Embers of a Broken Throne (31 page)

Ancel’s stomach churned as he recognized the purpose of these prisoners. They were the sacrifices to allow the Forge of Warping. Sickened, he felt his body give an involuntary shudder.

Taking his reaction for a sign of resistance, the two Ashishin tightened their grip. One of them drew light essences from the abundance of it that permeated the air, the walls, the ceiling. Ancel allowed his body to sag.

At the end of the hall, they thrust him into an empty cell. The windowless metal door slammed closed behind him.

Safe for the moment, Ancel expelled a breath. He’d managed to keep his mind clear of stray thoughts, but now that he’d accomplished the hardest part of his goal, he couldn’t keep Stefan from his mind. He reached out through his pendant’s link and through the Eztezian bond. It took mere moments before he found his father.

One level below him.

A muffled cry issued outside his cell. A death gurgle ensued, followed by a surge of sela essences. An instant later, the Mater within the room Warped, became useless.

Smiling grimly, he drew in Prima from his Etchings. His first Forge blew the door from its hinges. As he stepped through, he snatched metal fragments with coils of air, and sent them flying into the two Ashishins who’d brought him down.

At the same time he Forged half a hundred icicles and hurled them toward the Ashishin guards down the hall. Caught by surprise, the first few fell in a heap, torsos and heads pierced. The remainder managed to throw up shields of fire, melting the frozen projectiles.

His next Forge struck the newly formed water. Superheated steam sprang up. Ashishins screamed, skin bubbling and red.

He broke into a run through the carnage, flinging essence after essence where necessary to decimate anyone who would stand in his path. Halfway down, he felt the blast incoming from the door to his level.

But he was already at the point he needed. He melted the lock on the cell in front of him and stepped inside. A scarred Matus cowered in a corner.

Without pausing, Ancel tore a hole through the stone beneath him. Before the debris fell, he snatched it up and flung it outside. And then he dropped through into the cell.

The man curled in one corner bore fresh, red welts across his body. Once black hair streaked with white was completely silver now. He was perhaps half the size Ancel remembered, skin clinging to bones and sinew. One eye was a scarred pit. Worst of all was his aura. Not only did it have cracks spread all long it, but it was also torn in several places.

A scalding heat surged through Ancel. Walled away from the random effects of his emotions, he’d ventured to the Iluminus a more powerful man, certain of himself, positive as to what needed to be done. In his mind he’d conjured images of a joyful reunion, hugs, tears, and laughter. In the wake of his father’s condition, and after the massacre of the village, all of those ideas were now laid bare as mere fantasy. A knot of grief, fear, and outrage threatened to destroy the Eye’s protection. The wall he’d used as a shield ever since the revelation of Ryne’s identity shook. He felt it begin to give, crumble. In his head the voices of Mater implored him to release them, to strike out.

Stefan peered up at him, face haggard, but his father’s single emerald eye, now ringed with gold, radiated nothing but determination. “D-don’t succumb.” Stefan’s voice was raspy, garbled. “When I passed it to you, I-I knew, I-I always kne-knew you’d come, son.” He coughed. “Help me up.”

Those simple words, that one request, quelled the tide rising in Ancel. “Not even the gods themselves could’ve kept me away, Father.”

Stefan’s body went limp, his head lolling.

Heart thundering, Ancel rushed to his father’s side. Stefan’s chest rose and fell feebly, his face carried death’s pasty pallor, and each breath came in a small wheeze. Panicked, Ancel hoisted his father onto his back, cringing at the lack of weight.

Muted shouts echoed outside the cell. Mater rose all around him, light essences streaming out through the closed metal door.

Breathing deep, Ancel Forged a portal to a part of the Red Ridge Mountains he remembered well, a section where spring’s thaw would cause an avalanche from the overhangs. He stepped through. Before he opened another gateway he added heat to the already melting ice above him. Sharp pops and cracks echoed. He prevented the first rush of snow by forming a precarious balance along the slopes, and set it to trigger based on the estimated weight of a man’s footfall behind him. With his next Forge, he opened a second portal a few strides from the Entosis’ entrance. He waited, his focus on the door to Stefan’s cell as seen through the first portal’s foggy translucence.

The door blew inwards, its movements like thick mud. Shins and High Shins pointed. They rushed toward him.

The corner of his mouth curled, Ancel turned, and strode through the second opening. The first rumble of an avalanche sounded behind him. It cut off when his portal snapped shut.

C
hapter 45

W
ith his father a feather’s weight on his back, Ancel Shimmered away from the Entosis’ entrance toward the kinai groves. Already he felt Prima seeping into his body, adding to his power. A groan from Stefan said he was experiencing the same effect.

“You’ll be fine now, Father, I know it,” Ancel muttered, not only for his father’s reassurance but also his own.

“Yo-Your mother and I did well,” Stefan whispered. “After so many years, so many children dead, so many babies stillborn, I knew we would get it right.”

Ancel had no idea what his father meant but he answered anyway. “Yes, yes, you did.”

His father didn’t answer.

Not wanting to dwell on the abrupt silence Ancel trudged to the edge of the groves where fist-sized kinai stained the ground red and permeated the air with sweet aromas. Among the trees grew fleshberry vines, pink like their namesake. He’d seen Galiana feed her concoctions to the wounded time and again, even to his own father, but he possessed no knowledge of how to make the mending tinctures. Desperation crept into him as he laid his father down.

Stefan’s eye fluttered open. They took in his surroundings. And then he pointed toward the fruit.

Without needing further encouragement Ancel hurried to the grove and began to gather as much kinai as he could, using his short cloak to carry them. When Ancel returned, Stefan pointed up in the same direction.

“More?” Ancel asked.

His father nodded. “F-Fr …”

Ancel bent close to Stefan’s lips.

“Fr-from the branches, an-and flesh too. Ba-bal—” Stefan’s head slumped to one side.

This time Ancel ran to the grove, almost tripping over roots, and squishing through fallen fruit. He shimmied up the trunk and along the branches of a tree to pick the kinai. He snagged fleshberries also. When he felt he had sufficient, he leaped down, using air to cushion his drop.

On the way back to Stefan he noted a boulder that would suit his purpose. He dropped the fruits next to it, and then picked his father up and carried him to the stone. After propping Stefan up, Ancel squeezed each fruit over his father’s face, letting the juice drip onto his lips.

The first few moments passed without a reaction. Most of the red fluids dribbled down past Stefan’s chin onto his tattered shirt.

“Drink, Father, drink, please.”

Nothing.

“Dear Ilumni,” Ancel prayed in earnest, “I don’t ask for much, but if there’s one time that I beg something of you, it is for my father to live.”

A bout of dizziness, stronger than any he experienced before, made Ancel cup his forehead. He swooned, grabbing at his head as he fell to one knee. It seemed like an eternity before the sensation passed and he was able to crawl to his father.

Still nothing.

Tears trickled down Ancel’s face. He began to sob, chest heaving. Not even the Eye could prevent his abject grief, the desolation that gnawed at him with the thought of losing his father.

And then Stefan’s aura shifted, imperceptibly at first, but before long there could be no denying the change. The pockmarks and tears bled over each other like fire consuming paper, but in reverse, burns disappearing, ash becoming parchment. Whole. Unblemished. Complete.

As the process finished, another took place that left Ancel agape, jaw unhinged.

Etchings appeared on Stefan’s body. They wrote themselves into his skin as if some godly artist stood over him, pen and brush in hand, carving, drawing, painting. Here a touch of red. There, blue. Purple. Yellow. A combination of all. A flourish, a defined line. Mountains, deserts, grassy fields, wintry plains, winds, waterfalls, rivers, suns, moons, battles, a thousand creatures, each one done with intricate detail.

An emerald eye ringed with gold stared up at Ancel. “Son.”

“Father,” Ancel whispered, wiping away tears.

Stefan stood, shredded clothing fluttering in the breeze. He tore off the shirt and used it to bind his trousers in place. His eye was still a mass of scars. Strips of swollen skin had replaced the red welts on his chest, and yet did nothing to disturb the images depicted in the Etchings.

“You-You’re …” Ancel cleared his throat, “an
Eztezian
?” He’d thought what he felt was simply the pendant.

Stefan glanced down at his Etchings, then to the ones covering Ancel, and said, “Unless you know something I don’t, I would say that I am.”

“But how?”

“How? I’ve always been what I am.” Stefan glanced around, closed his eye, and inhaled. “An Entosis. There was many a day I thought I would never get to see and enjoy one of these again.”

“But Father,” Ancel blurted, “you never had any Etchings before. You couldn’t even Forge.”

“I didn’t? I couldn’t?” The old man grinned. “Perception and truth can be quite tricky. I chose not to Forge. I sealed away my power and my Etchings, hid them under an extra layer of skin, much like one would with armor.”

“But why?” Unbidden tears welled up in Ancel’s eyes once more. “Why let so much happen without interfering? Why let them hurt Mother, Celina, Anton, me, or the rest of Eldanhill? Why allow the Shadowbearer …”

“You’re not thinking clearly.” His father reached out and squeezed Ancel’s shoulder reassuringly.

“Help me understand,” Ancel implored.

Stefan bent and picked up a stone. “What happens if I drop this?”

“It falls?”

“And?”

“It hits the ground.”

Stefan dropped the rock. Before it struck the ground he stopped it with a Forge. “Both answers are correct. Both are inevitable, but each can be affected to a degree. Think of the fall, the striking the ground as the world’s destruction. The Forge is what you and the others are.”

“We will stop it? Save the world like in the Chronicles?”

“Forget those,” Stefan scoffed. “Too much of the Chronicles’ foretelling was done by design. Why? Give a man a purpose and he strives to complete it. In turn we used them to mislead those who hunted us.”

“But some of the Chronicles held truth,” Ancel argued.

“Yes.” Stefan shrugged. “Nothing could prevent that because the Chroniclers drew from the Planes of If. But as we guided the world so could we guide them. Understand this, son, there are no saviors but the gods. There is just belief. For mortals, belief has more meaning than anything else. Kingdoms have died because of its power. All the suffering you speak of was to mislead those who wanted to find you.”

“So if you didn’t make us to save the world, then why?”

“Change,” Stefan said simply. “Much like your growth. Have you even realized you no longer call me Da? Why do you think that is?”

Ancel hadn’t thought of it before, and he hadn’t noticed. It seemed natural to say Father rather than Da. When he considered it now, he recognized he subconsciously made the change because he felt he was a man, and Da sounded … childish.

“It just happened, didn’t it?” Stefan smiled and gestured around them. “You were created because the world needed change. That blade of grass is different from one moment to the next. It has aged. That grain of sand? Eroded. Everything dies, lives, begins anew.”

“Death’s always simple,” Ancel whispered.

“We spend our entire lives dying,” his father finished. “But how we die and how we live are what matters, and I would be damned if the Nine decided either. So we misled them while seeking the necessary change in our power.”

“Bloodline Affinity,” Ancel said, the answer dawning in a moment of clarity. “You sealed yourself away so no one could discover our family line. You made them seek out the other Eztezians first.”

Stefan gave a wry smile. “Partly. It was the only way to ensure your mother gave birth to the ones right for the Aegis.”

“Is she an Eztezian also?”

“No, she’s more. Once the original Eztezians die, the only people left to replace them are Matii, their descendants, powerful, yes, but none with the strength for what we saw as a growing threat from the netherlings. We … the first Eztezians were created by the gods, their direct descendants, a commingling of human and god, but if you have wine and you continue adding water, what will be the result?”

“Weak wine, or more water than wine.” Ancel almost asked if his mother was a goddess, but he knew the absurdity of the thought. All the deities had been sealed away.

“Exactly,” Stefan said. “It took us some time before we were able to find a group of netherlings who understood what was happening, what the Nine planned, how it affected Denestia, the Nether, and Hydae. Your mother was one of them. We needed a being as close to the gods as possible. Since the netherlings are the ones who ascend to become the next deities through a process instituted by the Annendin, we knew where to look.”

“Why couldn’t one of you take the power needed?”

“We tried. Our failings have shaped the world, for good or bad. Thanairen was one of the strongest among us, but even he succumbed to Mater, dancing on strings pulled by the Nine. We needed new blood, new Eztezians who had not opened themselves to the poison of Mater without the Eye. Ones the madness wouldn’t affect.”

“And suppose I had touched Mater without the Eye’s protection? I almost did to save you. If not for Galiana …” Ancel’s voice trailed off.

“Then you would have become like Kalvor, Delesden, Henden, Merinian, myself or any of the other Eztezians. If you had then turned to helping the shade or gone mad, one of the others would have killed you, most likely Trucida and Thanairen. That was often their jobs.” As harsh as Stefan’s words sounded, a hint of sadness reflected across his face.

“I-I don’t believe—”

“Don’t believe what? The lengths we would go to in order do what is necessary? You asked after the Shadowbearer, how I allowed the destruction he wrought, how we allowed it. That should be proof enough. The Shadowbearer was a test. The Nine or whomever might be pulling their strings sought to make the Eztezians reveal themselves. After all, what man in his right mind would allow such wanton destruction, sacrifice his own children if he had the power to save them? After going so far as to lock away my own memories, nothing outside of one of them capturing me and delving into my mind would bring back the person I once was.” Stefan smiled. The curve of his mouth combined with his new scars made for a cruel mask. “They did not suspect their own would inadvertently help us.”

“You wanted them to take you,” Ancel said, one hand covering his mouth.

“I did volunteer, did I not?”

Ancel recalled what the zyphyl had told him. “All of this to create the Aegis, a power that none of you are certain will work.”

“But it has worked,” Stefan exclaimed in excitement “Instead of thousands of Eztezians all with differing powers, all a possible threat to the world, there will only be three of you. Three of you with power to free the gods.”

The pronouncement left Ancel numb. He absently touched his pendant. “Free the gods?”

“Haven’t you been listening? Whether or not they come to destroy us for our past transgressions, only they can save us from the Nine and the shade.”

“What of mother?” Ancel asked.

“Is she still alive?”

“Yes.”

Stefan held out his hand. “Pass it to me.”

Ancel took the chain from around his neck and gave it to his father. Curious, he watched as Stefan held it. Contentment crossed his father’s face first. Wrinkled brows followed.

“She’s in Denestia, not in Hydae anymore.” Squeezing his eye tight, Stefan grimaced. “The Sanctums … that means Thanairen has her.”

Ancel gasped. “Ryne? The Shadowbearer?”

“Yes.”

A wash of heat consumed Ancel. Ryne had tricked him. The man had been holding his mother prisoner this entire time. He would make him regret the day they’d met. “How can I enter the Sanctums?” he demanded, his voice seeming as if it wasn’t his own.

“By walking through the doors with a clear mind. If you approach them in any other fashion their power will tear you apart. I will take you to them, but first I must remove an impostor. By the time we head to your mother, you must be in full control of yourself.”

Ancel nodded. He would do as needed for Mother’s sake.

“Now, there’s one other thing I must do before we leave,” Stefan said.

“And that is?”

“Why collect my armor and weapon, of course.”

“From where?”

“A moment.” Stefan Shimmered through the grove, each jump leaving an afterimage.

When he returned, resplendent in leather armor, a sword in a scabbard at his hip, both of them covered in Etchings, Ancel found it hard not to stare.