by Ryan Kirk
Alena gasped softly.
It was beautiful, a working of a scale and intricacy beyond her wildest imagining.
On the other side of the Alna, a translucent wall rose before her. Gossamer threads of infinite complexity intertwined in a pattern Alena could almost understand.
Jace’s voice brought her back to her body. She could have gotten lost in that wall for ages. How was such a working possible? It made the impossible stonework hidden in the mountains outside Landow look like child’s play in comparison.
She tightened her grip on the reins of her horse. The sight before her was wondrous. But it was another mystery to which she foresaw no easy answers. That wall was a soulworking, but the Etari despised any mental affinity.
Yet they relied on it to guard their border.
Alena remembered the first time she had crossed into Etar. Something about it had felt different, she remembered. But she hadn’t thought much of it at the time.
That wall explained the feeling, and it explained how the Etari always knew when someone crossed their border without permission.
And now she understood the importance of an Etari welcome. Alena remembered her own, remembered feeling like it was more than it seemed. Sooni, at least, had given her that impression.
She filed all her questions away as Ligt returned, signing that he had found a ferryman.
They rode their horses down to the bank, following Ligt’s lead.
The river crossing was uneventful, and Alena didn’t even bother trying to soulwalk. The wall had clearly been on the other side of the Alna, and when they dismounted on the opposite bank she didn’t feel any different.
She stopped the party before they had taken more than a few steps on the other shore. She wanted to see with her own senses how this wall worked. Ligt and Jace obliged her as she settled herself and extended her senses. The invisible wall flared to life not more than fifteen paces away. This close, the tapestry was even more mesmerizing. The threads which built the thin barrier shone with prismatic brilliance, ever shifting.
“Ligt, would you go first? Thirty paces.”
The Etari trader walked through the wall, which parted before him like a spiderweb cut by a knife. But in less than a heartbeat the wall had reformed, the gentle movement of the threads closing the wound. Alena frowned. There had been interactions between Ligt and the wall, but they were too subtle for her to track.
She considered asking him to walk back and forth a few times but didn’t want to press her luck. He already indulged her.
“Jace.”
When her brother walked through the wall, she couldn’t miss the change. Ligt’s passage made the threads flow like liquid, parting and reforming around him. To her senses, her brother’s passage ripped the threads apart like an angry child tearing a blanket by hand. Alena flinched away from the sight. To destroy such a beautiful weaving seemed a crime.
As she watched, the wound healed. Not as smoothly as when Ligt passed, but Alena guessed the wall repaired itself within thirty heartbeats.
The threads Jace walked through clung to him. Alena felt their echoes clearly.
Now she knew how the Etari could keep their borders so safe. Not only could they detect intrusions, they could always find an intruder once in their land.
Did they even know this was a soulworking? Alena guessed not. Their dislike of mental affinities was well-established. But at the very least, someone in each family knew how to track the broken threads.
Only one test remained.
Alena walked toward the wall, hand outstretched. When her hand touched, she felt nothing at all.
The threads parted for her like water.
Her welcome still held.
She was still Etari, at least in the eyes of this soulworking. She let out a breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding onto. Though not a complete answer to the worries that plagued her, it indicated a hopeful outcome.
“Did you feel anything?” she asked Jace.
Her brother shook his head. “The air seems different somehow, but that’s about it.”
Her own experience long before hadn’t been much different. Still, she’d hoped for more. With one last look at the barrier, Alena dropped from her soulwalk. Remaining in that space for too long exhausted her.
They resumed their journey. They traveled southwest, to an ultimate destination Ligt refused to share.
Late in the afternoon, a group of riders approached them. They rode at speed.
Their posture, even from a distance, worried Alena. In the back of her mind she remembered that Jace had broken the barrier and he had no welcome to these lands. More than once she had soulwalked and seen the threads clinging to him as vigorously as they had when he first tore the barrier.
Her fears were confirmed as the horses surrounded them. Four riders circled about fifteen paces away, and two riders had a stone spinning in the air next to them. They came prepared to fight.
Alena let Ligt handle the discussion.
Ligt made the hand sign for peace, but it only settled the riders a bit. Their leader stopped her horse while the others continued circling. “Why do you bring an outsider, trader?” she asked in Etari.
Alena didn’t like the sound of that. Etari culture was separated along several lines, but those who chose to become warriors and defend the land often looked upon the traders with some amount of disdain. Alena heard the attitude in the tone of the question.
Ligt took no offense. “The woman has been summoned by Sooni.”
The commander of the group barely reacted, but Alena noticed the riders falter for a moment. They were expecting her arrival?
“She’s the one?” the commander asked.
Yes, Ligt hand signed.
“And the other?”
“Her brother. He insisted on protecting her,” Ligt explained. Alena almost smiled at the condescending attitude in their guide’s voice. Ligt really didn’t like Jace.
“He has no welcome,” the commander pointed out.
“It was not mine to give,” Ligt answered.
“Alena, what are they saying?” Jace asked. “I don’t like their tone.”
Alena grimaced. Jace might not speak their language, but the Etari knew enough imperial to understand him.
“We’re deciding whether or not to kill you,” the commander answered, in imperial.
Jace drew his sword.
In response, the riders circled a bit further away. Alena now saw three riders had stones spinning.
Alena wasn’t worried for her own life. She had welcome and the riders knew who she was. But Jace wasn’t making it easy for himself.
She stepped forward, speaking fluent Etari. “Forgive my brother. He is ignorant of Etari ways, but he means well. He only wishes to protect me. Is there any way he may earn your welcome?”
As a trader, Ligt had good reasons to withhold his welcome into the land. For all Alena knew, he didn’t even have the ability. But anyone who could sense the threads, as at least one among the riders must, should.
The commander considered the question. “A test. Single combat, unarmed. I wish to see an imperial fighting style for myself. If he can last sixty heartbeats, I will permit his escort.”
Thank you. Alena used the most formal and polite form of the sign. She turned to her brother. “They want to fight. One on one, unarmed. If you can last sixty heartbeats, you’ll gain formal entry into their land.”
Jace glanced at the commander of the riders, who stared at him impassively.
He smiled and sheathed his sword. Alena wondered if the commander had already measured and understood her brother. Such a test was perfect for him. If the commander had guessed as much, Alena wouldn’t be surprised. She’d often found the Etari, with their focus on physicality, to be deeply intuitive.
It didn’t take long for the riders to dismount and select their champion. They chose the largest of them, a man who stood at least a head taller than Jace.
Jace grinned at the
challenge. He offered the rider a short bow, which was returned awkwardly by the Etari.
The commander gave the signal to begin, clapping her hands once.
Jace wasted no time. Alena knew her brother wouldn’t fight to survive the count of sixty, but to win. His aggression could easily become his greatest enemy. But it also might be just what was needed to impress the Etari.
Alena watched the duel with undisguised interest. Not just because it determined her brother’s fate, but because she’d never seen her brother actually fight in the past few years.
The Etari rider was fast and strong, a warrior shaped by a life of strenuous living.
But Jace was faster and just as strong, a fact the Etari warrior quickly learned.
Jace threw a quick series of punches, none of them particularly damaging, but enough to get in the rider’s head. The Etari responded, but his strikes never quite connected. Jace dipped and ducked. His movements didn’t appear any faster than the rider’s, but the rider couldn’t land a single significant hit.
In return, Jace drove fists and knees into the rider’s torso.
The rider, frustrated, attempted to tackle Jace and bring the fight to the ground.
Alena missed Jace’s manipulation, but he threw the warrior away from him with a casual toss.
Even the other Etari appeared impressed.
He might be her younger brother, but he was also as much a warrior as any rider here.
The Etari warrior came smoothly to his feet, but the commander clapped her hands again. She looked satisfied with the display. “Welcome to Etar, imperial.”
Alena quickly soulwalked, just in time to see the threads drift off Jace. She watched them flutter into the sky and vanish.
Her brother had earned his welcome.
7
Brandt stood and stretched, then rolled his head in a large, slow circle. He blinked quickly, trying to clear the dryness from his eyes. How much time had passed? He emerged from between two shelves of books to look at the window outside. The sun already dipped below the horizon.
Far too much, then.
He contained his sigh of frustration and returned to the table where Ana combed through books that had been old when her grandparents were born. She glanced up at him. “Done for the day?”
“Not quite. I’ll look through one more set of books, then report to the emperor.”
She raised an eyebrow. “We could retire to our chambers for a bit.”
He smiled and shook his head. “Tempting, though.”
The emperor filled their days with studies of different flavors. Sometimes Regar trained them. The prince presented an enigma to Brandt. Regar’s affinities surpassed even Brandt’s, making him one of the strongest warriors in the empire. Yet Brandt had never heard so much as a whisper about the prince’s skill.
Their sparring revealed hidden depths to the prince’s character. In the halls and chambers of power, Regar was polite, if distant. Had Brandt never fought the prince, he would have called him cold and calculating, studying people like pieces on a board.
In the training hall he revealed his true nature. Regar fought with passion, wrestling against positions a wiser warrior would have disengaged from. He never surrendered.
Unarmed, or with a blade, Brandt was the stronger warrior. But if affinities came into play, Brandt couldn’t win. Their differing skills made for the only excitement in Brandt’s day, and it was where he began to respect Regar.
Regar was skilled and strong, but he would probably never be emperor. That title would pass to his older brother, rarely seen in the palace. When Brandt asked after Olen, all he was told was that the prince was on a mission for the empire.
Other times, Brandt trained with Hanns. Unfortunately, their time together rarely taught Brandt anything useful. Hanns knew a handful of techniques Brandt didn’t, but none of them were the key to greater power. Most of Hanns’ skill came from his connection to the gate underneath the palace. The only other techniques he knew that Brandt didn’t were mental, and he refused to teach Brandt those, claiming they were too dangerous.
When he wasn’t with royalty, Brandt practically lived in the library, which housed the greatest collection of books in the empire. None of which taught him that which he most desired to learn.
Secretly, Brandt became more convinced every day that his questions could only be answered by Anders I. The first emperor had been pivotal in more ways than anyone seemed to understand, but little was known about the man outside of the legends that had grown after his death. And almost nothing at all was known of the time before Anders. The emperor had destroyed everything, a process he’d been surprisingly thorough about. Nothing in the library dated back more than two hundred years.
Ana prevented him from surrendering to frustration. She helped him, guided him, and pushed him when he needed it. And in the evenings her desire to start a family had become infectious. Her enthusiasm rubbed off on him, and he looked forward to returning to their shared room after a full day of study and training.
The last set of books Brandt examined gave him no further clues than any others. When only torches lit the hallways, they bid each other farewell so Brandt could meet with the emperor.
The guards welcomed him, giving him the slightest of bows as he passed. When he reached the emperor’s private training hall he knocked on the door and was invited to enter.
Brandt did, relaxing the moment he stepped through the door. Libraries didn’t often suit his disposition. The stacks of books intimidated him with the weight of their knowledge. But a training hall he understood. The smell of sweat and blood clung to the walls, a silent testament to the generations of emperors who had trained within. It smelled like home to Brandt.
The emperor was already seated cross-legged at one end of the hall. He was in meditation, so Brandt took up a position across from him and did the same. His breathing slowed and his heart beat steady. As he slipped deeper into meditation he heard the songs of the elements more clearly. The fire from the torches still sang loudest, but the low hum of stone wasn’t far behind. Even the whisper of the wind offered promises of secret knowledge.
Though they weren’t physically close to the gate, Brandt noticed its influence. The songs were louder, the notes clearer. Here he was stronger.
The sound of the emperor shifting his weight brought Brandt out of his meditation. Their gazes met, and as usual, the emperor began. “What did you learn today?”
“Nothing useful. One monk in the time of Anders II developed a wind technique similar to the stone technique the Etari use. By manipulating a mass of air one bit at a time, continually adding to the movement of the element, he was able to create small tornadoes. But the scale was hundreds of times smaller than the Lolani queen’s efforts.”
“Has it occurred to you that perhaps the queen’s strength is the result of nothing more than her connection with her gate? Perhaps she has no secret knowledge.”
“Then why does her strength so far surpass your own?”
Hanns took no offense at the question that would have cost Brandt his command had he said it when he served as a wolfblade. “Her connection is stronger.”
Brandt narrowed his eyes. “Do you believe that?”
Hanns offered a slight smile, as though he’d been trapped by his own argument. “I do not.”
“Why not?”
“Because Anders I mastered the gates, and although he didn’t pass down everything, I believe he passed down all we needed to know about them. If there was a way to make a stronger bond, he would have found it.”
Brandt stopped himself from arguing. The two of them had speculated plenty on the source of the Lolani queen’s strength. But no amount of speculation changed the truth: they had no idea why the queen was so strong.
Hanns’ defense of Anders did lead Brandt to another question, though. “Do you know why he destroyed so much? I feel like the answers are in our past, but we have no past to look back on.”
Ha
nns didn’t answer immediately. “I think I understand, but this is only my guess. I do not know.”
Brandt indicated that he understood.
“I think, in a way, you answered your own question. Anders was driven by a single purpose. He wanted to create an empire that would protect and serve as many people as possible. I agree with you. I think the answers to some of our most pressing questions are locked in the past, before Anders rose to power. But I suspect there is a danger there, too. Knowledge can cut the knowledgeable just as easily as it can control the ignorant. By destroying our past, I believe Anders sought to protect us.”
“That decision might be what dooms us in this war.”
Hanns acknowledged the point. “And it might be the decision that allowed this empire to flourish for two hundred years. How does one weigh such a choice?”
Brandt didn’t like the direction of that argument. “Why do you defend him?”
Again, Brandt was grateful the emperor didn’t take offense. In public, any word spoken against the emperor could cost the speaker their tongue, or even their head. But in person, nothing could be further from the truth. “Because, like you, I have met him. My power is descended from his. I do not know his memories and I cannot always speak to his reasons, but I trust him.”
The answer didn’t suffice, but Brandt felt that Hanns was telling the truth. “Then what do we do?” he asked. “How do we get strong enough to fight the queen?”
“I wish I knew the answer to that question, Brandt. But for now, all I can do is offer you what I can. I know it doesn’t feel like much, but I know nothing better.”
Brandt sighed. If there was nothing else to do, there was nothing else to do. “Let’s get to it, then.”
Today they began with fire. Small orbs of flame danced between the two men, faster and faster, the pattern growing ever more intricate.
Hanns faltered first, two of the balls flickering out of existence as the energy feeding them died.
Brandt frowned. Hanns never made the first mistake.
