A Prince Among Killers

by S. R. Vaught; J. B. Redmond

  There was no denying this outcome.

  Marilia Deadeye had lost her combat.

  The Stone Sister remained on her feet for another few seconds, then toppled forward, falling like a tree hacked in a forest. She struck the arena floor as hard as lifeless wood, no spark of existence left in her.

  Dari felt absolutely numb. Her senses switched off completely, except for her vision, but she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing.

  A Stone Sister defeated in combat. Had such a thing ever happened in recent history? Dari was almost certain it had not. If Stone Brothers were deadly, then Stone Sisters were a moving apocalypse. Yet Marilia Deadeye lay before the crowd in the Judgment Arena, already gone from this world and waiting for the next.

  Dari was too stunned to cry, and too frozen to look at Stormbreaker. Her eyes turned to Aron, who stood as if the backs of his legs had been iced to the apprentice bench in the deepest freeze of winter.

  Lord Baldric moved from behind that bench and walked slowly into the arena. When he reached Zane Morgan, he touched the man’s shoulder with his left hand and raised his right hand toward the clear summer sky.

  Triune’s bells gave three booming rings, unlike any Dari had ever heard before in her tenure at the castle. She flinched from the noise each time. None of the Stone Brothers or apprentices had any physical response, but to Dari’s horror, Aron’s essence gave off a brilliant sapphire flash, like a shooting star rising from the very top of his head. Even as she drove herself through the Veil and used the bulk of her energy to shield Aron’s legacy from view, her gaze whipped toward Lord Altar.

  His head turned in Aron’s direction.

  By the time the dynast lord fully focused on Aron, Aron’s essence had gone back to the same dull blue he usually maintained, and Dari’s control reinforced the perception.

  Cayn’s teeth! She barely managed to cloak her thoughts to keep them silent. Did he see?

  She felt half-battered from the emotion of Marilia’s defeat and the fear that her distraction might have just cost Aron his safety. If Lord Altar had noticed—what then?

  Dari cursed herself a hundred times for not keeping her awareness on the other side of the Veil, and keeping a forced contact with Aron. Lord Altar might have sensed something amiss, but he wouldn’t have been able to discover what it was, not in the limited time afforded by Judgment Day.

  Lord Baldric had his back to the bench as he stood with Zane Morgan, and Dari knew he hadn’t seen what happened with Aron. Stormbreaker must have noticed, though, because Dari heard thunder far in the distance. If she could have made thunder, she would have brought an entire storm. As it was, she divided her awareness as best she could, and kept a bit of her essence very close to Aron’s.

  I’m sorry, came his quiet, anguished whisper through the Veil. It won’t happen again.

  Through their mental connection, Dari could almost taste his sadness at Marilia’s death, and the anger of another loss dredged out of his depths. Images flashed through her awareness—Lord Brailing’s face, a group of people that could only be Aron’s dead family, the Brailing Guard contingent Aron had almost killed. A wave of rage battered against Dari’s control, but she knew Aron wasn’t fighting her on purpose. In fact, he was battling with all of his will to stop his own emotional reactions. Shame and humiliation mingled with his anger, and Dari did her best to withdraw her essence as far as she dared, to give him his privacy.

  On this side of the Veil, Aron looked at the ground.

  Bit by bit, his awareness receded from Dari, until his thoughts were once more completely his own.

  “Zane Morgan, by the will of fate, you are deemed innocent.” Lord Baldric’s voice was as forceful as ever, though his features seemed pulled down, toward the bloody dirt at his feet. “As is my right and duty, I restore to you your full rights as a citizen of Eyrie. You are free to depart from Triune.”

  In the preternatural calm of the arena, Morgan’s voice sounded as loud as Stone’s bells. “With your leave, I would stay until the lady’s essence is dispatched.” His voice faltered, and for a moment, his head drooped. When he gathered himself, he added, “I would like to be in her honor escort.”

  Lord Baldric granted the man’s wish with a nod.

  This seemed to rattle the apprentices into action. Aron once more knocked on the small gate, while Marilia’s apprentices moved onto the arena floor. Two older Stone Brothers entered, and together with Morgan and the apprentices, they lifted Marilia’s body. In a quick, steady procession, Marilia was removed from the grounds to the House of the Judged, to await the dispatching of her essence after all combat had been completed.

  The small gate swung closed.

  The arena audience waited another breath or two before taking their seats.

  Once she settled herself beside Raaf, it took Dari one long, awful moment to realize the bells were ringing again, sending Stormbreaker and the rapist Laird Reese to the arena floor.

  The bit of her awareness on the other side of the Veil almost tumbled back to her, leaving Aron exposed. She had to breathe, and breathe again, and draw up images of her home and her sister and anything that might calm her to maintain her own control. It would be a sad thing if Aron ended up shielding her during the fight.

  Dari’s teeth dug into her lip, and she realized she had spent too much time training Aron and searching for Kate, and not enough time practicing skills with her own mind-talents. The time might come when she would have to use them at levels that would demand precision and complete readiness. After today, she would do better, even if she had to sleep less.

  Heartbeat by heartbeat, she caught hold of herself, and kept that all-important shield around Aron, just in case. All the while, she was far too aware that Laird Reese had a broadsword, long and heavy, befitting his muscled arms and massive frame. Stormbreaker had both of his jagged blades drawn, and after the ritual bow, he crossed them to cradle Reese’s bigger weapon.

  The crowd remained mostly silent in the wake of Marilia’s death, and Dari felt her own essence whisper into near nothingness as the two new combatants stared each other down.

  Dari had never seen Stormbreaker so focused. His loose stance belied the storm in his essence, and she knew he was having to spend some energy, at least, holding back the weather that wanted to burst from his mind.

  Laird Reese gave the ear-crushing battle roar of a desert bandit, leaning forward into Stormbreaker’s face even as Dari and most of the audience leaned back to escape the noise.

  Stormbreaker remained as still as an ancient mountain.

  Courtesies were over. The battle had begun.

  Reese moved back from his opponent faster than Dari would have thought possible. He raised his huge blade two-fisted, high above his head.

  Dari’s blood seemed to stop flowing in her veins.

  Kill-stroke. First blow landed—usually the last.

  She almost jumped up and screamed, but Raaf chose that moment to whisper, “Stupid.”

  Before the boy finished pronouncing the word, Stormbreaker had darted forward and scissored his blades at Reese’s vulnerable neck. Onlookers gasped as the big man’s head flew from his shoulders and rolled away across the dirt. Blood sprayed outward from the mangled bone and flesh, spattering the ground like a steaming red rain.

  This time, Dari couldn’t keep any of herself on the other side of the Veil. Her awareness rejoined completely just in time for her to turn her head and try to wipe the visual image of Reese’s decapitated corpse from her mind. The sound of body striking earth did little to help with that, but the relieved shouts of the crowd helped shore her strength.

  “Not even a minute this time,” Raaf observed as shouts became cheers, and Stone’s bells rang out for Stormbreaker’s victory. “That’s worthy of recording, even for Stormbreaker.”

  Apprentices swept forward to remove Reese’s body. Aron was on his feet, essence the exact color it was supposed to be, going to meet his master and take Stormbreaker’s b
lades for cleaning once the third combat ended.

  Which, mercifully, didn’t take long.

  Coryn Kull, the third criminal who elected combat, apologized to his victim’s family again. Then, instead of bowing and crossing swords, he knelt before his Stone Brother and bared his neck for a quick, painless death.

  Raaf shrugged this off as he stood to leave. “A lot of them do that. Remorse or terror—who can say.”

  He actually sounded disappointed.

  As soon as the last corpse had been removed, Lord Baldric marched to the center of the arena and raised his hands once more. “This Judgment Day has ended,” he boomed, barely completing his sentence before the castle bells gave a long set of peals to underscore its finality.

  Dari got to her feet, ears ringing with the bells, irritated to feel her legs tremble as she made her way out of the seating area and onto the arena floor, heading for the entrance to the House of the Judged to dispatch the souls of the dead. Stormbreaker and Aron were already waiting to follow Lord Baldric and the rest of the Stone Brothers and apprentices through the small gate, no doubt on their way to pay respects to Marilia and witness the release of her essence.

  Thank all of fate’s tricks that this is finished.

  Dari glanced to her right, into the stands, expecting to see Lord Altar and his party leaving the steel and copper-colored box and heading back to the day like everyone else.

  Instead, Lord Altar was standing before his bench, arms folded, staring directly at Dari.

  She startled from the shock of it, but then cool dread uncoiled in her midsection. She traced the dynast lord’s gaze more directly to the small gate, and confirmed her suspicion.

  Lord Altar wasn’t looking at her after all.

  He was staring directly at Aron.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  ARON

  Aron followed the small, bush-crowded byway out of the northern Cobb village, keeping his footfalls silent and gliding, as he had learned from many hours of training with the trackers at Triune. His gaze remained focused on Dari’s gray cloak, which was barely visible in the scant moonslight, and both hands remained close to scabbards holding swords he was strong enough to wield. Even now his shoulders ached from hours of carrying water buckets, bushels of grain, and pig iron for the forge—but such extra training was well worth its benefit. When he had proven his mettle to Stormbreaker with his journey to the Ruined Keep, and many more times on the mock battlefield, Stormbreaker had at last agreed to allow him to take his turns at assisting Dari in her systematic, village-by-village hunt for Kate.

  It was already cold, even this far north, and the remnants of Dari’s breath flowed behind her like silver fog. Tonight, in her Stone apprentice disguise, she smelled like apples—but when she was upset, Aron always caught a hint of fire and something like talon oil, especially when his senses were still raw from going through the Veil.

  Somehow, the fire scent seemed stronger than usual. And the oil smelled a little different. He struggled to keep up with her, then draw even with her, and he barely dared to glance at the taut line of her jaw. Sadness and fury seemed to flow just as silvery-real as her breath, making Aron ache to soothe her. He wanted to say something, desperately needed to find the right words.

  “We’ll go to the next villages on our route,” he whispered as they covered the dark ground between the village and the woods where Blath waited in her gryphon form, prepared to bear them back to Triune.

  Dari said nothing.

  Aron’s head drooped. What a pathetic effort. Couldn’t he come up with something better? Of course they would go on to the next villages. Of course she knew that. There were hundreds of villages in Cobb alone, much less the aspects of Mab and Vagrat and Ross they hadn’t begun to search. Communications to outlying Stone guild-houses had proven fruitless, but for several rumors of dark-skinned foundlings, each of which they carefully traced—with no results.

  The woods were still just black streaks on the horizon, a long way ahead. Dari walked that much faster. Part of Aron’s awareness realized she was hurrying because of dawn’s nearness, but it felt so much like she was running away from him, from his efforts to make her feel better.

  She had been so concerned for him after the Judgment Day when Marilia died, worried almost half out of her own mind that Lord Altar would bring an army back to Triune and demand his head to end the siege. Nothing had come of that.

  “If there’s some legacy skill that would help, I’ll learn it,” he called to her as she brushed past bushes on her way toward the distant shadows of trees. His clenched his fists against the knot in his belly. “I don’t care if it’s dangerous. I’ll do whatever it takes to find her, Dari.”

  A fresh silver cloud flowed around Dari’s features as she finally slowed, then stopped and turned to face him. Even in the moons-kissed darkness, he could see each line and curve of her face, her neck, her shoulders. Just being this close to her when they were alone made his thoughts muddle.

  “I know you’d never let me down, Aron.” Her voice sounded tight and thin, so tired, like it always did after a failed night of hunting. “I probably don’t tell you often enough that I appreciate your willingness to help me.”

  “You’re my oath-sister.” He risked brushing his hand against the sleeve of her robe, and felt a charge when she didn’t pull away. “I’ll always help you.”

  Dari’s expression softened to one of grief, mixed with a touch of shame. “There is no legacy skill I know of that could find Kate if I, her twin, can’t sense her. If there were, I fear I would have already asked you to try to learn it, or worked to practice it myself, no matter the risk.”

  Aron stood a bit straighter and looked directly into Dari’s eyes. Even in the low lighting, they sparked with life and power, drawing him in yet again.

  “My sister is Stregan and unstable, and somehow—somehow shielded. Either she’s keeping her own mind sealed away from mine, or someone else is doing that job for her.” Dari shook her head, and Aron once more brushed the sleeve of her robe.

  Her tremulous smile felt like a treasure chest of reward, but a breath later, she was walking again, toward the trees and away from him. Once more, Aron found himself running to catch her.

  I’m always trying to keep pace with this one. The thought came without effort, because he had it often these days. His sixteenth birthday was creeping closer, but what hope did he have that Dari would finally begin to notice him as something other than the boy she helped rescue from the Watchline massacre?

  The scent of oil grew stronger, and mingled with something metallic now, rasping against Aron’s senses. He forced himself forward, demanded that his mind stay focused on Dari, on seeing to her safety, but his graal grabbed at his awareness until he stumbled.

  Unease slithered across the back of his neck as he slowed and righted himself, looking to his left and right. Cycles of training at Stone gathered inside him, and his muscles bunched. Both hands moved to the hilts of his swords. Instead of drawing them right away, he dashed forward, overtaking Dari at the same moment he whispered, “Wait!”

  Dari stopped walking immediately, and her palm dropped toward the hilt of her single dagger. Her glance darted toward the trees, where Blath had sheltered herself. Too far away to call out, or make a run for it.

  “Something feels wrong,” Aron said, low enough to keep their conversation private from any ears that might be listening. He had learned not to fear manes, mockers, or beasts, even rock cats, when Dari was present and allowing a bit of her true essence to be known, but far more dangerous creatures with two legs and sharp swords crept about Eyrie at night.

  “Come,” Dari said, gripping her dagger. “If we dash for the woods—”

  Nine robed men, faces wrapped like desert bandits, stepped out of the brush pushing against the sides of the byway, surrounding them as neatly as a net drawn upward with a sharp tug. They had blades drawn, and two had bows with arrows at the ready.

  Aron and Dari drew the
ir own weapons in silence, and the nine men ringing them walked slowly in a circle, keeping their shoulders squared and their weapons pointed forward. Aron tasted the copper tang of his own fear and once more smelled the strange oil he had detected earlier. Some sort of polish or conditioning for the swords or bows, no doubt.

  The men wore no dynast colors, and by their stance and behavior, Aron guessed these were rogue soldiers.

  “Can you summon her?” Aron whispered, meaning Blath, hoping Dari understood, but she paid him no heed.

  One of the men, the tallest in the bunch, spoke. “Apprentices? What business does Stone have in Dyn Cobb, in the middle of the night?”

  “Stone business,” Dari responded in her coolest, sharpest voice. This was preplanned, her handling any verbal confrontation, since most people feared Stone Sisters even more than crazed mockers or rabid rock cats. “Do you mean to interfere?”

  One of the men snorted. “Would you be intending to steal our children, then? Many enough have disappeared, all across this dynast and others, too. It would make sense for Stone to be involved in the likes of that.”

  Aron had no idea what the man was talking about, so he made no response. Neither did Dari.

  For a time, the men said nothing else. They kept up their stalking movements, around and around, drawing the circle tighter with each pass. Dari and Aron moved closer to each other until they stood back-to-back, and Aron passed her one of his swords to hold in addition to her dagger. She could fight two-fisted as well as he could, and he wanted her to be the one holding two weapons. A better chance for her to escape. Perhaps more safety, if there was anything such as safety with odds as bad as nine seasoned fighters against two apprentices—with one of those being a pretender, on top of everything.

  Each breath Aron took grew deeper, until his head spun even as his pulse thumped in his ears and neck.

  Just get yourself and Dari home.

  Those were his only instructions from Stormbreaker, who believed he was ready for whatever fate might pitch in his path.