Schism of Blood and Stone (The Starfield Theory Book 1) (35 page)

Aaron could not face doing all this alone. If Damien were dead, would the other border houses swear their fealty to him as they had to Damien? Could he keep them in line or would the entire border defense army collapse? His heart began to pound in his chest as he considered it. A cold sweat broke out on his brow as he realized his answer.

He couldn't do it. He couldn't even control Slader.

Damien needed to live.

The door buzzed again and Reyna sat up to least try to look professional now. Aaron rolled his eyes. “Yeah,” he called out.

It was the female knight again.

Aaron looked up angrily. “Look, I don't care if Kristoffer wants another meeting. I don't have the time to deal with him.”

“Sir,” the knight started. She was shaking. “The stargate activated. A fleet is on its way in. The Dominion is here.”

Lord Damien Sten

Duke of Hidelborg, Defender of the Border, The Gray Knight

Sten Mausoleum, Magdeborg, Magdeborg Commonwealth

______________

Damien clapped the data pad shut again and looked out the window of his limousine. Anna
still
was not answering his calls and he'd heard no word from the team sent to retrieve her. She and Rebecca were supposed to be picked up twenty minutes ago and he'd been trying to get in contact with someone ever since. He let out a deep breath and closed his eyes.
She's a big girl, she can take care of herself,
he tried to console himself.

He'd left her apartment early in the morning and returned to the palace as easily as he'd escaped the day before. He checked his room, including the trap he left at the door and found it undisturbed.

As he prepared for the funeral, he thought of the young girl Anna introduced as his daughter. She seemed like a sweet girl, and she played quietly while Damien and Anna talked. She ignored him in her awkward innocence. He'd never really been around children before and he found himself studying her curiously. She had the unmistakable Sten blue eyes and her mother's hair. She almost looked like Salena when she was a child, he realized with some consternation.

Damien never raised a child. He'd trained his fair share of soldiers and taught Aaron all he knew about war, politics and life as a nobleman, but there was a considerable difference between training and raising. He remembered Dietrich Sørensen did quite a bit of the raising of him and his siblings. Haakon was often busy with his various duties of state and had little time for the upbringing of his children. His mother had died shortly after Salena's birth and had spent much of the latter years of her life sick. His actual upbringing had been overseen by a small army of guards, officials, advisers, nobles and those Damien sought out himself.

Soon, he'd have to figure it out. They agreed Anna and Rebecca would be safest with him on Hidelborg, protected by his army and the sect of Starfield Theorists there. She'd spend the morning packing then take a car with two of Conrad's security personnel to the starport for safe loading onto his personal shuttle to rendezvous with the
Crimson Lady
. He'd honor his promise to her. They would never be separated again.

Rebecca created several interesting political predicaments. She was a bastard, technically not entitled to inherit any of his property or territory. She would have to be legitimized before she could be considered his daughter and given political consideration. Until now, he'd considered Aaron the closest thing he had to a son and an heir. With Aaron's brother dead, he was the scion to House Mercer and its remaining territory. He would also inherit the Hidelborg Duchy as soon as Damien made the announcement. Currently, Magnus Teton-Sten was the heir to his fief, which he found delightfully laughable. But who would inherit now, his bastard daughter or the son he wished he had?

Too many possibilities. He felt overwhelmed for the first time in decades, as if age had finally caught up to him and the number of possible outcomes outnumbered his solutions to them.

He tried to contact Anna again and failed.
Trust Conrad and his men. They will come through for us. They have to. Though it was possible that he had contacted Salena and informed her of the meeting. Could Conrad have lied and created this ruse to occupy him while Salena maneuvered into position?

When he felt his heart rate return to normal he opened his eyes, realizing the car had stopped. A security officer opened the car's door and waited patiently for him to step out. Damien straightened his uniform and tucked his sword close to his body so it would not bang against the car. Exiting a vehicle with weapons strapped to your hip could be immensely awkward. Damien had learned early how manage such situations. One never knew who was watching.

The crowds around the funeral site were subdued and quiet, as was to be expected. There were a few dozen craning their necks for a glimpse of the dead Archduke's brother. He was surprised at the lack of a welcoming party, considering Salena's vain attempts at his landing several days ago. A single man waited a short distance away apparently waiting to direct Damien to his proper location.

The temperature was warming quickly as the sun reached higher in the sky. There were only a few clouds in the distance and the sky was blue and clear. Damien took comfort in the good weather, partly because he missed the feeling of a warm sun on his skin and also because it would be good fighting weather. The Sten House Guard would need it.

The mausoleum was outside the city and several kilometers south of Lord Conrad's mountain fief. The plateaued hill on which it rested had no name officially, but was considered a sacred place. The grounds were surrounded by parks and gardens where the commoners and even nobles would stroll or meet. Winding through the park and leading to the mouth of the mausoleum was a gilded path lined with statues, representations of Amrah's false gods that lived in the wilderness. If he stepped off the path he would be in the territory of the sins and sinners. It was a literal representation of the Faith. Damien walked the Path past Avarice, then Murder and Hatred, then Pride and Despair and the last one, Infidelity. He eyed it curiously as it had changed since the last time he'd seen it. Before, it had been a shattered heart, intended to tell the commoners not to break their marital vows, but now it was a raindrop.

Why had it changed? Obviously it is Salena's work, but why the change? What did rain represent?

It took Damien only another dozen paces before its meaning became clear. It was not a raindrop, it was a drop of blood.
Be faithful with your blood family,
Damien realized. It was a carefully tailored message to him that Salena knew he would see.
Dear sister, I am always faithful to my blood.

Circling the mausoleum was a moat dug out of the mountain. It represented Ixith, the damned river that captured lost souls in its endless current, doomed to see Paradise on the shores, but never to reach it. The ground the mausoleum rested on was Paradise, of course, completing the metaphor. All the dukes and duchesses laid to rest there were blessed by Amrah having walked the Path and crossed Ixith without any trouble.

What silly nonsense,
Damien snorted.

This was not his first visit to the Sten family mausoleum. He'd been here over a decade prior for the funeral of Ciara Sten and twenty-seven years prior for the death of Arthur Sten. The building itself was massive and designed in an ancient Gothic style architecture with thick gray stones and turrets and ramparts making it appear as a sort of anachronistic castle quite similar to Conrad's mountain fief. The Stens had a habit of building such structures and Magdeborg was littered with them.

The building itself was divided into two sections. In the above ground levels, a museum reached ten stories over his head, and contained hundreds of thousands of books, portraits, artifacts and other pieces detailing the history of House Sten and the Magdeborg Commonwealth. Damien often found solace there as a young man, taking comfort in his family's strengths and power reflected in the work left behind by ancient scholars.

Below that, accessible only to members of Houses Sten and Sørensen, were the crypts where dead dukes, duchesses and their families were finally laid to rest. The crypts terrified him as a child. They seemed like endless dark hallways filled with the dead calling to him to join them one day. The space between graves was lit only by torches spaced every ten meters. They cast a small circle of light, of safety, like beacons of protection against the dead. When brought there for the funerals of ancient aunts and uncles he dreaded the dark spaces between torches, lingering in the light as the family descended deeper before racing ahead to safety of the next torch.

Damien crossed over the moat via an ornate covered bridge of white marble and turned to regard the crowds. The people easily numbered in the tens of thousands, held back by restraining tape and armed guards. The tone of the crowd was appropriately somber, but watchful. They understood the political situation was complicated and Lord Damien's reaction would be scrutinized by the media, likely fueled by Salena's agents. As long as everything went according to plan, they would certainly have something to talk about.
Then again, if it failed, they'd still have something to talk about. Either way they won't be disappointed.

Turning away, Damien studied the insignia of House Sten engraved just over the arched entryway of the mausoleum.
The sword and the book, the signs of the philosopher kings
, he thought.
Of course, make no mistake, the sword always comes first. We are all warriors first and scholars second. The Starfield elements are so obvious to those who know what to look for. And the Azuren still have never suspect it.

He felt an urge to be inside the mausoleum and out of the eye of the crowd, afraid they would judge him too soon. What he'd say here today would spark open conflict. War. Some of the people outside would not survive, incinerated by a laser or blown to bits by a stray missile. Conrad's military units sent to hit the funeral itself had strict orders only to fire if fired upon. It was no guarantee though.

It was more dramatic than Damien wished, but it had to be. The population was largely complacent. The Azuren had gotten to them, made them ignorant and desiring security more than what was right. Salena's grip on power was strong thanks to a powerful army and fear amongst the population of the Dominion. They had to be shocked to their senses and Damien intended to give them that jolt, first with the revelation of the twins, then with the spectacular display of military prowess by springing the Sørensens from prison, taking the starport, and whisking himself, Conrad, Dietrich and the others away on a ship.

Conrad had laughed when Damien complained it looked like something out of an action movie, but then assured him he'd seen far less competent warriors complete far greater feats. Damien wasn't sure of the veracity of the boast, but was comforted at least by Conrad's confidence. His unit was the most selective of any in the Commonwealth armed forces accepting only the best, most loyal, daring warriors House Sten could muster. If anyone could pull it off, it would be Conrad.

Around the ring of the crowd and along the road up to the mausoleum were armored vehicles and destriers painted in House Teton-Sten colors. They all bore foreign insignia. There were several sections of them here and for a moment he worried that Conrad's troops might have trouble fending them off, but most of them were shut down, their pilots and crews standing near them at attention. They were not guards, but merely symbols of the power of House Teton-Sten, a reminder to the crowds who was in charge. But Salena was not stupid; there would be security forces here. The rumor was that she always carried a weapon hidden in her clothing. This would be no different.

Damien checked his watch. By now, two other groups of Sten House Guardsmen would be on their way to the prison and the spaceport. At a signal determined by Damien himself they would launch their assaults. Sections consisting of both destriers and vehicles would be on scene in ten minutes exactly, which meant this would be a short eulogy.
A declaration of war is what the media will call it. They will call me a traitor and condemn my own claim to the throne. But what will they think of Kristoffer? They might not support me, but would they support him? The Azuren will hate me, but I'm a Theorist, they already do.

Damien banished the thought from his mind. He could not control their reaction, he could only state his case as best as he could. And as quickly as possible. As soon as he even appeared to be going off message, Salena's people would be on him. The timing would need to be exquisite.

He leaned against one of the huge stone pillars inside the mausoleum and looked up. The interior was a massive atrium, extending up all ten stories to a glass dome. Each floor wrapped around the atrium and dozens of portraits of his ancestors looked down on him.
What would they think of this mess? The Commonwealth has seen its fair share of internal conflict, rouge barons, uprisings and the likes, but a full blown civil war has never been recorded in Commonwealth history.

Damien caught a flutter of movement at the entrance and turned to see the Conclave members begin to file in. At the passing of a royal leader each House would send a representative and the approaching mass was a rainbow of house colors and heraldry. Damien looked among them quickly for allies and saw few. The border houses sent emissaries rather than knights and nobles. In anticipation of Dominion attacks, they could spare no warriors. Many of the border house diplomats bowed their heads respectfully at Damien as they passed, affirming their understanding of his never ending dedication to protecting their homes. He had allies here, families that owed their freedom to him and his army.

Houses Evers and Mercer were missing entirely as were some of the other smaller houses whose territory had been absorbed into the Dominion. House Evers was busy preparing its defenses and House Mercer was probably still burying its own dead, still reeling from the loss of Haberton and most of their house.
Poor Aaron. He wishes to be with his surviving family, but I need him where he is.

Conrad Sten entered after the Conclave members and Damien hurried to his side. Quietly, Damien asked, “Is it ready?”

Conrad looked as if he'd aged another twenty years since the previous night. He was already old, but his mountain retreat allowed him to live his life at his pace. Out of his element, he seemed weaker. Damien felt a moment of panic.