Wytchfire (Book 1) (37 page)

He waved his hand, and a sphere of violet light formed out of thin air, hovering. Fadarah studied him—the demon who had single-handedly conquered most of the Simurgh Plains, now just a gaunt, twisted, naked figure decaying from the inside out. He refused the impulse to look away. “Forgive me, my friend...”

Doubly ravaged from extensive use of Dragonkin magic and the battle against El’rash’lin, Iventine’s body was more disfigured than ever, covered in sores, his chest unnaturally concave, limbs unnaturally twisted as though the bones had left the womb malformed. Neither time nor magic would heal him. What little remained in the man’s facial features that had been recognizable was gone, like his personality, never to return. Even in his deep sleep, Iventine twitched with madness and pain.

El’rash’lin’s torments weren’t much better.
But at least El’rash’lin was free. Overwhelmed by Iventine on the road outside Lyos, El’rash’lin had been burned and burned until not even ashes remained. The wild expenditure of so much magic had left Iventine comatose, weak as a child, so that Avesha and a pair of Unseen bodyguards had had to carry him away.

Still, Iventine won. Again.
But with each victory, Iventine only lost more and more of himself. Fadarah sighed with pity. He had no more tears left in him tonight. But he had, at least, this simple mercy.

He laid one great, tattooed hand on Iventine’s chest and felt a faint, haphazard heartbeat. “Sleep, Iventine. It’s done. Others will finish what we have started.”

Fadarah closed his eyes. For several long moments, he imagined Iventine’s heart beating nakedly against his palm, flouncing like a bloody fish. Then, slowly, Fadarah tightened his hand into a fist. He squeezed. The beating slowed, slowed, stopped.

Fadarah took a deep breath, held it, then let it go. Almost as an afterthought, he extended his consciousness until he felt the heartbeats of all the remaining Unseen warriors outside. To these, too, he granted release.

The tent was silent now. He opened his eyes. The stillness frightened him, but he waved his hand, dismissing the violet light. A chill swept through the open flap of the tent. Fadarah walked out into the night. He hoped Iventine’s face bore, at long last, a look of peace. But he refused to turn and see for himself.

Chapter Thirty-One

“By the Light’s Grace...”

T
he people of Lyos buried their dead in the funeral fields east of Pallantine Hill. Rowen, harkening back to his younger employment as a gravedigger, toiled with them to bury the horrors along with all that raw hurt. Soldiers, slumdwellers, and nobles were laid side by side beneath the fresh-turned earth. Captain Ferocles lay among them, buried without eulogy by the grief-stricken survivors of his company. Epheus commanded now, though his appointment as the new Captain of the Red Watch brought little cause for celebration.

A pall hung over the city of Lyos. Prince Typherius, the only member of the royal family left alive, had already committed the bodies of King Pelleas, the queen, and the rest of his family to the grim vaults beneath the palace.

He was not alone in his grief. No one in Lyos or the Dark Quarter had escaped the bitter tang of loss. Nearly all of the Bloody Asps had been killed. Other gangs had sustained heavy losses, too, trying to purge the Shel’ai and the rampaging Unseen from the city. A quarter of Lyos had been burned—temples, gardens, and homes alike. Two thousand lay dead.

But the city still stood. The banner of the falcon flew proudly from the parapets as the ravaged streets were cleared. Soon, inns that had once been filled only with weeping and fearful whispers echoed with merriment. Men told stories of Aeko Shingawa, the valiant Knight of the Stag who had fought to save Lyos from ruin. They told stories of El’rash’lin and Silwren, two Shel’ai who turned against the evils of their kind and saved them all from certain death.

El’rash’lin, the disfigured sorcerer who—in a final act of courage—met the Nightmare on King’s Bend and prevented the demon from tearing down the walls.

Silwren, who spoke in Dogbane Circle and united the frightened people of the Dark Quarter; who drove the enemies from the streets of Lyos then tirelessly visited each of the temples afterward, using her magic to heal the injured, her violet eyes and platinum tresses a common sight long after the clerics had succumbed to exhaustion. Her touch had saved many who would otherwise have died. In the aftermath of so much destruction, her unexpected gentleness gave the people hope. They no longer feared her.

But mostly, they told stories of him, despite all his attempts to discourage them: Rowen Locke, the slumdweller who joined the Red Watch, who briefly led the Bloody Asps of the Dark Quarter before returning command to Fen-Shea. Rowen Locke, who defended Silwren when others wanted her dead. Rowen Locke, one-time squire to Aeko Shingawa.

Rowen Locke, Knight of the Crane.

Word spread, despite Rowen refusing Aeko’s offer. For weeks after Kayden’s death, he remained inconsolable, spiteful toward all the Knighthood had come to represent. He was, Aeko said, the first squire in centuries who refused to be knighted. She claimed that was a good sign.

Silwren found him standing alone on Beggar’s Drop—the same place where, not long before, she had sought to end her own life though her innate magic had acted of its own accord to cushion her fall.

She smiled. So much had changed since then. Even her battle with Kith’el and the pain caused by El’rash’lin’s passing had been eased somewhat. She had gone among the people of Lyos, using her magic to heal. It felt good to use her gifts for something other than killing—even though the efforts strained her control, carving wrinkles into her face and leaving blisters on her hands.

She touched Rowen’s arm. He turned, alarmed, and stared at her. He seemed torn over whether or not to hate her. After all, she was a Shel’ai—one of those who had enslaved and tormented his brother. But he had El’rash’lin’s memories, plus what he’d seen with his own eyes: Silwren tending the wounded, comforting the dying. She read his mind and sensed the rage in him, the raw hurt, but he was willing to listen.
That must be enough.

Slowly, she explained the irreversible Blood Thrall. Once chosen, it could not be refused. No matter Kayden’s will, at best, the Blood Thrall would have remained a dull, daily torment from which he’d finally been saved.

“How could the Shel’ai do this? How could anyone be so cruel?”

Silwren countered. “When in history has there been a war devoid of cruelty?”

Rowen touched his sword. “Did you know?”

Silwren’s eyes fell on Knightswrath. She’d not yet told the Human what he carried. She’d spoken about it with El’rash’lin, deciding to keep that secret for now—but El’rash’lin’s final request had been for her to try and help Rowen understand.
But am I ready for that? Is he?

For now, she answered his question. “It happened after El’rash’lin left, while I slept. Had we been there, we would have stopped it. I can only ask that you believe me.”

Reading Rowen’s mind, she sensed him remembering passages from the Codex Lotius—statements of honor and sacrifice—and how Silwren had fought against her own kind, even the one who had nearly been her husband, for what she thought was right. Guiltily, she withdrew from his mind.

“How did Kayden end up with the Shel’ai in the first place? Aeko says they were ambushed by Sylvs. That it was arrows—not magic—that wiped out his company.”

“The Shel’ai pretended to be Sylvs,” Silwren said. “They killed the Knights, hoping to create animosity between Sylvos and the Lotus Isles. That way, the Knights wouldn’t help the Sylvs once the forests were invaded.”

“And some, they took as prisoner,” Rowen finished. “And by some curse of the gods, I’m the one who found Kayden!” He shook his head, overcome by grief and disbelief.

“Perhaps it wasn’t a curse,” Silwren said. “Perhaps it was not chance, either. Perhaps you were
meant
to find Kayden, to save him. Remember Namundvar’s Well,” she pressed. “You looked into the Light, Rowen. You felt it just as I have. You ache now to be apart from it, but the Light is inside you—in everything. Isn’t that what the Knights teach?”

Rowen smiled bitterly. “The Knights are armored dung. The sooner they’re wiped off the face of Ruun, the better.”

Silwren rested her hand on his sword arm. “The Knighthood needs you, just as the Shel’ai need me. The world has gone mad, Human. We must remake it.”

Rowen did not answer. She stayed with him for a long time. She did not have to pry into his thoughts to know what he would do. Together, they watched sunlight spill off the parapets, lighting the slums below.

The ceremony was held in the Dark Quarter. They might have arranged it in the Queen’s Garden—had it not been burned. The last Prince of Lyos offered the use of his palace, but the knights refused. A grim silence still hung over the palace in the wake of the king’s murder, and this was to be a joyous occasion. So, on Aeko’s suggestion, they chose the Dark Quarter instead.

For the first time in Lyos’s history, Dogbane Circle found itself cleaned, the earth scattered with white and crimson dogblossoms brought back from the Lotus Isles. A new dais was constructed from white oak. Aeko stood there in smartly polished battle-dress, her azure tabard rippling in the morning light. Bright banners billowed overhead, proudly displaying the dearest symbols of the Knighthood: the lotus, the stag, and the balancing crane.

Crowds filled the circle—not just Isle Knights, squires, nobles, and soldiers, but citizens of the Dark Quarter, too. All came to watch Aeko recite hallowed passages from the Codex Lotius then address the kneeling, white-robed figure of Rowen Locke. Ignoring Crovis Ammerhel—who simmered next to her—she spoke of honor, humility, and the legacy of Fâyu Jinn. She spoke these words to one who had been an orphan, a pickpocket, a sellsword—certainly not the pedigree the Knighthood usually looked for. Other Knights bristled with the insult but said nothing.

“Do you accept the charge granted unto you by the Light: to safeguard the weak, to honor your enemies, to uphold the laws of the Knighthood and defend them with all your blood and breath?”

Aeko had spoken these words countless times on the Lotus Isles, knighting the worthy and unworthy alike, often for reasons that were merely political. The words often seemed like meaningless dogma, the bombastic recitations demanded by formality and tradition.

But not today. For all her efforts to maintain a solemn expression, Aeko could not help smiling at her kneeling squire as Rowen looked up, overwhelmed by unashamed emotion, tears running down his cheeks. He tried to speak. His voice broke. Clearing his throat, he said, “I do.”

Aeko’s smile broadened. Standing to her right, Silwren handed her something with great reverence: Rowen’s bright, unsheathed sword. Normally, squires were given adamunes
when they were knighted, but Rowen already had one. So Aeko simply moved to return it to her kneeling squire.

“Then, in the sacred name of Fâyu Jinn, by the Light and all the pantheons of the heavens, I charge you and summon you to—”

She gasped. Her eyes caught the name of the sword in her grasp, freshly visible in the morning light.

Standing next to her, Crovis Ammerhel saw it, too. The Knight of the Lotus paled. “
Fel-Nâya…
”

“Knightswrath,” Aeko gasped. She turned from Rowen to Silwren.

Silwren said nothing, but her violet eyes flowed with tears of pride. Aeko wondered if the Shel’ai hadn’t recognized Rowen’s sword from the beginning, even when she and the other Knights did not.

Uneasy murmurs swept through Dogbane Circle. Why had the Knights stopped? Was something wrong? Still kneeling, Rowen frowned, confused. He had been about to accept Knightswrath, thinking the ceremony nearly finished.

“That sword cannot pass to a mere Knight of the Crane!” Sir Ammerhel whispered hotly, audible only to those standing nearby. “The Codex Viticus—”

“I am aware,” Aeko answered.

“I am the commander of this battalion,” Crovis pressed, leaning so close to Aeko that she felt his spittle on her cheek. “Lady Shingawa, I should not have to remind a Knight of the Stag of her duty. Hand me the sword before this gets out of hand.”

Aeko wondered what Silwren would do if Crovis attempted to seize Rowen’s sword by force. If the wytch attacked Crovis, Aeko would be honor-bound to defend him. But what about Rowen?

Aeko’s fixed gaze fell on Rowen. He was
her
squire, after all. She was knighting him herself, on her honor, without first acquiring permission from Grand Marshal Bokuden, Sir Ammerhel, and the rest of the Knights’ Council. While her actions were not strictly forbidden, they were a flagrant breech of etiquette as set forth by the Codex Viticus and observed by the Isle Knights for centuries.

Then it hit her. Her actions, originally intended not just to honor Rowen but to serve as an act of defiance against Crovis, had a dual benefit: she was the presiding officer of these proceedings. Crovis could not interfere.

Aeko’s smile returned. She began again. Clear and strong, her voice echoed through Dogbane Circle and the slums beyond. “Then in the sacred name of Fâyu Jinn, by the Light and all the pantheons of the heavens, I charge you and summon you to fulfill your oath. Rise...
Sir
Rowen Locke, Knight of the Crane!”

She pressed Knightswrath into his hands.

Rowen rose. Aeko bowed. All the other Knights followed suit—even Sir Ammerhel. Rowen stared, dumbfounded, as those about him fidgeted.

“Bow, you dunce!” Aeko whispered with affection.

Startled, Rowen bowed to the Isle Knights then straightened. Dogbane Circle erupted into wild applause.

As soon as she was able, Aeko seized him by the arm and pulled him aside, maintaining a strained smile until they were clear of well-wishers. Silwren followed but said nothing. Aeko stopped smiling. But before she could wring his neck, Rowen spoke.

“What did Ammerhel mean about this sword passing to a
mere
Knight of the Crane? I know that squires can’t carry adamunes, but you knighted me! If Ammerhel wants my sword, he can have it. That’s his right.” Rowen shrugged. “The dragonbone’s worth a lot, I know, but I’ll be happy with
any
adamune.”