The Blood King (47 page)

“When this is over, Bard Carroway, look again to Glynnmoor, and your lands.

The plague that took your family is gone. My brood has watched over the manor house, as a favor to your father these ten years past. It is free to be claimed again by mor-tals.”

Carroway tried and failed to cover his astonish-ment at Riqua’s knowledge of his past, something Tris himself had not heard Carroway speak of in years. But before he could say anything, Riqua’s attention turned to Carina.

“And who are you, lady healer?” Riqua asked.

“Carina Jesthrata,” Carina replied.

Riqua’s eyes narrowed as she struggled to place her. “King Donelan’s court healer, yes? I heard some time ago that you went to the Sisterhood to find a cure for Donelan’s sickness. Yet here you are.”

Carina gave Riqua a defiant look. “Foor Arontala is the cause of the king’s illness. Until Arontala is destroyed, Donelan won’t fully recover. This is my proper place.”

“Well, well, well,” Riqua said, directing her com-ment this time to Gabriel.

“You’ve certainly assembled the players. I can say we’ve not seen the like here, at least, not alive. You are most welcome here. These are my lands. In better days, I would have received you in the manor house, but it burned. So here we are.”

“Is it true, that you are a spirit mage?” a young man barely out of his teens asked Tris. When Tris met the eyes of the vayash moru, he saw centuries, not decades, in the dark gaze.

.”A Summoner,” Gabriel replied. “The Blood Council itself promised him sanctuary among our kind.”

“All but Uri.” Tris turned to see Elana, the blond vayash morn who had been with Riqua at the Council meeting.

A faint glimmer of annoyance crossed Gabriel’s face. “As usual, our esteemed colleague takes a somewhat different view of circumstances. But the Council has ruled.” Together, they walked into the midst of the other vayash moru, who watched Tris and the others with barely concealed hunger.

“You may rest here until nightfall,” promised Riqua. “I give my word you’ll be safe.”

Although none of his companions spoke, Tris knew that they shared the same skepticism. Riqua’s offer looked good only compared to the certain dangers outside.

“Thank you,” Tris replied with a slight bow. “We’re grateful.”

A cold smile touched her lips. “If you can stop Arontala, it is we who will be in your debt, son of Bricen.” Riqua turned abruptly. “Kolin,” she said to the young man behind her, “bring extra cloaks to warm them. Fetch wine from the casks.

Make them comfortable.” She turned back to Tris, clearly acknowledging him as the group’s leader. “We have no need of your food here,” she said, her sharp, white teeth clear in her smile. “But there is old wine in the cellar you might find acceptable.”

Tris nodded. “We brought provisions with us.”

“Elana,” Riqua called.

“At your service, m’lady.” The blonde vayash moru might have appeared demure had it not been for the complete lack of innocence in her blue eyes.

“Show our guests to the inner chambers. They’ve traveled far. We must make them as comfortable as we can.”

“Of course,” Elana answered. “Follow me.”

She led them down a narrow corridor, from which branched dozens of rooms filled with shrouded and mummified dead. The corridors of the necropolis reeked of decay. Carina put a hand to her face, covering her nose and mouth with part of her shawl.

“These look like the tunnels underneath Isencroft’s palace,” Kiara said.

“You’ve been there?” Elana inquired.

Kiara and Carina exchanged glances. “Yes, many times.”

Elana glanced back at Kiara over her shoulder. “I’ve taken refuge there more times than I can count. It is a well-known sanctuary.”

“I never knew,” Kiara murmured.

“There’s much your kind does know about us.” Elana opened the doors to two empty crypts that branched off the corridor. Carved into the stone, they were furnished as comfortable bedrooms, with stone slabs where beds might have been. “Here are your rooms.”

“For the ladies.” Elana gestured to the smaller crypt off the main hall. “It was built for two,” she said with an unsettling smile. She turned to the men, “And you may sleep here.” She pointed to the larger crypt across and down the corridor. “We have no other rooms that are not… occupied.”

Her gaze lingered a moment longer than neces-sary on Tris. “Kolin will bring anything you need. You won’t be disturbed. We too, will rest until nightfall.

Then, we go hunting.” And with that the vayash moru left them, no longer troubling to move at mortal speed, disappearing in the blink of an eye.

“If we ever travel together again,” Carroway mumbled, “I’m choosing where we stay.” He moved to the doorway of the second crypt, and shuddered. “Forgive me for not being grateful, but this wasn’t what I had in mind when I thought of a safe place to sleep.”

“Where’s Gabriel?” Kiara asked, looking for their guide.

“He stayed behind with Riqua,” Vahanian replied, positioning himself so that he could look down the corridor. “I’m not crazy about being split up like this.”

“Neither am I,” Carina agreed. “I’d feel better if we could stay together.”

“So would I,” Tris agreed, “but the rooms are too small for all of us, and I don’t have the feeling we’ve been given permission to wander around.”

“You’re the Lord of the Dead,” Vahanian tossed back. “Aren’t they supposed to listen to you?”

“Royster was a bit obscure on that point. As far as the vayash moru go, I have the distinct feeling it’s an honorary title,” Tris replied.

“They’re bound by the Blood Council’s ruling, aren’t they?” Kiara asked, pulling her cloak more tightly around her.

“So I’m told. Let’s hope Gabriel is reading his people correctly.”

They gathered in the larger crypt, which was barely big enough for them all to find a seat. Tris lit the torches. Here beneath the ground, it was cold enough that Carina began to shiver, gratefully accepting Vahanian’s offer to share both his seat and his cloak. Kiara also drew close to Tris. After a while, body heat together with the torch fire helped to warm the small room.

Carroway distributed food for them out of the packs from their horses. Kolin delivered extra cloaks and wineskins filled with an old, sweet vin-tage, then left them to their meal. Jae was quiet, picking at the bits of meat and cheese Kiara put out for him. The group ate in silence, each deep in thought. Or perhaps, Tris mused, the uncertainty of how close their hosts might be lingering and how well the undead could hear. He was sure that each

of them was putting off sleep just as long as their exhausted bodies could remain awake.

He knew his own opportunity to rest would have to wait. Here among the bones of the dead, the rest-less spirits clustered around him, so thickly that he was amazed his companions could not see them. He couldn’t resist their pleas for intercession and release, and so he worked until his head throbbed and he could no longer fend off sleep.

Tris’s companions waited until finally fatigue won out over fear. Carroway took the first watch.

“Sleep with one eye open, all right?” Kiara joked nervously.

“I don’t think you need to worry about that,” Tris assured her, seeing the uneasiness in her eyes as he kissed her forehead. From the moment they had approached the ruined temple, the whispers of the dead brushed his mind, like a hushed conversation just beyond hearing. The presence of the ghostly watchers was likely to keep him from getting any restful sleep, even if he could banish the memories of the murdered villagers from his thoughts.

Kiara and Carina disappeared into their crypt, and Carroway took up his post at its door. Just then, Riqua appeared from the shadows of the cor-ridor. “I see you haven’t yet gone to your rest,” she said to Tris.

“Forgive me, but that sounds a bit ominous, given where we are,” Tris said with a thin smile.

“Come with me, Prince Drayke. I have something for you, a gift from Bava K’aa.”

Tris exchanged a glance with Vahanian. “Get some sleep, Jonmarc. You need it more than any of us.”

“I don’t sleep well in crypts,” Vahanian said. “And I’m sworn to keep your royal hide in one piece. So if it’s all the same to you, wherever you’re going—I’m going.”

“As you wish,” replied Riqua. She led them down a maze of corridors. Tris called hand fire to light their way, and Vahanian carried a torch from their crypt, pushing back some of the tomb’s darkness. They followed Riqua to an older part of the necrop-olis where dust and the smell of death permeated the air.

Riqua stopped at a mausoleum wall, where the dead were laid to their rest in stone drawers behind intricately carved slabs that depicted their likeness and the dates of their life. Vahanian hung back, keeping watch on the entrance to the corridor. Riqua moved to one of the plainer slabs and effort-lessly opened a heavy drawer that might have taken three strong men to close. She reached inside, unde-terred by the old corpse that lay shrouded inside. From beneath the body, she drew a small, thin book.

Tris felt his heart begin to pound as he recognized the binding.

“Do you know what this is, Lord Summoner?” Riqua asked, handing him the slim volume book-marked with a yellowed, thick envelope.

“The missing diary of the Obsidian King.”

Riqua gave a short, harsh laugh. “Missing? Is that what the Sisterhood told you?

It’s never been missing. Bava K’aa gave it to me, years ago, for safekeeping. Do you know why? Why she chose to keep its location secret, even from the Sisterhood?”

“Because it contains something so powerful, with such a great potential for misuse, that she couldn’t trust it to anyone else.”

“Because it holds a secret of life and death,” Riqua said. “It’s time for you to hear the whole story about your grandmother, and why her love nearly cost the Winter Kingdoms their freedom. But first, pay heed to that envelope, and the page it marks. You hold in your hands something beyond the wealth of kings, beyond the greatest spoils of war. Tell me what’s written on the page—mind that you do not speak the words aloud.”

Tris read over the yellowed handwriting. His hands began to shake as he realized the meaning of what he saw. He looked at Riqua, ashen. “It’s a spell to separate the soul from the body,” he said quietly. “Gray magic, if it belongs at all to the light.”

Riqua took the fragile envelope from his trem-bling hands, and withdrew a sturdy vial on a strong leather strap. Riqua slipped the strap over Tris’s head, so that the vial hung around his neck. “What could equal the importance of the spell?” Tris asked,

“Before her death, Bava K’aa made one final potion. Doing so weakened her, and hastened her passing. What you hold in your hand was created at the peril of Bava K’aa’s very soul, because its work-ing is indeed gray magic. It’s a potion capable of curing a mortal wound. Such a potion requires the power of a very great sorcerer, and drains the maker of such power that those few powerful enough to create it can only do so once in their lifetime. Think, Prince Drayke.

How much would a dying man pay for such an elixir? How many people would a des-perate man kill?”

“I don’t understand,” Tris said, staring at the vial as if it might burn him. “What does the combina-tion mean?”

“There’s one more item you have not seen,” Riqua said. Tris realized that there was a sealed note slipped into the back of the book. He was shaken to see his own name written on the enve-lope, in the unmistakable hand of his grandmother.

“Read it.”

Within the envelope was a small sheet, and on it, one sentence: “You must do what I could not, because you have what I did not,” he read in a voice just above a whisper.

“Before his fall, the mage who became the Obsidian King was in love with your grandmoth-er.” Riqua said. “His name was Lemuel, and he was one of the most gifted Summoners of his age. Like your grandmother, he rose on his gifts alone, with-out a noble name or a wealthy family. And like your grandmother, he became the advisor to kings and almost without peer in mortal influence.”

“And that power corrupted him. He presumed to the rights of the Goddess.”

“That’s what the Sisterhood told you, and it’s true—in part. Lemuel pushed the boundaries of knowledge within that gift farther than anyone— even Bava K’aa—had ever gone. But something went wrong when Lemuel attempted a very old working. Bava K’aa, who was with him when it happened, believed that an ancient, evil spirit took possession of Lemuel. She blamed herself for not being able to intervene. That spirit called himself the Obsidian King, although the Sisterhood believes that he has been known by many names throughout the ages, taking and abandoning human hosts as it suits him.”

“Possessed by the Obsidian King, Lemuel took Bava K’aa prisoner,” Riqua continued, “and the Obsidian King used him to inflict great suffering, trying to get Bava K’aa to give up the secret of this elixir. Lord Grayson, a great warrior who was friend to both Lemuel and Bava K’aa, risked every-thing to free her from the prison of the Obsidian King. Bava K’aa never spoke of those dark days, and neither did Grayson nor the Sisters who took Bava K’aa in and healed her.

Grayson, who had secretly loved Bava K’aa but stood aside because of his friendship with Lemuel, wed Bava K’aa in pri-vate during her recovery. Before long, her only daughter—your mother—was born.

“Even after all the pain that the Obsidian King— in Lemuel’s body—inflicted on her, Bava K’aa couldn’t destroy him,” Riqua said, remembering. “She believed to the end that Lemuel’s spirit remained a prisoner within his own body, tortured by the evil the Obsidian King forced his body to perform.”

“That was why she imprisoned him in Soulcatcher,” Tris murmured, thinking of the dead-ly red orb. “Because she believed that somewhere Lemuel might still exist. There was no way to kill the Obsidian King without also destroying Lemuel.”

“After the binding, Bava K’aa discovered this journal. She knew it must be hidden. Maybe she anticipated that the Obsidian King would rise once more, and that you, her mage heir, would fight anew the battle. Make no mistake, son of Bricen— the first war very nearly killed your grandmother. Some say it was the Lady herself who spared Bava K’aa. I’ve found it… unwise… to count on divine intervention.”