Touch your sword to your sword
, the Dread who had guided Tris from the Gray Sea advised. Tris still held Nexus in his spirit form, as real as the blade that jutted from his motionless body. Tris touched Nexus’s tip to the
hilt of its solid double and felt a surge of power ripple through him, coursing from the Dread’s tendrils through his body, down the length of Nexus’s ghostly blade. The runes on both the ghost sword and its real counterpart burst into flames simultaneously.
Light sustains
.
The icy tendrils of the Dread were gone. With a shudder, Tris was back in his body, struggling for breath, consumed by the pain of the blade in his chest. In the blink of an eye, the Dread who stood with Pevre was beside Tris, and its dark tendrils wrapped around Nexus’s hilt, pulling the blade free and laying the sword against Tris’s side so that it still touched the bare skin of his chest. Magic cocooned around Tris, and he recognized its signatures. Esme, trying frantically to knit the muscle and sinew of his body. Fallon, sending magic and life energy to strengthen Esme’s healing power. Pevre, whose ancient chant held the power tightly confined within the circle of salt and iron. The primal power of the Flow, coursing through them all, the source of magic. There was another power as well, and Tris knew it came from the Dread, channeled through Nexus, replenishing blood and sustaining Tris’s spirit in his damaged body as the healers worked.
Tris gasped for breath, and a final jolt of magic convulsed his heart. He was cold, so cold, and his arms and legs tingled painfully, burning as blood forced its way through his body. The Dread glided away, loosing its hold on Nexus, and Pevre pushed forward, holding the container of
vass
up for Tris to drink, and then forcing him to take a mouthful of the
tepik
to bind his soul back to the world of the living. Tris lay still, overwhelmed by the sensations as life returned. The feel of the
vass
burning down
his throat and the cool
tepik
that followed. Of his beating heart and the rise and fall of his chest. It took another heartbeat before he remembered how to move, now that he was a being of sinew and not merely spirit. He opened his eyes, and a deafening cheer rose.
“Thank the Lady!” Esme murmured, throwing her arms around him from one side as Fallon embraced him from the other. They helped him sit up, and Tris shivered, still shirtless in the cold winter night. He looked down at his bare chest and realized that the whip welts were merely thin, raised scars, their pain only a memory. Coalan handed him a blanket, too overcome to speak, but his red-rimmed eyes told all.
“What of the battle?” Tris’s voice was a rough croak.
“It’s over.” The voice was Trefor’s and Tris looked up as the
vayash moru
commander strode toward them and then knelt beside him.
“Tell me.”
“We knew nothing of the magic here, or your sacrifice,” Trefor recounted, the look in his eyes silently critical of the risk. “The Nachele broke through the mages’ line to the battlefield, worse than any magicked monster or spellbound beast we had ever fought. We meant to make it costly, though I saw no way for us to win. Scaith’s army seemed unstoppable, and we were retreating.” Trefor shook his head.
“By this time, Soterius and I were the only senior commanders left on the field. In the fiercest part of the battle, it felt as if something invisible… shifted. My mortal soldiers told me it was as if something stole their breath; I felt weakness and insatiable hunger, a drain on the power of the Dark Gift. All at once, Scaith’s soldiers threw down
their weapons and surrendered,” Trefor said, spreading his hands wide in utter amazement. “For a moment, the whole battlefield was silent. No one had expected to survive. Then our soldiers began to cheer, until Soterius found me and told us what price we’d paid for victory.” He shook his head. “My liege, it was too dear a bargain.”
“Where is Soterius?”
“Resting,” Trefor replied. “He returned from the hilltop and fought with such fury that the men thought you had bespelled him like an
ashtenerath
. He cared nothing for his own safety; he went after the Temnottans like the Soul-Eater. His men followed his example, and the Temnottans scattered and fled, sure they were all bewitched.” He paused. “When the killing stopped, we realized that Soterius was badly wounded. He had worked himself past feeling the pain, until he collapsed. He’ll need time to heal, but he’ll live.”
Trefor managed a wan smile. “When he told us what had happened, what you’d ordered him to do, I understood. If you had died, he did not want to live with it on his conscience, king’s command or not.”
“Tell him thank you,” Tris said, his voice still a dry rasp. “It really did turn the tide.”
Beyond the circle of people who were crowded around Tris, there was a stir of motion and the distant, terse questioning of guards. A moment later, a man struggled to the center of the group. It was Nisim, the mage-Sentinel.
“The Temnottan navy, what’s left of it, has pulled back. We’ve had reports from the Sentinels in Isencroft and Principality to the same end. They’re going back to Temnotta. It’s over.”
Tris pulled the rough wool blanket across his shoulders.
He picked up Nexus in one hand, taking comfort in the sword’s familiar grip. Trefor helped Tris to his feet, bearing most of his weight while looking as if he merely gave support. Trefor headed toward a wagon that waited to take Tris back to camp.
“Stop for a moment,” Tris said as they neared the edge of the hilltop. “I want to see the battlefield.” Leaning heavily on Trefor, Tris looked out across the ravaged land that swept down to the ocean. He knew that his magic permitted him to see what the others did not. Above the war-scarred ground and the scattered ash, the spirits of the dead still lingered. Silently, Tris sent his power over the field and whispered the passing-over ritual, granting the spirits passage to their rest.
Tris drew a deep breath. “Burn the bodies. Gather the living. Let’s go home.”
J
air Rothlandorn felt the winter wind against his skin. It made his eyes sting and it gusted with enough force to take his breath away, bringing the blood to his cheeks. The pain of it reminded him that he was alive. That, and the small hand nestled in his own. He glanced down to see that Kenver was watching him. In the days since Talwyn’s death, Jair often caught Kenver sitting silently, watching him. Whether it was a small child’s way of dealing with overwhelming grief or a glimmer of the magic that would someday claim Kenver as the Sworn’s next chief and shaman, Jair did not know. It was enough that they were together, and that they had an understanding that did not require words.
Kenver’s gaze met his. “Don’t worry, daddy. She’s here.”
Jair swallowed hard as his throat closed to any reply he might have made. True to her word, Talwyn’s spirit had come to him often in his dreams, and in that meeting place between dream and wakefulness, she was as warm and solid as life. Those outside of the Sworn might dismiss
such a thing as the fantasy of a grief-stricken husband, but Pevre had made a point to take Jair aside and assure him that Talwyn’s presence and their conversations were as real as anything in the tangible world. He looked down again at Kenver. More than once, he had heard the boy humming to himself as he fell asleep, humming the harmony to the tune Talwyn used to sing for him. Kenver did not speak of it, but Jair was sure that Talwyn sang for him still.
“I don’t want you to go back to Dhasson.”
“I don’t want to go back, either.” Two weeks had passed since the battle that cost Talwyn her life. Pevre had carried back the tale of what had happened when the Dread and the Nachele made their way to the battlefields to the north, of Tris’s heroic sacrifice, and the victory over Temnotta. Once Scaith’s blood magic was eliminated, the Nachele found themselves cut off from the power that called to them and the Dread forced them into exile once more. Jair suppressed a shudder. It would be a very good thing if no one glimpsed either the Dread or the Nachele for another millennium, or longer.
“But you’re going, aren’t you?”
Jair sighed. Every fiber of his being yearned to stay here with the Sworn, to remain with Kenver and Pevre, close to the barrow where Talwyn was buried. It was already a few weeks past the normal end to the Ride, but that was more a factor of the war than of his desire to linger. And while King Harrol would not begrudge Jair time to grieve, Jair knew that his father expected him to treat his responsibilities to Dhasson with equal respect as his duty to the Sworn.
“I don’t have a choice, Kenver. I’m sorry. I want to
stay, but I can’t. I hope you’ll understand when you get older.” Jair had said “understand,” but what he really meant—what he dared not say—was “forgive.”
Raised voices in the distance made both Jair and Kenver turn. Someone was arguing with the warrior who guarded the perimeter. Voices carried across the meadow, and Jair noted that Pevre, too, had joined the conversation. It took another instant for him to recognize that the voice arguing the loudest was speaking Dhassonian.
“Come on,” Jair said, giving Kenver’s hand a squeeze of reassurance Jair did not feel. Before they could walk the full way back to the camp, a man Jair did not recognize came running toward them. He had neither the coloring nor dress of the Sworn. The newcomer was unshaven, and while a glance at his cloak and clothing told Jair that the man came from Dhasson, he was splattered with mud and covered with the dust of the road. One glance at his haggard face gave Jair to wonder if the man had ridden without sleep for days at a time.
Abruptly, the newcomer fell to one knee and bowed his head. “Forgive me for intruding, Your Majesty.”
Jair froze. A chill of premonition slipped down his spine. He realized that he was scarcely breathing, and it felt as if his heart had stopped. “What did you say?”
The messenger remained kneeling and did not look up. “Please forgive me for bearing this news. King Harrol was stricken by the plague. His healers could not save him. The king is dead.”
Jair thought he could grieve no more after Talwyn died, but fresh pain washed over him, settling in a lump in his stomach. “When?”
“A month ago, m’lord. Your travels take you far from
Valiquet. I set out the day after the king died, but it has taken this long for me to find you.”
Jair hoisted Kenver into his arms. Kenver had never met his grandfather, but the boy had the intuition of his mother’s people, and Jair was sure that Kenver sensed the gravity of the situation even if he did not fully understand its import. Jair held on to him tightly, unwilling to admit just how much he needed to hold his son close as the world crumbled around him.
“My orders were to find you and to deliver this,” the messenger said, reaching into the satchel he carried on a wide strap across his chest and shoulders. He withdrew a piece of folded parchment, closed with the wax seal that Jair recognized as the mark of Valiquet’s seneschal. With the parchment was a wide velvet pouch, and Jair knew its contents from the feel of the thin, rigid ring inside. The circlet of the king of Dhasson.
Pevre strode across the field to join them and laid a steadying hand on Jair’s shoulder. Jair felt Pevre’s magic, as well as his support, flow through the contact, making the unthinkable bearable. Still holding Kenver on his hip, Jair cracked open the seal and read down through the seneschal’s careful script. Paragraph upon paragraph detailed Harrol’s last days, his struggle against the plague, and the futile attempts by the healers to save him. Jair’s hand tightened to a fist, crumpling the parchment, and Kenver reached up to wipe a tear as it streaked silently down Jair’s cheek.
“My prince. Your Majesty. Dhasson grieves with you. I beg of you, come back with me now. Your people need their king.”
Pevre gently took Kenver from Jair and let the boy
stand beside him. Then Pevre took the velvet pouch from Jair and carefully unwrapped the gold circlet inside. It was beautiful in its simplicity, a battle crown, intended not for the pomp of court but for the leadership of troops. As chief and shaman of the Sworn, Pevre had the power to convey the crown. Jair could see sadness and pride in Pevre’s eyes as the older man bade him kneel.
The messenger scurried out of the way as Jair sank to one knee. Pevre began to chant in the language of the Sworn, and while Jair knew the words would be meaningless to the messenger, Jair recognized them as the ritual said over a new shaman, a call to power. Jair felt a tingle of magic as Pevre placed the circlet on his head.
“Hail, King Jair of Dhasson.”
Jair rose and struggled to find his voice. Kenver stood between him and Pevre and reached up to take Jair’s hand, his eyes fixed on the glittering circlet. Jair turned to Pevre. “This leaves me no choice about leaving for Dhasson immediately,” he said, his voice thick with grief.
Pevre nodded. “Kenver has his people to guide him. He’s heir to my title and his mother’s power, as well as to your crown. I’ll make sure he learns to wield a sword as well as a
stelian
. We’ll take good care of him.”
“I’ll pack my things,” Jair said tersely to the messenger. “Mihei and Emil will ride with us to the border. We can exchange horses at the garrison there.” He gave a curt nod of dismissal to the messenger. “Wait for me in the camp. We’ll leave at dawn.”
With a bow, the messenger left, and Jair knelt in front of Kenver. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking into Kenver’s face and thinking for the millionth time how much Kenver reminded him of Talwyn.