Embers of a Broken Throne (21 page)

“Death’s a part of us. It’s always simple. We spend our entire lives dying,” Ryne said, “from one heartbeat to the next.” The words left his mouth before he could stop them. He tensed, waiting for Stefan’s reply, ready to defend himself.

“What?” Stefan bellowed. “Death is a lot of things, but simple? No, never. Frightening, obscure, yes. Look—”

“I think he means that we’ve all lost someone at some point,” Guthrie said, voice soft. He’d already begun to regain a bit of his weight, face not as sunken as a week ago. “But this isn’t about that.”

“I haven’t regained my family to risk losing them again.” Stefan began to pace once more. “There must be some other way to go about this.” He stalked back and forth, muttering to himself.

Relieved, confused, and worried all at once, Ryne watched the elder Dorn.

Devan stepped forward, his cloak a dark wall draped down his shoulders and back. “I understand how you feel, Stefan. I remember when they took Adel.” Pain echoed in his voice. “But this is a chance to gain another ally, to help save an Eztezian, if what they say is true. In our current state it’s worth the risk.”

“Who is to say this Eztezian isn’t already dead, Kajeta fallen?” Leukisa’s voice carried a high Harnan lilt, and like the men who inhabited northern Ostania, his skin could pass for dark mahogany.

Ancel made to speak before glancing in Ryne’s direction. Suspecting the young man’s words, Ryne gave him assent.

“Because we can feel him, as we can feel each other,” Ancel said. “So I know he lives.”

“Interesting.” Ordelia interlocked her fingers. The Exalted often seemed to be analyzing Ancel as a bird watcher might a rare species. “I never heard of such a thing before, but if he tells the truth it can be useful.” Her voice had the texture of dry paper. “Have you any proof to offer?”

“Why would I lie?” Ancel scowled at the woman.

“Son,” Stefan said, stopping, “it’s a hard thing to fathom much less believe.”

Ancel gave his father an odd look, as if taken aback.

“And then there’s the other issue,” Stefan continued. “Ryne himself admits that you will have to fight a part of this army in the Broken Lands since you cannot Materialize there. What if they trap you, send their entire force against you.”

“Let me worry about that,” Ancel said. “You trusted me to attack Randane. Extend the same trust to me now. I can do this.”

“Foolish boasts are things for young men who wish to rush off and make a name for themselves. Instead they end up dead,” Ordelia said, face impassive.

“I don’t boast.”

“Then tell us what your plan might be to reach Kajeta in time,” Leukisa urged, a glint in his eye.

“No.” Ancel held his head higher, back straighter. He stared down the Exalted. “The enemy already knows too much. Things it shouldn’t. This, I keep to myself.”

“Insolent boy.” Ordelia grimaced. “After all we’ve done you do not trust us?”

“I trust you as much as I trust a starving horse to ignore oats and water.”

“Ancel Dorn,” Stefan snapped, “enough of that.”

The young man glowered sullenly. “Father, if it makes you feel any better, not even Ryne knows of my plan. I intend to keep it that way.” Ryne nodded his confirmation in response to the inquiring glances.

“Pardon me for interrupting,” Jerem said as he shuffled forward, “but I for one believe in the young man’s ability. If he and Ryne says they can feel the other Eztezians, then it is so. Are we to accept the help they have given us thus far, believe they are the great Guardians, but then doubt what power they might possess?” Despite the way he hunched around a cane, the loose fit of his robes, his skull showing through white wisps, his words carried a weight not to be ignored.

Sol Remus and Trucida Adler had been well known for their command. The two of them had made kings and queens weep with a mere stare. Jerem might not be the same Remus he was in those days, but he was more than enough. Ryne smiled.

“I can also confirm Lord Ancel’s claim.” Overseer Cantor’s words were soft but still carried across the room. Unlike the other Pathfinders, he did not wear a full helm, leaving his stark, ebony features and deep-set eyes for everyone to see. “It is a secret kept among the Pathfinders, but if our charge feels the need to reveal it, then so should we.” Cantor bowed to Ancel. “If you wish to proceed with this strike, we will follow.”

“Does that help to ease your fears?” Jerem asked in Stefan’s direction.

“It would, but we need the Pathfinders here for this possible attack by the Tribunal,” Stefan said.

“I think if you spoke to Varick it might help sway him,” Ryne said. “He has nothing but respect for you since the Luminance War.”

“I-I don’t know if I’m willing to trust anyone from the Tribunal.” Stefan’s face clouded.

Ryne hated seeing the man like this. Not even torture could’ve broken the Stefan he knew. Perhaps Ancel was right. He hoped when Stefan met his children again some part of him would return, the confident, unrelenting part that refused to budge from his beliefs, the mind that made him one of Denestia’s greatest leaders.

Cane tapping on the marble floor Jerem went to Stefan’s side. He placed a hand on his shoulder. “I think if Galiana or Thania were here they would have said to let him go.”

A wistful smile crossed the elder Dorn’s face. “They would have, wouldn’t they?”

“Yes,” Jerem said. “Besides, think of what your boy did in Randane. You’ve heard the stories. You might not be able to see him for who he has grown to become, but he’s much like you were … strong, determined, and powerful. He will return to you. I will see to it.”

Stefan gripped the old Exalted’s shoulder in return and nodded. “Thank you.” He turned to his son. “I’ll let you take whatever men and weapons we can spare.”

The door to the room opened, letting in a chill. A guard ushered in a man. Skin like smooth ebony, three slits flaring open and closed on either side of his neck, and dressed in a shirt with only one sleeve, the other side revealing his painted chest, Lord Traushen appeared as full of himself as Ryne remembered.

Traushen was all smiles until his gaze passed over Ryne. The Cardian Lord’s face paled, mouth gaping to match his eyes. An instant later his features twisted into a mottled mask of fury and loathing.

“YOU!” he screamed and flung his hands forward, palms up.

A swath of air slammed into Ryne’s chest. A million needles of the same flow, invisible to the eye without Matersense, shot toward him. Ryne barely managed to throw up a shield to prevent most of it striking him. His aura absorbed the rest.

Behind him came a cry. And then a thin line of light swept across Traushen’s arm, took it from the shoulder. His shirt ignited. Another Forging of air sent the Cardian flying into a wall with a dull thud.

Traushen struggled to his feet, a shield glowing around his body. “That man,” he bellowed “is Nerian the Shadowbearer.”

C
hapter 28

N
umb, Ancel stared at the blood around him. Several of the needle-like projectiles formed from air essences had cut down Mirza, Guthrie, and Devan. Blood leaked from the gashes and holes in their armor and clothes. All the others in the path of Traushen’s attack had managed to shield themselves. Wheezing breaths escaped Guthrie’s mouth. Snot dribbled from his nose. Mirza clutched at the red spreading under his shirt. Quintess, Leukisa, and Berenil were tending to the men. Ancel offered a prayer to the gods that his father had somehow avoided harm.

Fury boiled in him. Scalding. White hot. It gushed forth, molten liquid poured into a cast of a smith’s choosing. He was the end result. A weapon beat into shape, honed to its finest edge for two purposes. To protect those he loved. To kill those who would hurt them. His bloodlust surged.

“A long time you have avoided us,”
said the jumble of voices in his head.

“He will kill those dearest to you.”

“Take from us as you will.”

“It is ours to give.”

“Save them with our power.”

“Kill, kill, kill … Death is the only way.”

Again and again they called, a tempting susurrus, winds whispering among leaves, offering him power to surpass Prima. Power to conquer. To never lose what was his again. Images bloomed. Denestia in turmoil. Thania and Stefan imprisoned. Corrupted shade devouring the world. Gods and men at battle, fields littered with the dead and dying. These very essences swirled and zipped through the air into friend and foe, infused them with undeniable strength. Strength that conquered gods, reshaped the world, ushered in a new age. It could be his.

All he had to do to claim what they offered was to surrender. He reached for them.

Another voice yelled at him. Far away, yet close. It drew him. Frowning, he stopped to listen. Words formed in the eternity between heartbeats.

The Eye.

Etchings.

A familiarity existed in those two words, a lover’s touch long missed, but once again reconciled. More images surged. Kinai, red and ripe and sweet, juicy, ready to be picked at dawn or at dusk, the Spellforge Hour. His mother in the kitchen, aromas of her cooking bringing water to his mouth. Father teaching him swordwork, the basics first. An animal, a baby daggerpaw that he knew to be Charra, as he nursed it back to health. Eyes round and gold, Charra looked up at him.

“Your mind is your own,” Charra said in the voice from the Entosis, speech in the form of song, a hum of sorts.

The visions shattered.

Shivering, Ancel wrenched his will into the Eye, into his Etchings. The voices screamed their dissent, but they were no longer of consequence. In the tranquil pool deep in himself, he was one with the lily blossoms on its surface.

When sight and sound returned, Ancel found himself in Ryne’s grasp, the giant’s hands clutching him tightly about the chest from behind. Irmina pushed against him from the front. His body felt as if it was burning. He glanced down to see Mater had engulfed his entire body, but he couldn’t make out the separate essences. They were whole, one, without beginning or end, a circle.

He thrust them into his Etchings. The burning sensation vanished.

Irmina’s gaze locked onto his. “He’s back,” she gasped, chest rising and falling as if she’d run a hundred miles.

“W-What happened.” His voice was a distant echo.

“You almost gave in to Mater,” Ryne said. “You almost took them all for your own.”

All feeling fled his legs.

“Easy.” Ryne held him up.

The attack rushed Ancel in startling clarity. He snapped his head up toward where he last saw Traushen.

The Cardian stood unmoving, eyes unfocused. Blood trickled from the slits on either side of his neck. They flared open and closed with each breath. Behind him were several guards, their swords unsheathed.

“What’s wrong with him,” Ancel asked. “And you may release me now, I’m fine.”

Ryne unclenched the legs he had for arms. “Ordelia has him.”

“What’s she done to him?”

“It’s best if she explains it.” Ryne nodded toward an area away from where Leukisa and the others tended to the wounded men.

Expression strained, Ordelia faced Traushen. Ancel couldn’t make out a discernible Forge, but he knew she was Forging. He felt it.

“It’s a blocking Forge,” she said.

“Like Warping?” He narrowed his eyes. To bend Mater around a person so it was unusable required a death.

“In ways yes, but not quite,” she said, gritting her teeth from the effort her Forge took. “I can see what you are thinking. You may not like us, but we aren’t all monsters. Killing is unnecessary for this. This is more like Manipulation. You tell the mind not to open to its Matersense.”

“Ah.” Ancel glanced over to Ryne. “You knew of this?”

Ryne shook his head.

Although her silver brows were still drawn together with the effort required for what she did, Ordelia managed a smile. “If Eztezians can have secrets, things they can do that others cannot, surely the opposite is also possible.”

“Which makes me wonder who put him up to the ridiculous claim of Ryne being the Shadowbearer,” Jerem said from behind them.

“One of the Nine, perhaps?” Trucida ambled forward, her steps spry for a woman whose skin resembled ancient, wrinkled leather.

“No one has been inside my head,” Traushen gasped, teeth clenched. His shoulders sagged.

Ordelia let out a long exhale. She no longer grimaced with the effort it took to fight off Traushen.

“That man
is
the Shadowbearer.” Traushen glowered at Ryne, face twisted with disgust and hate.

“The Shadowbearer died long ago,” Jerem said. “I was there.”

“That is what the Tribunal would have you believe,” the Cardian said and spat blood to one side, “But their lies have no effect on me.”

Ancel was glad for the Eye’s protection. The seething undercurrent within himself said he would have torn the man apart.

“Why should we believe you?” Trucida walked around Traushen, poking at him as a horse trader would when on the verge of making a purchase. “I’ve known this man for too many years to count, watched him protect a village and its people from wild animals, slavers, and the shade, putting his own life at risk countless times.”

“I’ve seen the same,” Irmina said.

Ancel smiled at her before adding his own account. “He came to me in Eldanhill, showed me what I needed, saved our town, our people. Even if the Shadowbearer were alive, his only intent was to kill, to ruin, starting with the Setian, and then the rest of the world. My master is nothing like that.” It was one of the few times he’d openly acknowledged Ryne as his master. He found it oddly satisfying.

“You’re all fools. I was there in Castere. I saw what Voliny showed Ryne. I saw his past laid bare. He’s—”

“You hurt my friends.” Stefan’s voice, hard and edged with venom, cut through the room. He rose from beside the wounded men, face a mottled mask, and approached the Cardian until he stood in front of him. “You could have killed one of them, or worse yet, my son. If not for the word you brought, if not for your position with my daughter, I’d take your head right now.”

Traushen’s eyes grew wild. “You have to listen to me. He’s— ”

Stefan drove his knee into the Cardian’s stomach. “Take this filth to the dungeons.”

“With pleasure,” Ordelia hissed.

Four soldiers took Traushen by his arms and led him away. The man began to shout and rage, screaming for anyone to listen. When he began kicking and fighting, one of the guards slammed a gauntleted fist into the back of his head. Traushen crumpled. They picked him up and carried him off.

“This had made me realize the wisdom of your words,” Stefan said, watching the door as it closed behind the last guard. “Any one of us could have died here where we’re supposed to be safe, to a man obviously misled by our enemies.” He smiled at Ancel, but tightness existed in his voice. “I want you to do what you must, but first I need to speak with you. This whole thing has rekindled some memories.”

“Of course, Father.” Ancel squeezed Irmina’s hand and then followed his father to the door.

When they stepped into the hall he expected his father to head outside. Back in Eldanhill, Stefan would always take to fresh air when events occupied his mind. Instead, his father strode in the opposite direction, hands crossed behind his back. Ancel ambled after him.

Accompanied by the echo of their padded footfalls, the smell of mold from the old carpet, and the illumination provided by torches in sconces along the walls and chandeliers, they made their way deeper into the castle. Tattered canvas and cloth decorated most walls. Open spaces, empty of dust, showed where a painting or tapestry had been removed. Stefan paused at certain doors, sometimes wearing a frown, as if recalling time spent in these same halls. On a few occasions he brushed his hand lightly along a wall, coming away with dirt and grime, and then rubbed his fingers together.

“I remember when all this used to be different,” his father finally said after several halls, alcoves, turns, and doors. “This castle was a place of grandeur, Seti itself a shining example for the rest of Ostania. Before Nerian ruined it.”

“What kind of man was he?”

“A time existed when he was great, a god almost. Did you know they called him the Lightbearer for all the good he’d done, wars he’d won against the shadelings? Whenever word came of a shadeling sighting he would be the first ready, armor on as if he slept in the damn thing.”

“The Lightbearer?”

Stefan nodded. “He was like a father to me. And then he changed.” Stefan’s hands formed a fist. “I first thought the need to bring Ostania under one banner poisoned him. But I learned it was more than that. Mater, the very power that saves us, was the beginning of his end. It corrupted him. Not because of some outside influence, but because the man craved power.” Stefan stopped before an ornate door several dozen feet wide. Flickering torchlight cast shadows across his face, made a hood of his eyebrows. “I fear it will do the same to you.”

“Father, you don’t have to worry—”

Stefan pushed on the arm’s length bronze handles before him. The door creaked open. A burst of mustiness and rot drifted out. With a grunt he shoved it the rest of the way and stepped in with Ancel at his heels.

Countless torches and lightstones tossed their glow into a massive room. Columns lay on their side, cracked and crumbling. Tears and rents marred the floor as if some gigantic hand with massive claws had raked the castle’s flesh. Dirt, stone, and bricks were strewn about the interior. Burn marks streaked the walls, crawling to the high ceiling, staining half-melted chandeliers. A gaping wound of broken marble marred a section before what might have been a throne. The room stank of mold and decay and something more: an echo of the Forges that had scoured the room, cooked it like burnt rice at the bottom of a pot.

The shade’s corruption was prevalent among the other essences. Since they entered Benez, he’d barely noticed the taint. It had been lighter, but not so in this room. Ancel chased away the bad memories that came with the sight.

“What happened here,” he whispered, awed and fearful of the power that could have wrought such destruction.

“This is where Thania, Galiana, and I faced Nerian before he killed—well, when we thought he killed Celina and Anton. This room, that battle, his order to kill given to his bodyguard, Kahar, were my last memories of the man. You want me not to worry,” Stefan said, making a gesture to encompass the ruined throne room, “but how can I not?”

Ancel pictured what the battle must have been like against such a powerful Forger, a man thought to be strong enough to rival an Eztezian. The thought of it made him shiver. “Father, all this and what I’ve already experienced makes me understand how you feel about what I must do. But the power I use is stronger than Mater, and it doesn’t corrupt. As for Mater itself, I can control what it does, how it affects me.”

“Nerian thought the same. Greater women and men than you and I have voiced your sentiments, each of them with great conviction. They succumbed.”

“Perhaps, but I need you to trust me. I need you to believe in me. Without that, I don’t have much.” His parents had kept him upbeat in the worst times of his life. If he couldn’t rely on anything else he could always expect them to be there for him.

Stefan placed a hand on Ancel’s shoulder and stared deep into his eyes. “I have three children blessed or cursed to be powerful Matii. The Pathfinders might live for century upon century without succumbing to the madness, but eventually even they do. I-I don’t want the same for you. Or at least I wish for you to enjoy your life before that day comes.”

“Until the scourge of the Nine and the shadelings are gone, there will be no enjoyment.”

“I know, and it saddens me.” Stefan shook his head. “I lose two of the most important women in my life but regain two children thought dead. And now I stand to have you all taken from me. What have I done to deserve such punishment?”

“Nothing, Father.” Ancel gave his father’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “But remember, we haven’t lost Mother yet.”

A confused expression crossed Stefan’s face before he said, “If you say so. I know we shouldn’t give up hope, but how—”

A resonance in Ancel’s head cut off his father’s words. It was all too familiar. How hadn’t he sensed it before?

“What’s over there?” Ancel glanced toward an alcove on the room’s far side.

Stefan brought his hand down. “That is the ceremonial chamber that the Alzari among Benez’s High Council frequented.”

“Do you know the reason they used that particular place?”

“Security? Privacy?” Stefan shrugged.

Ancel strode toward the room and the resonance, an insect drawn to the bountiful colors and lights of resinbuds, unaware of the flower’s deadly lure. The sensation grew from a tingle to a throb in his chest, across his body. Without warning, one after the other, his Etchings lit up. They brimmed with energy, crackling, alive, stretching across his skin to reach for that which summoned them within the chamber.