David Dalglish - Wrath of Lions

“I did,” Ceredon answered. He spoke cautiously, measuring every word. “I knew the scouts had been sent ahead, and then I spotted a group of insurgents leaping through the treetops. I tried to save the scouts, but I arrived too late.”

“I told you not to leave Aerland’s side,” his father said harshly. “You are my only heir, and you placed yourself in unspeakable danger.”

“I am a man grown, Father,” he replied, touching the smooth flesh on the back of the Neyvar’s hand. “I have lived for ninety-six years. I am more than capable of surviving without a platoon of men looking over my shoulder.” He paused, then said, “And I’m more than capable of besting an enemy.”

Neyvar Ruven nodded. “Yes, I heard you put an end to two rebels.”

“I did.”

“How did it make you feel?”

Ceredon shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant. “These creatures are beneath us. Those who betray our doctrines and strike at us with swords and arrows will receive the fate they deserve.”

His father withdrew his hand and patted him on the arm. He nestled back into his chair, a strange expression on his face, almost as if he were disappointed. “A hard doctrine. I suppose I should be proud.”

“So,” Ceredon said, trying to bridge the subject casually, “have you received any word from the rangers you sent out in search of the Melns?”

“No,” said his father. “I recalled those rangers months ago and sent them back to Quellassar. Lady Audrianna and her family are irrelevant now that outside parties have ‘forgiven’ our transgressions. If they live, they are without home or sanctuary. Let them suffer in the wilds. They pose no threat to us.”

The Neyvar shrugged his shoulders and closed his eyes. Ceredon glanced around with uncertainty, then stood up and grabbed a second chair-this one simply wooden, though gracefully etched with vines and roses and lacquered to a shine-and placed it beside his father’s. He then sat down, staring out at the sparkling emerald city.

“This is ugly business,” Neyvar Ruven said after a short silence. “But some find it necessary.”

His father’s tone was delicate, and every word that came from his mouth sounded heavy with regret. It was a moment of weakness that took Ceredon off guard. He had not spent much time with his father over his near century of life. His mother, Jeadra, had raised him, teaching him his lessons and showing him how to love, and his servant Breetan had accompanied him on hunting excursions, demonstrating how to string a bow and swing a khandar. Neyvar Ruven had always been a lingering presence, one that offered harsh criticisms and pointed words, but not much else. There were times when he wished his mother had remained in Dezerea instead of returning to Quellasar to maintain the city, for Ceredon had come to look on his father as one who existed solely to inform him of his unworthiness.

There was none of that attitude now, and the suddenness of the change frightened him.

“What are you saying, Father?” he asked. It was near impossible to keep his voice from shaking.

The Neyvar turned to him once more, those gray-green eyes holding none of their usual force. He reached over and squeezed his son’s arm, though his grip seemed weak, as if all energy had been drained from him in the last few seconds.

“Look upon this place,” he said. “Gaze upon the beauty it has to offer. Dezerea is the crown jewel of our people, Ceredon. It says much that Celestia chose to descend from the heavens to help build it. You must appreciate it for that.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” he said. He felt his eyebrow twitch involuntarily, a nervous tic he hadn’t felt since the first time he’d spoken with Aullienna Meln.

His father shifted in his seat, leaned toward the window. He sounded almost whimsical when he spoke.

“You were not yet born when we turned down Celestia’s offer to foster the humans, and you were only two when the land was divided to make way for the brother gods and their new children. How much do you remember of leaving the ruins of Kal’droth?”

“Some,” Ceredon replied. “I remember Mother gathering our things, and I remember sailing south on the river and the hike that followed, but mostly I simply remember Quellassar being…home.”

“Yes,” his father said with a nod. “As well you should. After the destruction of our homeland, we were given the Quellan Forest to call our own. Previously there had been naught but a small fishing village there, but we went to work directly, creating a city among the trees.”

“Yes.”

“We are a capable people, driven and hardened by time and trial. But the Dezren…they have always been the more sensitive of Celestia’s children. Lord Orden refused to relocate to the Stonewood Forest, where Cleotis and his small faction of the Dezren had taken up residence long before. He blamed me for our race’s refusal to assist in the upbringing of the new humans-and he was right on that account. Because of his innocence, he wished to remain as close to his former homeland as he could. He pleaded with the goddess, and his pleas must have been hearty, for she appeared before his people in this very clearing and, with a touch of her glorious hand to the ground, she allowed their spellcasters to raise the structures you see before you from the very earth.

“Fittingly, the Dezren created a paradise within Paradise. And our people…our people were not amused. It seemed as though our creator were choosing them over us.…We Quellans were being punished again, just as we had been a thousand years earlier, when the last of our winged horses were destroyed during the Demon War. We were being punished for our strength . Why should the weak be rewarded with the goddess’s assistance, our people said, when we had worked our fingers to the bone to create our city?”

There was no derision in the Neyvar’s tone as he told this tale, which struck Ceredon as odd.

“Do you not agree with this?” he asked.

“No,” Neyvar Ruven replied. “I do not.”

Ceredon shook his head but remained silent, allowing his father to continue.

“To be honest,” he said finally, “I felt for our poor cousins. Our way of life is vastly different from theirs. While we Quellan have always taken pride in our strength, hard work, and physical prowess, the Dezren followed a different path. We are hunters and warriors, whereas they are poets, musicians, and mystics. While we built architectural marvels and learned to manipulate the land with our hands, they honed their connection to the magic that is woven throughout this land. We once balanced each other out; we taught them to build with their hands, and they instructed the few spellcasters among our own people. When our singers sing, it is the songs of the Dezren that flow from their mouths.” He sighed. “The coming of the brother gods changed that. They…disrupted things somehow. The connection our Dezren brethren had to the weave was weakened. Where once they could conjure great orbs of fire, command the lightning in the sky, and cause barren fields to suddenly take to seed, now it is all they can do to light a torch with their fingers or nurture a few plants to adulthood. I assume Celestia helped them erect this city out of pity.”

Ceredon looked at his father in wonder. “But why did this occur? What happened to their magic?”

“The gods took it. Think of it, son. We now have two deities walking on this land. The power it required to create their physical forms must have been massive. They are weakened in their current states, which has made them sieves for magical energy. They draw it into themselves, slowly rebuilding their strength so they might one day regain their lost might. There is not an unlimited supply of anything in the universe, including magic. Balance, my son, everything must have balance. The arrival of the two gods destroyed the balance in the land of Dezrel.”