The soldiers recommitted their efforts, ignoring Valdor’s second attempt to wrest away, and seized him firmly by the arms. Even as he swore in the Noc’olarian tongue and challenged their morality, they flung his arms behind his back and shoved him toward the center of the room.
Sellemar required every shred of control he could muster to remain where he sat, his chest burning at the sight of the helpless lord. ‘Interfering will cost you everything!’ he warned himself. ‘You cannot save him!’
“WHAT IS MY CRIME?!” Valdor shouted all the louder, his one eye fixed upon Ilsevel. He was frantic, now. Death was rushing toward him and all the room stood still.
The queen raised her chin. The strand of hair that she had torn free of her braid stuck out, breaking her flawless composure. Yet she remained otherwise statuesque, watching the slow thud of the lord’s feet dragging down the steps and across the marble tiles.
Sellemar could see his neck bulge, his limbs flail briefly. “WHAT IS MY CRIME?!”
A soldier near the door marched forward to assist. “Kneel, Lord Valdor,” he demanded.
But the Noc’olari no longer resisted. He drooped in submission and even as he did so, the two elves on either side shoved and contorted his form until the pain alone prevented any revival.
Sellemar lurched to his feet, his hand clutching for his hilt, his mind racing to form a dozen plans of escape.
All futile.
“Your Majesty—”
Ilsevel raised her hand in command and the room fell silent.
Sellemar felt his breath catch.
“Lord Valdor, you are charged with treason for inciting rebellion.”
Valdor’s lips parted in disbelief. “Genocide!” he cried.
The soldier at his back inclined his head toward the queen. Then the room watched as his blade slid slowly from its hilt. Rose high into the air.
And then, with a swift and smooth stroke, it swept the air and sliced cleanly through the lord’s neck. Blood sprayed across the floor. The body went limp. The head rolled to the side, Valdor’s one eye staring at the queen in accusation.
Ilsevel flung her shoulders back, talons curling around the arm of her chair. “The Noc’olarian city in our north,” she spoke calmly, “shall be removed first.”
CHAPTER SIX
Jikun fought desperately upward, kicking violently, his heart racing against his breast. His hand flailed outward, grasping only empty waters.
“NAVON?!” he bellowed, breaking the surface and gasping for breath. “NAVON?!”
There was a brilliant flash of lightning and he frantically scanned the black waters, head whipping from left to right. There was no sign of the Helven.
“NAVON?!” His shout was reduced to a gurgle as a wave rolled over him, pounding his body into the ocean like the last leaf outside Elarium, tossing him easily toward the endless depths below.
Jikun extended a hand, feeling the rush of magic twisting about his raw fingers as ice formed in his palm. It grew, faster and wider, sucking his strength from him with every inch in its diameter. He grasped onto a small mast he formed in the center of the ice-raft and it bobbed to the surface, pulling him with.
Jikun sputtered and coughed, heaving deeply against the frozen surface as he clung in despair. “Navon?” he called weakly.
The storm barreled down on him, hurling his block of ice haphazardly across the foaming crests. A crack of lightning flashed in the sky and an image was briefly illuminated to his left—a pillar of stone jutting from the crashing waves, a ripped sail tangled across the jagged surface.
There came a sudden, fervent cry. “Jikun?!”
Another blaze of lightning and Jikun caught a glimpse of the pale skin of the Helven, his body gripping the debris of the ship. He vanished under a massive swell and reappeared in a frantic struggle for air.
“Over here!! Left!!” Jikun hollered. He swung his hand into the water, trying to propel himself forward. As though mocking him, a gentle wave knocked him farther away, and a ripple of thunder cascaded like laughter across the sky.
He saw Navon’s head turn toward him, his hollow cheeks lit by a brilliant flare of light. His fingers were like bones clutching onto the cracks of the wood, his fingernails clawing at the surface.
A wave barreled into Navon from the side. With a terrified cry, his companion vanished beneath the water, swallowed with the remnants of the ship.
*
Jikun started, his heart racing, his eyes flashing open against a painful brilliance of sunlight.
Navon bobbed peacefully asleep in the water beside him, his cheek pressed against the ice of their raft.
Jikun let out a breath of relief, but it was stifled beneath a moan. He shook the vestiges of the nightmare from his mind. Sunlight. God-damn sunlight. And while silence surrounded them, thunder crashed through his skull—a feeling he could only liken to one too many drinks with a feisty and expensive woman.
But he had experienced no such fortune; the only mistress that had fondled him was the same vicious, black waves of the storm that had shattered their ship. His head ached and his joints groaned reproachfully with every motion. His stomach twisted and churned with fatigue. As a crackle accompanied his scant movements, he realized his white shirt had dried across his shoulder blades in stiff ripples formed by salt. A fine layer of the grains had dried across his eyelashes and sprinkled away as he squinted.
The waters arched and dipped about them, the waves having subsided into a gentle foam. They stroked their little raft, causing it to shrink in the warmth.
‘Warmth…?’ Jikun’s intellect was slow to realize that the winter chill—which had stalked them for the week adrift in their shoddy vessel—had also dissolved. He lifted his head fully with a grimace, a spurt of pain rupturing from his wounded chest. Where… were they?
His heart stopped. His dried lips cracked as they opened to croak in elation, “Navon! Navon are you awake?!” All essence of his natural pessimism was drowned beneath his cry.
Across from him, the Helven groaned, face rising from the ice. “I can’t feel my chee—”
“LAND!” Jikun gasped, almost breathless.
Clarity ruptured through the haze in Navon’s eyes. “Land?!” He swung around in a frenzy, seeking confirmation. “Oh my gods… Jikun…” His voice rose, his lips curled. “BY SEL’ARI, WE MADE IT!!”
‘We made it!’ Even the goddess’ name could not dampen his euphoria! Jikun kicked violently toward the bank, wishing his water-logged boots were not so much like an anchor. “Help me!” he ordered feverishly.
The glimmering shoreline grew until it stretched endlessly into the distance… They had nearly starved and drowned but this sight erased that trial! The frozen cuffs by which Jikun had anchored himself and Navon to the ice-formed raft melted away at his command, and the two elves sank into the rough sand of the shallow waters.
“Gods…” Navon panted, stumbling forward. “Gods, General… I didn’t truly think we would make it…!” A glaze was forming over the Helven’s eyes, his lips trembling with praise.
Jikun dragged his weak legs forward until the last wave of water broke over them… and then they buckled. He fell to his hands and knees, staring… numbly… ahead.
Sand. Endless ripples of golden sand.
And nothing else.
Jikun’s fingers dug into the shore beneath him, his teeth clenching together until his jaw stung. His stomach now felt like a lump in his throat—his flicker of enthusiasm had been dashed against the coast and sunk into oblivion. “Damn the gods! Damn Sel’ari!” he erupted, spitting what little saliva his dry mouth had managed to conjure onto the earth. It failed to reflect his venom and so he followed with a fistful of hot sand.
It blew back into his face, ridiculing his fleeting hope.
“Wipe away that fucking smile, Navon. Do you know where we are?!—We’re in a god-damn desert!” He made no endeavor to curb his tongue in the presence of his captain and rolled onto his back to shun the
asinine optimism plastered to the male’s face. He dropped a hand to his eyes in the event that the male repositioned. “We were supposed to land on the lush coast of Ryekarayn!—Grass! Forests! A damn morsel of edible food!” He slammed his free fist down, his chest shuddering. “We will die here the same as we would have done out there!” The failure and dishonor was more infuriating than tragic.
A shadow eclipsed him. For a moment, Jikun declined acknowledging the male, but when the Helven remained silent, he dared to let his hand fall away.
A mistake, of course.
Navon gazed upon him, sickeningly calm. “A lack of faith makes cowards of all men. You must not be so pessimistic, General.” His words were slathered with morale, and he extended a hand toward Jikun as though his mood should reflect the same.
It did not.
* * *
A brief spasm of fear rattled Navon as his companion remained sprawled upon the earth, obdurate to his offer of assistance. The general had managed to retain some semblance of strength despite his injury and fatigue, but pessimism would certainly slay that resolve.
Navon steeled his gaze. ‘Mesheck, Tiras, Eraydon…? No… Ephraim?’ He held no level of joy in impersonating the harsh character of Ephraim, but from all the ages of heroes and leaders, who better to perform when Jikun needed to be shown tenacity? At every misfortune since his defeat at the hands of the centaurs, his general had slipped further into a chasm of self-loathing and despair. Perhaps a nurturing leader would have most effectively soothed him, but Navon’s dusty scrolls and own experiences offered no such figure to impersonate.
Ephraim would have to suffice.
Navon’s extended hand tensed as the words and deeds of the old lion of The Seven welled inside of him. The words came to his mind and lips as though they were of his own character. “I will not wait here to die. Not after what I sacrificed to save you. Get on your feet!” he directed, his forceful tone certain to quench the general’s wallowing.
But when Jikun merely knocked his palm aside, Navon detected the flicker of pain that hid beneath the fierce defiance. There was both a physical and emotional wound restraining his general’s usual resolution. ‘By Sel’ari,’ he determined, ‘it is not a rebuke he requires.’
And the thought banished Ephraim promptly from his mind in exchange for someone who channeled far more empathy with his resolve. Eraydon. “Come, Jikun,” Navon began again, aware of the oddly stark contrast in tone. “We must be in the Makataj—Ryekarayn’s desert.” He extended his hand once more and offered what he hoped was a reassuring and apologetic smile. “We simply must travel north. I know Eph’vi live in the region. With a little luck, we will find them. But you must accept my help… And I, for one, require yours.”
Jikun exhaled begrudgingly at Navon’s altered approach. His icy blue eyes flicked out across the empty horizon and Navon had no doubt he was weighing the will of his pessimism against the genuineness of Navon’s need.
A little manipulation would assure the desired conclusion. “…Or perhaps you may be right…” Navon lamented, tossing a hand with the dramatics induced by Mesheck. “This is hopeless.” He squatted toward the sand and Jikun’s head whipped sharply to him.
“Cease your complaints,” the general barked, snatching his forearm for assistance. “Lead onward.”
Navon heaved him upright. “As you command, General.” He slung a triumphant step into the expanse of sand and Mesheck’s internal applause faltered. For the first time, he absorbed the scalding temperature; it scourged his body from head to heel, with his naked feet bearing the brunt of the pain.
He had forgotten that more than his sword had been lost with the ship.
Jikun noted his change in countenance with a puffing of his wounded chest. “Here,” he grunted, taking charge with the charisma of any great leader. “We have a long march ahead of us and this will serve you better than nothing.” He tugged off his stiff shirt and flung the fabric; it was a dismal display of strength and landed a mere yard away. “…You will need your shirt for the other.”
The skin of the northerner would certainly burn, but if Navon’s feet failed him, so too would the rest of his body follow.
He wisely hid his admiration as he straightened from the binding of his feet. “Thank you. Now I have the pleasure of feeling as though my feet are in the soft confines of a portable oven,” he laughed dismissively, sure to utilize the great healer Riphath’s optimism in the face of such a physical trial.
His general’s eyes glazed over. “If you laugh again at the gravity of our situation, I will stab you.”
Navon’s smile vanished. A definite overuse of optimism.
“Now,” Jikun demanded impassively, rounding on the leagues of hazy grains. “Which way to the Eph’vi?”
Navon winced. “Remember the night I had to comb the entire Sagewood to find an antidote for your wound? I managed to find that, and in the dark, did I not? I reason I can certainly find the Eph’vi in a flat plain of sand.”
Jikun followed his gaze outward. “I was nearly shitting out my intestines by the time you returned,” he countered with a snort. “And dare I indicate that these events are entirely unrelated.”
Navon struck his breast. “Stifle a little of that Darivalian cynicism and trust me.”
“Trust…” Jikun relinquished with a sigh. “I suppose all your years of dedicated service earn you such a request, Captain.” The title still left the general’s lips without a flinch: the emotional dam was yet secure.
Navon had seen the effects of the Sevilan Marshes breaking free at Elarium. And now the dam the general must have built to repress that slaughter…? Gods knew a breach of that emotional trauma would be infinitely worse.
But he let none of his concern show. “Damn right I have earned it,” he replied good-naturedly. He strutted forward, leading the general at his heels. Forward was the only direction in which he had determined to move. Into the heat. Into the sand. Away from the ocean. And he knew he required more than a staggering force of luck to find the Eph’vi before either of them expired. ‘Sel’ari guide us,’ he prayed.
Yet his expression ever remained a beacon of positivity.
As they plodded on, the sun climbed higher and the warm, sandy surroundings became a searing span of scalding earth. The rays of the sun were like the touch of a brazier, sizzling against the bare flesh of their torsos and arms. Navon pressed a hand to his empty stomach, pushing it against the cavity in hopes of finding some form of relief from one of their trials. But the growl in his gut from days without sustenance had even ceased its once-persistent cries.
By the time Zephereus arrived at his zenith, Jikun’s ability to draw water from the air had reached its final juncture. It was an honest wonder how the Darivalian yet managed to use any magic at all, and at the same time, it was a testament to the male’s greatness. In his underfed, wounded, dehydrated, failing condition, he could still conjure strength for his underdeveloped talent.
Even if this misshapen creation was the final show of that might.
Jikun gave him a brief glare, as though he had detected an unsavory taste from Navon’s sudden fixation of awe, and then returned to eyeing his little lump of ice. By the time it reached his mouth, it had all but evaporated.
Jikun scowled. “The air is drier than a cunt with no foreplay.”
Navon’s admiration clutched his chest once and expired. “Why must you be so terribly crass?”
“I no longer have to pretend I have a shaft up my ass, Navon. There isn’t a god-damn Sel’ven—or anyone of note—for leagues.”
And the heat was too intense for Navon to rejoin. It was moments like this when all the scrolls and old tomes in the world could not offer enough knowledge to survive. There was an expanding lack of hope. A mounting intensity of heat. Distant whispers of imminent death. Only Eraydon seemed viable to bear the weight of such trials, and Jikun’s fading strength would soon be too great a burden to carry.
Hour drew into hour. The
sun faded and the heat broke. The stagnation about them seemed to draw away. But before Navon could consider his relief, another danger cackled with the dusk. The dry air began to cool at an alarmingly unnatural rate, as though winter had swept across the Windari Channel and swallowed the night.
And through it all, the sand stretched endlessly into the distance.
Navon glanced sidelong at the ragged gait of his general. They would not survive another day in the heat. And they would possibly not last through a long, frigid night. If he did not find the Eph’vi soon, they would not find them at all. ‘Sel’ari, I need you!’ Navon beseeched the stars above them. He wondered if, through the full moon of Noctem’s presence, his message would prevail.
There was a sudden flicker in the darkness, faint and orange. Navon’s body leapt and the words rushed from his cracked lips before he could fully grasp what he saw. “Jikun…!” he gasped. He snagged the male’s cold shoulder, swinging his drooping body to the left. “Pray tell that you see it…!”
Westward, a faint twinkle of light gleamed, floating like a wisp of fire high above the sand.
Beneath his boney fingers, Navon felt Jikun’s muscles stiffen. “What is it…?” he barely dared to speak, as though his breath might extinguish the tiny spark.
But Navon was already moving away, his blistered feet carrying him weightlessly over the earth. “Anything different is excellent!” he cried with a surge of relief. “The Eph’vi might reside that way! The light resembles fire, does it not?!”
Jikun ventured a single utterance of acknowledgment which Navon chose to interpret as budding optimism. “Maybe,” his companion ceded.
Hope. Not just for Jikun, but for him.
Back across the Windari Channel, for a brief moment, Navon had allowed that single instance of his own character—not the scrolls or tomes, but Navon—to dominate his actions. Defying all that he had read, he had chosen to break tradition and honor. To pull his general from the battle at Elarium and ferry him across the channel.
Heroes or Thieves (Steps of Power 2) Page 7
