Bruce Blake - Heart of the King

“So you can save him?”

Hope flickered in Emeline’s eyes, touched her lips. Seeing it made Athryn’s heart ache.

“Emeline,” he said quietly, his voice overflowing with his own emotion. “When Darestat’s spell went astray, King Braymon’s spirit and Khirro’s were bonded. To separate them and save the kingdom, only one will survive.”

She stared into his eyes and he saw that, for a moment, she didn’t grasp the weight of his words. He held her gaze, doing his best to keep his own emotions in check as realization dawned for her.

“You’re going to kill him.”

Athryn licked his lips. “It is the only way to raise the king.”

“After all he did for you, all he did for the kingdom, you’re going to kill him.”

Therrador had arrived and stood between the two of them, looking down at Khirro; he said nothing.

Athryn held Emeline’s gaze as he spoke. “Therrador, fetch your son.”

The king nodded and took a step toward the horses and stopped.

“Where is he?”

“I left him with the horse.”

Therrador took another step, stopped, spun a half circle. Athryn looked away from Emeline.

“Graymon!”

The magician followed Therrador’s gaze to the boy crossing the grassland toward the Archon, a jeweled-handled dagger in his hand.

***

Graymon’s toes dangled above the ground as he lowered himself out of the saddle, his hands gripping the leather tight. He hung from it without letting go, fearful though he knew the ground to be close beneath his feet, but the memory of climbing out of the wagon, of falling from the tree, still lingered. He took a deep breath, inhaling the smell of saddle leather and horse sweat, and let go, dropping the six inches separating the soles of his feet from the ground.

When he turned around, he saw his da fighting a man with feathers poking out of his skin while Athryn and Emeline rushed toward Khirro, who was laying in the mud.

She killed him. She killed the tyger.

Graymon’s eyes moved away from his friends to scan the plain. Through the tapestry of falling snow, he saw the pile of wreckage that was once the dragon-green-hued smoke rising from a heap of red rock. His heart lurched at the sight, and he thought of his toy dragon and its broken wing, of the way the woman had manipulated it when he first met her. She stood not far away, naked and laughing, her arms outspread, her hair tossed by the winter wind. The entire length of the staff in her hand glowed green.

Graymon’s fingers wrapped around the hilt of the dagger Khirro gave him. He felt the rough feel of the jeweled hilt against his skin, the cold metal of the pommel. He swallowed hard, pulled the dagger from his belt, careful not to cut himself, and started toward the woman.

He felt like a brave hero at first, fortified by doing the right thing, but with each step, his courage flagged; as he drew closer to the woman, fear crept in. He reminded himself of all the things she’d done, of the way she tricked him, of what she did to his da, to the kingdom, and now to the tyger. She was the one who raised the dead, so if a dead soldier killed Khirro and the tyger, then it was her fault, just as if she'd wielded the sword herself.

As he walked, he looked at the ground in front of him instead of at the woman. He knew if he looked at her, or at the fighting around him, he would surely lose his nerve. So he averted his eyes and counted his steps to distract himself.

When he’d gone a hundred paces, he heard his name and took it as the cue to finally raise his eyes again. He looked into the face of the witch.

She stood ten yards away, staring at him with a bemused look on her face. She raised an eyebrow and one corner of her mouth followed it up in a lopsided smirk.

“Well, well. To what do I owe the honor of your company, my prince?”

Graymon stopped and concentrated on making an angry face instead of the afraid one threatening to usurp his expression. He gritted his teeth and pressed his lips together the way his father did when he was angry; he tried hard to make his eyebrows touch like Nanny’s.

“You killed the tyger.” He said the words quietly, hoping she wouldn’t hear the terror steadily building inside him like water threatening to overflow a dam.

The woman threw her head back and laughed. The sound echoed and rolled across the plain. It seemed to toss the falling snow about in its wake and it touched Graymon like fingers groping in the dark. It might have tickled if he hadn’t been so scared. He shivered.

“The tyger should have stayed dead the first time I killed him,” she said directing her gaze back to the boy. “It would have saved a lot of lives.”

“If you hadn’t attacked, it would have saved lots of lives,” Graymon yelled at her, his voice quaking. He breathed a few short, stiff breaths through his nose, held the dagger out in front of his chest and started toward her again. He made it one step before the arm encircled his waist and picked him up off the ground.

Graymon wiggled and fought against the arm, slashed at it with the dagger, but a hand grabbed his wrist. The boy looked over his shoulder and saw his father’s face looming above him.

“Da!”

But his father wasn’t looking at him, he didn’t respond. Instead, he glared at the woman and made a much better angry face than Graymon had been capable of; angrier than he’d ever seen his father.

“Ah. The traitor king has returned.”

Graymon’s feet dangled above the ground as his father backed away. The boy looked from his father to the woman. She didn’t look amused anymore; her faced looked even angrier than his da’s. Hatred and rage twisted and warped her face, dissolved her beauty. Her lips pulled back to reveal gleaming teeth, sharp with points; her hair whipped out behind her as though she stood in the midst of a hurricane; she seemed to grow taller.

The woman held the glowing green staff in both hands in front of her and brought the butt end down hard against the ground. Thunder clapped, lightning jumped toward the sky and the earth rumbled. Behind her, a tornado of white smoke and snow rose up, swirling and twisting higher and higher, expanding wider and wider until it blotted out the sky.

Therrador put Graymon down, grabbed him by the hand, and pulled him away.

“Run,” his father yelled.

***

“Get him,” Athryn snapped, but Therrador had already taken off after his son. “I must begin the spell.”

“Do you have to?”

Emeline’s voice held a pleading tone and anger flashed through Athryn. He wanted to ask her why she should show concern for him now, after what she’d done to his friend, but he bit back his ire and gestured at the wound in Khirro’s belly instead. Blood still oozed from it, though the flow had ebbed.

“If not this, he will die anyway, then we lose both Khirro and Braymon. And the kingdom.”

He glanced over his shoulder and saw Therrador scoop Graymon up in his arm.

“I have to begin.”

Emeline lowered her head and touched Khirro’s cheek.

“I’m sorry.”

Athryn traced his fingers along the tattooed lines on his torso, felt their power flow up his fingers, along his arms, and into his chest to infuse the air in his lungs. The charged air rose into his throat and spilled out of his mouth in words of a language he didn’t know. Finger traced, lips spoke; this is how it needed to be since Maes died and his magic returned. His flesh went cold and numb; sweat beaded on his forehead. A vibration started at his knees and shook its way up his spine.

Khirro gasped a sudden breath and Emeline cried out in concern, but Athryn didn’t let it distract him. The arcane words tumbled from his lips fluently, though his mouth had never formed them before and they felt uncomfortable on his tongue. The world narrowed to Khirro lying on the ground in front of him, Emeline and Iana at his periphery, the sound of the chant collecting in his ears, multiplying in his head.