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

by Brennan C. Adams

  Jeme. Now that she mentioned it, he did remember a girl with that name.

  “You were the quiet one,” Kheled muttered, images from the past flashing before him. “Everyone underestimated you because of your meek demeanor, but I knew fading into the background didn’t automatically make you an incompetent warrior. After the trials, you emerged second in ranking, correct?”

  “Only because you’d dropped out by that point,” she answered. “Ferin and I had a close contest, but in the end, I let her win our duel. I thought that, eventually, she’d make a better leader than me. Look how wrong I was.”

  Kheled bristled. “Commander Ferin did the best she could in a difficult situation,” he growled.

  “Oh, I know, but her best almost destroyed our expedition before it left Ada’ir’s shores,” Jeme replied. “Anyway, those events are years past. No use dwelling on them now.”

  Then, why bring them up?

  “When did you gain a splinter?” Kheled asked instead. “The acquisition must be recent, or by now, your fellow Zrelnach would have noticed your magic.”

  “Actually, it happened a few years back,” she admitted. “On our journey across the sea, do you remember the pirate attack during our becalming?”

  Did he ever. Following the battle, Kheled had met Nylion for the first time, though he hadn’t known Raimie carried a second persona at that point.

  “After the battle, I spared a pirate. Gistrick didn’t receive Raimie’s orders concerning the bastards’ fates until the day after the attack, and without those orders, he decided to toss the pirates overboard. A teenager waited for death with them. Sobbing amongst those angry prisoners, he was so quiet my heart broke for him. That he should die for youthful mistakes wasn’t right. Sneaking him away, I hid the kid until tempers cooled. He sailed home with the former slaves. Not long after I saved that boy’s life, Mercy appeared to me.”

  Ah, aspect Mercy. What a perfect match for the girl he remembered from Allanovian.

  “How did you keep your primeancy secret for so long?” Kheled asked.

  Blazing, white light could prove extraordinarily difficult to hide.

  “Simple,” Jeme shrugged. “I never used it. Zrelnach training has kept me alive in the years since, but soon enough, I’ll face a threat which will force Ele from me. I’d rather declare primeancer status in a place of safety than during a battle. In the aftermath of such a period of blood and death, I’d prefer to avoid coincidentally succumbing to my wounds.”

  “Smart,” Kheled nodded, “but then, you always were, Jeme.”

  “As you were always different, Kheled,” she shot back. “I always wondered how you managed to stay exactly one step ahead of us during training. Was that because of the primeancy, or are you hiding something more?”

  Thank Alouin, the other students finished Restoring the room at that moment, giving him an excuse to abandon the conversation.

  “Outstanding, everyone!” he exclaimed, moving toward the grouped students. “The room looks exactly as it did before the demonstration.”

  “Nu thaenks tu the gray-eyes,” the older, Matvai woman muttered.

  “Yanovna!” the Matvai boy hissed.

  Kheled stepped toe to toe with the woman, staring her down. “Do you have a problem with Esela?” he asked.

  Yanovna stepped back, bumping into the woman behind her. “Nut at all!”

  “Good!” Kheled flashed a smile at her. “Come on, class! Let’s see if Raimie’s wiped the floor with Nessaira yet.”

  * * *

  Again, Nessaira attacked him with her tiny crossbow, so intent on the fight she aimed at her students, and Raimie grit his teeth, only moving a fraction of an inch so the bolt wouldn’t puncture his throat. It embedded in his shoulder instead, and in a flash, he ripped the shaft from his flesh, sending a tiny Ele spurt to circle the wound and keep it from bleeding.

  Nessaira laughed, and Raimie realized perhaps her aim hadn’t been as distracted as he’d thought. She’d forced him to take the hit in order to make an opening in his flesh. Daevetch tendrils leaped the distance between her hand and his wound, one after the other in an endless parade, and Raimie nimbly dodged every one until she growled and swept forward, raising her sword.

  Raimie’s leg badly ached. He wouldn’t last long against a Daevetch empowered opponent, so instead of standing his ground against her, he ran away.

  Nessaira, being the dull fighter she was, didn’t take advantage of the room’s abundant shadows to shade meld before him. Instead, she chased on her own two feet.

  As Raimie neared the wall, he hoped he’d mastered the attraction skill Kheled had been teaching him. Since he’d become King, few moments had come along when they were together, unoccupied, and absent observers, but when those rare times came, messengers and page boys knew to look for he and Kheled in the training yard, the sole place where they sparred or practiced primeancy techniques.

  How many times had he departed those sessions exhausted and frustrated? The skills Kheled imparted, including what he’d soon employ, were often times ones Raimie had mastered as a child, but his proficiency with them had failed to return with his memories. Following their revelation, he’d lost count of how many times he’d stared at the ceiling, wishing for his feet to stick to an impossible height. They never had, hence why he’d asked Kheled for help. Perhaps their training would soon come to fruition.

  Calling to the Ele in obsidian, Raimie willed it to bind to his feet, hoping to put some distance between him and Nessaira, but before he could finish, his body ground to a halt, halfway through a step. Tipping, he fell to the side. When had Nessaira snuck Daevetch into the shoulder wound?

  She stepped between him and the crowd, wiggling her fingers. Raimie twitched and spasmed, a puppet at the end of her strings. The display was humiliating, but at least she hadn’t employed the pain node of her Vice. Given a moment of respite, he could escape her with ease.

  “See here why Daevetch shall always prove superior to Ele,” Nessaira told her students. “Allowed into the body, our dark energy can control anyone, even a king, and if they dare try to escape…”

  She curled her fingers. White-hot fire sparked every part of Raimie, inside and out, unraveling his delicate work to destroy her Vice’s nodes. A rough scream drowned Nessaira’s lecture, and a pink film fell over his vision. Before red could completely blind him, Kheled led the Ele students into the room, stopping short upon observing his friend on the floor, and Raimie’s pain paled when compared to the force of his sudden determination.

  Forget the surgical approach and conserving Ele. Students on both sides couldn’t see him defeated. Not like this. If the demonstration ended with him pinned in place, unable to writhe from the agony scouring him clean, the Daevetch students would use his defeat to justify the employment of overt power to solve their problems. Meanwhile, fear of the dark energy would breed among the Ele students.

  Despite pain’s nipping attempts to distract, Raimie reached for Bright and his source, yanking a vast swathe of Ele to him. Tranquility and calm washed his body free of Daevetch’s corruption. The sparking, red mist cleared, and even though he twitched from the cessation of torment’s overload, he managed to direct an Ele spike into Nessaira’s turned face. The thread wiggled through her eye socket and to the base of her skull, and Raimie sent her into sleep.

  Kheled immediately began to run to him, but Raimie screamed, “NO!”, sending his friend stumbling to a halt.

  “I nghh-” he moaned as his jaw unintentionally clenched. “I can nghh-”

  He panted on his side, waiting. Only a few more seconds, and… there. He held the strings once more. Raimie climbed to his feet, and only then did he allow Kheled to come to him. He cleared his throat.

  “Daevetch has its uses,” he said, addressing the students. “It has more practical applications in combat, allows instantaneous travel across the globe, and can easily hold an enemy captive. In every way, it seems superior to Ele. But!” He held up a finger
. “One should never underestimate an Ele primeancer. What matters in a battle between primeancers, you see, isn’t which primal force holds dominion or what each of them can accomplish. What matters is you.” He swept his finger across the students. “Your resourcefulness, your ingenuity, your abilities will determine the fight, not which splinter you possess.”

  With that, he turned his back on the crowd. The students quietly chattered, a mumble tinged with incredulity and grudging respect. After waking Nessaira, Raimie offered her a hand to her feet, tightly clenching it before she could let go.

  “Don’t EVER do that to me again,” he hissed.

  Her face fell, and when Raimie released her hand, she hugged herself.

  “I’m so sorry, Your Majesty, but my students needed to see a victory. They’re the ones most hunted in Auden, more so than those of Ele, because of Doldimar’s legacy. I wanted to show them we can protect ourselves, that we can be safe. I wanted to…” she winced. “I wanted to win, Your Majesty. I don’t know what came over me.”

  “How much Daevetch have you recently expended?” Kheled asked beside Raimie.

  “More than normal,” she murmured, her eyes flicking to Kheled and away. “The kids… They need an adult to forge the way for them. In order to prove it isn’t taboo to be what they are, I’ve had to use Daevetch to an abnormal degree.”

  Raimie gazed at the Daevetch students. Not many stood in their corner. Ring had found six who would agree to attend a school for primeancy, but of them, one had disappeared on her way to Uduli. Of the five who’d safely arrived, the oldest was Tejesper, who claimed he was fourteen, and the rest clung to him like a safety blanket. They were motley, despondent, and withdrawn. One of the girls had developed a nervous tic, a condition which had facilitated her status as ‘a crazy primeancer’, and the others presented a guarded vulnerability to the world, flinching from raised voices and unexpected motion. He understood why Nessaira appeared so careworn.

  “I know you do what you must to tend to your charges,” Kheled told the woman, “but you need to care for yourself too. Daevetch primeancers are considered unstable for a reason. Use too much dark energy, and you will go insane.”

  “Earning these kids trust without your primeancy will be difficult, but we need you sane to teach them. Ease up your usage,” Raimie finished for his friend, curious whether she’d take what he’d said as a suggestion or a command.

  Kheled’s kindness toward Nessaira surprised him. Supposedly, the very sight of Daevetch and its primeancers revolted his friend. He must truly believe in Raimie’s vision, considering how far he’d striven to accommodate the woman.

  “Thank you. I’ll keep your advice in mind,” she said. “In the meantime, you might want to return your students to their spire. The way they’re looking at my kids makes me uneasy.”

  Kheled made a face. “You’re probably right. Always a pleasure, Nessaira.”

  He bowed before calling for the Ele students to follow him home.

  “I dislike that man,” Nessaira muttered once he’d gone, “but you made an excellent choice with him, Your Majesty. He’s right. I used a Vice on you, for Alouin’s sake. I’ll cease primeancy use for a time.”

  “Probably for the best,” Raimie told her. “Anything else I should show your students? Shade melding? If you want, I could make a stair from the wall.”

  “I appreciate the sentiment but no, Your Majesty. You’ve spent enough of your day of leisure on us. Go see your wife. I’m sure she eagerly awaits your return.”

  “In that case, I’ll take my leave.”

  Nessaira made a small curtsy, and in a fit of mischief, Raimie shade melded home.

  He stepped from the shadows and into dark. Immediately, the thick satin and velvet of voluminous skirts smothered him, and Raimie swam through fabric until he emerged, gasping, into empty air.

  Where was he? It certainly wasn’t his intended destination. Illuminating the area with Ele, Raimie irritably huffed upon viewing the navy blue uniforms folded to one side and the gowns hanging on the other. Gods, Ren hated those things, but the proper appearance of a Queen must be maintained, especially when she faced an ever-present hatred simply for her eye color.

  The uniforms, the dresses, the heels, the boots. He’d overshot. Again. Pushing the wardrobe door open, he strode into their bedroom.

  “You here, love?” he called as he unbuttoned and loosened his vest’s collar.

  No answer returned to him. Humming, Raimie stepped around their four-poster bed to a spacious, curved wall. He drew the curtains aside, letting sunlight in, and strolled onto the balcony.

  Not in bed, not out here, and the privy door was wide open. Where was she?

  Behind him, paper flapped in the breeze, and Raimie approached the garden table from which the noise had come. Wilting foliage draped over a flower pot which pinned a folded sheaf to the table. A largely lettered ‘My Love’ was scrawled in Ren’s handwriting above a wax glob. Flopping into a chair, he broke the seal.

  NylRaimie,

  I’ve gone to see Chela. The healer thought she felt something during our last visit, so she’s increased their frequency. Knowing Chela, the visit may consume what remains of the afternoon. I know you probably wanted to spend your day of leisure with me, but these visits are important, and we always have tonight.

  Besides, when was the last time you had time alone, to be used in whatever fashion you desired? Try to have fun, and for the sake of all that’s holy, DO NOT research Doldimar’s possible hiding spots. Your dear wife BEGS you to indulge yourself for once.

  -Ren

  P.S. I want the two of you at the same time tonight. Shall we try again?

  Raimie lowered the paper with a groan. He’d shared with Ren one time the fate of the Enforcer who’d killed her brother. He’d meant it as a kindness, so she knew justice and vengeance had been served, but she’d only absorbed one fact from the story, that he and Nylion had, for a brief spell, shared their body. Ever since then, she’d badgered them to once more attempt the wonderous experience. How many times had Raimie told his wife they didn’t know how they’d managed it the one time they had? Ren couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that what they’d done had been totally and completely instinctual, mind separate from action.

  Plus, he didn’t think she knew what she asked of them. Attempting to share their body with Nylion while being intimate with her in any way was a ridiculous expectation. Withstanding her touch without recoiling still took everything they had.

  But Ren stayed with them. Despite the mess they were, she stayed.

  “She is incorrigible,” Nylion said from the opposite chair.

  “We love her anyway,” Raimie murmured.

  “Yes, we do.”

  Leaning his head against glass, he closed his eyes, wondering how long he had before Pointer came looking for him. Poor man. He’d assumed the worst bodyguard rotation of all: the week of the liberation anniversary. Only four years since Doldimar had vanished, and the Audish people had begun to celebrate the event with gusto, all fear forgotten with time. It made Raimie sick. How could people not see this lulling for the trap it was?

  The members of the Hand dreaded this week. Their charge was at his most petulant, his most likely to slip their watch. Oswin had laughingly told Raimie that Little, the one originally assigned the duty, had bargained two months bodyguard rotation for Pointer to switch with him, a testament to the man’s reluctance. After failing to track his quarry from the investiture ceremony to Doldimar, the spy had taken his diligence to a previously unseen extreme, even following the events at Qena.

  Too bad for Little. Now that he and Ren were ‘officially’ married by Audish standards, Raimie had mellowed. He actually looked forward to the Anniversary Ball in two days’ time. Then again, his excitement probably had something to do with the announcement he planned to make that night.

  He wondered if Auntie would attend. Kaedesa had returned to Auden for a short, two-month sojourn, but Raimie knew
Ada’ir inundated its Queen with balls’ pomp and circumstance. If she failed to make an appearance, he’d personally share the announcement at a later date, which might prove more fortuitous. He’d love to see the look on Auntie’s face when he told her the news.

  The ball wasn’t for a couple days, however. In the meantime, he needed something to occupy his time.

  “What to do, what to do?” he yawned, fingers lazily drumming on the table.

  “We could go exploring,” Nylion suggested. “Scurrying about Daira’s districts was our favorite pastime as a kid. Now, we have the world at our fingertips.”

  “That sounds nice, Nyl, but perhaps a nap first,” Raimie mumbled. “Gods, how old does that make me sound?”

  “We are almost twenty-four. While not old, it is not eighteen,” Nylion replied. “Besides, you run a kingdom, heart of my heart, and since you refuse to appoint sufficient ministers to help with governance, the task runs you ragged. So, yes, a quick nap might be in order.”

  Raimie’s quiet snores answered him.

  * * *

  The tavern Ren and Raimie had chosen for tonight’s gathering was loud and boisterous, a complete change from quiet meals within the palace’s confines, but Kheled supposed the variation made sense. He’d caught his friend’s recent restlessness, a sign Raimie would soon make a late-night foray into the city. He’d trawl the streets and mingle in taverns, and of the taverns Raimie visited, he returned most frequently to the lively ones, those most similar to Sigemond’s bar in Tiro.

  “I was told to ask for the dichotomy table?” Kheled asked of the barmaid whose attention he’d stolen.

  “Oo! The private one!” she exclaimed, all bubbles and giggles. “It’s in the far corner by the fireplace.”

  Kheled nodded his thanks before pushing and shoving in the indicated direction. When he broke from the press of bodies, he stopped short at the sight of the table’s single occupant.