Cephrael's Hand: A Pattern of Shadow & Light Book One

by McPhail, Melissa

  Dizziness, slow heartbeat, cold skin, and she checked my eyes for dilation… Alyneri reviewed her symptoms and knew what drug she’d been dosed with.

  Sandrine climbed in the coach and sat on the seat across from her. “Wait there,” she said to someone beyond Alyneri’s line of sight. She watched the woman write something with parchment and quill and then hand it to whoever awaited outside. “When we are gone, take that to the man waiting in front of the shop—but do not be hasty to deliver it.”

  “Yes, milady,” came the answer.

  “And tell your mother I hold her obligation fulfilled.”

  Sandrine shut the door and sat back on her seat as the coach headed off. She looked inordinately smug.

  Alyneri shut her eyes and focused on her breath; laudanum was a dangerous drug, and they’d clearly dosed her heavily. She knew the slightest miscalculation of the dose would have her in convulsions, or could even stop her heart. But she doubted Sandrine du Préc would have miscalculated.

  “There now, dear,” murmured Sandrine. Alyneri felt the woman’s hand caressing her cheek and would’ve shuddered had she only been able to move. “You’ll sleep soon,” Sandrine told her, “and when you wake…” but Alyneri had already slipped away into darkness.

  Fifty-five

  ‘Treason is often just a matter of perspective.’

  – The Espial Franco Rohre

  The pirate Carian vran Lea stood in the shadow of Raine’s statue in Rethynnea’s Temple of the Vestals wearing a ponderous frown. He fancied himself one of the most talented Nodefinders of his day, but the node before him defied even his skill.

  What have they done?

  It was instinct alone that told him the node had been tampered with, for surely he could find no trace of villainy upon it—leastwise not from where he stood. Now, if he traveled it…but Raine had forbidden that course to him.

  This was his fifth visit to the node, for the Vestal had him inspecting it daily. This was highly annoying to Carian, who had pointed out that he wasn’t likely to find something on day five that he didn’t find on day one, but the Vestal was paying him by the day just for standing around, so Carian went. Besides, he was sick of watching so many people moping about acting as if the man they served was already dead.

  The islander wasn’t alone in the temple that afternoon. The usual late-day traffic came and went, various Adepts upon their business, pilgrims seeking healing beneath the cup of Alshiba’s hands, others merely tourists coming to gawk and stare. What seemed a constant stream of young women came to place flowers at the feet of the Great Master’s statue—by the end of the day there would be a veritable pile of flowers waiting to be carted away by the temple caretakers. Carian eyed the ladies with a crooked grin. And what will you do when the Great Master is freed from his basalt prison and stands there in person to receive your praise and prayers?

  Carian wanted to be there to witness that moment. He wanted to see the Second Vestal restored to his place of honor among all of the peoples of Alorin, and it wasn’t lost on him that he might already be upon that most vital of quests if not for the Fourth Vestal.

  Yet in truth, Raine’s need wasn’t what drew Carian to commit to his service; it was Fynn, Ean, and Trell, and the strange confluence of events that led him to cross paths with three val Lorian princes within a span of days. Carian wasn’t a religious man, but he’d seen Cephrael’s Hand glowing in the heavens too often of late. Something was afoot in the realm; history was in the making, and he meant to be a part of it.

  He’d told no one about meeting Trell—he felt he owed him that much—but Ean’s accident had made it much harder to hold his tongue, especially around Raine. Now, five days later, the youngest val Lorian prince looked even closer to death than he had on the night of his attack; Carian worried he’d soon be forced to tell what he knew of Trell.

  “Do you come to honor the Vestal?” a voice asked from behind, interrupting Carian’s thoughts.

  The pirate turned to find a man standing in a fall of sunlight streaming down from the temple’s crystal dome. Tall and on the slim side of muscular, his tousled brown hair fell across soulful brown eyes. Carian immediately thought he looked familiar, and then he realized why: the man looked not unlike Raine D’Lacourte, if a slightly broader version.

  “I was just wondering, as you’ve been standing in front of the Great Master’s statue for a while now,” the man offered by way of explanation.

  Carian peered narrowly at him. “What’s it to you?”

  The man shrugged, smiled in a way that didn’t quite touch his eyes. “Or perhaps you were interested in the node?”

  Carian stiffened, suddenly alert. A blade appeared in his hand. “What do you know about it?”

  The man raised both palms innocently. “Would you strike down a brother in the Guild, my friend?”

  Carian eyed him suspiciously, noting that he wore no obvious weapon nor any Espial’s ring, nothing to pronounce him a foe. He spun his blade and sheathed it with a flourish, then nodded toward the node. “What do you know of it?”

  “There seems something strange about it,” the man observed. “More this feeling I have than anything else.” Absently, he reached into his coat and withdrew a flask. First taking a sip, he offered the flask to Carian. “Shall we share a drink and ponder the matter?”

  The pirate swiped the flagon, sniffed it, and then shot back a long draft. A fiery spirit flamed his throat, more heat than taste, though there was something of mint and vanilla in it. “Absinthe,” he growled as he handed it back to the other man.

  The man smiled wanly as he pocketed the flask. “Not your stuff of choice?”

  “Blaargh,” Carian shook his head. “’Tis naught but suited for artists and poets.” He eyed the man narrowly. “You fancy yourself one of them?”

  “I traveled as a minstrel for a while,” the stranger admitted.

  “And now?”

  “Now?” He drew in a deep breath and let it out again. “Now I am in service to another.”

  Carian harrumphed disagreeably by way of offering condolence. Being ‘in service’ for a Nodefinder meant being chained to another man’s whims, and while he was admittedly in service himself at the moment, Carian had no intention of making it a permanent arrangement.

  He went back to peering at the node. He walked around it to view it from all sides, and the other man followed silently in his footsteps. To Carian’s skilled eye, the portal opened upon a buttressed hallway. Tapestries hung in the distance, and long shafts of sunlight played across the wide passage. It might’ve been a corridor in any castle in the known realm—or in any unknown realm, for that matter. Without traveling it, there was no way to be certain where the node led.

  No one seemed to be watching from the other side of the portal, as Raine had warned, but Carian wasn’t keen to test the Vestal’s premonition; Raine D’Lacourte was rumored to be attuned to the realm in ways that most couldn’t understand.

  Besides, he had an uncomfortable feeling that he was missing something.

  “Were you thinking to travel upon it?” asked the stranger.

  Abruptly Carian rounded on him, pushing his face within inches of the other man’s. “Why’re you so interested in my business? What’s it to you?”

  The man backed off looking instantly contrite. “I beg your pardon. I just saw you here alone…” He looked over his shoulder, adding softly, “My patron is…occupied, and I thought only to share a drink with a fellow Guildsman and maybe a story to pass the time...”

  Carian followed the stranger’s gaze and saw a man in a sky blue coat kneeling beneath the hands of Alshiba’s statue. He looked back to the stranger, decided to trust him, and dropped his voice to mutter, “There’s something about this node that I mislike, but I can’t put my finger on it. I would know more of its nature, but I’ve reason not to travel it.”

  The man considered him quietly. “Shall I travel it in your stead, my friend? I vow there is something odd about it,
but until one travels a node, one cannot really know.”

  “Too true,” Carian agreed.

  “I rather think someone has tampered with it. A raedan could tell us, no doubt. Alas,” he said with a smile, “I see none nearby.”

  Carian didn’t divulge that, indeed, it was the realm’s foremost reader of the currents who set him upon this miserable task. Instead he grabbed the man’s arm and cautioned, “I daresay it could be dangerous for you, boyo.”

  The man gave him a rueful smile. “Isn’t it always?”

  Carian swept him with his eyes. “I gave my word that I would stay on this side of it, otherwise…”

  “But of course,” remarked the stranger with an offhanded wave. He withdrew his flask and handed it to Carian. “Have another drink while I’m away,” and off he went across the node. Carian watched him walk down the hallway on the other side until the haze of passage obscured him from view. After about five minutes he was heading back again and looking none the worse for the endeavor.

  “I confess nothing seemed amiss,” he told Carian as the pirate handed his flask back to him, minus several swigs. “The passage goes on for some time, but I saw no one about.”

  Carian gave him an approving look. “You’ve done me a service. Mayhap I shall be able to repay it someday. What’s your name, friend?”

  “Franco,” he said, holding out his hand.

  Carian did a double-take. The familiar name gave him pause—besides, there weren’t that many Francos in their mutual guild. He’d never met Franco Rohre, but he didn’t doubt that this could be him—what with the many bizarre coincidences happening at present, it almost had to be. He clasped wrists with the man nonetheless, though he eyed him inquisitively now. “Carian vran Lea.”

  “Well met, Carian,” Franco murmured.

  “Aye.” Carian eyed him speculatively. “I must away. Fair skies on your travels, my friend.”

  “And yours,” said Franco, gazing solemnly after Carian as he departed.

  ***

  Fynnlar val Lorian barged through the double doors into the study Raine was using for his office. “It’s him!”

  Raine turned from the window. “You’re certain?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  The Vestal crossed the room to a desk he’d claimed for his use. “Tell me everything,” he ordered as he took his chair.

  Fynn walked to the sideboard. “It happened in Tregarion.” He chose a libation from Raine’s ample supply, poured a goblet and turned to lean back against the cabinet while he swirled the dark liquid in his glass. “The Lord Commander of Her Majesty’s Tivaricum was the first to notice him…” Fynn went on to tell the tale of Trell’s discovery as the Lord Commander himself had relayed it to him.

  Raine’s eyes grew wide with the telling. When Fynn was finished, the Vestal leaned back in his chair and steepled fingers before his lips. His diamondine eyes were as hard and intense as their namesake stone as he inquired in a low voice made all the more fearful for its restraint, “If Indora’s magistère recognized Trell val Lorian as a Prince of Dannym, why in Cephrael’s name did they not detain him?”

  Fynn belched and motioned with his goblet as he answered, “He made a miraculous escape. It seems the Lord Commander originally crossed paths with my illustrious cousin while in pursuit of an infamous pirate. Apparently they were traveling together.”

  Raine arched brows. “A Prince of Dannym in league with a pirate? Why does that sound so familiar?”

  Fynn belched again. “Well, you guessed right. The pirate was none other than our own Carian vran Lea.”

  Raine regarded Fynn as if held immobile by force.

  Fynn downed the last of his wine and poured himself another glass. It had been that kind of week—not that he needed a reason to drown himself in drink. Staring into the liquid a second time, he said, “It seemed clear to the Lord Commander that Trell doesn’t know his heritage.”

  “C’est incroyable,” Raine announced in his native Veneisean, all composure lost to disbelief. “Trell lives!” He shook his head and stared hard at Fynn. “Where has he been all this time?”

  “The Lord Commander said Trell gave a name in the desert tongue—not his own name, mind. ‘Amahkayaleel’ or some such.”

  After a moment, Raine placed both hands on the desk before him and leveled Fynn a telling look. “Who else knows of Trell’s survival?”

  “That we can be certain of?” Fynn shrugged. “A few in Veneisea. The Lord Commander, the magistère, one of Indora’s Voices. But there’s no telling who else has come into contact with my cousin and recognized him. Come to think of it…” Fynn suddenly remembered Carian’s strange questions when first the pirate had laid eyes on Ean. He looked around. “Where is vran Lea, anyway?”

  “Late,” replied the Vestal with no small measure of discontent. Then he added in a steely tone, “Rest assured, I will have questions for him upon his return.”

  “You and me both.” Fynn tossed back the dregs of his second glass of wine and poured a third. He was finally starting to feel human. He grabbed the wine bottle and walked to the Vestal’s desk, taking a seat in chair across from him. “What news of Ean?”

  Raine pursed lips and shook his head, his expression falling into worry. “Phaedor and the Healer have tried repeatedly to reach him, but to no success. His body has healed, yet…”

  Fynn felt his heart sink. “He’s…dying?”

  Lips tight, Raine nodded.

  Fynn dared not even think of what it would mean to lose Ean—to him personally, to their family, to the kingdom… “Is there nothing we can do?” He wished he didn’t sound quite so desperate.

  The Vestal pushed to his feet and returned to the window. He clasped hands behind his back. “Ean should have died. His body was crushed. The Healer described his pattern as so frayed there wasn’t enough of it lingering to repair.”

  This was information Fynn hadn’t heard before, and it wasn’t the least bit heartening. “Then…how?”

  Raine turned over his shoulder with one arched brow. “The zanthyr wove his pattern back together—from memory.”

  “Balls of Belloth.” Fynn gaped at him. “He can do that?”

  “Apparently.”

  Fynn scrubbed at his beard and gazed at the Vestal in disbelief. “Say he succeeded, as he claims,” he posed, somewhat wide-eyed—because truly, no one knew what a zanthyr could or couldn’t do, did they? “Then why hasn’t Ean awoken?”

  Raine looked back out the window. After a moment, he exhaled a slow breath. “It is my fear that when Phaedor and Alyneri pulled Ean back from the grave, a vital part of him did not return.”

  The words left Fynn feeling threadbare. “So you’re saying…he may never wake?”

  Raine turned from the window. “I fear it is a possibility we must be willing to face.” When Fynn said nothing, only stared forlornly into his wine, Raine walked over to him. “Come.” He placed a hand on Fynn’s shoulder. “You should see what has been afoot during your absence.”

  Fynn brought his bottle and followed the Vestal from the room and through the mansion until they emerged onto a high balcony bathed in the light of sunset. Soldiers were amassing in the yard below, heavily armed and well armored. Among them stood two men in black robes that Fynn had never seen before but misliked immediately, which meant they were probably wielders. He also saw the two Avieths walking among the troops assessing weaponry and general readiness. Of Carian vran Lea, there was no sign.

  “Do you go to war, my lord?” Fynn posed as he poured the last of his wine into his goblet and frowned down at the deadly assembly.

  Raine placed his hands on the railing and looked out over the yard below. “Of a fashion.” He stood quietly for a moment, and Fynn used the time to drink his wine. Finally, the Truthreader offered, “The Fifth Vestal’s hand is wide in this realm, Fynnlar, and his fingers are long. How deeply he is embroiled in recent turmoil I am still uncovering, but there are some things I do know.” He glanced in Fynn
’s direction. “First, Björn van Gelderan pretends himself a mage in the Emir’s employ.”

  “I knew it!” Fynn hissed.

  Raine cast him a grim look. “Your instincts guide you well. Björn summoned the drachwyr—those beings you know as Sundragons—from the nether-reaches of the realm to do his bidding, and he gathers to him those of the Fifty Companions who would foreswear their allegiances to this realm and serve his cause. Franco Rohre followed upon this path, I am certain, and I fear…” his hands tightened upon the railing, and he gave Fynn a sideways look as he finished, “I fear the Fifth Vestal means to claim your cousin as well.”

  “Ean?” Fynn sputtered.

  “Indeed, should he live. By force or by persuasion, I fear he will soon be lost to us.”

  “We can’t just let the bastard take him!”

  Raine’s gaze was flinty. “I assure you, I have no intention of it.”

  “Is that what all of this is about?” Fynn motioned with his goblet toward the soldiers, who were just then forming into lines.

  Rather than answering him, Raine looked out over the assembly. After a moment, he said without turning, “I mean to take Ean to Illume Belliel, Fynnlar.”

  Fynn choked into his wine.

  “In the cityworld,” Raine went on, eyeing him dubiously, “Ean will be safe from all machinations—safe from my oath-brother and his creatures; safe from the Karakurt and the many other factions seeking his life. Safe until…well, until we can restore order to your uncle’s kingdom, for one, and Ean can take his rightful place in line for the throne.”

  Fynn had stopped listening after the Vestal said Illume Belliel. The famed cityworld was deemed a utopia unlike anyplace in the known realms, the veritable center of the universe. He cast Raine a troubled look. “I’ve never heard of anyone traveling to Illume Belliel except the Vestals.”

  “There is precedent for it,” Raine assured him.