Kingdom Blades (A Pattern of Shadow & Light 4)

by McPhail, Melissa

  The truthbinding that had so ravaged his memory had yielded a life of continuous awakening to a new and wondrous culture, while the sacrifice of one father and family had gained him another.

  And had he always known his name, he never would’ve made friends of Sundragons or zanthyrs, met Carian vran Lea and traveled the nodes, or forged bargains with pirate captains; he never would’ve come to understand the inviolate shield his integrity provided him, or learned of the depths of Radov and hal’Jaitar’s treachery against his family’s reign.

  And his relationship with Alyneri—a treasure so marvelous that it both weakened and strengthened him—would’ve been conscripted, their eventual union forced rather than mutually desired. That is, if he’d lived to marry at all.

  Oh, no…he would change nothing—nothing!—of the past five years, for his every sacrifice had reaped rewards far beyond their cost.

  These many thoughts passed in the space of a single exhale. Then Trell was inhaling to make himself known—

  When another voice stole the breath just claimed by his lungs.

  “And now? Where is my son now?”

  Trell’s heart was suddenly pounding, apprehension beating counterpoint to an impossible hope.

  Could his father really be there with the Emir? His own kingly father?

  Trell had spent so many nights debating with himself, troubling over how he would ever reconcile his allegiance to the Emir with the duties of blood. Now to find his father here?

  The breath of impossibility finally released him. He exhaled determination and stepped around the corner.

  “Your son is here, father.”

  Silence led a charge through the room.

  The Emir rose first to receive him. Meeting his adoptive father’s gaze, Trell tried to convey the depth of his appreciation, his enduring gratitude, his understanding.

  Then another man was rising and turning to face him—Oh, he knew that visage as dearly as his own! Trell watched his father’s expression constrict, watched him swallow, as if forcing back a welling emotion—surely the same combination of joy and impossibility that was flooding Trell.

  “Trell…”

  His name, choked across Gydryn’s lips, caused an echo of painful recognition. He knew instinctively that his father had not spoken his name in all of the time they’d been apart.

  Trell had to force his feet into motion, force himself through an invisible boundary between himself and his father that had been constructed of the lost pieces of their lives. He was hardly aware of crossing the room, only of the moment when his father opened his arms and they collided in a rough embrace.

  For a moment, Gydryn’s arms bound Trell as tightly as emotion bound his voice. Then his father drew back and clasped a strong hand at Trell’s neck, the other clutching his shoulder. Grey eyes, so like his own, stared into his. “My son…” Gydryn’s eyes were glossy as they searched Trell’s.

  Trell held his father’s gaze, swallowed…nodded. Smiled.

  Gydryn glanced to Zafir—incredulous, ineffably grateful. Then he pressed a kiss to Trell’s forehead, rough with things as yet unsaid, and took him by both shoulders and looked him over.

  Oh, to gaze upon his father’s face after so many years! After so many nights of desperately wishing to know that visage but only seeing shadows! And how miraculous to remember it so well now, to recall from the creases framing his father’s eyes the thousands of times he’d seen that smile and known he was loved.

  Trell was smiling so wide that his cheeks were starting to ache. He shook his head wondrously. “Father…how are you here?”

  One corner of his father’s mouth twitched wryly. “The light of impossibility is shining on both of us, son, for I stand with equal amazement in view of you.” After another searching gaze, he released Trell and held a hand to the Emir, that Trell might greet him also.

  Trell looked to Zafir. How wondrous it seemed now to have two fathers, and to so admire them both.

  Zafir opened his arms, and Trell went to him. They took each other by the shoulders and kissed once on each cheek, and once again. “Jai’Gar blesses us with your safe return, son-of-my-heart.” Zafir’s gaze, falling warmly upon him, conveyed far more than a simple welcome. “And…I perceive that your memory is once more whole. Can it be true?”

  Staring at him, thinking of their last parting, Trell had so many things he wanted to tell him—to tell both of his fathers. “The Mage saved my life, Su’a’dal—twice, by Jai’Gar’s grace—and with the second Healing, he removed Raine D’Lacourte’s truthbinding, which had held my memory in thrall for so many years.”

  “Ah, no.” Gydryn exhaled with dismay. “What happened to you in the Fire Sea?”

  Trell released the Emir and looked back to his father. “Saldarians overtook the Dawn Chaser. They interrogated me, activating the Vestal’s truthbinding, and when I gave them nothing, they scuttled the ship and cast me to the depths with it.”

  Suddenly ashen-faced, Gydryn slowly sank down on the couch. He looked up gravely at Trell. “Yet you survived.”

  “By Naiadithine’s grace, father.” Trell looked to the Emir. “Did you know, Su’a’dal? When you sent me to Her shrine for a blessing on my quest, did you know I held Her favor?”

  Zafir motioned Trell to take a chair positioned between the two couches. “I suspected.” He retook his seat across from Gydryn, giving the king a look of encouragement and compassion, for the monarch seemed overcome. Looking back to Trell, he added, “I hoped it was so. To be delivered out of the sea so miraculously… you were a fable come to life.”

  “You’re favored of a…god, my son?” Gydryn sounded hesitant, amazed, slightly dubious but clearly not wanting to offend either of them by voicing his disbelief.

  “I have heard the goddess’s whisper in my soul, father.” Trell willed his father to see the truth in his eyes.

  Zafir clasped his hands together and pressed entwined fingers fervently to his lips. “Oh, what did She tell you, son-of-my-heart?” His brown eyes grew bright with unshed tears. “Might you share Her words with me?”

  Trell recalled the many times Naiadithine had spoken to his heart and bowed his head, feeling humbled by the graces She’d bestowed upon him. “She said, Follow the water, Trell of the Tides.”

  Zafir made a sound, half cry and half amazement, kissed his fingers and lifted his clasped hands to the ceiling. “Jai’Gar be praised that the twisting paths of tragedy have yet brought us to this happiness!” He looked back to Trell wearing a rare smile that considerably lightened his usually somber countenance. “Only the gods might’ve foreseen such an end as this!”

  The gods, Trell thought, glancing between his two fathers, and Björn van Gelderan.

  Finally Gydryn let out a forceful exhale, as if to clear the last of his disbelief. “Perhaps indeed as an agent of his gods, Zafir has saved us both, Trell.”

  Trell turned a swift look between them. “Saved us?”

  “By Jai’Gar’s will, son-of-my-heart, Farid found your father in the Sand Sea, wounded and near death. He brought him here to Raku for Healing.”

  Gydryn ran a hand down his beard. “Viernan hal’Jaitar planned to have me assassinated on the road to the parley. A favorite tactic of his, and not entirely unanticipated.”

  Trell stared at him as he processed his words. “Then…” he searched his father’s face, “you know of Radov’s duplicity?” He turned his gaze between his father and the Emir with surprise welling so swiftly that it nearly choked off his voice. He exhaled the incredulous hope, faint with impossibility, “Father…is Dannym no longer allied with M’Nador?”

  “No more.” Gydryn arched brows resignedly. “At least, as far as my reach extends.” His tone shockingly indicated this might not be far enough.

  “To this very end, the future must be written,” Rhakar remarked from the doorway.

  Trell had completely forgotten the Sundragon was there.

  Zafir looked to him and nodded gravely. “Just
so, Lord Rhakar.” He extended a hand to the drachwyr. “Your Majesty, may I present the Sundragon Şrivas’rhakárakek, the Shadow of the Light.”

  Gydryn looked at Rhakar. Then he blinked twice and looked at him more closely.

  “Lord Rhakar, may I present His Majesty, Gydryn val Lorian, King of Dannym.”

  Rhakar nodded to the king and then shifted his yellow eyes back to the Emir. “The Mage urges action, Zafir.”

  “Rightly so, my lord, especially in view of Farid’s news.” The Emir stood and shifted a serious gaze between Trell and Gydryn. “Let us adjourn to where the others await—Gydryn, Trell, we will share with you all that we know.”

  As they walked away from the gallery, the Emir and Rhakar strode several paces ahead, by their distance giving Trell and his father what time they could to become reacquainted.

  Trell was acutely aware of his father at his side. While the greatest barrier to their reconciliation might’ve already been overcome, much yet remained to be discussed.

  “Trell…” the king looked to him wearing a neutral expression, but Trell sensed a torrent of conscience deluging him. “If I had known—”

  “Likewise, father.” Then he turned profile again, smiling softly. “Trust that Alyneri has assured me on your behalf of all that need be said to that end.”

  “Alyneri d’Giverny?” The king sounded bemused, astonished. “How did you and she meet? She was supposed to be traveling with Ean.”

  “She was until—” But how could he even begin to explain the convoluted paths that Cephrael had woven for him and his brothers? Trell shook his head, still amazed himself. “In the course of her travels, Alyneri has saved Ean’s life, my life, Fynnlar’s life.” He looked back to his father. “When you sent her south with Ean, you were granting a blessing upon all of the sons of House val Lorian.”

  His father gazed wonderingly at him. “I perceive there is much to tell to this end.”

  Trell puffed a forceful exhale by way of agreement. “The events of the last single year of my life would take longer in the retelling than all of the five years before.” He assumed a quiet smile. “Yet in the moment when I first heard the Su’a’dal’s voice, and then yours…in that instant did I realize that I wouldn’t change any part of my path up to now.” He searched his father’s gaze, hoping that this truth might give him some solace and calm the riot of conscience that was still obviously plaguing him. “I hope you can understand what I mean by this. I’ve known such graces as to make even the worst experiences worthwhile. My life has been blessed, father.”

  Gydryn gave a startled cough. “I am…as amazed by your words as by the man you’ve become, Trell.” Seeming at a loss for words, he turned to stare ahead, frowning slightly. After a time, he glanced to Trell again. “My generals told me of a leader among the Emir’s elite staff, a brilliant tactician who thought like a Northman. They faced a host of difficulties as a result of his command.” His grey eyes searched Trell’s face. “You?”

  Trell nodded. He remembered, too, his conflict of conscience in those times. He’d been serving the Emir in his efforts to thwart Radov’s allied forces, yet even while still bereft of name, he’d felt and suspected some kinship to Dannym’s soldiers.

  His father turned profile again and exhaled a measured breath. “You saved many lives, my son.”

  Trell gave him a startled look.

  “Aye…not the words you expected to hear from me, I suspect?” The king angled him a sidelong eye. “Yet when I heard news of this commander—who is finally revealed to be my beloved son—from the first, he had my gratitude.”

  “Father?”

  “If you hadn’t kept Veneisea out of the war, Trell, my men would’ve endured a much longer and far more brutal engagement. Instead, by some grace beyond my comprehension, my army is intact and rested for our return to Calgaryn, and my treasured middle son lives—” His voice broke upon this word, and he paused and closed his eyes briefly, as if offering a silent prayer.

  But not just your middle son…

  Gazing at his king father, hearing his words…Trell wanted desperately to tell him of Sebastian. Yet…while he understood that this conflict of kingdoms was but a small ramification of the First Lord’s game—that somehow it figured into that greater purpose, formed some part of the final picture—he didn’t know his father well enough to know if he would understand how deeply their paths had been woven into Cephrael’s intricate tapestry.

  Lacking that understanding, some things would be nearly impossible to explain to him—Sebastian’s misadventures, as case in point—even had they the time, which they didn’t. Already they were nearing the hall where the Emir held his war conferences.

  For his father to truly understand how Sebastian’s path interwove with theirs, Trell would have to explain Ean’s role, his Awakening and Return, his connection to Isabel and Björn van Gelderan, Björn’s own true actions—thirteen hells, he’d have to explain the entire game for his father to be able to make sense of Sebastian’s survival and life as a wielder.

  Furthermore, Trell couldn’t know if Sebastian and their father would ever meet, for the First Lord had said that Trell’s eldest brother was a Player, too. Would it be a kindness, then, to tell his father that his eldest son and heir lived when the two might never know each other’s faces again? When he couldn’t offer adequate explanation as to how Sebastian had survived? When he himself knew only pieces of Sebastian’s early torments? And when he knew nothing of Sebastian’s current role in the game, or what dangers he was facing?

  Noting his silence, Gydryn turned Trell a look of concerned apology. “You’re a man in your own right now, Trell. How far you’ve matured beyond the youth I placed on a ship and cast south bearing all of my hopes. As a man, you’ve set your own heading, charted your course. I would have you know I respect these decisions, whatever is to come.”

  Ahead, the Emir and Rhakar passed beneath the carved archway leading into the hall, but Trell stopped and turned to face his father. “Your Majesty…”

  He hardly knew how to say the things he felt in his heart, for the feelings were too tumultuous and powerful. Trell looked down at his boots and then up again to meet his father’s gaze, his back and shoulders pressed straighter against the rod of new convictions. “Father, I’m sworn to the Fifth Vestal, the man you know as the Emir’s Mage…” he took a deep breath and added, “but I’m also your son, and I will always be your son, if you will have me thusly.”

  Holding Trell’s gaze, Gydryn’s eyes grew glassy once more. He clenched his jaw, seeming gripped by emotion. Then he wordlessly draped his arm around his son’s shoulders, and they walked with solidarity into the Emir’s war chamber.

  Twenty-one

  “The darkness can hide from the light, but the light can never hide from the darkness.”

  –The truthreader Mir Arkadhi, Seat of the realm of Eltanin

  Darshan stood beneath an arcade at the Fortress of Ivarnen staring out at the rain while Dore Madden paced ruts of malcontent into the tiles behind him. The sky overhead wore a mantle of ash. Mist shrouded the day the way the memories from his dreams enveloped his thoughts. Darshan had hoped the storm would bring some clarity, but it was only a dull rain, reminiscent of melancholy.

  His latest dream was troubling him deeply...

  “You cannot see through the veil of your arrogance, brother.” Pelas had been perched on the merlon of a tower, reclining on one elbow with his long hair streaming on the wind. “There are facts in front of you so blindingly obvious that you pass them every day and see them not at all.”

  In the dream, Darshan worked the muscles of his jaw. More frustrating than these dreamed conversations with Pelas and Kjieran was not understanding how they kept happening—and being unable to stop them. He’d never met helplessness before. So far he wasn’t finding much to appreciate in the acquaintance.

  He clasped hands behind his back and tried to keep his temper in check—ever Pelas pulled the worst emotions ou
t of him. “What, pray, might these obvious facts be, Pelas?”

  “Look around you, Darshan—just look.” Pelas’s tone was as patronizing as Shail’s. “What do you see?”

  Darshan exhaled a measured breath. Fistfights with his middle brother were never rewarding, and even less so in his dreams. His eyes grew very dark as he turned to face him. “I see a world waiting to be unmade.”

  “Nay—Darshan, if you’d actually looked, you’d have seen a world set within the boundaries of time.”

  Darshan grunted. “I admit such an observation is too obvious to have required my notice. What’s your point, Pelas?”

  Pelas was dangling a leg over the side of the wall. Something in his nonchalant position irritated Darshan. “Only this, brother: if our Maker intended for these worlds to be destroyed, why did he place them within the framework of time? For this implies they were meant to endure.”

  Darshan frowned.

  Pelas arched a wry brow. “Ah, you see it finally, don’t you? Chaos has no time. It exists eternally in one moment, and every moment in each new moment. But these worlds have time, Darshan.”

  Darshan felt a restless malcontent. Would that it had only been a result of his brother’s invasion of his dreams and not from some deeper truth.

  Pelas slipped off the merlon and approached him. The wind made dark flames of his hair, while his copper eyes glowed like a fire’s coals. Darshan couldn’t look away. “Why did the Maker give these worlds time, Darshan—why did He hide them from us—if He didn’t mean for them to endure?”

  “My lord…”

  Dore’s servile whine drew Darshan from his thoughts.

  Dore had his head tucked while he paced, shoulders hunched, reminding Darshan of the aardvarks that scurried the Saldarian grasslands. “My lord, something really must be done.”

  Darshan was strongly considering ways to rid himself of Dore Madden. The man was keeping council too closely with Shail these days, and his more recent advice reeked of subversion. He clasped hands behind his back and returned his gaze to the clouds and the rain shedding itself across Ivarnen’s broad estuary, yet all he saw was Pelas’s burning gaze. “If something needs be done, then do it, Dore.”