“Yes, and he gave me his name right after we exchanged the usual pleasantries,” Fynn snapped, “which first involved slamming me against the bloody wall.” He took a long draft of the wine, but it had mulled too long and was bitter, like his humor. As he lowered the goblet, he found the zanthyr still leveling him an unrelenting stare. “Oh, all right!” He hated this abominable creature with every waking breath. “I thought…” He dropped chin to chest, stared at his boots, and grumbled, “I thought I might’ve…recognized him.”
“As?”
Fynn shot him a frustrated glare and answered through gritted teeth, “Creighton.”
“Ah…so.” Abruptly the zanthyr spun in a swirl of his dark cloak and headed outside onto the balcony.
“Where are you going?” Fynn rushed after him.
Phaedor turned a look over his shoulder, green eyes alight. “To avert disaster.” Then he launched himself over the railing.
***
Alyneri woke.
She swam up through a drugged fog and finally opened her eyes to find that the coach had stilled. The pattering of rain upon the roof helped bring her back to full consciousness. She tried to sit up on the seat, but her head started pounding so violently that she worried she’d be sick. So she lay there weakly instead trying to find her breath.
Outside she heard male voices talking in urgent tones.
“…’twere better we waited for the rain to clear, like the Healer’s coachman said. This way becomes treacherous—”
“We will press on,” another man snapped. “You have lanterns to light your path. Do so.”
“Yes, milord,” the first returned, but Alyneri heard the anxiety in his voice. A moment later the carriage door opened and a man ducked inside. He pushed back the hood of his drenched cloak and looked upon Alyneri with piercing dark eyes. His pointed black beard and moustache were also dripping from the rain.
Alyneri’s head was swimming. “You won’t get away with this,” she managed, though she feared that indeed they would—whoever they were.
“Oh, I’ve planned more completely than you give me credit for, my dear girl.” The stranger settled himself onto the seat across from Alyneri. “What do you think your prince will say when he sees Sandrine’s note, written in a feminine hand, telling him that you need freedom to follow your Healer’s calling, begging him not to follow? Think he’ll question such a note, do you?”
“He’ll never believe it,” she gasped, but in truth she feared that Ean would. “And Tanis will…know it’s…not from me.”
“Really?” The dark-eyed man settled Alyneri a smug smile. “Even should your dutiful pup truthread the boy who brings the note, what will he see in his memory? That the child saw a blonde woman sitting in a coach write a note in her own hand and beg him give it to the captain, but not until her coach was far away.”
Feeling the truth of this as a terrible clenching pain in her stomach, Alyneri focused on the coach roof and willed the world to stop whirling. She listened to the pelting rain and tried to soothe herself with measured breaths. Outside, the storm was a constant, and a cool, damp breeze coming in through the cracked window was soothing. “Where are we?” she asked as the pattering rain made waves before her vision.
“In the mountains north of Rethynnea.”
“Where…” she had to fight off a feeling of imminent nausea. “Where are you…taking me?”
Just then the heavens opened up and the rain became a downpour.
“My master would have your company at his side as he rides victoriously into Calgaryn palace as its new king.”
“…What?” Alyneri thought she must’ve mistaken his words. “Your master?”
“Lord Stefan val Tryst,” replied the man with a wicked smile. “Duke of Morwyk.” He rapped upon the wall for the driver. “Move on!”
The coach lurched into motion, and Alyneri swallowed back the roiling contents of her stomach. “They’ll be looking for me by now,” she whispered.
The man sat back in his seat and eyed her skeptically. “Think you so? I am not so certain.”
“Then why such haste?”
“Our master is not a patient man, and it has taken me some time to find you.”
Alyneri closed her eyes and tried to swallow back the bile in her throat. To find herself in the clutches of the Duke of Morwyk, knowing as she did the duke’s penchant for all things Bethamin…it did not bode well for her future. Why Morwyk had taken this deadly interest in her was quite beside the point.
They rode on in silence through the deepening night, into the storm, and Alyneri drifted in and out of sleep several times. All the while the rain battered their coach and the wind whipped and whined through the canvas.
She was lying in a daze, staring out the opposite window at what might’ve been the barest lightening of dawn when the coach lurched sideways, and the man shouted a curse at the driver. He was reaching for the door to ostensibly upbraid him more, when the coach lurched again—more forcefully. Alyneri gasped and clutched her seat, but Morwyk’s henchman fell backwards onto the floor. He grabbed for a handhold as the coach slid sideways at a precarious angle.
“What’s happening?” Alyneri cried, and then, suddenly, the world turned upside down.
Alyneri fell from seat to floor and then crashed onto the man as they both came up hard against the roof of the coach. Alyneri heard a crack, and the man screamed. She clawed for a handhold as the coach started sliding again. All around her, she heard wood tearing in protest and the terrified cries of horses gone mad. Her captor had fallen strangely silent, and still the coach slid beneath them upside-down through the mud. Something caught abruptly and the coach spun around, flipping a limp Alyneri across to the other side of the compartment. The door above them caught and ripped open, and rain and mud swarmed inside, burying her captor, who lay unmoving at the far end.
Dazed and sick, Alyneri was pushing up against the door when the coach rammed into something immovable and flipped up, spitting Alyneri through a hole in the canvas. Her head collided with something hard as she pummeled chest-first into the mud. Slime filled her mouth, choking and blinding her as she slid in a rushing downward plunge.
The cliff edge came up abruptly, and then Alyneri was falling.
Lucidity came as a parting gift.
It was an oddly peaceful last few moments tumbling through the darkness in concert with the rain, knowing she was going to die but so numbed by the laudanum that she couldn’t find the emotion to care. Only as she heard the roar of the river, swollen with the rains, did she think of Ean with love and regret.
And then she hit.
Fifty-seven
‘I am Rinokh. Hear my roar.’
– An Avataren saying
Ean hung on by a hair.
His body had been barely restored of life before he wrested it from his sheets and headed off with his blood-brother’s Shade—for he could not conceive of this iteration of his closest friend as anything but a shadow of the man who was—and his mind…his mind was even less prepared for the journey.
One would think, with all of the myriad events Ean had witnessed since his return from Edenmar, that most any happening would now fall beyond question; but there was something so disturbing about traveling with Creighton’s Shade that Ean’s tortured mind just could not wrap itself around the idea of it. So he pressed on by force of will alone, determined to claim his fate rather than be claimed by it.
Yet he was tormented by questions—both those unknown and those already answered, for Creighton had told him more than he could process in the short time they’d been together. The vast web upon which he was caught was too intricate, its secrets based on history too obscure, for Ean to comprehend much of what Creighton had explained. His friend was a wealth of knowledge and seemed willing to divulge further secrets if the telling of them would ease Ean’s mind, but Ean couldn’t bring himself to ask for more. Already he felt overloaded, weighted down by each strange new truth.
&nbs
p; How could Creighton know so much? How could he have grown this depth of understanding in the relatively short time they’d been apart? Had death been such a revelation?
Every time Creighton told him something, it opened a whole new line of disturbing questions such that Ean was soon reeling beneath them all. And while he’d trusted his friend unquestionably, he wasn’t certain he could entirely trust his friend’s Shade—too many betrayals from recent ‘advisors’ had left him disheartened and wary of those who would don the mantle of this role.
Ean perceived a distance between them now, as if the barrier between life and death still separated them. Creighton had crossed over this barrier while the prince was held behind; and though through some trick of magic Creighton stood beside him again now—the same man in every way that should matter—the prince still felt his absence.
“Ean,” Creighton urged as they rushed down a dark passageway, the last leg of an already distressing journey, “you don’t have to do this.”
Ean trailed a hand against the wall for support. “I know,” he said. He was feeling lightheaded and weak and knew he should probably still be abed, but the idea of staying behind—of waiting to see what the Fourth Vestal had in store for him—set his temper to simmering. Even so, as they came to the end of the tunnel and faced a long flight of stairs, Ean looked upon the climb with a sinking feeling of dismay.
Creighton paused at the stair, his silver features set with concern. “Perhaps a moment to catch our breaths?”
Ean gratefully bent and pushed hands on his knees. He bowed his head while Creighton stood over him, a dark shadow not unlike Phaedor but all too reminiscent of the creature named Reyd, the man Ean had watched drive a blade through Creighton’s neck; the Shade who’d ultimately slain—and somehow resurrected—his best friend.
The myriad associations made him shudder.
Creighton put a black-gloved hand on Ean’s shoulder, and there was naught but care in his voice as he asked, “Are you all right?”
Ean just nodded, swallowed. While he let his racing heart ease and his breathing settle, he looked up into Creighton’s obsidian eyes. It was so unnerving to see his friend’s familiar features encased in chrome…to know the power he now possessed.
Creighton’s dark gaze swept Ean in turn, and he stressed again, “It is not too late to change your mind. This battle tonight need not be yours.”
“And who will then be Rinokh’s bait?” Ean challenged dourly.
“It is not so difficult to attract the notice of the malorin’athgul,” Creighton answered. “You need only work the lifeforce once to draw his eye to us here, and then…” but he broke off, biting his tongue, and looked away.
Ean knew the truth: his presence was vital if their plan was to see fruition, yet he also knew that his blood-brother feared for his life. So did he. The prince managed a grim smile. “It’s too late to turn back down this path, isn’t it? I chose to play in the game, and now…” He straightened and pushed a hand roughly through his hair. “Now there’s only one way out, I fear.”
The words came with surprising ease for the gravity of their truth. It frightened him, this commitment he’d made in glib fury that fateful morning, giving his oath to the zanthyr and the Maker alone knew who else on the far receiving end of Fate’s ear. And now…? Knowing merely the essence of what lay in store was enough to make his bones ache.
Creighton held his gaze. “The First Lord says the path out is always through the deepest dark of the core. One cannot skirt the edges to find a way across this battle, for the edges never touch.” He gave Ean a smile that was meant to be encouraging, yet it was frightful to see. “Through the darkness then, and the First Lord awaits on the other side. But I wonder…” He considered Ean with careful regard. “Are you ready for that meeting?”
Ean leaned a shoulder against the wall, still trying to find breath that he couldn’t seem to catch. “The truth is…” It occurred to him only then, yet he felt strangely absolved in making the confession, like a sharp pain had finally lessened in his chest. “The truth is, your death and the need to avenge it was all that held me back from seeking him sooner. And now…” he shrugged.
Creighton regarded him cautiously. “You’ve truly thought this through? Your friends, your family, all whom you cherish—they will believe you’ve betrayed them.”
Ean pushed off the wall and exhaled a heavy sigh. “I have, haven’t I?” When Creighton merely gazed concernedly upon him, Ean murmured tightly, “Lead on, my brother.” And he motioned to the stairs ascending to his destiny.
Wordlessly, the Shade turned and began the arduous climb. Ean was panting long before they reached the top and the heavy iron door that opened onto a vast marble-sheathed temple. Across the long gallery—which easily spanned four-hundred paces and was deserted at that late hour—four enormous statues stood on pedestals, their forms illuminated by shafts of arcane light angled down from a wide dome high above. A fifth pedestal stood empty, but the light remained upon it, illuminating dust motes like fireflies in its stead.
“The Temple of the Vestals,” Creighton announced.
A figure moved out from behind the statue of Dagmar Ranneskjöld, and the Shade led Ean across the distance to meet him. It wasn’t until they were close that Ean realized he knew the man. “Franco?”
Franco Rohre came to a halt in front of him. He looked very much the same as when last they’d parted—somewhat disheveled and wearing a smile that didn’t quite lighten the brooding shadows within his brown eyes. “My prince,” Franco greeted with a humble bow. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”
Ean sort of stared at him while memory of Raine’s words flashed to mind ‘…I believe his loyalties to me were preceded by those to another…’
“And you, Franco,” the prince murmured. As they looked at each other, Ean saw something in Franco’s eyes that perhaps had always been there but whose meaning had eluded him before. He asked quietly, “Have you always served the Fifth Vestal?”
Franco held his gaze, but it was a moment before he admitted the painful truth. “I have been sworn to him for three-hundred years.”
“I see.” And he did—it made sense of many things. Suddenly feeling lightheaded, Ean pressed a hand to his temple and swayed unsteadily.
Franco swung a heated look to Creighton. “What happened to him?”
“Malorin’athgul happened,” the Shade returned grimly.
Franco’s eyes flew wide. “When?”
“Five days ago. I thought—”
“It doesn’t matter.” Franco waved off the question and looked instead to the prince. “Do you know what we are at this night, Ean?”
“Without question,” Creighton returned on the prince’s behalf. “The First Lord would have it no other way.”
“Then let us be about it—”
“I’m afraid I can’t allow that,” a man’s elae-enhanced voice carried to them from far across the temple.
Ean cringed, knowing Raine’s voice all too well.
Franco exchanged a look with Creighton and slowly turned to face the entering Vestal. “My lord,” he said, affording Raine a respectful bow across the distance. “What a pleasant surprise. I hope my abrupt departure from Calgaryn did not leave you too long without means.”
Ean saw a long line of armed men fanning out behind the Vestal. Among them walked both Avieths, and he suspected the pirate must be somewhere within their ranks as well—so many of his friends come to witness his betrayal. It was a bitter tonic to his resolve.
“It’s not too late for you, Franco,” Raine said, his voice carrying easily to them on the currents of elae, his expression regretful, if resolute.
Franco barked a bitter laugh. “My lord, it has been too late for me since before Tiern’aval fell.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way.”
Still the soldiers continued filing in. There might’ve been three hundred if there were fifty. Ean felt weak-hearted just looking at them.
Franco hissed heatedly to the Shade, “Can’t you bind them?”
Creighton cast him a level look. “If I could, Espial, I would already have done so. They have some kind of—”
“Pattern?” Raine offered from across the distance, arching brows. It was eerie the way he so easily conversed with them; could he hear their thoughts just as readily? “Yes, I learned some things about Shades in my time,” he said. “One was a certain pattern that protects from your powers of binding. It has limits, of course,” he added as he lifted his gaze to the dome. “It cannot protect from the hounds, but I hear you need moonlight to raise them. A pity it is overcast tonight.”
“Yes,” Creighton murmured, obsidian eyes pinned on the Vestal. “A pity.”
“I’m sure he had nothing to do with that either,” Franco muttered inhospitably.
Raine looked to the prince then. “Ean, I’m afraid you must come with me.”
Ean felt the first vestiges of hatred forming for the man. “How do you justify it?” he returned, his tone derisive, his eyes condemning. “You knew everything I needed to know and told me nothing. You sent me south beneath the auspices of safety knowing I would draw every assassin and all manner of fell craft to relentlessly harrow myself and my companions. You would make me your pawn and keep me ignorant and helpless while deadly forces hunt to kill. Tell me!” he demanded. “How do you justify your betrayal?”
“Everything I have done has been for your own good, Ean,” Raine replied simply, opening palms skyward as if it was a foregone conclusion. “I must make choices for you which I know you would make if only you better understood the threat.”
“If only I better understood—?” Ean stared at him. Then he barked a contemptuous laugh. “I think you’re the one who doesn’t understand—or doesn’t believe.”
“Belief is irrelevant to truth, Ean,” Raine replied. He glanced to his small army and saw that all were in place. “And now, I think, we should get this over with. Surrender your weapons.”
Cephrael's Hand: A Pattern of Shadow & Light Book One Page 99
