Knight Exiled: The Shackled Verities (Book Three)

by Tammy Salyer

  Knight Exiled

  The Shackled Verities (Book Three)

  Tammy Salyer

  Knight Redeemed

  The Shackled Verities (Book Three)

  Copyright © 2020 by Tammy Salyer

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Afterword

  Also by Tammy Salyer

  About the Author

  Introduction

  Hello, Dear Readers, and thank you for being here! This is the third part of an epic and, I hope, exciting journey following the Knights Corporealis and others as they embark on a saga to save themselves, their loved ones, their worlds, and ultimately the Great Cosmos. Should you enjoy the words on these pages, I encourage you to join my Reader Group, or follow me on Amazon or BookBub, to be notified of new releases.

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  Chapter One

  One singular moment, one unforeseen twist of fate, and a person’s life could change completely.

  Symvalline Lutair and her daughter Isemay had been trapped under hundreds of pounds of earth and debris from an avalanche on Mount Omina. Straining against the massive weight, she linked her klinkí stones into a shield, holding them overhead to keep from being buried alive, as gangling minions of a foreign Verity flanked them. She was sure she and Isemay would never survive, sure her strength would give out beneath the weight of the mountain. And the next moment—

  It wasn’t the first time she had traveled by wystic arts across a great distance. But it was the first time she’d traveled the starpaths to a foreign realm. And it was definitely the first time she’d gone anywhere for reasons other than her own choosing.

  Less than a heartbeat passed, though it felt endless—the flashing lights in the darkness, the movement that felt so swift it had seemed she stood still while the Cosmos rushed past her instead of the other way around, and the disembodied hollowness, as if she were made of nothing yet still part of everything, all effects of starpath travel. She had known at once what was happening. She had no idea why.

  Then—hard ground lay beneath her, a cool breeze wafted over her, and the sound of a nearby stream tickled her ears. Her eyes flew open.

  “Mum, where are we?”

  The sound of Isemay’s voice, though hesitant and bordering on panicked, gave her a sense of ease that no other thing in the Great Cosmos could have achieved at this moment. Her child, her Crumb, was safe. Now the deed would be to keep it that way. Symvalline sat up and looked around.

  Isemay lay curled on her side as if sleeping. They had come to rest in a midsized valley, near a wide and swift river. Symvalline quickly checked herself over, ensuring she was not wounded, then gently touched Isemay’s light copper curls. “Are you okay? Have you been hurt?”

  Isemay’s answer was immediate. “No. I feel a little…tingly, but I’m okay.” She pushed herself onto her hands and knees, then stood.

  “Wait, don’t move. We need to be cautious.”

  “I know, Mum, but look.” She stared into the sky. Symvalline followed her eyes.

  Three moons crested the horizon, magnificently large in the dark night sky. Millions of stars gleamed around them, a tapestry of light where every spark seemed to exist specifically to illuminate the three orbs, one blue, one red, and the last pale and colorless. They spanned a quarter of the sky from one side of the horizon to the other.

  Symvalline had read deeply into Vaka Aster’s Scrylle and knew immediately where they were. “Arc Rheunos,” she said aloud. “The realm of the Verity called Mithlí.” Why and how in all the wystic wonders had they come to be here?

  “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” Isemay said. She turned her head back, her gray eyes, like her mother’s, reflected light in the stars’ glow. “How are we going to get home?”

  Always the precocious, blunt, and obstinate one, her child never left a thought in her head unspoken or in need of interpretation. But Symvalline wasn’t paying attention.

  “Quiet,” she said urgently, barely above a whisper. “Get behind me.”

  Twenty paces away along the riverbank, several sets of eyes caught the light, watching them. She reached for her back, where the sack she’d carried Ulfric’s sword Light Spell had been hanging, but it wasn’t there. Had she lost it on Mount Omina? When the avalanche had started, everything had been chaos. She could remember falling, getting up…but little else besides reaching Isemay just in time to activate her klinkí stones and keep the mountain from coming down on their heads.

  Whoever’s eyes they were, they remained still, mostly in shadow, but Symvalline could make out something strange about the beings. Their forms suggested they were like her and Isemay, people, but darker shadows rose from their backs over their heads…

  Automatically, Symvalline’s hands extended as she called through her Mentalios lens for her klinkí stones. To her incalculable relief, the eight crystals rose immediately and came to a hover, glowing a wystic cerulean, over her upturned palms.

  “We are not a threat,” she said calmly in Elder Veros. “We are lost travelers from…far from here.”

  Instantly, there came a hushed chorus of whispers and several of the bodies shifted closer together, as if conferring. The tones sounded excited, if fearful, to Symvalline. “Stay very quiet, Isemay. Don’t scare them. They are likely more frightened by us and the manner in which we arrived here than we are of them.”

  Isemay nodded,
silent and obedient, as she’d been before she’d reached her adolescence.

  After a moment, the whispers stilled. A figure stepped a few paces closer. “Plague-bringers,” the voice said in an accented Elder Veros. “Get away from us.”

  After more than seven hundred turns, Symvalline knew every manner of tone, emphasis, and inflection that a voice could make, and this man’s could not hide his uncertainty, or his lack of authority. If her guess was correct, he was a youth, perhaps not much older than Isemay.

  “We carry no plague,” she assured him, speaking slowly to be understood. “We are travelers, and we aren’t sick.” Did she dare risk it? Telling them where they were from? Would they even know of the other realms?

  “Plague-bringers!” He waved something threateningly. “Go back to where you came from!”

  “Put your hand on my waist, Isemay,” she whispered over her shoulder, “and stay close.”

  “But—”

  “Shh!” Symvalline slowly paced a few steps forward. “Look into my face, friend. Hear my voice. Am I ill? Is my daughter?” She reached back and pulled Isemay up beside her until she was visible, all the while allowing her klinkí stones to remain circling just over one hand. “We are in need of help. We need to return to our home. Will you, can you help us?”

  She saw the speaker clearly now. She’d been right, a youth. His hair hung below his collar bones and was twisted into braids. He wore a top and trousers of an unidentifiable cloth or fiber and carried a large satchel that hung just below his waist, held by a strap over one shoulder. But it was the wings on his back, spread halfway open and towering above his head, that held her gaze. Isemay gasped in surprise.

  The rest of the stranger’s assembly were whispering again behind him, some alarmed, others curious. But one voice hushed them all with a “Quiet.” The new speaker, this time feminine-sounding, moved up beside the youth, then past him, brushing away the outstretched hand he tried to stop her with. Symvalline hadn’t seen her at all a moment before, and she seemed to have materialized from the night air itself.

  “Salukis,” the new person said. “Move over. They’re not the Minothians, and they came by starpath. If they were here to spread the Waste, they wouldn’t be friendly about it.” She stepped up to Symvalline and Isemay and eyed them with unhidden fascination. “Where in all the Cosmos did you strangelings come from?” Her eyes dropped to Symvalline’s klinkí stones. “And what are those?”

  In the starlight, the only things with discernable color were the three moons and Symvalline’s stones, but even in such muted circumstances, Symvalline could see there was something unique about the woman’s coloring, though she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. The woman seemed to be older than the youth, but not by much, and her tone did not lack the authority his did. What stood out most was, unlike the boy, she had no wings, nor did she seem to have a single strand of hair anywhere on her visible features. Nevertheless, her eyes shone kindly, if warily.

  “May I see them?” she said, lowering a hand and turning her palm up to invite Symvalline to give over her klinkí stones.

  Symvalline was willing to accept the risk of palming the stones but not of giving them to the stranger. As she closed her fingers around them and their blue hearts dimmed, she said, “They are called klinkí stones, powered by the spark given to me by my Verity, Vaka Aster.”

  The woman lowered her own hand, seeming to accept Symvalline’s refusal to pass them over. “Then you must be from the realm of Vinnr. Why are you in Arc Rheunos?”

  So she is learned about the five realms. A good sign. “I’m sorry, I can’t say why we’re here.” Because I don’t know. She decided not to share her uncertainty. “All I can say is that we need help returning. We—”

  “Were you exiled by your Verity?” There wasn’t an accusation in her tone, only curiosity.

  “No, at least, I don’t think…” She stopped, lacking any explanation that made sense.

  “You’re in some trouble, I see. The Verities can be…difficult to understand. Let us take you to Archon Raamuzi. She, I think, will be able to help you.”

  “Mura,” the youth said, alarmed, “what are you—”

  “Mum, what is that?” Isemay cut in, her hand tightening on Symvalline’s waist.

  She glanced at Isemay, then followed her wide-eyed stare. On the other side of the valley, a dark gap loomed amid the mountains. From that darkness, small torch-sized lights emerged and began moving fast across the valley toward them. Some were ground-level, others seemed airborne, and there were over a dozen.

  Symvalline’s attention turned back to the woman when she felt her hand on her arm. Her eyes were round with fear. “Deathless Guards! We must run! Follow us!”

  Based on the sound of running feet and swishing grass, the group of Arc Rheunosians had already begun to speed away. Those with wings launched into the air, their silhouettes standing out in the starlight. Most of them were much smaller than the two she’d spoken with, and she could hear more, but she could not seem to see any others in the darkness.

  Skirmishes with rebellious factions or overzealous Verity worshippers had been common in Symvalline’s early years as a Knight Corporealis, and she was no stranger to fights. But it had been many turns of Halla since she’d had to face an enemy with sword or bow, and she did not want to begin her stay—however, involuntary—in a new realm with one.

  “Isemay, don’t let go. Come on.” She grabbed her daughter’s hand in one of hers and released the klinkí stones with the other, letting the stones fly ahead and channeling her vitality into them to enhance their glow and light their way.

  Sprawling foliage and the rock-covered ground sloped upward from the river, threatening their footing. Symvalline could make out nothing that resembled a path, and the only guides she had to follow were the uncertain glimpses of the flying Rheunosians, who were speeding away too quickly for her to follow.

  She chanced a look behind and felt her first glimmer of fear since the gangling Battgjaldics had stalked her and Isemay on Mount Omina. The pursuers were gaining on them, their lights already passing over the river.

  Isemay stumbled beside her and cried out. Symvalline stopped instantly. “Crumb! Are you okay?”

  “Yes, it’s just my knee.” She jumped up, but then lurched to the side. “Ow!”

  Symvalline glanced behind once more. They were getting closer. Leaning down, she helped Isemay reach an arm around her shoulders and stood upright. “I’ve got you. We’ll run together.”

  They kept going, slower now, but determined. In moments, they crested the rise and reached a meadow that spread before them. They’d be able to run faster through the relatively flat area—but so would their pursuers. Symvalline thought she could see grasses and night-blooming flowers bending aside, as if someone were running through them, but she could see no other Rheunosians besides those who flew above. Starlight illuminated another slope at the far end of the meadow, and above that, dark towering forms that suggested a forest. A forest in which they could hide.

  “Keep going. We’re nearly safe.”

  Halfway across the meadow, she glanced back again and saw their airborne pursuers already cresting the edge of it. They were large forms, their wings wider than Symvalline was tall. Their faces were lit by the lights they carried, their features pale and hardened.

  As her breathing grew ragged and began tearing through her throat, she realized she and Isemay were not going to reach the safety of the forest.

  “Where is she?” a woman’s, no, a child’s voice cried. “Where is Neeka?!”

  The voice was distant, seemingly ahead of them. Some of the Rheunosians must have made it to the tree line. Symvalline kept running—but her feet suddenly came up against something soft and she tripped, flailing through the air and coming to rest on her knees and elbows. Her wystic stones dropped to the earth, and Isemay fell in a heap beside her. She began to scramble to her feet but caught a glimpse of what she’d run into.


  A small Rheunosian child, no more than seven or eight turns in Vinnric age, lay huddled on the ground in a ball, too terrified to move. Symvalline crawled to her and put a hand on her arm. It was cold, and the girl was shivering. “Come, child. Can you rise?”

  “Mum, Mum, they’re getting close,” Isemay panted.

  “Isemay, go! I’ll catch up.”

  “No, Mum, I’m not leaving you.”

  She didn’t have time to argue with her. She swept up the trembling child and stood. “I’ve got her. Come on.”

  But it was too late. Symvalline felt something hard and rough strike her in the back, and she went down again, this time curling her body around the child’s to keep her from impact. The child let out a cry of terror. They were in a net.

  “Mum!”

  “Run, Isemay! Keep going!”

  It was like talking to a stone. Isemay was beside her, tearing against the ropes binding her and the child, saying, “What do I do, what I do?”

  “Stand back,” she commanded and reached out for her klinkí stones. They flew to her, but not before the pursuing Rheunosian had reached them.

  The man landed a few strides away. Symvalline and Isemay grew still, watching him. The child whimpered. She could hear their pursuer breathing, see his pale, slack face in the glow of the light he held. The torch wasn’t lit by fire. Rather, it was a bulb of light resembling the illuminate orbs that lit most of Vinnr’s indoors. He was gaunt, slightly stooped, and his eyes were a colorless void. He looked to her like the creatures brought by Balavad to Vinnr. Like the Raveners of Battgjald.