19
Valessa walked through the walls surrounding the Blood Tower to the empty land beyond. The silence was blessed to her. With a sigh, she let her armor and cloak vanish, adopting the image of how she had always been, plain clothes and all. With Cyric remaining in Willshire, along with half his men, she’d assumed his mantle of leadership. Not that the lions didn’t have their say. Kayne and Lilah were always about, patrolling, watching. They spoke little, but when they did, they were obeyed without question.
Night had fallen, and while most guards slept, Valessa would not. She looked to the clear sky and tried to ignore the burning red star shining in the distance, mocking her, always reminding her of her failure, her unfinished mission.
Soft footsteps padded behind her. She looked back, saw one of the lions there. She held back her grimace. Over time she should have grown more comfortable in their presence, but so far she had not. Her nocturnal visitor was Kayne, the male, slightly larger and with a fiery mane about his neck.
“You are troubled,” Kayne said, resting on his haunches beside her.
“I am tired. I was trained for stealth and assassination, not preparing defenses and managing supplies.”
Kayne breathed out heavily through his nose.
“You know that is not what I speak of. I am of a world you do not know, and my eyes glimpse what mortal eyes cannot. I see the uncertainty of your faith. I smell your doubt. The rest sleep, and we have solitude here. Tell me your fear.”
Valessa looked to the distance, imagining the people of Willshire watching Cyric’s preparations. What would they think? What would they believe?
“He says he is Karak,” she said to the lion. “Not that he works his will, or hears his voice, but that he is Karak, returned in mortal flesh. In my training to be a gray sister, we heard of Karak’s return, of his freedom from the elven whore’s prison…but it was always a day of glory, an ultimate defeat of chaos and false gods. The world was to shake, and a million voices cry out in triumph.”
“You doubt him?” Kayne asked, his voice even deeper than Lilah’s. Heat wafted over her from his mouth. It felt like an inferno rumbled in the lion’s belly.
“Of course I doubt him. How is what he says not blasphemy? Shouldn’t Karak strike him down for such claims?”
Kayne shook his head, an odd motion to see from a creature so large and magnificent.
“In many ways, Cyric is Karak made flesh. His power embodies him, his presence fills him, and he does speak our god’s words in all matters of faith.”
Valessa frowned. That wasn’t good enough. Kayne was avoiding the question, giving her excuses and explanations instead of real answers.
“Then he’s wrong,” she said. “He isn’t Karak, not in the way our prophets have foretold.”
Kayne looked at her, and the intelligence in his eyes frightened her in a way no mortal weapon ever could.
“No,” the lion said at last. “He is not.”
“Then it is blasphemy.”
“It is a mere reflection of the truth.”
“There is only one truth! Karak cannot let this go on!”
Kayne leapt toward her. His eyes met hers, his teeth were bared and stopped just inches from her breasts.
“Would you tell a god what he can and cannot do?” asked the lion. “Cyric will accomplish what none have done in ages. He will bring back the old and true ways to the North, and beyond. The faithful will grow numerous, honed with fire and blade. So long as the priest serves, and furthers the cause of our god, then I am to protect him. As should you.”
She refused to back down, to let the creature see her fear.
“I will listen,” she told Kayne. “And I will obey, but I will not call him god, nor call him Karak.”
“Tread carefully,” Kayne said, snarling. “My teeth can consume more than flesh. You are not safe, not from me. Do not think yourself forgiven for your failure.”
“I would never,” she said. It took all her strength to walk past his bared teeth. She had thought herself unable to feel worldly sensations, but the creature was not of their world. The heat of his body radiated across her, made her feel alive for the first time since Darius killed her. But that only heightened the awareness of her pain, made her realize how much had been taken from her.
At the entrance to the Blood Tower, she stopped and looked up at the high window, which was lit with a candle.
“Your home is overrun by a madman,” she whispered, thinking of Robert locked inside, helpless as Cyric as filled the heads of his men with promises of eternity. When Cyric spread his influence south, when he conquered the priesthood in Mordeina and began to travel east, might she one day feel the same?
Icy fear stung her non-beating heart. Dangerous thoughts, she realized, far more dangerous than she’d believed herself capable of. Cyric did Karak’s will. She had to trust that. She had to believe.
Because the alternative was so much worse.
I n the first village Sandra had come to, walking on bleeding feet and with an empty stomach, they’d fed her, repaired her clothes, and sent her on her way. They’d known her, supported her brother, but did not know where he’d been. Tombrook, they told her. Go to Tombrook, and someone there would know. And so she did, carrying her dagger in one hand and a satchel of dried food in the other.
At Tombrook, when she mentioned Kaide’s name, they hushed her and took her to their village elder, who summoned one of his grandsons.
“He’s a fast lad, and knows many paths,” the old man said, his eyes milky white and his teeth black. “I trust he might take you somewhere you want to go.”
The grandson was a boy of fourteen, and he carried a large sack of loaves over his shoulder.
“Will we need that much food?” she asked him.
“Food ain’t for you,” had been his reply.
And so she followed him out to the hills. Arthur’s castle was close, she knew, and for much of the time they walked along the only road toward it. After a time, the boy veered off, into a heavy patch of brush and thorns that seemed to stretch for miles. Briars pulled at her clothes, and her skin bled from many cuts, but the boy endured without complaint, and so would she. Then they reached the camp, a large clearing painstakingly cut into the brush. They hadn’t built any fires that might reveal their presence as they sat hidden, yet so close to the road.
“You’re a godsend,” the first guard said to the boy, grabbing the sack. His eyes had swept over her without seeing her, and she smiled at him with her arms crossed.
“Hello, Adam,” she said.
He froze as if hit by lightning. The big man’s grin grew, and then he wrapped her in a bear hug.
“Sandra!” he cried, and with that, many hurried her way. She greeted the men as best she could, then pushed them away.
“I must see my brother,” she said.
“And I seek my sister,” Kaide said, pushing Adam aside. A smile was on his face, and Sandra immediately felt relief at seeing it. He bore her no ill will, no anger, only an embrace she gladly returned.
“Is there somewhere we can talk?” she asked as the men returned to their posts. Kaide gestured to the sprawling camp.
“No walls, no tents, no homes,” he said. “Though there’s a stream a bit farther in. We can walk there, and talk along the way.”
The brush had been carefully cleared, creating a pathway that weaved and curled so as to be unnoticeable from afar. Kaide led the way, and Sandra followed a step behind him.
“So what has my little sister been up to?” he asked her. She could tell he was dying to know, but kept his tone gentle, uninterested.
“Not near as much as you,” she said. “How goes the siege?”
