He planned the sweep of the blade that would bring Arger’s end. The swifter and cleaner the blow, the quicker and less painful the end. He felt sorrow and remorse in those last moments. He had never promised the other he would live to see the next day. He had given hope, though, and hope snatched away was twice bitter.
The titan stood, and so Yarr knew that the king had given away the honor of final judgment. He extended his arm. The crowd quieted. If the titan raised his hand to the heavens, judgment would end at odds—one against and one in favor—so the king would still get a final say. Otherwise, judgment would pass and Yarr must then do his work.
Yarr took a breath, held it. The onlookers, growing impatient, began to shift in their seats. Some called for death; others, life.
The king quieted all by standing. He turned to the titan, and death won out as the titan pointed to the dirt.
“Be strong, Erlander,” Yarr said as he swept the blade around and severed Arger’s head from his shoulders. “Aegot knows you now.”
Chapter 20
Dierá turned her back to the railing. The red silk of her gossamer dress ruffled in the wind. Behind her the world was shrouded in darkness, as was much of the vast palace itself beyond the great glass doors leading away from the balcony.
She listened to the young luvens finish the fourth and final movement of Wettilk’s Resplendent Pursuit. The resonant notes soaring from glass and wood told of an Alvish king who searched the across time and distance for the one who would become his queen, of how he used a song contest to bring her to him, of how he won her heart with his own composition, and of how he lost her to an unexpected storm.
The melody lingered long after the final notes. Racing within her, it was ecstasy; it helped her transcend. Her soaring heart was all she knew for long moments. Eruption followed; release followed. The grandest release. She floated beyond; became one with all things. She saw the Élvemere that could be once more. She saw her people. She saw him—the one who would become the king of kings: Rastín. Rastín was not alone. She saw G’rkyr; it was G’rkyr she made love to. She loved him. She loved them both. But it was G’rkyr she chose.
Reverie gave way to reality. The wind on her face she felt first. G’rkyr’s hand steadying her she felt next. “They return,” he told her.
Dierá turned to the railing. The silk of her dress carried on the wind. In front of her, the shrouded world was still. She took three long breaths, steeled herself inside; becoming ice and fire, for that was what they were together. She was ice; G’rkyr, fire. Upon her signal, the Keeper of the House ushered in a squad of Fedwëorgs clad in house regalia. In the midst of the Fedwëorgs was a chained Drakón of a nation she had only recently come to know.
G’rkyr took up the chains. Dierá dismissed Nostik, the young luvens, and the Fedwëorgs with a wave of her hand. She commanded silence with no more than a look until the balcony emptied.
“My endowments,” the Drakón shrieked, “Return them to me!”
“Or what?” Dierá countered as G’rkyr applied his might to the immobilizing chains. This Drakón had but a sliver of the bearing of the Praxixian Prince. He was already lost to panic, reacting instead of acting.
“You’ll never get the thing you seek. It will be taken from you over and over.”
“You know nothing,” Dierá scoffed. She studied the Drakón. While most Drakón seemed to be akin to great winged serpents with scales, claws, and horns, these Drakón were different. Their pale blue heads, adorned with bushy crests, lacked true horns. Their long, broad wings sprouted from thickset torsos and their tails were exceptionally short. Their backs were a slatey blue and their underparts were dark green, with a deep blue band across the upper chest.
“I know—I see,” the Drakón shrieked as the chains began to suffocate and crush. “You will never be together.”
Dierá held up a hand. G’rkyr relaxed his plying of the chains. “We can continue this discussion in shadow or light. Tell me what you see?” Find resolve, she told herself. She focused her will to ensure her scent did not betray her eagerness.
Enveloping herself in G’rkyr’s strength, she thrust herself and the Drakón into shadow. The domain she created was an elongated hollow. The silver glow from her gray eyes showed her inner fire.
“You will tell me all,” she said. Tired of the games she played with captured Drakón, her voice carried an open threat.
“I will tell you nothing.” The Drakón attacked, uncurling his neck and clawing his way down the narrow hollow.
Dierá lost the calm she sought in fire and again became in her mind more Jurin than Alv. “What were yours are mine. I will never return them, and I leave you now. Alive in shadow but dead to all knowing save me. You will beg when I return for you, and you will tell me all I want to know.”
The Drakón locked eyes with Dierá, spoke with another’s voice. “Tell me the story of the red ktoth. Please. Please.”
Dierá fumed, left the Drakón in shadow, and returned to light, telling G’rkyr to bring in the prince. As the prince entered, he made a show of stretching his wings in the open air. Clearly the prince was pleased by Dierá’s expression, and that, coupled with the fact that she did not mask the scent of her gratitude, made him bold.
G’rkyr clenched his hands into fists, ready to strike, but Dierá waved him off. Mechanically she compared the prince’s short wings meant for easy maneuvering and his huge claws meant for rending to the other. The difference was striking. One was a slayer; the other, a hunter seeker. “All was as you said it would be.”
“My gift to you,” the prince said.
Dierá reminded herself that Drakón were a breed apart and that they knew only how to rule. Try as she might to weed it out, this need was ever present. The trick was to figure out what exactly the Drakón wanted to master and control in the moment. “You knew I drew from G’rkyr and you wanted me to know greater power. You wanted me to know your power.”
“And so you do.”
“I do,” Dierá said, almost bitterly as she looked to G’rkyr. She said nothing of the fact that G’rkyr’s strength could flow and flow or of the fact that a Drakón’s strength came in waves.
“Return it now,” the Drakón said matter-of-factly. From the way he spoke, Dierá knew it was the one thing he wanted in this moment.
“I think not,” she said. “Much easier to cap and bind—yes—but also much easier to attach and trade—” Raw magic raged from her gaping mouth, her eyes, her outstretched fingers, snapping and popping as it enveloped the prince. “—sinews. His for yours. Yours I hold in trust until I choose otherwise.”
The prince drank in the imbued essence. “He is not trained of the line. It will devour and destroy him.”
“I know.” Dierá stared down the prince, almost daring him to continue, but he remained silent. “When we are on Cyvair, remember who holds the lines of your chains. Kill me, kill G’rkyr, kill him that I seek, and you’ll never be whole again.”
The prince raised his neck, folded in his great wings while lowering his front quarters. It was a show of supplication but it came with a warning. “I do this as much for myself as because you compel me. Never forget that, Athania Dierá Steorra. If I did not wish it, this would not be.”
It was a truth, and understanding it gave Dierá hope. “Nostik,” she called out. The Keeper of the House entered. “Show Prince Battikh to his rooms.”
“Call me Takhbarre,” the Drakón said as Nostik led him away. “No need for formalities in this company.”
Dierá glared. The knowing tone unnerved her. As it was meant to, she told herself. Two steps forward, one back. He is drakónus; you are Alvish. She stumped her way to the railing, spread her hands across the cool surface as she took in the grand view. The rising suns told of morning’s arrival and made bare her form beneath the silk. Feeling G’rkyr’s eyes upon her, she spun around. Her rising anger was as strong as any potion or charm could ever be, and she pushed it down to quell his lust.
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br /> “Sing for me, Dierá,” G’rkyr said, moving to a seated position before her. “Sing for me, as you sang for him.”
Dierá prostrated herself before the gargant but she did not sing. Instead, she reversed her body, putting her back to the cool, base stones. She looked up at him from this lowly position, her wide eyes filled with forced intensity. “And then?” she asked. Not waiting for an answer, she added, “Would you have me then?”
G’rkyr’s eyes lit with sacred fire. He spoke his next words carefully, using the Alvish language and not the Jurin. “Your words are meant to wound, but I do not let them. What I feel for you is what I feel, and you know it as deeply but refuse it.
“Take this victory. Taste its sweetness, Dierá. All that we’ve worked for is coming to pass. When we are done, Jurin and Alvs will be free. Cyvair awaits.”
Dierá arched her back as she moved to a seated position and then spun around on the floor to face him. “My feelings for you are twice cursed. This thing between us is monstrous. You speak in Alvish because there are no words for such things in Jurin.”
G’rkyr enveloped the whole of her body in one of his great hands. “You don’t mean it. You love me as I love you.”
Dierá stood in his cupped hand, slipped the red dress from her shoulders and let it fall. “Jurin lust and covet. They don’t love. They don’t know how, so instead they own and command. A trait you share with the ageless.”
G’rkyr hid her nakedness by closing his hand around her then masked himself in flame, leaving only the hand that held her outside its grasp. “And yet I do love, and I do because of you. You showed me kindness and I learned to love. I learned in spite of what I am.”
“You are a monster; I am a monster. I have seen what our union brings, and it brings darkness. Your love for me will break you and damn you, and then you will damn me and break me. Our son—yes, our son—will divide all Jurin and break the Hundred Worlds even as we make it whole.”
“You’ve dreamt of a son? Was he whole? Was he Jurin or Alv?” G’rkyr asked, his voice cracking with emotion. All flame extinguished, he said, “I would never damn or hurt you, Dierá. You have to know this. Hurting you would bring the thousand, thousands deaths upon me.”
“Take Cyvair for me, G’rkyr,” she said, her voice steady and strong. “Strike at the Drakón heart. Do this with all the force of the Jurin peoples and we may be able to avert what comes.”
“If Drakón have hearts, they do not beat as yours or mine do. Have you not learned that yet? The prince, he will take us through and into the city. It is what you said and it has taken so long to get—”
He broke off as Dierá succumbed suddenly to great fits of sobs. “I’ve deceived you,” she whimpered. “Everything I’ve told you has been a lie. Follow this path and you will die a thousand, thousands deaths. All Jurin will die a thousand, thousand deaths.”
“But you said this path brings freedom to the peoples. Jurin and Alvs above all others.”
Dierá’s cheeks were streaked with hot tears. “This freedom you seek will be your end. In the ages to comes, none will even know Jurin once were.”
“But I will be free. You said so, Dierá. I taste freedom now, but I am not free. To know the true taste, I will take on all the gods, sell my soul to D’rk’r the Dark, forsake the Merciless whose namesake I am—”
Dierá stopped him with a withering look and said no more. Instead, she showed him everything, starting with little G’rkyr, and this sight awed him—but in the beyond, the great cities burned. The worlds burned. Dust and ash and fire filled the skies of the Hundred Worlds.
“Lies, lies,” G’rkyr shouted. “No one can know what comes for a certainty.”
Dierá spun the vision closer and closer. With the drau world wrapped around her, she stepped into the revelation and urged G’rkyr to follow. She stood with her back straight, her head level, even in the face of a raging gale that sought to sweep her from her perch atop the jagged cliffs. To the west, the wide bowl of a valley spread to distant foothills. Beyond the foothills, snow-capped mountains of blue-black rock stood as they had for millennia.
Dierá was certain G’rkyr knew this place. It was Süttak, formal seat of the Three Hammers. The valley was home to Anaste, Eternal City of the Hammer, and Wënoste, Guiding Hand of the Warrior. Both sacred and both burned.
“Lies, lies,” he screamed. The rage and pain in his voice caused Dierá to lose her hold on the Path. The vision faded. The world of the present returned.
“Why?” G’rkyr asked. The anguish in his voice as he said that one word gave Dierá hope. Jurin were not beasts. They could feel. She gave herself to him then, and not because he wanted her to but because she wanted to. Pain and joy were two sides of the same coin, as were hate and love.
Later that night, when she spoke to her father in dream, she told him of the hope she felt in her heart. Though she still dared not tell him of G’rkyr or the Jurin, she told him of other things.
“There is hope, father,” she said. “He loves me as I love him. I feel it as surely as I feel that I will see Eldri soon.”
Her father took her hand and walked with her. “You have done well. Our people will live in your deeds. Élvemere will be once more.”
Dierá stopped midstride, turned to regard her father. “I believe because you believe.”
Chapter 21
Martin and Gerhold traveled in silence. The thick-limbed Gerhold led.
A toll passed. They walked along wide corridors, up stairs, through many turnings and through many doors. The air began to smell sweet, fresh, almost of flowers and grass. Strange smells for the Phatidh but Martin was certain that they were in no other quarter of the city.
He wondered at the other’s stamina. He was drenched in sweat and yet Gerhold, who towered over Martin and wore heavy leathers, was dry. Perhaps Trykathians did not sweat like men. Still, it seemed to Martin that Gerhold should share his weariness. The path from the Wuntrus to the Phatidh was a long one by tunnel or by stair and hall.
Martin paused to rest in a secluded courtyard and shared the foodstuffs in his satchel. A loaf of heavy black bread. A smoked silver fish. Gerhold seemed to enjoy both. Handfuls of water from a cascading fountain helped to wash it down.
They came to stand before a doorway guarded by two S’h’dith. The guards, clad in spiked helms and heavy chainmail marked with red, carried spears with long wide blades running halfway down their length and short thrusting swords. Both weapons had blades that were quadrisected and meant for impaling.
Gerhold bunched his brows and looked to Martin. Instinctively, Martin held out the scrap of vellum.
The guards opened the doors, revealing a grand garden the likes of which was new to Martin, for there were no flowers, shrubs, or trees. Instead there were strange rocks jutting up from beds of smaller rocks. Some of the jutting rocks were cut at odd angles; others had a more natural look, almost as it they had grown out of the earth below. They were of all colors and sizes. A few were of such impossible size that they seemed to scrape the outer circle of domes high above. Beneath the central inner dome was a fountain, but it ran with fire and not water.
Martin reached out and gripped Gerhold’s arm. He held out the vellum scrap, twisted it so the mark showed clearly.
Gerhold said, “Put that away until asked for.”
“You say that you are marked. Are all of the Protectorate marked? Is that what the mark is for?”
“The mark is as it is. It is a good thing,” Gerhold said firmly, but the firmness seemed appended as if to reassure himself as much as Martin.
“The Protectorate—”
“—serves.”
Gerhold looked suddenly uneasy.
Martin asked, “Is something wrong?”
Gerhold shrugged. “A feeling is all. Likely nothing, but everything seems wrong. Out of place.”
“And what is out of place?”
Gerhold pointed up the path that dissected the garden. Martin followed with h
is eyes, saw a long line of those who held a scrap of vellum. “There’s more,” he said, pointing to other paths dissecting the garden, each with their own lines.
“Do you know what any of this means?” Martin asked as he studied those in the lines. They seemed to be of all peoples. He saw scaly Gnogs, bug-eyed Begreths, wiry Alvs, stocky Dwelmish, scrawny Erlanders, thick-limbed Trykaths, and raven-haired Kingdomers.
“I thought I did,” Gerhold admitted. “But this? This is more. I go now.”
Martin got in line behind a rather hairy Dwelm, began to thank Gerhold for his help, but saw that Gerhold was not going anywhere. The great doors behind them closed and no one was there to open them. Suddenly he longed for the solace of his hearth duties, and wished he had told Tandy how he felt about her. He touched the book in his breast pocket and felt a pang in his heart.
Gerhold seemed to have his own regrets, and it was with much apprehension that Martin met the other’s iron stare. “I’m a damned fool. The more I think I know the less it seems I actually do.”
“To know all is to be a master,” Gerhold replied, and the wisdom of that simple phrasing made Martin rethink what he thought he knew about Trykaths.
The line moved slowly forward, toward the center of the garden. Martin’s eyes roamed the strange stone plots and the deportment of those in the lines. He talked absently with Gerhold, mostly of things of no consequence. He asked about the Protectorate and about how Gerhold had come to serve. He talked with great warmth of Tandy and her kitchens. He lamented his hearths and bemoaned visits beyond the stone walls.
“All as nothing to one who carries the mark. Marked are no longer things to have or not have. Marked serve.”
“Dubious distinction,” Martin muttered half to himself as he searched the lines with his eyes, failing to see the difference between slave and servant. If that indeed was the distinction Gerhold was trying to make.
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