Elizabeth Haydon - Destiny - Child of the Sky

The collective intake of breath swallowed the air in the room, making it difficult for Stephen to breathe.

“You would support him as king?” Ivenstrand asked Stephen incredulously.

“Not as yet,” Stephen said, watching Tristan’s face. “But it is not the crown he is claiming, at least not at this time.” He turned to the others, whose faces were frozen in various expressions ranging from dismay to horror. “How can I deny the truth of what he says? Twenty years ago Gwydion of Manosse, the best among us, the best hope for a new age and my best friend, had the life ripped out of him near the House of Remembrance—in my own lands. My wife—” His voice faltered, and his gaze fell to the floor. “My wife, the children of my province, now these, the invited guests of my festival, Dunstin, Andrew—countless others—how can I deny that Tristan is right? How can any of us?”

“You would return us to the hand of one lord, one king?” Ihrman Karsrick asked skeptically. “Have you, the Cymrian historian, forgotten what that led to the last time—the full-scale genocide waged by the last power-hungry maniacs who insisted on having 'sole leadership’?” His eye caught that of Llauron, who was standing next to him, and Karsrick’s voice disappeared as he realized that he was insulting the Invoker’s parents. Llauron merely smiled, saluted him with the last of the brandy in his snifter, and took a sip.

“I would see us at peace,” Stephen said heavily. “I would see this madness at an end. Obviously whatever is causing this bloody mayhem has grown too powerful, too ever-present. It is only getting stronger. It is now beyond my abilities to protect even my own people. And we still don’t even know what it is. It is long past time that we found out.” He turned and looked back at his cousin. “Tristan believes he can do it if we unite in support of him. I say we let him try.”

The other regents of Roland, Cedric Canderre, Quentin Baldasarre, Martin Ivenstrand, and Ihrman Karsrick, looked one to another as Stephen and Tristan continued their joint stare. Finally Cedric lowered his eyes and shook his head.

“All right, then, Tristan. I shall send my knight marshal to you upon my return to High Tower. You can work out the arrangements with him.” Tristan nodded appreciatively, breaking his glance for the first time from Stephen’s. Cedric turned to Quentin Baldasarre.

“I hope you will choose to follow my lead, nephew, and end this acrimonious exchange. This has been a tragic day for our family; now all I desire is to bury my son and grieve. I suggest you commit your forces to Tristan’s command, and tend to your brother as well.”

Baldasarre stared at Tristan for a moment, then nodded reluctantly, looking suddenly older and ashen.

“I will, Tristan, but be warned: do not misuse them. If you commit this new army to another foolish undertaking, like the Spring Cleaning exercise wherein you fed two thousand of your own soldiers to the Bolg, you will surely be sentencing Roland to certain death. Understand this.”

“I do,” said Tristan testily. “And I will not have you questioning my command, Quentin. Either you acknowledge my authority, or Bethe Corbair will be forced to secede from the kingdom and defend itself. Is that clear?”

“Yes,” Baldasarre spat.

“Good. Now, what say you, Ihrman? Martin? Are you with me, or are you out?”

Martin Ivenstrand looked to Philabet Griswold, who nodded reluctantly, then to Stephen Navarne. He let loose a deep sigh.

“Avonderre is with you, Tristan. I will yield you command of my army, but not of the naval forces. I am the only province with a coastline and a shipping interest to protect.”

“That will suffice, for now,” Tristan said, walking to the sideboard and picking up the brandy decanter, which he found to be empty. He set it down again. “And you, Ihrman? Are you casting Yarim’s lot in with Roland?”

“Yes,” said Karsrick icily.

“Good. Then go home to your own lands, all of you, and send me your commanders forthwith after the state funerals. Please schedule those ceremonies so that I may attend both, as both Andrew and Dunstin were Madeleine’s kinsmen.” Cedric Canderre and Quentin Baldasarre, already numbly gathering their belongings, merely nodded.

Tristan waved his hand in the direction of the benisons.

“I’d be grateful, Your Graces, if you would be so kind as to offer up some prayers to the Patriarch on my behalf, that I might lead with the All-God’s granted wisdom.”

“And, of course, for the souls of the deceased as well,” said Llauron.

The Lord Roland caught the gaze of the Invoker of the Filids, and cleared his throat.

“Of course,” he said hastily. He looked into the Invoker’s blue eyes and found a mild expression in them. “Thank you for your assistance today, Your Grace. How fortunate it was for us that the chief priest of nature was among us at this time.” Llauron nodded casually, then took a final sip of brandy, draining his glass. “I imagine this must be a poignant moment for you,” Tristan said.

Llauron smiled slightly. “It has been a more than poignant day, my son,” he said pleasantly.

“No doubt. There was a time when we all thought that Gwydion might be the one to unite Roland into one realm again. I’m sure this brings back painful memories.”

Llauron turned so that Tristan could not see his face as he answered and set his brandy snifter on the sideboard.

“Indeed,” he said.

Hours later, within the depths of his carriage as it traveled rockily over the frozen roads back to his lands, the holy man smiled. All in all, things had gone rather well.

Achmed had judged his mount to be capable of a long steady canter since the last time it had rested, and so rode steadily east through the frozen grasslands of the Krevensfield Plain, bending slightly over the horse’s neck to avoid the buffeting currents of air, sprinkled occasionally with crystals of ice that whipped through from time to time from the south.

The wind had grown noticeably colder since he and Rhapsody had parted at the northern edge of the Forest of Tyrian. Perhaps that was due to winter’s deepening, or maybe it was only that her fire lore made her a warm presence, even in its depth.

Nine of the demon-spawn had been successfully obtained. The information that the mad Seer of the Present had provided had been only partially helpful, and only slightly accurate; by the time they had located every child, three of them, including the Liringlas named Aric, had moved from where they had been on the day they had visited Rhonwyn in her crumbling abbey tower. Nonetheless, they had chased all of them down and caught them, some easily, some with more bloodshed, but finally each that could be had was theirs.

It had been almost painful tracking them: his Dhracian blood lore screamed in his veins each time he had caught the whiff of the Rakshas’s blood, burning him as he matched the beat of his heart to the beat of the heart pumping in the demon-spawn. It had been a battle each time to disengage from his inbred command to destroy, to rid the Earth of any trace of F’dor, but he managed each time to remind himself that his prey were needed alive, so that the pure, primordial blood of the demon within their veins could be harvested and used to find it. Rhapsody’s admonitions that the prey were only children had meant less than nothing to him.

Finally, with all but the last in hand, they had said goodbye at the forest’s edge, Rhapsody with the remaining two children to take to Oelendra, and he on his way back to his kingdom.

It had been a difficult parting. He had made one final attempt to get her to see the folly in going after the eldest, the gladiator named Constantin, especially now that the winter carnival in Navarne was over; the visitors from Sorbold had no doubt returned to their lands, and the gladiator to the security of the arena compound in Jakar where he lived. She had refused, as always, in her maddeningly resolute manner, and so he had become resigned to the fact that they might be parting for the last time as he bade her goodbye on the doorstep of Tyrian.