Kingdom Blades (A Pattern of Shadow & Light 4)

by McPhail, Melissa

  The boy pushed through a mass of people crowding a tinker’s stand and shot a grin over his shoulder. “Said ye’d have a minstrel’s look about ye.”

  “Is that so,” Franco remarked flatly.

  “Oh, aye, ’e said it, ’e did.” The boy’s button eyes gleamed like bright pebbles. “Also said to watch for a man who walked like the specter of Death was always kissin’ ’is heels but kept walkin’ anyway.”

  “He said all of this,” Franco muttered. Though for all his skepticism, he couldn’t deny how each statement rang with an uncomfortable truth.

  “Every word, Admiral. Took a quarter of the ’glass tellin’ me it all.” The boy’s dark brown eyes looked Franco up and down. Then he turned his impish face forward again and said more quietly, “But ’e shoulda told me to look fer a man wearin’ a cloak of shame ’cross his tarnished honor.”

  Franco nearly missed a step.

  “A man who built a fortress of ignoble secrets and now hides behind ’em, who locks trust away with the silver and serves ’is friends cowardice on plates of chagrin—”

  Franco grabbed the boy roughly by the shoulder and spun him around. “Did Carian tell you to say that?”

  The urchin gazed at him with an expression of injured innocence. “Admiral? Is somethin’ wrong?” Worried eyes darted to Franco’s hand gripping his bare shoulder, fingers nearly white.

  Thirteen hells, did I just imagine it? Franco quickly released him. He pushed a hand through his hair and stared hard at the boy. I truly am going mad.

  You’re just figuring that out? his conscience sneered. Smart as the dog that chases its own tail, aren’t ye?

  Be silent!

  Franco gave the boy an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, lad. I thought you said…” But he would never again speak aloud those words, for their truth had shocked him.

  “Not to worry, Admiral.” The urchin turned and led off, whereupon he said in that same quiet voice, “It’s hard hearin’ what people are sayin’ when yer conscience speaks louder than they do.”

  Franco gritted his teeth. He really had to be imagining it.

  After an indecently lengthy walk along the harbor, the boy stopped in front of a tavern with a glossy red door. The sign over the door showed a bearded man’s head with an arrow stuck through his temple, mouth hanging open, eyelids slack and tongue lolling. Above the face hung the painted words: The Duke’s Head.

  “This is it, Admiral.” The boy held out his hand expectantly.

  Franco eyed him with a narrowed gaze, but he gave him a Free Crown all the same. He noted while he did that the head depicted on the coins held a striking resemblance to the rather grim one painted on the sign above the tavern door.

  The boy bit into the gold and then, grinning, pocketed the coin with a hearty, “Thanks, Admiral.” He darted away.

  But as Franco was opening the tavern door, he heard the boy say low into his ear, “Ye may think yer too far over the cliff, Admiral, but the Lady, she’s got yer hand, she does.”

  Franco caught his breath and spun. The boy was walking away—too far to have said something so intimately close. Yet when he felt Franco’s attention upon him, the lad turned his head. A knowing gaze that seemed far too old for his years looked back at Franco. Then the crowd closed in and the boy disappeared from view.

  Unnerved, Franco headed inside.

  Men crowded The Duke’s Head like hogs at a trough. The air stank of sweat and stale beer and a particular sour odor that such places always seemed to possess, as if the demon smell had penetrated the very planks of the floor and now no amount of cleaning could exorcise it. Franco peered through a haze of smoke and finally spotted Carian vran Lea at a corner table, playing Trumps with three other men.

  When Franco reached him, the pirate had the butt of a smoke clenched between his pearly teeth and his eyes concealed behind his cards. Franco had to clear his throat several times before Carian noticed him.

  “Oh, there you are, Admiral.” The pirate grinned around his smoking tobacco weed, shedding ash on his shirt in the process. “I’d begun to wonder if you were ever gonna show up.”

  Franco noted the pile of coin in front of Carian—twice what any of the other men boasted. “I see it’s been a strenuous wait.”

  “Now, who would it have served for me to sit on my arse in the piazza waiting on Your Excellency’s pleasure?” He said Franco’s new title with a particular smirk.

  “Certainly not your pockets.”

  “Vran Lea,” one of the men at the table growled, “play yer damn card or fold. We ain’t got all day to sit here while you and yer boyfriend make pillow talk.”

  Carian cast him a gimlet eye. Then he looked back to his cards. Then back to the man, who was still glowering at him, and finally to his cards again. He threw the latter on the table. “I fold, damn you.”

  The man gave him a black look.

  Carian swept up his winnings and pocketed them as he stood. “Let’s go, Admiral.” He grabbed Franco’s arm and dragged him off.

  “You owe me, vran Lea!” the other player called after him.

  “In your wettest dreams, Jacard,” Carian grumbled. Then they were out on the street.

  Carian turned them towards the marina and walked with long-legged nonchalance, jingling the coins in his pocket. “So…I take it Lakti found you,” he aimed a sidelong look at Franco.

  “Lakti?”

  “Street gamin, so high.” Carian held up his hand about the height of the boy’s head.

  “Yes, about that.” Franco cast him a narrow stare. “What did you tell that boy?”

  “So he talked to you, eh?” Carian flashed a knowing grin. When Franco continued pointedly staring at him, he chuckled to himself and turned forward again. “Unnerving little bastard, ain’t he?”

  “Carian,” Franco made his tone hard. “What did you tell him?”

  “It’s his gift, Admiral. He gets all in your head.” Carian twirled a forefinger beside his temple for emphasis. “Screws with you something fierce, eh? But if you need somebody found anywhere in Rethynnea, Lakti’s your boy.”

  Franco did feel unnerved. It was like the boy had walked directly into his soul and plucked out its most tender morsels for closer inspection. The things he’d said…Franco would never have admitted them in the quiet of his thoughts, much less put them to voice. “Are you saying you told him nothing about me?”

  Carian turned him a grin. “Blimey, the little bastard really got to you, didn’t he?”

  Franco glared at him. “If by this question, you’re referencing the ill cast of my mood, surely it has nothing to do with where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing since you and I parted company at Niko’s estate—” Abruptly Franco exhaled a measured breath and reined in his irritation, which was serving neither of them. Then he looked around. “Where are you taking us?”

  Carian cast him a telling look. “You ain’t the only one who’s been busy, Admiral. Just up here a ways more, and then you’ll know all.”

  Eleven

  “It matters less what you look at than what you see.”

  –The Adept wielder Malachai ap’Kalien

  A late spring storm squatted over the province of Saldaria as if magically bound within the confines of its borders. Rain lashed the plains and fell as snow in the northern mountains; wind buffeted the cities, and lightning struck repeatedly at the Temple of Tambarré, whose Prophet, according to rumor, summoned the storm with his dreams.

  Caught somewhere between the waking world and the restful state of true sleep, Darshan stood with Kjieran van Stone in a groin-vaulted loggia, watching the rain. The raging storm of Darshan’s dreams seemed an echo of his thoughts—or perhaps a resonance of them cast outward from his slumbering mind to influence both the plane of dreams and the dawn.

  Storms, Darshan understood. But this inner turmoil mystified him.

  Kjieran stood beside him, radiating dismay. Darshan didn’t know why. Each of his dreams seemed a continuation of the
one that had come before, yet without any remembered context to explain the place they’d now arrived, only a sense of the long moment connecting to some earlier time, and a feeling of conflict, raw and often explosive.

  Kjieran looked up at him through the spill of his dark hair. “Did you love me, my lord?”

  The faintest shadow narrowed Darshan’s brow. “If love exists, it is a human emotion and therefore unknown to me. How can I say what I felt for you?” He eyed him askance. “Did you love me?”

  Kjieran frowned. “I…desired you, at times. But love?” He shook his head. “I don’t think I could’ve loved you when I was so full of fear of you.”

  “I didn’t understand your fear.” Darshan glanced to the specter of Kjieran and felt again that familiar pang of loss, combined with the ache of a mystery he might never solve. He both yearned for and dreaded these moments with his acolyte’s ghost—yearned for them because he could re-experience the connection they’d shared; and dreaded them, for he always woke to find the bond severed and Kjieran dead on a pyre of betrayal. “I gave you the greatest gift I had to offer.”

  Kjieran glanced away again, looking troubled. “You bound me to you.”

  “A connection I shared only with my brothers. I extended this to you, Kjieran, a bond I have never shared with another.”

  “But you made me eidola. You bound me against my will.”

  Darshan’s gaze tightened. “I do not see why this should matter.”

  “You gave me no choice about it, my lord!”

  “Choice? What choice is this of which you speak?” Darshan raked his gaze across him. “You exist to die. I gave you immortality—”

  “Against my will!” Kjieran interposed.

  “—and divinity through an eternal bond with me.”

  “Where is the divinity in becoming a monster?” Kjieran clenched his jaw and stared bitterly.

  Darshan gazed bemusedly at him. “I never wanted to harm you.” Darshan felt the truth of these words like a barbed lash, for they defied his basic nature, his most fundamental beliefs. He put his hands on Kjieran’s shoulders and turned his acolyte to face him. “I wanted to make you immortal.”

  Kjieran pressed his lips together tightly. “But you gave me no choice in it, my lord.”

  Darshan’s hands dropped to his sides. “Choice. Choice.” He turned away, fuming again. “You’re obsessed with this idea of choice.”

  “Every sentient creature is invested with it, my lord.”

  Darshan spun him a look. “No. You’re invested with purpose. These are not the same.”

  Kjieran dropped his eyes to his feet, enveloped by a cloud of malcontent. “You assume only you have choice, but this conclusion stands an uneven ground upon the least inspection, my lord.” When Darshan merely stared at him, letting his silence speak his disagreement, Kjieran looked up and said boldly, “Our Adept bodies are not immortal like yours, or like those creatures of the fifth strand—the drachwyr and the zanthyrs—but our essence is immortal.”

  Darshan grunted. “You parrot my brother’s philosophies. Are you a ghost, Kjieran, or merely an echo of Pelas’s thoughts crossing through the bond he and I share?”

  Kjieran clenched his jaw and looked out into the storm. “I wish I knew, my lord.”

  Lightning struck, charging the air with an ozone tang, charging the dream with emotion. Darshan felt the lightning mutate with its expiration; it coursed now through his mind, bringing a critical sharpness to his thoughts and a surge of desire in his core.

  That Pelas might be influencing his dreams, constructing these moments with Kjieran to torture or misdirect him…that his brother might be looking on in silent witness of their private interactions…these ideas infuriated Darshan. But it infuriated him more to see Kjieran every night and be denied his touch, and to wake after such dreams, aching and unsatisfied, yearning for a man who was forever beyond his reach.

  He willed his tumultuous ire to settle and looked back to his acolyte. His gaze was very dark. “You weaken me, Kjieran.”

  Kjieran appeared staggered by the statement. “However could I weaken you?”

  Darshan considered him amid the hypnotic drumming of rain on stone. “I cannot compel you here in this place, not even to gain the answers I’m seeking. But even in life, I never sought to compel your desire. I didn’t want to control you. Much of what I felt about you—how I treated you—ran at odds with what I believe to be true. I didn’t understand it then. I still don’t.”

  Kjieran dropped his gaze to his hands. “This I remember.”

  Darshan flicked an irritable look over him. “Dore repeatedly advised me to bind you to my will. If I had…if I’d bound you with compulsion from the start…”

  Kjieran lifted a tormented understanding back to him. “I would still be yours.”

  Giving in to his pressing need, Darshan reached for Kjieran and drew him closer. He brushed at a strand of Kjieran’s shoulder-length black hair, thinking of their last union, wishing it had happened in the flesh instead of solely in their minds. He looked him over, wondering… “Perhaps you still are.”

  Kjieran’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

  “Perhaps you haven’t moved on because I can’t let you go.”

  Fear constricted Kjieran’s expression. “Because we’re bound still?”

  Darshan let Kjieran see the raw desire in his gaze. “I wanted to spend eternity with you, but this mortal shell of yours would never have survived in Chaos.”

  Kjieran turned away, his breath coming faster. After a time, he swallowed. “That’s why you made me eidola.”

  “Kjieran, look at me.”

  Kjieran dutifully met his lord’s gaze, though he looked uneasy now. “To us, my lord, the eidola are monsters…like your Marquiin.”

  “So you’ve explained to me.” Darshan caught a lock of Kjieran’s hair between his thumb and forefinger. He had no idea what would happen if he let his dream travel to the places he yearned to go, and he didn’t want Kjieran to vanish again. “At the time, Dore made a compelling case for your immortality in this guise.”

  “He doesn’t serve you true, my lord.”

  Darshan arched a sardonic brow. “Yes, I’m increasingly discovering fault in Dore’s advice.”

  Lightning struck again, reflecting Kjieran’s colorless eyes as stars. Darshan ran his hand through his acolyte’s hair, observing the way it shone in the muted storm-light, admiring the shapely line of his jaw. It thrilled him to see Kjieran’s breath coming faster beneath his touch, to see his pulse quickening and his eyes taking on a vivid luster.

  Kjieran wakened desires that Darshan had known only in the Void; yet they were not the same desires, for in the Void, he’d thrilled in the act of unmaking, but with Kjieran…

  Kjieran, he wanted to endure.

  Darshan searched his acolyte’s gaze with his own. “Is it so terrible, being here with me?”

  For a moment, Kjieran seemed just as captivated. Then he dropped his gaze, looking stricken. “I…don’t know.”

  Darshan traced the line of Kjieran’s jaw with his thumb. “What do you feel?” His own desire charged his breath.

  Kjieran looked up at him, his eyes brimming with tears. “Lost.”

  —the dream shifted—

  “Hello, brother.”

  Darshan spun to find Pelas reclining on the terrace wall with an arm draped across one bent knee. Gone was the stormy day…Kjieran. Sundown drenched the world in flame.

  Darshan glared at Pelas. “Is all of this your doing?”

  “How could it be my doing? You have me locked away in a tower, convinced that I’ve lost my power.”

  Darshan considered his middle brother with a smoldering gaze.

  Pelas straightened to sit on the edge of the wall and braced his hands at his sides. His dark hair fell long about his shoulders. “Has it never occurred to you that these dreams might be your conscience’s attempt to raise its unwanted head?”

  “Ridiculous.�
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  Pelas smiled. “To imagine you have a conscience? I suppose, yes; yet I haven’t given up on you, brother.”

  “How are you doing this?” Darshan stalked towards him. “Desist from this attempt to manipulate my thoughts. It serves neither your purposes nor my interest.”

  Pelas got to his feet on the terrace wall and looked down at him. The dying sunlight cast a rim of warm gold around his form, but his eyes were distant and cold. “Things are not as they seem, Darshan. You’ve been standing too long in Dore Madden’s shadow. You see his illusions and call them truth.”

  Darshan waved off the idea. “Dore Madden—”

  Pelas held up a hand. “Yes, I know. He stands in your shadow—I recall this tedious speech.” Pelas jumped down from the wall and landed in front of him, standing not quite eye to eye. “But my dear brother…” he plucked at the collar on Darshan’s robe, idly neatening its line, “what you don’t understand is that the shadow you’re seeing is Dore’s own. He’s simply convinced you think it’s yours.”

  Pelas looked him over with his dark copper eyes and a self-satisfied smile. “If you ever left your ivory tower, perhaps you’d see the truths you’re so plainly missing.”

  Fuming, Darshan reached for him—

  *—*

  He woke to the reverberation of lightning striking stone. The air hissed with static. Frustration thrummed through his veins.

  Darshan threw off the sheets to the rumble of thunder and strode to where the storm raged beyond the open doors of his bedchamber.

  Tambarré’s high acropolis was seething with current, lightning gathering for another strike. Darshan felt the coalescing energy prickling his bare skin. It roused gooseflesh and brought a heavy resistance to his thoughts.

  His thoughts were charged enough without the storm’s intrusion.

  The unfamiliar feeling of his hair whipping his flesh drew his gaze from the firmament back to his person. His acolytes had spent several hours the previous night unweaving his braids. Now his hair hung long about his torso, its raven ends free to spit and sting his naked form with the wind, the silken masses becoming quickly tangled.