Three Coins for Confession (48 page)

They knew him now. Every single one of the lóechari felt and
remembered the fatal pursuit in the forest, the failed attack in Rheran. The
deadly storm of magic that had consumed them on the Hunthad. All of them had
been there, all of them had fought and died and knew Chriani’s name through the
power of the coins.

We sought to claim you, and you came to us.
The sorcerer’s
voice shifted within the framework of her spell, its magic still reading him.
You are a mystery within a mystery, half-blood.

I came here because you can’t claim me. You tried and failed.
I join you willingly, or not at all. But I need to understand my part in this.

He let all the raw emotion of his heart and mind free, anchored
by the understanding that everything he had been was gone. He was nothing to
the Ilvani, nothing to the Ilmari. He felt that knowledge push past the shadow
where the secrets were held, leaving no room for those secrets to seek the
light.

I don’t know what I am,
he said. He felt Viranar recognize
and accept his fear.
I never knew what I was meant to be. But the
Laneldenari told me. The heir of the exile’s blade. The one who’ll break the
stalemate between Ilmari and Ilvani and change the balance of power in the
Ilmar.

Chriani waited, his heart still racing. The blood-red pulse of
light shone out in the pale Ilvani’s hand.

I brought you the exile’s blade.
Chriani tried to force
the thought toward Raecla.
But that’s not enough.

He felt the pale captain’s uncertainty. Felt the anger that
masked it as he drew the bloodblade Chriani had carried. He felt Raecla’s
reaction through the link that made his dark thoughts part of Chriani now,
focusing on all the names and history he read in the symbols on the blade. Then
those thoughts become Viranar’s as the captain reverently stepped toward her,
bowing as he handed the dagger to her.

It was Dargana’s bloodblade, but it was a match for the blade of
Caradar. The engraving on it the same, to Chriani’s eyes at least. Dargana had
been able to read the dagger he’d taken from Rheran. Had known it was Caradar’s
from its engraving. She was Crithnala, though, and of Caradar’s own house. He
had to hope the Calala wouldn’t be able to read Dargana’s dagger with the same
skill.

He had to hope both of the Ilvani were seeing what they needed to
see. What they so desperately wanted to see, even as Chriani had no sense of
where that hunger came from.

It would keep him alive, though. Long enough to end it.

He felt the pieces falling into place around him. Almost ready.

The sorcerer’s hunger for the weapon was a fire in his mind. For
an instant, he was seeing through her eyes across the link they shared, the
blade limned in the golden light that flowed from her hands.

The coins and the blade. The blade and me.
Chriani forced
the words out through a tightly woven defiance, summoning up every bit he could
still touch of the anger at the center of his life
. You need to let me be
part of this. You need to let me forget.

You would embrace this willingly.
As Viranar’s voice
filled his mind, Chriani understood that it wasn’t a question. She was reading
the blade in some way, but his thoughts were leading her. Pulling her in the
direction he needed her to go.

“I’ll do it willingly so long as you give me what I need. Just
let me take the rites. Let me touch the power of the coins. Let me forget.”

He spoke the words aloud to distract the sorcerer, feeling her
thoughts divided in her mind as she stepped close to him. Her hands were raised
before her, the bloodblade clutched tight in one, the amulet in the other. The
three coins on their golden chain were burning so brightly that Chriani had to
squint to look at them.

“What would you give up in taking confession, heir of the exile’s
blade?” As Viranar spoke for the first time, her voice carried an edge of
excitement. A hunger and expectation that Chriani could feel. A sense of having
already claimed the thing she wanted more than anything else. But at the same
time, he understood how that want wasn’t coming from her at all.

The golden light was in his mind. A separate consciousness. A
tangled skein of dark thought that set his blood boiling.

“I want to forget the pain I’ve caused,” he whispered. His mind
was battered by the shadow around him, but he fought back against it using the
memories. Barien’s body in his arms, the slow spread of blood across a pale
stone floor. Lauresa weeping in a winter grove, the sun bright, the warmth of
her magic wrapping them against the freezing air. Kathlan sleeping while he
watched her, the day bright and blue-white at the window of the loft.

“Let me forget the people I’ve hurt. Let me forget what I’ve
lost.” Chriani felt the shadow like uncounted insects crawling across him,
tasting his skin with sharp tongues.

Viranar laughed as she stepped up to touch his face. The hand
that held the amulet traced its way along his cheek. “No true Ilvanghlira would
ever ask such a thing.”

“You’re right,” Chriani said.

A burning cold struck him as he grabbed the amulet with his bound
hands. The shadow around him flared with a molten light, the world turned to
gold suddenly. He pulled down with all his strength, feeling the soft gold of
the chain snap around Viranar’s neck as the coins came away in his grasp.

Then he disappeared.

This was a good way to die.

When he was younger, in the days before he had taken the winter
path to Aerach and back to Rheran, Chriani had thought often about the matter
of his own death. He was a soldier, had been made a tyro of the prince’s guard
at ten summers, even if he’d spent most of the years since then ensuring that
he would never make rank or take the field. He was a warrior, whether a soldier
or not. Skilled enough with bow and blade that he made a routine habit of
showing up guards with far more experience. He’d won his share of fights as a
result, had lost a few besides.

He had ridden the roads of Brandishear at Barien’s side. He
remembered the feeling as he watched fell wolves appear on a sunset road in
Elalantar, Barien riding them down without hesitation, his seconds close
behind. He remembered being herded back to the train with the royal heirs,
flanked by four more guards. Just another one of the children to be protected.
Lauresa was there. Barien was her warden, was there first and foremost as her
escort, but Chriani hadn’t known the princess then.

The guards had been focused on getting Princess Gwannyn and the
royal heirs ready to ride, so that when Chriani stole a knife, the young squire
whose belt it was claimed from never felt a thing. He slipped it to his own
belt, let his jacket cover it. He was ten years old and a new-made tyro, and he
decided in that moment that if the wolves got past Barien, if they advanced against
the princess high and the royal heirs, he would fall defending them.

It would have been a stupid way to die. He realized that only
years later, thinking on how his efforts to play the hero would have distracted
the guards who were there to do the job for real. But the thought had stayed
with him through each barracks fight, through each patrol at Barien’s side.
Always thinking on how it might end for him, and what good or ill might come
from that, and what would be said when his life was done.

It was a stray thought, fixing in his mind now as he watched the
world fade around him, saw the startled look in Viranar’s golden eyes. He’d
been moving his stiffened fingers, no one seeing them slip within his belt as
he had tried to make the moonsign, the magic of the well overwhelming him. No
one seeing him slip the black ring to his finger, conceal it with the shaking
of his hands.

He had thought about his own death when he upheld Barien’s last
orders to defend Lauresa, following her on that winter path to help her do what
she needed to do to protect her homeland. To protect all the Ilmar. But then
when he came back to Kathlan, he had stopped thinking it. Had stopped wondering
about what battle or accident would eventually take him. Even riding the
frontier for five months, Chriani had been keenly aware of the risks, had
measured the threat of the Ilvani. But he’d never let him himself imagine what
it might lead to in the end.

He hadn’t realized that had changed in him, not until the endless
moment of thinking it right now. He hadn’t let himself understand why.

He had come back to Kathlan. He had made his choice for her then,
as he made it for her now.

It was over for him. This was a good way to die.

Viranar was trying to snatch the amulet back even before Chriani
vanished, but he was faster. Every muscle in him, every facet of his senses had
been focused on the golden coins as the sorcerer moved closer to him, step by
slow step. He had done his best to focus her thoughts on the coins to ensure
they’d be in hand, offering himself to her so that she would take him as bait.
The only thing he had left to give, the only ruse still open to him.

Chriani had marked the distance to the platform’s edge as six
paces, knowing it would be the longest run of his life. He heard Viranar
scream, felt her voice tearing at him like a bright blade. The sentries were
moving for him, faltering as he vanished. He ducked down to roll between the
closest two, then was up and running.

Break the magic,
he had said to Farenna.
Then break the
cult.
He couldn’t finish it anymore, but he could start it. Shatter the
dark power that was channeled here for the others who would follow him. They
would pick up the fight.

The well of shadow would destroy whatever touched it, Tician had
said. Chriani had watched it consume Farenna. Had seen it destroy him, body and
armor alike. Had seen it consume the magic of the captain’s sword.

He had no way back to the Ilvani. And even if he could make it
back, what would he tell them? Farenna was gone. Corrupted. Captain of Sylonna
and one of their best warriors, Chriani had no doubt. And if he could be
broken, there was no telling who else among the rangers patrolling the
Ghostwood might have already been captured by the cult and had the memory
stolen from them. How many might have taken the rites of confession without
knowing it. No way to tell how many others would turn on the Laneldenari in the
heat of battle, setting Ilvani against Ilvani in a storm of red steel and
golden eyes.

He had no way back to the Ilmari. Not anymore. He could break for
Aerach, find his horse and hope it would let him cross the Hunthad into Ilmari
territory. It might not, though. The Ilvani horses were trained to return home
if their riders were lost, and Chriani knew he was the grey’s temporary master
at best. Even if he made it out, he’d have to find the Aerachi. Would have to
hope they didn’t execute him on the spot, hope they believed his story.

Even if they did, it would be war again, Chriani knew. An Aerachi
force marching on the Ghostwood, Brandishear holding back the Calala Ilvani as
they surged north into Crithnalerean to defend the secrets of this place. It
would be a brutal assault. Probably futile. The only chance for the Ilmari
would be to try to catch the lóechari by surprise, try to cripple the power
here before breaking it.

Or Chriani could do that for them. Even with no way out when it
was done.

Someone else would pick up the fight. That was the thought that
drove him the six steps marking out the rest of his life. The Duke Andreg in
Teillai. The prince’s guard in Brandishear. Kathlan, leading a squad of her own
before long.

Chriani would give them all that chance if he could.

He heard spells being cast, felt a tingling at the back of his
neck as he ran. Detection magic, he guessed, trying to pinpoint his location.
Some charm to undo the invisibility that cloaked him, perhaps. He had a moment
to worry about whether they might unleash spell-fire at him, taking out him and
the closest lóechari at once. A necessary sacrifice.

From the corner of his eye, he saw sentries shifting to block
access to the bridge, guessing he was trying to flee that way. Not suspecting
that he had chosen a different way out.

He was two steps from the edge, looking down to the darkness
below him. He put Kathlan’s name in his mind and held it there. No time to
speak it.

He was one step from the edge when a pulse of crippling pain
drove him to his knees.

He was ready for that last step. Ready to slip over into the
shadow, taking the coins with him. But in the light of molten gold that filled
all his senses, Chriani understood that the coins of the confessor had other
ideas.

This close to the well, its shadow was like black oil filling his
lungs. Chriani had felt it getting stronger with each step he took toward it,
fighting to push through it, but the full extent of its force hadn’t become
clear until it pounded down on him like a crumbling wall. He was drowning now.
Freezing, burning, a cold scouring him from the inside even as fire spread from
the coins white-hot in his hands.

He wasn’t dying. He knew that somehow, instinctively. He felt the
magic of the shadow well licking at his life, tasting it hungrily but waiting
to consume it. But the pain that coursed through him with each pulse of
darkness made him wish with real honesty and for the very first time that he
were dead.

Chriani’s body twisted in a convulsion of pain that locked his
muscles tight, no way to let go of the amulet even if he’d wanted to. The black
ring at his finger went cold as its power waned, the closest sentries turning
toward him as he became visible again. Bows were raised against him. A dozen
archers drew a bead on him as a convulsion knocked him backward, sending him
even farther away from the edge. Raecla was moving toward him with backsword
drawn, but Viranar’s voice was in all their ears and all their minds at once.