by Ellyn, Court
Kelyn watched the ashes rise. The wind carried them northward, back toward Avidan Wood, the wilds of the Silver Mountains, perhaps even as far as the northern Glacier and places more uncharted still.
Aye, that would please him.
~~~~
Carah watched the embers seethe until the sky began to brighten in the east. The view of dawn from the summit of Slaenhyll was unsurpassed. Golden light burst through a spray of clouds, breaking the spell the pyre had held over her. For a moment she reveled in the glory of the spectacle, knowing her uncle would approve.
But joy was not to last. A hand came to rest on her shoulder. “Mum and I are heading down,” Kethlyn said. “Da wants to be alone.”
Nearly all the mourners had sought sleep hours ago. Laniel was leading his troop away between the stones. Aye, sleep would be welcome. When had Carah last slept? She needed food as well, but sorrow nestled in her belly, filling it up.
Something weighed on Kethlyn. He hesitated, fought for words.
“You did this,” Carah said.
Her brother stepped back, devastation gasping from his open mouth.
Carah realized how her words sounded. “That’s not what I meant.” She flung her arms about his neck. “You saved me. Your idea, your plan. I don’t deserve it.”
“Neither do I.”
She didn’t understand his meaning. She let him go, and saw that her gratitude hadn’t relieved his burden. He opened a hand. Her fairy pendant lay in his palm.
Incensed, she tore the necklace from his grasp. “Why would Alyster give it back? He lit out, didn’t he. Without a word to me—”
“No, Carah…” Kethlyn’s despair explained the truth of the matter.
Carah seized his shirt front. “No, he’s not! He’s not! This charm was to protect him. You’re lying! You’re jealous and you’re lying.”
He ushered her down the hill, an arm snug about her shoulders. His horse was tethered to the branch of a stunted tree. He mounted up and lowered a hand. Carah rode behind him, stunned to silence, while he told her the tale.
Part of her was sure this was some scheme. Alyster wanted to return home, untroubled by the pleas of a bothersome little sister, a sister who had forced her attentions upon him. He must’ve convinced Kethlyn to show her a body and say it was him.
Two days dead, the body was shrouded tight. His face and form hidden. Ash from nearby graves settled upon it like spoiled snow. But Alyster’s was a lordly pyre, elevated on tall poles, a pile of kindling and drying wood beneath it.
Alyster’s cousins and kindred, the few who remained, gathered near. Haim, son of Fenn son of Kall Stonearm, dropped to a knee and covered his eyes behind a battle-scabbed hand. If Alyster had headed home, these men would have accompanied him.
At last Carah was convinced.
“Da owned him after all,” she said. “We should wait for him.”
Kethlyn shook his head. “See it done.”
Carah clasped her pendant about her neck with trembling fingers, then spread her hands. The kindling ignited.
She and Kethlyn stood side by side, watching the flames consume their brother. Kethlyn’s hand found hers, gripped it bruisingly. After a moment, she felt him shaking. He was sobbing and trying to hide it. Was Carah witnessing guilt? Gratitude? She didn’t know. She tugged him into her arms, prepared to extend the affection she had given to Alyster so freely, the affection that should’ve been shown to Kethlyn all along. A second chance. That was Alyster’s gift to them. She wouldn’t let it go to waste.
“Carah?” asked a chaffed voice.
She turned to find Laral standing at a respectful distance. He stared emptily, as if he’d had the spirit pummeled out of him. Neither hope nor light were left to him. He shuffled closer, a plea rising. “Do you have strength for one more?”
Dread seized her. Who was left to mourn?
Laral’s sorrow hurtled, unspoken toward her. Please. My friend…
“Not Arryk,” she said. “Oh, please no.” She ran. Lightheaded, anchor-footed. Ash-laden gouts of smoke wafted from the burning pits. Ravens circled, greedy and denied. On the eastern edge of camp, the Fieran regiments stood in formation. Staunch soldiers all, they wept. A lessened cadre of White Mantles circled a bier. There was not one among them who did not look battered and beaten.
Carah shouldered through them, crying a useless stream of protests. They tried to stop her, but only feebly. She wasn’t just some Aralorri girl come to gawk. Their king had proposed to her, and they all knew it.
How young he looked. Unblemished, as if he’d been carved of alabaster. Spread over him were the blood-stained cloaks of all the Mantles who had died trying to protect him. The rest, those encircling him, had sheered their cloaks at an angle from left to right. No longer could they seize the hem and raise it as a protective shield. A sign of failure, of shame.
Carah wilted, laid her brow upon the cold, cold hands. Had she saved him at Bramoran for nothing? Had she called him back only to lose him so soon?
“If I had been here! If I had been here—”
Laral caught her up, gripped her shoulders. “Daryon tried. There was nothing to be done.”
She wanted to believe him but felt as much at fault as the Mantles who still lived. She might’ve been Arryk’s queen. Could she comport herself like one? She straightened her shoulders, smoothed her expression, choked down tears until her throat ached.
Outside the circle of Mantles, Lady Drona gazed, haunted, at the bier. She appeared to have grown old overnight. Beside her was a man Carah didn’t recognize. He wore no armor, only the quilted undergarments over which armor belonged; straight black hair reached his shoulders. Dark eyes stared into nothing, like the pain-stricken dead. His gaze flicked toward her, and she realized. He had set aside his proud winged helm. Carah laid a hand to his forearm. “Rance?”
“I hoped you might turn back the hours.”
“If only I could.” There was only one thing she could do for Arryk now. “You’ll want to move.” Already her anger amassed; avë accumulated. The Mantles took her at her word and broadened their circle by several steps. Carah stood at Arryk’s feet. Descending into the buzzing void, she drew the avë close. It crackled, seethed, danced along her skin, through the strands of her hair. He chose me to dance. He chose me…
When the crackling and buzzing became more than she could bear, like the stone that cracks inside the inferno, she flung her arms wide. Lavender flame burst out upon the bier, high and intense. Arryk’s body did not smolder, undignified, exposed, diminishing over hours. It was gone in an instant.
Carah dropped heavily to her knees. The greenwood poles of Arryk’s pyre collapsed inward, as if astonished to have their burden so suddenly torn from them. The lavender firestorm burnt out as quickly as it ignited.
Her sorrow had drained her dry. An iron weight filled the place where her heart should be. She was a husk. The hot midday wind threatened to tear her off the ground and fling her about like cold cinders. Exhaustion tugged at her. She needed someone to pluck her off her knees and carry her to a soft bed where she could sleep for days, but soft beds were miles away.
A voice called. “Lord Brengarra?” There was a silken quality to it, a strong accent. Elaran. “I am looking for Lord Brengarra.”
With a deep breath, a determined drying of his face, Laral surfaced from the darkness of his grief. “Here.”
The Elari wore the red stripes of the Regulars. “I am Sergeant Diveryn. I have come from our Lady’s camp. She asks you to come with me.”
“Why? I won’t leave my king.”
“But we have your son.”
Laral stared, blinking, as if the words made no sense. “My son? But they’re … Jaedren?”
Carah felt wretched. She hauled herself to her feet. “Forgive me, Laral. I should’ve thought to tell you.”
Still he wrestled. “Jaedren … he’s alive?”
The stone in Carah’s chest warmed. She smiled, nodding.
&nbs
p; The sergeant confirmed. “He is a brave one.”
Joy threatened to blossom, but Carah could see Laral trying to tamp it down. He had lost all trust.
“Take Záradel,” she urged. “She’ll get you there faster.”
~~~~
“They need me down there,” Kelyn told the ashes. He couldn’t bring himself to leave. He crouched in the shade puddling beneath one of the standing stones. Hot wind eddied, fingering the ashes, whisking them away in little cyclones.
Something horrid, monstrous, reared up inside him. He fought to keep it at bay, but was failing. Panic. For the first time in his life he was alone. Even when Thorn was hundreds of miles away for months at a time, the assurance of his presence accompanied Kelyn everywhere. Whatever sweet assurances the Lady Lyrienn had whispered last night, Thorn was really and truly gone.
Shield up, he ordered himself, but the darkness flooded over his defenses, found cracks and pressed through, breaking the rents wide. He crushed himself back against the stone to quell the shaking in his bones. He closed his eyes, forced himself to breathe, but when he opened them again, the ashes lay before him.
Alone. Every moment from now on, until the breath left his body. Every accursed, maddening day.
Shield up. Get moving. We can’t stay here. Your army still needs you. Get them back to Tírandon. Yes, one step at a time. And then … and then… Don’t look at it. Just get down the hill.
Somehow he got to his feet.
Something winked at him from the ash. He crept closer, stupidly afraid of what lurked there. Yes, the high sun glinted on metal. Kelyn knelt to brush the ashes aside. A ring. Thorn’s onyx ring. The one King Rhorek had given him in his youth. He’d never taken it off. On occasion, the opaque black stone had swirled with strange, unnerving energies, like lightning, like shadow. It lay in Kelyn’s palm, mundane, dead as bones. And yet the heat of Carah’s fire ought to have melted it to slag.
“Work another miracle, did you?” Kelyn closed his fist about the treasure. “That’s just like you, I suppose.”
~~~~
Part Three: Embarking
41
Kethlyn peered through the window of his carriage, aghast at the crowd of townspeople filling Bramoran’s palace courtyard. Excitement had drawn them. Excitement of the unknown, of new beginnings.
Players, mummers, jugglers, vendors of fatty hot food entertained them, turning the event into a festival. A puppeteer made wooden soldiers slay wooden ogres. Little dogs leapt upon each other’s backs, shaping a triangle that made children squeal in delight. A man in motley had trained a ferret to dance at the end of a red ribbon. Kites sailed the autumn sky. Music from a pipe and a bodhran thumped from somewhere.
The people were bound to be disappointed. The matter may not be decided for days, even weeks. The festival would peter out. People would begin demanding results. Things could turn ugly.
For now, it lifted Kethlyn’s heart to see them celebrating. They were eager to move ahead, reclaim the familiar, the joyful. It wouldn’t be easy. Signs of occupation remained, a glaring reminder. The ogres had left a ruination. Before Commander Sha’hadýn returned to the desert, she had marched on Bramoran with all that remained of her host. They had found the city abandoned. The dragon’s message, it seemed, had spread far. The Green, renowned for its orchards, horses, and paddocks was pitted, bone-strewn and barren. The town fared slightly better. Most of the houses, villas, and shops were untouched, raided for food, perhaps, but eerily left unmolested. Why had Lothiar not destroyed them? What had he been waiting for, hoping for?
People had moved back in. News had it that a few squatters had been skewered or beaten by returning owners. Valuables had vanished, swiped by bold opportunists.
In those early days, there had been no city watch to settle disputes. The survivors among Tullyk’s soldiers were found half-starved and terrified in the dungeon. Many, apparently, remained too weak or ill to serve. But Kethlyn spied a few watchmen in Bramoran’s livery patrolling the parapets and the crowds. Slowly law and order were reinstating themselves.
In truth, Bramoran’s walls had never been so mightily defended. Scores of catapults and ballistae still crouched atop the battlements. Kethlyn supposed it would take months, maybe years, before the populace felt safe enough to dismantle the defenses their enemy had installed.
He was eager to see the changes made to the castle. His mother (there being no one else to give the order) had hired crews of workers to demolish the burned husk of the King’s Hall. She had voiced her hopes that the new sovereign would reestablish the rose gardens. Kethlyn believed the space ought to be turned into a memorial, dedicated to all the people Valryk had murdered there.
The carriage delivered Kethlyn at the steps of the royal keep. Servants made a fuss as he disembarked. He had packed enough to last him throughout the ordeal, which meant a small train of trunks would find its way to his suite. The bronze doors opened for him. He groaned, steeled himself, and marched up the steps into battle.
The entrance hall roiled with servants and squires. Trunks high on shoulders bobbed up the wide curving stair. Trays laden with light repast ascended more delicately. A woman led greyhounds on a leash. Kethlyn handed off his gloves and cloak, and the steward led him along the corridor.
Who were all these household servants? Last year, Kethlyn would never have thought to ask. These people would’ve been just part of the furniture. But beneath the thin skin of normality, nothing was the same. Kethlyn noticed, and he cared. Had they served the castle before Lothiar ousted them? Were they displaced and desperate for wages? Kethlyn inspected the rod-straight steward marching along half a step ahead of him and decided his livery was a fraction too snug in the shoulders, the sleeves half-an-inch too short. The coat had been cut for someone else, but for now, it sufficed.
“Where did you serve before?” Kethlyn asked. “Before” did not need definition.
“Longmead Manor, my lord.”
Kethlyn peeked aside into parlors, reading rooms, council rooms, game rooms, and solars. As at Ilswythe, furnishings, tapestries, bric-a-brac were scarce, settings mismatched. It was a fortuitous time, he supposed, to be a supplier of lumber, a craftsman of fine furniture, draperies, and dishes, or an importer of rugs, glass, and tapestries.
Even now a team of craftsmen ignored the hubbub to take measurements with marked sticks and string.
Kethlyn didn’t envy the poor housekeeper tasked with cataloguing the missing items, of prioritizing what should be replaced, of choosing who should fill this position or that. It made the job laying on Kethlyn’s plate seem simple.
The steward brought him to a pair of tall doors. Falcons chased one another across the polished silver. The Audience Chamber seethed with highborns. House uniforms colored the room like the flowers of an exotic garden. Devices on chests showed him that not only were Aralorr and Evaronna represented, but Leania and Fiera as well.
The latter might not be given a vote, but they intended to make their opinions known.
Fake smiles, stiff handshakes, flattery glutted the air. No one wanted to be here. Well, perhaps a few were in their element. Byrn the Blue plucked his lute, making eyes at whoever made eyes at him. Rorin of Westport, a cascade of plumes in a velvet hat, grinned ear to ear, genuinely delighted with the business at hand. Puffed up, posing. Maneuvering. Maybe some things didn’t change after all.
Rorin wasn’t the only one who toted guards along. Three strongmen accompanied Lady Maeret, too. The hilts of swords glistened on every man’s hip; on a fair number of women’s as well. No one dared enter Bramoran unarmed now.
Footmen navigated the bristling crowd, trays balanced on their fingers. Kethlyn swept up a glass for himself, breathed in the aroma of the sweet sherry, then set the glass on the next tray that passed. Over the next few days, he needed his wits about him.
He sought one face in particular, hoping. Someone hailed him before he located it. Eliad waved an arm, beckoning him into an out-of-the-way corner
.
“You’re the last to arrive.” He pressed a glass into Kethlyn’s hand.
“Figures.” A tray passed. Kethlyn put the glass on it and longingly watched it bob away.
Eliad leaned close, a glower of disgust pinching his eyebrows. “It’s already begun. Bribes, deals, vying for favor, empty promises. You wouldn’t believe it.”
“Hnh, try me.” Kethlyn scanned the perfumed gathering, glimpsed a coif of raven-black hair adorned with pearls. Ah, there she was. Aisley laughed at something Rorin said. Was the scheming old man flirting with her? She turned to inspect the object of Rorin’s anecdote and spotted Kethlyn. She cast him a bashful smile; her fingers waved discreetly.
“Is that why you’ve come?” Eliad asked, smirking.
“Oh, shut up. Someone has to represent my parents.”
“How are they?” True concern tinted the question.
Kethlyn found an excuse to ignore it. “Tell me of your son.”
Eliad’s countenance brightened. “He’s fat. And loud. A champion brawler. I’m crazy about him.”
“He needs your name, you know.”
“Don’t lecture me. Besides, Lyana might tire of me.”
“She should, with that attitude.”
“And I’d have to send Narra away. Don’t you think that’d be proper?”
Kethlyn merely raised an eyebrow.
“Damn you, no lectures.” Eliad confiscated another glass from a passing tray and gulped the sherry. “Change of subject. I’m curious about your—”
A stranger provided another distraction. Dour and dark, he chatted gravely with Lady Drona. He was lean as a blade and likely as sharp. His studded leather jerkin made him look more a mercenary, but his bearing was regal enough to be royal. “Who is that?”
Eliad grumbled a curse at being put off again. “Lord Éndaran, apparently.”
