Solace Shattered (2 page)

“Isn’t he handsome?” Jesquin said into Arvana’s ear.

“Who?” Arvana’s gaze went to Chancellor Degarius’s son. He stood with rigid formality, despite the fact that he must be sorely suffering in that heavy black uniform in this heat; his temples were touched with crimson. Years had broadened his face and form, but because he was clean-shaven, in contrast to the majority of men, there was a boyishness to his otherwise stern countenance.

As to who was handsome, Jesquin wrote on the tablet, “The prince, of course!”

Prince Fassal said, “Allow me the honor of introducing Captain Degarius of the Third Frontiersmen Regiment, commissioned now as my counselor. He is the finest swordsman and recent recipient of our highest honor, the Valor in Service medal.”

Captain Degarius bowed to the king.

“The finest swordsman?” The king eyed the captain. “What is a Sarapostan champion compared to an Acadian? You know a horse that wins the race in the village doesn’t necessarily win the one in town.”

Fassal, with a cheeky smile, replied, “The horse does not necessarily lose, either.”

Inwardly Arvana half smiled at the truth of the Sarapostan’s wit. The best of her family’s horses could outrun any of the horses in the Lerouge stable. She half grimaced, too, though. Expecting King Lerouge to be in a humorous mood after hearing of his losses in Orlandia was a mistake.

As she expected, the king looked annoyed. He addressed the captain, “You receive high praise. Is it true?”

Captain Degarius clasped his hands behind his back and stretched his chest wide, making the tapestry of medals on his coat appear even more prominent. “I’m not at liberty to question my prince’s judgment.”

King Lerouge circled his lips thoughtfully, then smirked in a way that showed malice. “Would you oblige an old fool, a great devotee of swordsmanship, and be subject to a king’s rating of your skill?”

“At your pleasure,” the captain said.

“My pleasure is here and now.”

“Now?” Prince Fassal asked with a questioning glance to the captain.

“I am at your pleasure,” Captain Degarius repeated.

The king bid a page to fetch two shields, and then he motioned one of the soldiers standing guard behind the throne to come forward. “This is Marchand, a Household Guard and not a poor example of the swordsmen of Acadia. This will be a treat, Captain Degarius, provided the prince has not exaggerated your talent.” To both he ordered, “Don’t draw a wound. There must be some decorum in court.”

The Sarapostans stepped to Arvana’s side of the dais. Captain Degarius gave the prince his hat and then sized his opponent before handing his glasses over, too.

The crowd pushed back, creating an open area before the dais for the swordsmen.

As if confident the Sarapostan was a hack, Marchand handled his weapon glibly. Men in the back perching on chairs for a better view applauded Marchand’s disdain for his opponent until the Sarapostan captain, with a well-timed flick of his blade, knocked the loosely held sword from the Acadian’s hand. The merriment of the crowd ceased as a glowering Marchand stooped to retrieve his weapon.

In the break in the action, Prince Fassal turned and smiled at Jesquin.

The princess went red, and the moment the Sarapostan prince returned to watching the swordsmen, she doodled a heart next to his name.

The men were fighting again. King Lerouge raptly followed each move as they incrementally sparred harder. Arvana wished they’d stop. It was becoming more than a demonstration, but the king made no move to halt it even though it was obvious it wasn’t going to end as he hoped. His well-known love of swordsmanship seemed to have won out over his desire to punish Prince’s Fassal cheekiness.

Marchand scowled and aimed a fierce blow at the captain, who at the last moment, glided just out of reach. Captain Degarius moved with a grace Arvana hadn’t expected from the stiff way he’d stood before the king. Marchand’s weight plunged into empty air. He fell heavily on his knee and his blade clanged brightly to the dais steps.

King Lerouge’s long, slow claps, echoed eerily. “I now know to take Prince Fassal at his word.” He cast a disparaging look at Marchand, who was limping away. To the captain he said, “If my son Chane were here, the match would have ended differently, though you are skilled. Tell me, what feat earned you the medal of valor your prince mentioned?”

The captain’s eyes narrowed and his jaw set. He resheathed his sword. “A mission in the Borderlands.”

Prince Fassal cried, “Degarius is too modest, King Lerouge. Single-handedly he fought a sea monster, or lake monster, rather.”

At the crowd’s laughter, Prince Fassal held up the captain’s glasses and exclaimed, “We had a witness.”

A lake? A monster? Suddenly, Arvana was seeing the man whose hair clung in wet strands around his face, the man with sword raised over his head. The vision of him through the Blue Eye, being dragged underwater, his hair then eerily floating, his breath escaping in a veil of bubbles, wasn’t drawn on a wax tablet in her memory that could be erased with a rub. It was imprinted like an image in the finely crafted books in the archive. Surely it was him. Not drowned. He was alive and before her. She pressed her hands together in her lap.
Oh dearest, most merciful, most loving Maker. My kindly superior. How could I doubt your wisdom?

“Did you kill it and take a trophy of this lake monster?” the king asked the Sarapostans. “A tooth? A bone?”

“Nothing, King Lerouge. I can’t say for certain I killed it. I did injure it.”

“He disabled it, cut off its wing,” Prince Fassal added.

Captain Degarius, having taken his glasses back, wound the arm of the spectacles about his ear.

Jesquin touched Arvana’s arm. “Are you sick?”

Arvana didn’t know if she nodded or shook her head no. It
was
he.

“A wing? Or was it a flipper of sorts? A great pity you didn’t kill it. It would fetch a vast sum from a collector of oddities. Speaking of collecting...” The king pointed to the captain’s scabbard. “I have a fine collection of swords. Your blade is beautiful. Show it to me.”

As the captain mounted the podium, he flinched ever so slightly at each step. Had he been injured during the fight? It all happened so fast. Perhaps he had sprained an ankle. When he stopped and held the blade for inspection, the faint sign of duress was gone, though.

“What sort of writing is on the blade?” asked the king.

“From the tribes of the Reckoning.”

“Ah, so it is very old indeed. Has anyone figured out what it says?”

“No.”

“Again, a pity my son isn’t here. He has a fondness for puzzles such as these.”

Jesquin’s sweet voice floated through the thick afternoon air. “Perhaps Hera Solace knows the symbols.”

“Solacian,” the king said.

If the captain truly killed a draeden, he must have a blessed sword. Would he have brought it to Acadia? Surely not. But, he said he didn’t know if he’d killed the monster. He thought he’d only disabled it by cutting off a wing. Perhaps he didn’t even suspect it was a draeden. After seven hundred years, who would dream they could exist again? Her heart racing, Arvana rose and knelt before the king.

“Rise,” the king said. “Hera, do you know this writing?”

The sword looked nothing like Lukis’s blade. Her hope sank. She sat to studying the script, tilting her head to counter the glare coming in from the high windows. A transient design flickered near the hilt, then disappeared. She looked back to the main lettering. It wasn’t in Anglish script. She was certain she’d seen it, though. On a wall of the tiny sanctuary were one kissed the Blue Eye during the engagement ceremony,
In Thy Kiss is a Taste of Eternity
was carved repeatedly in many of the old tongues and in the secret symbols the faithful used to message each other so that The Scyon’s agents couldn’t understand them. The sword’s lettering resembled one set of symbols. And it was the phrase that made her think Mariel’s purported letter Chane had shown her in the bedchamber was authentic. It could be a coincidence, but... “Please Captain, might I—” She hovered over the blade, trying to catch another glimpse of the mark. There. In the stylized waves of a horse’s mane were three hidden letters H, C, A in the Old Anglish alphabet. But if it was a blessed sword, the man who made it spoke Frankish, as Prince Lerouge said, and the letters would be pronounced
osh, say, ah
.

“Well,” the king asked, “can you read it?”

Osh, say, ah. It sounded so familiar. The syllables tumbled over each other.
Osh, say, ah
.
Osh, say, ah
was Assaea. Paulus’s sword. Her heart leaped. She glanced around her veil at the captain. Did he have an inkling of what he carried, or the danger it was in if the king knew what it was? The captain wore the same stern expression as earlier. In the steadiest voice she could muster, she lied, “I recognize the name Thiabault from a list of the early shacras who died while spreading the word of The Scyon’s demise to the western barbarians. Perhaps it was his piece, or a tribute to him.”

“What did you say?” the captain asked.

His voice seemed to resonate through Arvana, shake her bones. From behind the spectacles, his eyes, a breathtaking light blue, bore into her. Heat flamed her face. How could anything so coldly blue be so searing? “It’s plain...a dedication...to Thiabault.” She forced her gaze to his boots. They were honey-colored, soft suede, so unusual for a soldier. But she couldn’t help but look back up at him.

He nodded curtly and slipped the sword into the scabbard.

She turned from him and to the king. What would Lerouge say of the sword now?

Jesquin, with a lovely pleading expression, was speaking into her father’s ear, but he, grimacing, was still looking at the captain’s scabbard. Finally, though his expression never changed, he sloughed his shoulders, tore his gaze from the sword and said, “Sarapostans, come this evening to my table. I’ll give you audience afterward. I will consider what I can do for Sarapost.”

Deciding she wasn’t needed further, Arvana returned to her seat. No one noticed. Prince Fassal was beaming as he accepted the king’s invitation. Jesquin was just as happy. Captain Degarius wore a blank look. What did he really know of his sword? Arvana buried her hands in her sleeves. Goose bumps covered her arms. If anyone found she’d lied to the king, her head would be on a stake, a feast for the carrion birds.

The princess glided into her seat and clutched the tablet to her chest. “What a lovely lesson this has been.”

“Lovely.” Arvana touched her hand to her chest as the captain strode down the dais. She couldn’t see his face, but there was a hitch, nearly imperceptible, in his step.

“Isn’t he the most handsome man you’ve ever seen?” The princess sighed.

Hardly knowing if she answered aloud or only in her head, Arvana replied, “Yes.”

Lake Sandela Hant, Gheria

T
he dragline went taut in Lieutenant Juvenot’s hands. “I snagged something.”

As he gripped the rope tighter, a similar tightness gripped his chest. What if it was the sword that killed Seraph? He prayed he’d be the one to find the blade that at once destroyed his hope and might now be his only chance for redemption.

His rower, and those of the six other boats making a parallel sweep of Lake Sandela, stilled their oars. As the boat slowed, the layer of yellow, frothy scum reformed in its wake.

The only sound was the splash of the oars of the Fortress Guard’s boat that followed them, watching their every move. The guard boat glided in closer.

Juvenot begged the Eternal Master that the magnet at the end of his line had snagged the sword instead of a piece of debris from the hant. He’d rather bear the curse of the ancients than that of the sovereign. Tending the creature, he and his regiment-mates had lived within the shadow of an ancient ruin for half a year and no unusual sickness or bad luck had plagued them—unless you counted the creature’s death as bad luck. The sovereign wouldn’t see it that way, though. It was the regiment’s failure of duty that had allowed a band of Sarapostan trappers to kill Seraph, their charge. Though Juvenot doubted it was any mere trapper who killed Seraph. Only a blessed sword could kill a draeden, or at least that’s what history said, and there was only one blessed sword. The dead man who floated to the top of the lake had to be Prince Lerouge or one of his emissaries. That’s why the sovereign had sent his adopted son to make sure the sword was retrieved from the lake. That’s why a boat of Forbidden Fortress guards watched their every move. That was why a special leniency was promised to the men in the boat who found the sword.

Hand over hand, Juvenot drew in the rope. His gloves grew foul with the scum the rope collected. A long gray shape appeared under the surface.

A sword.

Easy does it
, he thought.
Bring it up smooth so it doesn’t drop back to the bottom of the lake.

The heavy magnet broke the surface. At the midpoint of the blade, the sword was stuck to it.

Just a bit more.

He grasped the sword’s hilt and as if it was a newborn babe, most carefully brought it into the boat.

The rower, leaning far forward on his seat for a better look, asked, “Is it the one?”

It took all of Juvenot’s strength to pull the heavy, strong magnet from the blade. He wiped the mud and scum from it with his faded blue jacket sleeve. “It’s engraved, but not in Gherian.”

“Bring it to the shore,” shouted the nearest Fortress Guard from the boat that had been watching.

As they reached the shore, General Aleniusson strode into the shade of the overturned pot that had held Seraph on his journey to the lake. Someone must have summoned him.

“Don’t go to the dock. Take me straight to the general,” Juvenot said, unwilling to give up the sword to anyone except Aleniusson. At the dock, someone would want to take it from him while he disembarked.

The bottom of the boat scraped to a stop in the shore’s soft mud. He stepped into the shallows, not minding ruining his boots. What were boots when the sovereign’s son waited? “I have found it for you, my glorious General Aleniusson,” he cried as he walked as fast as dignity would allow toward the overturned pot.