“Come on!” Szearbhyn called to Luccan. “You’ll barely even get wet!”
Luccan bared his teeth and hissed. The swamp had been plenty wet enough. His boots still squished with every step, and now Atchi led them to the patchiest excuse for a bridge he had ever seen in all his long life. Sand bars and muddy little islands all strung between stretches of rotting plank bridges like a pearl necklace of misery, the whole thing lying almost flush with the surface of the water.
“Quit being such a pissy kitty.” Atchi linked arms with him and dragged him toward the abomination bridge. “This is the way we need to go.”
Perhaps.
But none of them could make him like it.
Ragheiyont looked down at the cup of blood, and he gently swirled it. Tharaiyelagh stared at him, trying to think of an appropriate reaction. He had worried so much about his sore leg and the dark underground and North, all while his own brother had been fighting for his life, trying not to bleed to death. Ashamed, he looked down at his clenched fists. He needed to be a better brother to Ragheiyont. He owed it to him to try.
“So…” He heard the grin in his brother’s voice before he ever looked up. “You and Van-Dal. What’s that about?”
The question startled Tharaiyelagh. Heat rose in his cheeks even as he shook his head. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“I thought you were in love with that other prince,” Ragheiyont said bluntly, baffling his brother. Tharaiyelagh tilted his head, trying to read his expression, which only seemed gently mocking.
“I’m not sure what that has to do with anything.”
“You leapt on Van-Dal the moment you saw him.”
“You’re not making any sense.” Tharaiyelagh picked at the small green shoots that covered the hillside. Was this grass? Documents from other Spheres described the stuff, and this seemed similar. He looked up, and he saw Ragheiyont regarding him with an expectant arch to one eyebrow. What more could Tharaiyelagh tell him? “Lord Van-Dal is a trusted friend to Lord Baleirithys. He’s…” Tharaiyelagh sighed. “Alright, yes, he’s a terrible flirt, but I assure you everything is strictly professional between us.”
Ragheiyont snorted. “He’s not a flirt.”
“What.”
When Tharaiyelagh saw the sincerity on his brother’s face, he felt the world constricting and falling away at the same time. No, no, that wasn’t right. Tharaiyelagh took slow, careful breaths, counting each one out to disguise his distress. No, Ragheiyont had to be mistaken.
“I’ve just spent I-don’t-know-how-many days alone with him and Seikhiel.” Ragheiyont gestured broadly, the empty cup still in his hand. “The prince is not a flirt.”
Seeing an opportunity to change the subject, which had become so dreadful so suddenly, Tharaiyelagh said, “Yes, do tell me how you came to hold Seikhiel’s hand. I’m dying to hear it.”
Ragheiyont blushed, which, given his anemic state, was unlikely. “Stealth,” he said. “He took his hand back as soon as he noticed.”
“No.” Tharaiyelagh found himself enjoying his brother’s discomfort. “He took his hand back when I noticed.”
“Well.” Ragheiyont picked at the edge of his bandages. “It’s nothing. Obviously. I mean, he’s a Demonslayer, an’ he’s not even attracted to me. He said so. Right before I kissed him.”
“You what!” Tharaiyelagh gasped, horrified and delighted in equal measure. Ragheiyont had always been so bold, and Tharaiyelagh envied him for it.
“Yeah, I shouldn’ta done it.” Looking oddly miserable, Ragheiyont shrugged. “I was sure I was dying an’ I figured nothing really mattered anymore an’ he let me? Dunno why.”
Reaching across, Tharaiyelagh squeezed Ragheiyont’s good hand. “You’re not dying. We won’t let that happen.”
“‘S long’s that smith in there fixes it,” Ragheiyont muttered, jerking his head just slightly toward the immense tree at the top of the hill. Tharaiyelagh frowned at its gently swaying branches. Something about it bothered him, but the longer he stared at the tree, the more his back itched, in a sharp, relentless sort of way. Shaking his head, he looked away.
“I’m surprised you haven’t tried to open it yet.”
Ragheiyont scoffed. “Ain’t that stupid, am I? In this state, that thing’d destroy me. I can feel it from here.”
“But what if…” An idea had been brewing in the back of Tharaiyelagh’s mind, and now it bubbled over. “Here, give me that dagger.”
Ragheiyont hesitated, then handed him a little cloth packet. Tharaiyelagh peeled it open. Inside lay a shards of blade and a battered old hilt. Finishing around in his pockets, Tharaiyelagh produced a pair of magnifying spectacles he usually used for examining ancient manuscripts. He settled them over the bridge of his nose, and he got to work.
He spread the cloth out over a flat stone he had found earlier and repurposed as a table. Now he hunched over it, slowly, meticulously realigning the broken dagger, piecing it together like a puzzle. Ragheiyont spoke to him, but the words meant nothing, for they failed to penetrate his wall of focus. Using the tips of his claws and the back of a stylus he had found in another pocket, he nudged tiny bits of metal across the rumpled cloth until all the pieces fit together. Satisfied, he sat back, blinking as though waking from a dream.
He had an audience.
Seeing Van-Dal and Seikhiel beside Ragheiyont, Tharaiyelagh glanced away. “I, ah, I wanted to see if this would help. If putting the pieces in place would slow the bleeding.” His cheeks reddened too easily, and he resented it a little. Why should he feel foolish for having an idea?
“You must be good at your job.”
Startled by Seikhiel’s voice, Tharaiyelagh looked back, and saw only sincerity. Van-Dal was nodding.
“He is,” he said. “He’s exactly what Seyzharel needs.”
The praise made him even more uncomfortable than the assumption that they found his idea silly. Tharaiyelagh shrugged one shoulder and tried to avoid Van-Dal’s gaze. “I just…”
“You looked for a solution, even a partial or a temporary one.”
“Doesn’t everyone do that?”
Van-Dal and Seikhiel exchanged a glance that strongly suggested otherwise. “Let’s have a look,” Seikhiel said. Gently, so gently, he lifted Ragheiyont’s injured arm and unwound the bandage. The skin beneath looked cracked, shattered, red and angry, but it did not bleed freely. Instead, a clear, red-tinted fluid seeped from the cracks. Van-Dal nodded.
“That’s much better,” he said. “We can’t travel like this, but for now it’s an improvement.”
Tharaiyelagh scrounged a roll of clean bandages out of a pack, then handed both to Seikhiel. Van-Dal reached over, plucked the spectacles from Tharaiyelagh’s nose, and handed them back to him. Trying to avoid the weight of his gaze, Tharaiyelagh tucked the spectacles and the stylus back into his pockets. “How’s Lord Tempest?”
“Resting.” Van-Dal sounded amused. “Akieryon is looking after him. That was…” He drew a short, rueful breath. “That was a terrifying amount of magic.”
“We never would have survived otherwise—Oh!” Suddenly remembering, and flushing with shame at having forgotten, Tharaiyelagh plucked at the silken cords that tied Van-Dal’s sleeves back out of his way. “Do you have extra of this? Can you spare a bit? Ah, that is…”
Without question, without hesitation, Van-Dal took a small dagger and cut a length of cord from his own clothing. He handed it over, then watched intently as Tharaiyelagh took off the pendant, slipped it from the chain, and threaded the silk cord through the bail at the top of the opal. Avoiding his gaze, Tharaiyelagh handed him the gold chain.
“Shouldn’t you give this to your own prince?”
“I’m tired of carrying it.” Belatedly, Tharaiyelagh realized he may have meant Tempest. His fingers fumbled with knotting the cord around his own neck. Making an amused sound, Van-Dal leaned close, too close.
“Here, let me…” His fingertips slid up the cord, over Tharaiyelagh’s hands. He tied a deft knot. His thumb brushed against Tharaiyelagh’s ear as he sat back again.
Flirting.
Tharaiyelagh glanced toward his brother, who sat grinning at him. Tharaiyelagh scowled, but not for long. The tree, and the itching of his back pulled at his attention. “How do you suppose it opens?”
“With a fight,” Van-Dal said, his voice quiet, his expression grim.
“Highness, are you well?” Queen Apparent MiiSehlenn’s voice carried a note of impatience, a demand that Baleirithys take the proceedings more seriously.
He inclined his head with the appropriate grace, a gesture designed to conceal the turmoil within. “I am,” he lied. “Your Majesty is kind to consider my health.” He was not anything resembling well. The image of Tharaiyelagh wrapped in the coils of a serpent-dragon tormented him, and young Iyahi-Ila had recently cried out in his sleep about fire and blood and a terrible, terrible tree. Dread crept through Baleirithys’ veins and nestled in his heart, freezing it, squeezing out all impulses but the feral, savage ones that lurked ever beneath his veneer of civility.
The starving child he had been cried out for blood.
Behind Baleirithys stood Yrich, head archivist and scribe, exceptionally competent in his own work but poor substitute for chancellor. No one commented on Tharaiyelagh’s absence, though the weight of it hung heavy over the table. Kiile-Kili thumbed the edge of the papers before him.
“The agreement looks mutually beneficial,” MiiSehlenn said, picking her way through the sentence with deliberation. “But increased territory is worthless to us without livestock.” She looked at Baleirithys, one brow lifted in mild challenge.
He had known of this problem, of course. The short-legged browsing beasts that the Ravens called ytchattka once provided much of their livelihood. The Hawks called the creatures kiiyal anli and regarded them as a nuisance on shared lands, but it was not the Hawk Clan that had caused their numbers to diminish. No, Baleirithys’ wretched father had seized a majority of the herds and then promptly sold them to the slavers.
Even after three centuries asleep, that man could still cause problems.
“I have resources,” Baleirithys said, taking care to keep his expression impassive. “It may take a little time, but I know some people who ought to be able to fetch you some good breeding stock.” If Silvermoon and Kleptomancer both refused the job, he supposed he could get Tempest to handle it. Messily.
First they all had to return from Interspace.
MiiSehlenn pursed her lips, but it was Kiile-Kili who spoke. “Until then, I am willing to yield exclusive use of the freshwater springs at Rustfields to your people.”
MiiSehlenn pretended to consider the offer while Baleirithys gulped back shock and pasted his usual icy demeanor in place. He arched an eyebrow in expectation.
“That’s the nearest water to your new lands. And the best for days in any direction.”
“It is.” Kiile-Kili held her gaze steadily. “I offer it to you as a sign of our commitment to this accord.”
MiiSehlenn watched him through narrowed eyes, but she saw no trace of trickery. “Agreed,” she decided at last. “When our livestock is returned to us, Rustwater will revert to communal territory.”
Behind Baleirithys, Yrich’s pen scratched softly, making notations, recording the exchange in painful detail. Perfect work for what he was. Tharaiyelagh would have silently expanded on the agreement, fleshing it out, making it ever more specific. He would have wielded his precise turn of phrase to keep Seyzharel safe, he would have made future transgressors regret crossing Baleirithys, he would have…
Squeezing his fists below the table until his claws dug into his own palms, Baleirithys forced himself to calm the sudden ache within him. How could he miss Tharaiyelagh so… so viscerally? How, in so short a time, had he come to rely on his chancellor to this extent? As the flash of pain and loneliness passed, a wave of regret followed. Regret mingled with fear. The feral beast within him stirred.
The carved mahogany door slammed open. Everyone turned. A soft gasp later, Yrich’s crystal inkwell shattered on the floor.
Iyahi-Ila sagged in the marble arch of the doorway, his fingertips clutching at the open door, failing to find support there. Sweat sheened his face, and his breaths came short and ragged. He forced his head upward. His shadowed eyes stared sightlessly into the chamber.
At Baleirithys.
“The Forgetting,” he gasped, his voice hollow, distant. “They won’t know themselves.”
“Iyahi!” Kiile-Kili vaulted the table and skidded to a stop at his brother’s side. His strength spent, Iyahi-Ila collapsed into the Hawk king’s arms.
MiiSehlenn rapped one finger on the tabletop. “No one mentioned that the Hawk Clan has a seer.” She spoke mildly enough, but a thin thread of threat ran beneath her words. If she perceived any advantage tipping the accord in the Hawks’ favor, she may not agree to it.
“Prince Iyahi-Ila may not survive long enough to learn the trade,” Baleirithys said, his words intentionally blunt, perhaps even cruel. “If my healer cannot manage to keep him abed.”
Kiile-Kili lifted his head, glaring darkly at Baleirithys. “I don’t care for that tonic that your healer gives him.”
Baleirithys suppressed a snort. “Nor do I.” Not if the result included the boy interrupting important meetings. He would have to ask Enci to adjust the ingredients.
MiiSehlenn looked to Baleirithys. “When the boy comes of age, we need to renegotiate.”
Baleirithys agreed. Kiile-Kili, who still knelt over his brother’s prone form, had nothing to say.
“I knew this was a bad idea!”
Atchi grinned a sharp grin that showed all of his teeth. “Too late to turn back now!” he shouted over the deafening roar of water. At this distance, the spray from the immense falls just barely dampened his hair, a million tiny diamonds on silver. His tail twitched with anticipation.
Luccan gripped the hilt of his sword as though he might fight the waterfall. His ears flattened against his head, and he bared his teeth.
“It’s just a little water!” Szearbhyn bellowed. He wore the malicious grin of a person who knew just how desperately someone else wanted to rip his tongue out and slap him with it.
Just a little water. Just enough water to drown the world, that was all. His eyes fixed on the wall of water ahead of them, Luccan took a step backward. Water slopped over the toe of his boot. A rising tide swallowed up the bridge behind them, and the only path left led directly through the waterfall. “Water this still shouldn’t have tides!” he yelped.
“I know!” Atchi crowed in delight. “This place is all wrong! Let’s go!” He bounded forward, toward the towering falls.
Luccan cast one last look at the rising waters, then scowled after Atchi. “You were never my friend at all!” he accused, and the fox just laughed and laughed.
Kiile-Kili sat at his brother’s bedside, his knees on his elbows, his clasped hands covering the lower part of his face. His brow furrowed in worry. Before him, Iyahi-Ila had twined himself in several bedsheets. The boy slept soundly, but he muttered incomprehensible phrases into his pillow. Baleirithys and Enci stood a short distance away, observing.
“I didn’t do this,” Enci said, his voice heavy with concern. “Yesterday we agreed together that he should stop taking the pain tonic.”
Baleirithys nodded. “And he was tolerating the pain?”
“Bravely.” Enci’s frown deepened. “Until—”
“No!” cried the Hawk prince. Kiile-Kili leapt to his feet, reached for his brother, then changed his mind. He clenched his fists and lowered his chin.
“Until what?” he demanded, his voice as tight as the skin over his knuckles.
Enci drew a deep breath. “Not two hours ago, he and I were sitting right here. He had a book open, and we were discussing it. Then a… a light came in the window. Prince Iyahi watched it drift around the infirmary and then, without pausing, go back the way it came. Immediately, he fell into some sort of trance, and…” Enci gestured helplessly at the boy who thrashed in the throes of some vision. “He babbled something about the space between light and shadow, called out some cherubic name, cried about being buried alive, and went to interrupt your summit.”
“Why did you not restrain him?” Kiile-Kili demanded, and Enci stepped forward, turning both forearms to show fresh scratches and red marks that would surely bruise. Baleirithys’ stomach turned at the sight.
“Do you think I did not try?”
For a moment, Kiile-Kili stood in uncertain silence. Then, with a bone-weary sigh, he sank back into his seat. Baleirithys certainly understood his urge to lash out, to find someone to blame for his brother’s new affliction. Perhaps if they could find the origin of the mysterious light—
A piercing shriek ripped from Iyahi-Ila, and he jolted upright. He sat, his back straight and his shoulders squared, amid a sprawling tangle of bedding. Heedless of his injuries, he wrung his hands together. “The nightmare wakes,” he gasped, his voice shaking with true fear. “My lord, my lord, you think to guard your treasures by sending them far away. What’s broken already is soon rent wide open. Let them… Let them…” Letting out a small gurgle of desperation, Iyahi-Ila sagged forward, folding himself nearly in half. “You have to bear it!” The words sounded like a plea. “Heroic hearts… Gold on the throne… A new era…” Sobbing now, the boy swayed side to side, somehow too strong for his brother’s attempts to still him.
Baleirithys looked to Enci, but Enci’s full attention remained on his frail little patient. Iyahi-Ila pressed a fist to his mouth and bit down on his knuckles. It took both Kiile-Kili and Enci to pry his hand free before he drew blood.
“Too many souls!” Iyahi-Ila wailed. “Too many! And the purest soul in Hell grips his chains and waits, waits for judgment! And YOU!” He stared, unseeing eyes wide in horror, fixed on vague middle distance. “HOW DARE YOU! I WILL TEAR YOUR WORLD ASUNDER FOR THE BLASPHEMY DONE THIS HALLOWED PLACE! YOU WILL PERISH IN THE KNOWLEDGE THAT YOUR NAME IS CURSED FOR ALL ETERNITY!” A violent shudder wracked his small frame, and then his face relaxed into a beatific smile. “Ah. It seems marriage agrees with you.” That said, he slumped like a discarded doll, and in a moment he snored into his brother’s shoulder.
Kiile-Kili eased Iyahi-Ila back into the bed. “Explain,” he growled as he tucked the blankets around his sleeping brother.
When Enci hesitated, Baleirithys stepped forward. “Some kind of a spell triggered a powerful trance.” A powerful spell, to have slipped the castle defenses. “And your brother seems to have responded by acting as an oracle.”
“Will it come back?”
“Only if the spell does,” Baleirithys said through his teeth. Unknown magics were not welcome in his territory. What was its purpose? Would it harm any of his people?
Perhaps he could track it.
Kiile-Kili would watch over Iyahi-Ila for some time yet. Baleirithys would withdraw to the archive soon, and in the tomes of magic he would find a suitable spell.
He would protect his home and his people.
And yet…
Iyahi-Ila’s words left him cold with doubt.