by Cindy Dees
“Come,” Sasha murmured. “Your breathing does not sound good. The old affliction has flared up again?”
“Aye,” Gabrielle sighed. “It does not like the stress … and perfumes … of court.”
They ducked into the dim alcove.
“Well now,” a male voice said from within the alcove’s deepest shadows. “What manner of peacocks do we have here?”
Gabrielle flinched at the power vibrating through the voice. A Kothite lord. And she knew this one—or of him, at any rate. Tyviden Starfire, son of Archduke Ammertus and of the Corona of the Shattered Isles. A Dread High Lord by virtue of his father’s well-earned honorific, “Dread,” Tyviden was no one to trifle with.
Starfire and her husband had crossed swords with each other a few years back. Ammertus had been ordered by the Emperor to increase production of Black Ships, and in turn, Ammertus had sent his son, Starfire, to Haraland and Quantaine to increase the harvesting and preparation of the rare and magical ironwood from which the ships were built. Tyviden had promptly provoked the Forester’s Guild and shipbuilders so badly that all ironwood and Black Ship production had been seriously threatened and even temporarily ceased.
Regalo had stepped in and smoothed everything over, not only restoring but also increasing production. Tyviden’s anticipated glory at court had been quietly stolen by Regalo, and Starfire had not forgiven her husband for it. It was never a good thing to thwart an Imperial noble. Sooner or later, they always got even. And given Kothites’ indefinite life spans, they could be extremely patient in taking their revenge.
The iron band around her chest tightened even more as her anxiety climbed. “My apologies, Dread High Lord Starfire,” she said carefully. “We did not see that this chamber was occupied. We shall leave you to your rest.”
“Nay. The floor is crowded with simpletons and sycophants. Ladies such as yourself should enjoy better. Join me.” Starfire added, “I insist.”
Sasha glanced at her anxiously, and Gabrielle cursed silently. It never served to show fear to this particular Kothite. In her experience, he fed upon it like a drug. She stepped partially in front of her friend, blocking her from Starfire’s view.
“Tell me, Dread High Lord,” Gabrielle asked cautiously, “how are you enjoying the entertainment this evening?”
“I was sorely afflicted with a case of melancholy and suffering through these stodgy proceedings until you were delivered unto me, dear ladies. However, I feel my spirit stir in your presence.”
Gabrielle did not miss the innuendo in his words. Were it anyone of less rank who insulted her thus, she would call them out for it. She watched on grimly as Tyviden adjusted his formal court garb with a flourish. The white satin robe with its long ceremonial cowl was decorated at hood, wrists, and hem with the signature black flames of a High Lord. She didn’t need the blatant reminder of his rank and clenched her jaw against a sarcastic remark.
“The orchestra is magnificent, High Lord. Perhaps a dance would relieve the ennui of this gathering for you. Lady Sasha and I are planning to do that very thing as soon as we repair our appearances.”
Sasha took the hint and nodded in agreement with the lie about dancing. But Starfire did not take the hint and do the polite thing, which was to leave. In fact, he took a step forward and placed himself within a hair’s width of an inappropriate distance from Gabrielle. She eased one foot backward a tiny bit. Then the other one. Inch by inch, she backed away from him.
“May I convey a greeting or message to my lord King of Haraland?” she murmured.
Starfire studied her intently enough that her skin fairly crawled. His stare flaunted every rule of polite behavior, leaving her feeling vulnerable and on display. He replied silkily, “Not to worry, my dear. Your husband will certainly know when I decide to deliver a message to him.”
All the while, Starfire stared at her. She found herself alternately repelled and fascinated by the hypnotic power of his stare. What would it be like to have such an ability? Would she make people adore her like Endellian was said to? Or mayhap plant suggestions deep within their minds that even her victims did not know lurked there? She took a step forward. The possibilities were endless. And all of them were right there, in Starfire’s dark, beckoning gaze. Another step. The lure was irresistible. He would teach her all the secrets of it—
“Stop that!” a voice shouted from somewhere very far away. But the words barely touched her as she stared deep, deep into Tyviden’s mesmerizing eyes.
A fist shot past her so fast she barely saw it and smashed into Starfire’s nose with a sickening crunch of flesh and bone.
Starfire howled, and abruptly the spell upon her shattered, leaving Gabrielle disoriented and dizzy. Where was she? Oh yes. An alcove. With someone … who … of course, Sasha. They’d come upon Starfire by accident. And Darius had just hit him—
The ramifications of a common knight striking a Kothite lord slammed into Gabrielle every bit as hard as that fist had struck. Horror screamed through her. Darius would be permanently killed. His entire family tortured and enslaved. Perhaps the town he came from torched and razed. Starfire could choose to call Darius out in a duel and slice his mind to ribbons before doing the same to his helpless body.
And all because Darius had dared to protect her from whatever seduction Starfire had attempted upon her. The injustice of it burned like brimstone in her gut. As Starfire snarled in rage, she leaped forward, throwing herself bodily between Darius and the furious Kothite.
Darius’s knuckles looked shattered, and his face was draining fast of color. The pain must be intense. She looked back at Starfire quickly. His nose didn’t look particularly injured beneath a little blood on his face, and he seemed more shocked than anything else. But in a moment he would recover and explode, and her faithful servitor would be destroyed.
Her constricted lungs finally gave out and her knees began to buckle. Sasha placed a solicitous arm around her, steadying her. And mayhap Sasha attempted to provide moral support in the face of Starfire’s rage. Or mayhap she was caught in the same web of hypnotic seduction that Gabrielle had been.
“Sasha,” she gasped urgently, “find my … husband … bring him … quickly.”
The young woman blinked several times. A look of horror came over her face, and she fled the alcove.
Clearly in terrible pain, Darius took Sasha’s place at her side, bending down in concern to address her through clenched teeth. “Is it your breath, my lady?” Her malady was known only to those closest to her, but, of course, dear Darius was one of those trusted few.
Starfire raised his hands and brandished them like weapons, preparing to rend her man from limb to limb with his formidable magic. Despite his injury, Darius took a defensive stance in front of her.
A rose-colored glow began to gather around Starfire. A terrifying image of Haraland’s bravest, youngest, most trusted knight being shredded and disgraced poured over her. That was what Starfire had in mind for her man. The rose glow continued to build until it formed a wave of dread and despair that broke over her, so horrible and crushing she wanted to kill herself.
Darius trembled in front of her but did not yield his position. So brave and true he was. It gave her the courage to gather herself. To step forward, toward that frightening gathering of thought power. To cry out, “Sir Darius! I place you under arrest!”
Tyviden froze. He stared at her almost as if he did not comprehend her words. And then his face rapidly began to turn a violent shade of red. “Oh no,” Starfire snarled. “He is going to die. Now.”
But her outburst had cost him a moment’s concentration. And moreover, that moment gave Sasha time to race back into the alcove followed closely by her own husband, the ambassador from the Heartland.
“Your husband comes,” Sasha panted to Gabrielle.
Fury and chagrin danced across Starfire’s face.
The ambassador stepped forward, pulling a cloth out of his pouch. “Dread High Lord, are you wounded?” he exc
laimed with slightly exaggerated concern. Gabrielle’s jaw dropped as he actually mopped a few specks of blood off Tyviden’s face as one might wipe a child’s nose.
“My mistake,” the ambassador announced in apparent surprise, stepping back as he realized Starfire’s face was completely uninjured. It was, however, approaching purple in hue.
The ambassador reached for Darius’s shattered hand. “The blood must have come from you. That looks painful. Let me heal it.” He added low, “I will not have time to do this slowly. I apologize.”
Darius nodded, which did not surprise Gabrielle. He’d been slammed with healing in combat enough times to be familiar with the sharp discomfort to come.
As the healer incanted his magic and thrust it into her man’s mangled hand, Gabrielle noticed Starfire gloating momentarily with pleasure, almost as if he sniffed Darius’s pain and found its scent seductively sweet.
Shuddering, she pulled the handkerchief from her sleeve and wrapped it tenderly around Darius’s healed, but still red and swollen, knuckles. Her knight’s fingers clutched the token tightly.
Afraid of what Starfire would do next, she made her way weakly to the arched doorway, which had the effect of forcing Darius to support her and moving him away from the depraved Kothite behind them.
She squeezed her man’s forearm in silent gratitude, then took as deep a breath as she could manage and called out, “Sir Darius, in the name of His Resplendent Majesty, Emperor Maximillian the Third, I place you under arrest for the crime of treason!”
Her declaration froze everyone within earshot. Treason was among the most serious of crimes.
Starfire burst out of the alcove, narrowly missing knocking her off her feet. He was all but snarling in fury. She had effectively snatched revenge out of his grasp by throwing her knight under the boot of Imperial justice instead. Starfire’s face shifted from fuming to outright fury. No question but she’d made a dangerous enemy this night, and it was personal, now.
“What is this?” a familiar voice demanded.
Thank the stars. Regalo. “My king,” she wheezed, “I request … an immediate hearing … in the matter of treason … committed by Sir Darius … against the person … of Dread High Lord Tyviden Starfire.”
Her husband started to move toward her in concern, but she shook her head slightly at him and he checked his step, frowning. He glanced shrewdly at Starfire’s enraged visage, Darius’s clenched fists, and her own hectic face. He knew her well enough to interpret the terror and desperation in her eyes correctly and go along with her odd accusation.
Regalo announced formally, “This man is under arrest. Take him away.”
Tyviden stepped forward angrily. “I invoke my right of vengeance over this cur for laying a hand on me.”
It was exactly this that Gabrielle hoped to avert. Once vengeance was invoked, Kothite nobles might legally contract with the Imperial Assassin’s Guild to murder the target of their vendetta, or, of course, they could choose to hunt down and kill the target themselves.
King Regalo replied smoothly, “I apologize, my Dread Lord, but according to Imperial law, you may not invoke vengeance at this time. An accusation of treason is so serious that it merits a hearing before the Emperor himself. Until His Resplendent Majesty has ruled in the matter, Sir Darius must remain a prisoner … and alive so that proper justice may be done. Do you not agree?”
Starfire looked apoplectic with fury, but also seemed to know himself outmaneuvered. With a growl, he nodded once, grudgingly.
Regalo waved over several Imperial guards to seize Darius, and Tyviden snarled, “I shall have my pound of flesh one way or another, Haraland!”
Regalo’s personal guard whisked Darius out from under Starfire’s sputtering rage and led him away. As they passed by, she murmured to the knight, “Ahh, Darius. I am so sorry.”
He paused long enough to reply, “It has been my privilege to serve you, my lady. If I am forfeit in defense of your honor, then the coin of my life is well spent.” He pressed something cold and hard into her hand, and she looked down to see his signet ring, mangled by the blow to Starfire’s face.
She pressed the back of her trembling hand to her mouth as her husband, his visage stony, followed the soldiers leading away his most faithful knight to face possible torture and certain death. All for the crime of protecting her from a vengeful Kothite.
“You are upset, Gabi. Perhaps a little privacy to collect yourself and your breath…,” Sasha murmured.
Burgeoning fear finally registered in Gabrielle’s overwrought mind. What had she just done? Nobody called themselves to the Emperor’s attention if they wished to live for long. Had she just ruined them all?
* * *
Endellian watched Laernan hand-signal a pair of deaf-mute guards to remove the lifeless body of the Crone between them. Moments later a heavy door at the far end of the room swung open and the same guards shoved forward a young man, little more than a boy, really.
Maximilian stalked over to the youth. “You will prophecy for me, Child of Fate. Tell me what the last oracle saw.”
“I do not know. I was not given the prophecy.”
“Then see it for me. Now.”
“That is not how the gift works, Your Resplendent Majesty—”
Maximillian cut him off. “There are ways to make it work thus.” He stared fixedly at the boy, and Endellian felt Time ripping in the youth’s mind. And then, without warning, the prophetic link was severed, cut off like wheat falling before a scythe.
Her father frowned. “Bring the Sands of Time,” he ordered one of the guards.
The fellow nodded and hurried from the room. In a matter of minutes a small chest was presented to Maximillian. He waved his hand across it, releasing the magical lock of his making. He opened the lid and lifted out a glass orb about the size of a melon.
It was said the orb itself was made from Sands of Time, too, fashioned by the master glassblowers in Scythia. They made infused glass harder than steel, able to hold and release magic energy without breaking and, in this case, magical enough in nature not to drain the delicate power from the sands within it. The sands came from Kufu, a loose conglomeration of desert trade cities that straddled several distant kingdoms and was home to Laernan’s father.
Maximillian carefully unstoppered the orb and poured out a small handful of the sands from the Lost Deserts of Time into Laernan’s palm. She suspected that, if her father tried to use the sands himself, it would draw unwelcome attention from the Accord in her father’s direction.
The Accord was a living contract. It bound all of the greater beings to its immutable laws and none were above its swift justice, not even Maximillian. Created at the end of the First Age by the Dragons of Haelos when a disastrous elemental war nearly destroyed all of Urth, the Accord bound all of its signatories and their descendants in an irrevocable pact.
If her power grew enough, it might bind her one day as well, but she had been careful never to put herself crossways of it. She’d seen a Time Warden, once—from a distance. They were created by the Accord to aid in enforcement of its laws and to adjudicate the Games, where elders vied for prominence and power without destroying the mortals around them.
In spite of Laernan’s gift of manipulating visions through time, he was not powerful enough in his own right to be bound too tightly by the Accord. Most seers were not talented enough to harness the magic of the sands, but Laernan was attuned to them by birth and able to use them not only to pull visions from seers but also to share those visions with others.
Her half brother murmured something in a tongue so ancient and strange that Endellian had no idea what it meant, and then he tossed the sand over the youth’s head. It was so fine that it hung suspended around the boy like glittering dust.
Laernan had described the effect of the sands to her once. He said it was as if invisible beams of light were suddenly revealed as they struck the tiny particles of sand. And each beam was a snippet of Time released from beh
ind the Veil. In the presence of the sands, he could see the crisscrossing patterns of the beams and decipher the lightning-fast snatches of visions that leaked through the fractures in Time.
“Ahh,” Laernan sighed in satisfaction, staring fixedly at his invisible beams of prophecy.
Within moments the boy oracle began trembling almost too violently to stand and breathing too hard to sob as the unwilling vision was dragged through a crack in Time and forced into his mind.
Endellian felt her father mentally brace himself to hold off whatever force might try to claim the boy before Laernan captured the youth’s vision.
“Now then,” Maximillian said, his voice growing in power with every word he uttered. “Tell me true what you see, and tell me all.”
As the oracle continued to resist the vision flooding his mind, Laernan murmured gently, “Do as he says, boy. Work with us and your life and death do not have to be in vain. Otherwise, I cannot guarantee what will happen to you and every one of your blood … until the end of them all. Either way, we will have the vision. Such is the will of Koth.”
The Emperor was blasting the seer with such compulsion to reveal the prophecy that Endellian wondered how the boy still lived. The youth’s knees buckled before the Emperor’s power, and impassively the guards leaped forward, snagged him under the arms, and dragged him, whimpering, to his feet.
She felt Laernan insinuate himself into the young prophet’s mind, forcing the tear full open, flooding the boy’s head with vision upon vision upon vision, far too fast for her to register or process. How Laernan managed to unscramble that mess she had no idea.
“The end,” the boy gasped. “I see the end.”
“Of what?” Maximillian demanded.
