Davoka frowned at her. “Continent?”
“The landmass across which we travel.”
“There are others?”
Lyrna was about to laugh then saw the honest curiosity in Davoka’s eyes. She knows so much, and yet so little. “Four that are known to our maps,” she said. “All much larger than this one. Probably more besides, but no Realm subject has yet journeyed so far and returned.”
“Not so,” Arendil put in. “Kerlis the Faithless. It’s said he travelled around the world twice, and currently makes his third such journey.”
“Just a story,” Lyrna said. “A myth.”
“It can’t be,” the boy insisted. “Uncle Vanden swears he met him once, near thirty years ago.”
“And who is Uncle Vanden?”
“Grandfather’s cousin, a great and mighty knight in his time. I call him Uncle because he acts as such. He’s very old.”
“Old enough to meet the man who never dies, eh?”
Arendil’s scowl returned. “It’s true. Uncle wouldn’t lie. It happened when he was in service to the Warden of the North Shore. He was wounded in a battle with some smugglers and became separated from his men in the craggy rocks that cover the coast near the mountains. He says he stumbled about for hours, fearing he would bleed his life away, then he found Kerlis sheltering amidst the rocks with some strange people. Uncle was near death by then but there was a little boy amongst them with the Dark, a touch that could heal.”
Lyrna’s interest began to pique. “A healing touch?”
“I know it sounds fanciful, and Grandfather told me it was just the dreamy ramblings of an old man. But Uncle showed me the scar, a patch of mottled skin on his shoulder, all puckered and rough to the touch, but the centre of it smooth and unscarred in the shape of a hand, a child’s hand.”
Davoka gave a sullen grunt and spurred her pony to a canter, moving ahead until she was out of earshot. “Such talk upsets her,” Lyrna explained. “Finish the story.”
Arendil’s gaze was guarded, as if he feared she had some mockery in store, but he continued after a moment’s hesitation. “Although the boy had closed his wound, Uncle sickened with fever. Kerlis and the others saved him from the rising tide, taking him to shore and making a fire. Kerlis sat with him that night as he shivered and waited for death, and it was from his own lips that Uncle heard the tale. How he had been cursed by the Departed, though not, as the legend says, for simple Faithlessness, but for refusing a place in the Beyond, refusing to join with them. So they had closed him off from all doors to death, even the great emptiness that awaits the unfaithful. Twice he had circled the world, Uncle said. Twice he had returned to this land, come to help those he could, all the while searching.”
Lyrna was familiar with the story of Kerlis the Faithless but this was a new wrinkle to the tale. Kerlis was a cautionary figure, a lost soul endlessly wandering the earth, friendless and desperate for release. A passive victim, not a searcher. “Searching for what?” she asked.
“Uncle asked him the same thing. He said he thought Kerlis expected him to die, hence the freedom with which he spoke. He leaned close to my uncle and spoke in a whisper, ‘For what I was promised. One day there will be one amongst the gifted folk of this land who can kill me. I’ll know him when I see him. Until then I’ll strive to save as many as I can, for in years to come he may well be born to those I save. In a few years most birthed by this generation will be scattered or slaughtered, and I’ll take myself off again. My third circling of the world, my lord. I wonder what I’ll see.’ Uncle fell into a feverish slumber then, and when he awoke, somehow still living, Kerlis and the strange folk were gone.”
An old man’s dreamy ramblings indeed, Lyrna thought, more in hope than conviction. What she had witnessed in the Mahlessa’s chamber plagued her waking hours and her dreams. I searched so far for evidence, now I have it why does it seem such a burden?
◆ ◆ ◆
The forest began to thin after two more days, eventually opening out into the grassy plain surrounding the walls of Varinshold. The eighth bell was tolling as they approached the north gate and the City Guard were lighting the great oil lanterns on either side of the entrance. Unlike Cardurin there was no bunting or cheering crowds to greet her entry to the city. It seemed her brother felt no need to mark her success and safe return with a public celebration. Probably saving the coin for another bridge, she thought. The usual gawkers and well-wishers lined the streets as the cavalrymen cleared a path for her, and there were a few calls of welcome or congratulation, but none of the adulation she had found in the north. In fact most onlookers seemed more interested in Davoka, some gaping and pointing at the sight of a Lonak riding through the streets of the capital, and a woman at that. Davoka bore the scrutiny with stoic calm, but Lyrna saw her hand tighten on her spear as some ribald comments arose from the spectators.
The crowd was a little thicker at the palace, the guards obliged to become more aggressive in ensuring her passage to the main gate where she was met by a balding, portly man with a wide smile. “Highness,” he greeted her, bowing low.
“Lord Al Densa,” she replied. Al Densa was master of the royal household and normally gave off an aura of perpetual calm, though today he seemed a little more lively.
“The King sends his apologies for failing to greet you in person, Highness,” the portly lord told her. “But today’s joyous event has commanded his attention.”
“Event?” Lyrna enquired, dismounting from Surefoot’s back and handing the reins to a groom.
“More a miracle in truth, Highness. Brother Frentis is returned to the Realm, safe and well, all the way across the ocean. The Departed be thanked for their care of him.”
Frentis? Of all the souls lost at Untesh, Frentis was the one that haunted her brother the most. “Joyous news indeed,” she said.
“I hate to trouble you with correspondence so soon,” Al Densa went on, producing a small scroll and handing it to her. “But the King seems keen to afford the fellow all cooperation.”
“Fellow?” Lyrna unrolled the scroll, revealing neat and well-scribed lines of Realm Tongue, although the letters were formed with some unusual flourishes.
“An Alpiran scholar, Highness. Come to write a history of some kind. The King thinks indulging him will offer a chance at healing the rift between our nations.”
Lyrna’s eyebrows rose at the sight of the signature on the scroll. “Verniers Alishe Someren. The Emperor’s personal historian. He’s here?”
“He was, Highness. The King acceded to his request to accompany the Realm Guard on their excursion to Cumbrael. However, as you see from his letter, he is very keen to secure an audience with you.”
She was familiar with Verniers’ work of course, though it suffered in translation from Alpiran. She had intended to work on her own version of his Cantos, if she ever got the time. A historian seeks the truth, at least a good one does. He comes to ask about my father and his mad war. “Of course I’ll see him,” she told Al Densa. “Please arrange the meeting as soon as he returns.”
Al Densa bowed. “I shall, Highness. For now, however, the King requests your attendance in the throne room. Brother Frentis and his companion are being conveyed there as we speak.”
“Companion?”
“A Volarian woman. It seems they were slaves together. The details are vague as yet, but clearly we can look forward to a tale of great adventure.”
“Clearly.” Lyrna beckoned Davoka and Arendil closer. “The Lady Davoka, Ambassadress of the Lonak Dominion, and Squire Arendil of House Banders, soon to be made ward of the King. They require suitable lodgings.”
“Of course, Highness.”
“For now I’ll take them to my rooms. Tell the King to expect me shortly.”
“Brother Frentis!” Arendil enthused as Lyrna led them along the many corridors to her suite in the east wing.
“He’s almost as great a hero as Lord Al Sorna. Will I get to meet him?”
“I expect so,” Lyrna replied. “And when you meet the King do try to remember to call him ‘Highness.’ Such niceties are expected of palace guests.”
Her rooms were as she remembered, every furnishing and ornament just as they had been left. Her many books sat on their long shelves in the order she had decreed, the leather bindings dusted and shining but otherwise untouched. The desk where she spent so many hours held the full ink bottle and freshly cut quills she required be placed there every morning. And her bed, her wonderful bed. So soft, so warm . . . so very big. It was strange, everything else in the room seemed to have shrunk, but the bed had somehow contrived to grow.
Who lives here? she wondered, going to the desk and placing The Wisdoms of Reltak next to the stack of parchment. Which lonely old woman lives here and spends her days in endless scribbling?
She permitted her maids some fussing before ordering a suitable gown laid out and food brought for her guests. “I don’t know how long this will take,” she told Davoka when she had exchanged her riding gown for a blue silk dress with a gold-embroidered bodice. She stood in front of the mirror as one of the maids pushed her coronet into the remolded mass of her hair. “Best if you wait here with the boy. I’ll arrange a time for you to meet the King on the morrow.” She turned as Davoka failed to answer, finding the Lonak woman staring at her, a faint frown on her brow. “What is it?”
“You are . . . different,” Davoka said softly, eyes tracking over Lyrna’s form.
“Just trappings, sister,” she replied in Lonak. “A disguise in fact.” Save for this, she thought, fingering the throwing knife hanging from the chain about her neck. She had taken to wearing it openly since leaving the pass but decided it was probably best to keep it hidden once again, so took it off to hide behind the laces in her bodice. Never be without it.
◆ ◆ ◆
“Princess Lyrna Al Nieren!” The page at the door announced her entry with a booming voice, thumping a staff onto the marble floor of the throne room three times. Lords only got one thump of the staff, Aspects two, she and the queen three. It was one of the rituals her father had instigated on assuming the throne. She had once asked him the significance of the thumping staff and received only a wry smile in response. All ritual is empty, Reltak had written. The more of the long-dead Lonakhim scholar she read, the more she appreciated his insight.
“Sister!” Malcius came to greet her, his embrace warm and close. “Your adventures had me greatly worried,” he whispered into her ear.
“Not so much as I. We have much to discuss, brother.”
“All in good time.” He stepped back and extended his hand to the two figures standing in the centre of the room, a young man and woman, dressed in mean clothing, but also both handsome of face and athletic of build. The man was well muscled with a stern visage, his features possessed of a hungry leanness. The woman was no less striking, lithe like a dancer and darkly beautiful. She seemed somewhat overawed by her surroundings, keeping close to the man’s side and casting wary glances at the assembled lords and guards.
“You are in time to join me in a joyous occasion,” Malcius said, moving towards the young man. “Brother Frentis.” He shook his head in wonder. “How you gladden my heart!”
Lyrna moved to her usual seat on the left of the throne, pausing to press a kiss to the queen’s cheek on the way and exchange hushed greetings with her niece and nephew. “Did you bring me a gift, auntie?” little Dirna asked.
“I did.” She tweaked her niece’s nose, drawing a giggle. “A Lonak pony for you and a new playmate for your brother. We’ll all go riding tomorrow.”
“I come . . .” Brother Frentis was saying in a halting voice as she took her seat. “I come, Highness. To beg . . . forgiveness.”
“Forgiveness?” the King replied with a laugh. “Whatever for?”
“Untesh, Highness. I couldn’t hold the wall . . . My men . . . My failure saw the city fall.”
“The city was always going to fall, brother. Do not seek forgiveness for an imagined failing.”
Lyrna noticed Lord Al Telnar, onetime Minister of Royal Works, standing at the far side of the room. His expression, normally one of smug self-satisfaction or obsequious solicitation, was oddly tense as he offered her a bow. She had heard from a maid that he had been the one to recognise Frentis at the docks that very day, a perfect opportunity to curry lost royal favour. So where is his triumph? she wondered. Or his customary leer? The man had been another unwelcome suitor over the years, one she dismissed with almost as much alacrity as she had dismissed Darnel, but like the Fief Lord it hadn’t dimmed his ardour.
“For all the long years of slavery and torment,” Brother Frentis was saying, “it has been my one ambition to stand before you and crave your pardon.”
“Then it grieves me to disappoint you,” Malcius replied, moving forward with his arms wide, enfolding Frentis in a warm embrace. “For no pardon is required.” Malcius drew back a little, his hands on the brother’s shoulders. “Now, tell me of how you came to be here, and in company with such a lovely associate.”
Frentis smiled a little, head downcast, nodded, and reached up to clasp the King’s head between both hands, jerking it up and to the side, breaking his neck with a loud crack.
The knife was in Lyrna’s hand as she rose to her feet. She had no memory of having drawn it from her bodice. The screams began as the shocked stillness turned to confusion and rage, as the queen shrieked and the lithe woman dodged a guard’s pole-axe and drove a punch into his throat. Lyrna’s knife flew from her hand and buried itself in Frentis’s side. He convulsed instantly, back arching, a scream every bit as terrible as Kiral’s erupting from his throat, collapsing onto the marble floor, jerking as the agony wracked him.
The Volarian woman turned from the dead guard at her feet, gaping in shock at the sight of Frentis’s writhing form, his jerks ending abruptly, limbs suddenly slack. A single Volarian word issued from her lips in a whisper: “Beloved?”
“Kill her!” cried the queen in terror and grief. “Kill them both!”
Guards charged from all sides of the room, pole-axes levelled. The woman paid them no heed, her gaze fixing on Lyrna, face rendered ugly with malice and revenge. She extended both arms as the guards closed, and flame erupted from her hands.
Lyrna staggered back in shock, reeling from the heat as the woman whirled, her flames engulfing guards and lords as they swept the room. Lyrna saw little Dirna bathed in fire, her mother next, then little Janus, their bodies charred and blackened in seconds. Lyrna would have screamed but for the choking stench of smoke and burning flesh, making her crawl and rasp on the floor.
“You took him from me!” the woman screamed at Lyrna, advancing towards her on unsteady legs, blood flowing from her eyes in thick red tears. “You took my beloved! You festering cunt!”
A figure came staggering out of the swirling smoke as the woman raised her hands towards Lyrna, reaching out to restrain her. Al Telnar! Lyrna realised in shock.
The lord shouted at the woman as he grappled with her, his words lost amidst the roaring flame. The woman bared her teeth in a feral snarl and drove her hand open-palmed into the centre of his face. Al Telnar staggered back, sinking to his knees, his nose driven back into his skull, then collapsed lifeless to the floor.
Lyrna scrabbled back as the woman lurched closer, arm raised, flames erupting . . . and she burned.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Frentis
Agony erupted as the knife sank into his flesh, instantly spreading to seize his entire body. He heard screams he knew were his own as his legs gave way. It was like being squeezed by a fist made of a million jagged steel points, the pain so intense he felt his reason slipping away, memory fading amidst the torment. Vaelin, the Order, the woman . . . the King’s eyes just before he killed him
, the brightness of them—a man finding relief from guilt. Far away there were more screams, a great heat filling the air, but it was so dull, beyond the wall of pain that surrounded him. He retained sufficient reason for one more thought: At least I won’t live to suffer the guilt.
Then it changed, the agony born of the knife blade shifted as it met something, an echo of a previous pain, a seed, stunted, prevented from growing, now given new life. The seed will grow . . . The steel-point grip faded, replaced by something worse, a burning, a searing fire ripping through him, covering his skin, finding his scars. It reached a crescendo then, the pattern of scars covering his torso flaring with a force greater than any he had known before . . . Then it was gone. All the pain, gone in an instant . . . along with the binding.
Air escaped him in a rush as he rolled on the floor, the sensation of freedom overwhelming. His hands found his chest, searching for the scars, finding only smooth flesh. They were gone, healed and disappeared. No scars, no binding. I can move. I CAN MOVE!
He began to rise then grunted as a fresh pain gripped his side where the princess’s knife was still embedded. An Order knife, he thought in wonder, tugging it free. The cut was bad, bleeding freely, but not fatal. He surged to his feet, finding himself standing amidst an inferno. Blackened and burning bodies lay everywhere, flame and smoke covered the walls, the King’s corpse lying before him, dead eyes open, meeting his own.
A shout to his left dragged his gaze away, finding the woman, flame streaming from her hands towards the prone form of Princess Lyrna. For an instant it caught her hair, her face, raising a scream of terror and agony. “No,” the woman said, stilling her flames, stumbling towards Lyrna, blood dripping from her face. “Too quick. You I’ll have raped every day for a year. You I’ll have cut, one piece at a time. You I’ll ha—”