Chapter Fifteen
“Bloody Turesti,” Sir Alton Sienhin cursed under his breath as he pushed a bundle of salt pork into his pack. “Smoke. Of all the people to be traitorous.”
“It is what it is,” Therrador said.
“Aye. I suppose you can never tell who to trust, can you?” He looked sideways at the king; Therrador pursed his lips but held his tongue.
“But Hu can be trusted?”
Sienhin shrugged. “Who can say for sure? No one showed up with their sword to convince me not to leave the fortress at the time I told him. Wish I could say the same for Smoke.”
“Me too.” Therrador paced the room, stopping at a short table fashioned of weather-beaten driftwood. Out of habit, he reached for the letter atop it with his right hand, but his missing thumb prevented him from picking it up. He spat a curse and retrieved it with his left, then returned to his general’s side, letter extended.
Sienhin regarded it, examining the wax emblazoned with the king’s mark that sealed the parchment.
“You wrote this?” he allowed a slight smile to tilt his mustache to the right. “Will anyone be able to read it?”
Therrador breathed a sharp breath through his nose. He didn’t want to put up with such barbs, especially given the situation, but he needed the general-he might be the last person in the fortress loyal enough to be trusted.
“I did. It took a long while.”
Sir Alton’s smile faded, replaced by his customary blush. He nodded once and took the folded parchment from the king.
“These are the orders?”
“Yes. I’ve gotten word outside the walls, but this must reach Achtindel or all is lost.”
Sir Alton buckled his pack and threw it over his shoulder, then touched the hilt of his sword hanging at his left hip, the dagger at the right, then the small knife in the top of his right boot. Satisfied the ritual proved his weapons all properly in place, he faced his king.
“What about a horse?”
Therrador nodded. “The tunnel exit is not far from the concubines' huts. A mount will await you there.” The king allowed himself a smile. “A horse, I mean. Don’t take the time to stop for any other sort of mount.”
The general barked a familiar laugh Therrador hadn’t heard from him in a long while. The sound of it-a laugh he’d heard so many times before, at the council table as well as in the middle of heated battle-loosened some of the foreboding constricting his chest and made the king feel a slim chance yet remained that the kingdom might be saved.
So much is at stake, and so much must go our way.
“Don’t worry, Therrador. These bones feel too old of late to seek that kind of mount.”
The two of them looked at each other a moment, the humor draining out of the room as the gravity of their situation inserted itself between them, making the air grow heavy. Therrador remembered the battles they’d fought side by side, the laughs and times they shared as friends and comrades, and wondered if the general was thinking the same, or if the events of the last few months had forever soured any fond memories.
We may never fight beside each other again.
“It will be dark soon,” Therrador said breaking the silence. “It’s time to be off.”
“Aye,” Sienhin agreed and went to the door.
“I’ll come along a few minutes after you, Sir Alton.”
The general paused, his hand on the door’s iron ring. He nodded but didn’t face his king as he pulled the door open with a squawk of ancient hinges before striding across the threshold.
“And I’m sorry,” Therrador added.
***
A wisp of pungent smoke encircled the Archon’s head. She breathed deeply, inhaling the smell of burning herbs and hair, charred wood and sizzling blood. The aromas filled her nose, her lungs, and sent power coursing through her body; it tingled the flesh on her arms and legs, tightened her belly, inhabited her groin. She let out her breath and closed her eyes.
The cool air on her skin disappeared from her awareness, as did the feel of the cloth mat she sat upon, and the touch of her hair on her bare back. At the beginning of the trance, she was only aware of the smells of the ingredients burning, and of the darkness behind her eyelids. She no longer heard the sound of her own breath, the creak of the guard’s leather armor as he shifted his position, the snatches of conversation happening on the boulevard below her window.
The trance deepened and she released her mind, freed her consciousness to roam away from her, searching. It floated up with the smoke and away, spreading out around her. She didn’t know the man who carried Braymon’s spirit-she’d only seen him in dreams, never in person-but she thought it would be enough to enable her to find him. And when she found him, she would find the boy. With both of them in her grasp, she would have control of both the current king and the former, and the world would practically be hers for the taking.
Images appeared to her. The fortress in the hours leading up to twilight, people walking the streets: the baker and blacksmith heading home after a day’s work, soldiers readying for a night of drinking and whoring. She floated past them, noticing but ignoring them. What she sought, she wouldn’t find within the confines of the fortress; the carrier simply could not have made it this far yet.
Her essence rose higher above the ground, spiraling up toward the highest peaks of the buildings, toward the top edge of the wall. She relished the ultimate feeling of freedom as the swirls and eddies of the air tossed her about, mixed with her, like a soul born to the fields of the dead upon the cleansing smoke of a funeral pyre. If, in this form, she possessed the ability to breathe, she would have done so deeply; if she had eyelids, she would have closed them to better feel the breeze upon her face. In her chamber, her body did these things, reacting to what her essence felt as it floated up and away, feeling things no human ever experienced.
Something caught the Archon’s attention, snapping her eyes open and halting her spirit’s progress. It pulled her away from the feeling of freedom she wished she could revel in for the rest of her time in the world.
“What is it?” she growled under her breath.
The guard in the room stirred but said nothing. She felt his fear brush the short hair on her arms as she leaned forward, filling her lungs with the acrid smoke curling from the brazier in front of her before pushing her spirit to go farther, to go beyond the wall and find the would-be usurper.
It wouldn’t move.
The Archon grunted and ground her back teeth, pushing harder, but her essence took its own path, plummeting back toward the courtyard within the fortress. She strained a few seconds more to steer it back on its path, but gave in to the whims of her spirit.
It sank all the way to the ground and crept along the boulevard like an animate fog, snaking between booted feet, avoiding the light where it could. The Archon’s breathing shallowed as she let herself be drawn along. The tingle of freedom that had prickled along her arms and warmed her chest was gone; she felt no freedom in being led.
Her essence floated past a damaged building and the Archon saw inside through the open door. The woman she’d seen brought in by the patrol sat on a pile of straw, her babe at her breast and tears in her eyes. The man who’d been brought with her-her husband, the Archon presumed-was nowhere to be seen. The young mother looked up at the mist floating by the doorway, but then the Archon saw no more as her essence continued down the street.
Ahead, a sliver of light shone beneath a wooden door with a rusted iron ring. The swirling mist adjusted its path, drawn toward the light. It inched toward the door like a child tip-toeing up behind its friend, readying to give a scare. It settled against the crack beneath the door, pushed against it until a tendril squeezed through into the room beyond.
The Archon sat upright and her body stiffened; her eyes opened wide in surprise, but only for a moment before narrowing again.