A Mark of Kings, page 40
part #1 of The Shattered Reigns Series
It was short-sighted, Ryn said. In a few generations, man had replenished its ranks.
“By which point the dark elves had already tricked the two of you into closing Karn’s Gullet, effectively severing all lines of communication with the other races.” Bonner scowled. “They knew what they were doing, just as you and Amherst apparently did when you refused to accompany Elysia back to Aletha.”
“Wait… Tricked you?” Declan had momentarily gotten himself lost in the conversation again. “How did they trick you? And Elysia went back? But what about Kant and the others?”
Ryn let out a gruff laugh. The er’endehn are as clever as they are powerful. All it took was a show of force—a threat some fifty years later of invading Viridian—for Herst and I to take it upon ourselves to close off the pass. The moment we’d done so, though, the elves turned around and marched right back to Ysenden like it had been their plan all along. He shook his head, almost amused. The played us like a damn fiddle. Then he looked at Declan directly. But as for the risk of Elysia’s return… In all the years we spent in the city, can you tell me of a single time you heard the names Kant, al’Behn, or Vostyk?
Declan frowned, considering, then shook his head. He wasn’t all that surprised, of course. Many of the capital’s noble houses—the Seryns, Tholuses, and al’Vons just a few among them—claimed heritages that were centuries old, but it had been seven-hundred years since the ill-fated assault on the Reaches. Even noble lines had to die out eventually…
Of course you didn’t, Ryn cut into his thoughts. The heads of those houses took most of Viridian’s standing army and led them into a battle that claimed the life of almost forty thousand of the nation’s finest men and women, and with no victory taken to justify so much as a fraction of such a loss. Worse for them, the Vigil’s survivors returned bearing the truth of the nobles’ intents, many of the soldiers’ eyes opened to the wrongs committed by Kant and the others in the aftermath of Sehranya’s fall. The way it reached us later, it wasn’t more than a week after the nobles’ return to Aletha that their homes were set on by the city’s population, men and women they had deceived and lied to with murderous results for the well-loved royal line. Among them: the families of thousands on thousands of the slain, robbed of their children, their husbands and wives, their parents and siblings.
“Elysia left the Reaches not long after the army’s departure.” Bonner brought the conversation back to fill in the blanks for Declan. “I think the only reason she lingered in the first place was to try and convince her brother to come with her, after he refused her initial suggestion.”
“He didn’t believe the Queen was gone,” Declan recalled, looking to Ryn. “Neither of you did.”
The dragon nodded, but allowed Bonner to continue. “Sehranya’s power was too far beyond what we knew, delving into a realm of magics none had tread before. Elysia—truth be told—was the only one of us convinced she’d indeed dealt a final blow, but Herst’s disbelief struck her hardest. Her brother’s refusal to accompany her home put a wedge between them, and Elysia left on her own in a rare rage. She arrived just as the population of the city was turning on the noble houses.” He sighed, almost in disappointment. “I can’t believe it took much effort on her part to reclaim her father’s crown, given the situation. If anything, it was likely pressed into her hands by the lesser families of the court who sought any way to appease the masses. She took it, to be sure, but did nothing to rein in her people until the higher houses were razed to bloody rubble and dust.”
He toyed with the clear crystal about his neck thoughtlessly. “The anger she had left the Reaches with stayed with her for a long time, I was told… I sought her out more than once, in the years that followed. At first in nothing more than an attempt to look in on her, then later in the hopes of talking her down from her decisions to abolish the magical colleges and ban spellcraft within the boundaries of Viridian. She never even received me…”
“She banned magic?” Declan demanded, astounded. “But… she was a mage! Why would she strip herself of her own abilities?”
“She didn’t.” Bonner shook his head. “Not to my knowledge at least. She went so far as keep her own children from learning the craft, but I don’t believe she gave up her own powers. I’m not sure she could have, even before drinking a primordial’s blood.” His green eyes flicked quickly to Ryn. “But yes. Whether out of fear that someone like Sehranya would rise again, or for some other reason, Elysia barred all further education or apprenticeships, and punished mages who broke those laws severely. She had the people on her side, in this. The vaster population of Aletha and beyond who had suffered so greatly at the hands of the Endless Queen and the nobles whose magic was the one thing that truly set them apart from the common masses. Within a decade the prohibition was enacted, and within three the only weavers left in the world were of the old guard, far fallen from the respected guardians of power and secrets we had always been.”
It got so bad, ‘witchhunts’ began to form, Ryn spat with a growl of frustration. Even Herst and I were set upon on occasion, in our journeys, despite the fact he still wore that ring. He nodded towards the signet of the al’Dyors on Declan’s finger.
Something clicked into place then, and Declan scrutinized Bonner carefully. “That’s why you went into hiding, isn’t it?” he asked. “That’s why you disappeared…?”
“That, and because there was as little place left for Arathia in the world as there was for me.” The old man’s voice took on a hard edge that went beyond his previous bitterness. Not a trace of his usual cheer could be found in the laugh lines that broke up the corners of his eyes. “Viridian’s growing hatred did not fixate solely on us mages. It spread, building a mistrust of all the other races. Dragons were chief among them—fed on old stories of the attack on the palace that had spread too far to ever be completely cleared up, something you’ve already been witness to—but the elves suffered only minimally less resentment. The woman that was by then my wife was an outcast of the world as a whole, unwelcome in the forests of her homelands in the shadow of her failed duty to Elnaryl ehn’Vyr’en, and despised within the borders of Viridian. So yes, I left. We left. And I can honestly say I’ve not regretted it for a moment in the more than six hundred years since.”
His tone was final, daring any to argue his conviction. No one spoke up, neither desiring such a confrontation nor possessing any justification to do so.
“What about you and Herst, Ryn?” Ester finally asked, leaning around Declan to cut through the lingering tension. “Obviously you never found Sehranya…”
The dragon flinched, like the bluntness of the statement was a jab to the ribs. No, he grumbled regretfully, jaw opening and closing while he chewed on his thoughts. Not so much as a hair or hint of her in the fifty-odd years we spent looking. We eventually started to believe that she was gone—I think Herst even reached out to Elysia, to try to mend the rift our refusal to do so had caused—but we couldn’t be convinced… Not completely, at least. It wasn’t until he received word that his sister had died giving birth to her third child that Herst gave pause to think of what other joys of life he might have been sacrificing. He married, eventually. The dragon smiled nostalgically. Brilyn. A peasant woman whose vegetables we made the mistake of trying to steal in exchange for a gold piece left in the dirt. He laughed aloud at the memory. I remember her stomping out across the gardens in bare feet and nothing more than a nightgown to successfully make the greatest warrior of the age cower and apologize under the tongue lashing she gave him. Ryn’s cheer halted, then faded. She died herself not two years later, giving Herst his daughter. He named her Elalyn, half for his sister and half for Brilyn, each taken by your Mother and Her Graces in the same brutal manner.
Ryn sighed sadly. Then… Herst passed himself. In the year 367. I… I had thought the gifts I’d given him might have kept him with me for some time more, but…
He let the disappointment and grief hang in the air, his thought unfinished. No one pressed him. All knew the tale from there, even Declan. Ryn had stayed with his family through the generations that followed, had looked over Elalyn, then her son, Sehren, after her. Beyond that, dozens of men and women of Herst’s line, centuries of a family that shared blood with the royals of Viridian and Ryn’s own gifts. It made Declan’s heart ache. He had never before considered the toll such a life must have taken on his friend. To see one’s cherished charges born, live, and die over and over again. It seemed a cruel fate, bordering on the purgatory of sinners the priests of the Mother’s Word cathedral could be heard preaching about in the streets of the city.
A thought bubbled up across Declan’s thoughts, a question that hadn't been answered just yet.
“Why?” he muttered.
Bonner looked at him curiously. “What was that?”
Declan started and cursed himself. He hadn't realized he’d let the words slip out aloud. “Why?” he asked again, louder this time, looking to Ryn again. “Why have you been following us, all this time? After Herst died… What kept you with my family? Why didn’t you return to the Reaches?”
Ryn, in response, stared back at him like he didn’t understand the question. Bonner had to answer for him, in the end.
“Declan… By the time the war ended, there weren’t more than fifty dragons to be spoken for in the entirety of the Ranges…”
Declan almost choked. Fifty dragons? He had thought the decimation of the Vigil had been extreme, but those had been soldiers whose lives had been lost on the battlefield. For any entire race to be all-but-eradicated…
As with Bonner, there was little left to me, in this world, Ryn finally managed, a waver in his voice betraying his emotions. Many of even those few survivors refused to acknowledge me as their sovereign, some because of my age, and others because they blamed me for the evils that had befallen our home, and not altogether without cause. The few that pledged me their allegiance I had already ordered scattered, tasking them with protecting what tenuous vestiges remained of the Accord.
Declan blinked at this, but Bonner foresaw the burgeoning question. “Oh yes, the Accord holds, boy. It’s likely the reason Sehranya has seen fit to hunt us down like animals. Consider: man and the wood elves of the Vyr’en are at odds, and the dragons are but a shadow of what they might have been, but all three races signed the pact. Ryndean lives—” he waved to the dragon at his side “—and there are those that would rise to his call, if needed. Elnaryl ehn’Vyr’en was murdered, but the magic was bound to his blood, not his life. His mother is still Matriarch of the er’enthyl, as she has been for more than a thousand years. Even the dark elves could still be brought into the contract, should they be made willing to do so. As for man…” He paused to fix Declan with a scrutinizing look. “I cannot speak to whether your own line is bound by the weave. Even given the Queen’s interest in your King’s blood, too many generations have passed, and Amherst was—after all—only the second child of Igoric al’Dyor. But Elysia’s line is strong, even today. This ‘Mathaleus’ you name as King is undoubtedly fettered and aware of it, as his children will one day be.”
“He’s aware?” Ester repeated, taken aback. “Do you truly think so, after so much time has passed?”
We do, Ryn answered. We can be certain of it, in fact. I saw to that even before Herst and I left the Reaches.
Declan watched him carefully, wanting to ask. He thought he could guess what the dragon meant, but the need for a more pressing answer still had hold of him.
“You stayed with us because… there was nothing else for you?” he asked tentatively, unpersuaded that this was all there was to the matter. The lack of conviction must have been distinct, because Ryn gave him a lopsided smirk.
Is that so hard to imagine? Do you think there would be another place for me, in the world? Unwanted in my homeland? Feared by mankind?
Declan felt himself flush. “I-I didn’t mean—”
But Ryn held up a hand to stop him, the half-smile still lingering on his lips. I know. And truth be told I’m being unfair. There was—is, rather—more to it than that. The gifts I granted Herst carried, first to Elalyn, then then to Sehren. I had not expected such a phenomenon. No such inheritance of the primordial gifts existed among us dragons, but I can’t believe attempting to understand the intricacies of such a magic would be anything but futile in the extreme. I was as curious as I was concerned. He pointed a clawed finger at Declan. What methods had I at my disposal to ensure the abilities you harbor within that body of yours did not take seed in an unworthy soul? I could have killed Elalyn, or Sehren, ending your line myself, but I would have butchered anyone fool enough to make such a suggestion. I could have abandoned your family to whatever cruel or fortunate fate would come, but that would have involved turning my back on a problem I myself was largely at fault for creating, and I had seen first-hand what destruction men and women with more power than good judgment were capable of. Or—the smile changed slightly—I could stay.
More emotions played across the dragon’s face, in that moment, bright in the warmer light of the morning. True sadness, but mixed just as subtly with real joy. Pain and happiness in equal measure.
It was not a hard decision to make, Declan. I‘d learned much, in Herst and Elysia’s company, in the company of man as a whole. Yours is a people capable of great cruelty, but also of great kindness and affection. Before me, my kind bore little knowledge of the familial ties your race prides itself on, ties you have arguably built your empire up with. We knew enough to be equal parts curious and skeptical, inclined as we were in our own ways, but between the Accord’s negotiations and the war, I had spent years with the al’Dyors, watching Bonner and Arathia grow closer, seeing soldiers weep over lost friends and lovers. I discovered myself capable of similar ties, similar feelings. Herst and Elysia were more than friends to me, more than comrades in arms. Their companionship became my most cherished possession, in many ways. Yes, I could have sought something else, somewhere else. But why? What greater purpose would I have found there than the one before me? The smile brightened, just a little. In the end, your family had become mine, Declan.
Declan stared at Ryn, taking in his words. He saw the dragon in a different light, then, one that was—if anything—more old than new. A space had grown between them in the last weeks, he realized suddenly. Not an impassable one, but a separation all the same. The knowledge and understandings imparted on him—not the least of which being Ryn’s true nature—had been as roots pressing up to steadily crack apart a stone which would have ordinarily been without flaw.
For once it was Declan’s own memories that made themselves known, that came to him one after another. Playing with Ryn as a boy. Working together to help his mother as he grew older. Training. Hunting with the creature in the dragon’s wolf’s form. Later, leaving home behind and struggling their way to the capital, where time had started passing faster and bloodier. For more than twenty years they had been on an adventure together. Twenty years, of which only not even the last month had been spent with this gap growing silently between them.
Family. The word struck Declan hard.
He matched his friend’s smile, and at once a tension he hadn't noticed left Ryn’s shoulders in a wave of acute relief. Across from them both, Bonner clapped his hands in almost boyish exuberance at the sight before casting a wary eye at his daughter.
“Are you satisfied now? Have we explained everything to your expectation?”
Ester shrugged. “That’s hardly for me to decide, I think.” She looked pointedly to Declan, but said nothing more, her hand still not having left his arm.
Declan, noting the opportunity, struggled for several seconds to decide whether or not he was content. He certainly understood far better now the nature of their predicament, the wider trouble they might very well be in, if they had caught the Endless Queen’s eye. He understood, too, the weight Ryn and Bonner carried—had been carrying for centuries now. He felt, for the first time, like he had the chance to share even a little of that burden, even some measure of that labor.
To that end, his thoughts finally settled on one important question, bringing the conversation that had swallowed up the hours of the early morning full circle. Holding up the hand that still held the firestone, he looked to Bonner yr’Essel, former magician of the court of Igoric al’Dyor, and did his best to keep his voice calm despite the building hammer in his chest as he considered the implication of what he was about to ask.
“Can you instruct me? To use this? Can you show me how?”
For only a moment did the old mage look taken aback, blinking once, then twice.
Then his braided beard split into a wide, excited grin.
“Boy, that’s the very least of what I plan on teaching you…”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
If it had been up to Declan, he would have begged Bonner then and there to teach him everything he was willing to, starting at that very moment. It wasn’t possible, of course. Declan saw now that they were well and truly on the run, and there was yet something about the previous night’s encounter that didn’t sit well with any of their number. Ester was the one to bring it up, and after a short discussion and the allowance of a few more hours rest—a poor attempt to make up for some of their collectively lost sleep—they broke camp shortly before noon in a tired, disgruntled fashion. Ryn took to his stallion’s form to bear the load of their gear, and a few minutes later they were making west again, leaving behind the stream and the remnants of their little campfire in favor of retracing their steps back through the woods.
The going was quicker this time, their pace less treacherous under the light of the day. They found the ridgeline in less than an hour, and within five minutes more came across the dusty mass of broken and fallen stone that had only the evening before been the outcropping they’d fought for their lives beneath. Of the wereyn there wasn’t any more hint than scattered stains of blood here and there among the rubble, and Declan couldn’t help but whistle and glance at Bonner upon taking in the rockfall. The mage was studying the collapse with a critical eye, almost like a painter examining his finished work, and no one asked him about it after they pressed on.
