal, Tris guessed that meant his own mortal lifetime.

  “What do you make of him?” Tris said with a nod toward the boy on the bed.

  Mikhail moved forward silently and bent over the boy. Tris hoped that the vayash moru’s heightened senses might pick up something mortals could not. Mikhail frowned and looked up. “This is bad.” He met Tris’s gaze. “You know that vayash moru did not do this.”

  “How can you be certain?”

  Mikhail looked back toward the boy. “For one thing, he has his blood. The marks are wrong—claws, for starters. But not vyrkin, either. And there’s a residue of dark magic.” He looked up. “Bogwaithe?”

  Tris nodded. “Or dimonn.”

  Tris moved around Soterius to sit beside the boy, who had still not opened his eyes. Tris stretched out a hand and lightly touched the boy’s shoulder.

  “You’re not real. You’re not real. You’re not real,” the boy chanted under his breath in the heavy accent of the Margolan farm country.

  Tris closed his eyes and called for his magic. He felt the power rise, filling him. Tris raised wards of protection around the room, reinforcing the safeguards he had already placed around the castle. When the room was warded, Tris turned his attention back to the boy.

  He could feel the boy’s pain and terror. Just from his touch on the boy’s shoulder, images flared into Tris’s mind, carried by the magic. He could hear the screams of the villagers and smelled fresh blood, along with the stench of entrails. In the torchlight of the village night, men, women, and children ran for their lives from the black shape that rose from beneath the barrow. That dark presence changed from horror to horror as it moved. In one glance, it seemed to be the shadow of a shrouded skeleton, its face lost to the blackness of its cowl. In the next breath, it was the shape of a two-legged beast, and then the impossibly huge, long-armed outline of a featureless man, with hands that grasped and tore.

  Tris’s magic thrummed with the boy’s fear as his Summoning power read from the child’s soul. He heard the running footsteps as villagers ran for their lives, and he felt an icy chill as the darkness passed by him. Tris winced as the boy’s memories supplied a vision of the dark thing lashing out at him, claws tearing down through skin and cloth. And then, abruptly, the thing left him, gliding off to run the rest of the villagers to ground. Tris pulled back from the contact, but he could hear the boy’s screams echoing in his head.

  As clearly as Tris could feel the boy’s terror, he felt the poison the attacker left behind. Esme can’t heal this. It’s not just poison and not just magic. Dimonns leave their own mark. Tris reached out with his magic toward the thin, blue-white strand of light that was the boy’s soul. The dimonn’s poison wasn’t just in the flesh or blood, but in the soul itself, like a growing rot. Tris brought his power to bear on the darkness that stained the strand of light, willing his magic to cast out the shadows. Even for a summoner of Tris’s power, such a working took a tremendous amount of energy. Gradually, the shadows faded and the blue-white strand glowed more brightly, unsullied by the dimonn’s touch. Tris withdrew his magic gently and looked up to see Esme watching him closely.

  “I would like very much to know how you did that,” the healer said, a smile touching the corner of her lips.

  “If I could explain it in words, I’d tell you.” Tris could hear the tiredness that colored his voice. Power always came at a price, and although Tris had learned over the last two years to wield powerful magic, such workings took a toll.

  The boy’s eyes snapped open. “Who are you?”

  “He’s your king, lad,” Soterius said quietly. “You’re safe.”

  The boy eyed Tris warily. “I must be fevered.”

  Tris gently took the boy’s hand. “What’s your name?”

  “Evan of Treganowan.”

  “I’ve seen your memories, Evan,” Tris said quietly. “What attacked your village was a dimonn. Have you heard the term?”

  Evan nodded, eyes wide. “It was something evil, that’s for sure.”

  “I’m going to have to put it right, and I need your help,” Tris said.

  “My help? For the king?”

  Tris managed a smile. “Yes. I need you to remember, where did the dimonn rise?”

  Evan’s eyes darkened. “From the foot of the barrows outside the village.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Aye. Saw it when I went to gather firewood.”

  Tris thought for a moment. “Has anything disturbed the barrow?”

  Evan gave him a frightened look. “How did you know?” His sudden movement made a silver talisman slip into view beneath his ruined shirt. Tris reached down and lifted it into the light. It was the mark of the Lady, wrought in silver, and by the look of it, very old.

  “Where did you find this?”

  Evan slumped back into the bed. “I didn’t disturb the barrow, if that’s what you’re thinking. But two nights ago, when the moon was dark, something did. The next morning, when I went to gather wood, I saw that someone had dug into the barrow. I was curious, so I looked closer. There was a pile of rocks to one side, a lot of them carved with markings. What was left looked like a doorway into the barrow, with stone doorposts and more of those funny marks.”

  “And the necklace?”

  “It was in the pile of rocks. I meant to give it to my mum. She likes—liked shiny things.” His voice caught as he corrected himself.

  “Did you go into the barrow?”

  “I’m not crazy!” Evan suddenly remembered where he was. “M’lord,” he added hastily.

  “Smart boy,” Tris said. “I have a feeling that necklace saved your life. It’s been touched by old magic, very old.” He looked up at Soterius and the others. “Whoever or whatever disturbed the barrow also weakened its protections. The runes Evan saw were part of those wardings, and so was the talisman, I’m betting. That dimonn didn’t get out by accident.”

  “The black robes,” Evan murmured.

  “What did you say?”

  “The night the moon was dark, my brother said he saw two strangers on the road outside the village. That’s odd, because we don’t get many outsiders our way. Said they wore black robes. They didn’t stop and they didn’t speak to anyone, so I didn’t think of it again.”

  “Did your brother say anything else about the men?” Tris asked.

  Evan thought for a moment. “He said he didn’t like their look. He didn’t see them up close, but he thought one man wore a necklace made of bones.”

  Tris and Soterius exchanged glances. “Shanthadura followers,” Soterius muttered.

  “
Sounds likely,” Tris replied. He stood and looked to Esme. “The poison is gone, but it will take a few days before he feels better. Since he can’t go home, let’s see about finding him a place here in the castle.” He didn’t say it aloud, but since the dimonn had marked the boy once, Tris preferred to keep him within the wardings, to prevent the dimonn from returning to finish what it had started.

  “Call for Coalan,” Tris continued. His valet, Soterius’s sixteen-year-old nephew, would be the perfect person to help Evan. Like Evan, Coalan had also lost his family to violence, but in his case, it had been Jared’s soldiers and not dimonns who were responsible for the slaughter. “Have Coalan sit with him until Evan’s feeling better.” He met Esme’s eyes. “Get whatever you need to fix him up.”

  “Yes, m’lord.”

  Soterius and Harrtuck fell into step beside Tris as they left the guard tower. “That story about an amulet from a tomb remind you of anyone?” Soterius murmured.

  Tris glanced at him. “Yeah. Jonmarc.” Long before he had become Dark Haven’s brigand lord, Jonmarc Vahanian had been a blacksmith’s apprentice in a poor Borderlands village, hired by a stranger to retrieve an amulet from one of the cliffside tombs. That night, magicked beasts overran the village, slaughtering everyone except Jonmarc, who was wearing the amulet during the battle. The scar that ran from Jonmarc’s ear down below his collar was a permanent reminder of that fight.

  “Only it was a blood mage who wanted the amulet then. Foor Arontala,” Soterius replied.

  Tris shrugged. “The way I see it, Arontala’s blood magic isn’t that different from what the Shanthadurists are doing. The question is… what do they want from the barrows?”