think she’d had a hundred years of experience doing it to say something like that.”
“She was just trying to …” Cyrus let the words hang there. “Cut me loose with as little pain as she could.”
“Still. That’s the easiest she could come up with?” Terian shook his head. “Brutal. It was just brutal. She could have at least given you a roll in the proverbial hay for your years of pining before she booted you from beneath her sheets.”
“Oddly enough,” Cyrus said, “I don’t think that would have helped.” There was quiet for a few minutes, unbroken by either of them until Cyrus said finally, “I haven’t told anyone that yet. Thank you for listening.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Terian asked.
“You’ve been a little strange lately,” Cyrus said. “One minute you act like my friend Terian, then the next it’s like you’re channeling Vara.”
“That’s low,” he said, wincing. “I’ve been your friend for a long time, Davidon.” The wince disappeared, replaced by a knowing smirk. “Can you think of anything you might have done that would change that?”
Cyrus thought about it and shrugged. “I can’t think of anything. But I wondered if maybe I’d done something to piss you off.”
“Yeah. Well …” Terian said, pensive, “… you did give me this very impressive sword.” He pulled the blade from his scabbard, holding it up. The steel held a bright red edge to it and it glimmered and shone, the mystical power beneath the forging obvious in the daylight. “This is a blade given by the Sovereign to his truly great dark knights, the ones of such skill and virtue that they remain unchallenged in the realm of personal combat. It’s a rare honor to get one of these and they say the red in the steel is from the blade, drinking the blood of its enemies to grow stronger.” He smiled, a very slight one. “So that’s noteworthy, isn’t it?”
“I suppose,” Cyrus said, inflectionless. “Such a trivial thing, though. I wasn’t ever going to use it.”
“Ah, yes, trivial things,” Terian said, a bitter smile on his lips. “It’s funny how the things we think are so trivial really aren’t. But that’s all right,” the dark knight said, his smile widening, the bitterness leaving it. “I’ll make good use of it.” He stared at the length of it and swung it to the side, causing his horse to shuffle footing with the change in weight. Terian laughed. “It’ll drink the blood of my enemies.” He looked back to Cyrus, and nodded his head in gratitude.
“Every last one of them.”
Chapter 13
Weeks passed as they traveled across the land. Cyrus stayed at the fore of the expedition save for once per day, when he would ride along the sides of the column and speak to the soldiers. They nodded and smiled at him, giving him hope and encouragement and taking his mind off Vara.
Aisling seemed to avoid Cyrus in the days that followed the castle siege. She nodded and smiled politely at him but made no attempt to initiate conversation. Uncertain of what to think or feel, he nodded courteously when he saw her and even doffed his helm but said nothing more than pleasantries.
While Cyrus spoke with the Baroness only occasionally to check in on her-to little effect, she would answer politely but offer little else-she seemed to be getting along well with almost all his other officers. He regularly saw her riding with J’anda and Curatio as well as Nyad and Ryin. Occasionally he would also see her speaking with Longwell or Odellan, or Martaina. Once he even saw her talking with Aisling. Both of them had been looking at him when he turned around, and they averted their eyes quickly, leaving him with a distinctly embarrassed sensation, his ears burning.
The weather changed as the weeks wore on. The sun grew warmer, and they made the turn into croplands, where corn dominated the fields, along with grains of all sorts. The days grew longer, and the breeze carried less chill. The hills gave way to long stretches of flat plains, with just the slightest roll to them; they reminded him most of the Plains of Perdamun, of Sanctuary and home-and of an elven girl that he could not get off his mind, no matter how he tried.
“We’re less than a week from my father’s castle,” Longwell said to Cyrus one day as they were passing a field with a fence of stone that encircled it. The skies were grey, a light drizzle of rain making its way down upon them.
“So we’ll be heading to his castle, not the front line?” Cyrus looked at the dragoon. Odellan rode on the other side of Cyrus, listening to them both.
“Aye,” Longwell said. “It has been something akin to six months since my father first sent his messenger to us; it would be difficult to tell where the army is after such an interval.” Tightness creased the dragoon’s face. “If it is as bad as he said in his message, we may not have far to go to find his army.”
“That doesn’t sound as if it bodes well,” Odellan said, the light rain trickling down over his armor.
“It didn’t bode well when my father contacted me.” Longwell looked glum. “He knew it would be an exceptionally long journey to send someone after me. I didn’t tell them exactly where I’d be, because I didn’t know anything of Arkaria when I left.” He paused, frowning. “Nor was I of a disposition to tell him at the time either, I suppose. I only told him I was going over the Endless Bridge to find a strong army to join. His messenger tracked me down based on whispers of my involvement in the defense of Termina.”
“That’s a hell of a walk if you don’t have have a wizard to teleport you.” Cyrus heard Windrider whinny. The rain was chill, the little splashes of water bouncing off his armor and into his face.
“I think he hoped I’d have found a strong army I could bring back with me,” Longwell said. “Syloreas has long been our enemy, back thousands of years, since the three Kingdoms began.”
“Perhaps you could give us some history of the conflicts of this land,” Odellan said.
Longwell looked at the elf with dull eyes and an amused smile. “Certainly. They fought constantly; not ten years would go by without one of the three Kingdoms declaring war on another and pressing the attack. Sometimes there were defeats, occasionally a Kingdom would be conquered for ten or twenty years-I think Actaluere was actually put under Syloreas’s boot for almost fifty years once, but that was several thousand years ago. Every time, eventually, the people would rise up, throw off the lazy army with the help of the other Kingdom, and the cycle would start again a few years later.”
“Oh my,” Odellan said. “That makes the sordid history of the elves and dark elves look quite peaceful by comparison.”
Cyrus stared at Longwell with a raised eyebrow. “No offense, but your people sound as bloodthirsty as the trolls. That’s an awful lot of wars.”
Longwell shrugged. “I didn’t start them. And I was only involved in one of them-the last war, between all three Kingdoms.”
“Who started that one?” Cyrus asked.
“Syloreas,” Longwell said. “Briyce Unger began with an invasion of Actaluere’s northern borders, and my father,” he said, rising tension apparent in his voice, “decided it would be an opportune moment to deprive Syloreas of some of their southern lands while they were distracted with an invasion thrust that nearly reached halfway to Caenalys, the capital of Actaluere. What my father hadn’t anticipated was that Briyce Unger would turn his armies around when he heard that we had begun assaulting his border and march them directly there to hammer us.”
“What did Actaluere do?” Odellan asked.
“Not a damned thing,” Longwell said bitterly. “They tossed out the remaining garrison troops that Briyce Unger had left behind, then sat their army back and waited until Unger and my father’s forces had done a good amount of damage to each other. Then King Tiernan of Actaluere launched an attack on our border, taking two cities away from us and leaving Unger unpunished.”
“Can you really blame him?” The Baroness’s voice came from behind them, startling Cyrus and causing him to turn. She sat on horseback, following only a few paces behind them. “He saw an opportunity to get Unger out of his territory and take two jewels out of Galbadien’s crown with minimal effort while you and Syloreas were busy bleeding each other dry in the north. King Tiernan ended the war he hadn’t even started with more territory, while Galbadien and Syloreas both lost half their armies.” She shook her head and smiled. “Your father got perfidious and thought to turn our war to his advantage, but Unger’s bullheaded pride worked against him. Your father was
