Fireborn Read online

  I couldn’t help but laugh at that absurdity. “It was hardly a dally, Deo. I saw a man riding toward me with the Bane of Eris insignia on his chest, covered in blood, on a well-lathered horse. Naturally, I asked if he needed help, and he gasped out that Lord Israel’s army was on the move, and he had ridden all night to tell you.”

  Rixius had approached as I spoke, barely pausing to give me the glare that he had settled on as his method of greeting me. Deo snarled something under his breath before ordering, “Rixius, see to the rest of the unloading. Tell the banesmen to be ready to ride as soon as the horses are fed and watered.”

  “It shall be as you say, my lord,” Rixius said, shooting me a poisonous look. “The stores should be checked for damage before they are loaded onto the wagons. Perhaps the priestess could undertake that task.”

  I fumed silently to myself. I hadn’t escaped a life of humility in the service of the blessed goddess Kiriah so I could now be punished with menial tasks. Not when I’d undergone the most excruciating experience known just so I could fight the Harborym. Unbidden, my hand rubbed my forehead where the line of small black dots crossed it.

  Before I could protest, Deo said, “Get one of the servants to do that. Allegria has other work to do.”

  He strode off with me running after him. “Are you speaking generally, or of a specific job?” I asked, somewhat breathlessly.

  “Both.” He marched on without so much as glancing back at me.

  I quickened my pace and buffeted him on the shoulder. The voyage to Genora hadn’t given me a lot of time to reacquaint myself with Deo, but it was long enough that I’d fallen into an easy relationship, similar to the comfortable one we’d established in our youth.

  With one exception.

  He stopped suddenly, causing me to run into him. With eyes blazing, he thrust his face in mine and snapped, “What?”

  The words that came out weren’t the ones that I had planned on speaking. “When you kissed me the night I came to your tent ... did you feel anything?”

  He stared at me for a moment, then cast his eyes starward before shaking his head and continuing toward the red and black tents. “I knew it would be a folly to bring you along, but I couldn’t resist the idea of a lightweaver.”

  “And that is as it should be,” I answered, trotting alongside him. “I can finally use my power as Kiriah intended. But that’s not what I asked. Did you ... you know ... feel anything?”

  “Like your breasts? Yes, I felt those.” His expression was as stark and grim as ever, but faint humor laced his voice.

  “Did you feel anything like the time we spent in the hayloft?” I continued, feeling it necessary to have an acknowledgment of the thoughts that had been skittering around the back of my mind ever since the episode in the tent.

  “We were children then,” he said dismissively, then shrugged. “It was obvious you were in love with me. It’s natural you felt things that I did not.”

  For a moment, I stared in surprise at him, very aware of his large form moving alongside me with the grace of a panther. “I was no such thing! I’d just met you. How could I be in love with you?”

  “All the girls in my father’s house were in love with me. It made sense that you would be no different from them.”

  He said the words just as if there were nothing wrong with them.

  I fought back the urge to hit him over the head with my bow, reminding myself that I had sworn fealty to him just a few days before, and beating him about the head and shoulders was hardly going to reinforce the idea of my loyalty.

  I swallowed back my ire, and instead said, “I grew out of it.”

  He glanced at me, his eyes flashing amusement. “Yes, your kiss said all of that.”

  “It most certainly said something, but I doubt if you know what,” I answered in a mild tone, and said nothing more, knowing Deo’s ego wouldn’t allow that remark to pass without comment.

  We stopped before the tent of his three lieutenants, only two of whom, Borin and Hadrian, were present. Hadrian had been sitting on the ground while his companion was wrapping a long cloth around his chest, binding a jagged red slash that ran from his armpit down almost to his belly.

  “My lord,” Hadrian said, struggling to get to his feet.

  “Stay where you are,” Deo ordered, and knelt beside him. “How did you get wounded?”

  “A party of Shades patrol the Old South Road. I cleared out many groups, but the last one came upon me without my knowledge, and almost felled me. But that is not of any matter—my lord, your father is once again on Genora’s shores.”

  “My father sits in his manor and complains bitterly about fate,” Deo said, scorn dripping from each word. “He gave up on the Starborn at the same time he gave up on me.”

  “It was him, my lord,” Hadrian insisted. Borin finished tying the cloth and eased a fresh tunic over Hadrian’s head. “The men I saw bore Lord Israel’s standard.”

  “How big of a company was it?” Deo asked, his expression changing from ire to thoughtfulness.

  “Five score, at a guess.” Hadrian looked oddly worried. “I rode through the night to tell you, since I knew you would wish to know of his movements. But I have never seen Lord Israel out with such a small force.”

  “Nor have I.” Deo rose to his feet, again gesturing when Hadrian attempted to do the same. “If he is here, then something extraordinary must have happened. I wonder if he decided to follow me once I told him my plan. No, stay where you are and rest. I will leave a servant with you to tend your wounds until you are fit to ride after us.”

  “I am able to ride now,” Hadrian protested, “although my horse must have rest before I ask her to travel again.”

  Deo’s shoulder twitched. “Very well. Rixius will see to it that you have a fresh horse. Allegria, Borin—come. I have jobs for you both.”

  Borin was a small man, slight of build, and with features that reminded me of a ferret. He bore the dark hair and eyes of a banesman, but where my skin—and those of my fellow initiates—now possessed a dusky, faintly blue tinge, his skin was as pale as the moon.

  We followed Deo to where the horses were being watered, fed, and saddled. In the midst of all the glossy, highbred beauties, Buttercup munched placidly. She’d worked out her objection to the confinement on the ship with an ill-timed escape, but since that had led me to finding Hadrian, I couldn’t chastise her too much.

  “What is it you want of us, my lord?” Borin asked.

  “Follow the South Road. Verify what Hadrian said he saw. Determine if Lord Israel is here, and if it is him, follow him. I want to know if he meets with a larger company, and if so, where they are headed. Question any Shades you see before you kill them, and do not let anyone of Lord Israel’s company see you. We will follow the coast road to Starfall City. You may meet up with us once you have seen all there is to see.”

  Borin murmured his assent, his eyes flickering toward me briefly before he bowed and went to fetch his horse.

  “Tell me you have something for me that’s more exciting than checking stores,” I said as Deo stopped next to a stack of three leather trunks. “Not that I’m unused to mundane work, but I had hoped that fighting Harborym would require more skills than counting sacks of barley.”

  Deo opened the top to one of the trunks, pulling out an object wrapped in a long red silk cloth. He handed it to me, saying, “If you are going to fight under my banner, you’ll need better weapons than those temple-made eating knives.”

  “My swords are not eating knives,” I said, bristling on behalf of the weapons that had cost me almost all of my meager funds, but the next moment I was sucking in a breath and saying with awe, “Sun and shadows, these are beautiful.”

  “They should be,” Deo said dryly, looking with satisfaction at the two narrow swords I’d uncovered. Both were chased in gold, with sun runes etched into the silver of the blade, while the hilt was covered in intricate filigreed gold and amber gems. “They were made for my m
other as a marriage gift.”

  I traced my finger down the runes, the warmth of the metal making my skin tingle. My hands itched to hold the swords, to watch the light flash from them as I wielded them against the Harborym. Just the feel of them against my palms gave me a sense of power, a rightness, a measure of invincibility ... and then Deo’s words sank in. “A marriage gift? I didn’t hear that your father married the queen.”

  “He didn’t.” Deo pulled out a crossed-back scabbard and handed it to me. “They were to be married upon the beginning of the Fourth Age, but that didn’t happen. Instead the Harborym came, and my mother’s people were under attack. Put this on and listen closely. A day and a half’s ride from here, there is a ruin. An old temple to Bellias called Kelos that the arcanists use. They opened it briefly as a sanctuary for the Starborn when the Harborym came, but most of it was destroyed, and the Starborn enslaved. Parts of it remain still, although in what state, I don’t know.”

  I knelt with him when he pulled out a dagger and drew a crude map in the dirt. “This place is east of us?”

  “Yes. Lief, the third of my lieutenants, tells of a man, a runeseeker, who resides amongst the ghosts of those who fell there. It won’t be easy to convince him to join us, but you must do so.”

  “A runeseeker? What is that?” I asked, immediately feeling that I was in over my head. I had imagined I’d be fighting at Deo’s side, using skills I had honed for years, but now ... I gave myself a mental shake. I had wanted adventure; I couldn’t balk at what the goddess gave me.

  “A man learned in the ways of arcane magic. Lief thinks he will be most useful to us.”

  “I have no doubt he would be, but, Deo, I’m not a diplomat. Far from it, Sandor always said I spoke first without thinking, and I’m afraid she was right. You have a company of fifty-two; in their ranks there must be someone better suited to fetching this man.”

  “On the contrary, you are the one who must go. Only you. Do not argue with me, priestling—you are the only one amongst all of us who knows the ways of magic.”

  I gestured toward my fellow banesmen, all of whom were readying themselves for our march to the Starborn capital. “After the transformation, we are all now very familiar with the power of magic, Deo.”

  He waved away that objection. “Chaos gains its power from death. You hold the ability to draw on life, on the sun itself. Do you not think the runeseeker will be tempted to learn from a lightweaver? No, Allegria, you must go and convince the man to join us. You and no other.”

  I watched for a moment as Deo pulled his own weapons from the trunk, frustrated with my inability to make him see that I would be useless in the role of a diplomat. “I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but surely there is a better task you can give me. One I’m more suited for. I have trained long with both swords and bow, and—”

  Deo gave me an annoyed look. I knew I was pushing him well past the bounds of his patience, but I had to start as I meant to go on. “Exodius may well be of a help to you in mastering your abilities. He will respond to the unique abilities you bear, and listen to you where he would turn others away. Go, Allegria. Free the runeseeker from his ghostly jailers and return him safely to me.”

  “Very well,” I grumbled, knowing my cause was a lost one. I had no idea how I was to convince this man, and hoped Deo wouldn’t be angry when I failed to dazzle the runeseeker with my brilliance. “But I thought when you took me on to battle Harborym that I would actually be fighting them, not watching over arcanists like a ewe with her lamb.”

  Deo laughed as he took my old swords and tossed them into his leather chest, helping me adjust the straps of the new scabbard. “You always were a bloodthirsty little thing. I see that, too, has not changed about you.”

  “Too?” I asked, sliding the swords into place, crossed on my back where I could grab them quickly.

  He leaned in, and for a moment, I thought he was going to kiss me. “I know exactly what your kiss in my tent said. Your emotions are an open book, priestling.”

  Before I could respond, he was striding away, calling out several commands, and leaping into the saddle of a great black charger who had been brought forward for him.

  I shook my head even as I strapped my quiver to my side and fetched my bow, saying softly to myself, “I don’t think you do, Deo. I don’t think you know me at all anymore.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Hallow reached the ruins of the once grand Temple Kelos just as the sun was beginning her descent behind the line of mountains that ran down the center of Genora. He paused at the crumbled gates, gazing at the remains with a critical eye. “Lord Israel is mad if he thinks anyone living would choose to reside there,” he told his horse, Penn. “I’ve seen pleasanter pigsties.”

  Penn snorted his agreement and jiggled his bit, while Hallow allowed his gaze to move along land that was starkly gray and black. It was an alien place, devoid of life, with no soft lines, just jagged spikes of broken stone stabbing upward to the sky. It was as if a giant hand had plucked from the area everything green and alive, leaving only death behind.

  “The gatehouse,” Hallow said, urging Penn forward. The horse picked his way carefully around clumps of fallen dirty cream bricks, now burnished gray from the lifeless soil. The arch of the gatehouse stood, but the rest of it was a heap of stone and brick. A movement flitted across the very corner of his vision, but when he turned his head to look, it was gone. “Ghosts,” he said, his voice sounding hollow. “Lord Israel said there would be ghosts. Why did I agree to take on this task? I had no idea that when he summoned his army to invade Starfall City that I would be conscripted to poke around a ruins filled with ghosts. I’m an arcanist, not a spirit talker, Penn. Does it seem reasonable that I should be here, rather than wielding my magic elsewhere?”

  Penn paused to relieve himself. Hallow took that as criticism. “I’m well aware that the Master of Kelos leads the arcanists, but according to Nix, this particular master has not been seen for decades. Arcanists being what they are—Master Nix always did say it was like herding squirrels to get a group of arcanists to do anything—Exodius is probably long dead, and no one’s noticed.”

  The muffled thump of the horse’s hooves seemed to echo when they rode past the main temple building, little puffs of gray dust rising with every step. The oppression made his nerves feel twitchy, forcing him to speak aloud just to hear something normal. “Lord Israel said this was once a famed center of magic and learning. He said the temple was built in the form of a circle, with a silver dome cut with star-shaped holes so the light of Bellias could shine down upon the arcanists, and that they made their own army they called the Masters of Kelos. What do you think of that?”

  Another fleeting movement caught his eye, but it, too, was gone as soon as he looked. Hallow considered what he knew of the spirits of the unquiet dead, and drew a protection ward over his chest and head. Then, after a moment’s thought, he drew the same over both sides of Penn. “There’s no sense in taking a chance, is there, old man?”

  Penn snorted again, his tail twitching nervously. Hallow knew just how the horse felt. A strange prickling raised the hairs on his arms as they moved past the partially collapsed temple. In the walls that still stood, high arched windows graced with intricate carvings of the stars and moons gave a hint as to the original glory of the temple. Of the silver dome, nothing remained but a pile of stones that spilled out over one of the broken walls, and clogged the faint remains of a road.

  “If I was a Master of Kelos, where would I hide ... er ... live?” Hallow considered the smaller outbuildings, most of which had decayed into mounds of gray that reminded him of the massive barrows in his native land. Ahead stood a scraggly tower, once held upright by graceful buttresses, most of which were now missing. Only a few delicately carved archways extended from the tower, ending in midair, giving the whole structure the look of an upended beetle.

  Hallow reined in Penn and gave the tower a long look. “That has to be it. Nowhere else i
s even remotely habit—”

  A blob flitted in front of him. It was transparent like a jellyfish, but the edges of the form glowed with a strange bluish light. The blob elongated until it changed into that of a human form. A male human form.

  An angry male human form.

  “By whose command do you think to invade Kelos?” the spirit demanded, pulling out a wraithlike sword.

  Hallow had never seen the unbound spirit of the dead before. He’d heard about the beings from Master Nix, but only in anecdotal mentions, usually ending with Nix besting the ghost in some manner. Therefore, he greeted the watchful ghost with an easy manner and general goodwill, sliding off his horse to make the ghost a little bow before saying, “Hail, goodman spirit. I have no intention to invade your home—I am simply a traveler passing through who wishes to locate a runeseeker by the name of Exodius. Do you know of him?”

  The ghost’s eyes narrowed, and Hallow could have sworn that a shifty expression came over his face, although admittedly he found it difficult to read facial nuances when the subject was made up of nothing but transparent bluish spirit particles. “Why do you seek such a person?”

  Hallow waved the question away. Although Lord Israel had not given him a deadline for finding the runeseeker and bringing him back to the company, he felt a sense of urgency. The sooner he persuaded Exodius to join the forces of Lord Israel, the sooner he could get to Starfall City, and there arrange to continue his arcane training. “My reasons will not interest you. Have you seen the runeseeker? Does he reside in the tower?”

  The ghost lifted the sword in what would be a menacing manner if it had been performed by a living man. “If you are a traveler as you say you are, you should leave. The living do not come to Kelos.”

  “They did once,” Hallow said, glancing around. From behind every broken stack of brick, every jagged rock, every collapsed building, the forms of bluish spirits lingered, all clearly emboldened to watch the proceedings. Hallow gestured toward the nearest. “This was once a thriving temple, was it not?”