A King's Caution (The Eternal War Book 2)

by Brennan C. Adams

  Keltheryl approached the kid with care. Once he was within arm’s length, he laid a hand on Raimie’s shoulder, and his friend’s fingers twitched.

  “Are you all right?” Keltheryl asked.

  Whatever had captured Raimie’s attention lost its attraction, and he marched toward one of the portcullises. Before chasing him, Keltheryl took his place, and his mouth tightened.

  Written in entrails across the sand was a message meant for his friend.

  ‘A second gift, dabbler of both sides. More to come.’

  “He won’t find survivors,” someone said behind him. “Judging from the size of that eyesore, the pens will be empty. At least we got some of them out before… We should have done more.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for this,” Keltheryl told the man, although he also reminded himself. “Doldimar’s actions are his own.”

  “I know, but-”

  “But you’re a good man, Pointer, and you can’t help feeling guilty even if you did nothing wrong,” Keltheryl finished for him.

  Pointer was quiet, and after a moment, his footsteps retreated, leaving Keltheryl alone before the cube.

  Where was the horror, the rage, or even the sorrow at this slaughter? All this massacre prompted was a quiet resignation. Had he seen enough senseless death? Was this the final straw to break the-?

  Doldimar’s presence firmly asserted itself nearby. Whirling, Keltheryl looked up, up, up… There, on the palace’s top floor behind the window wall. A handsome Eselan sporting a blonde and blue mane and clothed from neck to toe in black leather. Lifting a ruined hand, Arivor jerked it in a wave, and Keltheryl instinctually copied the move. Gods, why did he always get the good looks?

  His friend (enemy’s) face twisted into a sneering smile, and he gestured. Oh, no, no, no!

  Keltheryl faced the cube as the Daevetch which held it together joyfully raced to its master. Without the energy to support it, the meaty mash fell apart. It smashed into him and

  A river, an ocean, a TIDAL WAVE of blood all around and his family’s corpses in the mix and oh, gods, he’d never escape and he’d drown, he’d drown, he’d drown and a muffled voice calling a foreign name and Alouin, what did Raimie say to call him if he lost it and-

  “ERIANGER!”

  He stared at his knees, his hands tearing at his hair. A high-pitched whine softly filled the bubble he’d formed between his chest, head, and thighs. It stopped as soon as he noticed it. What had happened? Why was he huddled in a-?

  Leaping to his feet, he lobbed an Ele bolt at the palace’s top floor.

  “You son of a bitch!” he screamed.

  Of course, Doldimar wasn’t there to receive the brunt of his attack. He’d probably shade melded away as soon as he’d observed the results of his handiwork.

  “Last time I tell you any secrets between cycles,” Keltheryl growled to himself.

  “You done?!” Oswin barked behind him. “Because we need help here!”

  He hadn’t been the only one caught in the wash of blood, bone, and viscera. Oswin was painted red from his feet to just above his panicky eyes. In an exact match of his bodyguard, Raimie was…

  For a moment, Keltheryl stupidly blinked, uncomprehending of what his friend did, before jolting to awareness. Raimie had laid a latticework of throbbing, dark shadows over the arena’s tiered seats and was proceeding to systematically smash them into rubble. Dust thickened the air, and stone tumbled. While Keltheryl watched, a loosened portion of the stands nearly crushed Little. Only the spy’s quick reflexes saved him.

  “I’ve got it from here!” Keltheryl shouted over the deafening rumble. “Get your Hand out of here while you can!”

  “Don’t need to tell me twice.”

  Oswin’s shout to his subordinates barely carried over the noise, and the five of them zipped up the stands, racing their steady destruction.

  Keltheryl advanced on his friend. “Raimie?” he shouted. “What are you doing?”

  A wild grin danced on his friend’s lips but gods, the fury in those eyes.

  “I’m showing Doldimar what I think of his gift,” he growled.

  He flexed, and the second half of the stands disintegrated.

  “Great. You’ve trapped us down here,” Keltheryl remarked. “Now what?”

  “Now, we give these people a proper burial.”

  Raimie leaped in bursts of light from boulder to boulder, steadily advancing up the destroyed seats, and Keltheryl was forced to follow, although he ceased his primeancy use when the pit’s lip loomed. By the time he climbed over the edge, Raimie had already knelt, palms flat on the ground, and sent his first Ele pulses into the mountain.

  When he turned to the pit, Keltheryl laughed with disbelief and amazement. The stone and sand which composed the pit’s floor flowed like water, and like a stream in the midst of a flash flood, earth splashed upward, eagerly climbing for the hole’s surface.

  Raimie would be magically spent for days after this. Sure enough, when Keltheryl checked on him, his friend was white as a sheet and shaking like a leaf. He locked eyes with Keltheryl.

  “Help. Me,” he ground out.

  Keltheryl completed a quick scan, and yes, unwanted observers hadn’t snuck up on them. Joining Raimie in the dirt, he shot a questioning glance at Creation. The splinter shrugged.

  “No harm trying.”

  Reaching deep inside for his source of peace, Keltheryl found it buried even further beneath the growing load of damage and scarring. He carefully cracked the seal. Ele burst forth in a flood, but it was a contained rush compared to what he’d unleashed during the beach battle months ago. Focusing it specifically on the wound in the mountain’s side, he bid Ele restore, restore, restore! The hole quickly filled with earth, and once it finished its task, Keltheryl sent white light streaking across the mountain in search of grass and flowers and shrubs and trees. Wherever Ele could find sparks of growth, he breathed Life into them, and they sprouted. Grass spread with a mind of its own, and seeds, acorns, and nuts vigorously budded. A carpet of green marched up and over the stone precipice.

  As usual, reigning Ele in proved problematic, a struggle to squeeze a force of boundless presence into a tiny bottle, but he managed it without Ren’s help this time. The seal snapped into place, and he opened his eyes.

  He’d been transported into a jungle’s midst. Wild trees shaded them from the sun, grass rose to mid-shin, and tropical flowers peppered the plant life which surrounded him.

  “Whoops,” Keltheryl muttered to himself, “may have gone a bit too far.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Raimie said. “A wonderful way to honor the fallen.

  His friend heavily leaned on Oswin, legs shaking with the effort to hold what little weight he applied to them.

  “You should never use magic like that, Raimie,” Keltheryl admonished as he climbed to his own feet without assistance. “It’s really, REALLY stupid.”

  “Good to know you care,” Raimie replied with a grin, “but you should worry more about yourself.”

  “Why’s that?” Keltheryl asked.

  Raimie pointed behind him. A crowd of people stared, composed of both civilians and soldiers. Gaping mouths and white eyes formed discombobulated lines from the palace wall to the jungle’s fringe. He read fear in some and awe in others, but all firmly fixed on him. How… wonderful.

  “Couldn’t have lasted much longer with so many big mouths knowing the secret,” he sighed. “Goodbye, Keltheryl. Hello, Kheled, once more.”

  Releasing the shape change, he faced his friend while the transformation worked its magic.

  “I’ll need a bed now,” he informed Raimie and promptly collapsed.

  One of the Hand-Little?-leaned over him. “How can we help?” he asked.

  Kheled weakly laughed, and the energy drain hit so hard he blacked out.

  * * *

  The room echoed Eledis’ footfalls to him, but he hardly noticed the noise, too wrapped in echoes of the past to care about thos
e of the present. From this palace, a family had provided stability and protection to a nation of various peoples for generations, but here, Doldimar had ripped their power and privilege away from them.

  Eledis had arrived to this particular bedroom after wandering for hours. At some point during that time, the palace had briefly rumbled, and he’d worried fighting had begun, but the vibrations had quickly stopped, relieving those fears.

  Walking the cathedral-like halls, each sporadically fitted with gas lamps and candelabras, had been like traversing a long episode of déjà vu. The familiarity he felt with this place was foreign, or perhaps it was more long-forgotten.

  He could hear the patter of feet and children’s giggles, a delightful noise chased by adult’s outraged or indulgent exclamations. The low roar of conversations and tinkle of champagne glasses rang in a cavernous hall adorned with tiled flooring, frescos, and chandeliers. The throne room carried the long dead voices of criers announcing visitors or issuing proclamations. The study with a wall of windows… Well, that room had been too strong a reminder of Eledis’ father, the man who’d loved such views. In there, he’d heard only his brother’s pained cries and the smack of leather on flesh.

  Then, he’d stumbled across this bedroom, and he was home. Small, cozy, surprisingly illuminated by a lit fireplace, it was the same in style as every place he’d ever laid his head before this long journey had begun. The fixtures and furniture may be different, especially the enormous bed, but the feel of it… He shivered. A leather armchair even waited by the fire, exactly where he liked it positioned. Eledis wandered to it in a daze, overwhelmed by the sense of well-being after the many years of peril and strife.

  A slim, black-dyed, leather volume perched on the armchair’s seat, and Eledis stiffened. He rigidly switched places with the collection of bound pages, cracking it open once he’d settled in the chair. Flipping through the journal, he absently scanned dates followed by entries of various length, a lump forming in his throat. When he reached the end, he paused before turning the page. The story told in this diary ended poorly, but some few pages remained blank. Perhaps he could reverse the story, finish it on a happier note.

  He flipped to the final entry, intending to find ink and a quill, but the words which followed the last line froze him in place. Written in a meticulously neat hand, they read, “Enjoy it while it lasts, old man.”

  Interlude II: Arrogance

  14th of Third, 3476

  My father is dead.

  They tell me he died in his sleep, that I could have done nothing for him, but I can’t help but blame myself. You see, I’ve asked Alouin for his death some months now, ever since Nebailie returned home.

  He and father have always gotten along poorly, but since father ordered my brother from his military life and back to court, their relationship deteriorated even further. Toward the end, Nebailie was well-nigh rebellious with father, saying and doing whatever he wished rather than observing proper decorum. Such behavior would have gotten an ordinary man imprisoned for treason, but Nebailie only ever received a withering glare.

  My brother accidentally revealed the reason for his flippancy with father one night when we snuck a bottle of whiskey from the cellar, thereafter proceeding to get thoroughly drunk. I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but his shirt came off. I asked him if he'd earned the white scars which crisscrossed his back while fighting bandits, and he broke into hiccupping laughter. When I asked what was so funny, he shook his head and said they were wounds from a battle much closer to home, and I remembered nights when my baby brother had come to bed after a ‘talk’ with father, shaking like a leaf. Once I put it together, I vaguely recall Nebailie holding me down to stop me from murdering our father.

  Ever since then, I’ve prayed for father to die each night before I fall asleep.

  Alouin but it feels good to write that down. I’ve kept the sentiment hidden since that whiskey sodden night, unsure who reads this journal when I’m away. I’m not stupid. I know someone does. When you’re not the king, nothing you write or say is private, especially if you’re next in line to the throne, but now that father is gone, perhaps I can write uncensored.

  “Your Majesty?” A priest from my retinue stuck his head through the door. “It’s time.”

  “Give me a moment more,” I asked, pushing my journal aside. “I’ve a final prayer before we proceed to bestow Alouin’s blessing upon me.”

  “Of course!”

  The door thunked closed, and I hastily stripped off my tunic and the heavy robes they expected me to wear through the ceremony. Quietly slipping the box from its hiding space, I retrieved the tight-fitting shirt which gave me the appearance of power and donned it. My fingers reached the gloved sleeves’ tips, and my torso brightly glowed, the fabric disappearing against my skin. I threw clothes on once more, kicked the box into a corner, and strode to the door.

  “Your Majesty!” the high priest exclaimed over his fellows’ gasps. “You don’t need to use your power until the ceremony!”

  “It doesn’t trouble me to do so,” I remarked, lazily examining my hand. “Is it wrong for me to express adoration for our god in this manner, even when circumstances don't call for it?”

  Try to refute that, you crotchety old man.

  “Of course not, Your Majesty. I’d never think to discourage such worship,” the high priest replied.

  So you say.

  “Then, let us proceed,” I proclaimed.

  The priests surrounded me, and we quickly crossed the short distance from the room where I’d prepared to the colossal doors which separated the hall of worship from the palace. Those doors were all that stood between my enormous home and its easiest point of ingress.

  Constructed completely from wood, the hall of worship would easily fall to an enemy army. If aggressors wished to take it, they could simply burn their way through its weak walls as opposed to a futile attempt to smash through the palace’s resin-coated obsidian. If an army ever deigned to attack Uduli, we’d never leave the doors as the sole line of defense. No, by the time the enemy reached the mountain summit, the majority of the palace guard would be stationed here, but the doors were a constant reminder of our weak point. The high priest flung them open, and my breathing stuttered.

  Alouin but a lot of people waited inside, many of them staring and gasping at my lit-up form. Fortunately, years of practice kept my face serene and my feet moving despite the onset of panic.

  Was I ready for this? I’d trained to become king for my entire life, but did that mean I was prepared?

  We passed Baron Gilfinas’ son, Tercoril, and my face unintentionally twisted into a smirk. I may or may not be ready to lead a nation, but I’d thoroughly enjoy making Tercoril’s life miserable. He’d heaped grief upon my brother throughout our childhood. I’d enjoy paying it back. Speaking of Nebailie…

  I checked, and yes, they’d obliged my request. I’d threatened and cajoled too many nobles and priests to make it happen, but there Nebailie stood, in military dress, at the head of my honor guard. Mother had been furious when she’d discovered my wish but honestly? I hadn’t cared. I loved my mother, but she retained an enormous blind spot when it came to my brother.

  The honor guard stood on the left side of the raised apse, or as I liked to call it, the hall of worship’s ‘stage’. To the right waited my wife, gorgeous as always. Our eyes met, and my unpleasant smirk transformed into a genuine smile, one which she eagerly returned.

  Oh, ‘saya, the things I’ll do to you tonight... A glistening hunger in her eyes returned the sentiment.

  I subtly wiggled my fingers at the two boys standing beside their mother, and my sons giggled. The resolution that they’d never suffer the same distance I’d experienced with my father considerably brightened my mood. I’d make time for my family no matter how heavy the burdens of monarchy, damn it.

  The high priest climbed onto the stage, and I stopped before mounting the single stair myself, well versed in the ceremo
ny’s proceedings. Turning to face the audience, the priest spread his arms wide.

  “Today is a sorrowful day. Today we lose a great man, a great king, one who Alouin granted leave to guide our nation into a time of unprecedented peace and prosperity.”

  He paused as if reflecting on the wonders his god had performed through my father. Internally, I scoffed. Father had been many things, and an inspiring leader was top of the list, but he’d done it without the help of some invisible being.

  “But this day is also a joyful one, for today we crown a new king, his son, who has already shown the mark of Alouin’s blessing.”

  Again, he paused, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at the melodrama.

  “Kneel,” he told me.

  I did as I was told, but my eyes remained locked on the high priest while I followed his instruction. Once this ceremony was over and I held the power I required, I planned to make some changes within the priests ranks. I’d no intention of showing them my belly as my father had.

  “Do you swear to serve Alouin and thereby, his children, from the most common of serfs to the highest of nobles?” the high priest began the vows.

  “I so swear,” I intoned.

  “Do you swear to protect Auden from enemies both within and without, using all available resources up to and including your life?”

  “I so swear.”

  “Rise,” the high priest commanded. Once I was on my feet, he continued, “Auden possesses no crown for its monarch. We were founded as a kingdom to combat dark primeancy’s evils, leaving us no predilections for frivolity or flamboyant displays of wealth. Our origins do not, however, exclude the King of Auden a mark of office.”

  A lesser priest hurried to his superior with a cloth-enclosed bundle. The high priest unwrapped it, and a hush fell across the hall of worship, whatever murmured conversations the nobility might have held ceasing. Delicately claiming the prize hidden within, the high priest lifted it above his head.