Retribution, p.7
Retribution, page 7
Justus opened his mouth to counter me, but I spoke over him, keeping my tone calm but firm. “And before you embarrass yourself by making accusations about either my or Scythe Seris Vritra’s intentions regarding Grey, know that my parents’ assumption was entirely correct. She saw his power—the same power you all saw for yourselves at the Victoriad—and grew interested; that is all.”
I felt Corbett’s gaze on me but didn’t look away from Justus. Although his features were rigid and angry, I could see the fear in the jittery back-and-forth movements of his eyes.
The room devolved into several layers of loud conversation, each voice fighting to be heard over every other.
“I mean, he did defeat a Scythe, it makes sense—”
“—should throw ourselves at the High Sovereign’s mercy—”
“—be a counterattack? Perhaps we could save face by joining—”
“—pure fire, and to escape the Victoriad apparently unscathed—”
“—does this mean for Highblood Denoir, Highlord?”
Corbett focused on Melitta, Arden’s wife. “A good question, Melitta, thank you.” Slowly, the room around him quieted again. “We would not be meeting like this if the situation did not present some danger to our highblood, but Lenora and I believe there is opportunity here as well. For—”
“Of course you do,” Justus muttered, loud enough for all to hear.
A muscle near Corbett’s eye twitched, but he kept going. “For the moment, outwardly we will take no action, only biding our time and watching,” Corbett said, focusing on Justus. “If there is an official inquiry into Highblood Denoir, rest assured that we have only extended what welcome and courtesy was due to a potent ascender and member of Caera’s team.”
“Foolishness,” Lady Gemma said, leaning farther back in her chair and swirling her wine glass. Her predatory gaze lingered on Arden. “What about the counterattack already being prepared? Do we plan to participate? To make up for your failure of judgment?”
Corbett and Lenora exchanged a glance. “We’ve determined it is best to maintain our current strategy in Dicathen,” Corbett answered.
Justus scoffed. “This only makes us look more guilty.”
“No inquisitor, not even the Scythes themselves, will find a hint of wrongdoing in Highblood Denoir’s actions,” Lenora insisted. “But change is on the wind, Denoirs.” Lenora gazed around the room, masterfully letting her expression vacillate between a small frown and conspiratorial smile. “And, as we all know, sometimes the wind blows hard from the mountains. We’ll need sure footing to weather it.”
I blinked, unsure I had understood Lenora’s words properly. It almost sounded as if she were endorsing Grey and Scythe Seris if there were some kind of power struggle between them and the High Sovereign…
The rest of the blood was quiet and thoughtful. Little Arno caught my eye as I surreptitiously scanned the room, gave me a big smile, and waved.
Justus stood, his shoulders back, chest out, chin held high. His steady eyes cut into Corbett and Lenora like daggers. “I’m afraid this line of thinking is untenable with the continued well-being of this highblood. Highlord Corbett Denoir…I am forced to officially request you step down from your position. Beg mercy of the Scythes—Scythe Seris Vritra herself, if you must. Assure them that your mistakes are your own, and that leadership of Highblood Denoir will rest in steadier hands. I will—”
The words hissed into silence as Justus jerked his sword free of its sheath. Taegen was by Lenora’s side in an instant, Arian rushing to stand over me, the bare steel of his thin blade glinting in the soft light as he looked frantically in every direction at once.
“There won’t be any need for that at the moment,” a calm voice said, drawing all eyes to the shadows of the servants’ entrance.
A gray-skinned man in dark leather armor stepped out of the shadows. He was quite handsome, with an undeniable strength despite how he suppressed his mana.
I stood as everyone else—everyone except Justus—went to a knee, bowing deeply before Cylrit, retainer to Scythe Seris and the dominion of Sehz-Clar. His scarlet eyes met mine, and I felt a bolt like lightning pass between us. He could only be there for me. Finally, Scythe Seris was rescuing me from these long, dreary days of tedium and tension.
“Do as the highlord and lady command,” Cylrit said to Justus, who had somehow managed to go pale and flushed at the same time. “Highblood Denoir should take no action at this time. Lady Caera is to come with me.”
“W-what do you mean?” Lenora stammered, her mask of absolute control and confidence cracking. “Caera is—”
“Let them take her,” Justus said, very carefully sheathing his sword and taking a knee. “Please, Lord Cylrit, with your approval, I would—”
Cylrit smiled, a subtle, dangerous thing, and Justus’s mouth snapped shut.
“Lord Denoir,” the retainer said slowly, enunciating each syllable carefully. “Do as you are commanded. Or things may go poorly for you.”
The last of the color left Justus’s face, and a muscle in his jaw pulsed.
Like that, Cylrit seemed to dismiss them all entirely. To me, he gave a softer smile and held out his arm. “Please, Lady Caera. Scythe Seris is expecting us.”
385
PURITY
ARTHUR LEYWIN
‘Ugh, spending five hours listening to these dwarves play the blame game is making me miss passing through a mana beast’s colon,’ Regis grumbled.
These meetings may not be exciting, but they are important. Just…try to enjoy the view or something, I thought tiredly.
The Hall of Lords within Vildorial’s palace, Lodenhold, was an astonishing sight. The hall itself was built inside an enormous geode that stretched at least seventy feet wide and was perhaps a hundred feet from floor to ceiling. It was difficult to tell how much exactly because the floor was hidden by a swirling pool of silvery mist.
The long hand-carved table where the dwarven nobility met rested atop a thin sliver of crystal that floated unsupported in the air in the geode’s center. To reach it, we had crossed a series of hovering stones that made a kind of walkway.
The geode itself shone with a kaleidoscope of colors: aquamarine bleeding into rusty orange cut through with purple striations, sparkling with yellow and white. When the light shifted, the colors seemed to jump and run together. Instead of lighting artifacts, ever-burning candles floated at intervals throughout the space, ensuring constantly flickering light that made it look like waves of color were washing across the geode’s million little surfaces.
I had examined it at length, mostly when the gathered dwarves began pointing fingers or arguing about who had failed in what duty, which clans deserved a seat at the table, and who had proven the worst failure to dwarvenkind.
“With all respect to Lance Mica,” Lord Silvershale said for probably the seventh time, “the Earthborns stayed nice and chummy with the Alacryans in Vildorial throughout the occupation. Never had to leave their homes, none of their kin died defending—”
“A blatant lie,” Carnelian Earthborn responded, rolling his beetle-black eyes. “And not even a clever one, considering that my own daughter led the damned war.”
I looked from Silvershale to Earthborn. The former was older, with shoulder-length hair that had largely gone gray and a beard braided into three prongs. Carnelian, on the other hand, looked relatively young. His mahogany red hair didn’t match Mica’s at all, but there was a roundness to his cheeks and a bright, shining youth in his eyes that gave him that same childlike appearance as his daughter.
“Where has the Earthborn clan been, then, these last many months?” Lord Silvershale looked around the table, not at Carnelian but the rest of the dwarven nobility. “Certainly not in the tunnels fighting against the Alacryans and turncoats,” he finished, crossing his arms and flashing the others a victorious grin.
Okay, you’re right, I admitted to Regis. The important part appears to be over.
Before the two could take the argument further—or worse, draw in any of the other lords—I stood. The crystal below my feet rang against the petrified wood of my chair, drawing all eyes to me. Everyone in attendance—as many dwarven nobles as we could round up on short notice, the surviving members of Virion’s council, and the other Lances—hurried to stand as well.
“I’m afraid I need time to prepare before moving on to the other long-range teleportation gates,” I said.
Mica let out a relieved sigh, then seemed to catch herself, stood straight, and smoothed her expression into something slightly more noble. “All the Lances, in fact, have other duties to attend to. Father,” she finished with a slight inclination of her head.
“Indeed,” Carnelian said, beaming at his daughter. “We’ve kept our guests far too long. Let this meeting of the Lords Assemblage be adjourned, to reconvene tomorrow, midday.” He rapped his knuckles on the tabletop like a judge swinging his gavel.
From across the table, Helen caught my eye, widening hers just slightly, her lips pressed tightly together. I knew exactly how she felt.
It was hard to feel sorry for the dwarves, difficult to avoid comparing their pain and loss to that of the elves. But there was no denying they had suffered. Since the war began, they’d been quietly slaughtering each other in the tunnels beneath the desert. The two factions saw each other as fools and blood traitors, each side betraying what was in the dwarves’ best interest.
This animosity wouldn’t fade in a day, and I felt certain we hadn’t seen the last of the bloodshed between the dwarven factions. Still, we had done what we could in such a short amount of time.
Most of the dwarves had been thrilled to see the Alacryans pushed out of Vildorial. Almost as many had been furious when the Alacryans had been allowed to teleport back to Alacrya, however. Even among the Lords Assemblage, many complained that we hadn’t executed all the Alacryan soldiers for their crimes. I couldn’t exactly blame them.
Even more controversial was the decision to allow those dwarves who were most dedicated to the Alacryans to leave with them. Despite the dwarven nobility’s concerns that we’d just given Agrona more soldiers, I hardly thought they’d be treated as equals in Alacrya. But by the time they realized their own folly, it would be far too late.
For those men and women, however, I felt no sympathy at all.
An attendant opened the doors that led back into the palace proper, which, after the grandeur of the Hall of Lords, felt almost plain by comparison. Gideon was leaning against the wall just outside, while four heavily armed and armored dwarves glowered at him unwelcomingly.
The inventor pushed himself away from the wall at the sound of the doors opening and gave me a wide boyish grin. “Finally! These dwarves think as slow as the stone they live in…” Gideon trailed off, then cleared his throat as the guards’ faces darkened. I kept walking, and he fell into step beside me. “Anyway, I’ve been waiting for you, boy. I’ve got a few things to show you, inventions I worked on while in the Alacryans’ care. There are a few things that I really think—”
I held up a hand, forestalling the deluge of information about to spill from Gideon. “I want to see it, I do, but not right now, Gideon.” The old inventor’s face fell. Twisting the ring of polished black stone off my middle finger, I held it out to him. The moment of disappointment melted away as he plucked it out of my hands. “I need you to focus on this.”
He held it up to his eye and turned it over several times. “But this is just a dimension ring. What…” He trailed off, his wide bloodshot eyes jumping from the ring to me as an excited grin spread across his face. “Oh, please tell me you’ve brought presents from the other continent.” He bobbed on the balls of his feet, nearly skipping. “Some of their technology, perhaps?”
“Very specific technology,” I confirmed. “Figure out how it works, if we can replicate it. Whatever else you’ve been working on, this takes priority.”
We made our way out of the palace together, Gideon peppering me with questions that I answered to the best of my ability. He hurried off from the front gates, rushing toward the Earthborn Institute to unpack the dimension ring and begin his studies, assuring me he wouldn’t eat or sleep until he had answers.
From the front gates of Lodenhold, which was on the highest level of Vildorial, I could see the entire cavern laid out below me.
The city was bustling with activity: soldiers preparing defenses against Agrona’s inevitable counterattack, food and materials being carted in from the expansive tunnel system that surrounded the city, and temporary homes being found for the hundreds of refugees we’d brought with us, all of which mingled with the day-to-day activities of the city’s residents.
The city center, a huge plaza that dominated the bottom level, had become ground zero for receiving the hundreds of mostly elven refugees we’d brought with us. Even from the palace, I could see that the plaza was filled with large tables, crates, and tents for handing out fresh food and giving the most tired and feeble refugees a place to rest while they waited for more comfortable lodgings.
Plenty of dwarves were lined up to receive food as well, although I couldn’t help but notice how little they mingled with the elves. Pushing aether into my eyes, I looked more closely at the individuals. No one bothered to hide the bitter sideways glances between the two races, and there was a palpable tension hanging over the plaza.
Unfortunate, but not unexpected, I thought. The elves see the dwarves as turncoats, while these struggling, starving dwarves see the elves as competition for too few resources.
‘They better figure it out,’ Regis chimed in. ‘They’ll all be in Agrona’s crosshairs together. Or Kezess’s. Pick your megalomaniac.’
I took a deep breath, held it for several seconds, then slowly let it back out. I know.
‘I still think the Relictombs would have been better,’ Regis thought with the mental equivalent of shrugging his shoulders. ‘Less complicated.’
It was true that the Relictombs would have been an impenetrable shelter from the asuras, considering they couldn’t even enter it.
But then I would be no better than the asuras, I thought with an edge of rebuke. The Relictombs would be as much a cage as an asylum, and I’d become their master.
‘Better a master who protects them than one ready to sacrifice them for his own ends,’ Regis thought mulishly.
I imagine that’s what Kezess and Agrona both thought before they became the tyrants they are today, I refuted.
‘The real problem is that you won’t make up your damned mind,’ he shot back, agitated. ‘Arguing with yourself—and by extension, me—every moment of every day about what’s the best way to do something. It’s war. There are going to be consequences, and you have to be ready to accept that no matter what you do.’
I know.
‘Do you?’ Regis pressed. ‘Like this whole portal-to-Alacrya thing. You want to destroy it but don’t want to give it up as a tool, but just turning it off is still dangerous, and you’re afraid of what will happen if you’re wrong. It’s exhausting being in here.’ His huge shadow wolf form leaped out onto the road beside me. He shook out his mane, causing the flames to flare.
“I’m going to go exploring,” he grumbled, loping away down the road and ignoring the chorus of surprised and frightened shouts from the dwarves he passed.
I sighed as I watched him go, but my mind was settling into a discordant blankness, my thoughts fluttering like tattered cobwebs in the dark, disrupted by Regis’s frustration that was still leaking into me.
I closed my eyes hard, then opened them and focused on the crowd again, looking for Mom and Ellie. After a minute, I found them at one of the long tables. Mom was ladling soup into bowls while Ellie handed out chunks of bread and full waterskins.
I wanted to go to them. Almost as much as I wanted to be alone. I couldn’t bear the thought of all those people, their eyes turned expectantly in my direction, pleading and begging…
I didn’t blame them. Not at all. I understood. I’d lived it all before, after all, as King Grey. But now wasn’t the time.
Instead of descending the looping path down to the lowest level, I turned and moved around the edge of Lodenhold and through a garden filled with glowing mushrooms. Around the far edge, where the cut stone merged back into the rough, natural cavern cliff, there was an arched tunnel carved into the wall. Steam and the heavy sulfuric smell of a natural hot spring wafted out.
The short tunnel opened up onto a ledge above a series of round pools. The water had a subtle blue luminescence, almost like it was absorbing and reflecting the light of the many glowing fungi and hanging vines that grew over the walls and ceiling. No one else was present. During our short tour of the Lodenhold, Carnelian Earthborn had explained that the Alacryans had forbidden dwarves to use these pools.
I suspected the nobles would move back in soon enough, but for the moment, it was the perfect place to rest and think.
Letting myself move slowly, almost meandering, I walked along the edge of the pools until I found a spot I liked, next to a small private pool where a patch of long-stemmed mushrooms grew. They waved on their stalks like the antenna of some subterranean mana beast.
Slipping off my boots, I eased my feet into the water and took a seat on the soft mossy ground.
The keystone had become my primary tool for meditation, and so I withdrew it from the dimension rune. I turned the heavy matte-black cube over in my hands a few times, considering it.
So far, I had discovered that the blackness within the keystone realm reacted to mana use, but not in a way I could see or manipulate. It was nothing more than inky-black ripples in the dark. Thanks to Caera, I had learned that the black ripples were mana itself and theorized that having a mana core allowed one to see the mana particles around them when they entered the keystone. My lack of a mana core seemed to be the primary obstacle preventing me from moving forward.
