A Prince Among Killers

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

  Nic’s last thought was of Kestrel and Snakekiller, wound together like one person, but crying out to him in two pitiful, fading voices.

  I’m coming, he thought as the edges of his thoughts frayed into nothing. I’m almost there.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  ARON

  Aron had no idea how long he had been alone in the dark when Iko came into the silent space and brought him a loaf of bread, a pear, some cheese, and some water. Aron blinked at the sun-ringed outline of the Sabor standing in the doorway, and accepted the food. “Thank you.”

  Iko closed the door, but remained in the room with Aron.

  A rustling of leather told Aron that Iko had seated himself on the floor, so he did the same. Then he consumed the gifts Iko had presented with greedy precision, even though he couldn’t see them. As he washed the last bites down with the fresh, cool water, Iko spoke.

  “I believe gods are real, but I do not believe gods make mistakes, or do anything by accident—or that they do evil. That’s why you’ve put yourself here, is it not? To better understand the nature of fate, and what fate might require of you?”

  “I’m… not sure. About any of that.” Aron dusted crumbs off his mouth and chest, then leaned his head against the wall behind him, grateful for the absolute darkness. The black curtain of nothingness surrounding him felt like a shield between him and Iko, or between him and the world.

  Though for some reason, he didn’t mind Iko’s presence. He even welcomed it, and was intrigued by the fact Iko seemed in the mood for conversation.

  “Do you believe the gods show themselves to people?” Aron asked, hopeful that the Sabor might answer him.

  “Yes,” Iko said without a hint of annoyance. “But so do evil things who would have you believe they are gods.”

  Aron licked a remaining crumb off his bottom lip, staring wide-eyed into the darkness. “Evil things like …”

  “Tricksters and misbegots.” The air rustled, and Aron imagined the shrug of Iko’s shoulder. “Liars who would use you for their own purposes.”

  Aron pondered this for a few seconds, then found it unusually easy to take the next risk. “I see the Goddess in my dreams.”

  “I know.”

  The response startled Aron.

  He didn’t want to begin to guess how Iko knew what happened in his sleep, but he was struck by the memory of Dari in her Stregan form, and how she seemed to be complete and whole on both sides of the Veil at the same time. Who knew what Sabor could really do with their mind-talents?

  “Have you seen the Goddess, Iko?”

  “No,” the Sabor said. “My allegiance lies with Cayn, who guides me and shepherds all of my people.”

  Aron couldn’t help touching his cheek against ill fortune—and against ever having an outright vision of Cayn. “If the creature I’m seeing in my dreams isn’t a Goddess, if the light I see from the Shrine sometimes isn’t a holy light, what do you think it might be?”

  There was no hesitation before Iko said, “I do not know.”

  The simple admission made Aron like Iko more, rather like the day Iko told him he would protect Tek even if he let Aron take a beating. “Do you think—do you think if I seek out the Goddess when I’m awake, I could find out?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Stormbreaker and Dari don’t see what I see,” Aron said. “They’re not certain anything is there, in the Shrine.”

  “Are you certain?”

  Aron gave this some contemplation, and realized he was certain. Absolutely sure, and his graal lent more force to his conviction. He knew Stormbreaker and Dari allowed for the possibility that he was, indeed, seeing something in the Shrine, but they put little stock in his nightmares, no matter how consistent and disturbing they might be.

  Would Dari approve of him going through the Veil alone today?

  She was in no shape to help him—and he would be completing the exercise with no intention to cause harm or take action, only to seek information. Ultimately, he wanted to decrease his own anxiety, and improve his own temper, too. Those were reasonable aims.

  Aron called a halt to his inner debate and relaxed into the darkness, letting his body grow still, allowing his breathing to assume a rhythm and pattern conducive to going through the Veil. When he next opened his eyes, the darkness seemed just as dark. Blacker than before, and deeper, as if the air itself were made of some deep velvety fabric. He reached out with the essence of his hand, stroked the space before his eyes, but felt nothing.

  It really was relaxing, being here in this dark place. He wished he hadn’t avoided it for so long, and sacrificed such an effective method of calming his own mind.

  Iko’s breathing and heartbeat sounded like rocks rumbling through a cave, and Aron felt grateful to leave them behind as he let his awareness drift upward, out of Endurance House, and into the white-blue light of day.

  The sudden increase in stimulation momentarily stunned him, but he breathed through it, using skills taught to him by Dari, and rehearsed twice a day, almost every day since he first met her. The Shrine of the Mother lay below him, just ahead—

  Nothing but monoliths and grass, an absolutely peaceful scene, rendered as perfectly as a painting.

  Stormbreaker and Dari had been right all along, hadn’t they? There was nothing in the Shrine. Nothing he should fear, and nothing attempting to harm him.

  That meant his dreams were likely phantoms of his own mind as well.

  Aron didn’t know if he felt relief or shame for his childish worries, or perhaps a little of both. He stretched his mental muscles, letting himself drift higher.

  Stormbreaker, Lady Vagrat, and Vagrat’s heir were no longer in the cornfield, and in fact, Aron sensed Lady Vagrat’s shimmering silver energy in the main keep. She was probably meeting with Lord Baldric, and likely Stormbreaker and Falconer as well. He knew better than to eavesdrop, though a small part of him was tempted. Likewise, he didn’t allow his essence to shift toward Dari’s quarters, and intrude upon her privacy.

  He moved higher, letting his perspective expand, like a bird flying into the clouds. A slight flicker of movement caught his attention to the east, something happening on this side of the Veil, and that intrigued him.

  He had no idea how to call to the Goddess in his dreams, if she even existed, which he now doubted very deeply, so it seemed the best idea to simply investigate what presented itself to him.

  No fear or dread dissuaded him as he moved himself outward, toward the increasing motion and light he could see rising above what was likely the nearer reaches of Dyn Cobb.

  At least, not until he got closer and got a better look at a familiar red glow, like flames in a ruby. Red blazes flared across the horizon, blinding in intensity as they rose, then exploded and fell into fading sparks.

  Tension rose within the essence of Aron’s body. He was aware of his heart rate increasing, and his breathing growing more rapid.

  Nic.

  The boy Aron had made contact with, the boy who was being sheltered by Tiamat Snakekiller, Stormbreaker’s sister.

  Aron moved faster, hurling his awareness toward the display. He wondered if Blath felt this way when she lowered her head and flew, really flew, with air rushing hard against her face and shoulders. It was perception, he knew. Nothing but how he imagined flying so fast might feel—yet it seemed more real than the reality of the dark room in Endurance House, where his body waited for this spiritual part of him to return.

  The ruby-crimson lights intensified, and Aron willed himself to reach the spot now, right now, exactly now.

  He pitched and tumbled ahead, the essence of his stomach lurching with the speed of his forward movement, then the force of his halt above the spot above the fountain-shots of color. When he forced his eyes open, the first thing he saw was a great horned stag, dark and spectral, standing with the majesty of a mountain and the fierce solemnity of a storm about to rain its fury on the lands below.

  Beside the creature stood a man la
rger and more perfect than any statue of the Brother, and near to them, a lady, but not the Goddess Aron thought he knew. This woman’s splendor defied all description and understanding, and she was infinitely more beautiful than he had ever before dreamed.

  They took no more notice of his presence than Dyn Altar’s Great Rocs would acknowledge a gnat. These beings were so magnificent, so huge that Aron could scarcely perceive them, so vast that he knew he wasn’t really seeing them, but only the bits of their essence his faculties could comprehend.

  He opened his mouth to cry out from the flaming pain of their existence, but that fast, they were gone—and in their place stood copies of the beings, smaller and meaner, more realistic, and infinitely more … human. Even the stag now had the presence of a person clinging to its fur and horns, a person almost familiar to Aron, no matter how hard he worked to project the image of hooves and discerning, feral eyes.

  Aron’s mind spun as the lady of the group drifted toward him, revealing herself as the Goddess of his dreams.

  Yet everything about this was wrong—and real—and he knew this with every fiber of his graal and being.

  My boy, the shimmering lady said, her words echoing and enhanced, as if she might be borrowing power from many other voices. You’ve come. Welcome.

  Aron’s essence flowed away from her, countering her progress measure for measure. He didn’t want her any closer. The man and stag followed her lead, each approaching Aron, and he knew he was in serious trouble.

  He should make a break for his earthbound body—but what of Nic, still sending up desperate flares of crimson to light the other side of the Veil?

  Nic was in trouble, and likely Snakekiller with him.

  The lady reached out a long-fingered hand. Once more she spoke in that awful, enhanced voice. Don’t think to defy me, Aron. We’ve come too far together, you and I.

  Aron intended just that, absolute defiance and disregard, but the first vision hit him like a boulder to the side of his head.

  Harvest. The last time he saw his father, his mother, his family, as they disinherited him and allowed him to be taken by Stone. His heart almost broke at how close they seemed, how tangible. If he took a deep breath, he was certain he’d smell his mother’s spiced bread, or the oil of the leather straps in the family barn.

  Something like tears formed in his real eyes, and the essence of his eyes as well. Was he still breathing? He wasn’t certain. Couldn’t feel the air flowing through him anymore. He wasn’t even sure he cared.

  Next he saw the pile of bodies and bones, all that was left of the people he loved, languishing into decay on a forest floor.

  Don’t make more mistakes, Aron, the lady he had taken for a goddess chided. Through her strange voice, Aron thought he could hear whimpering and crying, as if her presence might be hiding dozens of miserable children or wounded animals—or both. You have caused enough death, enough disaster for one lifetime.

  Aron stopped moving away from the woman, overcome with the force of his own grief and recriminations. If he faced her now, took her on and put a stop to her, or whatever game she was playing, would that somehow begin to make up for all the lives lost in his name?

  The mane of his brother Seth wavered beside him now, whispering just at it had done the night Aron saw him.

  “Where are you, brother?” Seth—or what was left of him—asked, his inquiry eerily silent when it should have been so loud. His eyes were empty, and his mane’s fangs were already beginning to extend as the lady moved ever closer. “We have to find you. We can’t leave you behind.”

  “Please,” Aron said aloud, aware of the boom of his voice. “Don’t leave me.”

  The words came unbidden, an echo of what he told the carnivorous ghost of his brother after Seth died—but this couldn’t be Seth’s mane. Stormbreaker and Dari had dispatched his family’s essence that terrible night.

  The lady was almost upon him now, arm still outstretched, cornflower eyes blazing with a new and hateful light. Her companions, the false stag and the man Aron supposed was designed to represent the Brother, marked her step for step, each staring at him with increasingly malign intent.

  Aron’s essence sank to his knees beside the horrible image of his brother, his heart aching so badly he was certain he was dying, on this side of the Veil and back at Endurance House, too.

  Red flares, graal energy, exploded through the clouds, as if to divide Aron from his attackers, but Aron knew Nic couldn’t help him, wherever Nic might be. No one could help him now. He couldn’t even muster the will to help himself.

  The hand of the lady inched closer.

  Aron lowered his head, knowing he should do something, but unable to understand what that something might be.

  “Leave me alone,” he whispered. “I want nothing to do with you and the death you deal. Leave me be!”

  The lady’s laugh was the worst thing he had ever heard. The sound seem to tear his ears from his head and crush what little hope he had left in his squeezing, struggling heart.

  You’re mine, she said privately, to no one but him. Now at least you understand that, and we can dispense with these foolish pretenses.

  Aron turned his cheek before she could touch him—and something burst through the sky, letting out a soul-chilling hiss as it came, swaying and knocking the would-be goddess onto her backside. Through his fading awareness, Aron managed to perceive the huge black head, the venomous fangs, and the blazing emerald eyes he had seen once before.

  Hood snake. Snakekiller’s essence on this side of the Veil. This time, the snake was twice as furious, and twice as large as he remembered, with its coils wrapped firmly around a glowing ruby egg. Power seemed to flow from that egg, joining with the snake and imbuing it with even more force and form than Aron thought was possible.

  The lady scrambled to her feet, eyes wide.

  The snake’s hood spread wide as it warned the lady off her egg, and seemingly off Aron, too.

  The lady and her companions staggered back from the image, but they didn’t flee.

  Not until the snake was joined by a new image.

  A Sabor appeared, easily as big as the snake and much more real, carrying long silver daggers in both blue fists. Iko strode past the snake, walking on the clouds like they were made of the firmest dirt and rock.

  The lady swore at him, then ran, vanishing as she passed the man and the stag.

  Iko reached the fake god of death first, raised one of his daggers, and brought it down with a swiftness that startled Aron.

  Before the blade struck home, the stag and the man burst into sparkles and disappeared.

  When Iko turned to regard Aron, the snake and egg vanished as well, as if they had never appeared.

  “Return with me now,” Iko commanded, and Aron lifted the essence of his wrist for Iko to grab. He felt the electric jolt of contact, then a sweeping rush of speed as the Sabor once more set off across the clouds, heading straight back for Triune.

  • • •

  Aron came back to himself in Endurance House, shaking and coughing and feeling a beyond-painful cold, like someone had dipped his skin in ice water.

  Iko was seated beside him, and was indeed pouring water on Aron’s face. Two silver daggers lay beside his leather-clad blue legs, and the Sabor had opened the room’s door and window to admit as much light as the space and design would allow.

  “That boy,” Iko whispered, clearly distressed. “His body. You—I didn’t imagine—I never thought to see anyone who survived injuries like that.”

  “We have to go back.” Aron’s teeth chattered. “We have to get to Nic and Snakekiller before they do. Those false gods.”

  Iko responded by standing, sheathing his daggers, then pulling Aron to his feet. Determination fueled and powered Aron, though he felt near to physical collapse. Blood beat against his ears, hot in his throat and chest, and his breath came shorter with each ragged gasp. He caught the salty scent of his own sweat, but the smell of woods and grass cl
ung to his mind, a remnant of where Nic and Snakekiller had been when he left them.

  Like two parts of the same body, Aron and Iko hurried out of Endurance House, past Markam, who made no attempt to stop them, or even to speak.

  Aron realized that was probably because Iko was in the process of shifting, his blue skin sprouting fur and claws and feathers with each step they took. By the time they reached the byway separating Endurance House from the forge and the mock battlefield, Iko walked on four wickedly clawed paws. His lion’s tail trailed in the dirt, and his eagle wings lifted toward the clear blue sky, white feathers gleaming. He had a leather band spanning his girth, and Aron could see the hilt of the silver dagger nearest him, at the ready if it was needed. Iko knelt, and Aron grabbed the Sabor-now-gryphon’s mane and hoisted himself up behind Iko’s neck. He knew they were being watched, that dozens of reports would fly back to Stormbreaker, Dari, and Lord Baldric, too.

  Good. Let them come. Let them follow.

  “They can find our bodies, at least,” he shouted into the wind as Iko charged down the byway in the direction of the forge. Then Aron clung for his life as his huge wings flapped, lifting them over the eastern wall of Triune and up into the vast skies of Eyrie.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  ARON

  Aron’s teeth clenched against the frigid wind as Iko flew high and fast.

  How long since he had awakened in Endurance House? Fifteen minutes? Half an hour—or more? Time was slipping away just like his balance.

  Iko’s wings seemed much larger than Blath’s, as did his entire gryphon body, and Aron lurched and slid with each powerful flap. His tunic and breeches whipped and stung his legs and face. It was almost impossible to breathe, and when he could gulp air, he had to fight to close his mouth again. Aron was convinced that any second, his skin would strip off his bones, leaving Iko to land with a frozen skeleton as his only passenger.

  When Iko did dip beneath the clouds, Aron battled to turn his head left, then right, eyes watering even as he tried to take in the rapidly approaching landscape below. Grasslands stretched across his view like a woven green rug, but he saw no nearby villages. As Iko took them lower, Aron squinted and made out copses of trees and even small wooded stretches. Smoke rose from one of those patches. Their destination.