Nessa yelped beside him, while at the same time something sharp pointed into his back. Crian peered over his shoulder; two servants were behind him, holding a dagger apiece against him and Nessa. A hand reached down and snatched Integrity from his grasp, slipping the sword from its sheath as silently as if it were covered with oil. Nessa looked frightened enough to faint, and though he tried to impart comfort through their clasped hands, she began to cry all the same.
“Please, come in,” said Deacon, standing against the side wall of the dining hall, his once firm voice suddenly unsure.
Crian urged Nessa into the dining hall, trying to remain outwardly calm despite the fact that his entire body was numb with apprehension. The double doors closed behind them, sealing them in the room with Lord Coldmine, Avila, and their father, the Highest.
His father sat back in his chair, eyeing them with the faintest spark of interest. Avila leaned forward, scowling at him, her forehead and the left side of her face an ugly mishmash of pulped flesh and yellowing bruises from where he’d struck her with the candlestick. A person of lesser strength would not have survived. She flexed her fingers, mere inches away from the pommel of her sword, which was lying on the table, the tip facing him. They were both wearing their traditional black riding leathers, the insignia of the Crestwell house outlined in red on their chests. Crian slowly moved Nessa behind him, as if by some miracle he might defend her.
Crian looked at Deacon, torn between pity and fury.
“Why?” he asked, barely able to squeeze the sound from his throat.
The lord of Haven swallowed.
“Some things are more important than others,” he said. “And nothing is more important than the orders of my god, whether or not I understand them. I’m sorry, Crian. The faithful rarely walk an easy path.”
The older lord turned to Crian’s father and bowed.
“If you are done with me, my Highest, I will take my leave.”
His father wagged two fingers toward the door, still silent. Deacon backed away gradually, one tiny step at a time, bent at the waist. Keeping Nessa behind him, Crian slid out of the way so that Coldmine could exit. He had a thought to charge the doors when they opened, but that idea was quashed the moment he saw the servants—no, not servants, he realized, but his own men from Omnmount in disguise—holding their rapiers at the ready. Instead, Crian let the doors shut, sealing him in with his executioners.
“Sit…down,” his father hissed, and Crian immediately pulled out a chair and complied. Nessa lingered behind him, so white she looked ready to fade away completely. Avila slapped her gloved hand on the table, ordering Nessa to sit as well. She obeyed at once, slipping in beside Crian, tears streaming down her cheeks as her tiny chest rose and fell with wheezing sobs.
The Highest placed a curved dagger on the table and started to twirl it, his eyes fixed on the spinning blade.
“I am very, very disappointed in you, son,” he said. His tone was the one he usually reserved for those under his command. He had never used it with Crian before, and right then Crian knew he was going to die.
He hung his head and said nothing.
“Imagine how distressing it was for me, coming to the Omnmount staging grounds to find a recruit dead and my precious daughter beaten beyond recognition. Her beautiful face was smashed, and her hair ran red with blood. We are lucky she is a strong girl, for a mortal woman would have died from the injuries you bestowed on her.”
His finger traced the ugly bruising, the line of cracked and bleeding flesh that ran from the center of his daughter’s formerly pristine forehead, looped around her left eye, and then bulged along her cheek to her ear, which was swollen to twice its normal size.
“She is stronger than you, Crian,” he said. “So much stronger. I now know my mistake. I should have made Avila my Left Hand, not you.”
A defiant streak rose in Crian, and against his better judgment he spat, “Perhaps you should have. After all, you do enjoy fucking her. If she were on your left, you would be able to do it more often.”
“There is no need for such crudeness,” his father replied, his tone not rising in the slightest. “You are in the wrong here. You have gone against my decree and, by proxy, that of your god.”
“So you speak for Karak now?”
“I always have. If not, why would he have arrived in Omnmount along with me?”
Crian froze.
“Yes, that’s right. The god you turned your back on now stands beside your brother, watching over his army as they prepare for the day they will raze this land into the Abyss. Had you stayed your upheaval, you would have seen it for yourself.”
“I never lost faith in my god,” Crian whispered, his head bowed. “Only in you and your rules.”
Clovis laughed, the sound filling the room and making Nessa cry all the harder.
“Shut her up,” growled Avila, finally gripping her sword and leveling it at him, without budging from her seat. “Or I will shut her up for you.”
Crian placed a hand on Nessa’s chest, silencing her. He knew his sister wasn’t one to make idle threats.
“How did you find us?” he asked, rocking his love in an attempt to ease her fear. “How did you know where I was?”
Clovis regarded him evenly.
“My Whisperer sees much. He said you fled across the bridge, and once I knew that, I knew precisely where to find you.”
“How did he see me cross?” Crian asked, thinking of that horrible night. “Was he one of the soldiers?”
His father shook his head, laughing once more. “Not at all, you impudent whelp. My Whisperer paved the way for you. He was the one who chased the soldiers away, allowing you to cross unmolested. An unfortunate loss of life for those who perished, yes, but you are worth a hundred of them, my dear son. I had to know. I had to be certain.”
Crian’s jaw dropped open. He remembered how fortunate he had felt when the giant beast of smoke had lashed out at the soldiers. But still, the terror that had accompanied it, the bloody spectacle.…
With newfound horror, Crian stared at his father, wondering what manner of monster Clovis called ally.
“So you know,” Clovis said, reaching underneath the table, “I went into the Ghostwood myself to gather your things.” Up came Crian’s dragonglass mirror. He slid it across the flat surface, and Crian stopped it with hands that seemed to move on their own. His father’s gaze seemed to linger on the mirror, and the faintest trace of sadness flashed across his face.
“We only had to wait for you to come to us,” Clovis said, the corner of his lip upturned. “I never imagined you would arrive so quickly.”
“But why?” Nessa murmured so quietly that Crian could barely hear her. But his father did, and to Crian’s shock the man’s expression softened.
“Oh, sweet child,” he said, “if I had caught my son fleeing into the delta by himself, he could have accused his sister of lying and given me any excuse rather than admitting to his sins. I needed to catch him in the act—catch him with you, my sweet—in order to prove how much he has betrayed me.”
His father grinned then, an expression so malicious that Crian flew up from his chair, knocking it back against the double doors, and grabbed Nessa around the shoulders, moving her behind him. Avila lifted her sword and began to rise, but the Highest grabbed the sleeve of her shirt and yanked her back down. Her ruined face sneered at him.
“None of this is Nessa’s doing!” Crian screamed. “You will let her go, and you will let her go now. Take me if you want—execute me—but let her live, or so help me, I will end you both right here and now.”
His father sighed and closed his eyes. He pulled the silver-white hair back from his forehead, a gesture he always used when frustrated.
“I am not going to hurt her,” he said. “And although I would so enjoy hurting you, I will refrain from doing that either. Though you turned your back on your deity, you did so without fully realizing it, which makes you a far different case from
your renegade sister.”
Crian’s jaw dropped open. This was a most unexpected answer to receive. The tiniest hint of hope rose in his belly as he listened to his father speak.
“However, you have broken the laws of our family, and that carries a price. Your title of Left Hand is at once rescinded, an honor I now place on Avila’s shoulders.”
“Thank you, Father,” said Avila.
“Silence.” He turned back to Crian. “Also, you will accompany us back to Veldaren and be stripped of the Crestwell name. You are no longer welcome at the family compound on the other side of the Queln. You will no longer regard me as father, and should you ever see your mother again, you shall not look her in the eye. Your room in Tower Servitude is hereby revoked. You will serve as a member of the Watch, living in the Tower Keep alongside the other mongrels who chose to give in to weakness, until you earn enough coin to find a dwelling of your own.”
Crian was shocked. He stepped back, a hand over his heart. I am to live? His blood pumped faster and he glanced behind him at Nessa, who was shaking, her hands clenched in front of her mouth.
“And what of my love?” he asked.
“Her?” said his father. “She’s Ashhur’s concern. What the girl does is up to her. She is free to go home if she chooses, or she can join you in Veldaren. I hold no ill will against her, naïve and stupid as she is. I expected better from you, Crian, not her.”
Nessa abruptly ceased her crying. Her wide, pleading blue eyes gazed up from beneath the snarled tangle of red hair.
“I am free to choose?” she asked.
The Highest pushed his chair back, stood up, and rounded the table. He knelt down until their faces were level.
“It is your choice,” he said. “Do you love this traitor enough to relinquish your god and fall into the arms of Karak? Do you love him enough to give up your life of ease and simplicity and spend the rest of your days washing clothes, raising babes, and cooking meals for a man who will never earn enough coin for you to live comfortably?”
Nessa gazed up at Crian, and for a moment he thought for sure she would flee from him, flee from the hardships that such a life would entail. Instead she rose from the floor, walked up to him with a confidence he had never seen before in her, rose up on her tiptoes, and planted a kiss on his cheek.
“Always and forever, I choose you,” she said, biting her lower lip. “No matter what hardships we face, comfort will always come if you are by my side.”
“So be it,” said his father.
“You would do this for me?” Crian said to Nessa. “For us? Give up your life, your god?”
“What is a god to someone like me?” she replied. “All the prayer in the world would mean nothing if I never saw you again.”
“The choice is made,” declared the Highest. “You leave with us tonight, and your sentence begins the moment we arrive back on Veldaren soil. And do not even think of trying to rescue Moira. Your sister has made her choice, and she will die with the rest of the blasphemers in this godforsaken swampland.”
His father nodded to Avila, who scowled as she worked her way around the table, giving them both a wide berth. She yanked open one of the double doors and stormed out of the room. The Highest stood and approached him. He leaned in and whispered into Crian’s ear, just loud enough for his son to hear.
“Be glad forces other than myself wish you alive, boy. You tread dangerous ground here. You will be watched.”
With those foreboding words, Clovis left the room, his white hair trailing behind him like the tail of a sea serpent.
Once he and Nessa were alone, Crian tried to put his father’s anger out of his mind. He turned to his love and kissed her lips, softly, slowly. It felt as if she stole the breath from his lungs.
“Are we making the right choice?” he asked. “Deacon is no ally of theirs. Can we really leave them here under his control? He’s the one preparing the defense of Haven, a defense which I’m sure will capitulate the moment the battle begins.”
“What other choice do we have?” Nessa asked.
“I don’t know,” Crian said. “We can still try to flee—maybe run in opposite directions. Something, Nessa, something! They’ll die otherwise.”
“We are the only people we can hope to save,” Nessa whispered, but she didn’t sound confident. She opened her mouth again, but nothing came out. She simply latched onto his arm and didn’t let go.
“We will send a letter to the others once we get to Veldaren,” he said. “They can’t watch us forever.”
She nodded. “That we can do.”
The decision made, Crian let out a sigh and accepted it. He scooped up his mirror from the table, tucked it beneath his elbow, and offered Nessa his arm. Together they walked out of the dining hall, virtually running toward the open door at the end of the corridor, where his father and Avila waited with the horses to bring them to their new lives as hard-working, nameless commoners.
CHAPTER
22
Neither of their parents listened. Or if they did listen, they didn’t believe.
After sharing all they had heard in the crypts below Dezerea, earning nothing but confused, disbelieving stares, Aully and Kindren had sworn never to speak a word of what had happened again, either to each other or anyone else.
It proved an easy promise to keep, given what came next.
Orden Thyne arrived at the East Garrison not a full day after the two children had spilled their hearts out to their families. The Sovereign of Dezerea expressed concern to Cleotis and Audrianna over the dangerous imaginations of their respective children. “Accusations such as these are irresponsible,” he said, “if not utterly perilous to the survival of our people. And you—staying in the same dwelling as they!” Aully sat in the corner, hands between her knees and head down, listening as the father of her beloved prattled on about how the Quellan would react if they found out that the heirs to the two noble family lines were spreading vicious rumors about them. “Neyvar Ruven would accuse us of being traitorous. We have tried for centuries to improve the relations between our nations; we mustn’t risk a return to discord.”
It was decided that the two youths needed a break from each other. That had been twelve days ago, and Aully had neither seen nor heard from Kindren since. Her heart felt like it was breaking, and while she stood alone in her quarters in the East Garrison, gazing out the window at the nighttime fires that burned among the trees throughout the forest city of Dezerea, she considered leaping from the ledge and plummeting to her death.
Strangely enough, it was Ceredon who rescued her from herself. The beautiful, bronze-skinned Quellan knocked on her door that night, asking if she would like to talk. She did, and as they sat across from each other on her bed, tossing innocuous chatter back and forth, she felt an odd sensation of safety overwhelm her. The impetuous egotist she had met at the tournament was gone now, replaced by a man of dignity and respect who treated her like a beloved younger sister.
There were thankfully no romantic notions between them, certainly not on Ceredon’s part. Eighty-three years her senior, he acted a perfect gentleman at all times, just as he had during the entirety of her stay in the East Garrison. As their visits continued, she began to act flirtatious in her own immature way, compelled by his attractiveness and confidence. She’d nudge closer to him during his nightly visits, hold his stare longer than necessary, and when she felt particularly daring, she’d try to touch the skin of his hands or face, just to see how it felt. She felt guilty each time it happened, and without fail she would kneel and pray to Celestia for forgiveness when he left her room. Then she’d sit by her window, gazing at the emerald splendor of Palace Thyne, glowing beneath the light of the rapidly waxing moon.
On more than one occasion she would catch sight of a figure gazing out of a tiny porthole on the sixth story of the palace, the humanoid outline no bigger than that of the smallest ant. She felt a connection pass through the great distance between them, a wave of delicate energ
y that massaged her heart and made her sigh.
It was Kindren. She didn’t need the proof of seeing his face to know it was true.
It was dawn when they arrived from the northeast, where the low mountain chain separated Dezerea from the Gihon River.
Aully was awakened by footfalls and a series of rhythmic shouts, almost like singing, and she rolled from her bed, padding sleepily to her window. The blinding rays of the morning sun reflected off the East Garrison’s sparkling crystal walls, forcing her to shield her eyes with her hands. A cold wind blew in the window from the north, catching her unprepared, and goose pimples rose on her flesh beneath the thin nightdress she wore. Jetting streams of gray clouds passed over the low-hanging sun, granting her eyes a temporary reprieve. She took that opportunity to scan the expanse of ancient trees for the source of the noise.
They emerged from the forest, moving into the shadow of the East Garrison with dreadful speed. A seemingly endless parade of elves, Quellan all, marching in unison, bows slung over their shoulders and sheathed khandars hanging from their belts. An immensely large elf marched at their lead, his broad chest as wide as that of any two in his regiment combined. As he passed beneath her window, Aully saw his face, which was as large as the rest of him, his eyes too far apart, his lips constantly locked in a sneer. Unlike the rest of the elves, who were dressed in the traditional green tunic and brown breeches, he wore a glistening black top that looked like solid oil. It left his shoulders exposed, revealing the great musculature of his arms. He also differed from the others in that he carried no bow or khandar; instead, two long, thick swords were strapped to his back, so black they seemed to blend into whatever material made up his clothes. She only knew they were swords by the two handles that bounced on either side of his too large head.
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