Stormed Fortress (76 page)

Early Winter 5671

XII. Third Turning

Usual roles had reversed, with Lysaer fretted and pacing the carpet, while
his war commander sprawled in an upholstered chair. Sulfin Evend toyed with a full mug of tea. His horse-stained leathers had been whisked away, along with his soiled shirt and caked boots. Now, his fisted hand propped his scrubbed jaw, still pink from a shave, while sore muscles relaxed in a thick woollen robe, lined inside with cosseting silk. Altogether, he was content not to move. A busy triumph for the opposition: the royal valet had snatched shameless advantage of an active man
'
s sapping exhaustion.

'
You
'
re not drinking,
'
Lysaer observed. Paused between rounds, he leaned on the washstand. Beside him, the bed had not been turned down. Sleepless energy rode him, even in stillness, as he qualified with his back turned, "The tea brought by my servant is only spiced. Not drugged with valerian, this time. I needed this audience worse than your claim for an overdue rest.
'

Sulfin Evend measured the too-rigid set to the shoulders, beneath their flawless gold trim and velvet. The mild tone did not fool him.
'
Face me,
'
he said.
'
The wine in your goblet is also untouched. You don
'
t drink, either, when you
'
re nursing distrust.
'
In private, they might broach the dangerous topics too volatile for the dedicate officers.
'
I will speak as you ask for the truth.
'

'
Very well.
'
Lysaer straightened and turned around.
'
The Koriani Prime Matriarch went without fight. Too easily, in fact.
'

'
You don
'
t like the sugary after-taste, either.
'
Sulfin Evend inclined his head.
'
Selidie possibly has what she wants. Outraged troops will seethe to attack any target, if she seeks to ignite open warfare. Or she bowed out because my case
against her bit too painfully close to the bone. That
'
s more likely. Having lost the initiative, her best option would be to hope the same facts might see us divided.
'

Behind regal bearing, Lysaer
'
s blue eyes were troubled. Quite terrifying, in fact, for their stripped vulnerability, as he regarded the war-captain who was ally and friend; and also chancy to cross as errant lightning, when his deep sensibilities conflicted.
'
You confided, once, that your uncle Raiett never lied. Yet there has been a falsehood told to me while in your presence. When the dragon-skull wards were brought before Avenor
'
s high council, and the arcane properties first engaged to mask our intent from the Sorcerers, I was assured that the artifacts were mislaid by the Koriathain. That Hanshire
'
s men salvaged them after the rebellion, when one of the order
'
s enclaves burned down.
'

The Lord Commander closed his chapped hand on the mug and drank, with his steel gaze dead level.
'
Raiett
'
s gift for evasion was without peer. He seldom admitted to all of the facts. Never, if an omission suited his hidden purposes.
'
A next sip accepted goodwill at a word, that the strong tea was only a restorative.
'
My uncle may well have known that the dragonet skulls
'
recovery wasn
'
t a kept secret from the Koriathain. If he implied tension between contentious parties, the impression misled you, since none existed. The sisterhood always has worked hand in glove with the mayor
'
s council of Hanshire. Raiett pursued power, in all of its forms. He could have held more than your interests at heart, aligned to an ambitious agenda. Quite possibly, up to his end in your service, he was still my father
'
s pawn, after all.
'

'
And Hanshire hates royalty,
'
Lysaer stated, crisp. He snapped into movement, all scintillant fire thrown off by candle-lit gems.
'
Why didn
'
t you warn me when those hatchling skulls were first unveiled in my presence?
'
Unspoken, the remorse behind the hot fury driving his frenetic steps:
Avenor had fallen! People were dead for an ignorant error, kept under an unexplained silence.

Sulfin Evend set his cup down before his tension shattered the crockery.
'
Lysaer! Stop blaming yourself. I can
'
t apologize for my callow youth. I was a rebel, cast into disgrace. Not all of my father
'
s unsavoury intrigues were made known to me, then or now!
'
The rebuttal rang abrasively loud. Too relaxed from the luxuries, and too tired to field thorny inquiry, Sulfin Evend fought to keep his sharp focus: Lysaer was anything but a fool over the betrayals of striving politics.

'
Don
'
t ever lean on my family, my liege. Never dare set your trust in them.
'
Against a calm that was not complacency, alive to the quivering danger, the Light
'
s Lord Commander chose the straight course, which might win salvation, or trigger disaster. Beyond pride, he aired the unsavoury history that had shadowed his paternal name for generations.
'
Our mayors have always traded dark secrets. My sire learned the practice at his grandfather
'
s knee, and Raiett was his closest confidant. Remember that Hanshire
'
s provided a roost for Koriathain all the way back to the uprising! The town
'
s history is ugly, its past record core-rotten with treason. The hotbed of ill craft and entangled jealousy began there, with the dissenting minds that fermented the crown massacre intended to unseat the compact.
'

'
My regency breeds dens of adders aplenty,
'
Lysaer declared, but could not hold the mask of regal objectivity over the fresh wound underneath.
'
What secretive innuendo moved you to accost the Prime Matriarch with a long-term, hostile conspiracy made hand in glove with your estranged relatives?
'
Was family blood thicker than any sworn oath?
'
How can I be sure I can trust you?
'

The accusation broke across distanced shouts from outside, as a cook
'
s brat chased a dog run amok, and a strumpet shrieked with lewd laughter. By contrast, the diligent rustle of the polishing rag lent no comfort, nearer at hand. The valet would be listening with a keen ear, while he cleaned soiled gear in the servant
'
s closet.

Sulfin Evend ignored his commander
'
s tuned instinct and closed out the distractions at large in the war camp. Survival right now relied on the taut figure, demanding straight answer, before him; whose coiled stillness must be adroitly handled, despite faculties flattened with weariness. Second chances were forfeit. Miscall one response, and curse-bound reaction would spin irretrievably wrong. Subtle changes made the prospect more daunting, as if tonight
'
s altercation somehow carried a different thrust. The soft tread on the carpet had suggested retreat, not the pantherish stalk of aggression. Lysaer assumed no airs behind his state clothing. The pique that rejected the vintage wine was not princely confidence, crying the ruler
'
s self-sacrifice, or the false avatar, mouthing the righteous fire of platitudes that promised triumph and glory.
This yawning break was in fact hesitation.
The ringed fingers that gouged restless prints in stuffed furnishings exposed a mortal man, cut to the soul by desperate entreaty. Sulfin Evend reassessed what he saw with stark care.

This night, netted under the mystical song that spun grace to placate hostilities, the tormented spirit in bright diamonds and gold was not insular, or sealed blind by the Mistwraith
'
s ruthless compulsion.

More, the Light
'
s Lord Commander realized he might speak, and be fully heard. The shattering grief evoked by such a stunned leap of conscience became terrifying for its limitless power to hurt. Sulfin Evend forced patience. While the heart in him tore, the wounded creature before him paced and trembled, ripped naked by the judder of reflections chased across dazzling finery.

'
Where did you learn what you told us, tonight?
'
pressed Lysaer, and this time, as appointed regent of Tysan, he questioned in sovereign demand.

Sulfin Evend chose disclosure, direct as a grace blow.
'
I was warned by the Warden of Althain. From my return, until the night that your treasury burned, I was given no opening to act, far less to advise you that we might harbour the lurking seed of a potential catastrophe. You wanted the s
'
Brydion,
'
he added.

'
However I pleaded against that pursuit, your compromised faculties rendered me powerless.
'

Lysaer stopped as though shot. His tortured eyes closed. Apparently the words touched an echo, inside him. Eventually, he said,
'
Once, my half-brother told me that my father
'
s hatred lent him no kindly foothold on which to negotiate.
'
Tears trembled, behind a tight throat, while the diamonds blazed on through an agonized battle to stay at grips with
what might be
natural reason.
'
Did Sethvir also tell you that my dead wife, Talith, was not suborned to betray me?
'

Sulfin Evend ceased breathing.

'
I have had that nightmare,
'
Prince Lysaer revealed.
'
That she was put aside while still innocent.
'
Though her unfaithful conception was not a staged ploy, one had to admit the lost love of his heart had been raised as a pedigree Etarran: too prideful, when estranged from his regard, and not above wreaking a ruinous price for his bitter abandonment.
'
Don
'
t tell me,
'
said Lysaer.
'
I can
'
t bring her back.
'
Unwilling to rail in effusive distress, he killed the unbearable subject.
'
Enough hurt has been done, beyond any of mine.
'

The reference extended far past the dearth of affection shown the son, Kevor, and the bloodless political expediency that brought his mother, Ellaine, to ill treatment. Spurred to keep pace, Sulfin Evend confronted his own bitter recall: the appalling cruelty of Earl Jieret
'
s fate, and the honest allies destroyed in the deranged fit of fury that wrecked the campaign in Daon Ramon. He dared not stay silent before those raised ghosts! This pain was sanity, if a harsh trial he would
never
have sought, wracked in the breach as sole witness.
'
You know you are cursed.
'

'
Every hour, since the failed coronation at Etarra,
'
Lysaer
s
'
Ilessid
admitted, distraught. His mouth tightened.
'
Every breath, and each moment that rage swallows reason. Did you think I don
'
t thrash in the unending nightmare? Or that this interval, where I can
hope
I
'
ll wake up, is not bought through a constant struggle?
'
He glanced up, blue eyes limpid.
'
I am as the candle, set aflame at the wick, and without the means to stop myself burning.
'

'
Merciful Ath,
'
Sulfin Evend whispered, wrung white.
'
I did not choose wrong to stand by you, my friend.
'

Lysaer moved again, lest the quagmire of his haunted past suck him down to hand-wringing self-pity. From table, to bedstead, to clothes-chest, to chair, revulsion dogged his circuitous flight.
'
Three days ago, something terrible shifted aside. As if a ray of light I
'
d forgotten touched through a black cloud of hate. When I came to myself, I was burning a cliff head to magma! Such arrogance sought to sunder the tidal rip, and bridge the channel surrounding the citadel with fallen buildings and rubble. The Sunwheel officers with me were cheering. How they chafed for the hour of Alestron
'
s defeat! Cried out, in my name, for the walls to be scaled and thrown down for the sake of the Light. I watched them clamour, eager for rapine. They would see clan children put to the sword, no matter if they were not forest-bred raiders, but civilized people, born into families of hardworking craftsmen. I have built and led a
war host
to this!
'