Legacy of the Devil Queen (Eve of Redemption Book 4)

by Joe Jackson

  Corbanis nodded. “That’s not much to go on, but I’m inclined to trust her instincts. I take it if this was an invasion force, we’d have more information from the baronies down south?”

  “That seems to be the consensus,” Kari said, intoning the final word slowly to make sure she didn’t trip over it. “What else can you tell us?”

  The elder hunter thought to himself a minute, but then shook his head. “If it’s all right with you, ma’am, I think perhaps we should go meet with Kyrie. We should remember things better together than if we try to give you two separate accounts.”

  Kari looked to Ty, who shrugged slightly. She was nervous about calling Corbanis back to the campus in case it might lead to family strife, but he actually seemed anxious to go see his wife. Ty didn’t appear to have any issues with that, and Kari understood that she honestly knew little about the Tesconis family’s history. She had gotten bits and pieces of it from its various members over the last few years, but she’d never gotten the whole story and couldn’t see the big picture. Kari just hoped that Kyrie wouldn’t be angry with her for bringing Corbanis.

  They left the building and the campus, and Kari decided it would be best for them to go straight to the house. The last thing she wanted was for any altercation to take place between Kyrie and Corbanis in the midst of Kaelariel’s temple. It seemed best to her that they meet at a private place, one where Kyrie would feel comfortable. If Kyrie wasn’t home, Kari could always go and fetch her, or send a messenger.

  Corbanis glanced around at the cityscape of DarkWind with a discerning eye, and looked as though he was pleased with what he saw. Considering he hadn’t seen the city in a number of years and had doubtless heard about the long siege and the damage done to it during the War, it was probably a miracle to him to see any familiarity within. They passed by schools, temples, houses, and businesses, and the elder demonhunter cast his scrutinizing gaze over every one of them. Kari wondered what he was thinking, but she was pretty sure he was taking stock of his surroundings: the mark of an experienced hunter.

  Their progress was a little slow on account of Typhonix, but Kari was already impressed by how well he was adjusting to being in the chair. Just as she’d thought, the strength of his upper body seemed to help a lot, and it was only when a dirt road was rutted from being muddied and then trodden by horses and carts that he had any issues. He was reluctant to ask for help when he needed it, but Kari tried to let him make his own way, and not fawn over him and cause him any embarrassment.

  When they reached the house, Kyrie was outside tending to her gardens. Kari stopped and looked at Corbanis when he paused, and she could see a mix of emotions play out quickly upon his features. Something had happened between them, certainly, but Kari couldn’t help but remember they had six children together; their love had not been a fleeting thing or a short-term whirlwind. She saw his eyes go away from his mate, then, and Kari turned back to the house to see Grakin coming down the steps with Little Gray in his arms.

  “Father?” Grakin said, even from the distance between them.

  Kyrie glanced at Grakin in shock, and then she turned and looked over her shoulder at the motley trio standing at the edge of her property. The blonde priestess’ eyes widened enough that Kari could see them even from across the yard, and Kyrie stood up slowly to face her husband from a distance. Just like Corbanis, a range of emotions played across Kyrie’s face in just a few seconds: joy, longing, anxiousness, anger. Kari couldn’t help but think that Aeligos would clean his parents out easily in a game of poker. Kyrie made no move toward her husband, and he stood rooted to his spot as well.

  Grakin, on the other hand, approached his father without delay. “Grakin,” Corbanis said with a bit of warmth in his expression and voice. “How are you?”

  “I am dying, father,” the priest said with little emotion and no hesitation. “Other than that, I am doing quite well.”

  “Dying?” the elder hunter responded, his glance going back and forth between his son and the toddler in Grakin’s arms. “What happened to you? First I find Typhonix in a rolling chair, and now you tell me you’re dying? What has been going on these last few years? And who is this young man?”

  “I have Dracon’s Bane, father,” Grakin said, and Kari was both surprised and impressed by how well her mate held up saying those words to his father after nearly a dozen years. “That was why I joined the temple when I was fourteen.” Corbanis looked like he wasn’t sure what to say, but he laid his hand on his shorter son’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “As for this young man, this is our son, Grakin junior.”

  “Our son?” Corbanis repeated, confused. Kari stepped forward and took her son from his father’s arms, then, and the elder hunter’s eyes went wide again. After a moment, he started to laugh, and shook his head. “You…are mated to my Grand Commander?”

  “I was only a Shield of the Heavens at the time,” Kari quipped.

  She didn’t miss Corbanis trying to hide the sudden moisture in his eyes. “I can hardly believe it…I’m a grandfather?” he asked, and then his gaze dropped to Kari’s belly. “And soon to be so again, I assume?” Kari and Grakin both nodded, and Corbanis sniffled. “Gods, this is a surprise. I always expected Aeligos was going to be the first to make me a grandfather…several times over.”

  “Father, do not pick on Aeligos,” Grakin admonished him, and Corbanis agreed with a nod before he turned to Kyrie.

  The priestess was standing scant feet from her husband, but neither made a move to embrace or touch the other at all. “Corbanis,” she said simply.

  “Kyrie,” he returned just as curtly.

  “What brings you here?”

  “I was ordered to return to the Order’s campus by the Grand Commander,” Corbanis began to explain, and Kari didn’t miss the brief but cutting glare she received from her mother-in-law. Corbanis didn’t miss it either, and held up a hand as he added, “She brought me back here to ask me about these attacks in the south that you said might be a Tilcimer. And, I must assume, to send me to help our children take care of it, whether it’s a Tilcimer or not. What makes you think it’s another Tilcimer?”

  Kyrie sighed, and Kari was pretty sure the look the woman gave her was apologetic for the glare she’d given just moments before. “Come inside; I’ll make us some tea and biscuits, and we can talk,” she said, and she turned to head toward the house.

  “I’ve missed you,” Corbanis said before making any move to follow.

  The priestess turned around and her mouth tightened into a line. “I’ve missed you as well,” she said. “But this is not the time. Come inside and let’s speak of what our children are up against.”

  They headed inside and took seats around the dining table while Kyrie put on a kettle and gathered some hard biscuits from the pantry. Kari handed Little Gray to his grandfather while they waited, and it seemed to take a minute for Corbanis’ paternal instincts to kick in. Little Gray started tugging on his grandfather’s horns, which made the stoic hunter laugh, and every time he did, the sound drew Kyrie’s attention from the kettle stove. Grakin kept looking to Typhonix, and Kari wondered what they were thinking, and whether they were trying to decide what to talk about with their father after so long.

  Instead, they kept silent until Kyrie brought over the kettle and poured everyone a cup of tea. Corbanis grabbed the cup and held it tight in his hand, impervious to its heat, and looked squarely at his mate. “So these attacks…what makes you think it’s another Tilcimer?”

  Kyrie shrugged. “Just the suddenness of the attacks, the way it killed everyone and then burned the town to the ground,” she said, suddenly sounding a little unsure of herself for the first time Kari could ever remember. “They’re saying there’s been no evidence of an army, large or small, moving through the area, so I thought a Tilcimer fit the clues well.”

  Corbanis nodded. “And it’s in the south again,” he added. “This also brings up a couple of possibilities: that if the Tilcimer was
created by Seril, that she might still be alive; or that if it’s something else that created it, that it’s based somewhere in the south creating these things.”

  “What else can you tell us about your mission to kill the first one?” Kari asked. “Kyrie said Zalkar sent you there with Trigonh and a couple of others?”

  The elder hunter took a sip of tea. “It was the first time Kaelariel and Zalkar had ever worked together on something. That alone should tell you enough about how dangerous they considered the problem.”

  “Actually,” Kari interrupted, “you have to keep in mind, I was dead during all of this. I have no idea what went on between Kaelariel and the Unyielding from the time I died to the time I was resurrected.”

  Corbanis laughed, and the others did with him. “Right,” he said, shaking his head. “There was a long stretch where Zalkar was suspicious of Kaelariel; between his relationship with Celigus Chinchala and dabbling in the affairs of some of the demon kings, the Unyielding wasn’t sure about Kaelariel’s actual intentions.” Kyrie gave him a skeptical look, but he made it a point not to look at her. “When this problem cropped up, though, they agreed to work together to see to it: Kaelariel sent one of his most trusted followers – Trigonh – and a certain young half-demon priestess. Zalkar sent one of his promising young hunters and one of his most renowned non-demonhunter followers – Torrie Cantabler. Torrie brought along his recent love interest, a terra-rir archer named Sasha Jacques.”

  “The Tilcimer began its campaign of terror in the south, which was unusual, since full-blooded serilian…er, serilis-rir,” he interrupted himself with a glance toward Kari, “don’t usually like the colder climates. At first, we thought maybe it was something from the underworld, like an elestram wizard. We started following the trail of destruction, though, and what we realized is that this thing was fast – you have to understand, a Tilcimer moves almost too quickly to even follow. We had quite a task getting ahead of it, but eventually we did, and were able to confront it when it tried to attack another town.”

  “It takes a few moments to get its feet moving, but then it almost becomes a blur,” Kyrie put in. “I’ve never seen something move so quickly before; I was hardly able to follow what happened in the fight.”

  Corbanis nodded with the assessment. “Fighting it toe-to-toe proved impossible. It came down to limiting its mobility before we were able to even wound it, and once we started hurting it, it slowed down to the point where we could kill it. Still, having someone as large as Trigonh made a difference when trying to corner it – as did the fact that the thing was insanely vicious. It wasn’t interested in retreating.”

  “It told you it was called Tilcimer, right?” Kari asked, and both Corbanis and Kyrie confirmed it. “But it never told you anything else? Who created it, where it came from, or why it was doing what it was doing?”

  Corbanis looked at Kyrie and something passed between them, but the elder hunter only shrugged. “It was completely insane,” he said. “Most of what it said made little sense, and even when we’d mortally wounded it, it still didn’t seem to appreciate that it was about to die. It kept promising that ‘she’d make us pay,’ so we assumed Seril had created it and that’s what it meant. But it never told us anything useful; I don’t think it really knew anything useful, only how to spread misery and death.”

  “So what happened after you killed it?” Kari asked. “Did you try tracking it to see where it came from, or if there were more?”

  Kyrie shook her head. “Despite the fact that we killed it, we were in pretty rough shape after all was said and done,” she explained. “Torrie in particular had taken numerous deep claw wounds all over his body, and Corbanis and even Trigonh had suffered some wounds at its claws. We returned to the nearby city of Ballycastle and listened for any reports of similar attacks, but there was nothing…not until now.”

  Trigonh suffered wounds? Kari thought, but she didn’t let herself get sidetracked. “So what did you do after that?”

  “We got married,” Corbanis said, making an effort to suppress a grin. “Sasha, Torrie, and Trigonh were all assigned to other things, and Kyrie and I returned home to Latalex.”

  “And had a lot of sex,” Typhonix piped in, stunning the table into silence.

  “Typhonix Tesconis!” Kyrie exclaimed, her eyes widened to their limits.

  Corbanis snorted and shook his head. “Some things never change,” he said, but then he turned to Kari. “Ma’am, should I head south tomorrow to join the rest of my children? I should be able to find a faster transport, if they had to take a larger ship to accommodate all of them.”

  Kari nodded. “I think that’s best. I’m sure they can use all the help they can get, and if it really is another Tilcimer, you’ve fought one before, so you’ll know what to do.”

  “You should come see the piece of land Kari was granted,” Ty said to his father. “She was made a baroness by the Duke, and she’s got this estate to the north she’s having fixed up.”

  Corbanis glanced at Kyrie. “I should get back to the temple,” the priestess said. She was making a polite excuse to leave her husband’s company, Kari could tell. And Kari was pretty sure the others could as well.

  No one argued with her, though, so Corbanis rose. “That sounds like a nice diversion,” he said. “Get to know my daughter-in-law and grandson a little better on the way.”

  Kari nodded and they soon left the confines of the house, but she was a little disappointed that Corbanis and Kyrie didn’t at least put some effort into reconciling. Ultimately, she figured that wasn’t the reason she ordered Corbanis home, and like so many other issues that came up in her life, it wasn’t really her business.

  *****

  Kari returned to the campus of the Order after nightfall, when most of the hunters were either in their barracks or at home elsewhere in the city. All of the administrative help was gone for the day, and only the night watch were keeping tabs on the grounds, leaving much of it empty and eerie. Kari was glad for her position as Grand Commander, since no one would question her presence or intentions. What she needed was to speak privately with a couple of people, and she didn’t trust a single soul on the campus outside of the Council to know about this meeting.

  Instincts from her days living on the streets of Solaris allowed her to reach her destination without seeming either too conspicuous or too inconspicuous. She didn’t want anyone to know where she was going, but at the same time, she didn’t want the guards to question why the Grand Commander was skulking about the grounds of her own Order. Kari was able to avoid most of the patrols, yet seem like she was on campus for a purpose whenever she did encounter one. At last, she slipped into the barracks that housed the syrinthians, and she was pretty sure no one had seen her enter.

  She was surprised to find them in a circle with joined hands, but what she found even more surprising was that Se’sasha was nude. All of the other syrinthians were wearing clothing as usual, but their High Priestess sat with them naked. Kari remembered Se’sasha being shy and ashamed of being naked when she had bathed in front of Kari and her friends on Mehr’Durillia. Kari assumed nudity was taboo amongst the syrinthians, but now she wondered if it was something more specific.

  Kari remained by the door to keep from interrupting the syrinthian prayer, though she listened to the occasional sibilant intonations of the priestess. She caught the name Ashakku a couple of times and was satisfied that they were at least praying to the proper god. Se’sasha would intone a prayer, and the others would answer back in their sibilant language. This went on for several minutes before they broke up their circle of hands and all eyes turned to Kari.

  “Hasht!” Se’sasha said in a hiss of surprise, and she picked up her robe and wrapped herself in the garment quickly. She tied the belt around her waist as she rose to her feet, and then she approached Kari. “Sister, what brings you here at so late an hour?”

  “Your people asked if there was any way they could prove their loyalty to you so t
hat I could trust them,” Kari said, and Se’sasha nodded. The others perked up at Kari’s words. “Well, it just so happens that I need your help.”

  Se’sasha gestured for Kari to come deeper into the barracks and sit, and though Kari trusted the priestess, she still hesitated to walk into the midst of a dozen syrinthians on her own. She had her armor – loose as it was – and her weapons, but even she would be hard pressed to fight off a dozen people, even unarmed people, if they decided to take her in a rush. Se’sasha touched Kari’s arm lightly and smiled, and Kari moved deeper into the building and took a seat near the opposite wall. Soon, all of the syrinthians were before her: some kneeling, some sitting cross-legged, and others standing, waiting to hear what Kari had to say.

  “First, I have to give you all a warning,” Kari said. “What I’m about to say to all of you is something very sensitive that must be kept a secret. If anyone repeats anything I’m about to tell you outside of this room, my plan will fail, and that will be the end of any hope you have of getting me to trust you.”

  “What is it you need from us?” Se’sasha asked, motioning with her hand for her people not to get too anxious or upset at Kari’s words.

  “Suffice it to say that your people are not the only spies we have among my Order,” Kari explained. “I have a plan to catch another of them, but I need bait for the trap, and the idea is to use you as the bait, Se’sasha.” She paused as the other syrinthians erupted in protests, and Kari held her hand up to silence them again. “Of course, I have no intention of actually using you as bait, so what I need is one of these other girls to volunteer to pretend to be you.”

  There was only half a second of silence before Liria stood up. “I’ll do it,” she said.

  “Se’Lucia, this would be a most dangerous undertaking,” Se’sasha said. “You should hear Lady Vanador out before making a decision.”