The Sigil Blade (22 page)

“I’m not of the same mind myself of course,” Ruach clarified. “I want you to return. But it isn’t my place to give orders to a captain. I am here to receive your instructions. Tell me what you need us to do.”

Edryd was about to tell Ruach that he was not a captain in the Sigil Corps, not any longer, when someone else spoke up. “Can you tell Oren that his captain has instructed you both to stop providing aid to the Ascomanni?” Irial asked.

Both Edryd and Ruach turned to Irial in surprise. Realizing she had overstepped, Irial looked down at her feet instead of meeting their stares.

“If you are in agreement of course,” she clarified to Edryd.

“That will cause some problems I think,” cautioned Ruach.

“I think that is the whole point,” Edryd explained, beginning to understand a little of what Irial intended.

“Logaeir will know that I came here and met with you if I tell him that I am acting on your orders,” Ruach argued.

“You don’t need to tell him how you received the orders, only that they came from me and that you have been instructed to stop assisting the Ascomanni,” Edryd reasoned.

Ruach smiled. “This is going to give you some serious leverage,” he said, recognizing the strategy behind his orders, but not their ultimate purpose. Ruach didn’t know what Edryd’s plans were, but he didn’t need to. He was enthusiastic about doing anything that would aid his captain.

For that matter, Edryd had no idea what his plans were either, since he had none. Doubtless, Irial knew a few things, and possibly she had arranged this whole thing. At some point, he was going to need her to share with him what it was he was trying to do here, assuming she did have some plan.

“You had better get back before you are missed,” Edryd suggested. Ruach pointed out that his absence had almost certainly already been noted, but on the chance he could get back to the Ascomanni encampments on the mainland before morning, he agreed and reluctantly took his leave.

“We will meet again soon,” Edryd said, reassuring his officer as they parted. He didn’t know if that would be true, but he suspected it would be.

As Ruach’s long form faded into the darkness, Edryd turned to face Irial. “You sent for him,” he accused.

“You remember that there was something I needed you to do for me?” she reminded him.

“Time you told me what that was,” Edryd said. He was beginning to feel uneasy. She was broaching the subject so carefully.

“I need you to send a message to the Ossian First Fleet Navarch,” she explained. Seeing a blank stare from Edryd, she expanded her explanation. “His name is Aelsian. He pulled you off of that burning ship and helped you get here. He commands an entire fleet of ships, and as a friend of your father, he is the Steward of House Elduryn.”

These were more revelations than Edryd could properly absorb all at once. He had Aelsian’s image fixed in his mind. He could remember the noble man’s aging features, with hair graying around the edges. Edryd had not known the man well, had known nothing of Aelsian’s connection with Aedan Elduryn, and had not thought of him as anything more important than the captain of the
Interdiction
. Edryd was about to say that he had no way to send such a message when he made the connection. There was a reason why Logaeir had known who he was—someone had told him. Logaeir and Aelsian were allies. Edryd had no means to contact Aelsian, but Logaeir would.

“More than you may have realized, you have some powerful friends,” Irial said. Edryd was not sure he really agreed, but the way Irial said it, she made it seem like she had understated the obvious.

“What will be in this message?” Edryd asked.

“Just that you need to meet with him as soon as he can get here,” she said, getting right to the point but going no further.

“There is more to this,” Edryd said, urging her to elaborate on what it was she really wanted.

“Nothing I could safely entrust to a messenger and nothing that you need to know about just yet either,” she replied. The promise was there that he would learn soon enough, but that she had no intention of saying anything more right now.

He was deeply dissatisfied with the situation. He trusted Irial, and wanted to help her, but it was troubling to be used in this way while being kept in the dark. He almost began to press for a more complete explanation, but he was afraid of what she would think of him if he did. Instead, Edryd contented himself with the knowledge that he would soon be getting a visit from Logaeir. From that man, he would happily demand all of the answers he wanted.

Chapter 12

Focus of the Dark

E
ithne sat with her bare feet planted on the floor and her back against her door, barricading her room against anyone who might try to enter. It seemed like so much had suddenly changed. Why had they both kept something so important from her? Mostly, it hurt to know that neither of them saw her as old enough or strong enough to trust with their secrets.

Feeling the unfairness of the world, and her total lack of a prominent place in it, Eithne ignored Irial when she knocked on the door to ask whether she was alright. Later, Eithne similarly remained silent when Edryd tried to speak to her through the door. She didn’t know how to explain how she felt, and didn’t believe anyone would understand, and so she had decided that she wouldn’t try. They could go on keeping their secrets, she told herself bitterly.

Eventually, Irial’s patience with her sister’s behavior was exhausted, and she ordered Eithne to come out and eat. Eithne complied, but she made certain that they could both feel just how unhappy she was, even if she wasn’t about to tell anyone why.

In response to specifically directed questions, Irial compelled an occasional nod or grunt out of Eithne, but nothing more than that, and they all shared the evening under a miserable pallor. Eithne was so consumed with her own hurt feelings, that she barely noticed the unease between the two adults. Her sister’s conversations with Edryd had grown awkward.

In other circumstances, Edryd might have tried to gently tease Eithne, in an effort to liven the mood. Provoking her had a way of infusing careless fun into a moment like this one, but with Eithne pouting like she was doing now, working so hard to punish him for some offense he couldn’t quite divine, Edryd could do little more than sit and mull Irial’s refusal to share the plans in which she had involved him. Long before he was tired, Edryd went to his room feeling deeply discontented, unable to solve even the simplest of his more immediate problems.

In the morning, as he sat finishing his breakfast, and while Irial was still in her room getting ready to leave, Eithne finally deigned to let him know what it was that he had done.

“You didn’t tell me you were the Blood Prince,” she said. There was an angry blue fire behind her eyes, and Eithne was filled with a little awe, a measure of disbelief, and a great deal of hurt and betrayal, as she made this accusatory declaration.

“You heard us talking,” Edryd guessed.

“No, I heard him before you came back. He said that he was looking for Captain Aisen. When I didn’t let him in, he kept pounding on the door, asking for Lord Aisen of House Edorin.” The last part she accented to show what she thought of ‘Lord Aisen of House Edorin’ and of the man who had come looking for him.

“That doesn’t mean…”

“Yes it does. He was looking for the Blood Prince. He was looking for you.” There was fresh hurt in her eyes and she began to cry. He was still, even now, trying to continue to conceal who he was from her.

“I didn’t want you to know,” Edryd said. He wanted make this better for Eithne, but he did not know how to help her understand.

“Why?” she pled.

“Irial once told you that I was dangerous,” Edryd explained. “She was right.”

“You’ve killed people,” Eithne said, starting to understand.

“And hurt many others,” he agreed. “I didn’t want you to know that.”

Despite the serious nature of the discussion, the conversation was making Eithne feel better.

“The people you hurt were trying to hurt you,” Eithne said, trying to reassure him.

“One of the people I hurt and killed was my younger brother,” Edryd said, trying hard to keep his emotions in check, and immediately regretting what he had just revealed. Painful memories were surfacing, and thinking that it wouldn’t help if he began crying too, he said no more for a while. In the quiet that followed, Edryd recognized how misguided it had been to share the grief and the guilt that he felt over his brother’s death, with such a young child. Berating himself, he changed the subject.

“I promise I won’t ever lie to you again,” he said.

“You are not a bad person,” Eithne insisted. Her tears were now dry, but she looked worried about Edryd. “I know you didn’t do it on purpose.” She could not have known whether her profession of faith in his good nature was true, but Edryd was comforted in the depths of his heart to hear her express it. The sentiment would have sounded so self-serving and feeble had he made the same protest on his own behalf.

As Edryd walked beside Irial on the road that morning, the memory of Eithne’s confident assurances regarding her unshaken belief in him softened his suffering, but it had still been a poor start to the day. He could have used time to himself and was in no mood to talk. Irial seemed equally content to walk in silence, fearful that he would be demanding answers to the questions that she knew he must have. As they continued, Irial became increasingly tense, feeling pressure from anticipating the questions that never came, and attributing Edryd’s dark mood to frustration borne over her failure to be open with him.

“I will tell you what I can,” she suddenly blurted out.

Edryd looked up in surprise and met her serious and worried gaze.

“I need help from both you and Aelsian,” she said. She seemed frustrated, realizing how little she was prepared to reveal. “I need you to accompany Eithne, and get her away from An Innis,” Irial continued. She had no choice but to take into her confidence, the man in whom she had decided to entrust her sister’s safety. The disclosure was met with silence.

“I think you will agree that An Innis is no place for her,” Irial pointed out. Edryd did agree. He couldn’t agree more. He just didn’t see how this connected to him.

“Why didn’t you have Logaeir get her out a long time ago?” Edryd asked.

“I don’t trust Logaeir,” she said, “and neither should you.” She didn’t have to tell Edryd why he shouldn’t trust Logaeir. It was also unnecessary to include in that statement that she didn’t trust Seoras, Esivh Rhol, the harbormasters, or anyone else in An Innis who could possibly arrange a means for Eithne to leave. Also implicit was the fact that she did trust Edryd.

Edryd was confronted by a set of opposing emotions. He would do it. Of course he would. But it had at first been lost on him, that her proposal also included his escape from An Innis as well. Perhaps it had not occurred to him because at some point, he couldn’t say with precision when, he had stopped wanting to leave the island. As Edryd thought about this, he desperately wanted Irial to modify her plans.

“You have to leave with us,” he insisted.

“I can’t,” was all she said.

Infuriatingly, now that he had agreed to her request, she was no longer willing to bargain away anything else, and she gave no explanation for why she would have to remain behind. Gentle but earnest efforts to question Irial further led nowhere, and Edryd could not get her to say much more. Irial had given him answers, not to all his questions but to most of them, and he was made miserable by what he had learned.

There was time yet. It would take weeks for a message to reach Aelsian once it was sent, and weeks more for the navarch to travel to An Innis. He would have to persuade Irial before then that there was no need for her to stay behind, and argue that Eithne would never leave without her.

Edryd was looking down, distracted by his troubles as he walked beyond the gates of the estate after passing through them. Irial was no longer beside him, having taken a path behind the stables that led up to a side entrance of the manor as Edryd had continued towards the practice yard. He would have been caught unaware had he not felt the shifting flows of the displacement when it formed.

He recoiled from the boundaries of the distortion as they passed over his body. It felt to Edryd like a sudden change of pressure in the air, preceded by a sense of the ground falling away from underneath his feet. The odd but familiar experience was accompanied by waves of anger emanating from the man who stood in front of him, effortlessly shaping the dark to his will.

Jumping back, as if he had stumbled into the menacing path of a rabid animal, Edryd drew his sword on instinct. He kept moving back until he was out of the range of the displacement that surrounded Seoras. His teacher’s sword was drawn as well, held low, and ready to strike at any moment.

“I warned you,” Seoras said. “I told you what would happen if you held anything back from me.”

Edryd was confused. He couldn’t think what had triggered Seoras like this.

“You did not break any of the glass,” Seoras continued. “I am left to suppose then, that you are already a master of the technique. If not, then this will be a short and painful lesson.”

Edryd could not comprehend the motivations that were driving this dark and unbalanced behavior, but he did have insights gained from a month of peering in through an unnatural window into the man’s emotional state. There was more behind this than just unbroken glass.

The displacement in the dark around Seoras shrank as it intensified, and then momentarily wavered as he exploded forward, attempting to close the distance between them in an instant. Edryd anticipated, reading his attacker’s intent, and reacting to the charge before it was ever executed. He was safely away and beyond the boundaries of the distortion that was now reforming around his attacker. Edryd could not allow the gap to be closed or he would be out of options.

The anger in Seoras rose even further, coupled with frustration, but he did not charge again. He settled into place and began to concentrate. An area of distortion began forming at Edryd’s feet. His first impulse was to push the displacement away, to shred it into oblivion, but like always, he had no purchase on it. Edryd understood what was happening though. Seoras was binding him to the ground, keeping him in one place so that he would be unable to escape.

The task of shaping became increasingly difficult with greater distances, or so Seoras had said on more than one occasion. Moving something large in near proximity might be done with little effort, but when extending the range of the object you intended to affect by even a modest increment, a small stone could begin to feel to the shaper as though it had the weight of an enormous boulder. Seoras was trying to disguise what he was doing, but at this range it had been overly ambitious, and Edryd could sense the strain behind the effort. Edryd calmly stepped away before the patterns could be properly formed, and the displacement collapsed. As powerful as Seoras was, his capabilities had limits.

Seoras appeared to have become fatigued from the exertion, and he was clearly surprised that Edryd had evaded his trap, but he seemed to almost calm down as he took a moment to recover. Seoras was no less angry, but the frustration he had been feeling was gone. In its place there was deep satisfaction, a definite sense of having accomplished something.

“Your senses would not be this sharp were you not deeply and intimately attuned to the dark,” Seoras declared. “You can no longer deceive me. I have measured your strength, and now I am going to make you show it to me.”

Seoras didn’t give Edryd a chance to try and comprehend anything. He exploded forward again. Edryd could not concentrate on anything but evading the charge. He had to think ahead, and choose efficient movements in order to keep the distance from closing. Illness had robbed him of strength, but his recovered body was lighter, quicker, and had increased stamina. These latter qualities were better tools in this exchange.

The anger from his opponent continued undiminished as Seoras charged relentlessly, surging forward over and over again. More than once Edryd barely slipped beneath the lightning quick arc of his opponent’s weapon, avoiding fatal injury in the process. Following each momentum-aided rush, it took Seoras a fraction of a second to restore the gathered tension. This delay was enough to make it possible to continue to dodge the attacks, but it left no margin.

Were they not in an open and unconfined space, or had his opponent been calm enough to better calculate and manipulate his movements, Edryd would have been quickly trapped in a corner. As it was, Edryd could not survive this much longer. He had to hope that it would be over soon. Such hopes were not entirely unfounded. Seoras was rapidly growing tired, recklessly giving no moment for either one of them to rest.

As the tactical exchange played out, Edryd felt something entirely unexpected in Seoras. It was deep pain born out of humiliation. His teacher had declared that he would force his student to use his abilities, and the student was making a joke of it, evading the attacks without resorting to anything other than skillful timing and fluid movements. It was an unforgivable slight—a dismissive insult that had to be answered. Frustration once again dominated the shaper’s emotions, and with it had come an unmistakable desire to kill. It frightened Edryd to realize that up until this point, Seoras had not been trying to kill him.

After a single misstep by Edryd, a miscalculation in the placement of his feet, Seoras was able to reduce the separation between them, and a sharp line of pain flared in Edryd’s right leg as Seoras scored a shallow cut across his thigh. It wasn’t serious but it made Edryd freeze for just a moment. It was more than Seoras needed. The shaper closed the remaining distance and a decapitating blow came slicing through the air.

Edryd felt the sharp steel of the blade penetrate his neck. It took him a long surreal moment to realize that he wasn’t dead. Edryd reached up with his hand and pulled the sword away without stopping to wonder why he was able to do so without encountering any resistance. He felt heat as he traced the wound on his neck. When he pulled his hand away, it was covered with warm blood.