“Sydias!” Aun shouted, forgetting protocol. He moved to greet the general and locked hands with him before embracing his old friend. Another man followed him out of the passenger car, wearing a beige uniform decorated with a collage of awards and ranking pins. The man was in his middle fifties, like Sydias, with a leathery olive skinned face and dark eyes.
“Is that…” Aun faltered.
“General Hakell Salache, commander of the imperial army. Yes.” Dyon answered.
Aun’s gaze vacillated between the enemy general and his friend. “I don’t understand.”
“The war is over, Aun.” Dyon said in a distracted, almost irritable tone. “Tell me. Do you know where I can get some spearmint leaves?”
“Spearmint?” Aun asked, not sure of what else to say.
Dyon nodded, his eyes telling of extreme discomfort. “I haven’t had Lettle in over a week, and I have been using spearmint as a substitute. I ran out halfway through Lakaid province and am ready to kill for some more.”
Aun broke into incredulous laughter. All his Istran life he had prayed to witness a wonder. His redemption from destruction at the eleventh hour and Sydias Dyon giving up Lettle would do.
Sitrell unbuttoned his dress uniform as he entered his bedchamber. He was exhausted, having spent all day in the palace; first to receive commendation from the Ruling Council for the part he played in defeating the Medasylas, and second to hear the council’s decision concerning Kaiden Ekale’s last proposition. Ashra had assured him that the proposal would be ratified, but he couldn’t help but feel anxious. After all, the approval of the council was not just for the raising of the House of Trauel to the status of a Great House, but a decision that would determine whether or not he would be allowed to marry Ashra.
As she had assured him, the measure almost unanimously passed, councilor Kala and two of her supporters were the only ones who had voted against it.
Next followed a catered reception at which Ashra formally announced her intention to marry him and consequently ascend the throne. That had resulted in an impromptu ball, impromptu because it had not been formally announced. However, after Sitrell had seen the amount of food and drink available from the palace kitchens, and the ballroom already decorated and prepared for a celebration, he suspected that Ashra had planned the event days ago. He smiled at that. It was wonderful to know that in three months he would be married to the only woman he had ever truly loved.
Sitrell removed his coat and hung it in his wardrobe closet before un-belting his sword and flintlock pistol and setting them on a table. Boots came off next and Sitrell collapsed in a plush velvet armchair, sighing as the stresses of the day melted away, a day marking the end of the most eventful two weeks of his life. Between Ekale’s three day funeral, attending the Ruling Council’s peace talks with General Salache, formally adopting Yuiv into his house, and recounting his story to dozens of interviewers, he was very much ready for the promised reprieve the coming weeks would bring.
He looked at a portrait of his whole family hanging on the opposite wall, a picture that was painted a month before Kyen’s death. Although he had seen men made titans by the power of gods, and the injured and dying returned to perfect health by the light of the Crystal Star, he could not help but wrestle with why he had not been able to duplicate Taeborn’s Second Wonder. He no longer felt it necessary that he do so. He was reasonably confident that his father and younger brother continued to exist, but his failure to do so still troubled him.
This line of thinking led to memories of the strange dream he had when he lay unconscious and face down in a trampled cow pasture in Hirath. Sitrell knew it had only been a dream, but it was a dream unlike any of his others. There had been a real feeling about the representation of his father, and his instructions for Sitrell to follow the “Guide” had proven prophetic, fulfilled in his meeting Etai.
Sitrell reached over to a table set next to his chair and picked up a book. It was old, pages yellowed and brittle and it smelled of must and old wood. It had taken him weeks to find it in his father’s study, albeit he hadn’t had much time to devote to the search―an hour or so every other day, often late at night.
It didn’t have a title, just a collection of old poems and some children’s stories. He remembered having a brief love affair with it when he was eight and had read through it several times. That’s why he recognized Etai’s story of the man who killed his wife because of the evil crown he wore. Now Sitrell knew the story was referring to a piece of the Jihan Truik, but that wasn’t why he wanted to re-read it.
He flipped through the book until he came to the story. Crown of Darkness it was called, by author unknown. A fitting name. Sitrell read from the last page of the story.
…weeping tears of blood, Yaokken bent over the body of his beloved, crying her name with a mournful wail “Adariel! Adariel!” His sky castle crumbled around him as it fell from the heavens and Yaokken welcomed death. But Yaokken did not die. The old sage who had conspired with Yaokken’s wife appeared and offered him a bargain. Yaokken’s life would be spared and he would be given power over death if he would walk the world until the end times, fighting evil and making certain no other man was ever enslaved by the crown of darkness again. Then, when the world ended, Yaokken could join his beloved in Trysta Jiann.
Sitrell started as a knock came from his chamber door. “Come in,” he called and closed the book.
The door opened, revealing Yuiv dressed in an oversized silk banyan. “You’as have anything―”
“Do you have anything,” Sitrell corrected. “You are noble now and nobles don’t use street talk.”
Yuiv rolled his eyes. “Do you have anything,” he grumbled, “smaller than this, maybe’s from when you’as a boy?”
Sitrell laughed. “That does look a little big, but I am afraid all of my night clothes are just as big.”
Yuiv sighed as he lifted the bottom of the banyan so as to be able to walk into the room. He grinned as he bowed before Sitrell. “Your Highness.”
Now it was Sitrell’s turn to roll his eyes. Since learning of his engagement to Ashra, the boy had taken to addressing him with all manner of titles for royalty. It was getting old. “I am not royalty, and I won’t be even after I marry the princess. That’s not how it works.”
Yuiv stood and shrugged. “Then’as, what should I call you?”
“How about Sitrell?” He answered around a yawn. “Listen, it has been a very long day. Would you mind resuming your persecution of me in the morning? I am going to retire.”
“Yesh, mi lord!” Yuiv bowed again, an obnoxious grin framing his face.
“Just go!” Sitrell threw a pillow at Yuiv who tripped over his too-big banyan as he left the room.
Sitrell chuckled to himself. Yuiv was a good boy, apparently of the Kalyra. One day he will be great. It was a musing he had before. Another yawn told Sitrell it was time for sleep, and so he closed the old story book and rose from his chair, extinguished the lights, and undressed to his lower undergarments. His bed welcomed him as he slipped between silk sheets and rested his head on a cool, feather-stuffed pillow.
The creak of Sitrell’s chamber door tore him from sleep, his right hand instinctively shooting to his waist in search of the handle of his sword. Light poured in from a lamp in the hallway and Sitrell relaxed upon seeing Yuiv standing in the doorway.
“Yuiv?” Sitrell asked as he leaned on an elbow. As his eyes adjusted to the light he saw that the boy’s eyes were faintly shining and he wore a serious expression. “What’s the matter?”
Yuiv’s distant stare was disconcerting. “Your father,” he said after a long uncomfortable moment. “He asked me to tell you that it was not a dream.”
Sitrell sat up. “What did you say?”
“He also asked me to tell you that Kyen never blamed you for the accident and that he wants you to stop blaming yourself.”
“What?” Sitrell asked, tears springing to his eyes.
Yuiv lingered
, silent, gazing into nowhere for a moment before pulling the chamber door closed behind him as he left.
It was a long time before Sitrell could find sleep again, Yuiv’s words refusing to give him rest. It was not a dream. Sitrell remembered asking his father that very question as they stood on the bridge over the Nenasette. It was not a dream. It may not have been a wonder like that described in the Salia Kitha, but it was good enough. Sitrell now knew, knew that his father and his brother still existed.
He knew, and that was enough.
Tyra’s proud smile faded as she watched Yuiv sleep. The time she had dreaded for nearly fourteen years had finally come, the moment that she would have to leave her son and return to YaJiann. Her only consolation was that she would see her beloved Jalidar again, but as much as she loved and missed her husband, she found leaving Yuiv almost more than she could bear.
Now that he had begun to discover his true nature, Tyra knew that further interference would only give the enemy more power against him. He will be safer with me gone. Motherly instinct fought that thought with a ferocious vehemence. Tears spilled down her cheeks So much depends upon him. He would carry a load heavier than any man had ever borne and he wasn’t even that yet—a man. He would know trouble and sorrow nearly all the days of his young life and she would no longer be allowed to help him bear it.
Come home, YaJiann whispered.
Tyra nodded to the invisible voice and approached her sleeping babe’s bed. She laughed at that thought. Only a few years away from manhood, and she still thought of him as her baby. She tenderly caressed his cheek and smiled.
“I may not be able to stay with you,” she whispered, “but I will never stop watching over you. And one day, when you have fulfilled your destiny, we will be together again.”
Tyra laid a hand on Yuiv’s brow and transmitted her words into the boy’s dreams so that he would know and remember. A smile parted Yuiv’s lips and he rolled over, looking content. Tyra again felt YaJiann’s gentle summons and she turned to face a window that was set in the wall opposite the bed. She stared at a tiny pinprick of crystal blue light twinkling in the night sky, and with one last heart-wrenching look at her son, Tyra left the world of mortals forever.
Etai knelt next to the granite grave marker, hammer and chisel in his hands as he re-etched the worn name into the stone’s weathered face. “I am sorry it took so long,” he said softly. “I wish I could blame it on lack of time, but I have had more time than any man ever has.”
Three letters now adorned the headstone.
He had thought about etching the name in Valakyrian, which would have been easier as the language used fewer letters, but for some reason the common tongue of the day seemed more appropriate. He chuckled to himself as he realized that even his thoughts were phrased in the modern speech. When had that happened? When had he stopped thinking in Jidarian?
Four letters.
Etai paused as he caught sight of the Devotion Heart Star lying just a few feet away from him, the wind and weather the likely culprits of its dislocation. He reached for it, picking it up and depositing it back at the base of the marker where it belonged. He was about to resume his chiseling when something about the flower caught his attention. It had been weeks since he had stopped sustaining it with his Jia and yet the flower remained as fresh as when he had plucked it from the water, all save one of its seven petals which had fallen off. What did that mean? In Jidar, the petals of the Heart Star were said to represent how many days a young suitor had to convince the woman he had given the flower to marry him, else he die.
Six petals left. Six pieces of the Jihan Truik left unrevealed. It had to be a coincidence, didn’t it? Yet it fit so perfectly, for Etai’s purpose wasn’t to avoid death in the allotted time as measured by the petals, it was to finish his mission so that he could die. The petals, if they meant what he thought they did, were a countdown to his release, and his reunion with her.
“Was that you?” he asked the stone marker, feeling somewhat foolish as his knowledge of the planar laws told him that such was unlikely. Still, if it was a coincidence, it was a perfect one, and Etai had learned over the centuries that there were no perfect coincidences.
He resumed his work, using the utmost care as he chiseled the name back into the stone, for if he tapped his chisel too hard, he could break the marker in half, so weather-worn the stone had become. Worn like me. He laughed in spite of himself, he was reading too much into things.
Five letters.
Etai’s thoughts turned to the Desperate Son, detained in Salatia Taeo until the authorities there were finished interviewing him. Etai thought of him more than the others, he realized, for he had seen something of his own story in the boy’s quest to reclaim his father. It was as if fate had delivered Etai an object lesson to teach him what his wife had gone through, what pain and anguish he had caused her. Yet, as familiar as the story had been, its ending couldn’t have been more different. The death of the Medasylas had left his son with a terrible injury that Etai knew Aedar would exploit.
Six letters.
Thinking of the dark god took Etai back to a few nights ago when he had directly intervened by taking possession of one of the Viska. Looking into the creatures glowing red eyes had stirred his emotional memory and for one brief moment, Etai remembered what it had been like to have that monster’s voice in his mind. When had he ceased to be himself? When had he become someone else? It was a pointless question, the answer to which lay beyond a corridor of pain and guilt. So he abandoned it.
Seven letters.
The Call summoned him and he knew it was time to move on. He wouldn’t go far, for he knew he would soon be needed again. The end was coming, not just the end of his mission, but the end of a war begun before the creation of Valcoria. Etai rocked back onto his knees inspecting his work. In a rendering that was as artful as it was utilitarian, the worn graver marker read:
ADARIEL
About the Author
Born in Salt Lake City Utah, Jason grew up on a steady diet of anime, science fiction, Dungeons and Dragons, JRPG's, and chocolate cake donuts. By some inexplicable cosmic anomaly Jason managed to marry, and is the proud father of four children, one of which is certainly destined to one day slay him and absorb his soul.
Jason holds a bachelor's degree in I.T. Management and is the CEO of Immortal Works Press. He’s the author of The Age of the Infinite Trilogy, and Thomas Destiny. He is also a proud "anonymous" member of the Space Balrogs comedy troupe, and he speaks fluent Labrador.
Also by Jason James King
The Lure of Fools
The Soulless Grave
The Fork of Destiny’s Road
Thomas Destiny
Valcoria Awakenings
Heroes of the Crystal Star (Valcoria Book 1) Page 39
