Exiles & Empire

by Cheryl S Mackey

  Sesti shifted, her gaze flitting between her mother’s face and the statue’s. Both were impassive and emotionless. Like stone.

  Ishelene continued, “These people were very advanced. They could travel the stars and many bore powers, like the Immortals here, yet so much more. The survivors carried with them all the hopes of a dying race.”

  “The Four are of these Starfarers?” Sesti asked. “Their people?”

  Ishelene smiled sadly. “Yes, daughter, The Four belong to those you call the Starfarers. They named themselves Soldeuns. They traveled to this world when a massive cataclysm struck down theirs. They were homeless, lost, and very afraid.”

  Exiles.

  “The legends speak of others arriving with The Four, but no names were ever mentioned.” Jadeth frowned. “My mother used to talk about meeting them as a youngling. That was over fourteen thousand years ago.”

  “Yes.” Ishelene turned to look at her, taking in Jadeth’s red braids the massive hammer held at the ready. She then turned to stare her brother down. “It was even before our time, brother.”

  “Speak your words well, sister, this had better not be a waste of our time,” Gabaran snapped.

  Ishelene smirked. “The Soldeun survivors were few in number, disastrously so. Of an entire race only a few dozen remained alive after their starship crashed somewhere here on Ein-Aral.”

  “Starship? What is that? Like a canoe?” Jaeger asked. His eyebrows wrinkled in confusion.

  “Imagine a ship, the size of a mountain, which could sail through the skies, Jaeger.” Ishelene turned to face him.

  Jaeger flinched, but held her gaze. The thought of such a ship of that size was…unbelievable. Beside him, Ivo shifted uneasily. Boats they knew. Their village of Saro-Shir was beside the great sea to the east, but to have a ship so large as that?

  Jaeger clamped his mouth shut, his jaw flexing.

  Ishelene’s gaze slid to Ivo and Emaranthe, who was all but hidden protectively in his arms. His arms tightened around the small woman as if to shield her from the Empress.

  It amused her, apparently, because her lips pulled into a smile.

  “The loss of their loved ones and home was devastating, but they had to survive. They reached out to the native peoples here, the Windwalkers, the Elves, the first Earthlanders, and were welcomed and given aide. It was a great honor, and humbling.”

  “But at the same time we had a problem,” Ishelene continued. “We carried a prisoner of war, a traitor who had committed genocide, had started the war. He escaped in the crash.”

  Emaranthe stiffened in Ivo’s arms and he watched Sesti’s gaze narrow on her mother. His gaze swept between the two, but he remained silent.

  “Several of us roamed the wilds in search of him. Others sought aide from the Windwalkers who were learned in mystical studies similar to our own. Still more were taken in by the Elves and Earthlanders… and over time we forgot.”

  “We?” Gabaran asked quietly.

  Ishelene reached for the book with shaking fingers that seemed to claw at the fire tossed shadows. Her gaze locked with his and held.

  “Who are ‘we’?” he asked even quieter. His crossed arms hid little of his feelings.

  Her hand lightly traced the plain brown leather cover. Nothing happened.

  “Time passed. The prisoner was lost. Our sick and wounded had healed, the dead buried. Over the years we forgot who we were and why we had travelled the stars,” Ishelene continued as if Gabaran’s words had gone unheard. “We grew content. We figured it would be fine, that everything would be right in the world. We also made certain that our secrets were safe.”

  She dropped her hand, the motion pulling everyone’s gazes to the book.

  Understanding dawned.

  Gabaran hissed, “You grew arrogant.”

  Ishelene leveled grief stricken blue eyes on him. She nodded.

  “Yes, arrogant. We forgot what we shouldn’t have. The very things that were meant to remind us were left hidden and disregarded. Forgotten.”

  “Like the book and crown?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Ishelene, who are ‘we’?” he asked again.

  She ignored him again. Her voice grew raspy, her breathing strained.

  “The prisoner did not forget. Not until later. When it was too late. The attacks were small at first. A hunting party killed mysteriously here. An entire village gone missing there. Animals gone berserk for no apparent reason.”

  “I remember those years,” Sesti said when the silence grew unsettling. “I am about the same age as Jadeth, so I was a youngling when the dark years began. I remember hearing whispers around the campfires. Stories of abandoned villages. People dying for no reason. At first we thought it was a plague of some sort.”

  Ishelene continued her tale. “Then the Windwalkers began to turn mad, one village, one Citadel at a time.”

  Gabaran wheezed a sigh. “Anat was the first to fall to this darkness, was it not?”

  Ishelene nodded, her gaze on the tome again. Her fingers rested on the perfectly normal looking cover.

  “After Anat fell, and all the Windwalkers within turned into the Tainted we began to realize that we had been blind,” she said. “It took several hundred years for us to even realize who must be behind it and by then we had been in an all out war with the Tainted for nearly as long. With no central figurehead, no organization between the races, to work together, to fight as one, the people of Ein-Aral were failing.”

  “The Four must have been together when they realized that something had to be done,” Jaeger spoke from the shadows flung by the nearest brazier. His cold gaze lingered on Ishelene with frank curiosity.

  “As far as I know, yes, that is true,” Ishelene admitted, her gaze still on the book. “But before you even ask, or assume, I cannot tell you who they were.”

  “Why not?” Ivo asked. His frown dug creases in his skin that would probably not smooth out. He could feel Emaranthe’s body tense, but did not dare to look down at her upturned face.

  “I was not there that day,” Ishelene said. “So all I know from this point forward is hearsay and legend.”

  Ivo released Emaranthe and crossed the library to stand near Ishelene and Gabaran. Their silent war had returned with matching glares, leaving Sesti shocked silent in their shadows.

  “Ishelene, what happened to the Starfarers?” he asked. “The ones that had spread among the races here. Were they all immortalized too?”

  “No, some were killed outright that fateful day. Only a few were actually immortalized. It appeared the curse was far more dangerous to us than the other races. The mortality rate was high.”

  A series of gasps from Jadeth and Emaranthe from just behind him made him glance back. They’d crept closer, curiosity having won out. Jaeger still stood in the shadows of the stone shelves, his frosty gaze ever watchful and curious.

  “Killed?” Gabaran asked, his voice soft and bitter. “I do not understand.”

  “Our bodies turned to dust. Our souls scattered far and wide until a new body could be found and taken for our own. It all happened instantly, of course, so no one was the wiser that something had gone horribly wrong.”

  “I gather my soul was not so lucky? That I was one who had gone wrong?”

  “I don’t know. I believe your soul tried to take a mortal before the body could die and accept an immortal soul. I don’t know why, or even how any of this was possible. As I said, I do not know who was responsible, just that it was four of our own working together to create the curse.”

  Ivo frowned at them, puzzled and turned to study the faces of the others carefully. He could feel his brother’s icy stare on his back. Skin crawling in the prolonged silence, he finally turned to face Emaranthe.

  Her face was ashen and drawn in the golden warmth of the small fires in the surrounding braziers. Shadows clung to her jaw line and beneath her eyes.

  Eyes that no longer glowed with her fiery power.

/>   Instead, grim understanding burned.

  Chapter Eleven

  “You think we are The Four who did this?” she asked Ishelene.

  “I think Rodon thinks you are.”

  “Why?” Ivo asked, his puzzled frown now a slash against his tanned skin. “What have we done to make him think so?”

  “I cannot answer that, warrior, only that I have ears as much as Atil had unseen eyes.” She turned to face the statue again. She knelt again at the stone feet. “Something must have made him suspect.”

  “We did not immediately seek to join The Unknown Sun once we arose as immortals,” Jaeger offered at last. “Could that have given his suspicions merit?”

  Ishelene studied the book with sad eyes before turning to him.

  “Possibly it is because none of your previous incarnations did as well,” she said. “He watched for you over the decades, centuries, waited for each incarnation of you to find each-other and then find The Unknown City. You never did. Not once. Not until this time.”

  “He had to have known our previous bodies then, to have hunted is so,” Jadeth said. Her voice softened. “I’ve had six, I think. Is that why he made such an issue of it?”

  “I have no doubt. Plus his interest was piqued because of another thing,” Ishelene replied. She turned to face Emaranthe again and studied her with a slight, sad smile.

  “What is it?” Emaranthe asked.

  “He never found Emaranthe at all. Not once. He does not know who she is or was. It disturbs him. Intrigues him. Like Jadeth, he has some memories, but they are chaotic and incomplete. They drive him. You are a puzzle he wishes to solve. The Youngest. The Nameless.”

  “No.” Emaranthe shook her head in dismay. “I am no one. Why would I matter?”

  Ishelene bowed her head and sighed.

  “It matters because before the Starfarers fell that night, we were more powerful than Immortals and we had a chance, a slim one, of defeating him. As Immortals we are all but powerless, the gifts we retained are weakened and unsound in these fragile mortal bodies without the energy provided by our star.”

  “If you had the chance to defeat him, why didn’t you? Why in any world would The Four have to create the Immortals in the first place?” Jaeger snapped.

  Ishelene raised an eyebrow and returned his cold glare, but didn’t waver.

  “We did try. You know this,” she said softly.

  “No, I don’t know this,” he said, even softer. “I have no doubt that my soul has walked in many bodies. But this one…this one was the last straw. I lost my love. My daughter. I lost everything that night. I did not ask to become an Immortal. I did not want this life I lead. If I could leave it behind, and become the dust on the ground you so casually claimed to have become, then so be it.”

  He spun on his heel and stalked into the deep shadows to join Dehil.

  Ivo swallowed the lump of grief and guilt as he watched his younger brother go. He didn’t take offense at the thought that Jaeger felt he had lost everything, he understood.

  “What is the point of this conversation, Ishelene?” He turned back to the Empress.

  She exhaled and turned a sad smile to him at last. “The point is, Ivo, that your brother is right. We should have taken care to ensure that Rodon would never had been able to do what he did all those eons ago. But we didn’t, until it was too late, and everyone has paid for our mistake ever since.”

  Guilt riddled silence, heavy and angry, fell.

  “I think I need to tell everyone what I saw in the book now,” Emaranthe said to the silent room at last. “Because I really don’t understand what I saw or why.”

  Ishelene’s right eyebrow shot up.

  “Very well, Child of Fire. Speak.”

  “There was nothing for a long moment, no light, no dark, no up, nor down…”

  The Book of Gods ~Emaranthe

  Emaranthe reached for her staff, suddenly needing to hold its comforting weight as if it alone could ward off the crushing uncertainty biting from all sides. It did for a peaceful moment, before everything went pitch black.

  The blackness was absolute. So was the hollow silence that seemed echo her rapid breathing.

  “Hello?” Emaranthe asked the darkness. It didn’t answer back, but let her trembling voice ring into silence. Goosebumps prickled along her bare arms and her fingers tightened around the staff. The wood creaked in her hands. Bare toes curled on an unseen ground. She forced herself to relax. Hard to do stuck in absolute nothing with only a staff. She slammed the end of the staff down, hard.

  It cracked on what sounded like stone. She shuffled a bare foot sideways. Smooth to the touch, flat. She stabbed the staff downwards again, and the sharp crack echoed, louder. Eyes closed, she listened.

  The sound traveled in all directions unimpeded, but to her left the sound abruptly muffled.

  She opened her eyes and turned on the spot to face the anomaly. Something plopped to the invisible ground perhaps twenty feet away. Water?

  “Hello? I know you can hear me,” she said. “Hello?”

  A shuffling footstep. The sound drew a shiver along her spine. A faint glow bloomed in the darkness. It flickered, small and golden. Fire.

  A petite shape shifted in the glow. The drip of a liquid broke the tense silence.

  “Who are you?” Emaranthe asked. Her voice rasped with the effort to reach the figure.

  “I am no one.”

  The girl’s voice startled Emaranthe into loosening her grip on the staff. It hit the floor and clattered away. A small candle, barely a nub, lifted higher by thin arms. It illuminated a small girl in a puddle of flickering golden light. The light wouldn’t normally have been so bright, but in a world gone so dark it was a beacon.

  “No one? How can you be no one?” Emaranthe asked. She squinted to see through the flickering glow to the girl. She appeared small, but not a child. A young woman. The candle stub raised in both hands seemed overlarge for her. Beyond the candle, large eyes of gray reflected the dancing flame. Fair hair tangled to the girl’s knees and Emaranthe realized that she was able to look her eye to eye.

  “Because he told me so,” the girl whispered. She let go of the candle to cradle a hand to her middle. Emaranthe frowned.

  “Who said so?” She eased closer. “Who are you?”

  There was a pause followed by a slow, raspy breathing.

  Drip. Plip.

  “Ainoa.”

  Emaranthe exhaled. “Ainoa is your name? How old are you, Ainoa?”

  The blonde hair bobbed up and down. “I’m seventeen or eighteen summers. I think.”

  “Ainoa, who were you talking about?” Emaranthe asked. She tried to ignore the fact that the girl was thin and sickly looking. Dirt and bruises covered her pale face.

  Another step closer. She could see the patched brown and gold tunic that was long enough to be a dress. It hung off the girl’s too thin frame in once elegant folds that spoke of a richer time in the past. Now it was all but a rag.

  She could also now see the red-black stain dampening the entire front behind the trembling fingers.

  “My father. He tried to destroy it. We tried to stop him. We burned. I think. No, she burned. It was too late for me,” Ainoa whispered. Her small hand clutched at the damp stain on the tunic, plucked it away from her skin. A dark red rivulet traced a jagged path to the frayed hem. “What is your name? How did you get here?”

  Plop.

  The sound turned Emaranthe’s stomach. She exhaled a low moan. Fear and suspicion punched her in the gut.

  Blood.

  “I am Emaranthe. Ainoa, what is his name? Who is your father?”

  She inched closer until she stood at the edge of the light bathing the ground. The sticky stain on the girl’s front continued to spread. The drops fell faster with each motion Ainoa made.

  The girl tipped her head sideways, her lips pursed. “Dro-Rodon-Aconi. The Emperor. He tried to kill the The Heart of the Star.”

  Rodon.

>   Rodon was this girl’s father? And an Emperor?

  Emaranthe struggled to process that. How is…was…that possible?

  She latched onto the other words the girl freely spoke.

  “What is The Heart of The Star, Ainoa?”

  “It’s the core of our star where our power comes from. Without it we are weak. Father wanted to put out the star and destroy us. My sister and I tried to stop him.”

  Emaranthe swallowed the bile stinging the back of her throat. Tears stung the corners of her eyes. “He did that to you?”

  Ainoa nodded. Her grip on the candle wavered. “We tried to stop him, I swear.”

  Emaranthe blinked to stall the fall of tears, unable to look away from the spreading stain. The gutting, heartsick, feeling magnified. The rivulet of blood tracking from beneath the girl’s hand turned into a steady, slow river.

  “I believe you, Ainoa. How did you stop him?”

  The girls face fell and for a split second fire rimmed silvery irises. Stunned, Emaranthe watched the flames swirl, then fade, leaving only tear dampened eyes the color of the sea in a storm.

  “My sister became the Heart of the Star to keep it safe, to save us instead.” Ainoa clutched at the bloodied tunic. A trembling hand tugged it aside to reveal a gory hole easily six inches in diameter. The blood bubbled from the wound with each wheezing breath she took. “He stabbed me with his spear. He tried to force me to stop her so he could take the power, but it was too late.”

  Plop. Plop. Plop.

  “Stop her?” Emaranthe swallowed, nauseated, as she struggled to follow the story.

  Ainoa grimaced. A hiss of pain. “My sister had to burn the world down to stop him. I was able to watch from here, in The Void, after I died.”

  Emaranthe shook her head to hide the hot tears stinging her cheeks. “I don’t understand. The Void?”

  “The Void exists between time and space, neither there or here. The living use it like a bridge. The Dead await here for another chance on The Dead Road, like me.”