by Kal Spriggs
“Your son?” Siara asked. “But I saw him die aboard the Mircea.” She was clearly confused and Christoffer would have explained except he felt a roiling darkness that threatened to overwhelm him. Xavien lives, he thought, somehow my deepest failure has come back to haunt me.
“Not my eldest son,” Christoffer said woodenly. He shook his head. “I think we are done for the day, Siara. I must inform the Council of this immediately.” He rose and went to the door, the letter clutched in one hand. Part of him wanted to keep the secret, but he knew how important it was that the Council be fully informed... and he would not fail in his duty, just has he had not failed that duty ten cycles previously when he first discovered Xavien's crimes.
***
Siara Pall
The Citadel, Boirton, Duchy of Boir
10th Martaan, Cycle 1000 Post Sundering
Siara paused outside Admiral Tarken's door and hesitated. Over the past day he had been withdrawn. They had not tackled any work and he had not, as far as she knew, left his room to eat or drink. Nikolas had tried, once, to get him to come out, but while the Admiral had been perfectly courteous, it was almost as if he hadn't heard him at all.
She finally took a deep breath and knocked.
“Enter,” he said, his voice muffled by the door.
Siara opened the door and stepped inside. The room was dark, other than the light from the doorway. Even so, the Admiral sat at his desk, hands clasped before him, almost as if he were about to undertake some work. His head came up and as his gaze met hers, she held back a gasp of surprise. His icy blue eyes, normally crisp and calm were bloodshot and troubled. “Has the Council sent for me?”
Siara shook her head, even as she came forward, “No, my Lord.” She paused, half afraid to speak. She had come to respect his ability, but whatever news this letter had contained had a profound effect upon him. She knew that Nikolas and Jenkins hadn't spoken, but she had already heard whispers about him in the hallway, that he must suffer from fatigue and exhaustion from the loss of the Northern Fleet. Those kinds of rumors had to be spread by his enemies... and that they were being spread told her that he did, indeed, have enemies here among his people.
“Ah, well, I prefer not to be disturbed...”
“That is too bad,” Siara said, tired of his moping. She felt a pulse of anger surge through her, “Are you punishing yourself?”
“What?” he asked. “Why would you...” he hesitated, “What makes you ask that?”
“Whatever message your daughter shared, it was vital,” she said, “for you rushed to the Council with it right away. Since then, though, you have restrained yourself to this room, almost as if you were a prisoner. You have not eaten, you have not drank. You haven't worked. Tell me what has happened? How can we make this right?”
He looked away, “It is something that happened long ago. Something that cannot be made right.” The misery in his voice ate at her and she felt tears well up in her own eyes. Stop that, she thought, else you'll bury yourself in tears. She had far more strength than that and if he could not be strong right now, then she must be strong for him.
“Admiral, your people need your leadership,” she said, trying another tact. “They need you.”
“They don't need me,” he said, his voice hollow. “They need someone better. I'll fail them. This is why I've told you before that I'm not fit to rule... I'm barely fit to wear the uniform.”
“Explain it to me, please,” Siara pleaded. “Stop with the half-truths and cryptic comments. Do not let me wonder why you punish yourself, why you have so much guilt, tell me. A burden carried too long becomes unmanageable. Share your burden with me.”
He met her gaze again, his eyes two portals on suffering. She could see the hesitation on his face, but also the temptation. “Do you truly fear that I would judge you?” Siara asked, guessing at the source of his hesitation. “I have seen your successes and I have seen the care you feel for those under your command. Whatever you tell me will not change that.” She wished she could make him see his greatness, see the potential she saw in him, that he would rise above the guilt and regret that had brought him low.
He looked away, “You think that now.” Still she heard resignation in his voice, as if he felt he had no other choice. The Admiral reached for a lantern. It was one of the Iron Wizards' creations, and the device burst into light at his touch, filling the room with stark, crisp shadows and highlighting the creases that sorrow and strain had carved into his face.
“My wife and I had an arranged marriage,” he said, his voice distant. “Still, I tried to make the best of it, but she was... cold, aloof.” He paused, “She came from a lesser noble house... but one whose forebears had cast a dark shadow on their line.” His face grew pained, “Much like mine, I suppose.”
Siara waited, patiently. “We had three children. Gustav and Amelia were the eldest, with them, it was easy for me to talk to them, easy to relate, they took after me, in most ways.” The Admiral looked down at his desk. “Xavien was the youngest, my second son. He took after his mother in coloring... in attitude as well. He was cold. He didn't play with the others, didn't much care for me when I would return from the Fleet, either. We were never close,” he shrugged, “I could have tried more, but his mother and he seemed to get along well, so I didn't press the issue. And there was always the Navy, calling me away.”
She saw him play with a glass bauble on his desk, a paperweight of some kind, she thought. Clearly he had become lost in thought, so she prompted him, “What happened?”
His lips formed into a hard line. “Ten cycles ago, Amelia came to me. She had heard something, in the cellars of our townhouse, late at night. She went to investigate and found Xavien had set up some kind of lab where he...” he gulped and closed his eyes, “he was experimenting on people. A pair of street orphans, we think. Blood magic... sorcery. He tried to convince her to keep it secret but she came straight to me.”
Siara winced at that. Though her own people had a more vague boundary between sorcery and magecraft, experimentation on innocents was unforgivable. “What did you do?”
“I did what any man would do,” Admiral Tarken said, his voice as hard as iron. “I brought it to the Grand Duke's attention. He sent his half-brother, Luthor Stachter to confirm it and then to arrest him. Xavien received a fair trial... and was sentenced to death. They burned him at the stake as he cursed my name in front of the crowd.” There was regret in his voice, but it was the regret of a man who wished he could have prevented his son's actions rather than covered them up. She could respect that, though she understood his sorrow.
“This is the son that your daughter reported still lives?” Siara asked hesitantly. She could see why his survival must bother him, but she still could not understand the full effect it seemed to have upon him. It was almost as if his son represented something altogether darker than his own actions, something that he feared.
He nodded, “Worse than that, he's apparently only grown in power.” There was a savage anger in his voice, the anger of a man who knew that someone had somehow escaped justice. “He's become a wizard of some sort, he... used my daughter for a spell of some kind to attack the Wold.” The way he hesitated told Siara that he didn't know the full details but that he suspected rituals of the worst sort. If that were the case, his daughter truly must be made of the same greatness as her father to survive it, Siara knew. “Since it ties him to the Armen, I can only assume that he is the southern wizard that has allied with them... and unfortunately that ties him to Lord Admiral Hennings as well.”
“How is that?” Siara asked.
The Admiral sighed, “My late wife was the sister to Admiral Hennings's wife. She's still very much alive and from what I understand, she and Hennings are a match for one another. Her family... they are descendants of Emperor Dalton... one of the worst tyrants in the history of Boir. It isn't widely known, in fact, it's something of a secret, but Dalton rose to power through mental influence. He bent loyal and ambitious men al
ike to his cause. He was able to stir and incite crowds into mobs. Mind magic, what the Starborn called psionics.”
Siara cocked her head, “So then, you think your son had these powers as his descendant?”
“I know he did, because my wife did as well,” the Admiral said, his voice harsh. “And she as much insinuated that she had taught him, that indeed, she taught him sorcery and worse, when I caught her in the middle of a ritual, just before Xavien's execution.” He ran a hand over his face, clearly troubled. “I called upon the city guard, but she killed herself in the ritual rather than be taken alive. Just before she did it, she taunted me, saying that she had corrupted our son under my nose... and that her family's fortunes would rise again.”
Siara felt a chill at that. There were many types of magic, but those that took life tended to be among the darkest. Any ritual, be it sorcery, wizardry, or shamanism that invoked the death of the caster to complete implied magic of the very darkest sort. Given what the Admiral had said about her skills in mind magic, his dead wife could have been a powerful practitioner of any of those branches of magic... or even all three. “I assume that it became public about your son, what about your wife, was there some investigation of her or her family?” In her lands, when such corruption was found, the other tribes often turned against the one which had spawned such darkness. It was a brutal form of justice, but it normally removed the cancer.
He shook his head. “The Grand Duke felt it would undermine his justice if it became known that she had eluded discovery not only through our son's trial but also for decades before that.” His lips pinched in a hard line, “Her father went into exile not long after, but there have been persistent rumors about him.”
“So this is the guilt you bear?” Siara asked. She shook her head, “My Lord, you cannot blame yourself for these things. Your wife, clearly, had training in abilities of the mind, entered into your marriage with the intent to deceive you. Your son, yes, was of your blood, but you did turn him in, to face justice. He would bear the weight of any evils he has done, not you. If he has somehow escaped justice, it is not your fault, either.”
“Not my fault?” He looked up, anger bright in his cold, icy eyes. “How can you say that? He killed innocents in my house. Xavien bears my blood in his veins. He bears my name... and if there is any one who should have ended him, it should be me. And in that, I have failed.” He dropped his gaze, “And for all his evils, my son is but the latest in my family's line of failures. All too often my family's services and successes have been overshadowed by our betrayals. Many times in our history father has fought son, a curse that goes all the way back to the Sundering.” He looked away then, almost as if he felt he had said too much.
“What do you mean?” Siara asked. This insight into him was fascinating... for she saw how she could better help him. He felt guilt and shame far in excess of what he should, she thought. If she could make him see that, then he might embrace the potential greatness within himself.
He stared down at his desk for a long moment. “The Tarken family is one of the oldest bloodlines of the nobility... but it has been disgraced since the Sundering, when my ancestor Diederich Tarken betrayed his father Grand Duke Gustav at the Plains of Sorrow.” The Admiral's voice was soft, almost weak as he spoke, “He was his younger son and he betrayed his own blood for the chance to seize what was not his by birthright. He died at that battle, but his son lived on, full in the knowledge that his father betrayed family and blood for ambition. Ever since, my family has sought to expunge that treason through military service... yet the pattern repeats itself. In the Iron Council Crisis, Franz Tarken had to be killed by his brother to prevent his support of the Iron Council. In the rise of Emperor Dalton, Bertram Tarken served in the conquest of the other duchies and helped to murder half the nobility of Boir, until he was killed by his own son. And now, Xavien has proven himself to be even worse, and what does that say about me? What legacy have I left to the world?”
“But you have a daughter, my lord, and you may yet have other sons,” Siara said quickly. She realized she had spoken too much when he looked up sharply.
“I will not,” the Admiral said sharply. “I'll not remarry and if I am lucky, my family name will end with me... and I swear that Xavien will pay for his crimes before I rest.” He shook his head. “You are right in one aspect though: my daughter is a good woman and I am proud to be her father.”
Siara felt a knot of tension in her stomach, yet he didn't seem to have picked up on her full meaning. “Your daughter wrote much besides about Xavien, what did she have to say?”
He looked up and some of the anguish drained away from his face. “She said much, though I gather she chose her words carefully. After Xavien kidnapped her, she managed to escape him and travel into the Eastwood. She doesn't tell me the specifics, but she saved the life of the Wold King, of all things.” He shook his head and smiled slightly, “She was always such a well behaved child and yet I always felt that raising her here in Boir did her something of a disservice. It almost feels as if she has finally come into her own.”
He shook his head again, “She's a guest to the Wold King and she reports that she has learned much of them. They are not as savage as the legends would have us believe, I think.”
Siara felt her eyes go wide at that. Even to her people, the Wold were considered wild and savage, with the dark legends of their violence used to scare unruly children at night. For the Admiral's daughter to have earned their friendship and the respect of their King was very impressive.
The Admiral sat in silence for a moment, but she clearly saw when his thoughts returned to Xavien. The shift of his features was a sharp demarcation, from soft planes to hard angles. “You see now why I blame myself, why not only can I not be seen as fit to rule, but that I cannot trust my very blood.”
“My lord,” Siara said softly. “You cannot allow your fears to guide you. In battle, do you think of the inevitability of defeat as you take action? No, you focus upon victory and follow it to the end and so to should you shape your destiny. To live under the fear of what has happened and what may happen is to paralyze yourself.” She studied his face and for a moment she saw his resolution fade.
It returned though in full force and he shook his head, “You don't understand. One thousand cycles of betrayal is not something to be overcome by one man and is no curse to be broken through positive thought.” Yet she heard the slightest change of tone to his voice, a very tiny edge of hope, she thought. “I appreciate your words, Siara, and I value your advice, but believe me, even if I were to come to terms with my family's legacy, the Council and others would not so easily forget it.”
She nodded at that, though more to acknowledge his statement than in actual agreement. The people of Boir struck her as pragmatic. They might remember his family's betrayals and failures, but they would also see him as an individual, and Lord Admiral Christoffer Tarken had many successes. She had seen the way that the common people had both praised him and reacted to his words. She had seen the respect that his fellow officers and noblemen had when they spoke with him. If he didn't see that yet, then she would have to work on him until he did.
Siara wasn't about to give up on him, not when she saw his potential.
***
Lord Admiral Christoffer Tarken
Boirton, Duchy of Boir
15th of Martaan, Cycle 1000 Post Sundering
Christoffer smiled at his old friend as Admiral Albert Gerhard set the paperwork at the center of the desk. “This, I think, is as good as we can get it without full Council approval.”
Christoffer nodded. After Siara had talked him out of his fugue, he had returned to planning the operation to strike the Armen as they withdrew. Between him and Admiral Gerhard, they had drafted a number of plans, based off of the known locations of raid camps and information reported as to the Armen's movements.
“You know,” Christoffer said, “The longer the Council delays on selecting a new Duke... or at
least authorizing the attacks in his or her name, the less damage we'll be able to inflict upon the Armen before they withdraw.”
Admiral Gerhard nodded, though there was something about his friend's expression that warned him he knew more than he had said. Christoffer was tempted to press him, yet the way at which some of the Council had reacted to even one of their own suggesting a selection was close was enough to stay him. Albert had risen to his position despite being the son of a dockworker, rather than being the child of a nobleman or well-connected merchant. While his capabilities were well established, there were still some on the Duke's Council who resented his authority given his background and Christoffer didn't doubt that they would use any infraction to attempt to embarrass him.
“Well,” Albert said, “I hope that this preparation will soon pay fruit.” It was a sufficiently vague statement that it didn't tell Christoffer anything of import... though the way his friend said it told him that it was almost certain their efforts would not be in vain.
Which is good, he thought, especially given the potential selections as Duke. Again, he reviewed the potential candidates in his mind and again he felt uncertain about each of them. Luthor Stachter wouldn't be trusted by many due to his heritage, despite being a skilled military commander. Lady Miranda was married to the Marovingian Duke's heir while her sister, Lady Samantha, was now confirmed as one of Lord Hennings' hostages. Hans Bacher was a scholar, who had now publicly affirmed that he wanted nothing to do with his nephew's title.
He wondered, then, if the secrecy from the Duke's Council came as a product of them reaching further afield for an heir. It wasn't inconceivable that they might select one among their number or even some other noble for the position. When Emperor Dalton had massacred half the nobility, they had eventually selected an entirely unrelated family to reign as Duke, so it wasn't as if there were no precedent. Still, he thought, a new reigning family would increase the uncertainty and would in some part legitimize Lord Hennings insinuations of a coup.
