The Heartroom.
On the far side, a chair rested before the hearth, alongside a small table. A single figure sat there.
Brant froze at the threshold.
“Do not fear, Brant, son of Rylland. Come forward.”
The words were spoken with soft assurance, sweetly melodic, though with a deep trace of melancholy. It spoke to the sorrow in his own heart.
He crept forward, unsure if he should bow or scrape a knee. He circled wide, edging around the oval room, attempting to keep as much distance between him and the speaker.
The Huntress of Saysh Mal.
One of the Hundred gods of Myrillia.
She sat, head bowed, brow resting on her folded hands, elbows on either arm of her chair, a posture of forlorn concentration. She was dressed in green leathers and white silk, a simple hunter’s cut. As he stepped into view, she lifted her head. Eyes glowed at him, rich in Grace. Even her skin seemed to shine with a waxen sheen.
He sagged to his knees.
A cascade of curls, as dark as shadow, framed her dark skin. Full lips formed the ghost of a smile, like a memory of innocence. Brant felt himself stir, deeper than his loins.
“I knew your father,” she said, glancing away, releasing him. She stared into the dying embers. “He was a great hunter.”
Brant stared at the floor, unable to speak.
“I’m sure you still miss him.”
Grief and pride freed his voice to a quiet squeak. “Yes, mistress, with all my heart.”
“Just so. He sifted many great treasures out of our sea here. A pelt of a balelion. The head of a manticrye. The antlered rack of the rare teppin-ra. Did you know teppin-ra comes from ancient Littick? Tepp Irya. Meaning fierce buck.”
“No, mistress.”
“So much forgotten…” She sighed. She remained silent for several breaths. Long enough for Brant to peek up.
Her gaze had shifted to the table at her side. A single object rested there, draped in black sailcloth, which appeared damp as it reflected the ember’s glow.
“But this was the greatest treasure your father ever attended.”
Curiosity drew Brant straighter.
She reached to the heavy cloth and tugged it free. Brant caught again the waft of stench. Only now did he recognize it. Black bile.
Dread flared in his chest.
In the ember-light, the skull glowed like blood.
At his throat, a fire exploded. Gasping, he clutched at the stone, the bit of rock that had been rolled to his toes by the dying rogue. The same fire that had consumed the trespassing god had come to claim him. Brant tore at his jerkin, ripping hooks.
The Huntress seemed oblivious, focused on the skull.
“He brought this to me…not knowing…surely not knowing.”
Brant cried out, digging for the stone. He had known his father had collected the skull after the god’s body burnt. He had picked it free of the ashes with the tip of an arrow through an eye socket. He had wrapped it in his own cloak. Brant had not known what had become of it. Of course, his father would have brought word here, of such a trespass by a rogue god. But afterward, Brant assumed the foul thing had eventually been destroyed or laid to rest in some manner. All but forgotten.
The only remnant of the frightening adventure was the small black rock, no bigger than the end of his thumb. His father had let him keep it so long as he swore to tell no one of it. The stone was a secret bond between father and son.
And now the stone meant to burn him to ash.
The Huntress finally seemed to note his writhing. At some point, he had collapsed to the floor. She rose to her feet.
“Do you hear its call, too?” She drifted toward him. “Poor boy. It can’t be resisted. I try to stay away, to keep it steeped in the blackest of biles, but still it calls. Day and night. And now I hear words…but I can’t quite understand…not yet. Only that somewhere it asked for you.”
Brant gasped out, “Help me…”
She knelt next to him, her face strangely calm as he burnt.
“I wish I could.”
She reached out and touched his cheek. Where her fingers touched, a cooling balm pushed back the searing agony. But the pain had to go somewhere.
The Huntress screamed.
Brant forgot the remaining burn. He struggled to roll away from her touch. He could not let her come to harm. But her fingers dragged down into his cheek and, nails scraping, her hand grabbed his throat. His skin flamed with her touch, more fiery than even the stone. Her eyes fixed upon him. The Grace within her flared brighter.
“No…you must not be here. You must go.” These words were spoken with a sudden intensity, shedding the strange malaise that had haunted her earlier words. She threw him aside by the neck. He smelled his burning flesh. Then the stone flared anew at his chest with its own flaming agony.
He writhed on the floor.
She stumbled to the table and ripped the bile-encrusted cloth back over the skull. The flames from the stone immediately vanished. He pawed at his chest, expecting crisped skin and burnt bone. But all he found was smooth skin. There was not even a residual warmth.
Not so his throat.
Where she had throttled him, his skin blistered and weeped.
The Huntress stood by the table, trembling from head to toe.
A pounding erupted from the door. “Mistress!”
Brant recognized the shadowknight who had led him here. They must have all heard the god shriek.
“Attend me! Now!” she barked out.
Brant remained on his knees on the floor.
The Huntress turned to him as the door burst open and a flow of shadows swept into the room, shredding into individual knights. Brant kept his focus on his god. He watched the flare of Grace subside in her eyes.
But before it was gone completely, she shoved an arm toward him. “Take him, chain him, get him out of my land by nightfall.”
Brant’s mind refused to make sense of her words.
Her eyes bore upon him, fading with Grace, full of sorrow and certainty. “I banish him.”
A world and a lifetime away, Brant wept in a chair. He could not stop the tears. He had told no one of his full story, his full shame, until this moment.
Tylar came forward and placed a hand on his shoulder.
Rogger had sheathed his dagger. “You and your father witnessed the rogue’s trespass and demise?”
Brant nodded.
The bearded man shared a studied glance with the regent.
Tylar tilted up Brant’s chin to examine the scar. “And you’ve been marked by a god, too,” he mumbled and stepped back.
The regent’s hand drifted to his shadowcloak.
Brant knew that beneath that blessed cloth Tylar bore the black handprint of a god, pressed into his chest by Meeryn of the Summering Isles, branding him a godslayer. He met the regent’s eye, sensing some bond between them-for better or worse.
“May I see this burning talisman of yours?” Tylar asked. “This stone.”
Brant reached up and tugged the black stone free. Tylar leaned down and reached for it.
“Take care with that,” Rogger warned.
