Arbiter (The Arbiter Chronicles Book 1) (33 page)

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Berais led her a good distance from the castle, down a sloping rode that wound down the hillside, and alongside a small stream that eventually fed into the great river that flowed beside his castle. They rode in silence, the way lit only by Larin and the mage light that Rae had summoned once they moved out of the reach of the lights of the courtyard. Neither Berais nor his horse seemed to need anything to see by, and Rae had a good feeling that Naraisel didn’t either, but the light made her
feel better about where she was going. She didn’t know how much time had passed—perhaps an hour, perhaps less, but eventually Berais stopped, dismounting and leading his horse up a small hill by the reins. Rae followed suit, dismounting in a less composed manner than the High Lord. Naraisel snorted at her, and Rae rolled her eyes at him, taking the horse by his black reins and walking up the hillside.

The High Lord waited for her, his hand on the reins of his own horse. She walked over to him, looking out over the crest of the hill. A collection of stone ruins stood clustered around the river, the faint light lending the stones an eerie pallor. She rested one hand on Naraisel’s neck as she looked up at Berais. Their entire ride, the High Lord had said nothing about his Decadal Spell. Her experience with Alcian taught her better than to ask.

“Ruins?”

“Correct,” said Berais with a nod. “Can you tell of what?”

She studied them more closely. The ruins seemed to be made up of a collection of buildings. If she squinted, she thought she could make out the outline of old farmhouses dotting the landscape, along with what looked like a defunct water wheel. She glanced back at the High Lord.

“…A village?”

He nodded once, his expression grave. “A human settlement. In its prime it consisted of around one hundred and thirty people, mostly farmers and retired servants of my castle. These lands were under my protection.”

“What happened?” asked Rae, looking out over the desolate village again.

Berais glanced at her, before turning his eyes back to the scene before him. “Selde has told you the story of the Schism?”

“Yes,” said Rae, nodding her head. “Five hundred years ago, right?”

“About,” said Berais with a nod. “The Schism had thrown both the High Court and the Dark Court into disarray. Three High Lords and two Dark Lords were killed in the making of the barrier, as well as some members of the High and Dark Blood, and their deaths and powerful Sources no doubt contributed exponentially to the barrier’s power. There was grieving on both sides, and both Courts returned to their capitals to evaluate their situation and make their plans. One of the dead High Lords was my predecessor—the former High Lord of this land. In his grief, his eldest son became consumed with hatred and thoughts of revenge, and disappeared into the lands of the Dark Court. His younger brother was considered too young to lead. He was a child at the time of the Schism, and a wild one at that. Because of that, the lands were handed over to me.”

Berais’s face broke into a somewhat sad smile at that. “I imagine he still resents me, sometimes.”

Rae turned towards Berais, realization suddenly dawning on her. “…Cienn?”

“Cienn’s family is tied to the land in ways that run deeper than blood, ways that you are only beginning to understand.” replied Berais, his eyes fixed on the village. “Had he not grown into someone so unpredictable, and so filled with hate, he may have been granted my position by virtue of heritage alone. But he was wild and enraged. The loss of his father and brother hurt him dearly. Anyone could see that he was unfit to rule, when every word that spilled from his mouth was war.”

Rae considered that, burying her fingers in Naraisel’s mane. Her mind went back to the conversation she had had with Cienn a few days ago, just before the attack, back to the image of the
tarethan
standing there, and the look in his eyes as he spoke about his past.

“…For what it’s worth,” she said. “I don’t think he resents you anymore.”

“Your opinion means much, Arbiter,” said Berais, in a neutral tone that made her uncertain whether or not he was being facetious. “But Cienn was not the only one who spoke of war.  And unfortunately, one of the most vocal of them actually had power.”

Rae tensed, her fingers curling lightly around a patch of Naraisel’s mane. She resisted the urge to pull, knowing the horse well enough by now to know that that was a good way to get bitten. She had a feeling she knew where this was going.

“…There was a time where he was simply known as a Dark Lord,” said Berais quietly, glancing at Rae. “But you know him better as the Reaper.”

She let out the breath she was holding, nodding once.

“We were all grieved by the tragedy of the Schism,” said Berais. “We were all angry, and the anger of the Ivali does not easily fade. But we moved on. Within two hundred years, we learned, in our own way, to move past that hate. Within two hundred years the humans that had caused this tragedy were all dead, and in our own way, we coped.” His tone grew solemn as he watched the village. “The Reaper did not.”

Berais paused, and Rae hesitated.

“What…?” she finally asked. “…did the Reaper do?”

“For the first two hundred years, he tried and failed to incite the High Court and the Dark Court to war. In the last fifty years of his reign, his hatred turned inward. He decided then that if the Courts would not support him, he would go to war on his own. He vowed to destroy the human lands, no matter what the other Lords thought. He decided that he was going to make a weapon, and with it, he would attack the Safelands.”

“He was stopped,” said Berais. “by a High Lord. High Lord Saviel. The two of them had been friends before the Schism—as close as brothers. It was Saviel who managed to deter the Reaper from acting for the first few centuries of the Schism, before he lost himself completely, and it is Saviel who knows the truth about why the Reaper decided to act on that day, one hundred fifty years ago. I do not. Regardless, the Reaper acted, and Saviel stopped him, and the two fought. They fought a battle the likes of which neither Court had seen in millennia. These fields were alight on that day, Arbiter. With blood and fire and lightning, with the fury of the heavens and the grave.”

Rae looked around. Now, she saw only a hilltop, but she could tell that Berais did not see the same thing. He seemed almost in a trance as he spoke to her, as if his mind was still on those events, one hundred and fifty years ago.

“Who won?” she asked.

“Neither,” said Berais. “Or neither would have, had the High Lords not intervened to help Saviel and the Dark Court not quietly left the Reaper to their mercy. But the Reaper was subdued, and a human was brought in to judge, in the presence of both the High Queen and the Dark Queen.”

“The Arbiter,” supplied Rae.

“Yes,” said Berais, his eyes fixing on her. “The Arbiter. The last Arbiter…present company excluded, of course. Enden Calveirn.” The High Lord looked at her, before looking back over the village. “Predictably, he Ruled that the Reaper was guilty. But he declined to participate in the sentencing, not wanting the Reaper's life on his conscience. He turned the case over to the Queens.”

“In any other case, he would have been executed immediately for his blatant attack on both myself and High Lord Saviel. But he was a Lord of the Dark Court, and because of this, he was shown leniency. They considered sentencing him to exile—indefinite banishment to the Daylight Realm. But for reasons you know well, they knew they could not let him loose on a defenseless realm unchecked, so they decided that someone must go into exile with him—someone they could trust. They argued this point for a while, until it started to look like the Reaper would not be exiled after all, but then the unthinkable happened. A High Lord volunteered—Saviel.”

“Saviel stepped forward, and in full view of the council, declared that this was partially his fault. He had seen the darkness in the Reaper’s heart and had ignored it. He would claim responsibility for his error and follow the Reaper into the Daylight Realm. The Queens agreed. All that was left was for the Arbiter to declare the Ruling just.”

A small smile appeared on Berais’s face, and the High Lord shook his head. “…But this was not so simple. The Arbiter at the time was a great friend of Saviel’s, and to hear his friend say such things grieved him terribly. He refused to make the Ruling. Saviel and the Arbiter argued, in full view of the council. They shouted. The Arbiter pleaded. Saviel refused to back down. And in the end, the Arbiter made his Ruling. He allowed Saviel to enter the Daylight Realm, but only on the condition that he accompany him. He would not leave his friend to suffer alone, for as long as he was alive.”

Berais glanced at Rae. “Perhaps you understand, Arbiter,” he said. “It was a terrible existence that The Reaper and Saviel were thrust into. Practically immortal, unable to be seen by most except by those with the strongest Sources, and with no other Ivali company but each other. I imagine that it has been a very trying one hundred and fifty years for both of them.”

Rae almost wasn’t listening. Her mind was still filled with images from the story, the hazy image of Saviel that Berais had given her being slowly filled in by another, one more concrete. A blond man, wearing white, one that had appeared to her in her dream. The same man that had sent Mika.

“…The moon lost her sun that day,” added Berais quietly, looking up at the sky. “She still mourns.”

She felt like he had just doused her in cold water. The pieces of the puzzle clicked in her mind, falling into place one after another. The blond man, Mika's benefactor, Alcian’s Consort, Ania’s father…

High Lord Saviel.

She felt suddenly weak, and pressed her palm flat against Naraisel for support. There was more, she could tell. She looked up at Berais.

“I…I don’t see what that has to do with the village.”

“Don’t you?” asked Berais, eyeing her. “…You’re a smart girl, Arbiter. Have you ever wondered why the Reaper came to be known as the Thief of Souls?”

Rae stared at the village. Understanding dawned on her, and with it horror. It was almost the same horror she had felt when Selde recounted his story about the barrier, but it was somewhat different. It cut deeper, reaching around her chest with cold fingers and squeezing it tight until she felt like she could no longer breathe. The Reaper’s eyes flashed into her mind, his face, his smirk, the scythe he carried…

“His weapon…” she said, “The thing he was creating…”

“The Source of a human works just as well to fuel a spell as does the Source of the Ivali,” said Berais grimly. “The Reaper would have thought it poetic justice. I called it slaughter, myself. He spared the children, at least. If he hadn't, Selde would perhaps not be alive.”

Her eyes fixed on the village, and in that moment, she thought she could see it. She thought she could see the hundred and thirty men and women that lived there, in the moments before the Reaper’s scythe came down, killing, stealing, burning...

“It was Cienn’s brother,” said Berais. “The one that led the Reaper here. Melrien had always held a little bit of a grudge against me. Cienn killed him. I doubt Cienn even thought about what he was doing at the time…but it certainly affected him afterward…”

She almost didn’t hear. A thought occurred to her then, one suddenly more terrifying, and more personal than the knowledge that the Reaper had killed one hundred and thirty people for their Sources. A thought brought on by one single observation, one single fact that had driven all of her life to this point.

He was still killing.

She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Rae took a deep breath, trying to find her voice. “My family,” she said. “My friends.”

Berais looked at her, his gray eyes suddenly sympathetic. She heard him take deep breath. “It is…not unlikely that the Reaper is doing the same thing now, that he is stealing Sources from humans to create a new weapon. It is not unlikely that he has been doing this for the past hundred and fifty years, despite Saviel’s best efforts, but he probably would have started rushing the process a bit more.”

It felt as though something large was stepping on her chest, but she could manage one word, one question.

“Why?”

“Because you were born,” said Berais. “A child with a Source so strong that she could see him. And more than that, a child who could track him, could detect his movements and tell where he was striking next. Almost as if such a child had been born to…say, complete an incomplete Ruling…He saw in you his opportunity to come back, Arbiter. And he realized that his time to prepare was growing short. I also wouldn’t deny that he probably targeted you because he hated you.”

“…Because the last Arbiter—this Enden—banished him?”

Berais didn’t answer immediately. When he did, it was a roundabout way, a way that brought more questions with it than it did answers.

“I’ve always found it curious that your surname is Miller,” he said. “In the language of the Ivali, the word for miller is
calveirn.”

Rae stared at Berais, her heart pounding in her chest as her mind worked through those implications. Her parents. Her family. The Reaper. Saviel. Those threads began winding together in her mind, weaving into each other in a way she never suspected they could. At length, she lowered her eyes from his, looking back at the village.