Gate to Kandrith (The Kandrith Series) (27 page)

Red is the color of Heart’s Blood.

He sat on a carved wooden throne. He must be Lance’s father. The Kandrith looked old, much older than her own father, so old he should have been a corpse. He had no hands. She glimpsed stumps under his long sleeves, and he was as bald as an egg.

Sara heard snatches of Lance’s voice, as if from down a long tunnel. “Father—this is Sara.” The room spun. “—sick—can’t cure.”

The old man—Lance’s grandfather, surely?—stood up. How odd. Her refetti sat on his shoulder.

“You might as well come out,” the Kandrith said. He seemed to be talking to her, but she could make no sense of his words. “I can see you quite clearly. And I don’t imagine you came here to hide.”

I don’t know what you mean,
Sara wanted to say, but a sudden surge of nausea bent her over double. She vomited black, blackest bile.

The brightness behind her eyes exploded.

Lance sprinted forward as Sara collapsed, even though his healing powers had been inadequate so far. She’d probably lost consciousness from the pain, but if a blood vessel had burst he had only moments—

Something unseen knocked him off his feet. His head hit the floor, hard.

When he got back onto his hands and knees, his father was standing over Sara, blind eyes staring off into nothingness. “I see you!”

Who was he looking at? Who had hit Lance?

“I see you and name you—blue devil.”

Lacking the Watcher’s gift, the only living thing Lance saw was the refetti burrowing into his bag, but he sensed the blue devil, like a malignant cloud. How had a blue devil gotten here? Lance’s stunned shock lasted only a moment and then he knew. Sara had carried it inside her.

He’d thought her merely a spy for her father, but this… Her betrayal knifed through him. For the Child of Peace to be used in an act of war was obscene. How could Sara have lent herself to this? How could he have been so wrong about her?

He should have known when the Qiph called her Defiled, when the Watcher said her soul was purple. Realization bit in. He had brought Sara here, to his father. Exactly as the blue devil wanted.

Goddess forgive me.

Wind howled through the room, flattening Lance against the cold, slick floor. The wood had been petrified into stone by some long ago saint’s sacrifice to prevent the Hall from being burned down.

An eerie jangle ran through the swords, axes and spears lining the walls as the wind lifted them.

His father staggered, then held up a stump, and the wind parted before him. “Goddess!” he cried.

Lance knew how this would—must—end. His heart grieved.

“I gift my life—”

Before his father could finish, a spear from the wall flew through the air and impaled him in the back. The black point emerged from his stomach.

The pain must have been horrendous, but Lance’s father smiled and finished his invocation, “—to kill you.”

Lance waited, breathless, still pinned to the floor.

The wind faltered—then blasted forth again even harder. Mocking laughter echoed through the throne room. “I’ve given you a mortal wound. The few hours that remain of your life aren’t a great enough sacrifice to kill me.”

A pool of blood spread from his father’s stomach. Lance knew stomach wounds. He would likely linger, in great pain, for hours.

Lance crawled forward, keeping his head down so that the wind buffeted over him. If he could reach his father, heal him—his father would still die, but he could gift his life to a purpose and fulfill his oath as Kandrith.

“Once you’re gone, I will rule here,” the blue devil gloated. “None shall stand against me, and the rivers will run red with blood sacrifices to my god—”

Lance closed his mind to the picture the blue devil painted.
Hold on, Father, I’m coming.
He had to fight for every inch, and sweat poured from his body, but he was winning.

He stretched forth his hand. If he could touch so much as his father’s ankle, he could—

Lance slid backward along the floor as if pulled by a giant hand. Cruel laughter split the air as he slammed into the wall. The blue devil had waited to strike just to torture him with hope.

“Goddess,” his father whispered.

Lance was surprised he could speak. Anyone else would have been whimpering.

“The twotch can’t help you now,” the blue devil sneered. “No one can.’

His father continued serenely, “I gift my life to—”

“You already tried that, old man, and it didn’t work.”

The words grew fainter. “—to banish you from—”

“What?” the blue devil roared, noting the change in wording.

“—my kingdom.”

A clap of thunder, and the wind vanished, the blue devil seemingly sucked away with it.

Lance lifted his head cautiously, but the air felt cleaner, with the distinctive taste of spring that spoke of the Goddess’s presence.

The blue devil was exiled. His father lay unmoving, his long death, started the day he took oath to become Kandrith, finally over.

* * *

Sara woke up in a wonderful mood. She lay in a warm, soft bed, and her headache was gone. Her head felt light.

The Kandrith must have cured her, just as Lance had believed. Sara had a fleeting memory of seeing the Kandrith and throwing up at his feet, but shoved the thought aside with the bedclothes.

She looked around with curious eyes. The bedroom was…peculiar. The bed sat alone, an island in a large room. The walls were bare of tapestries, and the only light came from a narrow window far above her head.

Where were the washbasin, soap and towel? Her possessions? It didn’t resemble a bedroom so much as a tower cell.

Uneasy, Sara crossed over to the door—and found it had no doorknob. Nor did it open when she pushed.

Well. There was no mistaking that, was there? Lance had promised her this wouldn’t happen. But Lance wasn’t the Kandrith; his father was. Lance had accepted her spying and merely tried to stop her from passing on the information she’d gathered, but his father might feel differently. Might have ordered her to be locked up.

Staring at the door wouldn’t get her any answers. Sara knocked firmly on the wood. “Hello?”

“What do
you
want?” a man asked.

Sara wanted out, but knew better than to ask. “I’d like to speak to Lance, the King—I mean the Kandrith’s son. Perhaps he could join me for breakfast.” If it was morning and not afternoon. She had no idea how long she’d slept.

“We know who he is,” the man growled. “And you’re the last person he wants to talk to right now.”

“What do you mean?” Sara demanded, but the guard said no more.

Her stomach tightened. She tried to convince herself Lance was unavailable because he’d been called away on some healing emergency, or was simply enjoying a reunion with his parents, but she couldn’t make herself believe it.

What had gone wrong? Sara hadn’t worn anything blue or done anything to offend the Kandrith—

Except vomit at his feet. But he’d gone on to cure her headache, so surely he didn’t bear a grudge?

Had something changed on the political landscape? Had General Pallax forced the Senate to name a new Primus at sword-point? Was her father in hiding? Dead?

The door opened without warning a bleak time later, and two guards came in. Both men had black beards and wore red vests, though they didn’t look alike otherwise. One was in his early twenties, the other closer to forty. Hostility burned in their dark eyes.

Just so had Rowena looked at Sara—and her blue eyes. Relief warred with irritation. “I’m not a blue devil,” she said.

The younger guard jerked, and she realized he was afraid of her, that he was close to drawing his sword and— What? Surely he wouldn’t dare hurt the Child of Peace? Sara stayed very still.

“Up,” the older man growled. “You’re to come with us.”

As much as Sara felt confined by the room, she was now reluctant to leave it. “Where are you taking me?”

“The Protector wants to see you.” The younger guard’s brown eyes glittered cruelly. “It’s time for your trial.”

* * *

“In here.”

The younger guard shoved Sara through a doorway and into what was obviously the throne room. Was this where she’d met the Kandrith? Sara couldn’t remember.

It wasn’t a pretty room. Weapons rather than tapestries or stone carvings covered its walls. The walls and floors were of polished gray wood, not the white marble so favored in the Republic. But for all its starkness, it still served a throne room’s primary purpose: Sara felt small.

Sara straightened her shoulders, summoning cold anger to hide her fear. “I protest this treatment,” she said loudly. The bigger throne sat empty, so she aimed her words at the woman robed in deepest red occupying the secondary chair, who must be Lance’s mother.

The Protector sat very straight, hands clutching the arms of the chair, and stared at Sara. The handful of other people in the room—another guard, a pale-eyed man in silver robes, a plump old blind woman and her skinny husband—watched Sara, too, but the Protector’s gaze felt like a hot brand.

Her hair was clipped short like a legionnaire’s. What hair she had looked black against the red of her hood. Only her brown eyes and perhaps the firmness of her chin reminded Sara of Lance.

“I demand to know by what right I am brought to trial. I have committed no crime,” Sara said.

The Protector’s expression did not change. “Bors, keep her quiet.”

The older guard held his sword at her throat.

Sara swallowed, but ignored the cold kiss of metal. “If you mean to murder me, why bother with a trial? Why not slit my throat while I lay sleeping?”

“I considered it,” the Protector said coldly. “Now,
be quiet
!”

Just then, another figure in red entered the throne room. Unease crawled up Sara’s spine as she recognized Lance. “I wear the Brown,” Lance had said repeatedly. Why was he in red? And where was his father?

She tried to catch Lance’s eye, but he avoided her gaze, standing at his mother’s side.

The Protector raised her right hand. “Donal, please begin.”

The armed man that Sara had taken for a third guard stepped forward. He was older than she’d realized, in his forties; strands of gray decorated the blond hair falling back from his widow’s peak. “Lady Sarathena Remillus, of the Republic of Temboria, I call you to trial.”

“For what?” Sara demanded. “Sleeping? Being sick?” The sword pressed harder against her throat, and for a terrible moment Sara thought the Protector would have her killed on the spot.

“I said be silent!” the Protector snarled.

Lance put his hand on her arm. “Mother.” That was all he said, but she laid her own hand on top of his and took a deep breath. At an irritable wave of her hand, Bors removed the sword from Sara’s throat, though he didn’t sheathe it.

“Continue,” the Protector said.

Donal stared at Sara with absolutely no warmth. “You are called to trial for committing an act of war against Kandrith.”

Sara’s heartbeat stuttered. It was as she had feared. General Pallax had done something— No, wait. The blond man had accused Sara, personally, of committing an act of war. “Bring in a Listener and you’ll know you’ve made a mistake. I have committed no crime.”

Then things went very wrong.

The white-haired man holding the blind woman’s elbow cleared his throat. “That last bit she said there must have been a lie. I couldn’t hear it at all.”

The old man was a Listener? His tunic was white, but his vest was red.

Sara quelled her first instinct—to deny the lie—and thought furiously. Why would he say she lied? She recalled her exact phrasing and realized she’d been too broad. She had committed crimes in her lifetime—lying about Felicia’s defection for one. “I have committed no act of war,” she said carefully. That should—

“Another lie,” the old man said cheerfully. He seemed to enjoy being the center of attention. Laughter lines crinkled around his eyes.

Lance winced, as if in pain.

Sara clamped her lips together. This was outrageous! But she knew enough about Kandrith to realize that she would get nowhere accusing a Listener of lying. “What act am I supposed to have committed?”

“You know very well—” the Protector started angrily.

“She fell unconscious. She truly may not know,” Lance said. He told her, woodenly, “My father is dead.”

“Oh, no.” Sara could see the deep grooves of grief on his face now. Her heart ached. He’d only just gotten home after a long absence. “Lance, I’m so sorry.” Without thinking, she reached out to him.

Only to find the sword once again at her throat. No one here knew she and Lance were lovers. All they saw was a Republican noblewoman moving toward the son of their former king.

Sara knew her relationship with Lance must return to one of formality, but it still hurt to see Lance hold up his arms as if to fend her off.

“Sorry,” the old man said. “I forgot to say. The last one was truth, she
is
sorry.”

“How did he die?” she asked.

“A blue devil attacked him.” Lance watched her closely. “A blue devil that you brought into Kandrith.”

“What?” Sara asked stupidly. Her marrow turned ice cold. “That’s not possible.”

“A lie.”

Lance ignored the old man and continued doggedly on, “The blue devil was what was making you sick, Sara. It attached itself to your soul in order to pass through the Gate. The Watcher saw a purple soul instead of a blue or red one.”

Sara struggled to make sense of his words. She remembered the Watcher talking about colors. “He said there were two souls, a red one and a purple one. You said the purple one belonged to my refetti.”

Lance closed his eyes. “I was wrong.”

“Her soul is red now,” the blind woman said diffidently. “I know I’m new to this and my sight can’t be as good as the Watcher at the Gate, but I don’t see any difference in shade between her soul and anybody else’s.”

Was that a vote of support? Was she saying Sara wasn’t evil since she didn’t have a blue soul? Sara could read nothing in the white-haired woman’s serene expression. Feeling harried, she faced Lance again.

The Protector rapped her fist on the arm of her throne. “Enough. This leads us nowhere.” She looked straight at Sara. “Did you or did you not knowingly bring a blue devil into Kandrith?”

“I swear I did not know,” Sara spoke to Lance.

“A lie,” the Listener said. His voice had an irritating singsong quality that seemed to imply that Sara always lied.

“Lance, you have to believe me,” Sara pleaded.

His eyes seemed haunted. “Why didn’t you tell me? If the blue devil was forced on you, I could have helped you.”

“This is insane,” Sara said flatly. “I’d never even heard of blue devils until Lance told me about them several days
after
I’d entered Kandrith.”

“Truth.” The Listener looked startled.

The Protector leaned forward. “And why didn’t you tell my son you carried one, once you did know of them?”

“I didn’t know I was carrying one!”