“He brought this to me…not knowing…surely not knowing.”
Brant cried out, digging for the stone. He had known his father had collected the skull after the god’s body burnt. He had picked it free of the ashes with the tip of an arrow through an eye socket. He had wrapped it in his own cloak. Brant had not known what had become of it. Of course, his father would have brought word here, of such a trespass by a rogue god. But afterward, Brant assumed the foul thing had eventually been destroyed or laid to rest in some manner. All but forgotten.
The only remnant of the frightening adventure was the small black rock, no bigger than the end of his thumb. His father had let him keep it so long as he swore to tell no one of it. The stone was a secret bond between father and son.
And now the stone meant to burn him to ash.
The Huntress finally seemed to note his writhing. At some point, he had collapsed to the floor. She rose to her feet.
“Do you hear its call, too?” She drifted toward him. “Poor boy. It can’t be resisted. I try to stay away, to keep it steeped in the blackest of biles, but still it calls. Day and night. And now I hear words…but I can’t quite understand…not yet. Only that somewhere it asked for you.”
Brant gasped out, “Help me…”
She knelt next to him, her face strangely calm as he burnt.
“I wish I could.”
She reached out and touched his cheek. Where her fingers touched, a cooling balm pushed back the searing agony. But the pain had to go somewhere.
The Huntress screamed.
Brant forgot the remaining burn. He struggled to roll away from her touch. He could not let her come to harm. But her fingers dragged down into his cheek and, nails scraping, her hand grabbed his throat. His skin flamed with her touch, more fiery than even the stone. Her eyes fixed upon him. The Grace within her flared brighter.
“No…you must not be here. You must go.” These words were spoken with a sudden intensity, shedding the strange malaise that had haunted her earlier words. She threw him aside by the neck. He smelled his burning flesh. Then the stone flared anew at his chest with its own flaming agony.
He writhed on the floor.
She stumbled to the table and ripped the bile-encrusted cloth back over the skull. The flames from the stone immediately vanished. He pawed at his chest, expecting crisped skin and burnt bone. But all he found was smooth skin. There was not even a residual warmth.
Not so his throat.
Where she had throttled him, his skin blistered and weeped.
The Huntress stood by the table, trembling from head to toe.
A pounding erupted from the door. “Mistress!”
Brant recognized the shadowknight who had led him here. They must have all heard the god shriek.
“Attend me! Now!” she barked out.
Brant remained on his knees on the floor.
The Huntress turned to him as the door burst open and a flow of shadows swept into the room, shredding into individual knights. Brant kept his focus on his god. He watched the flare of Grace subside in her eyes.
But before it was gone completely, she shoved an arm toward him. “Take him, chain him, get him out of my land by nightfall.”
Brant’s mind refused to make sense of her words.
Her eyes bore upon him, fading with Grace, full of sorrow and certainty. “I banish him.”
A world and a lifetime away, Brant wept in a chair. He could not stop the tears. He had told no one of his full story, his full shame, until this moment.
Tylar came forward and placed a hand on his shoulder.
Rogger had sheathed his dagger. “You and your father witnessed the rogue’s trespass and demise?”
Brant nodded.
The bearded man shared a studied glance with the regent.
Tylar tilted up Brant’s chin to examine the scar. “And you’ve been marked by a god, too,” he mumbled and stepped back.
The regent’s hand drifted to his shadowcloak.
Brant knew that beneath that blessed cloth Tylar bore the black handprint of a god, pressed into his chest by Meeryn of the Summering Isles, branding him a godslayer. He met the regent’s eye, sensing some bond between them-for better or worse.
“May I see this burning talisman of yours?” Tylar asked. “This stone.”
Brant reached up and tugged the black stone free. Tylar leaned down and reached for it.
“Take care with that,” Rogger warned.
The tall stranger edged closer, one hand on the serpent-headed pommel of his sword.
Tylar picked up the stone between two fingers. Nothing happened. He turned it around, examining all the surfaces. “Appears like a shard of rock, rough-hewn. I sense no great power here.”
“Let me see.”
Rogger shouldered up and bent down.
Tylar stepped back and to the black-cloaked stranger. “Did the Wyr mention anything about a black stone associated with the skull?”
“No,” the other intoned dourly.
“Those Wyr-lords do like to keep their secrets.” Rogger straightened, a fist resting on one hip. “But there must be a connection. I find it awful fateful that this boy ends up trapped here with us. The skull and the stone brought together again.”
“But is that a boon or a curse?” Tylar asked. “If the Huntress exiled him, banishing him away, perhaps she thought it best to keep them as far apart as possible. The way we keep Dart and the sword separated.”
“I don’t think we can place too much weight on the Huntress’s word. It sounds like the seersong had already sapped her in some way.”
Brant finally found his voice. “Is it true? The rogue’s skull? The one possessed by the Huntress is here? How…?”
Tylar nodded to his companion, permitting him to speak. “He should know.”
Rogger sighed and related his own experience in Saysh Mal. His description of the state of affairs in Brant’s former home helped push back his grief, replacing it with anger and horror. Over the four years he had been here in the First Land, ruin had settled over the cloud forest and its denizens.
All because of a cursed skull.
One Brant’s father had carried into the land.
“I would see this skull destroyed,” he said.
“Well, that’s the slippery part,” Rogger said. “We left it in a rather precarious situation. It’s down there with those daemon knights that you so kindly rooted out for us.”
Brant stood up, almost bumping the regent. “We must get it free from there!”
“We intend to,” Tylar said. “And after your tale, I think it’s even more important that we do so immediately.”
“Then you’ll destroy it?” Brant asked. There could be no question that it was riddled with black Grace.
The two men’s eyes glanced to the third, the tall stranger.
“It seems we still need the skull for a bit of bartering.”
“What?”
Tylar headed for the door. “We have no time to explain.”
“I will go with you!” Brant followed.
Tylar held out a hand. “No. You are safe here.”
“Nowhere’s safe this night.”
Rogger nodded. “The boy’s right there. And somehow he and his rock are tied to this skull’s story. It’s time we completed the tale.”
Tylar hesitated.
“Like you said,” Rogger argued. “Bringing them together is either a curse or a boon. If it’s a curse, then better it happen deep under Tashijan than up here. If it’s a boon, then the sooner we join the two the better.” He punctuated it with a shrug. “Besides, he can carry an extra torch. And right now, stone or not, that’s fine with me.”
The regent’s jaw muscles tightened. “So be it.” He forced the words out.
Brant was relieved. He would have followed them if necessary.
Others were not so certain. The back door to the room burst open and two large forms tumbled into the room.
“No, Master Brant!” Malthumalbaen shouted. “You can’t go alone. We’ll come with you!”
Tylar shared an irritated glance with his bearded friend.
“It seems someone’s been listening at our door,” Rogger said.