‘Some. More important is your patronage. Tor Caled is a powerful name; it opens doors.’
Yethanial nodded slowly. ‘So you told me before.’
Thoriol looked at both of them uncomprehendingly. ‘What are you saying? You talk of duty, and then… this?’
Yethanial shot him a withering glance. ‘Have you understood nothing? Your duty is to Ulthuan, to your bloodline.’
Caradryel found himself nodding. ‘So she says.’
Thoriol looked like he wished to protest, but his words were cut off by a sudden call of trumpets from the walls. All of them turned to the east-facing window. Caradryel got to his feet, but not as quickly as Yethanial. She hurried over to the sill, leaning out into the dusk air.
A dragon was riding towards the city, its flanks glowing dull blue in the failing light.
‘He returns!’ cried Yethanial.
Caradryel saw the sudden hope in her face. The soft greyness lifted from her features and her eyes sparkled. For a moment, a fleeting moment, he saw unalloyed joy there, a profound delight that banished her severity. It was transformative, and quite unexpected.
‘Why does he fly so low?’ murmured Thoriol.
Caradryel looked back out of the window. He had seen Imladrik tear through the air many times and this flight looked nothing like that. The dragon seemed to limp along, dipping frequently. Its wings were ragged. As it neared the walls its tail hung low, trailing feebly.
Caradryel stared harder. An awful feeling crept over him.
‘My lady, I think-’ he began, but she was already moving, running out of the chamber and towards the spiral stairway leading up to the roof.
Thoriol followed her. Cursing, Caradryel did likewise, taking the steps two at a time to keep up. The three of them broke out into the open, on to the same wide platform where Caradryel had last bid farewell to Imladrik.
The dragon swooped down on them, its flight erratic. Droplets of black blood splattered on the stone.
‘Isha, not this…’ breathed Yethanial, horror written on her face. She looked like she’d suddenly aged. As Draukhain touched down she hurried over, gathering her robes around her.
Thoriol held back, his face white. Caradryel stayed beside him. The dragon’s aroma was awful — like rotten meat mingled with old embers.
He saw Liandra dismount. How she came to be riding Imladrik’s dragon was a riddle he knew he did not want to solve. She looked as dishevelled as her steed, her face streaked with tear-tracks over grime and blood. She tried to say something to Yethanial but the grey lady barely noticed her.
Yethanial approached Imladrik’s corpse hesitantly, carefully, as if he were terribly wounded and might still get up. Caradryel could see the futility of that — his master lay awkwardly, as slack as sackcloth, his armour dark with blood.
Yethanial’s grief then was terrible to witness, so powerful and so complete that for a moment none of them could speak. The dragon wheezed sclerotically, its huge eyes weeping black tears. Across the city, the trumpets were stilled as the celebrating heralds realised that something was terribly wrong.
Thoriol stumbled forward to stand by his mother, his feet shuffling unwillingly on the stone. For a moment the two of them just stood there, staring stupidly, emptily, at Imladrik’s body. Then Yethanial’s tears came at last — huge racking sobs that made her bend double. Thoriol held her up, his body erect, his face like stone. The two of them clung to one another, grasping greedily as if they could somehow insulate themselves against the truth.
Caradryel looked away, unwilling to intrude further. He felt nauseous.
‘What happened?’ he asked Liandra.
The red mage looked exhausted. ‘Dawi,’ she said, coldly. ‘They got to Oeragor ahead of him.’
‘And you? Where were you?’
Liandra glared at him. ‘It can wait.’ Her gaze travelled to Yethanial. Sympathy was etched on her features. Sympathy, and perhaps a little envy.
Caradryel felt wretched. Just moments ago the future had been mapped out. His decisions had been vindicated, his path clear.
Now, nothing. He remembered the first time he had seen the sapphire dragon, high above the waves, swooping earthwards like a messenger of the gods. It had looked invincible then, something that no force of the earth could ever vanquish.
Now it slumped on the stone, bleeding like any mortal, still carrying the body of its dead master. Around it huddled the remnants of the House of Tor Caled, one weeping, one silent with shock.
What now, then? he asked himself weakly.
The wind picked up, cold from the west. The east was darkening quickly, sinking into the deep night that made the forest so forbidding. That dark had always seemed contestable before; now it looked infinite and unbreakable.
Caradryel didn’t know where to look.
What now? Who will follow him?
But no answer came.
Epilogue
Sevekai had no idea how long he’d been on the cusp of it. He didn’t know where he was, nor how far he had travelled since leaving the Arluii behind. In the beginning he had tried to remember. He had vague memories of going south, heading down into the lowlands until the trees blotted the sky. Measuring time, though, no longer seemed like something he should concern himself with. The rhythm of the forest was less exact: languorous, shackled to a lower, more eternal measure.
His crow perched on a branch above him, its black eye glinting. It seldom left him now. The others, the ones that had made their way to the forest as he had done, they all had their companions too: Aismarr had a lean hunting dog, as skinny as bones; Elieth had a hawk; Ophiel had a fox that slunk timorously in the shadows. They came and went, these creatures of the wood, but never departed for long. They were like echoes of thoughts lingering under the eaves.
Sevekai watched the others. They bore the same dreamy expression. They had renounced the old passions. None of them hated or loved any more; it was like being half-asleep.
A few of them, he knew, were kin from Naggaroth; just a couple, skulking amid the briars like thieves. They came into the centre of the circle only slowly, just as he had done at the beginning, unable to entirely forswear the hatreds they had been born into.
The forest worked on them, though, just as it did the others. They gradually lost their pale mien and took on a healthier blush. Their tattoos faded somehow. Their oil-slick hair seemed lighter under the green glow of the canopy.
The rest had the healthy light of Ulthuan in their eyes. He didn’t know where they had all come from. Neither did they — the old life drifted out of mind and memory so quickly. Some of them had taken on new names. Sevekai, for the moment, clung to his. It seemed important. He didn’t know how long he would feel that way.
He didn’t even want to hurt them. That was novel.
None of them had penetrated far into the heart of the wood. They lingered on the edge where the light still shafted down between the branches. They heard creaks and snaps from the deep core, buried in arboreal gloom. They heard night-noises — squeals and rustles, low groans that were almost elf-like, though distorted and alien.
What is this place?
He asked that question less often as time went on. At first he had been consumed by it, desperate to know what was slowly altering his mind. He would look at a leaf in the sunlight, seeing its veins standing dark against the translucence, staring at it in fascination. He would breathe deep of the musty soil aroma. He would hear the brush of the branches as the moons wheeled above him.
He never thought of escape. Where would he go?
The wood called them. All of them heard it. Soon they would have to enter, ducking under the curved and twisted branches and stooping into the shadows. He had dreams of what lay in there, waiting for them, though he never remembered them once the sun was up.