Circle of Reign (27 page)

“That was before you were…uh…more developed up top. You’ll be fine. Quit stalling.”

“Hedron! I can’t believe—”

She heard his laughter. He was drifting farther upstream. She went ashore, grabbed the satchel and replaced the Triarch roots she had taken to counteract the hydraf poison.

I wish he had been bitten!
Not really, though she wouldn’t mind if he had hit his head. Might make him a little more right up there. She found a piece of driftwood about three arms thick and mostly hollow inside. Woman now or not, she still did not float like Hedron.

Maybe that’s because he’s so fat
, she mused. He was anything but fat, having their fathers broad shoulders and trim waist, but he didn’t have to know that.

More than three spans later, the twins drifted off to sleep in the arms of a large sprawling oak. They were northwest of Calyn by about a day’s walk. They always made sure to avoid the southeast part of the city where their family’s hold lay cradled in entropy’s arms.

“Tell me about mother,” Reign asked. Her voice was heavy with sleep.

“You knew her too, Reign. It’s not like she died when you were born.”

“I know. Please?”

Hedron sighed. “Fine. She loved you. She loved me. She loved everyone. Good?”

Reign did not answer. She was having trouble keeping her eyes open as she stared through an opening in the thick canopy above at a single star peeking through. Stories of Moira always comforted her.

“She did love everyone, actually,” Hedron continued after her non-response. “She would often take in those who were just passing by, no matter if we had provisions or not for them. We used to always have enough, but that changed after—well, you know. Mother was strong, though. She hid it well, but I could see the loneliness. The sadness. Above it all, she was still beautiful.”

Just as sleep overtook her, Reign thought she heard Hedron say, “Like you.” She smiled and left behind her fears and sorrow as sleep finally took her.

She screamed in the night, but no sound came from her. The scream was audible only in her mind. Reign watched motionless as the scary man searched for her, his head jerking in different directions, seething. His face contorted as he snorted short, feral intakes of the night air, flaring the gills on the bridge of his nose. She felt the urge to silently plead for her father to get up, but she did not. She sat there, as if dead inside, motionless. Emotionless.

The raindrops hit his bald head and dripped down his brow, tracing the geometric scars that connected and covered his exposed flesh completely. His sword ran with her father’s blood. But she felt nothing, not even fear as he drew closer to her perch. She heard noise from afar that seemed to approach. Howls in the night, but Reign did not react. She did not even blink.

Then, others were present to her view from the Triarch in which she hid. Her mother, huddled over her father. The rain could not mask her tears as she screamed. Aiden and the hold guard sprinting through the forest, hunting something. The hounds sniffing intently in all directions around the scene, coaxed by the kennel masters. Hedron hiding behind a tree wearing a paralyzed look of confusion. He looked around warily, his lip quivering. As he did so, his sight rested upon the Triarch that nestled Reign about twenty feet off the forest floor. She knew he had found her even though he could not see her so far back in the dark hollow cavity of the tree. She still remained immovable, seeing but not feeling. She felt cold and gray on the outside, hard and rigid on the inside. The impossibility of what her eyes had seen clashed with what she knew in her heart, that her father could not die, could not fail. And yet he was there, not far from her. Lifeless, just as she felt.

It pushed against her.

Reign awoke with a start, nearly falling from the branches that nestled her. Hedron still slumbered next to her, oblivious to the world. A small caterpillar rested on a patch of leaves near her left hand where she had grabbed the bark so tightly that her hand pulsed and ached. The nightmare, the same as always. She would not sleep longer this morning. The first glimpses of day’s early pale light were becoming visible on the horizon. Hunger usually visited her after the night terrors.

Thumping. Quick of pace, light, but drawing nearer. Dropping without noise to the forest floor, Reign extracted one short-blade from the inner sheath of her leg. The curved knife resembled that of a thin crescent moon. Its twin remained sheathed; she would not need both. Then, with her free hand and feet, she escalated up the self-same tree she had just vacated, roughly to the height of a man. Her one hand clinging hard to the tree, the other relaxed with the short-blade’s hilt therein. The hilt had a cover of sheepskin, soft and molded to her hand over the many years. It had once seemed so large.

She focused, forcing out all thought. Instinct would take over when the time came. The vibrations became more intense, although she knew she wasn’t
hearing
the footfall. A wood-dweller often felt more than heard, particularly in a forest of the West. Inter-tangled root systems of thousands of trees quickly transferred vibrations with more clarity than sound through the air over long distances. Reign could decipher distance, speed, approximate size and number by clinging to a tree and concentrating. Only one was coming toward her.
Wait for it
…

She leaped down, short-blade hand swiping through the air with speed, the bladed edge finding purchase as the smell of fresh blood filled the morning. Her momentum carried her gracefully through a full turn before stopping in a crouch, short-blade arm uplifted in a defensive posture just below her chin. She could easily pounce and strike again if needed, but Reign knew it was over. The large elk fell not two feet from where the blow had been dealt.

Hedron awakened to the smell of elk being smoked over a small fire. The morning meal was being prepared precisely below the branches where he had been sleeping.

“Reign,” he said groggily, wiping the nightsands from his eyes. “You made me breakfast.”

“Really? I only see room for one down here,” came her jest. Hedron let himself fall the nearly thirty feet to the ground, coming to settle cross-legged next to his sister while still yawning. He stared greedily at the meat over the open fire.

“I didn’t even hear you awaken. You should have told me you were fetching food.”

“Why?” Reign asked. “So you could wish me luck and roll back over?”

“Ha! You think me of no worth in a hunt, dear sister?” Hedron exclaimed. “Well, I’ll have to allow you to observe my next hunt. You might learn something.”

“Oh, I think I’ve seen enough of your hunting. Somehow I’m the one who always has to make the kill before it gets away.”

Reign’s prize would provide them meat for spans and with something to trade at the various markets they passed through.

“There’s no way we’ll be able to carry all the meat. We’ll smoke and salt what we can’t cook and carry as much as we can with us. Even then, a good portion will still go to waste,” Hedron observed.

The boy sat there without response from Reign. He frowned as he observed her, busily tending to the preparation of the meal. Such pensive intensity for the early hour of a new day. “Again?” he asked.

“As always,” she said, not looking up from the smoking meat. Hedron knew of her dreams, how they were always of that night. His own nightmares of losing their mother had ceased years ago.

“Why do you suppose the Ancient Heavens keep the dream upon your mind in the night?” Hedron asked. “You have not slept
peacefully for ages, and these last cycles have seen your nights more restless than before.”

She did not respond. Still not meeting his eyes, she apportioned a part of the game for her brother, and went to work on her own. Hedron sat nonplussed for a time, but then the pull of hunger bade him release himself from his question, and he ate.

“I think I shall head south and visit Kathryn this night,” Hedron declared, his mouth full of his breakfast. “It has been several span, and she must no doubt be in need of my presence.”

“Of your doting, you mean,” Reign said.

“Reign, peace. Will you come?”

“Who will look after you if not me? But Hedron, why not go to the north? We were just in the south and we haven’t visited Jayden and her packs for some seasons.”

“Bah,” Hedron scoffed. “Wolves. Why is it you find fascination with Jayden? That old pile of bones is nothing but a bore. I pray for the Ancient Heavens to allow me to die rather than listen to her. All her ramblings and mutterings. Really, Reign, the cold, the ice, the wind—”

“I like it,” Reign offered simply. “The wolves are…” She looked to be pondering the word. “Understanding,” she finally said. The many years in the northern Gonfrey Forest with Jayden had left Hedron grateful for her protection but also done with the North. He much preferred the more temperate climate of the West or even the warmth of the South. The Hoyt hold in Thera was not so far distant from Calyn, both cities somewhat cradling the Roniah on opposite sides.

“Reign, please. Come with me south first and by next Rising Season we’ll visit Jayden. I promise.”

“You know this is a fantasy.” Reign said this sternly, but in a calm tone. “Kathryn will be sent off to marry not many years hence. Perhaps to House Orion, or even Gonfrey, poor girl. Enslaved by a life of ladyship.”

“You do have a way with perspective, Reign. Still, I love Kathryn. Can I not follow this path?”

Reign did not answer. She looked away, devoid of facial reaction and word. Closing her eyes, she fought back as it pushed against her again. She let her dark hair fall over her face to conceal her grimace from Hedron as she struggled against the pressure.

Later that day the Kerr twins moved east and came to the edge of the forest, where rolling hills sprawled for dozens of leagues before the borders of the Realm’s Crossing. The Changrual Monastery was built upon the geographic intersection where all four provinces met, symbolizing a unity of faith throughout the Realm. According to the legends, the Realm’s division into provinces happened only after the Changrual had chosen the location for the Monastery and was settled. The plot of land they chose was not the center of the Realm from a geographic standpoint, but the High Vicars declared the land to be where the Ancient Heavens had desired the structure to be built. Oliver Wellyn did not argue, according to the legend. The Arlethian borders had already been established, however, they having occupied the land long before the Senthary arrived. These rolling hills were augmented to their borders after the location for the Monastery had been chosen so that it would lie partially on their land just as the other three provinces.

“Where to now?” Reign asked. They both stood looking over the hills and Hedron again realized they did not have a place to call home in all the world. He did not care.

Hedron risked a glance south, but Reign scowled and shoved him for even thinking about it. “I curse the day you met that child.”

“Child? She’s fourteen, a year younger than us is all. She’s no more a child than you or me.”

“Is that what you really think, Hedron? Has she lived as we have? When you were fourteen, were you living pampered in some grand hold with servants to answer your beck and call? Or was she on her own, living from meal to meal and running from her own name?”

“Kathryn has depth that you can’t see, Reign,” Hedron replied with rare firmness. “How many people don’t care about our name
and accept us as we are? She has shown the ability to see well beyond the lies that spewed forth from the Granite Throne. That is worth a lot to me, and should be to you, too.”

Hedron called the propaganda about their father and family lies, but he was not as sure as he sounded. Stubborn seeds of doubt remained.

Reign sighed. “So, where to?”

Hedron didn’t look ready to let their argument drop, but answered, “The Silver Pools? It’s only a few days’ sprint.”

“Three days for you, maybe, but only two for me!” Reign darted off silently across the green landscape. Hedron would let her get a head start. She always needed it. Reign was faster, but Hedron could always catch her over a distance. His endurance levels seemed to draw upon fathomless reserves of energy.

He took a small nibble of leftover meat from breakfast, looked longingly south once more, and then took off after Reign.

TWENTY-ONE

Hedron

Day 28 of 4th High 412 A.U.

“REACH A LITTLE HIGHER,”
Kathryn whispered. She was a bit giddy with excitement to see her secret love again. “You’ve almost got it.”

Hedron was scaling the wall of Hold Hoyt to Kathryn’s elevated chamber loft, a task made more difficult when night was overcast, concealing the light of moons and stars alike.

He reached the top of the window ledge, which resembled more a battlement, and hoisted himself up. “Kathryn,” he said as he tried to calm his breathing.

“Shhh…,” she hushed him. But, he ignored her, and pulled her to him, embracing her. After a brief moment, Kathryn pushed back and slapped him. Hedron looked stunned.

“What was that for?”