The Arclight Saga

by C. M. Hayden

  “It can’t be a coincidence that it came here, to its homelands,” Kyra offered.

  Praxis shrugged. “Maybe there’s some shadow of his former self left on a subconscious level, an echo of the All-Seer. Once Vexis acquires the Deeplight, it’s all over. Craetos will be utterly under her control.”

  “And you expect us to believe you’re going to try to stop her?” Fenn asked sharply. His eyes narrowed, and he eyed Praxis.

  “I honestly don’t care what nothings like you believe. Here’s the rub: I know what Vexis’ next move will be. I need an audience with Sivion. My dear sister will be vulnerable, and if they move quickly, they can destroy her before she can cause any more damage.”

  Taro suddenly understood. He took several steps toward the burning throne. “You’re afraid of her.”

  Praxis didn’t try to deny it. “If you’re not afraid of her, you’re a fool. There’s something to be said about someone who’s willing to do anything to achieve her goal. She has no loyalties, no conscience, no allegiances.”

  “You can thank your dad for that,” Taro said.

  “Quite,” Praxis said with a bow. “But he suffered for his neglect in that regard. I will not.”

  “Back up here,” Taro said, making a winding motion with his hands. “What do the Northmen have to do with getting an audience with Sivion?”

  “There’s a barrier around Castiana that prevents non-dragons from passing. The only exception is an ancient magic called the Bórhiemdr, said to be accessible by the Red King of the Nuren. I’d like to use it, but King Mjolir’s been…uncooperative. I thought I’d beaten Nima here, but she might’ve gotten to the Red King already.”

  “Nima?” Taro said, his chest clenching at the sound of his sister’s name.

  “She’s on a mission from my sister, as I understand it,” Praxis said. “Quite a lot of faith to put into an Endran commoner, but her folly is to our advantage. Nima might’ve gotten to King Mjolir, since, curiously, he knew who I was before I introduced myself.”

  “You threatened him,” Lokír said.

  “Encouraged,” Praxis said, running his hand through some soot. “If the dragons don’t deal with this problem now, you’ll have thousands more abominations to contend with. Tell me, Lord Lokír, is that what your king wants?”

  Lokír lowered his axe. He looked up, his seafoam-green eyes looking cloudy against his grizzled skin. “The Bórhiemdr is a holy site. King Mjolir won’t allow you to sully it with dark magic. Sivion entrusted our kind with the only mortal key to Castiana, and we won’t defile that trust.”

  “If things continue on as they are, Mjolir will be king of the ashes before the year is out.” He paused. “Do you have children, my lord?”

  “Two sons,” Lokír said.

  “I have a daughter, and a beautiful wife,” Praxis said wistfully.

  Lokír’s eyebrows raised a bit.

  “Surprised?” Praxis asked. “That a ‘monster’ like me would have a family? I’m not here to twirl my moustache and make threats. I didn’t drag my ass two thousand miles to destroy a few pitiful villages on the other side of the continent. I came to secure my future, and the future of my family. And Vexis threatens everything my father built. Tell me where the Bórhiemdr is, and your boys will grow old and strong, will have families of their own, and one day you’ll be a grandfather before the Great Ship takes you. Refuse, and I swear by all the gods below that Vexis will burn this world to ash.”

  There was a deep, intense silence amongst them. Flames crackled nearby. Air gusted through the hall. Before long, Praxis spoke again with dogged determination. “Decide.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Choices

  Lokír stared at Praxis like he was something he’d scraped off his boot. To Taro’s eyes, it seemed as though the hulking brute was looking for an opening to charge him, but Lokír just nodded after a few moments.

  “I’ll need time to discuss it with my king,” Lokír said hesitantly.

  Praxis gestured dismissively with his hand. “By all means, I understand you’re a serving man.”

  They all turned to leave, but just as Taro neared the door, Praxis called to him by name.

  “Taro,” he said, his voice carrying despite the fact that it was almost a whisper. “I expected more questions. Won’t you stay a while?”

  Taro glared back at him. “If you’ve got a death wish.”

  Praxis smirked. “Me? Whatever did I do to you?”

  Taro took an aggressive step forward. Kyra grabbed him briefly by the shoulder, but he shrugged her off and stopped his advance. “You poisoned my little sister’s mind. You made her do those awful things.”

  “I did? That’s news to me. Funny, the entire time she was with us, I never saw any signs of a lock on her door. I daresay she could’ve walked out at any time.”

  “Bullshit,” Taro said. He looked to Kyra and motioned for her to go on. At first, she refused, but after some insistence she reluctantly stepped outside, though she stayed very close to the entrance. Taro turned his sights back on Praxis. “She was a sweet, innocent girl and you filled her head with lies.” He was trembling just thinking about it. “She killed our dad.”

  Praxis stood from the burning throne, and seemed to let his guard down. His eyes softened, his voice cracked. “I take no joy in what happened to Nima or your father.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Believe what you want, but this is the truth: I didn’t have anything to do with bringing her to Helia. All I did was teach her how to use her abilities.”

  “And thanks to your teachings, she was able to drive a shadow spear through my dad’s heart.” Taro fought back a swell of tears. “She was my sister, you son of a bitch. She was sweet. She was good. And you destroyed her.” Taro reached for Raethelas, squeezing the hilt. “I should kill you right here and now. Cut you open like a dog, and watch you bleed out on the floor.”

  Praxis’ smile was very white against the charred room. “My, that’s dark. You and Vexis have more in common than you think.”

  Without thinking, Taro raised Raethelas toward Praxis. He channeled his whole templar into it, and every muscle in Praxis’ body tensed. His arms planted hard into the armrests, and his spine straightened against the back seat.

  Whether it was through the power of the Deeplight, or just his sheer shock of being restrained, Praxis didn’t seem immediately able to break free. Taro walked toward him with a calm deliberateness, holding the sword in front of him, extending it toward Praxis’ throat.

  Praxis struggled for every breath as he choked out a few words. “Is…that…”

  The blade touched Praxis’ neck, and for a moment Taro thought he’d really do it. He’d drive it right through the despicable man’s throat. Unarmed. Unable to move. One less evil man in the world. One less Inquisitor.

  Taro wasn’t sure how long he had Raethelas pressed against Praxis’ throat. It might’ve been a moment, or a minute. A thin bead of blood trickled down Praxis’ tattooed neck. He was slowly resisting the effects of the Deeplight, and was now able to speak, but seemed unable to conjure his shadows.

  “Go ahead,” Praxis said defiantly. “Do it. Think it’ll bring your father back? Think it’ll undo what your sister has done?”

  Taro’s hands shook, and his sword wobbled in the air. Praxis continued his verbal assault.

  “That’s why you can’t beat Vexis. Why you’ll always fail. Because she’s resolved to do anything it takes to win, and you’re still pussyfooting around your pitiful emotions. If you want to win, you have to ACT. If you want to kill me, then KILL ME.”

  His last words came out like a roar. Just as Taro was ready to lunge forward, he felt a large hand rest on his shoulder. It was Lokír, his seafoam eyes stared down at him with genuine distress.

 
“Killing him like this wouldn’t be honorable,” the hulking man said, though he made no motion to forcefully stop Taro.

  Duty, service, and honor, Taro thought. But all that came out was: “Fuck honor. He deserves to die.”

  “I daresay he might. But like all men: on his own two feet, with a sword in his hand.”

  Slowly, Taro lowered Raethelas until the red tip touched the ground. Lokír patted him hard on the back.

  The sun outside seemed unnaturally bright. Taro felt like he’d be sick, and practically ran down the side of the hill. He ran right past the smoldering homes and shacks, down the road covered in ash and snow, and out into the forest. His prosthetic ached, his limbs burned, and he fell forward against a wide pine tree. There, amidst the snow and trees, everything spilled out of him all at once. Every bad memory. Every hard emotion.

  Tears streamed down his cheeks, and his sobs choked his throat. It took Kyra over an hour to finally find him. She was alone, and he heard her footsteps crunching in the snow long before he felt her hand touch his back.

  “Taro?” she whispered. Her voice was soft, as if she was speaking to a frightened animal.

  Taro didn’t answer, but managed to reach up with his left hand and touch hers.

  “Taro?” she repeated, then came to sit beside him, her arm slumped over him. She pulled him in tight.

  “What’s the point?” Taro finally said through his tears. “Praxis is right. I can’t beat Vexis. She’ll do anything to win.”

  Kyra tilted his head up to meet hers. “You’re beating yourself up because you actually have a conscience?”

  “No, I’m beating myself up because every bad thing that’s happened has been my fault. All of it. My piss-poor choices got me here, and now I have no idea how to get out. I just want my family back.”

  Kyra was quiet for a long moment. “That’s never going to happen.”

  Taro’s eyes met her, disbelief in his gaze. “What?”

  “I know it’s not what you want to hear, but it’s the truth. When my mother died, I thought if I wished enough, prayed enough, somehow I’d get her back. It doesn’t work like that, Taro. When our loved ones are gone, they’re gone, and there’s nothing we can do about it. It’s not always death that takes them, sometimes it’s just ‘piss-poor choices,’ but we can’t live other people’s lives for them.”

  Taro made an exhausted sigh. “Then why keep going?”

  “Because there are other people in your life that matter. Your brothers, your mother. Have you forgotten about them?”

  Taro shook his head. “No.”

  Kyra kissed Taro on the forehead, then stood. “Here’s some real truth for you. You can lie here in the snow and rot, mourning what you’ve lost, or you can stand and protect what you have left.” She offered him her hand, and he took it. “It’s not about you, Taro. And it never was.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Shieldmaidens

  Despite Taro’s mind still racing with thoughts of Nima, he knew Kyra’s advice to be wise. On the long hike back to Nurengard, he tried to focus on the task at hand: Praxis’ offer.

  “Do you think the king will go for it?” Taro asked Lokír as they descended a small rock face.

  Lokír grimaced, his grizzled beard wagging as he climbed down beside Taro. “I cannot say. Mjolir-ata hasn’t been himself as of late. He doesn’t heed my council as he once did. I can only hope he’ll see reason.”

  “I’d like to see some reason too,” Fenn said. “Because I honestly don’t know why we’d trust Vexis’ brother.”

  “I don’t think any of us trust him,” Kyra countered. “But if what he says is true, then we have to do something about it.”

  “It seems to me that Praxis is pissed that his sister is now in control of Helia,” Fenn said. “He thought when his old man croaked, he’d inherit what was his. He just wants to off her so that he can rule.” He clapped his hands together. “What did Ishal Valharis say? ‘The simplest explanation is usually the correct one.’ Truth number twelve, I think it was.”

  Taro tilted his head. “Actually, that’s truth fourteen. And it doesn’t really matter, does it? Whatever his endgame is, if it means Vexis loses, then I think we have to go that route.”

  “Side with the lesser of two evils?” Fenn asked.

  Taro shrugged. “That’s about the size of it.”

  As they spoke, the pointed peaks of Nurengard came into view, framed by the snowcapped mountains.

  “My people have a saying,” Lokír muttered as they made the last leg of their journey toward the village. “If both your choices are evil, find yourself better choices.”

  _____

  The Northmen were good to their word, and when Taro and the others arrived back in Nurengard, they found Lord Cassin and the rest of the Eventide’s crew waiting for them. They were fed, clothed, and given surprisingly good medical care. As they were a largely warrior culture, the Northmen were amazingly adept at repairing broken bones and lacerations, and doing it without any magic to speak of was doubly impressive.

  A long, curved, rectangular tent near the western wall served as a makeshift hospital for the crew. The inside of the tent bustled with female physicians, Lokír called them ‘valdyr’, women who tended the sick on the battlefield. Each were shieldmaidens, and fought alongside their men in battle when the situation called for it. Most were taller than Taro by a few inches, and they wore leather and chain armor similar to that of the men.

  One of the valdyr, who introduced herself as Elagra, was tending Lord Cassin. She stripped the bloody cloth over his missing eye, and cleaned the wound with a thick alcohol solution. Cassin steeled himself against the pain, but he had to be restrained to keep from jerking as she stripped off the bad flesh and replaced the bandage with something more sterile.

  Despite the Nuren’s brutish appearances, they weren’t barbarians or fools. The valdyr demonstrated an understanding of the human body, and of infections, that would’ve put many in the Magisterium to shame. Their medicines were stored in leather pouches, each labeled and sorted by type and measurements. It was commonplace for women and girls to go out collecting herbs for the village, and the tent was well-stocked.

  Taro and Kyra watched from a distance, and when the procedure was over, Elagra walked directly to them, wiping the blood from her beefy hands.

  “He will be fine,” she said, rolling her eyes. She had the thickest northern accent Taro had heard thus far. “A little cut causes him to squirm like a child, it’s embarrassing.”

  “Sorry,” Kyra said. “He’s a gentle soul.”

  “I can hear you over there!” Lord Cassin said from his cot. He didn’t sit up, or look over at them. His skin was still slick with sweat, and they’d shaved off a large portion of curly hair from his head to keep it from interfering with his injury.

  Kyra and Taro approached his bedside, and Cassin smiled at his niece as best he could. He raised one tired arm in her direction, and she hugged him.

  “I knew you’d come through,” Cassin said weakly. He gestured at the valdyr. “To be perfectly honest, when I woke up here surrounded by giant women, I thought I was dead. Not exactly the afterlife I expected, but I can deal.”

  Kyra smiled. “In all your travels, I’m surprised you’ve never been here.”

  Cassin’s eyes perked, and he sat up as if he were brimming with a new story. “No, never here, but I once parleyed with a tribe of giants in Serra.” He raised his hand high. “But they were twice as tall as these ladies. To prove myself to them, I had to survive in a tiger-infested forest for ten days and nights—”

  “Uncle,” Kyra said, holding up her hand. “You know I love your stories, but we’ve got quite a bit to fill you in on.”

  “Oh?” Cassin said, slightly disappointed.

  “We ran into somebody
,” Taro said. “Praxis Andurin.”

  They explained the situation to Lord Cassin, who seemed to grow more distraught with each passing word. “That creature…” he said. “Craetos the All-Seer, reborn?”

  Taro nodded grimly. “It matches what Arangathras told me.”

  “It’s like you said, Kyra. We need to warn my brother. Once the men are well enough to travel, we should start back to Endra,” Cassin said.

  “That’ll take time,” Kyra said. “If we can talk to the dragons, maybe we can do some good here.”

  Cassin looked more grizzled and wolfish than usual. “The dragons aren’t going to help us, little one.”

  “We’ve got friends amongst the dragonkin.” She pointed to herself and to Taro. “Maybe Arangathras and Kurian will listen. It’s the best we can hope for. At the very least, maybe Kurian will give me a lift back to the Endra.”

  “Kurian…” Cassin mused appreciatively. “If you’re as close to him as you say, it’s possible.”

  “If you’ve got a better plan, I’d love to hear it,” Kyra said.

  Cassin slumped back, obviously frustrated. After a moment’s thought, he tried to stand, and failed. “Damn it.”

  “I told you,” Elagra chastised from the other side of the bustling tent. “If you tear out your stitches, you’re in for a world of pain, little man.”

  Cassin waved her comment aside. “This isn’t half as bad as the time I wrestled black bears in the Vale. I used to do it for sport.”

  Elagra’s eyes brightened. “You too enjoy such things? It’s been several moons since I partook, but when you heal, you must join me.”

  Cassin looked like a frightened deer, and he patted his elbow. “Uh, thank you, I’d love to, but I haven’t, eh, partook in many years. Trick elbow, you see.”

  “Pity,” Elagra said, disappointed.