Farid was peering down over the platform’s edge again. He turned the king a look, portentous and grave. “They’re making a ladder of each other.”
Gydryn leaned his head against the jade pillar and closed his eyes. The world spun dizzily.
Farid didn’t have to tell him their odds of survival now. He saw it clearly enough—the small platform that had been their refuge would quickly become a liability. Gydryn himself was already one. He’d lost his blade, but even had he still possessed it, he wasn’t possessed of enough strength to wield it.
He opened his eyes and settled them on the Akkadian prince. “I’m sorry I placed you in such danger. If not for my infirmity, my delays, none of this would be.”
Farid regarded him gravely. “Your deeds are mine and mine are yours, Your Majesty. This is the will of Jai’Gar.” He turned back to the pool, and Gydryn saw his jaw tighten. “They come.”
A dark head appeared at the platform’s lip. Farid kicked it back into the water and took the second creature with his blade, but the third demon grabbed Farid’s lower legs and the fourth surged out of the froth to hijack his balance. The prince tumbled onto his back.
He beat at them with his sword, but they clawed their way up his form nonetheless. The first one onto the platform fixed its dead eyes on Gydryn.
The king said a prayer—of gratitude, contrition, grief for choices made in error and those errors of indecision; prayers for his sons, their protection…their forgiveness. Then he turned a burning gaze upon the demon and roared at it. He poured all of his fury and frustration into his cry, all of his breath, his very soul, until his lungs emptied themselves and his throat scraped hoarse and raw.
Farid was still thrashing at the platform’s edge, but the one with eyes on Gydryn found its feet and moved towards him. Even before it reached for him, he knew it was his end—
Blinding light flared, and a dark figure plummeted out of the sky. It struck the eidola that had been coming for Gydryn and knocked it to the platform with a satisfying crash. As Gydryn’s eyes recovered, he saw a woman crouched atop the creature’s chest, dressed all in black and with a greatsword strapped to her back.
The demon grabbed for her as she straightened, as indifferent to its clawing hands and flailing feet as a fisherman to a fish flapping on the chopping block. She stared down at it.
Gydryn felt a radiating heat that was shockingly intense. He had to turn his face away—but not before he saw the demon’s stone body crust over like charcoal.
She stepped off it resolutely and turned to the next. A solitary kick sent one of the two that was grappling with Farid flying head over heels across the water. It crashed through the pool’s stone rim and dug a trench through the grass. She cast the spear of her gaze after it and seared it to ash.
The other creature leapt for her. She caught its throat in her outstretched hand, and a wave of ash overcame its dangling body. She tossed it away. Two steps brought her to the edge of the pool. She cast a relentless gaze down into the water where the other demons had collected. The pool came to a rapid boil, and soon an oily residue floated to the surface.
Steam was rising from the pool when she knelt at Farid’s side and cradled his head in her hands. “Farid?” She laid a hand on his brow and appeared to concentrate. After a moment, she lifted her blue eyes to Gydryn. “You are the king, father of Trell?”
Gydryn managed a nod.
“Can you walk, King of Dannym?”
Gydryn looked at the steaming pool. “Not across water, Lady dragon.”
A brief smile graced her features. “I am Mithaiya.” She lifted Farid into her arms and straightened. Her lithe form appeared fragile compared to the broad-shouldered prince, but she held his body as easily as if he’d been a child. “Come, King of Dannym. Today you will walk on water.”
Even as Gydryn was wondering if she’d meant that literally, she stepped off the platform and started walking across the pool. The water simply solidified beneath her feet and stayed solid, still as glass, while ripples streamed away from her steps. A long black braid hung down her back, tracing the line of a greatsword.
She turned a pointed look over her shoulder, whereupon Gydryn realized he’d been staring instead of following and amended that as fast as the vertigo still consuming him would allow.
Mithaiya was laying Farid on the grass when the king finally climbed over the rim of the pool. She came and placed her hand on his own brow then. Her blue eyes captured his astonished gaze while her other hand caught his shoulder to prevent his startled pulling away, and he remained locked in her hold for an instant that felt like an hour.
Gydryn had no words to describe that timeless moment wherein he became the receptacle of a Sundragon’s power. The intense prickling he felt at his neck and the clawed flesh of his back paled in comparison to the throbbing heat pulsing everywhere else. He felt electrified, yet painlessly so; rather, as though every molecule in his body had become charged with life.
As she released him, breath surged into his lungs. He gasped and staggered back. His dizziness had become a heady vitality.
“I’ve closed your wounds and restored your life pattern,” Mithaiya told him resolutely. “Watch over Zafir’s treasured son until I return.”
Gydryn gazed wondrously at her, still grasping to believe in this impossible salvation. “You may depend upon it, my lady.”
Mithaiya gave him that brief smile, comet-fleeting but hinting of the brilliance of an exploding star. Then she rushed away.
Gydryn knelt and laid a hand on Farid’s shoulder. The prince was covered in blood, but he seemed to be breathing easily. Gydryn lifted his gaze to the towering jade Pillars of Jai’Gar, the Prime God’s remote eye into the realm of men, and sitting there upon the damaged lawn, with a dragon’s energy circling his core and gratitude consuming his heart, he cried.
Seventy-eight
“Betrayal has many faces. Forgiveness has but one.”
–Attributed to the angiel Epiphany
Tanis was dozing in a chair by the bay windows when Mérethe entered the infirmary carrying a silver tray. “Hello, Tanis.”
“Hello, Mérethe.” Tanis shook himself more awake and sat up straighter in the chair. He narrowed his gaze at the tray. “What’s all this?”
Mérethe looked down at the cups and goblets with their varied contents. “Red and white wine, tea, water, something Rafael conjured that I don’t advise you to drink, and possibly,” she sniffed at a tiny cordial glass, “well…it smells like anise.”
“Are we having a party?”
“Sinárr wasn’t sure what you might want.” Her blue eyes glanced to Prince Ean, who lay sleeping in the bed, and back to Tanis. “He thought you might be worried for him.”
“No, I’m not worried for him. Tell Sinárr not to worry for me.”
As if hearing them speaking of him, Ean stirred. Val Lorian grey eyes opened sleepily on Mérethe, whereupon the prince roused himself to give her a smile. “Ah, hello there.” He looked dashingly disheveled.
Mérethe very nearly blushed. She set down her tray on a table beside Tanis. “I’ll leave you to get reacquainted.” She bobbed a bashful, “Good day, Your Highness,” and hurried from the room.
Tanis scrubbed at his jaw. “And that was Mérethe.”
Ean grinned speculatively after her. “She’s an Avieth?”
“Yes. Sinárr’s concubine…or she was…is.” He gave a slight grimace. “It’s complicated.”
“Isn’t it always?” Ean cast a smiling gaze around the room. “This looks familiar.” He let his eyes come to rest on Tanis. “The first time we met, you were sitting in that very chair.”
“Well…almost the same chair.” Tanis looked down at it. “I’ve made this one more comfortable than the real one. Her Grace had this theory about the relationship between cushioned chairs and laziness…it was a rather lengthy hypothesis.”
Ean sighed. “Sometimes I really miss Alyneri.” He glanced down at his bare chest and
arms, and a puzzled frown hinted as he looked up again. “Who Healed me?” His gaze sharpened on the lad. “You?”
Tanis pulled at one ear wearing a culpable smile. “In Her Grace’s absence, I took it upon myself. I thought you’d prefer my attempts over Darshan’s.”
Ean shook his head wonderingly. “So you’re a wielder now too, and bound to a Malorin’athgul…” A strained recollection overcame his expression. “Doubtless you know that Darshan bound me to him to save my life. I’m still trying to wrap my head around that.”
Tanis looked over his prince. “How do you feel, Your Highness? Fit for a walk?”
Ean’s tense gaze softened. “In Alyneri’s garden?”
Tanis grinned. “Not exactly.”
Ean drew in a deep breath and let it out. “How do I feel?” He appeared to think it over. Then his eyes crinkled. “I feel damned relieved, to be honest. Whole in a way I haven’t felt in a long time. Well enough, I’d say, for a walk.”
“Good.” Tanis retrieved a pile of folded clothes. “These are for you.”
The prince eyed him as he took the bundle. “Did you conjure these, too?”
“No.” The lad wandered over to the window while Ean dressed. “Sinárr is better with clothes than I am. I wanted them to actually fit you.”
Ean cast his grey eyes around the room while pulling on his pants. “But this place is obviously your doing.”
Tanis pushed hands in his pockets and leaned back against the windows. “I thought it would be…” but he didn’t quite know how to say what he’d hoped it would be.
Ean put warmth into his gaze. “It is. But we are still in Shadow.”
“Yes. This is…” Tanis shoved a forelock of ashen hair back from his eyes. “Well, it’s sort of my world and Sinárr’s world. We’ve been building it together.”
Ean sank back down on the edge of the bed. “Say that again?”
“Right…” Tanis rubbed at one eye. This was the hard part—well, one of the hard parts. “I worked a mutual binding with Sinárr so that we could build worlds crafted of both elae and deyjiin.”
Ean stared harder. “So…” he scrubbed at his jaw, “you’re bound to a Warlock…too.”
Tanis grinned sheepishly. “That’s right.”
Ean looked dumbfounded. “Does Pelas know?”
“The last time we spoke he asked if I was planning to bind with any other immortals. That was before Rafael started propositioning me.”
Ean stared at him for a moment longer. Then he reached for his shirt while a smile slowly claimed his features. “Just how many immortals are you bound to, Tanis?”
“Only three, Your Highness. I haven’t bound with Rafael. I’m hoping to somehow…not.”
“Three.” Ean barked an incredulous laugh. “Who’s the third? Cephrael Himself?”
“Oh, it’s Phaedor.”
“Of course it is.” Ean eyed him wonderingly as he reached for his boots. “And when did you bind with Phaedor? After we split up in Rethynnea?”
“No, sir. He bound himself to me when I was a child.”
Ean slowed. “I see.” He frowned at the boot in his hands for a moment, and Tanis perceived a whirlwind confusion tear through his thoughts. Then he shoved his foot all the way in. “Well, I suppose you should tell me of the others. What plans have you all concocted while I was unable to speak for myself?”
“Rafael took Darshan to his universe to have words with him about his brothers, and Sinárr is…elsewhere. We have the day to ourselves, so to speak.”
Ean straightened. “So to speak…because there is no day?”
“Basically.” Tanis tapped his knuckles absently against his palm. “But if you consider that reality as we know it is only solidified illusion—per the Twenty-first and Twenty-second Esoterics—then Shadow doesn’t seem quite so strange.”
Ean just stared at him for a silent while with a grin splitting his features. Then he sobered his smile and waved at Tanis. “So where will you be taking me for this walk?”
Tanis joined his side as they were heading for the infirmary door. “That’s the thing about Shadow.” They walked out the door into the hall, and—
—emerged on the top of a cliff overlooking the sea. “You can do things like this.”
Ean surveyed the granite cliffs with their deep green mantle of firs, the churning surf, and the tall sea stack in the distance. Striated clouds blanketed the heavens, darkening underneath, yet the sun shone through in many places and illuminated the charcoal waters into patches of glorious blue.
The prince laid a hand on Tanis’s shoulder. “This beach.” His eyes danced. “Why this beach?”
Though the day felt cooler beneath the heavy clouds, Tanis stood warm in his prince’s esteem. “I always wanted to swim out to that rock. Her Grace would never allow it.”
“Alyneri is too practical for her own good.” Ean arched a brow, both invitation and challenge, and took off down the steep trail, nearly at a run.
Tanis ran after him, already grinning.
Ean was stripped down and diving into the waves by the time Tanis got to the beach, so he shifted them both into a pair of swim trunks—some clothes were easier to manage than others—and dove in after him.
Tanis followed Ean’s lead and swam beneath the breaking waves, and soon they were far from the shore but only halfway to the sea stack. As they were treading water and catching their breath, Tanis asked him, “Was it really this far? Maybe I should—”
Ean grinned and flipped the hair from his eyes. “Don’t change a thing.” Then he started off again, arm over arm, dragging his body through the deep waves at a punishing pace.
Tanis was a strong swimmer, but he couldn’t keep up with Ean. The waves were high, the current strong, and his prince had a way of reading the water that surpassed familiarity; it was his innate association with the fifth, imparting an underlying sense of all things elemental—even those recreated through the power of Shadow. And he swam fast.
The sun was shining through a break in the clouds when Tanis finally reached the sea stack. Already out and balanced on a ledge, Ean grabbed Tanis’s hand and hauled him out of the water before the waves could smash him against the rocks.
Finding his footing, Tanis looked back towards the shore, which was mostly hidden by the tumbling surf, and let his eyes travel over the jagged cliffs looming above the beach. He dragged his wet hair back from his face and turned Ean a smile. “It’s just how I thought it would be.”
Ean clapped him on the shoulder. “You need to see it from higher up.” He started off along a ledge above a colony of razor-sharp barnacles. “When Trell and I swam out here as kids, we found a path of sorts around the side. Let’s see if it’s still here.”
Tanis made sure that it was.
They climbed the harrowing path, which angled steeply over the jagged rocks at the sea stack’s base, scraping knees and toes and tearing their hands on the rough stone, but Tanis wouldn’t have traded the pain for anything.
Ean was again first to the top, and he held a hand back down to Tanis. Soon they stood side by side with their chests rising and falling fast, staring first out at the deep sea and then back at the Calgaryn coastline.
Tanis had no idea how that line of cliffs actually appeared from the sea stack. He’d crafted it from his imagination—a postulation of possibility married with pieces of memory—but whether it existed as such in Calgaryn or only in Tanis’s imagination, the mountainous coast he’d created boasted a rugged and forbidding beauty.
The wind whistled around the rock and blew the sun away, but it also dried their skin. They sat on a ledge while the birds circled overhead, and they talked of their adventures and reminisced about the zanthyr.
Later, as they sat hugging their knees with the briny wind blowing their hair into their eyes, Ean turned to Tanis with warmth in his gaze. “Pelas told me you’d grown, not just in stature but in ability. I had no idea. I never imagined—I never could’ve conceived of all th
at you’ve become.”
Tanis dropped a smile towards his toes. “Your Highness—”
“Don’t you think it’s time you started calling me Ean? I left the life of Dannym’s prince behind quite some time ago.”
Tanis’s brow furrowed at this. There were truths he needed to get to, for both of them, but he didn’t quite know how to navigate those waters—mainly because he didn’t yet understand why his father didn’t know him. The lad rested elbows on his knees and squinted towards the horizon. “Pelas told me you tried to unwork his life pattern.”
After a moment of silence, Ean said, “Did he tell you why?”
“He said he’d done something to betray your trust.”
Ean radiated a sudden discomfort, and Tanis perceived a deeper unrest still beneath the surface of this. “You’re his bond-brother, Tanis.” Ean’s grey eyes shifted to meet his. “I’m sure you know about the compulsion he was under.”
“Yes.”
“And I assume…” he gave a slight wince, “I imagine he told you about the woman who helped him overcome it.”
“Isabel van Gelderan.”
“Isabel…” Ean exhaled a slow breath, tinged of disharmony. “I am bound to her, Tanis, and she to me. We worked the Unbreakable Bond centuries ago when I answered to another man’s name. To free Pelas from his compulsion, she chose to betray our troth.”
Tanis dropped his gaze to his hands. He understood now what Pelas and his mother both had glossed over in recounting their versions of the incident. “It was the Ninth Law,” he murmured. “She would’ve applied the Ninth Law.” Tanis looked back to Ean. “I’m sorry. That must’ve been very hard for you.”
Ean blew out his breath and somewhat fell back on the rock. “It doesn’t matter now. I’ve made my peace with Pelas.” He rolled his head to look at Tanis. “It has to be your influence I saw in him. He’s—thirteen hells, we have a Malorin’athgul bound to our side of the game now, Tanis. Who would’ve imagined?”
Tanis was fairly sure he could name several people who had imagined it, but he kept this to himself. “So you’ve forgiven Pelas. Have you forgiven Isabel?”
Kingdom Blades (A Pattern of Shadow & Light 4) Page 122
