Thy Father's Shadow (Book 4.5) (38 page)

“Who are you?” The dwarf asked—the one he’d knocked to the ground.

Terian paused at the door, and felt emotion run over him, bowing his head for him. “Does it matter?”

“You saved our lives,” the whispered voice came back.

Terian thumped his hand against the wooden doorframe. “Not yet, I haven’t.” He spun and looked at the dwarf on the floor. “I’ve just given you a chance. From here it’s up to you.” The sound of flames crackling somewhere down the street reached his ears.

“Th-thank you,” came the whisper as Terian opened the door.

“Don’t thank me until you die old and in bed,” Terian whispered. Then he stepped out into the cold night.

Chapter 58

The flames roared at the end of the street, burning the houses to the ground. Terian watched them blaze, and turned his head subtly to look at the half-dozen he’d kicked the doors down on himself. They were upwind of the flames, the rollicking blaze which had already engulfed half the town.

“Well done, Bowe,” Amenon said as he reached them at a jog. Dahveed was a step behind him, a look of immense distaste on his face.

“This is going to catch attention,” Terian said with his jaw clenched. “These flames are visible for miles.”

“We have done our duty,” Amenon said as he came to a halt next to Bowe.

Grinnd dragged into the loose circle, smelling of blood and gore. His armor dripped red, and his axe blade was covered in the liquid. He did not wear a happy expression. “Let us be done with this mission.”

“I thought you liked the slaughter, Grinnd,” Terian said, sparing no sting.

The warrior gave him a look like jagged glass. “I have a care for battle, and this was not one. This was duty.” He looked away at the flames that burned on both sides of them. Screams tore out of the fiery houses. “This was …”

“Necessary,” Amenon said. “Never forget that.” He glanced around the street. “Dahveed and I have traced the footsteps out of town—caught a few people fleeing but surprisingly few. I expect they all huddled together after the men were killed coming after us.”

“Yes,” Terian said, letting an icy facade settle over his features. “It was mostly women and children in the houses.” He felt his teeth chatter, and not from the cold. “They’re dealt with, though.”
You son of a bitch.

“Very well.” Amenon gave a curt nod, as if everything met his expectations. Terian kept the urge to drive the axe point into his face at bay. “To the mine, then.”

Terian followed his father as he broke into a run. They still floated inches off the ground, the Falcon’s Essence spell leaving them hanging suspended in the air.
Pointless, now.
It’s not as though the dwarves would suspect that Aurastra burned itself, even assuming I hadn’t left them fifty survivors to tell the tale
. He felt a wave of emotion run over him and clamped his jaw tight. He felt his molars grind together.
If only it could have been more.

They ran around the edge of the burning village toward the hills backing the houses. The entrance to the mine was visible in the low light cast by the flames, and Amenon led them to it without any hesitation. Terian looked up at the sky, and saw it shrouded with clouds.
No stars.

“Set the barrel inside—say a hundred feet or so,” Amenon said as they came to a halt outside the mine. A sheer face of rock raced upward from the entrance. “Bring this whole mountain down on it.”

“But not yet,” Terian said, cooler than he felt. “We should confirm that whatever the Sovereign wants buried is within the mine.” He felt a vicious smile creep up on his face.
The smile of a man who simply does not care any longer.
“You know, so we’re sure we’ve completed our mission.”

Amenon flinched visibly. “The Sovereign assures me—”

“You can face him if we fail, then,” Terian said, and started toward the mine. “Me, I’m going to make sure we’re not sealing the wrong damned tunnel.” He cast
 
a look backwhich was filled with venom. “I didn’t just kill gods-know-how-many dwarves so I could have the Sovereign drop the axe on me for stumbling at the finish.”

Amenon stumbled over his words. “What—No—what is within is for his eyes only!”

“If I’m not mistaken, it was for dwarven eyes, too,” Terian said as he headed into the blackness of the tunnel.

“Now dead!” Amenon called after him.

Terian ignored him and licked his lips as he ran into the dark mine. The cave was chipped out of the mountain, wooden supports placed every ten feet or so to hold it up. The dank, overwhelming smell of the cave was of little comfort to him now. Terian ran on, ignoring every emotion that threatened to overwhelm him.
I won’t let these people die without finding out your secret, oh Sovereign.
I won’t let your servants do their dirty works without witnessing what it is you fear …

The tunnel widened, and Terian could see something in the chamber ahead. It was a shape, a shadow, a silhouette of something oddly familiar. He burst into an open room, and stared down at the thing in the center of the room.

It was ovoid but turned lengthwise to the ground. The center was hollow, but glowed with a faint energy that radiated darkness. He cocked his head, and let out a breath he hadn’t even known he was holding as he stepped down to look at the thing. The very ordinary thing. Something he’d seen in every corner of Arkaria.

A portal.

Chapter 59

Terian ran his fingers over the stone ring, letting the metal gauntlets poke at the runes inscribed on it. “What … the hells?”

“Now you’ve seen it.” Amenon’s voice echoed through the chamber. Judgment and fury were wrapped up within the words.

“Are you going to kill me for witnessing this very ordinary spectacle?” Terian turned his head around.

“No,” his father said, and Terian saw the muscles of his neck bulge under his gorget. “But we need to leave.”

“What about if I walk through it?” Terian paused, making a motion as though he were going to do it.

“NO!” His father’s cry was sharp and his hand was extended. “Step away … step away from it.”

“So, it’s not that it’s a portal,” Terian said, not taking his eyes off his father. “It’s that it leads somewhere he doesn’t want us to go.” Terian ran his fingers over the runes again. “Where does it go? Did he even tell you?”

“This is all sedition,” Amenon said warningly. “Betrayals of the Sovereign—”

“Betrayal requires loyalty,” Terian said, feeling his dead gaze fall upon his father, and a smile born of grief and madness split his face. “I have none toward him.”

Amenon grew still, his face frozen in an expression somewhere between fear and loathing. “You are my son, and it is expected—”

“I stopped giving a fig about your expectations the day you made me kill my sister to imprison her essence in a soul ruby,” Terian said, the hot blood bubbling over, years worth of rage seeping into his words. “I was a fool to come back to Saekaj. I
knew
how it worked. I knew that your city, your nation and your Sovereign coasted along on the blood and pain of good men and women, but I forgot. I can’t believe I let myself forget that the darkness in Saekaj and Sovar isn’t just some accident of fate, a lack of light because of its location. It’s an active scheme, where you and your Sovereign and countless others stand in the light and block it from anyone who grows tired of being kept near-blind.”

“You … you …” His father pointed a finger at him in fury, shaking like a flag in the wind.

“I …” Terian said. “Not a word we’re free to use in Saekaj. You know what Dahveed said to me, on the day after you had Sareea slit my throat? ‘There are no free men in Saekaj and Sovar.’” Terian laughed. “I had forgotten the truth of that in my absence. We are all slaves, bound to be loyal to a Sovereign who does not care a whit if any of or all of us live or die!” Terian laughed, emotion released in the form of grief turned to levity. “We serve him for no purpose but our own survival, and he makes play that it is the most wonderful thing ever brought to us, as though it is our gift and blessing over all other races.” Terian shook his head. “I don’t want this path anymore. I don’t want
your
path anymore.”

Amenon shook the finger at Terian again. “You said these things once before. You threw the gifts I have accumulated for you in my face once before. And you came crawling back once you realized that the world was not the shape you thought it was. Be wary of what you say now, because this time, there will be no—”

“Be careful of what I say?” Terian laughed at the absurdity then felt his smile fade as the rage came back. “What I say? Here is what I say:

“I pray for your death!”
Terian shouted. “I pray that you will die in as treacherous a manner as you have lived, and that in your last seconds of life you recall this moment and the others, and you dwell on what forcing sacrifice on others has brought you! A dying house that will
never
have an heir! A name that will cease to live when you curl up and rot, a legend that will cost you everything! When you die, everything you have worked for will fade and fall into Sovar with the last remnants of your house, and your life will be meaningless!”

“You cannot … you cannot mean … you cannot turn your back on—” Amenon’s words came out in gasps. “I have given you …
everything
.”

“You’ve given me nothing,” Terian said, striding toward his father and pausing. “You’ve
taken
everything from me.” He spit the last bit as a whisper and a curse. “I will never follow your path. Never. The soul you sacrificed on the day of ascension to knighthood was mine; Ameli’s remains on your desk, and it is the closest thing you have to one of your own.”

He stormed past his father, down the dark tunnel and out into the cold. He stood there, seething, with the rest of them until Grinnd’s barrel exploded and the air was filled with the dust of the mine’s collapse. The smell of smoke and char wafted under his nose and the conversations of the others faded into the air behind the ringing left by the explosion.

I pray for your death …

He looked down at his right shoulder and saw dark soot upon it. He ran a finger across it and looked skyward. Ash was falling slowly, like snowflakes drifting out of the heavens.

“Bowe,” Amenon said, drawing Terian to look at his father once more. Amenon did not look back at him. “Take us away.”

The wind of the druid spell kicked up around them, stirring the ash in the air to a black cloud around them. Terian stared into it, dark as the Saekaj night, the words came back to him again … and he found he still meant every word of them.

I pray for your death …

Chapter 60

“You have failed me.” The Sovereign’s voice was cold and high and rasped through the throne room of the Grand Palace.

“My Sovereign,” Amenon began. “We—”

Terian stood at his side, unspeaking. They had not exchanged a word since the cave, hours earlier. Terian looked down; the soot still covered his armor, and the scorched scent still hung in his nose.

“You have failed!” the Sovereign cut him off.

“We—” Amenon began again.

“Failed!”
the Sovereign thundered.

“How many times are you going to let Shrawn sabotage our efforts on your behalf before you cut his gods-damned head off?” Terian asked, as calmly as if he had asked a servant for a drink.
Where the hell is this coming from?
Still, he continued to speak. “Five? A hundred?”

“No more, I say.” The Sovereign’s voice rose, the fury barely concealed beneath the surface. “I grow tired of the House of Lepos and their continued excuses—”

“I grow tired of standing and trying to do your will and getting hacked down at the knees for it,” Terian said. The words came unbidden, and no emotion followed them.
I don’t care if I die here.
“If you want us dead, be done with it already and get this farce over with. I can only do so much of your bidding when your ‘most loyal’ servant keeps trying to thwart my every effort.”

Shrawn slipped out from the shadow of the throne once more, tapping his staff on the ground. “You blame me—again—for your own incompetence.”

“Indeed, it was my incompetence that led those three traitors to rise against us,” Terian said. “Oh, wait, no, that was you, planting them in our ranks to make us look like fools.”

“You
are
fools,” Shrawn said.

“Yes, we are fools for trying to run an army in spite of your efforts to sabotage said army,” Terian said, nodding vigorously. “Just as we were fools to try and carry out our mission without having your agent Xemlinan Eres turn on us, exposing us to the entire dwarven village.”

“Lies,” Shrawn said coolly.

“Xemlinan … Eres?” the Sovereign’s voice rumbled in the throne room. “The thief that you killed …”

“Whom you handed over to Lord Amenon,” Shrawn said, and Terian could sense his discomfiture. “I have no dealings with him—”

“You mentioned him only last week,” the Sovereign said in a low drawl. “An … information broker, I believe you called him … someone who provided you with an interesting snippet that led us to execute Baron Metiven.”

“An acquaintance only, my Sovereign,” Shrawn said, bowing low.

“Lies only, my Sovereign,” Terian said without a care. “If you were really loyal, Shrawn, you’d stop trying to sabotage everyone around you to make yourself look better.”

“If you were truly competent,” Shrawn hissed back, “you wouldn’t be constantly tripped up by these betrayals.”

“It takes more than competence to dodge arrows shot at your back while you’re carrying out a task,” Terian said. “It takes a miracle.” He shifted his attention to Yartraak, whose visage was still hidden in the shadows. “I don’t object to being made a fool of if I’m sabotaged in a task of no significance to you. But when I am made to fail by one of your servants at a task you assigned me to carry out, I have to question their loyalty to you.”

“This was your responsibility, Terian of House Lepos,” the Sovereign said. “Do you deny your failure?”

“No, we failed,” Terian said, shaking his head.
I don’t care. Why am I even bothering to argue this with you?
He glanced at his father.
You can all die in the Depths for all I care. So why am I saying any of this?
“Failed horribly. We destroyed the mine and buried the portal, but we were exposed to the dwarves, and surely some of them escaped to tell the tale. Your directive to keep the secret was compromised, without doubt.”
Because I made sure it was.