The Last Key

Rob Steiner

Quarkfolio Books

Copyright © 2010 by Rob Steiner.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.

Contents

Dedication

Andean Commonwealth

1.Betrayal

2.The Mark

3.Conversation with a Heretic

4.Alahn

5.A Kindred Miracle

6.Dinner and Politics

7.Into the Frontier

8.The Banquet

9.A Change in Plans

10.Gaining an Army

11.A Decision

12.Origins

13.Raven’s First

14.That Which is Necessary

15.Full Circle

16.Out of the Shadows

17.A Crisis of Resolve

18.Sorrow

19.The Unknown Enemy

20.Burden of Command

21.Fire in the Sky

22.Two Faiths

23.The Battle of Skrill Gorge

24.Bliss

25.The Darkness Closes

26.The Gift

27.Flight

28.Escape

29.Lost in the Dark

30.Into the Night

31.Fort Madia

32.Loyalty

33.In the Company of Heretics

34.Unlikely Friends

35.Dawn of a Lasting Peace

36.Madness

37.New Allies

38.Old Enemies

39.Into the Blue Fire

40.The Crypt Cave

41.The Waiting Blade

42.Shadows

43.Shock

44.Breakout

45.Knives in the Dark

46.The Arrest

47.Freedom

48.Wounds of the Heart

49.Endgame

50.Honored

Glossary

Acknowledgements

Afterword

For Sarah and Amelia, always.

Chapter one

Betrayal

Graham Aidel stopped chopping wood when he sensed a Key Holder approaching his farm. He laid his ax next to the pile of logs, took a rag from his belt, and wiped the sweat from his brow. He looked west, shielding his eyes from the setting sun, past his log barn and toward the grassy lip of the Eagle River valley in which his farm lay. A chilly fall breeze swayed the tall grass at the top of the hill.

The Key Holder was just beyond the hill, probably standing on the two-wheel track of the Frontier Way.

“What are you looking at?”

Graham glanced at his wife. Bellia sat in a rocking chair on the front porch of their log home with a book in her lap. Anna squat next to her mother, playing with the colored blocks of maple wood Graham had carved for her, humming a tune only a three-year-old could understand.

Graham scratched his stubbly cheek. “Just the sunset.”

Besides Lieutenant Vantos, Graham had never met, nor even sensed, another Key Holder. The memories of a hundred Holders before him told him the same thing. Why would a Holder seek him out when he or she knew that it was forbidden? Or was this just a chance happening, two Holders passing each other in life?

The danger he suddenly felt from his Key made his questions irrelevant. Graham strode to the front porch of his log home, through the door and into the kitchen. He grabbed the crossbow that hung above the hearth. The Andean Army had allowed him to keep it after the truce with Loquath was declared two months ago, a reward for his “valiant service to Andea and the Charter.” He had been grateful for the gift -- it was much more accurate than his father’s old crossbow. And an extra crossbow on a frontier farm meant a better chance at surviving the next day.

When he walked outside, Bellia’s voice was playful but Graham saw concern in her eyes. “Going to shoot the sunset?”

Looking west, he said, “I just want to check on something. I’ll be right back.” He glanced at his wife and winked. “Trust me.”

Bellia rolled her eyes and smiled. “You said ‘trust me’ when you told me the war would be over by the end of the summer.”

“So I was off a little.”

“You were off by three years.”

He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “I’ll be right back. It’s probably just a wolf.”

Bellia looked unconvinced. He could not blame her for worrying, especially with the latest haruun attacks on frontier settlements. Just two weeks ago, one of the beasts had surprised six fur trappers traveling up the Pendagrass River. One man had escaped. Parts of the other men had floated down river for days.

Graham passed his humming daughter and tousled her auburn hair. She looked up at him and smiled. He thanked the Patrons that Anna had received Bellia’s smile and silky hair over his own beak-like nose and coarse, dark mane. He knew his gratefulness would evaporate once she matured and all the frontier boys called on her like bees around a flower.

When Graham stepped from his porch, he was startled by the nauseous wave of danger that radiated from his Key. This time the feelings were stronger, more sinister, the same feelings that he had before combat during the war.

He turned to Bellia. “Maybe you and Anna should go inside until I come back.”

Bellia frowned, then rose from her chair and picked up Anna. His daughter dropped the blocks she was playing with and started crying. Bellia whispered to Anna as she carried her into the house, singing a little song that always seemed to calm Anna’s tears. The toddler had already stopped crying when Graham heard Bellia lock and bar the heavy door.

Graham pulled back the string on the crossbow, inserted a bolt, and then marched up the valley toward the Key Holder.

Why would his Key warn him of danger before encountering another Holder? Lieutenant Vantos, who held Graham’s Key before him, had been the most upright and courageous man Graham had ever met. Lying mortally wounded on that blood-soaked field two years ago, Vantos had passed the essence of the Key to Graham, flooding Graham’s mind with the memories of all the Key’s previous Holders. In an instant, he knew every thought of every Holder for a hundred generations. All five of his senses seemed to increase tenfold, as if he had never used them before that moment. He knew -- remembered -- that the gift and the burden he carried had only been passed on to those whom the Holders knew to be honorable people.

But that was the history of his Key. Was it the same with the other two Holders?

Graham arrived at the top of the valley and scanned the rolling grassland beyond. Two hundred paces below him on the Frontier Way, stood a black horse with a gray-cloaked man in the saddle. The man had his back to Graham, his head facing the jagged peaks of the distant Skrill Mountains. As Graham stared, the man slowly turned his head. The face was hidden in the shadow of his hood. Even Graham’s Key-enhanced sight could not penetrate that darkness.

Brother.

The voice in his mind startled Graham. It was a harsh whisper, yet soothing and somehow familiar. He was surprised by images of a time when he and the possessor of the voice were soldiers, fighting back-to-back in a desperate battle against a powerful cleric wielding the Faith granted to him by the Patrons, but to destroy life rather than defend it. Graham could not tell if they were the memories of his Key or the thoughts of the Holder facing him.

Graham tried to answer. Why are you here?

The man started his horse toward Graham. I have come to ask of you a great sacrifice, one that will be sung about for generations.

Graham did not like the way “sacrifice” felt in his mind -- cities in flames, the bodies of men, women, and children lying in crumpled heaps.

What sacrifice?

Bellia’s screaming jolted Graham. He whirled around to see two men in chain mail using swords to hack at the door to his house. Graham sprinted down the hill, bringing the crossbow to his shoulder. He aimed at the first man’s back and pulled the trigger. The bolt slammed into the man’s neck near the base of his skull. He dropped to his knees, grabbed his throat, blood gushing from the protruding point. Graham had fired another bolt before the second man realized what happened to his comrade. The second bolt struck true in the man’s heart. He fell on top of the other, killed instantly.

Graham slowed to a jog near the corner of his barn. He gave quick thanks to the Patrons-

Danger.

He ducked as the blade of a curved long sword carved the air above his head. A bald, chalk-faced man in a black cloak stepped from behind the barn and swung his sword again, this time low. Graham lowered his crossbow to counter the blow. The sword struck the heavy weapon with a loud chunk, almost cleaving it in half. The man swung high. Again Graham blocked the sword, but this time the blow shattered the crossbow. Splinters pelted his face.

He’s too strong, too fast...!

Before Graham could retreat, the man brought his blade around low, and severed Graham’s right leg at the knee. Graham fell on his back, air bursting form his lungs, pain exploding at the end of his leg.

The pale man stood over Graham, his sword dripping blood, his white face blank as he looked down at Graham. The man’s eyes, though...they were completely black.

Memories of dark times cut through his mind, when men with the black eyes had ravaged Andea. They killed with the sorcery of their foul Daevas, staying immune from the soul-wrenching feedback that drove clerics of the Patrons mad when they took a life.

Blessed Patrons, no, Graham thought. They have returned.

Graham scurried backward, using his elbows and one good leg to push himself along on his back. The man followed. He raised his sword and drove it through Graham’s left shoulder. The point of the blade struck the ground through Graham’s back, pinning him in place. Though his Key dulled most of the pain, the sight of that gleaming sword rising from his shoulder, along with his foot lying nearby, made bile rise in his throat.

He knew that the power of his Key was now the only thing keeping him alive. It was as if his soul was trying to leave his body, but the Key would not let it. Was this what it was like for Vantos? he wondered. Was this how he felt before he passed his Key to me?

A horse galloped to a stop near Graham. The pale swordsman looked up and smiled.

“The farmer is secure, my lord.” His words were heavy with a coarse accent. “But your men did not survive.”

“They would have if you'd used your...abilities like I ordered.”

The swordsman only smiled.

The Key Holder stepped down from his horse. He stood above Graham, fists on his hips. Then he pulled back the hood of his cloak to reveal a tortured face: angry red scars crept up the right side of his head from his jaw to the top of his skull, leaving half of his head without hair. A small mottled hole was all that remained of his right ear. Though Graham had never met the scarred man, he knew who he was.

“General Brael?”

Graham’s mind was numb from the shock. What was Andea’s greatest hero doing so far out on the frontier? Why were his men attacking Graham’s house and family? The situation was impossibly absurd, and it almost gave him fits of mad laughter.

Brael stooped to one knee next to Graham. “I am sorry for this, brother,” he said, regret etched on his disfigured face, “but your sacrifice will save Andea.”

Graham tried to speak but the sword in his shoulder made it hard for him to breathe, much less talk.

The general’s voice resonated in Graham’s mind. Speak with your thoughts. Only I can hear them.

Brael’s gaze darted toward the porch of the house. Graham looked up and saw Bellia aiming his father’s old crossbow at Brael.

“Get away from him,” she said, her voice firm. When Brael did not move, she said, “I’ve hit a charging haruun at fifty paces so don’t think I can’t get you at ten.”

Brael stared at her, then said, “Ferahtu.”

Graham’s Key felt a burst of terrible cold explode from the pale swordsman. A clear, shimmering sphere as wide as a wagon wheel slammed into Bellia, throwing her backwards into the side of the house. She slid to the porch motionless. Inside, Anna started crying.

“Bellia!” Graham screamed, inflaming the agony in his shoulder and leg.

“Be calm, brother,” Brael said. “Ferahtu has only put her to sleep. No harm will come to her or your daughter if you do what I ask.”

Please, Graham pleaded with his thoughts, don’t hurt my family. Tell me what you want and I’ll do it.

Brael looked at him intently, his mouth moving as if he struggled to find the right words.

I need your Key.

Cold dread made Graham shudder, the pain in his shoulder and leg only a distant throbbing. General Brael was seeking to unite the Reaping Keys. From across the centuries, Graham’s Key showed him the days when one man had held all three Keys. He smelled the acrid stench of funeral pyres stacked with hundreds of bodies. He saw entire kingdoms lying in ruins, vultures picking at the remains of horses and children. One man with the Key had done that.

One man could do it again.

You know I can’t give it to you, Graham said with his mind.

The general’s face softened, as if he were a healer telling Graham his wife had just died of the Sickness. “I know why you hesitate, brother, and if there was any other way to--”

Brael’s eyes glazed for a moment, and then he stood. Looking down on Graham, he said, “If you do not give me your Key, Ferahtu will kill your family. Make your choice now.”

Graham looked to the house, and saw Ferahtu emerge from the open door holding a wailing Anna, tears streaming down her red cheeks. He bounced her up and down, whispered into her ear like he was trying to console her. All the while, his black eyes stared at Graham.

Graham’s mind screamed with rage and frustration. He had survived three years on the Loquathi front, slogged through the mud of Sickness-ridden trenches, dodged flaming iron from Loquathi cannons, only thoughts of his wife and daughter keeping him sane. He had lived to see them again, to come home to his frontier farm, only to die at the hands of a Key Holder, someone he should have been able to trust with his life.

Shame and despair filled Graham as he realized he could not -- would not -- watch his family have their throats slit by the evil man holding his crying daughter, no matter what the consequences to the world. The burden would have to fall to the third Holder.

Blessed Patrons, forgive me for failing in my responsibility, Graham prayed. I cannot watch Bellia and Anna come to you before I do.

Brael stared at him, his eyes hard. Is that a yes?

Graham glared at Brael, wishing his gaze could burn the man to ashes. Through clenched teeth, he said, “Pledge to me by Andea, the Patrons, or anything else you hold dear that no harm will come to my family. Pledge to me with your mind so that I can see your intentions.”

The general stared into Graham’s eyes, and then solemnly knelt on both knees. He pulled a dagger from his belt, took off his right glove, and ran the blade across his palm. He squeezed his hand into a fist, allowing the blood to trickle down his arm and drop to the dusty road. I pledge to you on my blood and the souls of my own dead family, that no harm will come to your wife and child if you give me your Key.

For an instant, Graham felt in Brael’s pledge a pain so overwhelming that he momentarily forgot his own. But like a flash of lightning over the plains, it was gone before he could see it, and was replaced with images of Bellia feeding the sheep while Anna played with her blocks on the front porch of the house. If Brael was deceiving Graham, he could not find it in Brael’s thoughts, where only sincerity was reflected.

Graham blinked back tears, looked up at the darkening sky, saw the first stars beginning to appear.

I will release my Key to you.

Brael sighed, then whispered. “Thank you, brother.”

Remembering how Lieutenant Vantos had done it, and over a hundred others before him, Graham put his right hand on Brael’s chest, closed his eyes, and then willed his Key to Brael. Graham felt a small tingling in his heart, then the tingling became an itching, then a burning, picking up speed, until Graham felt like his entire chest was on fire. A rush of energy left his heart and traveled up his arm. He opened his eyes to see a shimmering aura envelop the Holder like heat rising from a shield on a hot summer day.

Graham’s shoulder and severed leg erupted in molten pain. He wanted to scream for the forgiveness of the Patrons, the souls of the previous Holders, his family. But before he could draw a breath, the sky faded and cold darkness embraced him.

Thallan Brael stood above Graham Aidel’s body. He held his hands before his face, felt the wondrous energy from Aidel’s Key of Conviction pulsing through him. The heightening of his senses was more vivid than when he had received the Key of Strength from his mother almost ten years ago. He looked toward the distant Skrill Mountains, saw birds making nests in the pine trees along the slopes. He could hear the gurgling of the brook he had passed on the way to this farm. The scent of honeysuckle surrounding Fort Madia twenty miles off tickled his nose as if he were standing in a meadow filled with the flowers.

Ferahtu Kir cleared his throat. “My lord.”

The interruption annoyed Thallan. He wanted to lose himself in the symphony of sensations. “What?”

“My lord, I hope you did not intend to honor your pledge. The woman has seen us. She will talk.”

Thallan turned and glared at his Kindred advisor. He still held the wailing child, and the sight of him bouncing her in a playful way sickened Thallan. “I will not throw away every shred of honor I have left and kill this woman. I pledged a blood oath that she would not--”

“Your plans will not succeed if she talks. My lord.”

Thallan’s anger at Ferahtu’s insolence was soothed almost before it began. Ferahtu’s musical voice always seemed to convince him of the right course of action. Thallan glanced at the wedding band on his left hand, a pang of rage and sadness reminding him that some sacrifices must be made for the greater good.

Yes, Ferahtu was usually right about these things.

Thallan turned away and stared at the trees at the base of the Skrill Mountains, watched a robin feed her young.

“Make it painless,” he whispered.

“Of course, my lord.”

Chapter two

The Mark

Raven Labrend decided that he loved to fly.

He sat in the middle seat of a three-man saddle strapped to a large gryphon. With the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle, the gryphon’s lion paws galloped through the air with each thrust of its massive wings. A sapphire attached to a gold chain swayed against its white-feathered neck. The gryphon had a unique scent that Raven readily picked up in the cold, clean air five hundred paces above the vast grasslands of the frontier -- the musky earthiness of a mountain stream combined with, strangely, cinnamon. It was a comforting smell that belied the gryphon’s fierce nature.

A dour faced Shield of Andea garbed in dark-blue leather armor sat in front of Raven. The morning sun reflected yellow shards of light off the gold chain that the Shield wore around his neck. Raven knew a sapphire similar to the gryphon’s swung against the Shield’s leather breastplate. He could not figure out how the Faith-imbued pendants enabled the Shield to communicate with the gryphon. But then Jalen would say that was the business of the Shields, not novice Dahksharis.

He glanced over his shoulder at Jalen Drummond, his Dahkshari counselor. Jalen clutched the handholds of the rear seat in which he was strapped. A rare grimace contorted his friend’s gray-bearded face as he kept his gaze on the saddle in front of him. Jalen was less than delighted with Raven’s decision to ride a gryphon to Bently Fork, but as a counselor he could not overrule Raven’s decisions unless they conflicted with the Charter. And there was no rule against Dahksharis riding gryphons.

Raven grinned, then said over the wind and the gryphon’s swooping wings, “You look like you’re about to charge a battery of Loquathi cannons.”

“At least I’d be on the ground,” Jalen growled as the gryphon lurched in a blast of wind. Jalen issued a rare curse and clenched his teeth.

Raven laughed. He had seen Jalen fight three highway bandits at once without a labored breath, keep his stomach under control while eating a full meal on a leaking galleon in stormy seas. He never showed a bit of emotion at Raven’s most outrageous plans, not wanting to influence Raven’s decisions either way. Now, after knowing Jalen almost twelve years, Raven had finally found something that scared the man out of his normal Dahkshari serenity. It actually comforted Raven to know Jalen was not like some emotionless rock golem out of a frontier fable.

Raven faced forward again, and looked down at the wide muddy waters of the Arciola River carve its way through the grassy frontier. Here and there, villages dotted either side of the river, and every few miles he spied barges, schooners, and small fishing boats going up or down the river. The farther north into the frontier they flew, however, the scarcer the villages and boats became.

The heretic Diliana Losala had been one step ahead of Raven and Jalen from the day the Dean of Novices had assigned her Mark to Raven. With her famous arrogance, she had left a contemptuous letter for the two Dahksharis at the Klyne slip where her river boat, the Wind Racer, had sailed for Bently Fork the day before: “Dahksharis as slow as you would have trouble catching a lame pickpocket.” Raven wondered how arrogant the heretic witch would be when she had a noose around her neck.

He had assumed the heretic had once again escaped into the frontier...until he remembered Klyne had just completed construction of its first gryphon bastion several months before. While most of the gryphons were out patrolling the frontier or the Loquathi border, Raven had the grace of the Patrons to find that the Shields who ran the bastion had a gryphon and translator they could spare for a few days.

The gryphon they rode dropped in a violent down draft, and Raven heard Jalen groan behind him. The Shield turned in his seat and smiled.

“Sorry for the jolt,” he said. “A bit windy on the frontier today.”

Raven returned the Shield’s smile with a serene one of his own. “No need to apologize, Shield,” he said. “Only the Patrons can control the wind.”

The Shield smirked, then turned around.

Raven always thought the Shields were the most arrogant of the Andean Orders of Faith. They were the only Order to serve on the front lines in the Loquathi War, and they had the honor of being the Queen’s palace guard. And within the last year, they had learned how to talk to gryphons. With accomplishments like that, Raven supposed the Shields had a reason to be arrogant.

Raven refocused his thoughts on Diliana. His heart quickened at the thought of bringing her back to the Dahkshari Hall in irons, thus securing his bonding to the Charter. He had been fortunate to get the Mark of such a well known heretic, although Raven suspected Jalen had persuaded the Dean to grant it to him. Raven was hunting his first Mark while most novices were escorting snobbish nobles across the frontier. Only three years out of the academy, he was well on his way to becoming the youngest bonded Dahkshari in the Hall’s four hundred-year history. Once he captured Diliana and brought her to justice in Alahn, home of the Dahkshari Hall, he was certain Jalen would recommend him for the bonding.

Raven felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned to see Jalen pointing toward the horizon off to the right. Raven glimpsed a village nestled in a crook where the clear waters of the Skrill River merged with the muddy Pendagrass to form the larger Arciola.

“Bently Fork,” Jalen said. “What are your intentions once we arrive?”

Raven knew that Jalen was prodding him to think of a plan before they landed, rather than make things up on a whim as he often did. While in the field, counselors were prohibited from advising their novices, so he was grateful for Jalen’s occasional nudges. Dahkshari counselors were mostly observers, watching how novices interpreted the Charter in dangerous situations...and making sure they did not get themselves killed.

Raven hesitated before answering. He had not put much thought into what he was going to do once he reached Bently Fork. The extent of his planning was to arrive at the frontier town before Diliana’s riverboat. But how would he find Diliana? Bently Fork was a hamlet compared to the Great City of Alahn, but it was large enough to lose a heretic who did not want to be found. One of Diliana’s greatest strengths was blending in with almost any crowd, from Rohnen nobles to grizzled frontiersmen. And a city on the edge of the frontier was bound to be sympathetic to a criminal heretic. Many frontiersmen were heretics anyway, and the frontier was a good place for them as far as Raven was concerned.

So Raven began speaking as the plan formed in his mind, hoping it would sound coherent to his counselor. “We’ll fly over the port and look for her boat. If it’s not there, we’ll wait for her at the pier where it’s scheduled to dock. If it is there, I’ll just ask the captain and crew if they recognized her and if they saw which direction she went after she left the ship.”

Jalen leaned back in his seat, his unreadable face -- though ashen from the flight -- never indicating whether he approved or disapproved of the plan.

Raven studied the river town. Bently Fork itself was unremarkable -- less than a half-mile wide and made of squat clay buildings with thatch roofs. Riverboats of all sizes were tied to a dozen stone piers jutting out from the town’s south-facing port. On the north side of the town, a large stone wall, more than twice the height of a man, surrounded the town from the Skrill side to the Pendagrass side. Wooden watch towers leaned against the wall every hundred paces, their occupants ready to raise the alarm should haruun attack from the thick woods two hundred paces away.

Raven scanned the dozens of boats filling Bently Fork’s port for the Klyne-flagged Wind Racer. It was useless at this distance, however, even with Raven’s sharp eyes. They would need to fly closer before Raven could make out any of the flags.

He put a hand on the Shield’s shoulder, just as a blast of wind buffeted the gryphon.

“Fly us lower over the port,” Raven said into his ear.

The Shield nodded. Clutching the large sapphire hanging from the gold chain around his neck, he shouted to the gryphon. “Storm, please take us over the boats in the port.”

The Shield’s sapphire glowed as he spoke to the gryphon, while Raven knew from experience the gryphon’s shriek of acknowledgement made its own sapphire glow.

The Shield turned and smiled. “You had better hold on, Dahksharis.”

The gryphon tilted its mighty wings and made a gut-wrenching drop from the sky. Raven let out a whoop, while Jalen grunted as if he were going to lose his breakfast.

Raven suddenly spotted the Wind Racer nearing the town’s port from the south on the Arciola River. It was a short, thin passenger boat with the green and white striped flag of Klyne fluttering at the top of the ship’s single mast. A dozen rowers on each side propelled the boat up the river toward Bently Fork.

“There she is,” Raven muttered to himself. Then to the Shield, “Land us near the docks, and quickly.” Diliana would surely spot the gryphon if they came much closer to her boat. She was renowned for her ability to smell an ambush, and the unusual sight of a gryphon circling the sky of Bently Fork -- far from its natural home in the Skrill Mountains or the nearest bastion -- would surely raise her guard.

The Shield asked the gryphon to land just behind the cylindrical stone granaries that lined the western end of the docks. The gryphon swooped around the granaries, flapped its huge wings to slow itself, and landed gently on the muddy street. Once the gryphon had folded its wings, Jalen jumped from the saddle, struggling to steady himself on his shaky legs.

“Thank you for your assistance, Shield,” Raven said as he quickly un-strapped himself. “And thank your gryphon for a safe journey.”

“I think Storm would be insulted by your thanks for a ‘safe journey’ -- it implies that she might not have made your journey safe.”

Seeing Raven’s puzzlement, the Shield shrugged. “Gryphon honor is a strange thing.”

The gryphon looked down on Raven imperiously, then turned away with a harsh chirp. Raven shook his head. The beasts are just as prideful as the Shields.

As soon as Raven was standing on the street, the Shield asked the gryphon to rise. Her wings kicked up dirt and loose grain as she ascended, bringing gaping looks from the crowd that had gathered nearby. Once in the air, the gryphon veered south toward Klyne.

Raven regarded the crowd with irritation. The unwashed odor of the fur-clothed frontier folk staring at him made him long for the clean air high above the town.

“So much for a quiet arrival,” he said to Jalen, who nodded once and followed Raven through narrow streets reeking of sweaty bodies and garbage. He had to get to the piers fast -- Diliana would only have to hear one passing comment about the gryphon riders and she would disappear once again.

Bently Fork’s wood piers smelled no better than the town’s interior. Raven had always gained a certain comfort from the salty fragrance of seawater ports of the Great Cities, having lived on the Andean coast all his life. This port, however, sat in a natural alcove that was sheltered from the Arciola River’s strong current. With nothing to carry refuse downriver, bloated vegetables, dead fish, and human waste bobbed among the piers, making this port the most rancid place Raven had ever been.

But he hoped the journey would be worthwhile, for Diliana’s riverboat had not yet docked. Raven could see the boat maybe a quarter of a mile away, cruising slowly toward one of the piers.

He decided that it would not do for him to be standing in the middle of the open dock. He glanced around the port, looking for a place to hide that also offered a good view of the boat’s disembarking passengers. He saw a dirty, clay-brick tavern nearby facing east, its windows reflecting the sun that still hung low enough to cast a harsh glare off the filthy glass. The small sign above the tavern was too dirty to make out its name.

“We’ll wait in there,” Raven told his counselor, nodding toward the tavern. “With that glare on the windows, we’ll see her but she won’t see us.”

Jalen nodded, his face as unreadable as ever. Raven’s ability to detect Jalen’s mood had ceased to exist when Jalen became his counselor three years ago. Up until then, this man who had saved Raven from a certain death when he was twelve, who became his sponsor during those lonely years in the Dahkshari Academy, had been like a father to him. But that all changed when Raven ascended to novice and Jalen became his counselor. Raven knew it had to change. He would never learn to rely on his own instincts if he always had someone there to tell him what to do in every situation. Jalen still advised Raven on all things, but only when they were back at the Hall and never while they were in the field.

They entered the darkened tavern. Pipe smoke hung in the air, mingling with the stale odor of spilled ale and vomit. In the darkest corner, four bearded, hung-over men shot them unwelcome glares and began murmuring to one another in low grumbles. Raven knew frontier folk did not like seeing black-cloaked Dahksharis poking around in their town any more than Raven liked being here. The Andean Crown’s reach was not as strong out here, something that made frontier life so attractive to criminals and heretics.

The two Dahksharis chose a table near the window. It provided the view for which Raven had hoped -- he could see the entire dock, along with the Wind Racer cruising toward its slip.

After a tired barmaid took their tea orders, Jalen retrieved his pipe and used it to scoop a wad of tobacco from a leather pouch in the pocket of his cloak.

“Diliana Losala is a slippery prey,” he said while using the candle on the table to light his pipe. The tobacco’s sweet, cherry scent created a shield around them against the tavern’s nauseating odors. “Difficult to ambush.”

Raven nodded. “That’s why I’m not going to ambush her.”

Jalen raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Another reaction, Raven exclaimed to himself. Two in one day!

Raven had finished his first mug of tea when the Wind Racer’s driver eased the boat into its slip with experienced precision. Raven watched sailors throw thick ropes around the pier’s algae-slicked pylons, while people dressed in furs and drab cloaks lined the deck eager to be on their way. He scanned the passengers but did not see Diliana. She wouldn’t be on the deck for all to see, he thought. She would remain hidden for as long as possible.

Raven then had a sickening thought -- what if she had somehow disembarked before the boat reached Bently Fork? He sighed. No use worrying about that now. Raven reflected on a bit of advice Jalen had once given him: assume the road ahead is good until proven otherwise. Raven would just assume that she was on the boat until he found out that she was not.

The boat’s sailors lowered the roped gangplank to the dock and made way for the passengers. They filed down the plank in twos, threes, and entire families. But no single passengers.

Raven’s frustration grew with each traveler who was not Diliana. What if she had disembarked between here and Klyne? Where could she have done it? There was nothing but thick forests and empty grasslands for the entire journey. How could she have--?

There.

She walked down the plank among a group of the ship’s sailors, talking to them, laughing at their jokes, and trying to fit in. The hood of her cloak was pulled over her long dark curls, but Raven recognized her lithe, haughty stride.

“I see her,” he said, then jumped from his chair and hurried toward the door with Jalen close behind.

Once outside the tavern, Raven blinked a few moments from the bright sun, then walked straight for Diliana. He made no attempt to conceal himself among the satchels, crates, and frontier folk on the dock. She’s always searching for ambushes, he thought, so maybe she’ll ignore what’s in front of her.

Forty paces away, Diliana still did not see Raven. Her attention was drawn to the shadows cast by the cargo on the dock, searching for hidden threats even as she laughed with the sailors.

Twenty paces.

Raven’s hands began to sweat. He thought about, then dismissed, asking the Patrons to raise a shield of Faith around his body. Diliana would surely sense the siphoning of Faith this close.

Ten paces.

He reached into the pouch at his belt and took out a Faith-imbued web stone for when--

Diliana stopped when she saw Raven. Her eyes narrowed and the smile faded from her lips. Five paces from her, Raven stopped as well.

“Diliana Losala,” he said, his voice booming, “you have been accused of stealing keeria root from a Healer’s Guild caravan. By the Charter of the Andean Commonwealth, I’m placing you under arrest for assault and thievery.” Raven wished he could have just webbed Diliana and be done with it without reciting the Arrest Edict. Though he was only a novice and not yet Faith-bound to the Charter, he was honor-bound to obey the Charter as if he were already a bonded Dahkshari.

The crowd around them grew quiet when Raven finished speaking. The sailors near Diliana backed away, their wide eyes darting from Raven to the heretic. She stood in the middle of a circle of onlookers, her gaze riveted to Raven, her face relaxed.

She exhaled, and a clear shimmer enveloped her body.

Jalen yelled, “Raven!”

Before Raven could fling the web stone at her, a forked stream of shimmering Faith slammed into his chest like a large fist, throwing him backward into Jalen. They both landed hard among the bystanders. Raven looked up to see Diliana disappear into the crowd toward the center of town. He jumped to his feet and tore after her, ignoring Jalen’s calls for him to wait.

Raven marveled at the way the heretic squeezed between merchants and beggars, jumped over tables piled high with turnips and cabbage, dodged horses and carriages. She has the dexterity of a Dahkshari, he thought, following her every action. He ignored the curses of the fur trappers and prostitutes he shoved as he darted past them. His sole focus was on the heretic’s dark hair. She will not escape, not after I got this close. She will not deny me the bonding.

Diliana turned left and bolted into an alley between an armory and a bakery. Raven charged around the corner after her.

But the heretic was waiting with a hand crossbow aimed at his chest. He skidded to a stop ten paces from her, wondered, Where did she get that crossbow?

She looked Raven up and down, then smiled. “I cannot have a Dahkshari following me,” she said with an educated Rohnen accent. “No matter how pretty he is.” Then she pulled the trigger.

Raven felt his Faith and his Dahkshari training take over his body before he realized it was happening. His instructors had said that if done right, a Dahkshari’s Faith seemed to make the world slow down, enabling the Dahkshari to think through all his options, decide on a course of action, and act on it...faster than a bolt loosed from a crossbow.

Raven dove to the muddy, cobble stoned alley. The bolt flew over his head where his chest had been a moment earlier. He tucked his shoulder and rolled on to his back. He had a web stone in his hand by the time he was on his feet and flung it at Diliana. Her smugness turned to shock. The stone hit her and exploded into bright blue tendrils of light. Each tendril raced around her body, binding her arms to her sides and her ankles together. Stunned unconscious by the stone, Diliana fell on her chest with a loud grunt.

Raven stared at the heretic, elation replacing the serenity of a moment ago. He had just captured Diliana Losala, the heretic who had eluded the Dahksharis for years. His bonding was assured--

“This Mark was illegally arrested.”

Raven whirled around to see Jalen in the alley entrance, breathing hard, fury contorting his usually calm face. “And I think you know why.”

Raven was about to protest, but thought better of it after seeing the fire in Jalen’s eyes. Jalen stooped next to Diliana and inspected the Faith-wrought blue light of the web stone. Satisfied that it was secure, he stood.

“We’ll take her back to Alahn,” Jalen said. “Maybe a Questioner will get her to admit something for which we can hold her.”

Then, glaring at Raven, “If not, she will be released because of the laws you just broke.”

Chapter three

Conversation with a Heretic

Raven squeezed through the narrow corridor below the deck of the riverboat Patriot while balancing in one hand a cup of chicken broth and a chunk of black bread. Though only twelve the last time he felt a boat beneath his feet, the slight roll of a ship on the open water comforted him, even if it was only on a river.

Jalen followed Raven in silence. Raven had tried asking just how serious his counselor considered his violation of the Accompaniment Law, but Jalen had said they would discuss it after Diliana’s interrogation. Raven knew he was never to be out of Jalen’s sight while performing his Dahkshari duties. The Accompaniment Law was the first rule his instructors had impressed upon him before he began his field training. But when he saw Diliana disappear into the crowd, an overpowering desire to catch the fleeing heretic took over his mind and soul.

It was a desire to prevent at least this heretic from escaping.

At the end of the corridor, Raven produced a key from his belt, unlocked the door, and entered. A swaying lantern hung from a hook near the door, illuminating the cramped, stuffy room -- if it could be called a room. It was more like a closet, with hardly enough space to hold the two Dahksharis and the bunk on which Diliana lay. The heretic was still encased in the web stone’s blue light, her arms and legs rigidly bound together. She was conscious, though, and her brown eyes regarded the Dahksharis with contempt.

Raven cleared his mind and silently asked the Patrons to bless him with Faith. Once he felt his control over their sweet, turbulent power snap into place, he waved his free hand over Diliana and murmured, “Release.”

Diliana’s muscles visibly relaxed, her arms and legs freed from their bound state. The blue light still enveloped her, preventing her from drawing on her heretic witchcraft, but now she could move. She slowly stretched her legs and arms, and sat up.

Raven handed the soup and bread to her, which she took greedily. “The only reason I released you is because I don’t want to feed you.”

She smirked, then took a mouthful of bread and washed it down with a gulp of soup.

Raven leaned against the wall in front of her, arms folded. “Where is the keeria root you stole?”

Diliana gave him a considering look. She took another gulp of soup, then glanced from Raven to Jalen. She smiled at Raven. “You are a novice, yes?” Her Rohnen accent sounded strange coming from someone with disheveled hair, a dirty face, and a mud-stained cloak.

“I’m a Dahkshari, and I’m asking the questions. Where is the keeria?”

Mischief sparkling in her dark eyes, Diliana looked past Raven toward Jalen. “Must be rather desperate for help these days, eh counselor? What has the Hall come to, allowing novices to hunt Marks?”

Jalen simply stared at Diliana, no emotion on his face. Raven wished he had Jalen’s control. He was about to lose his.

“One more time, heretic,” he said, “Where is the keeria that you stole?”

Diliana’s smirk melted into a glare. He knew that clerics who did not belong to one of the Orders of Faith hated to be called heretics, preferring instead “sovereigns” since they “bowed to no Order.” Heretic implied that a cleric had no discipline, no control over her Faith, an accusation that still caused fatal duels among the vainest of clerics.

And vanity was just one of Diliana’s faults.

She tossed the empty soup cup at Raven’s feet, lay back on the bunk, put her hands behind her head, and shut her eyes.

Raven stooped to pick up the cup. “That’s unfortunate. Your compliance now could have saved you from the hangman when we reach Alahn.”

Raven rose and moved toward the door.

“Do you have a family?”

Raven stopped and thought, Just keep her talking.

“Yes,” he lied.

She stared back at him, a shadow crossing her face. “Imagine watching your five-year-old daughter bleed to death because you did not have enough keeria to heal her when the Sickness came to your village. And then imagine this would never have happened if Order tax collectors had not taken over half of your keeria crop the day before.”

She looked away. “You cannot possibly know how it feels to watch those you love die, novice.”

Raven ground his teeth. Oh, I know how it feels...

“Frontier folk wouldn’t need the keeria if they chose to accept the protection of the Orders and the Commonwealth. That’s why the Great Cities exist.”

Diliana snorted. “‘Protection of the Orders and the Commonwealth?’ I will tell you what that means. It means the complete surrender of our Faith to the dogmas of the Orders. It means submitting to Commonwealth bureaucrats who think they can run our lives better than we can.”

Raven bristled. Her story was a grating reminder to him of heretic arrogance. Did these people have any appreciation for what the Orders and the Commonwealth did for them? Heretics struck out into the desolate frontier, claiming all the while they just wanted to be left alone. Raven wondered how loud they would wail, however, if the Queen decided to withdraw her garrisons from along the frontier. How long would they survive if they were truly “left alone” to the haruun and whatever else that dwelled in the Ilesh Wood or the Skrill Mountains?

“No matter what the frontier has done to you,” he said, “it still doesn’t excuse the theft of valuable--”

Diliana sprang to her feet. “We did not steal anything,” she snarled into Raven’s face. “That keeria was ours. We planted it and harvested it with bleeding hands and stooped backs. We searched for replacement roots in forests crawling with haruun. The Orders take over half of our produce so the Queen can protect her fat noble sycophants from the Sickness. The Orders are killing us, not the frontier!”

She stopped, regained her composure, and sat on the bunk as if she had already said more than she’d intended. Raven re-sheathed the small dagger that had sprung into his palm from the sleeve of his right forearm.

He knew arguing with the woman would not find the keeria any faster, but he never could back down from a fight. Especially when he was right.

“That keeria you stole to make some political statement,” Raven said, “was on its way to Prashaad. You do remember what happened to Prashaad?”

Before the battle lines had moved farther south, Prashaad had been the main staging point for Andean troops. Just weeks before the truce, the Loquathi had sailed two dreadnaughts bristling with fire cannons into the small Prashaadi harbor. No one new whether the Loquathi thought the city was still a troop depot, or whether they wanted a bit of last moment revenge for General Brael’s surprise assault on the Loquathi port of Rushak. Whatever the motive, the result was half a city reduced to charred ruins and a population that had to live among the wreckage with the rats.

Now the Sickness had returned, killing more people than the Loquathi. Only keeria root -- in combination with the Faith of a Healer -- could cure the deadly plague.

When Diliana said nothing, Raven asked again, “Where is the keeria?”

The heretic turned her head and closed her eyes.

Furious, Raven realized she would rather let innocent people die than give in to a Dahkshari from the Orders. He should have expected as much from a heretic savage.

As he stepped past Jalen and through the door, Raven said, “You will meet the hangman. After you meet the Questioners. I hear they don’t like heretics much. Tend to leave them as slobbering mutes when done with them.”

The glare she fired at him as he shut the door was quite satisfying.

The icy breeze on deck was cold enough to make Raven shiver, but refreshing compared to the stifling air below. He passed a few of the boat’s crewmen while he gazed at the dark river shore, searching for anything suspicious. Raven had asked the Patriot’s captain to set a guard in case some of Diliana’s comrades decided to attempt a rescue. The captain had grumbled a bit until Raven offered him and his men extra gold to compensate them for their inconvenience. That had turned the captain’s grumbling into a broad smile, and had even earned the Dahksharis accommodations in the captain’s own quarters for the night.

At the bow, Raven put both hands on the guardrail and peered into the inky blackness of the river. Off in the distance to the right, he noticed the tiny lights of a village. The lanterns were the only thing that proved there was land out there in the moonless, cloudy night.

The village was probably similar to Hardig's Point, where Raven had spent the first twelve years of his life. Hardig’s Point was a small coastal town just outside Sandahla, where the rocky caves along the coast provided endless sources of adventure for young boys and girls; where many a teenage couple exchanged their first kisses near the town’s lighthouse before a fiery sunset. Raven wondered how his life would have been different if a mad heretic had never passed through that night....

Jalen’s sweet pipe smoke brought Raven back to the present. Jalen came and stood next to Raven at the guardrail and looked toward the same village at which Raven was staring.

Raven glanced at his counselor. “I know I broke the Accompaniment Law. I know I should have waited for you before I chased Diliana. There’s no excuse for my actions.”

Jalen continued gazing at the village. “Do you know why?”

“Because you need to be with me at all times to evaluate my skills.”

Jalen chuckled, then shook his head. “That’s what they tell you in the Academy. What do you think the real reason is?”

What other reason there could be? Counselors assessed novices to determine whether they could perform their duties with honor and fealty to the Charter. A novice who broke Charter laws would never be recommended for the bonding--

The bonding.

Raven understood. “Since I’m not bonded to the Charter yet, you want to make sure I don’t abuse my power.”

Jalen nodded, a sober look on his weathered face. “Yes, but that is only part of it. You are at a dangerous stage in your development, perhaps the most dangerous stage of your life. Your control over your Faith is growing and your martial skills are the best I have ever seen in a novice.”

Jalen took his pipe from his mouth and pointed it at Raven. “But until you are bonded to the Charter, you are dangerous. You have all of this power and all of the authority in Andea to use it, but you are not yet constrained by the Charter’s will. I must watch you carefully. That is what the true purpose of the Accompaniment Law is -- to ensure that you do not become a danger to others. Or to yourself.”

All throughout his Academy years, Raven’s instructors had told him stories of clerics -- both Order members and heretics -- who had gone mad by siphoning too much of their Faith before they were ready, or by using their Faith to kill another living being, a mortal sin that brought quick retribution from the Patrons. It was why most of the Orders despised the heretics. Heretics did not have the same education and control of a properly commissioned Order cleric. Except for the Dahksharis -- who remained neutral in all Charter and Faith debates -- the Orders agreed that the world would be a much safer place if the right of every person to siphon the Faith of the Patrons had not been written into the Charter.

And Raven agreed with the Orders. Perhaps if that heretic long ago had been educated by the Orders, he would not have gone mad and destroyed Raven’s home and life. The madman had come through Hardig’s Point like a tornado in spring, destroying homes with a wave of his hand, setting people ablaze with a nod of his head. Twisting the neck of--

Raven buried the painful memory and said, “I won’t let you down again.”

Jalen sighed. “I know your heart is brave and just. You have shown me your talents many times. But if you ever break another rule again, I will personally make sure that you never become a bonded Dahkshari.”

Raven knew Jalen was not making a threat -- it was a promise. Jalen had released far more novices than any other counselor, earning him the nickname ‘Dead End’ Drummond among the Academy novices. But Raven had specifically requested Jalen to be his counselor, not only because Jalen had found him at Hardig’s Point, but because the novices Jalen did recommend for bonding were some of the best Dahksharis in Andea. They almost always received their choice of assignments. If he could get Jalen’s recommendation for bonding, it was doubtful that his request for assignment to the Dahksharis’ criminal heretic hunters would be turned down.

He nodded. “I under-–”

Jalen whirled around and peered into the sky, his hand on the hilt of his sword. Raven was about to ask what was wrong when a powerful tingling erupted in his heart.

Faith was being siphoned nearby.

He raised his Faith shield, just as several blue tendrils of Faith snaked from out of the darkness and touched some of the nearby crewmen. The men fell to the deck unconscious. Raven glanced at Jalen and noticed the faint glimmer of his counselor’s Faith shield. They both drew their swords and rushed toward the center of the boat.

Overhead, piercing gryphon cries shattered the quiet night. Raven searched the black sky but saw nothing past the first yardarm in the dim lantern light of the boat’s deck. Who could be attacking us with gryphons? he wondered. It had only been a year since the Shields of Andea had become the first humans to persuade gryphons to serve as mounts. Were the Shields attacking them?

It was not long before he had his answers. Four scrawny gryphons, each carrying two riders, swooped onto the deck. The gray-cloaked riders jumped from their mounts. Blue whips of Faith flew at the frantic crew from the palms of each rider like a lizard’s tongue attacking a fly.

Heretics!

His sword raised high, Raven charged toward the nearest heretic, a young man no older than Raven. The heretic saw him, then sent a blue tendril of Faith at him. The tendril deflected harmlessly off Raven’s Faith shield. Snarling, the heretic drew his own sword and rushed toward Raven.

They met in the middle of the deck, swords clashing. But the heretic was no match for Raven. The novice Dahkshari parried and blocked the heretic’s every thrust, while it was all the heretic could do to block Raven’s onslaught. Raven backed the man up to the ship’s railing, then brought his foot up with a strong kick to the man’s chest. The heretic cried out as he tumbled into the dark river.

Raven looked over the railing, but saw only the river. He smiled. Old Master Iora, his fencing instructor at the Academy, would have been proud of that move.

He turned to see four heretics staring at him, three with crossbows aimed at his chest. A tall man with shaggy brown hair and a beard to match stood behind the crossbowmen. The shimmer surrounding the man told Raven he was ready to use his Faith in an instant.

“Stay where you are, Dahkshari,” the man commanded. Raven considered using his Faith to stun them all, but that would mean dropping his Faith shield. Which was probably what the heretic was waiting for him to do.

The heretic smiled. “We will not harm you. Unless you give us a reason.” The last almost sounded like an invitation.

A crash behind the deck cabin and the ringing of steel announced that Jalen was putting up a good fight with the last two heretics. The leader half-turned his head toward the noise, then said to Raven, “Tell your partner to submit.”

Raven said nothing.

The leader shook his head, and yelled out, “We have your partner, Dahkshari. Submit or we’ll fill him with bolts.”

The sounds of fighting tapered off and then stopped. Prodded by two heretics, Jalen walked from behind the cabin while holding his sword with two hands above his head. When he stood next to Raven, he slowly placed his sword on the deck.

Jalen said, “Give it up, lad. This is no place to die.”

Raven hesitated a moment, then threw his sword to the deck.

The leader pointed to two of his men. “Go find Diliana.” The men rushed off, stepping over the moaning bodies of the stunned crew.

Raven glared at the heretics, who returned the glare with equal hatred.

Moments later, Diliana emerged from the cargo hold, the blue light of the web stone no longer encasing her. She went to the leader and embraced him warmly. She smiled at him and his men, who regarded her as though she were a heroic commander instead of the bandit she was.

The leader nodded toward Raven and Jalen. “What about the Dahksharis?” There was a cold tone in his voice that sounded as if he were relishing the order to kill.

Diliana’s gaze moved from Jalen and lingered on Raven. He returned the stare unblinking.

“We are not murderers,” she said to the leader while staring at Raven. “Let them be.” Then to her men, “Let’s go.”

The three heretics with crossbows, still encased in their Faith shields, aimed their bolts at Raven and Jalen as Diliana and the others mounted their gryphons. The beasts leapt into the sky with a shriek and the beating of powerful wings. Once the first group was airborne, the three heretics jumped into the saddles of their own gryphons and followed their comrades.

Raven maintained his Dahkshari serenity, mindful that Jalen was watching him. But he clenched his fists, his nails digging into his palms, as he watched his first Mark escape into the night.

Chapter four

Alahn

From the bow of the Patriot , Jalen watched Alahn reveal itself as the boat rounded a wooded bend in the Arciola River. Whenever he returned to the Great City, he always felt like the awed novice he was thirty-five years ago.

The first thing he always saw was the Dahkshari Hall, home of the Dahkshari and the Charter. It sat upon a hill in the center of the city, the rising sun giving its white marble ramparts and columns a fiery shimmer. Surrounding the Hall were hundreds of elegant yet simple buildings no more than two stories high made of stout oak and white marble. Jalen could make out the grid-like pattern of Alahn’s streets spreading like the weave of a fine carpet up toward the Hall. Surrounding the inner city was a marble wall over ten paces tall and wide, with watchtowers at one hundred pace intervals. The slim, marble towers were rarely manned any more, for the city had spilled over the protective wall to spread over a mile away. Now the wall was mostly a tourist attraction.

Beyond the city was the famous Hundley Bridge. Made entirely of marble, the bridge connected the Alahnen peninsula with the Northwest Highway and the rest of the Commonwealth. The morning light cast a golden tint on the bridge’s white, towering supports. Beyond the bridge, the Arciola River emptied into the vast, blue Torrassian Sea.

Jalen still marveled at the sight of hundreds of boats moving about the Alahn harbor. Ships of every size bore cargo from all across Andea. Cattle haulers departed for northern Andea, while tobacco barges arrived from the southern provinces. Passenger vessels set off to far away places, while pleasure craft filled with sightseers meandered about. Jalen remembered being a small boy and sitting on the river wharf in his home, watching small cargo schooners dock in the town’s five slips, wondering where they came from and where they were going. That little boy could never have imagined the sight that the adult now saw almost every day.

Though Alahn and its harbor always gladdened Jalen’s soul, it did not change his sour mood over Diliana’s escape. And where Jalen’s mood was sour, Raven’s was crushed. Jalen had so wanted Raven to complete this Mark, knowing that the lad’s bonding would have been assured. This failure, however, would relegate him back to the novice’s typical duties -- patrolling the city for pickpockets or escorting nobles across the frontier. Jalen knew those duties would be mind-numbing to Raven after the thrill of hunting Diliana.

The Patriot soon docked in one of the smaller riverboat piers on the east end of Alahn’s harbor. Raven gathered their belongings while Jalen gave the captain some extra gold to make up for the trouble with the outlaw clerics. Once on the crowded dock, the two Dahksharis threw their knapsacks over their shoulders and proceeded down the long stone pier toward the port gate.

Raven’s expression told Jalen that the long lines of people waiting to get through the gate did nothing to help his mood. The novice wormed his way through the throng, travelers from across the Commonwealth mostly, who swarmed the front of the gate with large bundles. It was Harvest Time in Alahn, an event that brought people from all over the Commonwealth. For the rest of the week, thousands of Andeans would experience carnivals, parades, and nightly fireworks displays. With the Loquathi War over, this Harvest Time was expected to be the largest and most festive in years.

At the gate, novice Dahksharis with their counselors nearby slowly waved their hands over the bundles each person carried into the city, searching for Faith-wrought weapons. Though the war with Loquath had ended, the threat of rogue Loquathi saboteurs kept the Dahksharis and Alahnen constables on high alert. Jalen wondered how long it would take for Andeans to feel safe in their cities again. Scars of the mind seemed to take longer to heal than the scars of the flesh.

Jalen nudged Raven and pointed toward the gate reserved for cargo, where a green-cloaked constable was waving through a wagon team loaded with wine casks.

“I know the man in charge at that gate,” Jalen said.

“Let’s go,” Raven said, dodging a running child as he strode toward the gate.

The constable grinned when he recognized Jalen. Edel Callum had been Jalen’s roommate at the Hall for two years when they were both novices. He’d left after falling in love with a barmaid who worked at a tavern near the wharves. Given a choice between the Hall, which prohibited its men and women from marrying, or the beautiful barmaid, the barmaid had won. Thirty years later, Edel was the father of three grown men and still married to that same beautiful barmaid.

“Jalen, my friend,” boomed Edel, his native Alahnen voice rising above the murmurs of the crowd. “Good hunting?”

Jalen glanced at Raven and saw him wince. Diliana’s escape would be an open wound for a long time. Scowling, Raven continued through the gate.

Edel watched Raven pass by, then said to Jalen with an apologetic look, “Lost the Mark, eh?”

Jalen nodded. “It was his first one, and she got away. He did as well as could be expected from a novice, though. Or from a Dahkshari.”

Looking after Raven, he saw the lad stoop to check on a small boy who was crying after he tripped and fell to the cobblestone street. Raven put his hand on the boy’s bleeding knee, and then a clear shimmer of Faith appeared around the wound. The boy stopped crying and looked at Raven in wonder -- the blood on his knee had dried and the cut was gone. At that moment the boy’s mother pushed through the crowd and picked her son up, thanking Raven with quick bows and smiles.

As he watched Raven return the mother’s bows, Jalen said to Edel, “He’s still got a lot to learn, but he does have the best potential I’ve seen in any of my novices.”

“That’s high praise coming from ‘Dead-End’ Drummond,” Edel said, grinning.

Jalen laughed, then bid his friend farewell and caught up with Raven.

He knew that his high release rate made him the nightmare assignment of any novice. That was why he had been pleased, but wary, when Raven had requested him for counselor. Pleased because he knew the lad was an honorable man; wary because he did not want Raven thinking he would have an easy time with a counselor who had sponsored his acceptance into the Dahkshari Academy. But in the ensuing two years, Raven had not disappointed. Jalen had watched him grow from a boy barely able to speak after the tragedy he’d suffered, to a man who would instinctively help a child with a cut knee after the greatest disappointment of his Dahkshari life. Jalen saw in Raven the makings of a great Dahkshari and an honorable interpreter of the Charter.

And perhaps, finally, he had found someone who could protect another sacred trust.

But his confidence in Raven had been shaken during this assignment. While the lad had angered Jalen when he charged after Diliana in Bently Fork, it was the breakdown in control over his Faith as she escaped that disturbed Jalen. Always in the back of his mind was the knowledge of what happened to Raven’s family when he was twelve. He could drill obedience of the rules into the lad, but discipline and the ability to put aside personal prejudices must come from within Raven. If it did not, as painful as it would be, Jalen would release him.

With the Hall only fifty paces away, Raven stopped and frowned.

“How bad would it look if I continued my hunt for Diliana rather than report to the Dean?”

“Raven,” Jalen said, shocked.

The lad shook his head. “Never mind. I know.”

“Look,” Jalen said, “you cannot flout a law each time you feel justified. That’s not how an honorable Dahkshari should think, much less act. The bonding prevents us from breaking the Charter’s laws, but an honorable Dahkshari obeys the laws because he knows it is the right thing to do. Do you understand?”

Raven nodded. “I understand, and I’m sorry for even thinking that. I just want another chance at that heretic witch.”

The venom in Raven’s voice surprised Jalen. In the eight years Jalen had known Raven, he had never seen the lad so angry, so eager for...vengeance. Jalen knew Raven would never forget the mad cleric who destroyed his village. But would he forever see the madman in every sovereign he encountered?

Before Jalen could ask, the novice squared his shoulders and marched toward the Hall. “Let’s get this over with.”

Jalen decided to wait until Raven had a cooler head before pursuing his suspicions.

With its large white dome and massive marble columns, the Hall was the greatest human-built structure in all of Andea, perhaps the world. Legend said that the builders used tamed haruun to drag the Hall’s marble from the Alahnen quarries east of the city. Jalen chuckled at the thought of eight-foot tall haruun, with bridles attached to their toothy maws, dragging huge blocks of marble across the frontier’s grasslands and forests. Not likely.

Alahnen in their formal black cloaks with red sashes around their waists strolled up and down the Hall’s wide marble steps. Jalen recognized many of them and exchanged nods with close acquaintances.

Jalen and Raven strode through the giant oak doors opened wide for the day’s business and into Statuary Hall. The pride Jalen always felt while passing through this hall was something he hoped was felt by all who entered. Ten-foot statues of Alahn’s greatest heroes lined each side of the Hall. On the left was the bearded, determined face of Galovic Alahn, the city’s first king, his right hand leaning on a sword and his left arm ending in a stump (legend said that he lost his arm when he fought and killed a haruun barehanded -- a children’s tale as far as Jalen was concerned). On the right, Helena Gammel struck a wise and regal pose by holding up the unfurled scroll of the first Charter she had written. Beyond the two statues stood a dozen more on each side, heroes from the time of Alahn’s founding, to the days when it was an independent kingdom, to its present membership in the Andean Commonwealth.

Beyond Statuary Hall lay three corridors that led to the three wings of the Hall -- right, left, or straight ahead. Jalen and Raven turned down the left corridor into the Academy Wing, which held the novice barracks and schools, the clicking of their boots on the polished marble floor echoing off the walls. They passed numerous oil paintings and murals that depicted some of the greatest moments in Alahn’s history -- the construction of the Hall, the enshrinement of the Charter, the bonding of the first Dahkshari.

Near the middle of the long corridor, they arrived at the chambers of Oleg Karalahti, Dean of Novices and a Hall Councilman. They entered through the ornate archway and stopped at the desk of the Dean’s clerk. The novice clerk looked up from the letter he was copying and respectfully asked them to sit at a nearby bench while he informed the Dean they were here. Raven sat down first, his back straight and his nervous gaze on the Dean’s door.

Jalen smiled. “You will not be released over an escape that a team of bonded Dahksharis could not have prevented.”

Raven bit his lower lip and nodded.

“If you continue to do what you’ve done over the past two years, you will achieve the bonding. You must be patient.”

“I’ve been patient too long,” Raven said with a pained expression that made Jalen think he was not just talking about becoming a Dahkshari.

The clerk emerged from the Dean’s office. “He will see you now.”

Jalen and Raven stood and entered the office.

Oleg Karalahti’s chambers had the feel of a man who had no time or patience for organization. The elderly Dean with white hair and a full white mustache sat behind a large cherry wood desk examining two different papers with a looking glass. Piles of scrolls and books surrounded his work area. A half-eaten apple and a cold mug of tea sat off to the right side of his desk. His office was packed with various odds and ends that he had collected throughout his years as a Dahkshari, then counselor, then Dean. It was not uncommon for Jalen to snag his cloak on an old chest or a ceremonial sword. About the only place that was clutter-free was the wall behind Oleg’s desk where a tapestry hung with the Dahkshari coat of arms -- an image of the unfurled Charter scroll surrounded by green laurels on a yellow field.

Jalen chuckled inwardly when he saw Oleg scowl while reading the scrolls. Oleg had been Jalen’s counselor when he was a novice, so he knew first hand Oleg’s disdain for administrative work. Oleg had been a counselor for forty years before becoming Dean, and would have counseled forty more if his age had not finally caught him. He was still the toughest old bird that had ever worn the Dahkshari red sash, and Jalen had cursed Oleg under his breath many times during his field training. But the man knew how to bring out the best in his novices and counselors.

Raven and Jalen made their way through the cluttered office to the front of Oleg’s desk, gave a deep bow, then stood at attention.

Oleg grunted, then placed the looking glass and scrolls on his desk. Intelligent green eyes beneath bushy white brows regarded them with mock exasperation.

“Appreciate your youth while you have it -- both of you -- because someday you will be sitting behind a desk staring at numbers all day instead of hunting Marks.”

Oleg studied Raven a moment, then said, “Judging from your gloomy face, novice Labrend, I’d wager your hunt did not go well.”

With his eyes locked on the Dahkshari coat-of-arms over Oleg’s shoulder, Raven said, “The hunt went fine, sir. We succeeded in capturing the heretic. It was the...transportation of the Mark that did not go so well.”

Raven told Oleg about the hunt, the gryphon ride, and the ambush. Oleg’s eyebrows rose at the mention of outlaw sovereigns with gryphons. When Raven finished, the Dean nodded, then rose from his desk and looked out his window, hands clasped behind his back.

“You did all you could, novice Labrend,” Oleg said. “Faith, Diliana’s clerics have tamed gryphons? A disturbing turn, indeed...”

Oleg thought for a moment, then turned to Raven. “Well then, I suppose you’re eager for your next assignment?”

Jalen heard Raven gulp. “I was hoping to continue the hunt for Diliana,” Raven said. “If I could get one gryphon and--”

“No, no, that won’t be necessary,” Oleg said. “Although I do admire your persistence. Now that Diliana has gryphons, I think we’ll need some assistance from our brothers and sisters in the Shields of Andea. No, I have another assignment for you.”

Oleg went to his desk and shuffled through some of his papers until he found the right one. “Ah, here it is. You are to escort Lady Heiress Seala Mesalek on her journey across the frontier to Mendahl, where she will attend the peace treaty signing between Queen Gianni and the Loquathi Padishah.”

Oleg looked up at Raven. “Don’t be so gloomy, novice. You’ll be escorting the first-born of the Alahnen Duke, heir to the ducal title. Escort duty for House Mesalek is a high honor for Dahkshari novices.”

In a tight voice, Raven said, “I consider any duty with which I’m entrusted a high honor, sir.”

Oleg nodded, a knowing smile tugging at his wrinkled cheeks. He rolled the paper, sealed the edges with wax from the candle on his desk, then used the signet ring on his right hand to imprint the wax with the seal of the Dean of Novices. He presented the scroll to Raven who took it with his head bowed, showing the proper reverence with which a Dahkshari was supposed to accept assignments.

Oleg returned to the chair behind his desk. “The Duke traditionally invites his family’s escorts to the Green Palace for dinner the night before a long journey. Plan to be there tomorrow at dusk dressed accordingly. You are dismissed, novice.”

Raven bowed, then made a crisp turn and walked out the door, shutting it behind him.

Oleg turned to Jalen. “Sounds like Labrend would have had an easier time bringing in a silver shark than Diliana.”

Jalen nodded. “I don’t think two veterans could have stopped her men, much less a novice and his counselor. They were well organized, motivated, and they had gryphons. Nothing a novice could have done.”

“We both know that, but does he?” Oleg asked. “What was his state of mind immediately following the escape, other than normal frustration?” Novices were appraised on how they reacted to their failures as much as their successes.

Jalen hesitated a moment, knowing that his report on Raven’s reaction as Diliana flew away could very well doom him to an early release. If Jalen’s worst fears were true, if Raven saw the mad cleric who killed his family in the faces of all sovereign clerics, then his release was mandatory.

Jalen cleared his throat. “He’s understandably disappointed about losing his first Mark. Although he broke the Accompaniment Rule, the way he conducted himself throughout the assignment was, overall, compliant with the Charter.”

Oleg gave Jalen a look that said, You’re hiding something and I know it. That stare could bring the truth out of a novice or Dahkshari faster than a Questioner, but Jalen resisted and returned it with the confidence he wish he felt.

Oleg grunted, and said, “Well. I’m sure you’ve already educated novice Labrend on the importance of obeying the Accompaniment Rule. Along with whatever else that requires correction. Is there anything you’d like to add, counselor?”

Jalen shook his head. “No, sir.”

Oleg nodded, and then grinned. “Very well. I will keep you no longer since I’m sure you’re eager to ready yourself for the big dinner tomorrow night.”

Jalen winced. Oleg loved to jab at Jalen’s known aversion to socializing with the elite of Andea. Jalen felt more comfortable sipping a mug of ale in a grimy, hole-in-the-ground tavern than dining in the finest halls of Dahkshar with a gathering of nobles. But a Dahkshari did have his duties...

Jalen bowed to Oleg and then left the Dean’s office, his thoughts returning to Raven. He replayed the entire hunt in his mind, from Raven’s grim enthusiasm for hunting Diliana to his poisonous outburst after her escape. Raven’s attitude during previous assignments had been calm and business-like, but this one was different. He had wanted to punish Diliana as if she had wronged him personally...or because she was a sovereign.

And should Jalen have told Oleg about Raven’s outburst as Diliana rode her gryphon into the night? If Raven did hate all sovereigns, would it not be better for him to be released now than to be humiliated later when the Charter rejects him during the bonding? Working toward that day for almost ten years and then to be humiliated in front of the Council, to be essentially revealed as a fraud, was something over which rejected novices were known to throw themselves off the towering Hall ramparts.

No, he would not give up on the lad now. He would just have to double his efforts, to make sure that Raven wanted the bonding for the right, honorable reasons, not as the first step toward his personal quest for vengeance.

Because a heart filled with hatred was not a safe place for one of the Reaping Keys.

Chapter five

A Kindred Miracle

Standing atop the lookout tower that soared above his ducal manor outside Mendahl was one of the few things that gave Thallan Brael any sort of peace now. His palatial manor sat atop a cliff that overlooked the Torrassian Sea to the west and the Great City of Mendahl to the north. The Duke of Mendahl watched the gulls circle above the crashing sea hundreds of paces below, their cries floating up to him on the wind. The sun was just setting below the horizon, and he could make out the specks of lanterns being lit in the city. Storm clouds were gathering in the southwest, and the occasional flash of lightning lit up the dusk sky like...

Like Loquathi cannon fire at night. The irony of that omen was not lost on Thallan.

A chilly blast of wind made him take a step backward, and he wrapped his maroon cloak tighter around his body. It was a wind that his northern Mendahli body should not have even noticed, but the second Reaping Key had magnified his senses a hundredfold over what they were with his first Key.

The enhanced sensations were exhilarating at first. During his journey back to Mendahl, he could hear people talking inside the houses he passed, could see fish swimming in the lakes just as well as any eagle. He could taste each individual spice and ingredient in his food. Even now the smells from the city over two miles away drifted toward him -- lamb roasting in the taverns, fishermen unloading their catches on the wharves, the flower gardens of the commoners.

His newfound abilities, though, came with a price. Soon after his return, he began to feel the biting cold of the wind more acutely, and the heat of a fire in a hearth only ten paces away made him feel like his clothes were ablaze. The nights were unbearable, too -- he could hear every gull cry, every scurrying mouse, and every snore from the Bracers of the Stag, his ducal guardsmen, sleeping in the barracks next to the manor.

And then there were the dreams.

Thallan glanced down from the tower at the manor’s vast open-air garden. It was the shape of a rectangle three hundred paces long by a hundred wide, and was surrounded on all sides by the four-story manor. The garden was more like a park, containing a small forest, ponds with fountains, and plots of flowers arranged in the red and white colors of Mendahl. It had once been the pride of House Brael and of Mendahl.

But it was now the place where the man he once was had died. Without Katerina’s loving supervision, the garden had turned wild. For months after her death, his servants had tried valiantly to keep the weeds and ivy from strangling the roses, violets, and tulips that once flourished there. But after Thallan dismissed them a year ago, the garden quickly fell to ruin. The dreams of what happened in it had haunted his nights before, but with the second Key, they were more frequent, more vivid. His family cried out to him in those dreams, cried out for vengeance.

Thallan looked to the southeast, to where the sky was already dark and the stars glittered. The Key of Wisdom, the literal key to his revenge, was in the direction of Alahn. And Thallan knew the Holder was a Dahkshari. His second Key not only told him where the Holder was, but also made him more aware of the Holder’s nature. Whereas he had needed the help of his Kindred allies to locate Graham Aidel and the Key of Conviction, locating the last Holder was as simple for him as determining the direction of the wind. The Dahkshari’s bonding to the Charter felt like prison shackles to Thallan. Even before the murders of his family, he had never understood how Dahksharis could bond themselves to a Faith-wrought scroll that took away so much of their free will--

Thallan started when he realized he had walked down the tower’s spiral staircase and had arrived at the bottom door without remembering his descent or even deciding to leave the balcony. He shook his head. These lost moments seemed to be happening more and more lately. He always told himself it was the lack of sleep that clouded his mind. And as before, that explanation seemed to satisfy him.

Thallan emerged from the tower stairwell and into the overgrown garden. He could not help but feel a catch in his throat whenever he walked through this particular area of the garden. Though vines and saw grass had long ago covered the ground were it happened, Thallan still thought he would see the burn marks if he only stared long enough. But he never did, and he never would.

Thallan shook his head. He realized “never” was a word that no longer applied him. Before his family was murdered, he “never” would have wanted to prolong a war in which the enemy had essentially given up. He “never” would have even considered assassinating the Queen after she refused to listen to his arguments against negotiating with the Loquathi. He “never” would have secretly recruited men known for their dissatisfaction with the Queen’s cowardice to overthrow her.

And being a Key Holder, he especially “never” would have accepted the help of a Kindred cleric to unite the Reaping Keys.

On his way to the Brael crypt on the other side of the garden, Thallan passed the partially constructed stage where the Queen would sign her treasonous pact with the Loquathi Padishah. The area around the stage was the one part of the garden that looked alive and tended. Mendahli landscapers had spent the last month cutting away weeds and planting red and white roses, while master carpenters had built the elaborate cedar stage. The workers would return tomorrow morning to resume labor on a project they thought would contribute to a more peaceful world.

In the end, it was Thallan’s plans that would ensure peace far better than the Queen’s betrayal.

Thallan’s family crypt was a hundred paces past the stage, beyond a copse of oak and cedar trees. The entrance to the crypt was a three hundred year old granite building five paces long and wide. The marching stag sigil of House Brael was etched above the door. Thallan took a key from his cloak and opened the iron-banded oak door. The door’s loud screeching and the scent of wet earth staggered his enhanced senses, and he had to fight to keep from passing out from the pain. After a few moments, he made his way down the wide stairway lit by fresh torches in bronze wall sconces. A fiery red glow emanated from the crypt below.

Thallan stopped midway. The piercing sound of the door had blocked the Kindred chants rising from the crypt. Clenching his teeth, Thallan rushed down the stairs. At the bottom, he saw Ferahtu and his young apprentice, Zuhr Shaphat, sitting on their knees five paces apart facing each other. Zuhr’s head was shaved like Ferahtu’s, but unlike Ferahtu, Zuhr had blue eyes and a normal pallor to his fair skin. Between the Kindred lay a thin, black-haired young man wearing the clothes and stench of a beggar. His wrists were shackled and a white piece of cloth was tied around his mouth. He stared blankly at the ceiling, the labored heaving of his chest indicating he still lived.

All three were in front of the marble sarcophagi of his wife and daughters.

“Ferahtu,” Thallan said, anger making his voice quiver, “not in front of my family.”

The pale Kindred stopped chanting. He turned to face Thallan, a meek smile playing on his purple lips. “My lord,” he said, “we were not going to perform the miracle here. We were simply preparing ourselves for the grace of the Daevas.”

Ferahtu’s black eyes stared at Thallan. “You told us to wait here for you before taking the sacrifice down to the catacombs.”

Thallan blinked, confused for a moment. Why would I tell them to wait in front of my wife and children? Thallan shook his head. He could not remember issuing such an order, but he must have if Ferahtu said he did.

“Very well,” Thallan said, grabbing the nearest torch. He walked past the two Kindred, feeling their eyes follow him. “Bring the...sacrifice.”

Thallan stared at his family’s sarcophagi as he walked by. Their likenesses were sculpted into the foot ends of each marble tomb. Katerina, her long hair styled up in braids as she had worn it on their wedding day. Laural, his teenage daughter’s hair in one long braid, and her head tilted to the left as she did while thinking hard over her studies. Jessica, her five-year-old hair hanging in two braids over the front of her shoulders, her playful smile dimpling her cheeks.

Soon, he thought as he tore his gaze away. Soon I will be with you again. But there are some things I must do first.

Beyond their sarcophagi lay dozens of Brael tombs neatly arranged in two columns with a torch-lit aisle in between. Thallan passed the coffins of Brael royalty without a glance, heading for the metal drain grate at the far corner of the crypt. He produced a key from his cloak and opened the grate, its hinges groaning loudly after years of neglect, a sound that split his eardrums once again. He shone the torch on the darkened stairway, the steps eroded to mere bumps by centuries of dripping water. He turned, saw Ferahtu and Zuhr on either side of the sacrifice. The dazed man was standing, still wearing that blank stare. Thallan did not know what the Kindred had done to him...and he did not want to know. He propped the grate against the wall and stepped down into the blackness.

The narrow stairs were roughly hewn from the rock, unlike the elegant marble-lined steps that led to the crypt. Thallan had to walk sideways to fit his wide shoulders through the narrow well. He heard the gurgling of the underground river to which the stairs led, and the scent of dank mildew filled the humid air. This passage had been built centuries ago, when the Mendahli palace had to withstand sieges from its neighbors during the Chaos Age. It became a secret entry and exit -- along with a ready supply of fresh water -- which no one outside the immediate Brael family knew of to this day.

No one would hear anything that happened tonight.

The well opened into a dark cavern with the sound of rushing water nearby. Thallan waved his torch around to illuminate the ten-pace wide river splashing over rocks and boulders along the shore. Stalactites hung from the ceiling, and a coating of moisture covered the ground. Thallan stepped onto the narrow pathway to his right, careful not to slip on the wet stone, and walked along side the twisting riverbed. The Kindred and the sacrifice followed in silence.

Almost fifty paces from the stairwell, Thallan stopped at an area where the pathway widened into a large alcove that bulged a dozen paces into the rock. When he shone his torch in it, four large rats scurried away in different directions. He had found this place when he was a boy, and had endured many an imaginary siege by the Kindred with his brothers and sister. After tonight, this place would mean something else to him. Another pleasant memory sacrificed for justice, he thought bitterly.

“Do it here,” Thallan told the Kindred.

Zuhr prodded the man toward the center of the alcove, the man’s dirty bare feet shuffling along the cave’s moist floor. Zuhr took a water skin from his cloak, twisted off the cap, and poured what looked like red sand in a circle around the man. Ferahtu, meanwhile, sat on his knees and began to chant. Once Zuhr finished pouring the sand, he also sat on his knees across from Ferahtu and joined in on the same chant. The entranced sacrifice stood facing the river.

Thallan leaned against the rock wall, watching the Kindred call on their Daevas to grant them their Faith. When he was a boy, his instructors at the Shields of Andea had taught him that Kindred Faith was dark and involved the calling of evil spirits to sustain it. Whereas clerics could siphon an eternal supply of Faith from their own souls, the Kindred instead called on their Daevas, dark versions of the Patrons who granted Faith to all those who asked. But Daeva Faith came with a price. The Kindred had to give up a piece of his soul to make room for the dark power. Once a Kindred’s soul was gone, so was his own source of Faith. But he became immortal so long as he continued to call on the Daevas.

Thallan’s Keys remembered the vicious nature of the Kindred Wars, which had almost destroyed Andea a century ago. The Kindred had once enjoyed protection under the Charter until they tried to overthrow the Orders and establish a new way of siphoning Faith, the Kindred way. A generation of civil war erupted, and only ended after the Dahksharis had slaughtered the last pocket of Kindred in Andea. It was a gruesome end to a horrific war about which even current Dahksharis were uncomfortable speaking.

And Thallan knew the man he used to be would have killed the two Kindred before they could perform their unholy ritual on the oblivious man standing in the circle. But the man he used to be had died the night his wife and daughters were murdered, leaving behind someone who could feel nothing but the echoes of his family’s tortured screams. If allying with the Kindred would grant him vengeance on those who committed the crime...so be it.

Ferahtu and Zuhr stopped chanting, then rose to their feet. Zuhr stood with his arms open wide, while Ferahtu passed his white hand in front of the sacrifice’s face. The man blinked several times, then looked at Ferahtu as if seeing him for the first time. He turned to Thallan. Thallan saw his fear-widened eyes in the flickering torchlight as the man yanked the gag from this mouth. Turning around, he saw the pathway back to the crypt and made a quick move toward it...but fell backward. He scrambled to his feet and tried to run in the other direction, but with the same result. He raised his shackled hands and felt the air around him. Where the circle of red sand had been drawn was an invisible barrier that kept the man in place. He sank to bony his knees.

“Who are you?” he asked, his voice quivering. “Why am I here?”

Ferahtu and Zuhr continued to chant, while Thallan simply stared at the man.

“Who are you?” the man shouted, a small cry following his plea for answers.

Zuhr walked around the circle and stood beside Ferahtu, both of them facing the shouting man, their backs to the alcove. But they seemed to stare right through the man, toward the river.

Thallan looked to where they were staring. Slowly, two wisps of pulsating green mist snaked along the rock from the water’s edge, the heads of the mist like the points of spears. The tendrils of mist were soon followed by more, all of them joining together to create a slow tide of crawling green. The man in the circle stopped shouting at the Kindred, then turned. A low moan escaped his throat when he saw the mist crawling toward him. The man turned to Thallan this time, tears streaming from his gray-blue eyes, begging Thallan to release him.

But Thallan looked away and watched the green mist.

The mist slithered over the red line of sand and surrounded the frantic man’s bare feet. As the Kindred chanting rose, so did the mist. The man screamed as the mist circled around his legs, up his torso, along each arm, and finally his head. The cadence of the Kindred voices picked up, and they were soon chanting as loud as the man was screaming.

The mist swirled around the sacrifice, its pulsations quickening. The man’s screams became more visceral and animal-like. His skin began to melt, running down his body like red candle wax. The man thrashed about, bouncing off the invisible wall, trying to wipe the mist off him. But it clung to him, devouring him. The man fell to the ground, his screaming stopped, breath escaping his lungs in gurgling bursts. It took only moments for the mist had reduced the sacrifice -- bones and flesh -- into a glistening pool of dark blood.

Ferahtu and Zuhr stopped chanting. After a few moments of quiet, they began a slower chant, barely whispering this time. The green mist swirled around the pool, making it boil. The mist divided itself into three whirlwinds over the bubbling gore, each whirlwind spinning faster and faster, until all three seemed to dive into the pool at the same time. When the Kindred stopped chanting again, the pool stopped seething.

Thallan watched, knowing that the success of his plans depended on what happened next. Moments came and went, but nothing happened. His gaze darted to Ferahtu and Zuhr, but they stared at the pool intently, willing the miracle to occur.

And then it happened.

The blood slowly divided itself into three separate pools, all three streaming to different parts of the circle. Once separate, the pools became motionless.

Then a clawed hand burst from the pool closest to the Kindred. It was red and bony, as if a man’s hand had been turned inside out. It had long talons on each of its five fingers. Another hand burst from the same pool and put its palm on the ground beside it. The first hand did the same thing, and Thallan watched a creature from the darkest corner of his Key’s memories pull itself out of the red gore. It was five feet tall with thin, but well muscled arms and legs. Blood from its birthing fluids covered gray, shriveled skin. The pool coalesced around it, joining with the creature until not a drop of blood was left. The monster turned its red, nightmare face toward Thallan. Patchy wisps of black, scraggly hair clung to its long, thin head. Its sharp yellow teeth were so large and numerous that they split the creature’s face in a permanent grisly smile.

And it had the same gray-blue eyes as the sacrifice.

A render, Thallan thought with wonder and revulsion. They were beasts that had not been seen on Andea since the Kindred Wars.

Two other renders pulled themselves from their crimson, birthing pools and stood before Ferahtu and Zuhr, mewling at the men who spawned them. Ferahtu turned to Thallan, his triumphant smile never reaching his empty black eyes.

“You have your army, my lord.”

Chapter six

Dinner and Politics

As Raven and his counselor rode to the Green Palace through the cobblestone streets of Alahn at dusk, he felt both angry and excited about his current assignment. Angry because he was denied the chance to resume the hunt for Diliana; excited because escort duty for House Mesalek was a high honor. It was guaranteed to focus the Council’s attention on the novices who performed it. If he carried out his duty well, he could still salvage his goal of becoming the youngest bonded Dahkshari in history.

But after hunting Diliana, escort duty bloody well felt like a punishment.

“Why does she want to cross the frontier?” he wondered aloud to Jalen. “Why doesn’t she take a ship to Mendahl?”

Jalen shrugged. “Lady Seala is known for her adventurous spirit. She may just find travel across the frontier more exciting than a quick ship.”

Raven grunted. “She’s going to be sorely disappointed, unless she loves endless grasslands and forests,” he said, turning his gray mare down the Royal Mall toward the gates of the immense Green Palace. “She can go to her country manor and see the same thing.”

Jalen eyed him sternly. “I hope your mood improves before we meet the Duke and the Lady Heiress.”

Raven recited part of the Dahkshari creed. “‘Duty with honor.’”

Jalen grinned and nodded. “‘Duty with honor.’”

The Green Palace stood at the end of an expanse of lush green grass called the Royal Mall, maybe a half-mile long and a hundred paces wide. A square pool took up most of the Mall’s center. In the middle of the pool was a circle of stone gryphons, their wings fully stretched, surrounding a towering fountain of water that Raven sensed was powered by Faith. With night approaching, the Mall was quickly filling up with hundreds of families eager for a good view of the Harvest Time fireworks later on.

Along either side of the Mall were two red brick streets lined with ash trees tinged with yellow from the onset of fall. Raven and Jalen trotted their horses down the right street, with the Mall on their left and the elegant, red stucco houses of Alahn’s noble families on their right. Each house was surrounded by a high stone wall, with a wrought iron gate the only way inside. In fact, the entire right side of the street was one long wall. Raven noticed lanterns flickering in most of the houses, and wondered if many of the nobles were spending Harvest Time in the city rather than their country estates.

Throughout his years in Alahn, Raven had gazed upon the Green Palace from the Hall’s ramparts, but had never actually entered its gates. Though Duke Mesalek was the only duke in Andea to allow commoners to tour his palace, Raven had never taken one. It was a combination of his instructors keeping him busy at the Hall, and a lack of interest since he had long since become accustomed to it on Alahn’s landscape.

But the palace became something different when experienced up close. Its bronze plated dome dominated the entire structure, and hundreds of yellow, Faith-wrought lamps ringed the perimeter of the dome making it glitter bright enough to be noticed by sea vessels from miles around. Columned balconies circled the round base of the dome for three stories before ending at the three-story lower portion of the palace. Great marble columns lined the entire outside of the palace, with huge green Faith-lamps at the base of each column giving it an emerald tint. A five-pace tall marble wall, similar to Alahn’s, surrounded the entire palace grounds.

When Raven and Jalen arrived at the palace’s gate, an Alahnen Sentinel wearing chain mail and green and silver livery approached them. Two other Sentinels holding ornate halberds stood on either side of the gate. They were both at attention with their eyes staring forward.

“Good evening, Dahksharis,” the Sentinel said. “Could I have your names and the purpose of your visit?”

Raven presented the Dean’s scroll to the Sentinel. “I am Dahkshari Raven Labrend and this is Dahkshari Jalen Drummond. The Duke has invited us to dine with him and the Lady Heiress this evening.”

The Sentinel broke the seal on the scroll and read it. After finishing, he rolled it up again and handed it back to Raven. “Yes, you are expected.”

He told Raven and Jalen to wait a moment while he had the gate opened. When the two halves of the iron gate creaked outward, Raven spurred his horse forward.

The Dahksharis rode down the long gravel road that divided the palace’s vast, well-clipped lawn. They stopped near the wide steps that led up to the palace’s entrance. A green liveried stable man took the reins of Raven’s horse as he stepped down, then, along with Jalen’s brown, led the two mares away. Raven looked after his gray horse, wondering if her accommodations in the Duke’s stables were better than his own quarters in the Academy.

He inspected the novice sash -- blue with white trim --around his waist and straightened its creases and folds. He smoothed out the wrinkles in his black cloak and secured the buckle on his sword belt, imagining the horror of his scabbard falling to the marble floor with an echoing clang upon meeting the Duke and Lady Seala.

Jalen chuckled. “You looked fine back at the Hall and you look fine now.”

Without looking at Jalen, Raven said, “Maybe you’re used to dining with royalty, but this is my first time meeting a Duke.” After feeling the back of his head for stray wisps of hair that were not tied into the back knot, Raven grasped for a trickle of Faith to calm his nerves. Why did he feel more nervous about this dinner than he ever had while fighting bandits or chasing that heretic witch?

“Ready?” Jalen asked.

“Yes,” Raven said, and then climbed the stairs.

At the top, two more Sentinels stood on either side of the great oak double-doors watching Raven and Jalen approach. The large men were at ease, their hands clasped behind their backs. They were adorned in the same armor and livery as the Sentinels at the gate. These men, however, wore swords at their belts that looked well used, along with the stony expressions of men prepared to wield them. They were not posted here for show like the guards at the gate -- they were here for protection. Raven hated to admit that their stares made him feel as if he were a rabbit being sized up by two wolves.

The two men snapped a quick salute -- fists over their hearts -- then each grabbed a door handle and opened the thick double-doors. Raven nodded at the two men and entered the Green Palace.

The palace’s entry way was just as impressive as the outside. Before him was the largest marble staircase he had ever seen. It wound its way along the curved wall and up to the balcony overlooking the palace doors. The ceiling was perhaps twenty paces high. A chandelier with white Faith-lamps made the crystal glitter like stars against the gray ceiling. The floor of the entry way was a polished, dark green stone that shimmered beneath the chandelier’s light. In the center of the floor was the Alahnen sigil -- a large heron with its wings spread wide -- made with silver and white tiles.

Two figures appeared at the top of the stairs. One of the figures was a tall man with steel-gray hair and beard. Numerous medals were pinned to his gray jacket with green trim. Holding onto his arm was...

Raven guessed that Lady Seala Mesalek was twenty years old. Her long auburn hair was in a single braid and draped over her slender shoulder, a style recently made popular by Queen Gianni. She wore a light green gown that was not as colorful as Raven had seen other noble ladies wear, but was elegant in its understated simplicity. A white shawl was entwined through her arms.

Jalen said she was beautiful, but Faith...!

When Lady Seala and the Duke neared the foot of the stairs, Jalen clicked his tongue. Raven glanced at him and saw him bowing. Raven quickly bowed as well.

“Please rise, Dahksharis,” the Duke said with a warm smile. “I am Joseph Mesalek and this is my daughter Seala. I want to welcome you both to the Green Palace.”

Not knowing what else to say to a Duke and a Lady Heiress, Raven said, “Thanks.”

He winced. Graceful.

Seala smiled. “If you would follow us to the dining room, Dahksharis.”

Her jade eyes lingered on Raven for a moment before she and the Duke walked past him and through an archway to the right that opened into a long hallway. The scent of jasmine floated in Seala’s wake.

Jalen passed Raven, whispered, “Close your mouth.”

The corridor held dozens of paintings and tapestries, reminding Raven of the Hall’s labyrinthine passages. Each painting was a portrait of past Dukes and Duchesses from House Mesalek. Some depicted crowned men and women sitting on thrones, Alahnen monarchs from the time before Alahn joined the Commonwealth. Others showed Alahnen dukes and duchesses on horseback with drawn swords or crossbows. At the end of the corridor, Seala opened the double doors and entered the dining room.

It was not the large banquet hall about which Raven had heard stories. The room was a dozen paces square, with more paintings and tapestries adorning the walls. Vases with all colors of orchids sat upon polished wood pedestals beneath the paintings. A small square table in the center of the room was set for four with gold forks and knives, gold-trimmed porcelain plates, and crystal glasses. He assumed this was the place where the Duke entertained private guests.

Seala motioned Raven toward the right side of the table, and Jalen to the left, across from Raven. The Lady sat down across from her father.

“I would like to thank you both for coming on such short notice,” the Duke explained once they were all seated. “With the outbreak of Sickness in Prashaad, I must stay here and ready our healers in case the disease spreads to Alahnen territory. The Lady Heiress is taking my place at the treaty ceremonies and must get underway immediately.”

Raven nodded to the Duke, and asked, “My lord, I was curious, why would the Lady Heiress want to journey across the frontier instead of taking a fast, safe ship?”

Seala spoke up. “I might be able to answer that question better than my father, Dahkshari Raven.”

Raven turned to Seala, feeling the heat of embarrassment on his face. Again with the graceful words... “Forgive me, my lady,” he stammered, “I didn’t mean to--”

“Do not be silly, Dahkshari,” her smile creating a small dimple on her right cheek. “To answer your question: I wish to journey across the frontier because I have never seen it. Since I am to rule Alahn’s portion of it one day, I want to see the land and the people I shall be ruling. I feel that the best way to learn this is not by reading someone else’s vision in a book, but by actually going there, to see it and experience it myself.” Then giving the Duke a rueful smile, she said, “Unfortunately my opinion is not shared with my father.”

The Duke frowned. “It is not.” Turning to Raven, he said, “I agree with you, Dahkshari. The Commonwealth’s navy would give my daughter a safer and faster journey.” Then glancing back at Seala, “But the Lady Heiress can be very stubborn.”

Though his face was stern, Raven heard the Duke’s obvious pride in Lady Seala’s obstinacy. She must have taken her father’s words as a compliment because her smile only widened.

Four servants entered the room carrying platters filled with the Torrassian Sea’s most succulent bounty: broiled silver shark with a crust of herbs and spices, scallops baked in butter and garlic, small seashells topped off with a filling of diced conch meat, breading, and cream cheese. There were platters of seaweed salads garnished with sprouts and water chestnuts. Various loaves of dark and white bread that Raven had never seen before accompanied the main course. The smells alone were more intoxicating than any ale Raven had ever drunk.

“Dahkshari Raven,” Seala said, “what was your last assignment like? Is a Dahkshari’s life as exciting as the stories say it is?”

Raven gripped his fork tight. How to find the right words to describe one of the greatest humiliations of his Dahkshari life and not make himself look like an incompetent fool...

“Well, my lady, we tracked a criminal heretic named Diliana Losala--”

“Losala? Is she not the sovereign who speaks out against the Orders?”

Raven cleared his throat, taking a moment think of how best to educate the naive Lady Heiress without being too patronizing. “She did more than speak out this time. She and her band of outlaws robbed a caravan full of keeria root headed for Prashaad. They wounded four Andean soldiers--”

“I heard what she did, and I’d hardly call stunning a squad of soldiers ‘wounding’ them.”

Raven stared at Seala. He could not believe that he was listening to a Lady Heiress of an Andean province defend the crimes of heretic bandits. Faith, she was going to be a Duchess one day! Was she not supposed to uphold the law throughout her province? He felt the pressure of Jalen’s foot on his own underneath the table, but ignored it.

“It seems a Lady Heiress would understand the danger of having lawless heretics roaming the frontier.”

“And it seems a Dahkshari would recognize the tyrannical nature of the amendment to the Charter proposed by the Orders to restrict sovereign Faith rights.”

Raven took a deep breath. “I happen to support the Orders’ efforts. There are too many uneducated heretics roaming the frontier and the Great Cities. They simply do not have the wisdom and training to use their Faith properly.”

Seala’s eyes narrowed as she stared back at Raven. Although Raven had only known her for a few minutes, he could tell that it was taking all of her upbringing to keep from shouting at him.

“You would deny Andeans the right to heal their diseases and wounds,” she asked, “or aid their harvests, or defend even themselves?”

Jalen pressed harder on Raven’s foot.

“This land would be a much safer place without every peasant with a little intelligence siphoning a power that they do not understand and cannot control. My lady.”

Raven felt a sizzle of Faith enter his foot. He cast a questioning glance at his counselor, but Jalen’s stern face told him everything. Raven suddenly remembered where he was and that the Duke, Seala’s father, was sitting to his left, watching the debate with interest and a little...amusement? Even with his meager diplomatic skills, Raven knew he should not be arguing with the Lady Heiress of Alahn, especially in her own home.

Raven gave a conciliatory smile. “Forgive me, my lady. I did not wish to argue. It seems we must agree to disagree.”

Seala shrugged and said, “Free opinions are part of the Charter.” Then with a mischievous smile, “I believe it’s in the same section as the right of all Andeans to practice their Faith.”

Jalen suddenly interrupted. “Lady Seala, what are some of the sights you wish to see on the frontier during your journey?”

Seala and her father strolled arm and arm back to her chambers in the palace’s upper north wing. Here and there, servants in green and silver livery extinguished most of the lamps for the night, giving their curtsies as Seala and the Duke passed.

She always enjoyed this time alone with her father -- his duties and her obligations prevented them from spending time with each other like a normal father and daughter. Not that a Duke and his heir could have a normal father-daughter relationship, she thought wistfully, wishing not for the first time that her family were simple frontier folk whose only worries were for themselves and not an entire province.

The Duke was a quiet man who only spoke when he had something to say, but his strength of character was undeniable. His broad shoulders could have belonged to a dockworker on the Arciola River, and his piercing stare motivated his subjects more forcefully than his words ever could. That stare had almost made Seala back down to him a few times. Almost. It was usually the other way around, she thought with a smile.

“Captain Haimes has informed me that he will be able to assemble twenty-five Sentinels,” her father said. “He had to pull some men from your cousin Belok’s manor, which I’m sure I’ll hear about soon enough. Belok Ishaia is so paranoid that he thinks legions of Loquathi pike men allied with haruun will overrun his coastal manor any day now.”

Seala gave her a father a sideways glance. “Ten men would be more than enough.”

“Don’t argue with me on this,” he said. “You should be grateful that I am allowing this adventure at all.”

Looking up at him with the most innocent expression she could muster, she said, “I am grateful. But I do not want the frontier folk to think that an army is riding down on them when they see me approaching. The whole objective of this ‘adventure’ is to introduce myself to the people and reassure them that I will rule this land with as fair a hand as you have.”

Her father arched an eyebrow. “Your flattery will not work this time. The frontier is still a dangerous place and I will not have the ducal heir to Alahn traveling without a well-armed escort. That’s final.”

Seala knew when she could push her father and when she could not. This time was one of the latter. She wanted the frontier folk to see her as a benevolent duchess, not a tyrant who used the army to say, “Behave, or else.” They were already wary of the nobles and the Orders, and seeing twenty-five armed Alahnen Sentinels approaching their homes was not the benign message she wanted to send. Though it was a condition she had agreed to before her father would let her cross the frontier, it did not stop her from trying to persuade him to change his mind.

Trying to change the subject, her father said, “Has your uncle responded to any of your letters?”

She shook her head. “No. The only thing I have received from him is the official invitation to the treaty ceremony.”

Her uncle Thallan’s silence was an unsettling mystery to her. In her years at the Royal Conservatory he had written to her at least once a month, offering her bits of wisdom and encouragement, keeping the Mendahli custom of mentoring the children of his wife’s family. Even when war with Loquath broke out, he still wrote to her despite receiving the Queen’s commission of Lord General of the Southwest Legions.

But his letters had ceased after his family was murdered. She had sent him words of comfort, words of love, words of hope and a little bit of her own wisdom, but they did not seem to bring him out of his terrible grief. His letters immediately following the tragedy were filled with anguish and heartbreak, but over time they became terse and angry. They had ceased altogether six months ago. When she heard that Thallan had offered to host the peace treaty ceremonies, she was happy that he had obviously obtained some sort of personal peace with the Loquathi, but confused and hurt that he never wrote to her to tell her about it. It was one of the first things about which she would ask him when she reached Mendahl.

When they stopped at her chamber door, her father turned to her. “Remember to have Josyn wake you early tomorrow morning. The Dahksharis want to reach Fort Belen by nightfall.”

“I know.”

“And pack light. The Sentinels are there for your protection, not for hauling your cargo.”

“I know.”

He thought for a moment, then said, “When you reach Mendahl, send--”

“--a courier from the gryphon Corps. I know all of this, along with the things that you are forgetting.” Looking up at him, she sighed. “I’ll be fine.”

Looking unconvinced, he kissed her forehead and said, “Good night, duchess.”

“Good night, papa.”

Before entering her chambers, she watched her father walk down the corridor toward his own chambers several doors back down the hall. After her mother died of the Sickness four years ago, her father had made every effort to keep his children safe from any danger. As they grew up, though, she knew he realized that some of the things his children wanted to do -- and had to do -- were quite often dangerous. He had hated to watch her younger brothers Marcus and Logan join the Commonwealth Army when the war began, but he told her that if he had to ask Alahnen mothers and fathers to sacrifice their sons, he could not in all honor hold back his own sons. Marcus and Logan had survived the war, thank the Patrons, and would soon return home as heroes.

But now that his sons were returning, his oldest child, his ducal heir, was about to travel through one of the most dangerous regions on the Two Continents. She knew that he admired her bravery and agreed with her reasoning for the journey. But that did not mean he liked it.

When Seala opened the door to her chambers, she almost ran into a liveried man carrying a large wood chest.

“Forgive me, my lady,” the man said, and wound his way around her. Two other men followed, each carrying a stack of smaller chests. Across the receiving room and through the door to Seala’s bed room, Josyn stood in front of the walk-in wardrobe telling a maid which dresses, shoes, and jackets to pack.

“Josyn,” Seala called out to her maid, “I told you to pack light.”

Josyn looked up, exasperation filling her young, narrow face. “My lady, how can I? We will be two weeks on the frontier, where only the Patrons know what kind of weather we’ll encounter. Then there is the treaty ceremony in Mendahl, and then the balls afterwards...”

Though only two years older than Seala, and having grown up together, Josyn often fretted over Seala as if she were Seala’s mother. But other times Josyn was the best friend in whom Seala could always confide. Being the older of three siblings, Seala quite often needed a big sister instead of a doting mother. Like now.

“I will not have the Sentinels performing dual service as laborers. What did you put in the chests that were just taken out?”

Josyn thought for a moment, then said, “The big chest had your gowns for the ceremony and the dances. The smaller chests had five riding dresses--”

“Good. Pack one more chest with jewelry and perfume for the ceremony, and then that will be all.”

“But my lady, five riding dresses are not enough for every day of the journey.”

“We will simply wash my soiled dresses in a stream or river along the way.”

Josyn was aghast. “My lady, I will not wash your fine clothes in some--”

“Josyn, please.”

Her maid sighed, then told the servant waiting patiently with two gowns draped over her arms to replace them in the wardrobe and assemble the Lady’s jewelry.

Seala returned to her receiving room and began searching the shelves that filled one of her walls for a few books to bring on the journey. Flora and Fauna of the Northwestern Frontier. She would need the detailed diagrams in that one if she were to identify the plants and animals she encountered. A Study of Haruun Anatomy. Interesting, but she doubted whether she would find a dead haruun along the way, much less have the time to study one. Siphoning Abilities of Frontier Clerics. That would be informative when she encountered frontier villages inhabited by sovereigns. Keeria Root: Bane of the Sickness. An old book, and one she had read many times, but it could be useful when she finally studied raw keeria in its natural frontier soil.

As Seala thumbed through The Possible Origins of the Parikh Cave, she heard Josyn approach from the bedchamber.

“So,” Josyn said, easing into her big sister voice, “what were the Dahksharis like? More importantly, were they handsome?”

Seala rolled her eyes. “These men will be guarding our lives and all you can think of is whether or not they are handsome.”

“Well?”

Seala put the Parikh Cave book on the stack of books she was gathering, and went back to the shelves. As she searched the titles, she said, “The counselor is quiet, but seems very wise. Though he’s probably my father’s age, something about him makes him seem much older. It is strange, really, but comforting at the same time.”

“And the novice?”

“The novice,” she said, her nose crinkling. “His ignorance of the Charter is appalling for someone who wants to be a Dahkshari. Can you believe that he actually supports the Orders’ proposal to do away with individual Faith rights?”

“He told you this?” She laughed. “Did he not know your views?”

“I made them clear to him, but the man argued with me anyway. He said that the world would be a much safer place without peasants with a little intelligence wanting to practice their Faith. Their own Faith!” Seala found another interesting book and turned to put it on the stack. “And if that man thinks that I will be silent with my opinions during the-- What?”

Josyn was smiling the smile that told Seala she knew something that Seala did not know. “Is he handsome?”

“Handsome?” Seala said. “I don’t care that he’s handsome! He’s a--”

“So he is handsome?” The smile widened, infuriating Seala even more.

“All right, so maybe he’s pleasant to look at, but that does not mean I find him attractive. Unlike you, I look at a man’s good character first.”

Josyn reached over and picked up the book on the top of Seala’s stack, sat down in the nearby reading chair, and began idly turning the pages. “Oh, a wise approach, my lady, no doubt.”

Seala stared at Josyn. “Say it.”

Josyn looked up, innocence personified. “Say what, my lady?”

“Say what you need to say before you burn you up.”

“Well, I don’t really think it’s consequential, but...” Josyn returned to the book, and said, “I was just thinking about Eddard Rathian.”

Seala almost threw a book at Josyn.

“These are two completely different situations.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“And even if I did find this Raven fellow attractive--”

“Is that his name?” Josyn asked, looking up. “Does he have dark hair like a raven? Is it long and tied back like the Dahksharis always wear it?”

Ignoring Josyn, Seala continued. “If I did find this Dahkshari attractive, it would be an impossible arrangement. Bonded Dahksharis cannot marry.”

Smiling mischievously, she said, “He’s not a bonded Dahkshari yet.”

Seala folded her arms. “Are you finished with your own packing?”

Josyn rose from her seat and put the book back on Seala’s stack. “I only need to gather a few more items.” Then curtsying, she said, “If my lady will excuse me, I will finish my packing and leave you to your thoughts.” Looking down at the Flora and Fauna book, she said, “Thoughts of wild, dark birds...”

“Good night, Josyn.”

Josyn smiled, and then went to the chamber door. Before she left, Seala said, “Josyn?”

“My lady?”

The excitement for the coming journey starting to build in her once more, she said, “We’re going to have fun on this voyage.”

Worry replaced her smile. Seala knew that Josyn shared her father’s belief that a journey across the frontier was a dangerous idea.

“I hope so.” Curtsying again, she said, “Good night, my lady.”

Once the servant had finished packing Seala’s jewelry and perfume, she set the chest near the door, then extinguished the lamps in the receiving room as Seala changed into her night gown. With the chamber door shut, Seala extinguished her bedchamber’s lamps and went to her window to stare out at Alahn and the Torrassian Sea beyond. The moon was high and its reflection off the calm sea matched the glittering lanterns of the city. She opened one of the windows, felt a cool, fall breeze that made the side curtains sway. She saw the Harvest Time fireworks pop and sparkle over the sea, and she heard the faint, delighted cheers from the watching crowds.

Her father was right -- this was an “adventure.” Though she would never admit it to her father, it was the primary reason why she had wanted to go. What was out there on the frontier? How did the people live? What were they like? Cruising along the sea from one Great City to another on a ship would never answer those questions for her. She had to see for herself. Yes this would be an adventure, and it would be fun.

Even if “Dahkshari” Raven found something else about which to “agree to disagree” with her. She still could not fathom how a novice Dahkshari would want to erase from the Charter one of the most fundamental rights of all Andeans. Dahksharis were supposed to protect the Charter, not want to dismantle it. The Dahksharis were the only Order of Faith that was officially against such a drastic action -- why was this one novice for it?

Despite his ignorance, though, she did respect him in one regard -- at least he was willing to stand up to the heir of Alahn for his beliefs, misguided though they were. Most men at official dinners agreed with her to her face, but then chuckled at her “quaint” political views when they walked away, as Josyn had overheard a Senator do while leaving the Palace one night. The Dahkshari may be ignorant, she thought, but at least he has a spine...and he is handsome...

Seala was suddenly furious with herself and at Josyn. She was right, it was Eddard Rathian all over again. Seala was allowing herself to admire Raven simply because he argued with her. That would not do. He was a novice Dahkshari destined to bond with a Charter that was a jealous mistress, one who did not allow her Dahksharis to love anything before her. No, she could not allow herself to entertain such thoughts during the journey. She would treat the man according to his station as her escort, and nothing more.

If she could only stop thinking about his long black hair--

Bloody Josyn!

Chapter seven

Into the Frontier

Four days out of Alahn, Raven watched the fifty or so men of Fort Kilfina salute the entire column of twenty-five Sentinels, three wagons, two Dahksharis, a personal maid, and the Lady Heiress of Alahn. The column passed by the stone walls of the last Alahnen outpost they would encounter on their journey. The men lined the ramparts cheering and waving the green and silver barred Alahnen flag, along with the Falcon and Stars of Andea. Seala sat straight in her saddle, smiling and waving in a regal fashion. Raven heard the soldiers until the column descended into a shallow grass valley and the cheers blended with the wind.

They were now on the frontier.

Raven rode in the middle of the caravan, ten paces behind Seala and Josyn. Ahead of them was a formation of twelve Sentinels with their commander, Captain Leo Haimes, riding with Jalen at the front. Behind Raven were the three wagons that carried their provisions and baggage. Another formation of twelve Sentinels formed the rear guard.

All the Sentinels wore green and silver livery with chain mail shirts underneath. The hilts of their long swords pointed straight toward the sky from the scabbards attached to their backs, and each face was as hard as the steel helmets on their heads. It was obvious the Duke had gathered the best men in the Sentinels to guard his daughter on her journey.

The vastness of the frontier grasslands made Raven feel like he was on a rolling sea of green and brown. His only experience on the frontier had been at Bently Fork, which was on the very fringe where trees were still abundant and wisps of smoke from villages could be seen on the horizon. Now he was the heart of the Andean continent. There were no trees, no smoke, and practically no road on which to travel. He could make out the hazy, jagged peaks of the Skrill Mountains on the horizon straight ahead, probably three days off. Birds occasionally darted across the sky, but Raven neither saw nor heard any animals. The only things he could hear were the clomping of horse hooves in the soft earth, the breeze through the tall grass, ... and Josyn and Seala’s whispering ahead of him.

He couldn’t hear what they said, but he knew it was about him. Josyn would whisper something and then turn to give him a mischievous smile. Seala sat rigid in her saddle, often times shaking her head and casting angry glares at Josyn, but never glancing at Raven. When he was an adolescent in Hartig’s Point beginning to notice girls as something other than objects to tease, he was positive he would understand them by the time he reached the “old” age of twenty. Now that he was twenty, he understood women less than that twelve-year-old boy did back then.

Seala had confounded him from the moment he met her. After arguing with her during their first meeting, she had said little else to him during the ensuing four days on the road. Had he offended her that deeply with his views? Since she was such a self-declared champion of the Charter, shouldn’t she be more tolerant of differing opinions? After their first meeting, he concluded that she was just another spoiled noble girl who, though spouting Charter tenets of free expression, threw childish fits when disagreed with. Raven considered her views of Faith freedoms perfect for dinnertime debates about a fantasy world, but he knew first hand what a danger heretics were to the real world.

But they did not travel long before he found out there was more to her than intolerance and a beautiful face.

On the first day of the journey, once they were outside Alahn, Seala climbed from her carriage and jumped on her horse with the practiced ease of a cavalryman. It was a clue that, had Raven remembered, would have saved him some embarrassment later in the day. Upon reaching a rain-swollen stream about five paces wide, Raven had suggested that Seala return to her carriage rather than risk getting soaked when the horses crossed the stream.

She said, “Not one drop of water will touch me when I cross that stream.”

As diplomatically as he could, Raven said, “My lady, you will get wet if you ride across it.”

Grinning, she said, “Who said I was going to ride across?” With that, she spurred her horse into a gallop toward the stream. At the last moment, her horse jumped the rushing water and landed gracefully on the other side. She guided her horse a ways down the road, then turned around and galloped toward the stream again, jumping and landing with as much skill as the first time. She rode up to Raven, facing the opposite direction, and stopped her horse a few paces behind him. She then made the horse walk backwards until she was even with Raven, wearing a proud smile that made him grin despite himself.

“I didn’t know my lady was such an accomplished rider,” Raven said, impressed.

“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me, Dahkshari Raven,” she said. “Never assume anything, because I will always surprise you.” With a sly glance, she turned her horse and followed the Sentinels through the stream, making just as large of a splash and getting just as wet as the soldiers.

Later that night, Captain Haimes told Raven with a chuckle that Seala had been the Alahnen women’s riding champion for the last three years straight.

Mostly during the voyage, however, it seemed as if she deliberately ignored him. But then sometimes he would catch her giving him a considering stare from across the cook fire at night, or in the daytime while riding nearby. And there were times like right now when Josyn was obviously teasing her about something. Could it be him?

Jalen rode up next to him, interrupting Raven’s confused musings over Seala. “Captain Haimes said there’s a village of frontier clerics ahead. He suggests we camp there for the night.”

Raven grimaced. “Heretics.”

“Their village is known to have strong wood walls,” Jalen said. “The Captain says that we’re entering haruun territory.”

Raven nodded reluctantly. The walls would provide the Lady Heiress with better protection than their tents. And protection of his charge always took priority over his own preferences.

“How far?” Raven asked.

“We should reach it before dusk.”

“Very well,” Raven said. “Tell Captain Haimes that we’ll camp at this village tonight. I’ll inform the Lady Heiress.”

Jalen nodded, and then rode to the front of the column. Raven spurred his horse so that he came even with Seala. Josyn stopped what she was whispering when he approached. Surprised, Seala turned to him. “Yes, Dahkshari Raven?”

“Forgive me, my lady, I did not mean to startle you.”

“You didn’t. What do you want?”

“I just wanted to inform you that we’ll be camping in a frontier village tonight.”

“So?”

“I, ah, just thought you would be excited to know that. I know how much you wanted to meet some frontier folk.” He nodded quickly, said, “My lady,” and then let his horse fall back to where he was before.

Seala stared ahead for a moment, then turned around in her saddle. She looked regretful as she brought her horse even with his.

“Forgive me,” she said. “I did not intend to snap at you like that.”

“I took no offense, my lady.”

“Good,” she said, “because I am grateful for your service.”

“Thank you, my lady.”

Looking down at her saddle, she said, “I know I haven’t shown it throughout this journey, but I think you’ve been a fine escort.” Then added, “And Dahkshari Jalen, too, of course.”

“Of course.” Now she’s being nice to me? he thought. Why the sudden courtesy?

They rode next to each other in silence for a several long moments. Raven struggled to find something to say to her, something that a Lady Heiress would find remotely interesting. Do Lady Heiresses have hobbies? What do they do when they’re not going to balls or hosting dinners for other nobles? In fact, what did they do?

Of course! She’s a rider.

They both spoke at the same time.

“What do--,” he said.

“Can I--,” she said.

They both smiled, and then Raven said, “You first, my lady.”

“I was just wondering if I might ask you a personal question.”

Warily, Raven said, “Of course.”

“That night at dinner, when we ‘agreed to disagree,’” she said, “I sensed that you harbored some sort of anger toward sovereigns. May I ask why?”

Raven tensed. She had to ask him a question that he would not answer. How could he tell her that he hated himself just as much as he hated that heretic for killing his family? How could he tell her that he had hid in fear while his father and Arianna were murdered?

Seala must have sensed that her question was too personal by his uncomfortable silence. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that.”

Raven shook his head. “It’s no bother, my lady. If you will excuse me, I must, uh, consult with my counselor on some matters. Excuse me.”

Before she could say more, he rode off toward Jalen and Captain Haimes at the head of the column.

It would be so easy to tell her everything, and then to let her tell him that it wasn’t his fault, that he shouldn’t blame himself. You were only twelve years old, she would say. There was nothing you could have done. And it would be so easy to believe her, to let her words comfort him.

But he would know. He would know for the rest of his life what he let happen. He knew his inaction that night would haunt him until he found the madman, or was at least assured of his death.

Raven had seen Seala’s kindness first hand -- the way she gave an encouraging word to each soldier, knew them all by name. The way she treated the people in the villages they had passed through during the journey, as if she were the commoner and they the heirs to Alahn. He did not deserve that kindness. And he did not want it, either. It would only distract him from finding the madman.

Arriving at the front of the column, Jalen glanced at Raven, and his brow furrowed. Raven looked away, not wanting to explain his conversation with Seala nor his current mood, which his demeanor must have conveyed.

“We should arrive at the settlement within two hours,” Jalen said.

Raven nodded.

After a moment, the counselor said, “Now would be a good time to practice the Sequence.”

Raven nodded again. Yes, now would be a good time to practice, especially with his memories and emotions clouding the clear mind he needed during an assignment.

He took a deep breath, made his chest expand to its limit, and then exhaled until all of the air left his lungs. He repeated the deep breathing a few more times until he felt his mind clear of all thoughts. He narrowed his gaze on the Skrill Mountains on the horizon ahead, then a single mountain, and then the mountain’s peak. He imagined himself flying toward that peak in a rush of wind and speed. The sounds around him became muffled, the sights became a blur. All that existed was his breathing and the journey toward the peak. When he could see the tip of the mountain in front of him, he reached for it.

And then he touched his Faith. His mind “saw” it as a fast moving river of the clearest, purest water. He stooped by the river and ran his hand along the surface of his Faith’s strong current. The happiness he felt was excruciating. The temptation to dive into the river was almost overwhelming, to drown in its peace and joy. But the part of him that had been trained, the part of him that existed in the material world, knew the madness that awaited him if he siphoned too much. And so he held back.

He felt like he could do anything at that moment -- he could fly to the edge of the southern continent if he wanted to, then dive into the sea and explore its depths. He could run up Mount Taranis and look over the rim of the volcano, into the heart of the underworld, then shake his fist at it in defiance. After all, nothing could harm him.

And then without thinking about it -- for no thinking being would deliberately cut himself off from that power -- he pulled away from the river of Faith and returned to the frontier. Severing the link was always painful, physically and emotionally. Pulling back from his Faith and returning to his body was like jumping into an icy pond. He remembered the first time he had siphoned his Faith, the incredible discipline it took to wrench himself from that comforting, thrilling power; the emptiness he felt when he returned to his body. The sorrow never eased the more he siphoned, as he thought it would -- he just became accustomed to it. The whole point of the Sequence, afterall, was to get a cleric used to that pain.

There were two ways he and every other cleric could ease the lethargy experienced after siphoning: intense meditation and daily consumption of keeria root. His first siphoning experiences had required a full day of meditation in order to siphon again. Now, after a moderate siphoning, he was down to around a half hour. After a simple brush with his Faith like the Sequence practice, he only required a few moments.

He kept the keeria in a pouch tied to his belt. He liked to keep it ground up so that he could put a pinch in the food he ate. When he first started siphoning, he had required nearly an entire pouch of keeria to get back to his optimum siphoning strength after a day’s worth of practice. Now he was down to three pinches of keeria per day, an amount on the same level with most master clerics.

With two hours to go until they reached the settlement, Raven decided to extend his Sequence meditation. He didn’t know what he’d encounter at the frontier village, so a little extra meditation would be wise. He returned to the mountain peak on the horizon, and the joyous river of his Faith.

The column approached the walled village just before dusk. It was nestled in a small valley, next to a river that looked to be thirty paces across. Oak trees lined the river valley for as far as Raven could track its source from the north. Riding into the valley, the column passed plots of tilled land on either side of the track where potatoes, carrots, and onions grew. Vegetable fields ran up and down the sides of the valley’s gentle slopes. Several men and women leaned on their hoes as they watched the column ride by, while some curious children and a barking sheep dog ran alongside the Sentinels.

Raven searched the faces of the gaping farmers for any sign of hostility. While they were not unfriendly, they weren’t entirely warm either. More curious than anything, he guessed. At least they weren’t surprised by the visit. Seala had not wanted the frontier folk to be alarmed at the large force approaching their homes, so she had sent Josyn and two Sentinels ahead of the others to request shelter for the night. Josyn had returned with the news that, while at first the settlement’s mayor, Darian Phen, had been cool to the idea of sheltering over twenty-five soldiers, his approval became enthusiastic when he learned that the Lady Heiress was coming. Apparently mayor Phen had once been a Sentinel for House Mesalek twenty years ago, and had heard of the current ducal heir’s sympathies for “sovereigns.”

A wall made of tied logs, with the tops whittled down to points, surrounded the settlement nestled against the river. From Raven’s vantage point on the downward slope of the valley, he could see a little over a dozen small log and thatch cabins. The only two buildings that looked different were the blacksmith’s shop, with its tall stone furnace jutting from its roof, and the stable attached to a fenced square where several dozen bleating sheep milled about. Raven briefly wondered why the sheep were not grazing in a less cramped pasture outside the walls, but then answered his own question -- it was almost night and haruun considered sheep a delicacy.

As the column approached the walls, the gate to the settlement opened and a tall bald man with a gray beard approached. He was followed by three women and another man. All five dropped to one knee and bowed as Seala stopped her horse in front of them.

Seala stepped down and said, “Please, rise, my friends. I am grateful to you for allowing us to stay within your walls tonight.”

“The pleasure is ours, my lady,” the gray-bearded man said. “I am Darian Phen, the mayor of Uller’s Flow.” Phen motioned to the people behind him and began introducing them.

The other four were members of the Assembly of Uller’s Flow, the village’s governing body. Elisa Curran, who Raven guessed to be as old as the mayor judging by all the silver hair in the long braid snaking down her neck, smiled kindly at Seala. Dana Folsom, who looked to be a few years older than Raven, also gave Seala a welcoming smile. When the mayor introduced Bryant and Katlin Fraiberg as husband and wife, Raven saw that the old proverb about old couples resembling each other with age held true -- their cool smiles, which were more like grimaces, were identical. And Raven saw they were heretics...and the clear shimmer surrounding them indicated they were touching their Faith. He would watch them closely.

Seala smiled at them all. “Thank you again for allowing us to stay. We’ve brought our own provisions, so we will not be a burden on your village.”

Phen shook his head. “Nonsense, my lady. We were going to have our Harvest Time banquet tonight anyway, and you and your men are most welcome. We’ve had a very good crop this year with plenty to spare.”

“You’re most generous, Mayor Phen,” Seala said. “I insist that you at least let us help you prepare the feast.”

The mayor chuckled. “Our children will be grateful for the help, my lady. Now if you’ll follow me, I’ll show you where your men can camp for the night.”

Raven stepped down from his gray mare as Captain Haimes ordered his men to dismount. Raven grabbed his horse’s reins and walked over to Jalen, who was stretching his back.

“Did you notice that both Fraibergs were siphoning,” Raven said quietly. “I’d wager they do not share in the rest of the Assembly’s friendly welcome.”

Jalen shrugged. “It’s not unusual for sovereigns to distrust the nobles. That’s why they live out here.”

Raven looked around. The farmers they had passed in the valley were still watching them. “The distrust is mutual,” he muttered. Then to Jalen, “I’m going to stay close to Seala. Her intentions may be honorable, but that does not mean these frontier folk share her honor.”

Jalen regarded him a moment, then gave the usual emotionless nod whenever Raven made a decision in the field.

Raven caught up with Seala, who walked her horse next to the mayor and the Assembly members. As he passed through the gate, he noticed that the outside of it was pockmarked with large gouges. All of them looked fresh.

Uller’s Flow’s one street, or path, ran straight down the center of the village. The small houses that Raven had spied from the top of the valley lined both sides of the street and seemed remarkably well built and tidy this close up. Four men with dark beards and beaver skin coats stood in a group smoking pipes and watching the Sentinels advance down the street with as much curiosity as the gaping children who marched alongside the column. Fifty paces beyond the gate, the street ended at the small Uller River. The grassy bank was twenty paces wide and ran from one end of the wall to the other about a hundred paces away.

Phen motioned toward the bank. “Your men may set up their tents on this lawn, my lady, and they can tie their horses to the stable’s fence. By the way, my wife Lian and I would be honored if you stayed in our house this evening.”

Seala smiled. “Thank you, Mayor Phen. I accept your invitation.”

Concerned, Raven interrupted. “Excuse me, my lady, but can I speak to you.” And then looking to the mayor, “In private.”

The mayor glanced from Raven to Seala, then nodded. “Of course. I will return in a few minutes to show you to my home.” The mayor strode off with the other Assembly members.

Seala’s glare shot daggers at Raven. “If you’ve just destroyed the trust I was beginning to build with these people, I will have you--”

“My lady,” Raven interrupted, “it is my duty to protect you. We don’t know them -- this could be a village of bandits, for all we know. I think it would be unwise for you to stay in this man’s house tonight.”

Seala looked at him, an incredulous laugh escaping her lips. “Dahkshari Raven, these people are farmers. Did the fields outside not provide you with a big enough hint?”

Raven stared at her. “Bandits need food, too.”

Seala shook her head and sighed. “All right, if it makes you happier I will ask Mayor Phen if you can sleep on the floor of his house tonight next to the door to my room.”

Before Raven could answer, she stalked off toward Josyn who was telling the wagon drivers which of Seala’s chests to unload.

Grumbling, Raven turned to his horse and began unpacking his saddlebags. Just a few hours ago she was willing to listen to his darkest secret. Now she snapped at him as if he were one of her servants. No, not servant – she’d never snap at them. He wondered if the only way he could get a kind response out of Seala was if he became a frontiersman, or a Sentinel, or anybody else but him. Lady Heiress or not, that woman could use a lesson in--

A small girl walked past him, struggling with an overflowing bucket of water. She must have been five or six years old with long black hair and big green eyes.

She looked just like his dead sister Arianna.

The girl suddenly stumbled and dropped the bucket. The bucket fell on its side, emptying its water all over her feet. She stood there a moment, staring at her wet feet, then kicked the bucket a good ten paces down the street.

Raven placed his saddlebags on the ground and walked over to the girl. Standing next to her, watching the bucket roll beneath a cabin porch, he said, “With a kick like that you’d be the best player on any Alahnen bollo team.”

The girl continued to glare at the bucked a few moments, then looked up at Raven. “What’s bollo?”

Raven stooped down. “It’s a game that all the kids in Alahn play. They kick around a ball made of rawhide and stuffed with dried beans. They seem to love it.”

She glanced at Raven’s blue sash, and her eyes grew wide when she saw the Dahkshari-issued sword handle rising from the scabbard on his back.

“Are you a Dahkshari?” she asked.

“Yes. Well, I’m still a novice, but I hope to become a full Dahkshari soon.”

The girl thought for a moment, then asked eagerly, “What’s a novice? When do you become a full Dahkshari? Are there lots of Dahksharis?”

Raven smiled. Faith, she even has Arianna’s curiosity. “You ask a lot of questions.”

“My papa says it’s good to ask questions.”

“Your papa’s very wise...,” Raven said, noticing for the first time that the girl was wearing a necklace. It was a leather thong tied to the pewter symbol of the heretics -- a circle with an ‘X’ through it.

“Nice necklace,” he said.

The girl smiled and held it up so that Raven could see it better.

“Diliana gave it to me.”