Benjamin Tate - Leaves of Flame

“Alvritshai have long memories,” he said finally. “I was part of Khalaek’s House before his betrayal, proud to be Duvoraen. I wore the black and gold of the Phalanx on the battlefield at the Escarpment, fought for Khalaek there and before.”

Colin silently adjusted his estimate of Vaeren’s age. “You must have been newly risen into the Phalanx to have been at the Escarpment.”

“Yes. I was only thirty-three, had been part of the Duvoraen Phalanx for barely a year. When the Evant announced Khalaek’s betrayal, when they declared him khai and banished him.…” Vaeren paused to stare off into the distance, his face open and easy to read. Colin could see the young Alvritshai soldier he had been, could see an echo of the shock and disbelief that young warrior had felt.

Then Vaeren’s face hardened with pain and the anger of the betrayal, and Colin again saw the warrior of the Flame he had first seen in the Sanctuary.

He turned to face Colin. “It felt as if Khalaek had betrayed me personally. I was young; I was newly risen to the Phalanx. It crushed me. And I was not the only one that felt lost and adrift after that.”

“But the Evant declared the rising of House Uslaen almost immediately, appointed Saetor as the new lord and gave all of Duvoraen’s lands and people over to him.”

An echo of the sneer returned. “You can’t declare a new lord and House and expect the people to follow so easily. I’d been part of Duvoraen for decades, had been raised to serve Lord Khalaek, been trained to protect him, to revere the black-and-gold uniform, to live under the Eagle’s Talon.” Vaeren stood abruptly, brandishing the branch, the fire pit between them. “I couldn’t do it,” he muttered, the sneer seeping into his voice. “I couldn’t shrug the Duvoraen House mantle aside so easily. I couldn’t simply vow to serve Uslaen after all that I’d done, after spilling my blood for Duvoraen on the battlefield. The Lords of the Evant should not have expected that of us.”

“Even though Khalaek had betrayed you, betrayed all of the Alvritshai?”

“That was only what the Lords of the Evant claimed,” he said sharply, but his conviction faltered even as he said it, the branch he wielded lowering. “I didn’t know what to believe. Neither did anyone else within the Phalanx. None of us understood, but we all know of the games the Lords of the Evant play.”

Colin held Vaeren’s gaze. “They needed stability. For the treaty with the humans and the dwarren.”

Vaeren’s glare hardened. “And I needed time to adjust, to come to terms with Khalaek’s betrayal.”

Colin shifted where he sat. “But you said you were part of House Uslaen when I asked.”

Vaeren snorted with derision. “I was. Duvoraen had fallen; Uslaen had risen in its stead. The Evant declared me Uslaen. No one can claim to be of House Duvoraen anymore without the risk of becoming khai themselves, of being shunned by everyone, being cursed or spat upon. Duvoraen is dead. But I couldn’t stay with Uslaen, couldn’t pretend to a vow to Saetor that I’d never made, not in my heart.”

“So you joined the Order.”

“Yes. I joined the Flame. What better way to deal with the betrayal of Khalaek and the Evant than to remove myself from them altogether? Nearly a hundred of the Duvoraen Phalanx fled to the Order after the Escarpment. Hundreds of others abandoned Uslaen completely.”

Colin frowned. “They shifted to another House?”

Vaeren shook his head with a grim smile. “They left. They vanished, departing in the night, abandoning their watches, their posts. They became khai-roen, a self-imposed exile. They could not serve under Saetor, could not serve under any lord at all.”

Colin felt a shudder pass through him. The fact that hundreds of Alvritshai had simply left their House and lands behind, had vanished, disturbed him deeply. He understood being disillusioned, understood feeling betrayed by your own people-the refugee families who’d fled Andover nearly two hundred years ago before the onset of the Feud, families like his own, had been betrayed by the Proprietors in New Andover. That betrayal had driven Colin and his family onto the plains, had ultimately killed them all.

All except for Colin and Walter, and neither of them were exactly human anymore.

He reached across with his right hand and massaged his left arm, where beneath the sleeve of his shirt his skin was mottled black with the poison of the Wells and their Lifeblood. It was an old habit, one that he’d thought he’d broken. With a disgusted wince, he snatched his hand away, glanced up to find Vaeren watching him intently.

“Where did they go?” he asked, his voice harsher than he’d intended. “Where are the Alvritshai who abandoned Uslaen now?”

Vaeren shrugged. “No one knows.”

The unease Colin felt sank deeper into his chest. He held Vaeren’s gaze a moment longer, then motioned with his soot-stained hands toward the fire pit and the wood. “We should get the fire started.”

Ten minutes later, he stepped from the hut as a thin, white smoke began to drift from beneath the small aperture in the roof. Aeren, Eraeth, and Siobhaen were still grooming the horses, Aeren talking quietly with Siobhaen, although it didn’t appear Siobhaen was participating much. Eraeth shot Colin an irritated look and shook his head slightly. At the same time, a burst of laughter echoed from the woods south of the road. Petraen and two members of Aeren’s Phalanx approached, ducking under the low-hanging branches of the trees, arms laden with firewood. All three were chatting amiably, Petraen grinning as he related some story about his brother and himself stealing apples from a neighbor’s orchard.

“-and then Boreaus took off as if Aielan Herself had lit a fire under his ass, leaving me behind with the sack of apples,” Petraen said as Colin stepped to one side, allowing the three into the hut. “I scrambled as fast as I could, but the sack got caught on the rail fence and I couldn’t get it free. The next thing I knew the overseer’s hand dug into my shoulder and jerked me back-”

The door to the hut closed, cutting off the words.

Colin looked down at his blackened hands, then moved toward the stream to one side, stepping over the smoothed rocks to the water’s edge. He shoved back the sleeves of his shirt, ignored the swirling darkness that seethed beneath the exposed skin on both arms, and plunged his hands into the water with a sudden sharp breath. The frigid water numbed his fingers immediately, but he scrubbed at the greasy soot nonetheless.

“That won’t come off with water.”

Colin drew his hands out of the water and shook them vigorously, snapping his fingers in an attempt to get the blood flowing again. “I’m used to having darkened skin,” he said, drying his hands on the cloth of his shirt, leaving black smudges behind. Eraeth’s eyebrow rose at the comment, but he said nothing. Colin motioned toward Siobhaen and Aeren, the two tying the horses up near the hut. “No luck with Siobhaen?”

Eraeth grimaced. “She responds to your questions, but she reveals nothing. She’s too guarded.”

Another bout of laughter, muted by the hut’s walls, broke through the gurgle of the stream.

“At least one of the Flame has opened up,” Colin said.

“Vaeren revealed nothing?”

“More than I expected, actually. He’s originally from House Duvoraen. He joined the Order rather than become a permanent part of Uslaen.”

“Many chose that path after the Escarpment and the banishment.”

“He also claims that many Alvritshai abandoned their House and lands altogether.”

The Protector shifted awkwardly, then said grudgingly, “It’s not something that is spoken of. No lord wants to admit that the members of his House would rather choose exile than to serve beneath him. And most Alvritshai refuse to speak of the khai-roen at all. I’m surprised Vaeren mentioned it.”