On the third night, they made camp under sparkling autumn stars with the chill mountain air frosting every breath. They weren’t yet above the tree line as they traversed the pass between Dannym and Veneisea, but the ground crackled with frost that never melted, and shadowed patches gleamed white with snow. Brody, Rhys, and the soldiers traded off the watch; Ean had volunteered to join them—Raine’s truth he was getting less sleep than the men were with or without holding watch—but Rhys wouldn’t have it. So Ean tended the fire, staring into its depths pondering his many troubles that shrouded him like a Marquiin’s ashen veils, wishing for sleep that rarely came and only fitfully when it did.
Cephrael’s Hand was rising in the east when Fynnlar joined Ean’s side. The prince had noted the constellation every night since Acacia, which fact would’ve mattered little had it been any other grouping of stars. But Cephrael’s Hand didn’t follow the usual laws. Its course could never be charted, for its stars seemed ever erratic. Astrologers had yet to establish the pattern of its motion—much less understand how the damnable stars moved—which only contributed to the many superstitions about the ill-famed constellation.
“‘A man may rule his household,” Fynn quoted as he settled in beside the prince and joined him in staring up at the stars, “and a king govern his land, but Death walks in the thrall of Cephrael’s Hand.’”
Ean cast him a weary look. “Can’t sleep, cousin?”
Fynn eyed him narrowly. “There’s something about bedding in the company of a wielder that makes for less than restful sleep.”
Ean tossed another log onto the flames, sending a shower of sparks heavenward among the pale smoke. “I’m not a wielder, Fynn.”
“Then what are you, Ean?” Fynn hissed. He leaned toward his cousin to better conceal their words, though the rest of the camp was deep in slumber. “You squeezed the black life out of that Marquiin like a rotten fruit!”
“It wasn’t like that,” Ean growled under his breath.
“Then tell me what it was like.”
“I can’t explain it!” Ean hissed.
“For Epiphany’s sake, Ean, try. Whatever it was you did, you made a Marquiin no longer a Marquiin!” As the truth of these words settled in, making Ean grimace, Fynnlar leaned his head to capture Ean’s gaze with his own. “Look, cousin, we don’t know if that Ascendant lived or drowned, but if he found civilization…if word gets back to his maniacal sovereign that you can undo his malevolent work…well, let’s just say you’ll have worse monsters than Geshaiwyn after you.”
Ean shot him a tormented look. “Can you pattern? Know you anything of these matters, Fynn, beyond the same rudimentary understanding that I possess?”
“I know little enough,” Fynn admitted, leaning back.
“Then what value is this discussion?”
“I might get some rest out of it,” the royal cousin grumbled. “At least one of us would be sleeping then.”
Ean grimaced and looked away, clenching his jaw.
Fynn put a hand on his shoulder. “Ean…you’ve got to trust someone with this. Shadow take me if you’ve slept a solid hour since we left Acacia. We can all see that it’s tormenting you.”
Ean exhaled a sigh and murmured, “You can see that, can you?”
Fynn leaned back on one elbow and extended his boots toward the fire. “You should talk to someone about it, cousin,” he advised, “and that someone might as well be me. I can keep my mouth shut—but seven hells, even if I blabbed to anyone who would listen, the whole world knows half of everything out of my mouth is crap anyway. I mean, who listens to me, really?”
A hint of a smile broke through Ean’s tormented expression, and he glanced to his cousin. “That’s true.”
Fynn cast him a black look. “Well, thank you for agreeing with me.”
Ean managed a crooked grin, but as his expression sobered, his grey eyes lifted again to the heavens. “It’s following me, Fynn,” he whispered. “I know it is.”
Fynn followed his gaze and made a face. “Maybe it is. What does it matter?”
“It matters because I…I think it’s trying to tell me something.”
“Oh, for Epiphany’s sake—” Fynn threw up his hands and glared at Ean. “Quit changing the bloody subject and tell me what happened with that Marquiin.”
Ean pulled knees to his chest and draped his arms over them. He stared hard into the fire. “I don’t know—I really don’t know,” he added emphatically. “Twice in Acacia, I just saw a pattern and had a feeling that I—Shadow take me, Fynn, it’s so hard to describe! It was like a need, like I needed to unravel it.”
“Twice,” Fynn said, eyeing him critically. “Once with the Marquiin. When was the other?”
“When the Geshaiwyn found me at the inn, we battled. Somehow we fell through a portal which I think was trace-sealed. The Wildling died before he could return us to the hall. I saw the trace seal on the wall and…well I…pulled it apart.”
Fynn stared intently at him. “You saw it? And you unworked it?”
Ean picked at the frayed stitching on his boot. “I’m not sure what I did,” he admitted. “I saw the pattern. I knew where it began and ended. I had a sense that I should take the end of it and pull it apart. So I did.”
Fynn snorted dubiously. “Well, that’s definitely not the way I’ve heard working elae described before.”
“No,” Ean agreed, glancing at him. “Alyneri described Healing to me by explaining that she looks for a person’s life pattern and then uses it to heal. What I did was the…opposite…” he trailed off as the realization struck him.
He had unworked the trace-seal, unworked the pattern that bound the Marquiin to his master; what would happen if he unworked the pattern that was intrinsic to a person, that which the Healers used to heal? Would he then be unworking a man’s life?
Fynn was staring uncomfortably at him. “What is it?”
Ean clenched his teeth and shook his head. “Just a thought I had.” He lifted grey eyes to the constellation again. “It’s nothing.”
All the next day as they traveled, Ean fretted over his ability. What did it mean that he could unwork a pattern? Was he then the antithesis of elae? Is that why the traitorous Fifth Vestal wanted him—as a weapon to achieve his aims? Could it be that those who desired his death—they who hired the Geshaiwyn—could it be they were actually fighting on the side of righteousness?
They made camp that night on the downhill side of the pass amid blanketing fog. The gaining of Veneisea might have been a moment for small celebration, at least worthy of a shared drink to mark the passing, but the camp remained subdued, as shrouded by their dire thoughts as the night sky was with fog. As the group was bedding down, Ean approached Alyneri.
“Your Grace,” he said, affecting an amiable tone though his smile didn’t lighten his gaze, which seemed as tumultuous as the sea after a storm. “Might I impose upon you for a favor?”
Alyneri straightened from her task and turned to him. Her eyes were lined with worry, and he could tell that she also had not been sleeping well. For a moment he thought of confessing everything to her—the compulsion was so strong, in fact, that he almost did speak of it. Only the certain knowledge that his fears would burden and terrify her helped him hold his tongue.
“Of course, Ean,” she answered, sounding weary and fretful and tense. “How can I help you?”
Ean glanced around, but none of their companions were close. “Have you a sleeping powder?”
Her gaze became even more concerned, and he could tell she wanted to speak to him, but she held her tongue and nodded. She bent to retrieve her bag, but Ean took hold of her arm gently. “If I drink it,” he said quietly as she looked back to him, “will you promise to drink it, too?”
Alyneri closed her eyes as if to hold back the many things better left unsaid. Then she opened them again and nodded once, clearly untrusting of words in that moment. Ean released her arm, and she turned to her bag of herbs and sorted through her
varying vials until she found the one she wanted. “Valerian root,” she told him as she uncorked the vial and measured a small amount into his palm. The dense powder reeked like week-old socks. “Drink it, don’t sniff it,” she advised with a shadowy smile when he made a face.
Thanking her, Ean crossed camp to where he’d left his own things and mixed the powder into water from his flagon. He drank it fast. Then he lay down on his bedroll and prayed for sleep, refusing to watch Cephrael’s Hand rising once again in the east.
He let his mind drift, but only toward pleasant memories…a snowball fight with his brothers in the yard…collecting shells with his mother on Edenmar beach beneath the warm summer sun…swinging brazenly from the mizzenmast with Creighton while his grandfather shouted threats from far below…riding Caldar at top speed with his father and brothers on the heels of his father’s hounds during the chase…
These thoughts were all he had time for before the draft took full effect and Ean was pulled down at last into blessed sleep.
With restful slumber, came the dream…
Ean found himself in a three-tiered library warmed by a roaring fire. The flickering flames cast golden shadows on two heavy leather armchairs angled toward the hearth. On first glance, Ean thought he was alone, but after turning in a circle to view the rectangular room and its two floors of bookshelves, he turned back to see a man standing at the mantel. He was attired all in black, and though he retained a warrior’s lean hardness, he sported no weapon that Ean could see. His blonde hair was swept back from his wide forehead and held in place by a thin circlet of gold, and his eyes were a pale green. He had high cheekbones and a squared jaw, and had the look of the Danes about him—the fair skinned blondes who inhabited the far northern region of Agasan, beyond the mountains of Tirycth Mir.
Upon seeing Ean’s bemused expression, the stranger broke into a broad grin. “Welcome, Ean,” he greeted. He came over and clapped the prince upon the shoulder. Ean noted that the man wore a silver ring upon the third finger of his right hand, the azure stone cut deep and square. He’d seen such a ring before on a man with diamond eyes. “At last we meet,” said the stranger.
Ean shook his head. “How do you know me?”
The stranger motioned Ean to one chair and took the other, explaining, “Even were I not a skilled dreamwalker, I’d have been able to find your dreams.”
Ean considered him cautiously, for while the man seemed amiable, there was something in his eyes that belied his words. Ean knew him, however, though the knowledge only made him more apprehensive. How many people had truly been visited in their dreams by the Warrior-God Dagmar Ranneskjöld, Alorin’s Second Vestal? And how many just claimed it so?
“Please, join me.” Dagmar motioned to a table beside Ean’s chair, and the prince turned to find a goblet of wine waiting. When he looked back to Dagmar, the Adept was sipping from an identical goblet.
Ean couldn’t stop himself from speaking the first thought that came to mind. “They say you’re being held hostage in T’khendar.”
Relaxed in his chair, Dagmar eyed him inquisitively. “Yes, so I’ve heard. ‘Dagmar’s dungeon,’ I believe is the coined term.”
“Is it true?”
Dagmar held his gaze. “It is so.”
Something inside Ean deflated. He hadn’t realized that he’d even being hoping Raine was lying to him about Dagmar’s fate until that moment. Nor did the admission of captivity give him faith in the man before him, for Raine had unwittingly warned him of Dagmar’s allegiances. ‘…Dagmar has either sworn new oaths to Malachai’s dark gods, or he has sworn an oath to Björn. In either case, he is suspect…’
Sometimes Ean wondered if Raine had helped him at all; everything the Vestal told him only left him more confused, only warned him against those few who might actually help him. He felt too inexperienced to be saddled with such terrors—murder and sedition, assassins and mysterious fell powers, distrust sown against his would-be advisors—but for the last five years his mother had done nothing if not schooled him against self-pity. He was nearly nineteen years old, but one day he would be king. There was never a time when he could act as if he had any other truth…any other future.
No matter that I might sell my soul to make it so!
Unsure what to think of the Vestal’s presence in his dreams, Ean asked uncertainly, “Why have you come to me?”
Dagmar shifted in his chair, his gaze intense. “My oath-brother talks often of you, Ean, enough for me to know that you’re in danger. I came to warn you.”
Ean felt a surge of hope. “Then you…you’re not sworn to the Fifth Vestal?”
Dagmar arched brows. “Who said I was?”
“It was…intimated,” Ean confessed, looking to the near fire. “I wasn’t sure who to trust.”
“Trust your instincts,” Dagmar advised, and his voice sounded tinged with regret. “There is no other sure way to navigate among the reeds of this mire.”
Ean turned back to the Vestal. “If he speaks to you…might you know why the Fifth Vestal sent his Shade to capture me? What does he want with me?”
Dagmar considered him thoughtfully, his fair brow furrowed. “My oath-brother mentioned a pattern once when speaking of you,” he said after a moment. He shifted in his chair again and crossed one ankle over knee. “Can you describe it to me, or draw it perhaps?” and he motioned to the table at Ean’s right. When the prince looked, he found parchment and ink sitting next to the goblet of wine.
Ean took the parchment and drew the whorls and lines of his pattern with fluid ease. He handed the paper to Dagmar, who arched a brow upon seeing its likeness. “Ah, by Cephrael’s Great Book,” he murmured, shaking his head with a turbulent frown. Lifting his gaze back to Ean, he inquired, “What do you know of this pattern?”
“I have been told it mimics the Pattern of Life.”
“Yes, yes that is so,” he agreed. “The Sobra I’ternin bespeaks that all living things are formed of patterns. Learn a pattern intrinsic to a thing, and you gain the ability to compel or control that thing. The patterns and the lifelines of living things are therefore interwoven.” He released the parchment onto the floor and folded hands in his lap. “When a man works the Pattern of Life, however, it changes his pattern forever, molding itself within the pattern of the man—what is often called by Healers as his ‘life signature.’ The two patterns remain merged for the duration of that Adept’s lifetime, not separating until he ceases to work the Pattern of Life regularly and thereby dies a natural death.”
“But my pattern is still merged,” Ean said, realizing the truth.
Dagmar gave him an acknowledging and somewhat tragic look. “Just so. I’m afraid there is but one explanation for why your pattern remains merged with the Pattern of Life, Ean.”
The prince shook his head, not understanding. “What is it?”
Dagmar’s expression was grim. “You did not die a natural death. Moreover, such a death must come swiftly, thus there can be little doubt that your end was brutal—murder or slaying, perhaps in battle.”
Ean thought of the dreams he’d been having since escaping the Shade’s camp and felt a sickly knot form in his stomach. Like the dream he was having even then, those other dreams felt far too real—more like memories than dreams.
Perhaps sensing Ean’s discomfort, Dagmar motioned to the wine at his side, so far untouched. “Please, won’t you share a drink with me while we talk?”
Ean gratefully reached for the goblet and took a sip. The wine was surprisingly good and spread radiant warmth where cold unease had been rooting. He almost feared to ask the next question, but curiosity pushed him to it. “Why is the Fifth Vestal interested in me then?”
Dagmar regarded him with a pensive frown. “A certain few Adepts in the long history of our realm have been born with a particular skill,” he advised after a moment of silence. Then he settled Ean a compelling look. “Have you an idea of what I speak?”
Ean swallowed. “Unworking,” he
managed.
Dagmar’s level gaze was all the acknowledgement he needed.
“I did that,” Ean admitted, staring hard at the Vestal. “I unworked two different patterns just days ago.” Forgetting all about his earlier distrust of the man, Ean went on to confess, “And I’ve been having dreams…dreams about unworking. I never see my enemy, but I can feel his malevolence.”
“It could be you are remembering the moments before your death,” Dagmar suggested.
“I suppose that’s better than forewarning of events to come,” Ean said in half-hearted jest, but Dagmar’s countenance did not lighten.
“Be wary, Ean,” he cautioned. “Our enemies seek you still, for you are a true threat to them. Those with a gift such as yours are a rare breed—especially in these dark times.”
Ean felt a pang of unease at his words. “How is that?”
Dagmar looked resolutely upon him. “Alorin is dying, Ean, and the Adept race dies with it. You should know that our enemies work toward this end wholly. If we cannot stop them, if we cannot reverse the Balance, we will all end as shadows and dust.”
“Our enemies,” Ean said, holding his gaze. “Do you mean Björn?” The question was foremost in his thoughts at all times, and he worried over it constantly.
Dagmar looked hesitant. “Ean…my oath-brother will no doubt reveal himself to you in time, but the most immediate threat to you comes from those who will seek to control or destroy you because of your talent.”
Ean pressed a fist against the chair arm. “Who are they? What can I do?”
Dagmar shook his head and smiled sadly. “For now…just stay alive…”
Suddenly the library began fading around him, and Ean realized his dream was coming to an end. “Wait—” he called out in sudden desperation, for there were still so many questions he wanted to ask, but already the Vestal was fading from view. As Ean felt slumber claiming him, he couldn’t be certain, but he thought he heard Dagmar say from beyond the curtain of sleep, “…In the end, so much depends on you…”
Cephrael's Hand: A Pattern of Shadow & Light Book One Page 67
