Soulbreaker (10 page)

And yet a part of him had felt satisfied during the act. He’d buried the feeling deep inside himself, hoping he was wrong.

“I know that look. Uncertainty. Horror at the thought of killing,” Keshka said. “Doubt will see you dead. The horror, though, that’s fine. If you should no longer feel that loathing, and instead enjoy killing a man,
then
, you should worry.

“You and your brother wish to help save Delisar, perhaps you seek vengeance, but such things come with a price. Didn’t you consider that the goal you set meant Ainslen’s death? Learning to become a melder was a step. Too often a young person accomplishes their first meld and then try to do too much. Such mistakes have led to many a ruptured organ or death.

“You need to know what it is you do, to be able to judge your limitations. It will save your life. Success will come from persistence. It’s a fleeting thing; it likes to run. Obtaining success isn’t a matter of Hazline and the Thirty-Two Winds of Fate. You do not wish upon the stars and wait for the Gods to deliver your goals. You seize them. And when they’re in your grasp, you do not let go. Ever.” Keshka’s expression hardened, from teacher giving a lesson to a commander issuing an order. “Do not go into the Treskelin.”

“He’s my brother. I have to help.”
I’ll never forgive myself if something happens to him, and I didn’t at least try.
Keedar left the words unsaid. Something
was
going to happen, regardless of what he did.

“The only thing you have to do is believe in him. Chance enough will come when he needs you. I could mark you to make certain you don’t disobey me, but I will trust you to heed my words … and to be a man, not some willful boy. Now, practice, starting with your knife and sword work first, and then with improving your ability to retrieve some of your soul after you’ve used
lumni
.” With that, the old man tucked his book under his arm and headed inside, Snow padding after him.

Thoughts tumbling through his head, Keedar stared after him for a while. Finally, he returned his attention to the forest. “You better make it back.” He drew his daggers, summoned
sintu,
and began to train, throwing his all into every swing and slice lest the sense of helplessness overwhelmed him, or he was forced to disobey Keshka, attempting something he would later regret.

7

T
he Thing

T
he wind howled, a rabid beast that whipped against Winslow’s icy shelter, enraged at its failure to reach its prey. When the first storm descended, over a month had passed since the Fast of Madness began. Several more storms had battered him since. Mired in the darkness of his confines he’d lost count of the following nights and days.
Had it been two more weeks? Three? Four?

His belly said it had been longer. It was a cavernous hole, its sides clawed by hunger pangs. He was certain the interior of the dome smelled of shit, piss, and sweat, but he couldn’t tell. His nose had grown accustomed to his filth. Nothing solid passed through his system anymore, just liquid from the ice he held over his mouth to drink as it melted. One corner was his outhouse, and it might have well been perfume. His lips curved with the thought, but even that little smile hurt.

How long could a person survive on water alone?
The constant spasms in his gut said not much longer. His hands and legs shook as he hugged his knees close to his emaciated chest and rocked back and forth. When he touched his sides he could easily feel and count each rib.

The wind ceased. One moment, it was howling in protest, and the next … nothing.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

The walls distorted the sound but he recognized it. Water falling from the tree branches.

A crunching noise joined the drip. Winslow held his breath. The noise drew closer. Muffled footsteps. He tightened his grip around his knees. The footsteps stopped at his shelter.

“Winslow?”

His breath caught in his throat. The voice was Ainslen’s.
How did you find me?

“I miss you, son. Your place is with me, not out here in this purgatory. Come home with me to the Golden Spires. I’m king now. Your place is at my side.”

Winslow rocked back and forth harder and faster, trying to will the voice away.

“If you don’t come out, I’ll come in and get you.” It was a whisper, a hot breath against Winslow’s ear. He started, eyes wide, staring around in the darkness.

A cackle echoed outside, drifting away.

The walls around him became too close, too tight. He needed to get out.
Yes. Outside. That was it. I must dig out.
He scrabbled at the icy walls.

I will not leave the shelter once I create it, no matter what I see or hear.
Unbidden, the mantra echoed in his head. He stopped digging.

A growl, low and fearsome and full of malice, rumbled outside the shelter. Footsteps moved away.

Chest heaving, Winslow sucked in air, long and deep. His racing heart slowed. He summoned
sintu,
and almost immediately his head cleared. Relieved, he sat in the darkness, urging himself to maintain his hold on
sintu
. Eventually, he drifted off to sleep.

******

“Wins, come on, it’s time to head off to Jarina’s Hands.” Gaston’s voice rang with merriment.

A grin spilt Winslow’s features. Time spent with the girls in one of Kasandar’s finer establishments would wash away his concerns. Picturing those expert hands and mouths brought a rise he hadn’t felt in some time. He sighed, made to roll off the bed, and bumped his head.

What?

The world came rushing back. He had no feather-filled mattress and warm blankets, just hard-packed earth, cold to the touch, and air reeking of his waste.

“What’s taking you, Wins? The girls await, bosoms of every color and size, lips wet and warm enough to make the hardest man soft.” Gaston laughed.

The air grew thick once more. Winslow reached a shaking hand up to the slim length of branch jutting from the wall. He frowned, recalling that he’d snapped the first branch he had into three pieces. He was uncertain how he obtained the new stick, but it was stronger than the other, and did not break when he worked it around until the resistance of snow gave. After he pulled back the branch and placed his face to the hole, he sucked in sweet, cold air. Twilight greeted him when he put his eye to the long pebble-sized opening.

A good distance from the shelter, Gaston was dressed in a fine blue sweater and trousers, a derin leather cloak tossed over his shoulder. From the side profile, his face had its usual beauty, his jawline defined, ears and nose perfect. And then he turned. His other eye was a mass of bleeding flesh, the socket a dark, gaping wound. “Hello, Wins.”

Winslow stabbed the stick into place and fell back. He tried to scramble away but got no more than several feet before his back bumped the wall. Breathing hard, he stared at the stick, expecting it to move. It didn’t.

The peal of Gaston’s laughter rang out. Winslow slapped his hands to his ears and began to hum until he no longer heard himself.

******

Winslow lay next to a fireplace. Elaina stretched beside him on the thick furs and lamb’s wool, dark tresses of her hair forming a silky bundle beneath her. A man could drown in those deep brown eyes. He ran a hand along the swell of her belly. Even pregnant she had maintained her curves.

“He’ll be a count like you,” she said, voice tinkling like wind chimes.

“A king,” he boasted.

“I—” She gasped, face contorting in pain. She clutched at her stomach.

“What is it?”

“The baby … I think it’s coming.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now!” The last word stretched into a pain-filled yowl.

“What do I do?” he asked, frantic.

“Fetch a Mystic or Curate, or, or a chirurgeon.” She groaned. Sweat beaded her brow. She cried out once more.

Beneath her hand, her stomach shifted. Something smooth and round poked at the skin. Her back arched. Blood dribbled from her lower lips.

“No, by the Dominion, no. Creator help me,” he whispered.

He found himself frozen, watching in horror. A ripping sound echoed. Blood gushed from between her legs. Something round pushed itself out, covered in hair dyed scarlet. A head. It turned.

Shaz stared at him with those slanted eyes of his, one drooping, the Marishman wearing a grin that twisted the burns on the left side of his face. It was the same expression Shaz wore when he’d forced Winslow and Keedar to leap from the Cliffs of a Thousand Sorrows. Yelling, Winslow turned and began to dig at the walls.

I will not leave the shelter once I create it, no matter what I see or hear.

Winslow jerked awake. He sat bolt upright, chest heaving in the darkness as he struggled for air.
A nightmare. A nightmare.
His breathing calmed.

A scream rang out, the voice thick and full of pain. Delisar’s voice.

“Father?” he called without thinking.

“Help me. Dear Gods, help me.”

A sick, wet sound followed, a sound Winslow recognized. A blade chopping into flesh. More screams, worse than before, ending in a guttural wail.

On the verge of shouting for Delisar to hold on, Winslow remembered where he was. The forest, the clearing, inside his shelter.

“Winslow? Son?” Ainslen again, voice given distance by the enclosed ice walls.

Next would be Gaston, and then Elaina. She would try to convince him to come outside to see his son. Those tore at him the most. He wanted to see his boy, to be the father he himself never had. Plugging his fingers into his ears, he curled into a ball, and whispered, “I will not leave the shelter once I create it, no matter what I see or hear. I will not leave the shelter once I create it, no matter what I see or hear.”

Elaina visited but said nothing to him. She sang, hummed, and whispered endearing words to the baby he knew she would be cradling. He wanted so much to go to her, to hold them both. The need was overpowering, but he knew it wasn’t all his.

When she left, they came as one, all four, Ainslen, Delisar, Gaston, and Elaina. The taste of fear became bile in his throat, his heart, galloping hooves. They would try to get in again. Or climb in his head and urge him to come out. He almost broke once.

Shuddering uncontrollably, he clung hard to
sintu
, drawing on what little soul he could. He would not let them bend his mind. Without food his energy was almost completely depleted, but one thought resonated: Keedar. He had promised to return to his brother.

Measured crunches through ice replaced his tormentors’ footsteps. Something bigger, heavier. It stopped, its breaths a rattle somewhere between a snore and a growl. Digging commenced on the dome’s icy walls.

Winslow expanded his nimbus, and when he was certain it seeped into the walls, he drew on
tern
, made the nimbus solid.

The scratching stopped. The thing growled, the same as before, deep and terrible.

I won’t listen. I won’t listen.

Something new crawled beneath Winslow’s skin. It had grown to be a part of him during the last storm. He wasn’t certain what it was, but the thing shifted with his thoughts. He no longer wanted to hear what was happening outside. The crawling thing complied, easing over his ears.

Silence.

Hugging his knees once more, he rocked back and forth. Soon, he would need to dig out. Soon. But not yet. Not now.

8

S
chemes

T
hrough the slightly open door Count Leroi Shenen watched his daughter play with her son. Elaina was tickling Jaelen, the boy laughing in that innocent way all babies had. Leroi couldn’t help his smile whenever he saw them like this. It reminded him of his own childhood days spent on his parents’ estates. Thinking of his mother and father soured his mood. Not for any wrongdoing on their part or due to bad memories, but because Jaelen was being denied the invaluable blessing of two parents raising him. All because of Ainslen’s schemes. Once more Ainslen had ignored demands for a search. He loathed the man.

The count growled under his breath and strode away from the door toward the sitting room and his visitors. Considering Winslow’s own questionable upbringing, he would have expected Ainslen to understand, but the man appeared more interested in denying Leroi what was rightfully his, what was rightfully his daughter’s and his grandson’s, rather than honoring the agreement. Ainslen said one thing with his mouth, but his actions dictated the opposite. Not once had the king sent men into the Treskelin to seek out Winslow’s captors.

Why are you so willing to let them have your boy?
He frowned.
Unless the rumors are true and he isn’t your son. If not yours, then whose?
The count stopped at one of the many family pictures along the wall, lamplight illuminating them. He considered Ainslen’s obsession with soul and the Dracodar. A thing the king hid from most, but Leroi’s spies among Ainslen’s servants reported the countless books and the constant trips to archaeological sites. The workers planted at those digs confirmed the orders to concentrate on Dracodar artifacts. Had Ainslen taken one of the dreg’s children prior to the Day of Accolades? Such an act would make sense. When he was still count, Ainslen would often complain that the Smear’s miscreants held back their most gifted babies.

The wisemen had a different opinion of the disparity. The Order claimed it was a natural culling of the ability among the Smear’s folk, even suggesting that the Dominion had reclaimed the blessing they once bestowed upon the Dracodar descendants.

Past generations of the Shenen family had dabbled in what he thought Ainslen might be guilty of now: taking a baby gifted in soul from the dregs and claiming the child as their own to bolster their lineage. Leroi’s great grandfather had been the product of one such coupling, and so was he.

The king’s actions, or lack of actions, began to make sense to him now. Elaina’s strength could not be denied, even if she did not have the gift of melding. Jaelen showed hints of it himself.
But then why not rescue the father? Why allow these ugly rumors to persist? Why not see the two of them married? Both of our families would profit.

Even as he asked the questions, the answers presented themselves. Ainslen had always been greedy. Sure, he kept to his part of the bargain and gave up the Dracodar remains, for he did not fear the individual counts. He’d proven that. The scars of their duel that ran along Leroi’s chest and left leg still throbbed from time to time. However, the king would not allow the marriage, for it would mean a foothold for Shenen within the royal household, a foothold Ainslen might see as a vulnerability in Far’an Senjin.

And in all this, the child suffers, and so the Shenen name is sullied.
I will not have it.
Leroi gazed at a drawing of him alongside Ainslen and Jemare, back when they were all Blades in King Tolquan’s service.
I will find your son, and hold you to your debt.

Count Shenen swept down the hall and into the sitting room. Looking out a window was Count Lestere Hagarath of House Keneshin, braided hair and beard falling down his chest. Lestere reminded him of a bear, if there was ever one as pale as mother’s milk. In one of the cushioned armchairs sat Count Pomir Fiorenta of House Humel. Pock-faced and balding, fingers long and frail, Fiorenta always wore black as if he were ready to greet Desitrin in the afterlife. The man’s lifeless demeanor often made Leroi wonder why Fiorenta was leader of the house dedicated to the Dominion’s God of War. One could easily be fooled by Fiorenta’s mannerisms, thinking the count slow. His mind was blade sharp and whip quick.

“So how do we go about taking what should be ours?” Leroi asked, flopping down into one of the chairs.

“Straight to the point, eh?” Hagarath turned from the window, a smile on his face, thick eyebrow arched.

“I only have time for one type of game,” Leroi replied.

“Fair enough.” Hagarath took a seat.

“Before I decide on anything,” Fiorenta said, voice the rasp of a blade on leather, “what would all this benefit me? The king has already provided me with soul I could only dream of. He also showed each of us that we are no match for him. I’m quite comfortable in my current situation, so why would I risk it all?”

“Risk is a key component for those with ambition,” Leroi said. “You know this as well as I do. Without risk, we’re just accepting whatever scraps are handed to us.”

“I wouldn’t call the power we wield ‘scraps’,” Fiorenta countered, “but you’re right. I risked much when I backed Ainslen. I count my gains worthy. So again, I pose my question, what is it you would offer me?”

Leroi studied Count Fiorenta. The man wouldn’t have come if he hadn’t already made up his mind, but Leroi would humor him anyway. “In the coming months the king will demand a large share of your business.” Fiorenta controlled the Calum powder and Bloodleaf trade. Not many knew he was the hand behind the recreation that dominated almost every tavern and brothel, filling their interiors with smoke, bringing ecstasy to those who partook. “If the rumors from the west are true, then the Caradorii have withdrawn, and it will only be a matter of time before the king learns of your exploits with them. He often wondered how you could afford the armies you mustered for Succession Day. Will you be satisfied with a mere sliver of what you hold now, or would you rather an Empire split evenly in three, with you free to do what you will in Danalyn and the other cities you currently govern?”

Fiorenta pursed his thin lips and then nodded. “Let’s say your theory is correct, and assume that I agree, then what is you plan?”

“Although he holds the crown, Ainslen’s armies are spread thin, despite the addition of his Farlanders. As it is, they’re occupied with the Thelusians. The Marishmen still stand despite their defeats at Ernassa and Garada. They employ stealth tactics now, harrying the Farlanders and the king’s men when they can and then disappearing back into the mountains or the forests of Keshan Dark. The king made the mistake of insulting the Heleganese. Their spirit assassins are as strong as any Blade. With more than half of Jemare’s Blades fled, Ainslen’s forces are horribly depleted, as can be seen by his use of the watchmen for tasks other than simple law-keeping.” He paused to let the men consider his words.

“This is what I propose. Fiorenta, you have a good relationship with the Heleganese through your trade endeavors. We can offer them some concessions. They will take it rather than see their eventual annihilation. Hagarath, your house spoke in favor of the Thelusians in their wars against the Marishmen. Yours was a voice of reason when they were enslaved. Go to them. They, too, face the same threat from the Farlanders.

“As for myself, my family line runs deep among the Marishmen. Their king owes the Shenen family for his daughter’s life. They will listen to me. By now, they hate Ainslen and these Farlanders.”

“What of the Farish Islanders and the Darshanese?” Hagarath asked.

“The Islanders are too few to matter. They will side with whomever seems to be winning out. As for the Darshanese, they have ever been cowards. When we make the move against the king they will sit back and wait. My men will be ready.”

Hagarath nodded and then he frowned. “Did you approach the other counts with this?”

“None of the others are worthy or can be trusted. Most already belong to the king.”

“That would explain why Antelen Hill still lacks a leader,” Hagarath said.

“And the king, himself?” Fiorenta asked. “He’s beaten us already.”

“Yes, he has, but he was smart about it.” Leroi had given much thought to that day. The defeat haunted his dreams. He’d been more skilled than Ainslen as a Blade, and yet he’d lost. “Think for a moment … Ainslen is no fool and he hates losing more so than any other man I know. No king in their right mind would challenge counts to a duel with the kingdom at stake unless he could guarantee his victory. He even allowed us to consume Dracodar soul, enhancing our power before he fought us. I suspect you two were beaten as soundly as I was.” The men nodded grudgingly. Ainslen smiled. “Don’t you see?” Furrowed brows and narrowed eyes answered his question. Ainslen shook his head at the lack of understanding. “Obviously the king ingested Dracodar soul before us.”

“That goes without saying.” Hagarath smirked.

“Yes, but how long before?” Leroi asked. “There’s but one answer. The king partook of the soul and remains with enough time that they were completely fused with his body. It could have been months, perhaps years ago. Unlike us when we ingested the remains, unlike how we are now …” The armor under his clothes seemed to have a life of its own at times, clinging almost as if it were a second skin. It had grown in tune with his Manifestor abilities, shaping itself to his body. He’d taken to wearing it wherever he went. “Ainslen
knew
he was much stronger than us for that reason. Oh, he gave the duels the illusion of fairness, but in reality they were anything but.”

A light shone in his co-conspirators eyes then; a light that said the deception angered them; a light that spoke of a taste for revenge.
You should have kept your word, my king.
Leroi smiled inwardly.