Angelaeon Circle 2 - Eye of the Sword (24 page)

Dusk found Trevin and his company camping in the foothills of the mountains. Trevin joined Ollena to hunt for fresh meat and was gratified to find that while she could shoot a cony at a remarkable distance, only he could locate it afterward in the gathering darkness.

Later, as they all sat around the campfire after supper, talk turned to their destination. Redcliff.

Pym leaned back against a tree trunk. “What I’m wondering, Trevin, is what happens at the gate. If there’s still a warrant out, which is likely, you’ll be arrested.”

“Disguise yourself,” Ollena suggested from where she stood watch on one side of the staked horses, Livia on the other side.

“Could work,” said Pym.

“Maybe Sorabus can negotiate our way in,” said Trevin.

Sorabus looked up from stirring the coals, his almond eyes reflecting the flames. “Then Nevius can maneuver through the politics of getting you out of prison.”

“If you’re willing to rot while politics drags its feet.” Nevius rubbed his bulbous nose.

“I suggest we take Main Trevin in as a prisoner.” Xenio retied the end of one of his black braids. “We tell the guards we come from the north, bringing a wanted man. Once inside, we keep to the back streets and go where we please.”

“The temple,” said Trevin. “The priest there is Angelaeon. He’ll know whether it’s dangerous to show my face.” Jarrod could also send for Melaia, who among other things could advise him of King Laetham’s mood. They would just have to avoid Varic. If the prince was there.

Everyone grew silent, listening to wolves bay in the distance. Ollena climbed to a boulder on the uphill side of the camp.

As the other men bedded down, Trevin ambled over to Livia. “You’re eager to see Serai,” he said.

“A mother is always eager to see her daughter,” said Livia. “Perhaps as eager as a young man is to see the girl he loves.”

“Is that why you suggested me as heir to King Kedemeth—so I would be of rank to marry Melaia? I thought angels didn’t interfere with human will.”

“We don’t. We influence circumstances. We counsel. But we allow you to make your own choices.” Livia paced beyond the horses and sat on a stump.

Trevin followed and took a seat on the ground beside her.

“Windweaver suggested you as the logical heir,” she said, “and I saw the sense of it, due to your heritage and the life Arelin intended for you. If it eases your relationship with Melaia, all the better.”

Trevin gazed north toward Flauren, wondering if he should tell King Laetham about Kedemeth’s offer to make a comain his heir. Would that please the king or anger him? “What do you know about King Laetham’s melancholy?” he asked.

“Laetham is what we Angelaeon call a Breaker. Like waves that swing in tides, high then low. Though King Laetham tends toward the low.”

A lone wolf howled, and Livia pulled her cloak tighter.

“What causes a person to become a Breaker?”

“I suppose it depends,” said Livia. “I happen to believe King Laetham is beset by the guilt of falsely accusing Dreia of being unfaithful and banishing her. He lost a wife he loved and almost lost a daughter.”

Trevin’s stomach knotted. He hadn’t realized he and the king shared a gut-gnawing core of guilt.

Livia eyed him. “We all bear guilt for something we’ve done or not done,” she said. “The difference with King Laetham is that he can’t forgive himself. He drowns in his guilt. The harshest judgments are often the ones we place on ourselves.”

Wolves wailed to each other. Trevin offered to take Livia’s watch, but she insisted on fulfilling her turn, so he slipped back to the campfire and chucked another log on the fading flames.

As Trevin lay down and drew his cloak around him, he realized he hadn’t warned anyone that he might wake in the night with a terror-dream. The fear of screaming out made it hard to fall asleep in a group like this. But he had not suffered a terror-dream in over a fortnight. Perhaps the phantoms of his sleep were gone.

Still he found it hard to close his eyes.
The harshest judgments are often the ones we place on ourselves
. He stared at the flames licking the fresh log. Guilt was a searing fire, he thought. A burn deep in the soul. Would he, like King Laetham, let that burn define him and control the rest of his life?

raks shadowed Trevin and his companions every step of their journey south, but as they neared Redcliff, it was the ground that claimed their attention. Rivulets of gash had turned the path ahead into a maze. Trevin was appalled at the change that had occurred in the six weeks he had been absent. The earth seemed leprous, and the air swirled with the stinking steam that rose from the bubbling, dun-colored mud.

“I’m not easily sickened,” said Pym, “but these earth gashes make my stomach clench like a fist.”

“And mine,” said Trevin, though he knew a greater part of his unease was due to a sense of foreboding. He couldn’t count the number of times he had instinctively placed his palm on the hilt of his sword and flexed his fingers.

At last the walls of Redcliff came within sight, but instead of feeling relief, Trevin grew only more wary. He sensed no malevolents, for which he was grateful. The trouble was that he sensed
nothing
. The only angel presence he discerned rode with him.

By the time they reached the west wall, daylight was waning. Sorabus took the lead, and the others formed a ring around Trevin, who pulled up his hood. They cantered toward the bridge that rose from the valley to the main gate but slowed when they reached it. The bridge was as bare as a bone picked clean, the iron doors of the main gate shut tight as a casket.

“Flustrations!” said Pym. “You’d think they’d leave the gates open a mite longer.”

Sorabus led them across the bridge, positioned around Trevin as they had planned, but before they could pound on the gate, a voice called, “Who wants entrance?”

They looked up to see a guard atop the wall. His companion held an arrow nocked and ready.

Trevin glanced at Ollena. He suspected she could impale the archer before the man could twitch his finger. Her hand lay near her bow, but she and the others held their peace.

Sorabus called, “We’re a company of allies from Eldarra. Armsman Pymbric is with us.”

“Wait there.” The guard bobbed out of sight.

As their mounts impatiently snuffed and snorted, ready to be done with the journey, Trevin looked south over the bridge toward the valley where he was appointed comain. No animals grazed the fields, no hut lights glimmered, and no one traveled the roads. Stinking wraiths of steam spewed from cracks in the ground and dissolved in the chill evening air. A shiver ran up his arms.

Livia sidled up to him. “The Angelaeon presence at Redcliff is small,” she said, “but it’s here.”

Trevin tried to discern the colored light, hoping to sense Melaia, but the scraping of the gate bolt dragged his mind instead to the sound of his jail door in Flauren. The Eldarran cells were better than those at Redcliff. He shuddered to think King Laetham might clap him in irons before hearing the truth.

The gate door opened a crack, and the guard appeared with a torch. After studying the group, he frowned. “Main Trevin? We thought—”

“He was found not guilty,” snapped Ollena.

“But we’ve brought him here to answer to Camrithian charges,” said Sorabus.

The guard snorted as he tugged the door open. “You’ve a long wait, then. Unless you want to ride to Qanreef.”

“Why?” Pym stirred his disheveled hair.

“The king’s in Qanreef.”

“Qanreef!” said Trevin. “The court doesn’t go to Qanreef until after the harvest festival.”

“You think there’ll be a harvest this year?” The guard closed the gate behind them. “Half the city has left for hither and yon.”

“The princess is gone as well?” asked Trevin.

“The lot of ’em,” said the guard. “They feared they’d be trapped here by these gashes opening all around. Farmers can’t produce; no foodstuff’s coming
in. Some of us have stayed, but how long we can hold without a bulk of supplies arriving is anyone’s guess.” He nodded at the rest of the company. “The inn’s boarded up. Not expecting guests, as you might imagine.”

“Is the temple open?” asked Livia.

“You might try there. Jarrod’s stayed.” The guard waved them on and headed back to his lookout.

Trevin led the group through the dim city streets, his eyes on the towers of the palace, every window dark. But as they neared the inner wall, he sensed Jarrod waiting at the gate. A twinge of anger pinched him. Why hadn’t Jarrod gone with Melaia? As an Exousia and Melaia’s half brother, Jarrod should be a permanent part of her protection.

As they approached the inner gate, Jarrod opened it and held a torch high. “Weary travelers?” He waved them into the inner courtyard. “I sensed you coming and sent the steward to prepare some rooms on the ground floor of the palace.”

Trevin dismounted.

“Horses to the stables across the way,” Pym told the group. “I’m familiar with its workings.”

“You might not find much fodder,” said Jarrod.

“We’ll scrape up something,” said Pym. “Could use your hair. It’s the right color.”

Jarrod protectively flipped his tail of hair over his shoulder as Trevin retrieved his sword, his staff, and the pack holding the harp. Pym took the gelding’s reins and led the rest of the group to the stables.

Livia hung back. “I suppose Serai isn’t here?”

“Unfortunately not,” said Jarrod. “She accompanied the princess to Qanreef. Now that Main Trevin is back, I’ll go to the coast too.”

“I expect we’ll all journey to the coast.” Livia headed for the stables.

“You’re welcome to stay at the temple tonight,” Jarrod called to her.

“If the steward has prepared rooms in the palace, I’ll stay with the other woman in our group,” Livia called back.

“Another woman? I didn’t notice,” said Jarrod.

“The orange-red angel dresses like a man,” Trevin said.

“Obviously passes for one.”

“Just don’t challenge her to a fight.”

Trevin plodded behind Jarrod past the temple’s porch columns and through the arched doorway. The altar room lay in shadows. Except for Jarrod’s torch, the only light came from the priest’s quarters off the curving corridor that echoed with their footsteps.

“Is Dwin here or in Qanreef?” asked Trevin.

“Neither. Dwin has other responsibilities.”

“You’ve already made him a priest?”

“A priest?” Jarrod looked amused. “You believe it’s in Dwin’s nature to be a priest?”

“No, but—”

Jarrod slipped his torch into a hall bracket and entered his quarters. “Dwin’s a spy.”

Trevin halted in the doorway. “How long has he been spying?”

Jarrod set out pottery cups. “He started—on his own—the day you found him at Drywell. He recognized Fornian as someone who had visited Redcliff before, and he thought he might find out who the Dregmoorians were. He made a few mistakes—”

“A few mistakes!” Trevin barked.

“And then he tried to redeem himself by getting information on them at Redcliff, which is how he learned about Hesel’s gash running.”

“Why didn’t he tell me?”

“He did. He said you didn’t believe him. Said you were none too happy about the idea.”

“Brilliant. He must have figured that out when I said
no spying
.” Trevin hung his sword and scabbard on a peg. His own spying had been costly, and not just to him. He had hoped to spare Dwin the same grief. As he leaned his staff in a corner and set his pack on a bench, he told himself to calm down. “So King Laetham needed spies?”

“Dwin works for the Angelaeon.”

Trevin plunked down on a stool beside the table. “Can’t you angels do your own spying?”

“We have our limitations.” Jarrod poured cider. “Malevolents sense our presence too easily. Humans can go places we could never hope to enter.”

“Such as?”

“The Dregmoors.” Jarrod handed a cup to Trevin. “The Asp needed eyes.”

Trevin clapped his cup down on the table, and cider sloshed out. “Dwin is in the Dregmoors? Blast it, Jarrod! You might as well have sent him into a live lava flow.”

Jarrod tossed him a cloth to wipe the spill. “Dwin volunteered.”

Trevin hissed and scrubbed at the table.

“Was
your
mission successful?” asked Jarrod.

“In part. I met with the Oracle.”

“And?”

“The Oracle is Windweaver.”

Jarrod burst into laughter. “Windweaver? The mysterious Oracle! I should have guessed. Did he give you a word for the king, a sign, an omen?”

Trevin shook his head. He wasn’t about to say he was the sign, a ridiculous notion. He retrieved his pack and untied it. “I also found a harp. The one that
touches skies
. But don’t play it unless you want the earth to quake.” He gently lifted the harp from its wrappings.

Jarrod stroked the wooden frame. “Now here’s a good omen. Melaia will be delighted.”

“Can you interpret the runes?”

“
Tremulakei
. Tremble.”

“Well named,” said Trevin. “So you know the old tongue?”

“I learned it for keeping the histories at Aubendahl,” said Jarrod.