I will always fight on, she thought. Until my last drop of blood. Until the last beat of my heart.
"Father!" she shouted as she climbed. "Father, come face me! Are you a coward?"
But she heard only his Legions, the endless chants, the bloodthirsty cries of those he'd molded into killers. And she killed them. She slew them with steel and iron, and their blood covered her, stinging her lips, coppery and sweet.
You made me a killer too, Kaelyn thought, swinging her sword. You made me a greater killer than any in your Legions. I can forgive you for killing my people. But I can never forgive you for making me kill yours.
"Father!" she shouted. "Face me! It's me, Kaelyn. Do you hear?"
Arrows whistled down from above. The men at her sides screamed and fell, and their guns clattered down. Kaelyn ducked. An arrow flew over her head, slicing her hair. She grabbed a fallen arquebus, screamed, and fired. The gun blasted, blinding her with smoke, nearly knocking her down the steps. When the smoke dispersed, she saw two fallen legionaries above, but more stood behind them, ready to charge.
She rose to her feet. She swung her sword and cut a man down. She fought on.
When shouts rose behind her, she cursed. The Legions were charging up the stairs from below too, trapping her and her men. She fought onward, killing with every step. An arrow slammed into her left arm, and she cried out in pain. She kept climbing.
"Father, come and face me!"
She ascended another few steps. Men fell before and behind her. The stairs were slick with blood.
"Father!"
A cackle rose above, muffled behind the walls. "Kaelyn, my sweet traitor! Have you fought all this way to scream under my punisher?"
She sucked in air. It was his voice, the voice she had heard a thousand times in her nightmares.
My father.
She kept climbing. Her left arm hung uselessly, pierced with an arrow. Her leg bled. Her head spun. Yet still she killed. Cut, burnt, and pierced with arrows, her men fought around her. Ten more steps, and Kaelyn saw a red door. The cackling rose beyond it.
The sight of this door pierced her with more pain than her wounds.
"No," she whispered. "Oh stars, no, not here."
Frey Cadigus kept many chambers in this palace. His throne room, a hall of glory, lay far below. Still farther above, near the tower's crest, festered his butcher room, the place where he slaughtered both beasts and men. Yet here, Kaelyn thought, here behind this door lay the true heart of his madness.
"His trophy room," she whispered. "The center of his pride and insanity."
"Kaelyn!" he shouted, voice echoing beyond the door. "Kaelyn, my sweetest betrayer. Do you remember this place? Come inside, Kaelyn, and scream for me."
Guns fired over her shoulders. Legionaries clattered down. Kaelyn could no longer see the men battling around her. She could only stare at that door. She could only see the old nightmares.
"This is the room you are most proud of," she whispered. She grabbed the arrow in her arm, grimaced, and pulled it out with a gush of blood. "This is the room where I kill you."
She kicked the door open, barged inside, and swung her sword.
A crowd of axehands ran her way.
Kaelyn clutched her sword with both hands and ran toward them.
Behind her, her fellow resistors charged into the room. Guns blazed. Smoke filled the chamber; Kaelyn couldn't see farther than her blade's tip. She spun in circles, cutting limbs, kicking men down. All around the guns fired, steel sparked, axes flashed, and blood sprayed. The iron masks of the axehands leered at her. A blade sliced across her side.
"Father!" she shouted. "Face me alone! Call back your thugs and face me, coward."
The clanging of steel and crashing of guns rang out. Every heartbeat, more bodies thudded to the floor. Blood sluiced around her boots. When the screaming died and the dust settled, Kaelyn found herself standing alone. Corpses surrounded her, resistors and axehands alike.
All lay dead.
Kaelyn stood panting, Lemuria still clutched with both hands.
I stand alone.
She took a step farther into the chamber, sword trembling in her hands.
"Father?" she whispered.
Her head spun. She walked hesitantly, stepping over corpses. She saw nobody living. Could Frey have died among his axehands? Heart thudding, she stepped deeper. Her knees shook. Her breath shook in her lungs. Blood dripped from her wounds, but she moved on, whipping her head from side to side, seeking him. The eyes of the dead stared up at her. The stench of death flared so powerfully Kaelyn almost gagged.
Deeper into the chamber, candles glowed and she saw his trophies.
A chill ran through her.
Thousands of years ago, the first King Aeternum had raised a marble column in the forest. King's Column had stood since; ancient magic protected it. Frey had smashed the rest of the old palace, but King's Column remained, and all his cannons and dragons could not topple it. Instead, Frey had built Tarath Imperium around the pillar, a black tumor growing around a single white bone. That ancient marble rose inside Frey's tower, the stairway coiling around it like a snake coiling around a rod.
In this chamber, surrounded by black walls, Kaelyn saw the capital of Aeternum's ancient monument.
The column rose only three hundred feet tall; most of Tarath Imperium still towered above. This room was Frey's museum for Aeternum's fallen glory. The column's capital stood forlorn, pale and glimmering, carved in the shape of rearing dragons. If Frey could not smash it, he would display it like a master displaying a chained slave.
All around the marble artifact, he displayed the rest of his trophies. The severed heads of the Aeternum family floated here in jars, each standing upon an obsidian pedestal. Their faces stared at Kaelyn, still torn in anguish. Their swords lay shattered upon the floor.
A glass tank, six feet tall, stood here too. Kaelyn had never seen this trophy before. Liquid filled the container, and a woman floated there, her body naked and cut with red spiral scars. She had wavy hair the color of honey, feline features, hazel eyes, and a pale face strewn with freckles.
The woman looked exactly like Kaelyn.
"Marilion," she whispered.
A voice spoke in the shadows.
"Marilion Brewer of Cadport, that was her name. Wife to Valien. Sister of that drunkard who raised Relesar in his tavern. Such a beauty. Such a waste." Frey emerged from the shadows, placed a hand upon the glass, and admired the floating corpse. "I told Valien that she still lives in my dungeon. The fool must have believed me. He took the bait and came here. I lured him out of his hiding and into my lair." He turned toward Kaelyn. "And now he will die, my daughter. Now you will die too. You both will float here with her."
Kaelyn screamed and charged.
Frey stepped back, and Lemuria slammed against the tank, scratching the glass. The woman inside swayed and seemed to stare at Kaelyn, eyes still wide in pain, mouth open in a silent scream.
Kaelyn raced around the tank, all her weakness gone, all her pain drowning under rage. She swung Lemuria and met her father's blade.
He had drawn his sword, a monstrous hunk of black steel named Fellwair, a weapon as long as Kaelyn's entire body. She had seen him severe his enemies' heads with this steel, seen him hack into flesh and lick the blood. It was the blade he had killed the Aeternum family with, the blade that had slaughtered the last soul of Osanna, that had killed Marilion.
Now this terror swung toward her, and Kaelyn screamed as she parried.
"You've returned to me, my daughter," Frey said, and a cold smile twisted his face. "Do you remember this chamber? Do you remember how I chained you here, how I forced you to stare at the heads, how I beat you until you wept?" He snarled and swung his sword. "I will hurt you here again, my daughter, more than ever. I will hurt you here for years before I let you die."
She screamed and thrust Lemuria.
"You will never m
ore hurt me." She could barely see him; she had lost too much blood, was too hurt, too weak, but she fought on. "You die tonight, Father. No, you are no father to me. You are nothing but a beast."
He laughed, a mirthless and cold sound.
"Is that so, daughter?" he asked. "Already you weaken. I see the blood soaking your clothes, draining from your flesh, leaving you weak and pale. You cannot best me in swordplay. Nor can your pitiful Resistance hurt me." He blocked another blow and sighed. "Oh, my dear, foolish daughter. Do you not see? I have planned all of this."
She screamed and swung her blade. It sparked against his own.
"Silence, liar! For years I suffered under your heel. For years I fought you. Tonight you die."
He parried languidly. He did not even bother attacking.
"Do you not see, my wayward child? I knew of your island all along. I let you linger there. I placed the lure and watched you come. I drew you into my trap... and now you are here. Your warriors lie dead outside. Your friend Valien seeks me in the twisting halls; his men too are dying." He shook his head in mock sadness. "Oh, my poor child. You and Valien have done exactly what I wanted. Soon you and he will scream here together. The boy Relesar will scream too. Who will scream the loudest, I wonder?"
She trembled as she fought. Her eyes stung.
"You lie!" she screamed. She slammed her sword against his breastplate, but could not pierce it. "All you do is lie."
"And yet you shiver. And yet you weep. Your Resistance is fallen; you know this. All your hope is faded like the starlight of old gods." His face hardened. "My eldest daughter proved herself weak. My son proved himself a fool. And you, Kaelyn... you are the worst among them. You are a traitor." He snarled and his eyes blazed. "Now is your time to suffer."
Finally he thrust his blade.
Fellwair, black and wide and over five feet long, swung through the air. The blade caught the firelight and burned red. Kaelyn raised her sword, her slim and short Lemuria, and the blades clashed. Sparks rose in a fountain. She wanted to thrust again, to chip at his armor, to crack the steel and slay him. But she was too slow. She had lost too much blood. It was all she could do to parry.
Frey fought with bared teeth, eyes narrowed, his face demonic. He swung his sword again and again, slamming it into Lemuria, showering sparks. With every blow, pain shot up Kaelyn's arm. She thought her shoulder would dislocate.
She panted. Sweat and blood drenched her. Fellwair swung down. With a scream, Kaelyn raised her sword and parried.
The blow knocked her to her knees.
She knelt before her father, panting, bleeding, praying. He raised his sword again.
No, she thought, no, I can't die now. I must live. For Requiem. For Valien. For Rune and my brother and everyone else. She took a shuddering breath.
"I am Kaelyn Cadigus," she whispered. She struggled to rise, legs shaking. "But I foreswear your name. Know this, Father. When you are dead, I will marry Valien Eleison. Your grandsons will carry his name." She stared into his eyes and raised her bloodied blade. "But they will not know of you. They will not know you are my father. Your legacy will die."
With a howl, she drove forward, exposing her left side, ready to suffer his sword for a chance to pierce his neck.
But he did not take the bait.
He could have stabbed her left arm, severing it. He could have attacked and maimed her, allowing her right arm to slay him. But he only stepped back defensively. His blade swung sideways, biting Kaelyn's fingers.
Her blood spurted.
She screamed. Her sword flew from her hand; so did two of her fingers.
She howled. She tried to grab the dagger in her boot, but her left arm was numb from the arrow. Her right hand gushed blood. And Kaelyn knew she had lost this battle.
The chamber spinning around her, she tried to retreat. She took a few steps back, her heels banged against a corpse, and she fell. She landed upon bodies. Before she could scramble up, he was upon her.
Frey's hands reached out. His one hand clutched her throat and squeezed. The other pulled her hair. He leered down, his face twisted into something between a grin and a snarl, something monstrous and insane.
Please, Father, I'm sorry I ate the fruit! Please, don't hit me.
Again she huddled under her bed, a screaming child, as his hands reached into the darkness, clutched her, pulled her into this very chamber to beat her.
"Please, Father," she whispered.
His grip on her throat tightened. Her eyes rolled back. Darkness fell into nightmare and endless screams echoed.
VALIEN
He stumbled down the corridor, bleeding and alone. With a final gasp, the last of his warriors—a young woman with flaming red hair—fell dead.
So weak he could barely see, Valien leaped forward. He swung his sword, shattering the head of her killer. The axehand, his blade dripping, crashed down.
Valien stood in place, panting. His chest rose and fell, and his breath wheezed. He looked around and saw nothing but dead. They filled the hallway, axehands and resistors alike. Their blood pooled and splashed the walls.
And so the Resistance ends, he thought. If Kaelyn and her men fell too, he was the last. The last resistor. The last hope of Requiem. And his light too was flickering. Valien wanted to fall, to lie down, to join his comrades. He would close his eyes, let his blood flow, and his soul would rise to the starlit halls of his ancestors.
He fell to his knees, head spinning, blood flowing down his arms. His sword clanged to the floor.
The dead woman stared up at him, and her face did not seem pained or frightened, but soft, welcoming, her eyes large and green. She was at peace. She sang among the white columns of their forebears, a land of eternal glory.
On his knees among the corpses, Valien looked up. The ceiling was black and bloody, but Valien imagined that he could see beyond it. The old palace of Requiem rose among the stars, celestial and shimmering.
"The true palace still shines above," Valien whispered, gazing up at the ceiling. "A reflection in the stars. You wait for me there, Marilion. You wait for me there, all those who fell."
He took a shuddering breath and reached up, almost feeling that warmth, almost seeing that glow.
A scream shattered the illusion.
Valien lowered his gaze and stared down the hall.
The scream sounded again—high, pained, and pleading.
Valien inhaled sharply.
"Kaelyn," he whispered.
With a raspy breath that burned his throat, he pushed himself to his feet. He lifted his sword and took a step forward. Grunting, he trudged on.
He wanted to shout her name but forced himself to remain silent; he would not reveal his location. He stepped over corpses, moving silently, barely daring to breathe. His hair dangled over his face, slick with blood.
The scream sounded again, then died off. Valien hissed and clutched his sword. The call had come from nearby, only a chamber or two away. He kept moving down the corridor. Torches crackled on the walls and blood trickled between the floor tiles. No more guards filled this place; he saw only bodies.
I'm coming for you, Kaelyn, he thought. His chest shook and he plowed on. He could no longer hear the scream. Had Frey killed her? Would he find her dead, Frey's sword thrust into her belly, like he'd found Marilion all those years ago?
A whimper rose down the hall.
Kaelyn. It was her; he was sure of it.
Breath shuddering, Valien trudged onward. He held his sword in bloodstained hands. As he walked down the hall, he realized that he knew this place. He had walked here before. Twenty years ago, white tiles had covered the floor, and instead of an eastern wall, a portico of marble columns had revealed forested hills. Today the hall was black and narrow but... this was the same place. Valien could feel it.
Sweat beaded on his brow and his fingers shook. A few more steps and he saw a door—a door he knew would be there.
He stepped forward. Hand slick with blood and trembling with weakness, he pulled the door open. He stared into the chamber.
His breath left him and his eyes watered. He felt like ash melting in the rain, all his hardness fading into shimmering memory.
In the past twenty years, this palace had spread and rotted like a canker, but his chambers had remained untouched. His old tapestries still hung from the walls, depicting scenes of sunset over forests and mountains. The same vases and mugs still stood upon his table; even the dried roses were still there. His bed stood by the wall, topped with the quilts Marilion had woven—the bed where he would love her, where he'd sleep holding her, where he'd found her dead.
"He kept it the same," Valien whispered. "Why?"
A voice answered him. "Because I knew you would return."
Valien growled, stepped into the chamber, and turned to his right.
His world seemed to burn and his heart froze.
"Let them go," he rasped and raised his sword. His heart unlocked and burst into a gallop. His fist shook around his hilt. "Let them go, Frey."
The emperor smiled thinly. "Welcome to my bedchamber, Valien Eleison. Welcome to your old home."
Frey Cadigus stood clad in his imperial armor, a suit of black plates that covered him from toe to neck. His pauldrons flared out, and motifs of golden dragons coiled across his breastplate. His sword hung across his back. He held an arquebus, the gun bloody. The fuse was crackling like a pipe, the flashpan full of powder.
Before the emperor, in sight of his muzzle, Rune and Kaelyn sat tied to chairs.
Valien struggled for breath. He took a step closer, reaching out to them, but Frey pulled the trigger back a hair's width. The gun creaked. Valien froze.
"Rune," he whispered. "Kaelyn."
They were wounded; they looked within a few breaths of death. Burns and welts rose across Rune's flesh, peeking from the tatters of his clothes, and he was thin, thinner than he'd ever been. His cheeks were ashen, his eyes sunken. He met Valien's gaze. His mouth was gagged, but in his eyes, Valien saw relief mingling with fear.
A Memory of Fire (The Dragon War, Book 3) Page 20
