Trine Rising

by C. K. Donnelly

  He dragged over another chair and sat across from her. “Start at the beginning. Tell me exactly what you saw.”

  She hesitated. What was the point of her silence now? She told him this much, she might as well tell him everything. Well, almost everything. “The attack comes at night. During a storm. A sea of riders. I saw fighters resist them, but they were outmanned many times over. By the time morning breaks, thousands lie dead. Between the darkness and the loose weaving of the time skein, it was hard to tell who was fighting whom.”

  He frowned and nodded. “From what direction did the riders come?”

  She furrowed her brow in concentration. “I couldn’t tell, at least not in the first premonition. The fighting was already engaged. In the second, the Ken’nar, if that’s who they are, appear to come from the north. They cross the bridge over the Garnath River.”

  “You saw the Ken’nar as the smaller force?”

  She nodded. “In the second vision, the images were much clearer, but—” she searched for a word to explain a sense that defied description, “but it felt different.”

  “Go on.”

  Wasn’t that enough? She didn’t want to tell him anymore. She wanted to bolt from the room. His mind continued to touch hers. It supported her, however, encouraging her. “At dawn, the clouds had broken. A star—Gabrial, I think—was setting west of the Dar-Anar Mountains. It was cool but not cold. Springtime, maybe. This may occur in only a few sevendays.”

  “And the troop counts? Who is attacking whom?” the Trine asked.

  She shook her head. “That’s just it. I don’t know for certain. Both visions lasted only a heartbeat or two. I could only see the armies between flashes of lightning, and then, not clearly. In my first premonition, I thought I saw more Ken’nar. A lot more. Maybe as many as five thousand, but that’s just a guess. The Fal’kin armies we had in the Battle of the Vale were of similar size, and we’ve studied that attack in depth. I thought the larger force had black armor like the Ken’nar, but the vision was at night during a storm, so I couldn’t be sure.”

  She lowered her eyes away from his probing gaze and picked at a hangnail. She winced when she jabbed the quick.

  He covered her hand with his, stopping her. “It’s all right.”

  She took her hand from his and rubbed her forehead. “In the second premonition, the one I had just a little while ago, I thought I sensed far fewer Ken’nar. Just a few hundred. I thought maybe I could be seeing a battle from the past and from the future, two different ones at the same location. The stars would be in different positions if that were the case, but with the storm, there was no way to get a timeframe. And I doubt two different battles would occur at the same location on the same date. So, if it is indeed the same battle, the skeins of time must be woven very loosely for such a drastic difference. Taken individually, though, they seem—” She paused as again a clear explanation eluded her. “Well, they seem certain. I’ve never had this happen before. Ever.”

  “Let’s call to the Seeing Aspect and study at this together.” He took her hand once more, and this time, he placed it on his amulet.

  “My lord, I don’t think that’s such a good idea.” She tried to pull her hand back, but he held it firmly.

  “Trust me.”

  Her parents had drummed into her that it was an extreme offense to touch another’s amulet. It was a sacred relic, not a piece of jewelry. Since she was twelve, since she had learned her destiny, she avoided contact with another’s amulet at all costs. A Trine could join in union with any amulet, not just one, like those bearing a single Aspect. Would Lord Garis be able to detect she had all three Aspects? Maybe he’d be so focused on finding the right skein of time he wouldn’t notice. Maybe this was all a really, really bad idea.

  “Lord Trine, maybe we should just speak with my—”

  He continued to hold her hand. “Please.”

  Mirana nodded slowly and closed her eyes as he reached out to her mind. His presence, heavy and unrelenting, pressed down upon hers. A tug pulled deep within her. It was not painful, just odd, like she slipped or faded further away from herself somehow. Her Seeing Aspect billowed inside her. Once again, flashes of lightning and amulet fire revealed armies locked in deadly combat on the stone bridges of Two Rivers Ford.

  An aberrant vibration, a grating sort of discord, now quivered through her. Lord Garis’s amulet. It called to her, needed her, reached for her.

  His amulet. It was—she was connecting with it!

  She tried to pull away as images flared before her mind’s eye. The vision, almost identical to the first one she remembered, resolved with brutal clarity. Almost identical. Except now, it was obvious the thousands of fighters were not Ken’nar but were Fal’kin from Kin-Deren province, like in the vision she had in the stable.

  The vibration from his amulet against her Aspects grew more insistent, begging her to match her harmonics with it. She fought against it, but his mind and his Aspects held her fast as he sought to understand the images playing before them.

  Lightning slashed within the prescient pictures, and the scenes that held her captive changed yet again.

  Jasal’s Keep erupts with hellfire.

  Mirana yanked her hand from his grip. No. Oh, Aspects Above, no. Did he see it?

  The Trine sat back in the chair and blinked as the corner of his mouth curled up. “You did well. Gratas Oë.”

  She lowered her face from his to study a crack in one of the stone pavers on the floor. The keep appeared for only the briefest of moments before she broke their connection. Maybe he hadn’t seen it. If she concentrated on the crack, that would be the only thought he would read easily.

  “I have to tell my parents,” she said. “I should have told them as soon as I saw the Ford the first time. It’s just I’ve never misinterpreted a vision before. Never.”

  “Mirana, if what you’re telling me is true about your first version—the darkness, the rain, the lack of clarity—it would have been nearly impossible to discern which army is which without an amulet. Those thousands you saw? They could have been Fal’kin. In fact, what we just saw together all but corroborates that. You saw thousands from Kin-Deren fighting in the second version, correct?”

  She scowled. “Ai, but—”

  “And the smaller force, a scant five hundred? The garrison at the Ford typically doesn’t have much more than that. The Ken’nar may believe they have an easy target, so they don’t attack in large numbers.”

  The first version of the attack on the Ford happened so quickly, and she had been in the midst of healing the youth, Maark. But the sense of it all? The bloodlust, the maniacal glee of meting out death, and a myriad of other things besides? That had to be the Ken’nar. Then again, her father never spoke of what he did as he fought. She had heard of Fal’kin going nearly mad on the battlefield, driven to extremes by the Defending Aspect. Is that what would happen to her someday?

  She pounded her fist on the chair arm and groaned in frustration through clenched teeth. “How could I have been so wrong?”

  “It is all but impossible without an amulet to get the precise information one needs from a vision. Even I would have had a hard time without an amulet. It came to you. You did not go to it. When you saw the vision of Two Rivers Ford again, you saw a further refinement, the Fal’kin defending the Ford installation in larger numbers. The same one I had. More than likely in both cases you were doing something else at the time and not prepared to analyze what you saw. Aspects know I was startled.”

  She sought his eyes with her own. “You were?”

  “Of course.” He held his amulet, studying it. “It was a frightening vision. Armies coming starkly into view in the lightning, only to disappear then re-emerge, closer and more violent. Visions are always frightening when—” he paused, “when death occurs.” He let his amulet fall to his chest. “I hated it when I was young. I still do.”

  She sank back further into the chair and followed the crack on the floor with
her eyes. “So, it doesn’t get any easier?”

  He leaned forward and rested his forearms on his thighs as he stared at the floor. Maybe even at the same crack she had been studying. He shook his head. “Seeing death. Feeling it, sensing it is coming. Knowing sometimes there’s nothing I can do to stop it. No, it doesn’t get any easier. It’s been that way ever since—”

  “Ever since always.”

  He raised his head and nodded.

  Would he understand the agony of her dilemma? Could he find a way to save Kinderra when all she saw was death at her hands?

  He rose from his chair and helped her up. “Come. Let us go see your mother. Perhaps she can shed some light on this for both of us.”

  The Trine escorted her down the corridor. His hematite amulet winked in the soft light of the hallway’s rush lamps. It was dusky yet held a metallic brilliance all its own, a piece of the winter midnight sky.

  When she and Lord Garis called upon the Seeing Aspect together, had it reached out to her? Or had she reached out to it? She looked up at the tall man. If he had sensed her manipulating his amulet right from his chest, he said nothing about it.

  Joining in union with an amulet was supposed to be an experience of ecstasy, a marriage of the sacred and the worldly. What she had experienced with his amulet, however, was frankly a bit disturbing, even physically unsettling. That couldn’t be like what it was to choose an amulet, could it?

  Maybe her avoidance of taking up an amulet reflected more than her just desire to deflect her destiny. Tetric Garis was the Light Trine.

  And she was not.

  Mirana came to an abrupt halt outside her parents’ room. “Do you believe in the prophecy?” The words rushed out before she had a chance to consider them.

  He turned around and scowled. “What?”

  “The Trine Prophecy. From the Book of Kinderra. It predicts a great cataclysm of some sort between through a Light Trine and a Dark Trine. Do you believe it?”

  “Prophecies are written by seers to preserve their power long past their usefulness. They are meant to strike both awe and fear among Aspected and Unaspected alike. Each time a Trine comes into the world, that prophecy rears its head in the land. As a boy, I don’t think I was allowed out of my learning hall until I was nearly twelve.”

  “Are you not the Light Trine, the Thrice-blessed? Is not the one leading the Ken’nar called the Dark Trine? Is he not the Thrice-cursed?” What did the prophecy then mean for her?

  Lord Garis squared his shoulders. “I am the Trine of Kinderra. The Aspects Above created me for one purpose—to save Kinderra from the senseless bloodshed we’ve endured for millennia.” He smiled down at her. “Maybe with a little help, I can accomplish that.”

  Her mouth hung open for a moment. The prophecy ended with the stanza, “Only Hope shall remain.” Could he be that hope? Her hope?

  He placed his palm on the door and closed his eyes. Moments later, Mirana’s mother opened the door as she tightened her robe around her. “Prime Kellis Pinal, I apologize—”

  She held up her hand. “I want Kaarl to sleep.” She stepped into the hallway and shut the door behind her. “You’ve seen something. Ai, I have, too.”

  “We both have.”

  Mirana looked up at Lord Garis. He nodded.

  “Mother, I have seen a vision.”

  CHAPTER 9

  “Solis, Ëomus com siber, cin inimica rithente tré Ëome com gháinn’e i’gainem. Atuda, Ëomus defende as ain.”

  (“Apart, we are like a sieve, with the enemy running through us like grains of sand. Together, we fight as one.”)

  —Ora Fal’kinnen 125:56–57

  Kaarl awoke to sunlight streaming in through the window. He stretched and reached over to find the other side of the bed empty and cool. He frowned and sat up. Desde would be in her father’s study, working. He corrected himself. Toban’s study was now his wife’s.

  Toban Kellis had been prime of Kin-Deren province for as long as Kaarl could remember. Toban had returned to the Aspects Above in Twelthmonth. Four months ago, the il’Kin had been tailing a detached unit of Ken’nar through the frozen borderlands between Varn-Erdal and Kana-Akün. He had no idea the man lay on his deathbed. He loved the old seer as much as he had his own father. He never got to tell either man goodbye.

  He rose from the bed and splashed his face with cold water from a basin on the nightstand, washing away the last of his fatigue. Out of the lead-camed window, the sky was as blue as a sunlark’s egg. The hoarfrost sparkled like tiny amulets. Sixthmonth was only a few sevendays away and would usher in the summer season. The cold that had followed him home from the forests was an ill omen.

  He shook his head. When did he start believing in omens? He was a defender. He believed in his Aspect, his amulet and sword, and little else.

  Long ago, men and women more learned than he had pegged the beginning of a new Reckoning to the dead of winter. Those ancient seers perceived with their Aspect daylight growing longer by minute increments after the solstice to mark the beginning of Firstmonth. Had it been him, he would have started the new calendar when days were at their longest and warmest, and the land had fully awakened to give life again. When the light of his life had been born. The weather, however, followed its own wisdom. His smile faded. The heavy frost out the window looked uncannily like the thin, crusty patches of snow upon which il’Kin Defender Gannah Tesabe had died in the Kana-Akün forests.

  The sun was high. It was late. He had not meant to sleep so long.

  Kaarl dressed quickly and left his and Desde’s chambers. He paused by Mirana’s door. She was not in her room, either. He wanted to thank her once more. Or maybe to ask her to never again look for him when he was away from home.

  He walked down the corridor to the primeship study and found the door ajar. He brushed Desde’s mind with his as he entered. She smiled at him, but her eyes were red-rimmed. He walked over and sat on the corner of the desk, taking her hand in his. He wished he, too, could mourn. The Ken’nar had killed off that capacity in him long ago.

  “The ice has lingered even though it’s Fourthmonth. Do your seers know when the weather will break?” he asked.

  “Soon. Then again, it is easier to march on frozen ground than mud.” She sighed. “There’s still so much of him here.”

  He nodded and picked up from the desk a small, green jadelite carving of a mountain tiger. Toban had gotten it after some conflict in the distant mountainous province of Trak-Calan. It was a seal stamp, and very old, but because of the stone’s fragility, it now served as a piece of art.

  “He is with your mother once more.” His wife nodded and quickly wiped her eyes. He sat in one of the chairs fronting Toban’s—Desde’s desk. “You should have awakened me.”

  “You needed your rest.” She reached for his hand again.

  “That is especially true given your welcome home.” He caressed her fingers with his thumb. They both smiled. He continued to hold her hand. “You left last night.”

  “Ai, however, it was more than just you that kept me awake.”

  “I didn’t mean to upset you. I was concerned about Mirana. Have you seen her, by the way? She wasn’t in her room.”

  “She’s not a layabout like her father.” Desde lifted one corner of her mouth. “She’s studying with the other seers this morning. I’ve given her a noontime break before our lessons this afternoon. Unless she’s decided to skip her meal again, in which case she’s probably someplace with young Herbsman Beltran.”

  “Teague?”

  “Oh, Kaarl. Surely, you can see what’s going on? It’s been summers.”

  “Ai, I know, but—” He looked out the door, imagining with difficulty the young woman who had replaced his little girl. “They’re in love?” She raised her hands in a helpless gesture. “They’ve always been close, but this? And you approve? Teague’s Unaspected.”

  She sat up straighter. “Teague is a wonderful boy. It makes no difference if he’s Unaspected or
not.”

  He shook his head. “Of course. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just relationships like that are, well, complicated to say the least. You know I care for the boy. Deeply. He reminds me a bit of myself when I was his age.”

  As a young boy, he had suffered through many scuffles of his own with who thought less of who he was, too. He would swear a curse on Jasal Pinal if he thought it would add to his ancestor’s damnation.

  “Aspects Above.” He exhaled, suddenly weary again despite his slumber. “Have I been gone that long?”

  “I see her every day, and I cannot believe she’s ready to lose her heart.”

  “How serious are they?”

  “The war will end it for them before they will, I fear.” Desde sat back in the high-backed oak chair as her elegant, tapered fingers curled around the armrests. She looked remarkably like Toban at that moment.

  By the Light, his little girl had grown up, and he had missed so much of it. She was nearly sixteen. She would choose an amulet in two summers. Two summers! In two summers, other mysteries would have to be explained, if not before.

  Later. He would deal with all of these issues later.

  “So, who have you chosen as your Prime’s Second?”

  His wife shook her head. “No one yet.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Your father died four months ago. Succession should not be left open like this, especially given what’s happened in the north.”

  “Ëo comprende,” she replied. “And I need your advice.”

  He had hoped he would have missed all the cutthroat maneuvering and backroom deals that always accompanied the selection of who would be next in line for the primeship. At least when Desde did select someone, all the political wrangling and gilded backstabbing would be well out of the way to ensure there were no gaps in a province’s leadership. That was the point. When a prime died or was incapacitated, the elevation from second to prime was immediate.