Dawnbringer

undead.

“You’ve been hurt,” she said. It wasn’t a question but a statement. “Show me.”

Shaking, the smith held out his forearm. It was already swollen, and a dreadful purple color. The tattered flesh around the punctures had turned black.

“I wasn’t so lucky this time,” said Jonhan Smith, and tried to smile.

Lakini stared up into Lusk’s eyes a long moment. Then she pushed him, sudden and hard, both hands on his shoulders. Startled, he stumbled back into the wall.

“Stay away from me,” she said, shaking with anger. “You are an abomination.”

Without turning to see what he did, she ran down the corridor, through the crowded common rooms, past the startled guards, and up the wild paths of the mountains where the clean air could scour and cleanse her.

In the woods outside Jadaren Hold, a human captain of the guard stood beside a vampire with a disfiguring scar. The captain wondered how his employer had ever, ever thought this might be a good idea.

Still, the creature made no threatening gesture toward him and his men, and she kept the disorganized- appearing mob she’d brought with her in order.

She stirred against his shoulder, and he tensed. She pointed at the monolith that loomed in the darkening sky before them, orange flickers of campfires springing into life at its base. A little more than halfway up its side, a tongue of green flame shot forth and faded.

“Soon,” whispered Helgre in her beautiful voice that had never sung. “Very soon now.”

NONTHAL, TURMISH

1600 DR-THE YEAR OF UNSEEN ENEMIES

Sanwar sat cross-legged in the middle of his private study. The room was close and hot, and he was stripped to the waist. Sweat trickled down his back and spotted the floor, but he made no move.

He was staring at the wall. One of the luxurious tapestries had been torn down and lay rumpled in a corner. On the bare wall, which was just a skim of plaster over thick and solid brick, a geometrical figure had been sketched in chalk. Purple light flickered across it, in stark contrast to the white chalk.

Sanwar had a single hair, the chestnut, honey-highlighted hair of a woman, wrapped so tightly around his finger that it cut into his flesh, making the pinched skin turn purple.

Someone tapped at the other side of the door.

“Sanwar?” Vorsha’s voice was puzzled, afraid. “Sanwar, dear, is everything all right?”

Sanwar didn’t stir at the sound of his wife’s voice. There was a scraping sound as she tried to open the door and failed.

Go. He didn’t turn to the door but projected that voice that now lived always within him at it. Go away, and leave me be.

The tapping stopped, and, after a pause, he heard Vorsha’s feet padding down the corridor.

He flexed his finger, tightening the wind of the hair around his finger. Fine as a wire, it started to bite into him, and a small wound split apart on his skin. It gaped up at him like a tiny, eager mouth.

Sanwar smiled at the sensation. A small drop of blood welled from the cut and ran down his finger.

Now, he thought. This is the time. Now.

Miles away, deep in the bowels of the labyrinthine monolith, Kestrel lay sleeping beside her husband in their private chamber. She lay on her back, her hair tumbled about her, and Arna slept on his side facing her, one arm draped across her body. The bead around her neck suddenly flared with a deep purple light. Brighter and brighter it grew, then faded until it glowed like a strangely colored ember against her breast.

Kestrel’s eyes snapped open and stared at the ceiling. Her eyes were completely black, with no white or iris, as if her pupils had swallowed everything up.

A faint green haze was gathering in the room, like mist on a cool evening. The green particles, each so faint that singly they couldn’t be seen by the human eye, swirled around one another and coalesced until they became a transparent ribbon. The ribbon reached for Kestrel where she lay, eyes still open.

It hovered over her face, and an end of it paused over the glowing charm. The ribbon reached for the charm as if to touch it, then reared back, like a startled snake.

The green ribbon floated a moment, sinuous as a flag in the wind, as if deciding what to do. It thinned out until it was simply a mass of green specks again. The particles retreated to the walls and soaked through as if the stone were porous.

Kestrel rose and pushed back the covers, not bothering to put on her slippers, but going straight to the little table where she kept her cosmetics and little trinkets. Here were her comb and the brush she used to untangle her daughter’s hair, as her mother had before, and a little woven box containing a chunk of dirty-white quartz that her husband had given her on her wedding night.

There was a box there, a beautifully inlaid piece made of a curious wood. It was a present from her uncle, sent on her birthday this past year. The note said it was a puzzle box, with a prize inside, and challenged her to open it without breaking it apart.

She had fiddled with it almost nightly, but the solution eluded her. Sometimes she was tempted to take the lazy man’s way, and pry the end off.

She pressed the lid of the box, and it popped open with no effort at all. Inside was a knife with a long, thin blade and a grip that fit all the curves of her hand as if it were cast for it. Kestrel looked at her own hand and opened and shut it reflexively.

In the bed, Arna muttered to himself and rolled onto his back, snoring faintly with his hand dangling over the side.

She took the knife and walked around the bed to Arna’s side. Her bare feet made no sound on the cold stone floor. With her left hand she stroked his hair, all that black, silky hair he had. She ran her fingers through it, and cupped the back of his head. He opened his eyes and smiled sleepily up at her.

She took a handful of his hair, pulled his head back, and slit his throat. The knife was so sharp, it cut right to the bone. He died still looking at her.

It was only a few steps to the nursery, where little Bron was sleeping. The nurse had a bed beside the crib. She woke when she saw the shadow at the door and rose to see what her mistress wanted. She was a short woman, and the top of her head barely reached Kestrel’s shoulder. All Kestrel had to do was swing the knife up, under her jaw, through the top of her mouth, and into her brain.

The weight of the woman falling pulled the knife from her hand. She walked to the side of little Bron’s crib. The boy was sleeping on his back, his arms spread-eagled in that utter sleep they are capable of at that age. She took the blanket from the foot of the crib, wadded it up, and covered his face.

When the baby was still, she left him covered. She pulled the knife out of the nurse’s jaw and shoved her inside the nursery door, so the alarm would not be raised right away. Then she went to Brioni’s room, next to the nursery.

Brioni was so proud when she was old enough, just that past year, to have her own room. But her covers were cast aside, her bed empty. Kestrel waited awhile, but Brioni didn’t return to her room. So she went on to the boys’ room-to Geb and Shev. Geb was fast asleep, and a quick blow finished him, just like his father. But though she could swear she made no sound, Shev was awake when she went to his bed. He stirred, and she saw his eyes glitter up at her, puzzled. She grasped his jaw before he could make a sound and put the point under his ear. Like his father, he was still looking up at her when he died.

Miles away, poised at the rocky edge of the cliff with the wind roaring through her hair, Lakini felt something twist in her stomach.

Something is wrong at the Hold.

She had sworn to serve and protect them, and then she had run away, and now the Hold and everyone in it was in danger.

She turned from the wind and the view and ran, surefooted over the rocks and the places where the path disappeared.