Forged In Flame (In Her Name: The First Empress, Book 2) (36 page)

“We do not answer to dishonored younglings, standing naked before us.” Without another word, Alena-Khan’s hand shot out, and a blazing cyan bolt exploded toward Keel-Tath with a deafening thunderclap. Dara-Kol tried to throw herself into its path, but she was far too late.

The bolt struck Keel-Tath square between her breasts. She expected in that instant to die, but all she felt was a momentary prickling, tingling sensation. Looking down at her chest, she saw no burn marks, no wound of any kind. 

The members of the priesthood gasped in surprise and shock. 

She pointed to Tara-Khan. “I was given the power to heal, even to give life back to those who died. You were witness!” She took a step toward Alena-Khan. “I was also given the power of death. I could kill you, all of you, where you stand. I would not give you challenge, for it would be without honor; you would stand no chance against me.” Clenching a fist to her breast, she said, “I can feel the power within me, coiled and writhing, a power great as the sun.” She again took a step forward. “I touched the Crystal of Souls with my very hands, Alena-Khan. I touched it and lived. While I was not bestowed a collar of honor as were you, you must be able to sense its power within me, and you cannot disbelieve what you have just witnessed. Tara-Khan should be dead, yet he breathes still. I should be dead by your hand, nothing but ash fluttering to the ground, yet I still stand before you, untouched.” She took another step, and a few of the priests and priestesses stepped back. Alena-Khan stood her ground, but there was no mistaking the sense of fear radiating through the song of her blood. More softly, Keel-Tath went on. “T’ier-Kunai is dead, slain by Ayan-Dar, who himself now lies dead upon the dais where I was reborn. Ria-Ka’luhr is missing, I know not where. I can feel him, but the song of his blood is no more than a faint breath upon the wind.” With one more step, she was standing within a pace of she who was now high priestess of the Desh-Ka, by default, if not by acclamation. “I hold within me all the powers of the crystal, but I do not know how to use them. I am young, yes, but I am not without honor, and I am not without purpose. I ask you and the others of the Desh-Ka, those who have survived this dreadful day, to be my teachers. To do what I must do, to fulfill the prophecy set before me, I need you. All of you. Your wisdom, your knowledge, your swords, your powers. For right now, we few are all that stands against the gathering darkness that will destroy the Way forever.” 

Alena-Khan stared into her eyes for a long moment before she finally nodded. “As you say, I cannot deny what I feel, what I have seen.” Her gaze flicked to Tara-Khan, who had risen to his feet, his bared chest devoid of any sign that her sword had pierced him, then back to Keel-Tath. “My heart would claim the right of challenge, but it is also heavy with grief for those we have lost this grievous day.” Then she turned to speak to the other priests and priestesses. “No order, perhaps save the Ka’i-Nur long ago, has ever endured a heart-rending day such as this. Even in the greatest battles we have ever fought, we have always fought together, as one, and never warred among ourselves. I see now the wisdom of Ayan-Dar, whom I honored for his deeds, but condemned for his beliefs. Such, I know now, is to my everlasting shame. You have heard her words and seen with your own eyes her deeds, brothers and sisters. None among the priesthood has ever pledged their honor to one who does not wear the Collar of Honor and the sigil of one of the ancient orders. But perhaps it is time, for the sake of all the days to come, for that to change.” Turning back to Keel-Tath, she went down on one knee and, with her good arm, offered her sword. “My honor and my sword are yours, mistress.”

In ones and twos, the other priests and priestesses went to their knees and raised their swords in their hands, offering them to Keel-Tath. In the end, there were no dissenters, none who chose to leave. They had nowhere to go, for their home and their hearts were here.

“I accept your honor and your swords, great priests and priestesses of the Desh-Ka,” Keel-Tath told them as she rendered a salute, her left hand to her right breast. “Rise, and let us tend to the dead and wounded. We have no time to waste, for the world now stands against us.”

***

Syr-Nagath stood on the end of the breakwater that protected the harbor of Ku’ar-Amir from the occasional ravages of the sea. Fortunately, the sea had stayed calm and the weather clear, making it easier for the battered ships that fought the titanic sea battle to make their way to their moorings. Most of them were damaged, some so badly that they had to be towed to the harbor’s edge where they settled to the sandy bottom, the crews clearing the lower decks to escape the ravenous fish. Despite the breeze, a heavy haze of smoke laden with the stink of gunpowder still hung over the sea out to the horizon, made blood red in the afternoon sun. Parts of the city itself still burned where some of her airships had been shot down, but she was not concerned. The builders would put things to rights, and those who had died were only flesh and blood. They were more easily replaced than the stone and mortar of the city.

Looking to the east, toward far away T’lar-Gol, her lips curved upward in a cruel smile. While she still bristled at her treatment at the hands of the conclave, she could not have been happier at the outcome. Ku’ar-Amir was in her hands, and with it the cream of the kingdom’s warriors and its fleet. The conquest of the other parts of Ural-Murir would be inconsequential, little more than mopping up spilled dregs of ale from the floor. Ku’ar-Amir had always been the heart and soul of the continent, the head that ruled the body, and she had lopped it off in one sure stroke. Once the other kingdoms were taken, the entire Homeworld would be pledged to her. 

The thought filled her with a deep, almost sexual, sense of excitement, and her very skin tingled with anticipation. Looking heavenward, she imagined her next step, the leap into space made by so few who had come before. Already her builders and the keepers of the Books of Time were at work upon the designs of the great ships that would carry forth her legions to the Settlements, where she would continue a conquest that would be like no other in the Books of Time.

As for the priesthoods, she could not restrain herself: she laughed aloud at their ridiculous folly. While things had not unfolded quite as she intended, the end result was better than she could possibly have engineered herself. She had hoped to sow discord among the priesthoods, but had resigned herself to waiting until they were ripe for the plucking. Instead, that fool Ayan-Dar and his followers had instigated an open rebellion within the Desh-Ka. From what she had learned through Ria-Ka’luhr and Ka’i-Lohr’s eyes, the order had been torn apart, gutted, and she knew from the conclave before they departed that they were preparing to declare the Desh-Ka as honorless. Were the Desh-Ka mere warriors, they simply would have been exiled. But the priests and priestesses were held to a much higher standard, and the other leaders of the conclave were not inclined to let Ayan-Dar’s heresy spread beyond the plateau where the Desh-Ka temple stood smoldering. 

The child, Keel-Tath, had survived, she knew, but what hope had she, once the conclave visited its wrath upon the Desh-Ka? And should Syr-Nagath wish her dead, a mere thought, an effort of will, was all that would be required for Ka’i-Lohr to drive a blade through the white haired one’s heart. She had been sorely tempted to have Ka’i-Lohr kill the child when he had appeared at Ayan-Dar’s side during the conclave. But that would have tipped her hand to the priesthoods, and her own life would have been measured in fractions of a breath before they cut her down.

Syr-Nagath’s smile faded slightly as she thought of the one thing that had not gone according to plan, that she had not anticipated at all. Ria-Ka’luhr had disappeared. He was gone from her sight, from her control. He was not dead, for she would have felt it through the link they shared. She was not so concerned now about his loss as a puppet, a tool for her cause, but because she did not understand how it had happened. He was there one instant, and the next he was gone, vanished. The magic she had worked upon him could not be undone, but there had been nothing in the Books of Time to say it could not be tampered with. It was a vexing unknown.

Still, her plans were progressing nicely, and once the Desh-Ka were expunged from the cosmos, she would be a great leap closer to her goal of being the ruler of all. Then she could bring back the Way as it should be, as it was before the fall of the old gods. 

The Way of fire.

***

Keel-Tath stood on the
Kal’ai-Il
, which was still covered in chunks and shards of stone from the two pillars and the stone top piece that had been destroyed. She looked to the west, where the setting sun was painting every hue of gold and red fire across the magenta sky. Smoke billowed into the air above the plateau from the funeral pyres for those who had died. Priests and priestesses were given their last rites first, and were followed by the acolytes, then the disciples. She had paid her respects to each one as their pyre was lit, all the while mourning that Ayan-Dar’s was not among them. Alena-Khan and others of the priesthood had returned to the coliseum, but the old priest’s body could not be found in the infinite space and time that lay beyond the doorway. 

The same was true of Ria-Ka’luhr. She was sure he still lived, but that was all she knew. The priests and priestesses had searched for him, as well, but to no avail. She had finally told the priesthood to set aside the search, for there was too much to be done. Ayan-Dar’s body would wait, and Ria-Ka’luhr was skilled and tenacious. Wherever he was, she knew he would survive. He must.

She glanced down at the debris that crunched underfoot as she slowly walked across the ancient stone dais. The
Kal’ai-Il
itself would never be repaired. When the builders and warriors had the luxury of time they would clear away the rubble, but it would be left as it was in memory of those who had died this day. 

The robed castes had returned and were doing all they could to prepare the temple for the coming storm. The builders, with the keepers of the Books of Time to guide them, would be especially busy, preparing defenses against whatever the Dark Queen might bring to bear. Except for the honorless ones, the warriors of the entire world beyond the temple were now sworn to Syr-Nagath. While Alena-Khan was unsure how the other priesthoods would react to the heresy the Desh-Ka had committed by pledging their honor as they did, she doubted they would look upon it with approval. Keel-Tath’s greatest fear was that one or more of the orders would follow this heretical precedent and pledge themselves to the Dark Queen. 

Her eye caught the shimmer of cyan on her new breastplate. It was the rune of the Desh-Ka. She smiled, remembering Alena-Khan’s insistent pleas that she honor them by wearing it. Keel-Tath was not sure why the crystal had not bestowed the sigil of the Desh-Ka upon her, but she suspected the reason. While the Desh-Ka would be the first of the ancient orders to serve her, it would not be the only one. The others would, in the end, pledge their honor to her. They must, if she was to fulfill the prophecy. It would be a long, bloody road, for they would not accept her on word alone, but eventually she would bring them to the Way, the Way as it was meant to be. And while the rune on her breastplate could be replaced or removed easily enough, the Collar of Honor, especially on those who wore the sigil of their order at their throat, was for life. In the end, she could show preference to none, for they all were her people.

“The rune of the Desh-Ka becomes you, mistress,” a voice said from behind her. Dara-Kol. “I did not know him, of course, but I suspect Ayan-Dar would have been most proud.”

“I believe you are right.” Keel-Tath said, nodding, as Dara-Kol saluted, then came to stand beside her. “I miss him so. And Ria-Ka’luhr, and so many others.” She looked up at the Great Moon and the stars that were beginning to emerge in the sky as day gave way to night. “Even knowing of the power that dwells within me now, I feel so small without them. Here am I, a warrior, barely more than a child, who never even completed all the challenges of the
kazha
, trying to do what even the old gods of the Second Age could not.” She took a deep breath, feeling a shiver run down her spine. “Is it wrong for me to feel afraid?”

“No, mistress,” Dara-Kol said. “It is not wrong at all, as long as you do not let fear rule your mind and heart. In the long years I waited to find you, I knew much fear, but always in my heart I never doubted that the day would come when I would kneel before you and place your father’s sword in your hands. That was the power of my faith.”

“I wish I had such faith,” Keel-Tath whispered as they came to stand at the railing surrounding the dais. She could see far into the lowlands where night had already fallen. Thousands of pinpricks of light flickered in the distance, many of them torches and campfires of legions bound to the Dark Queen that had been ordered to lay siege to the temple. They posed no immediate threat, but against the millions of warriors at Syr-Nagath’s command, let alone the other priesthoods, even the Desh-Ka could not prevail. 

“Let the darkness fall,” Dara-Kol told her. “For you shall rise, brighter than the sun, to destroy it forever.”

DON’T MISS

THE NEXT EXCITING CHAPTER

OF THE FIRST EMPRESS SAGA:

MISTRESS OF THE AGES

The next book of the First Empress series,
Mistress Of The Ages
, is slated for release in Winter of 2013. For details,
click here
…

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