The Redstar Rising Trilogy

by Rhett C. Bruno

  “Those are sacred places,” Rand said. “This is wrong.”

  “You wanted to get inside; this is the cost.”

  “Are you truly that cold? They didn’t have to die. They at least deserve to be put to rest properly.”

  “Brek is cold. Those men, you’re welcome to dig them out and do so after we’re done.”

  Codar brushed by him, heading for one of the catacombs branching off from the Royal Crypt. A locked gate stood in the opening, each iron bar as thick as Rand’s forearm, impossible to bash open. Codar grabbed a burning torch from the stone wall and raised it to the lock.

  “You,” he said to one of Valin’s thugs. “Get to work.”

  The man cracked his knuckles, then knelt before the gate with a pin and started picking the lock. Rand wasn’t sure where to look as he did it. He had to avoid facing the Royal Crypt where it felt like the eyes of every fallen king were watching, judging him. He couldn’t face the surrounding colonnade through which he could hear the dwarves fumbling with bodies. He couldn’t even stare at the wall or floors, or he’d see stories of Iam.

  So, he closed his eyes. He felt ridiculous doing it, like a child who’d broken a rule down by the docks, but his entire life had become so absurd. The only thing he was sure of was that he wasn’t doing the work of Iam any longer. That was up to Torsten. From being the Queen’s hangman to this… his hands were covered in too much innocent blood.

  The lock clicked, and the gate creaked inward. The thug rubbed his hands together. “Easy as a Vineyard wench.” The remark instantly drew Rand’s glower, and the man smirked. “Most of em anyways.”

  Rand pushed him aside and moved into the entrance. “Let’s just get this over with,” he said. “I think I know the way to the lower dungeons from here.”

  “Lead on,” Codar said.

  “Do you have another pouch of gold?” Rand asked. “What do we do if we have to buy someone else’s silence?”

  “A favor owed from Valin Tehr is worth far more than gold,” he replied, without even needing to give it a second’s thought, like he didn’t sense the venom in Rand’s tone.

  “Then I hope we don’t run into anyone else.”

  “Now you are learning.” Codar slid his dirk back out of the sheath on the small of his back. Valin’s two remaining men drew daggers as well and held them backward, concealed by their wrists and forearms.

  Rand moved ahead. “I’ll go first. My armor will make any guards hesitate. No more killing.”

  Codar grabbed Rand and pulled him out of the hall. Rand was about to protest when the Breklian held a finger to his lips. He gestured back down the tunnel. Two men passed by the nearest fork, a torch revealing their pale skin, furs, and leather armor. One spoke in Drav Crava, and the other laughed.

  “And what about them, knight?” Codar asked.

  Rand didn’t dignify him with a response. Instead, they waited for the savages to pass, but they both knew the answer. They were here to help stop the spread of the Drav Cra into Yarrington, and if one of them got in the way, Rand wouldn’t falter.

  “Let’s go.” Rand took the torch and headed into the catacombs. The light would give away their position, but any guard in the tunnels was required to keep a torch with them. He didn’t draw his sword either, so as not to look threatening at first glance, but he held his hand on the pommel as they moved. The Dawning had cleared the passage out until they were all the way to the end of the catacombs. Down the passage, where stairs led up to the castle courtyard, stood two Glass soldiers.

  Rand positioned the torch directly in front of his chest so the shadow he cast would make Codar and the others invisible. He walked straight, shoulders proud, and the guards didn’t seem to care about his presence at all. He did appear to be a Shieldsman after all, and he was too far for them to distinguish his face. He stopped at an entrance to a more cramped tunnel that led to the lower dungeons and allowed Codar and the others to slip behind him unseen.

  “Well done,” Codar said.

  “Just keep walking,” Rand replied. “The Dawning has helped, but the dungeons won’t be empty.”

  A warren of tunnels crisscrossed beneath the castle. Some said it was an old dwarven city before the first king, Autlas Nothhelm, had his capital built above it centuries ago. Rand followed the light, avoiding the corridors where he could see the shimmer of torchlight on the moist stone walls. He may have appeared a Shieldsman, but he didn’t want to encounter anyone else unless there was no choice.

  The longer route avoiding patrols took them through storage halls—food, supplies, everything the castle might need to withstand a siege for months if it ever came to that. They had to slow on their way through as two Drav Cra warriors were passed out on a mat after looting some of it and eating their fill.

  A staircase led to the lower dungeons where all the most rotten criminals the Crown got their hands on rotted for the rest of their lives. That was where Torsten would be, like some sort of mad killer. He, a man who had so loyally served the Crown for so long and faced untold evil just to bring back a doll Queen Oleander thought would save her son. Considering that the very next day King Pi rose from his casket alive and well, Rand couldn’t deny that she might have been right and that Torsten’s actions, insane as they might've been, had saved the Nothhelm line.

  Rand now knew all the rumors about what Torsten did at the battle of Winde Port; killing a Shieldsman in rage, failing to capture the rebel Afhem Muskigo on purpose. Rand knew it was all hogwash. Sir Torsten Unger had trained Rand to serve the King’s Shield far better than he ever had, and there was nobody who cared more for the realm.

  “Is this the lower dungeons?” Codar asked as they reached the bottom of the stairs. So far below the ground, the air was dank and stale. The narrow hall extended two ways, barred cells lining it on either side. There were barely enough torches set on the walls to see anything. It was quiet, save for the soft echo of madness and the occasional scream.

  “I’m surprised you’ve never been here,” Rand replied.

  “Perks of serving Valin Tehr. Now, where would they keep you, Torsten Unger?”

  “There.” Two Drav Cra warlocks stood outside one of the cells and a Glass soldier at a desk in a nearby nook. He was the unfortunate soul forced to endure the smell of shog and the din of insanity in the lower dungeons while the city above celebrated the Dawning. That meant he’d be the one with the keys.

  “Your move, knight,” Codar said.

  Rand drew a deep breath. Warlocks were dangerous, as he’d learned in Redstar’s chambers, but Rand had them outnumbered, four to three. Any other day of the year that number might have been tripled, but Valin Tehr was brilliant as he was wicked.

  “We take out the warlocks, then convince the guard to open the cell,” Rand said.

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  “We take the keys and leave him in Torsten’s cell. He doesn’t die.”

  “Then don’t let him see my face,” Codar said, shoving Rand. “Go. This has taken too long already, and we have a schedule to keep.”

  Rand stumbled forward, the clatter of his armor drawing the attention of the warlocks. He had no choice but to proceed. They turned to face him simultaneously, two men with their faces painted black and white. Their heads were shaved, the black continuing all the way over their skulls. Ragged furs hung over their bodies, stitched together from various animals, and bone trinkets rattled around on their necks. Luckily, they weren’t the ones who’d been outside Redstar’s room.

  The guard scrambled to his feet and saluted as Rand passed. The warlocks slowly repositioned themselves, now facing Rand, side by side.

  “What is it you require, Shieldsman?” they asked. Hearing them speak in synchronization gave Rand momentary pause.

  “I have to speak with Sir Unger,” Rand said.

  “Only Drad Redstar can order that.”

  Rand lifted his chin. “I was sent by the King himself.”

  “And we serve the Arch Wa
rlock.”

  “You are in King Pi’s castle, in our castle,” Rand said sternly. “You will obey a direct order, or you will feel the might of the Glass Kingdom.”

  “We are that might. The former wearer is not to be—”

  A knife zipped by Rand’s ear. The warlock it was aimed at somehow predicted the attack and was able to slide out of the way, the blade stabbing into his shoulder. Rand swung at the other warlock with his torch without thinking twice and bashed him across the face.

  Reeling from the knife, the first warlock raised a hand, and suddenly, the flame on the end of the torch jumped onto Rand’s arm. His armor was infused with glaruium yet it caught fire like a thistle in a drought. One of Valin’s men squeezed around him in the narrow passage and leaped onto the warlock Rand had struck, plunging the dagger into his chest over and over. The warlock murmured in Drav Crava as it happened, calmly, as if he felt no pain. When Valin’s man glanced back up, all the deadly wounds he’d inflicted in the warlock showed on his chest as well, identical. He toppled over, dead in an instant.

  The Glass guard grabbed his bludgeon and swung at Rand, but Codar parried the attack. “No!” Rand shouted as Codar swiftly ducked around the man and got his knife to his throat. Codar stopped centimeters away from shredding the man’s throat.

  The injured, remaining warlock stepped forward, chanting in Drav Crava. His eyes were wild, gray but glowing like hot coals, and the fire he’d summoned wrapped like a serpent up Rand’s limb. He could feel his skin boiling beneath his armor, the pain so intense he could barely move. Valin’s other thug stood to the side, the one who’d picked the lock, too petrified by the dark magic to move. The fire leaped from Rand’s arm onto the thug like a living thing, and without armor, the man’s clothing caught quickly. He shrieked, falling to the ground and rolling.

  Rand fought through the pain. The heat was on his neck now, the skin beginning to blister, but he drew his sword and charged. The warlock backed up and sliced his own wrist with a knife so deep blood instantly gushed out. The body of the other warlock flew off the ground, knocking Rand from his feet and crushing Valin’s lockpicker’s head against the wall.

  Rand groped for his sword, but the fire only grew brighter, hotter. He caught a glimpse of Codar and the guard out of the corner of his eye.

  “There is no choice,” Codar said. He was about to slit the man’s throat so he could join the fight when all of a sudden the fire dwindled. Rand found his sword and got to his feet, only to see the warlock with his back against the bars of Torsten’s cell. A chain was wrapped around his throat, scraping the white paint off until the man’s throat crunched.

  “You’ll never get away with this,” the glass guard rasped as Codar choked him. Rather than answering, the Breklian bashed him in the back of the head with the guard's cudgel and knocked him out.

  “Rand, is that you?” a gruff, haggard voice asked. It didn’t sound anything like the booming voice Rand remembered, but it couldn’t be anyone else in the cell but the man who’d left Rand as Wearer while he saved the kingdom, only for Rand to ruin everything.

  Rand wasn’t sure why he hesitated, but it took all the strength in his limbs to drag his body in front of the cell. It was Torsten inside, still tall and strong as an ox with skin like pitch. He had a chain in one hand which hung from the ceiling, the end around the Warlock’s throat keeping him from collapsing in a heap of tangled limbs. His ankles were chained like common livestock for slaughter.

  “Sir Unger,” Rand struck his chest and bowed his head. “I received your message.”

  XXV

  THE MYSTIC

  Wetzel was a strict teacher. Sora could remember the feeling of his cane against her knuckles every time she messed up or didn’t listen, but he often wound up more upset with himself for not being able to teach her correctly. Then he’d storm off alone, rambling like a madman that he couldn’t do it.

  Madam Jaya was calmer, which she made up for in both unpredictability and ambiguity.

  For days, Madam Jaya forced Sora to meditate, to clear her mind—as if she could focus on anything other than Whitney and his torment in Elsewhere.

  Finally, after days of solitude, Madam Jaya finally returned. Just when Sora thought she’d gain some reprieve, the mystic told her she couldn’t leave the training area until she’d summoned flame without the drawing of blood. She left with no further explanation of the bar guai and sealed the door behind her.

  Sora stared down at the disc embedded in her skin, puzzled. “I guess this is teaching me.” She drew a long, beleaguered breath. “Okay. Summon fire. You’ve done it a thousand times.”

  She closed her eyes and reached inward how she always used to. Ever since the first time Wetzel’s teachings had unlocked her powers, the presence of Elsewhere had always called out in return. But they could only ever communicate if she drew blood.

  Presently, Sora heard only the echo of her thoughts. Eyes closed, she pictured fire, roaring, its arms reaching out to devour everything in its path. Then, she thrust her arm forward. Nothing happened.

  She shook out her limb, took another breath and tried again. And again. And once more, until she wasn’t only thinking about fire, she was consumed by it. She imagined herself back in Winde Port, tongues of flame licking all around her. She could feel the terror. She heard a laugh and spun around only to see Kazimir chuckling as he slid a bloody blade across his tongue. She tripped over her own feet as she scrambled backward and away from the upyr.

  “My dear, you’ve fallen,” said another. “Allow me.” A gray hand extended to her, and she looked up to see Muskigo smiling down at her.

  “Get away from me!” she yelled, jumping to her feet. When her heels hit the ground, she found herself in the training room again.

  “What did… Madam Jaya?” Nobody answered.

  Sora struggled to catch her breath, and once she did, she felt a sharp pain in the center of her chest. Painful memories often helped her fuel her power after she cut herself, and the bar guai seemed to enhance that sensation, to send her deeper into her fears and emotions until she was lost in them.

  “It’s this yigging thing,” she said as she dug her fingers beneath the disc and tried to pry it out of her chest, but she couldn't find purchase.

  “As I said, you are not yet capable of removing it,” Madam Jaya said.

  Sora spun. The door remained closed, but the mystic was suddenly standing before her again.

  “You said I had all day,” Sora said.

  “You did. It is now night.”

  “What? How? I… I… I guess I lost track of time.”

  The woman’s thin lips creased into a pathetic excuse for a grin. “Nobody casts through the bar guai on their first attempt. I told you that patience would be your first lesson.”

  Sora sighed. “Another test.”

  “All life is a test. I tell you this, so you do not blame yourself for not being able to do in a day without instruction what has taken others years, no matter who they were.”

  “It’s just… I can feel the power of Elsewhere within me still, but it’s like it’s ignoring me. Telling me I must bleed.”

  Madam Jaya sat and folded her legs. She invited Sora to sit beside her, and now that Sora knew how long she’d been struggling to find her power, she was eager for the break.

  “We spoke of sacrifice, and without it, Elsewhere remains blocked off for all of us.”

  “Then why can’t I use my knife?” Sora snapped, her frustration peeking through. “Sorry, Madam, it’s been a long day.”

  “I understand. It is rare for one of our apprentices to be so accomplished in blood magic before reaching us. Their comprehension of Elsewhere’s power and what it means to sacrifice often winds up tainted. It can take time to retrain your mind.”

  “Time…” Sora sighed. “Madam Jaya, can I tell you something?”

  The mystic nodded.

  “I believe I have already opened Elsewhere, but there was no sacrifice.”


  Madam Jaya turned her head but betrayed no emotion. “Tell me.”

  “When I was in Winde Port, I was attacked, hunted by a monster. He’d finally cornered me and, without knowing, I sent him to Elsewhere.” Still unsure of what they might think about it, she decided to leave Whitney out of it altogether.

  “How do you know that is where he went?”

  “I…” Sora swallowed. “I saw him in the chamber beneath Lord Bokeo’s bookstore when the Ancient One gave me that vision.”

  “Does this monster have a name?”

  “He is an upyr,” Sora admitted. “His name is Kazimir.”

  “Ah,” Madam Jaya breathed out in relief.

  “Why are you smiling?” Sora asked.

  “The upyr are very different from us. Their powers come from an otherworldly attachment to Elsewhere, and at a high price. For an upyr to even close his or her eyes is to see Elsewhere. Each time they blink, there it is, waiting for them. It was not your power alone that cast him into that abyss. It was his already strong connection to the place that allowed it.”

  Sora felt something she couldn’t immediately pinpoint. It might have been relief—relief that perhaps she hadn’t been wholly responsible for Whitney’s fate.

  “Rest assured,” Madam Jaya continued, “you alone will never open Elsewhere without sacrifice. In this case, the upyr already made the sacrifice long ago. For you, it remains blocked off and this,” she motioned to the disc buried in Sora’s chest. “The bar guai acts as a conduit for what we call a makros.”

  “A makros?

  “It is when the power of a casting is stored within an object, making it able to be called upon at will without sacrifice. I know that amulet seems like nothing, but there is no object in this realm of greater value. For centuries, mystics have poured bits of their power into those stones, bound by runic magic, carved in the language of the gods.”

  “So, the sacrifice has already been made?”

  Madam Jaya nodded, taking no effort to hide her self-satisfaction at triggering the realization. “Exactly. You failed because you called on the wrong place. Self-channeling through Elsewhere takes decades to master, so for now, you must channel through the stone as all new apprentices learn to do. Walk before you run, or so they say. Where once you could cast fire through thought, now you must call upon the rune by name.”