He heard Therin calling, his voice fading in and out. “You are an idiot, boy… a fool…”
CHAPTER 34
Long Live the King
It was a few days before Calen could hold on to consciousness for longer than an hour or two at a time. Even then, his body still ached as though he had been thrown off the side of a cliff. In that time, his room had been a never-ending stream of visitors, though he was unconscious for most of them. Dann even brought his blanket roll and slept on the floor for the first two nights before Therin ushered him out, telling him he wasn’t helping.
After Valerys killed the Fade, the fighting in the rest of the city didn’t last long. The Fade had not brought enough soldiers with him to take the city by brute force. The polished green stones that Aeson had used at the hidden mountain pass were found nestled in their alcoves, the portcullis open. That was how they had stormed the city, as if from nowhere. If the bells hadn’t rung out, everything would have been different. Calen was sure that he wouldn’t be drawing breath. How the Fade had gotten the stones was another question entirely.
Calen looked over at Valerys, who rested on the floor by the fireplace. His pale lavender eyes watched Calen with intrigue as he fastened the top button of his gilt-trimmed silk shirt that Therin had insisted he wear. The dragon had recovered a lot faster than he had, but then again, Valerys had not dragged himself to the edge of the void.
A smile touched the corners of Calen’s mouth as he watched Valerys. For a moment in that hall, Calen had thought that he might lose him. He had never felt a fear like that. Like half of his soul had come a hair’s thickness from being shorn from the living world. Even then, as he stood there in the lavish room, his new scars covered by the fine clothes given to him by Daymon, he felt that sense of loss. It made his stomach weak.
“Calen, it is time.” There was a weak smile on Erik’s face as he walked into the room, Dann and Therin either side of him.
Calen nodded. He checked one more time that his shirt was buttoned properly before making his way towards the door.
Dann hissed as Calen pulled him into a tight embrace. “Take it easy, m’lord,” Dann said in a mocking tone. “Some of us didn’t get the attention of all the healers in the city.”
Therin gave Dann a sideways glance. “I offered to look at your wound, and I was told to leave it because ‘women love scars’.”
“Oh, shut up, Therin. You’re ruining the moment.”
Calen couldn’t help but laugh as Therin waved Dann away with a dismissive hand and went over to check on Valerys. “Speaking of scars, let me see?”
Dann grabbed his shirt by the neckline and pulled it back across his shoulder, revealing a knotted mess of burnt flesh that spread across his collarbone and up over his left shoulder. “I don’t plan on getting hit by lightning again anytime soon.”
Calen grimaced as he ran his finger over the twisted skin on Dann’s collarbone. “What about the one on your side?”
“Oh, no, I let them heal that one. That one would have killed me.”
Calen went to argue with Dann, but instead, he shook his head, pulled Dann in for another embrace, and laughed. Healing one wound, only to leave another solely for the stories he could tell about it, was quite possibly the most Dann thing that Calen could think of.
Calen took a deep breath in, then turned to Erik. “Let’s do this.”
The hallways were empty as they made their way to the courtyard. Every soul in the city would be squashed together to lay witness. Therin turned to Calen as they made their way down one of the long corridors. “Calen…” There was a cautious tone in his voice. “You need to be careful. Arthur was a good man. I trusted him, as Aeson did, and Daymon might well be the same, but—”
Calen cut him short. “But he might not be.”
Therin nodded, twisting his lips into a reluctant frown. “Just be careful. There will be few who will not seek to tie a string around you.”
“As you and Aeson have?” Calen replied, without missing a beat.
Calen felt a twinge of regret as he saw hurt flash in the elf’s eyes, but Therin did not reply. He simply turned his head forward and kept walking. Dann and Erik did not speak either, but Calen felt the tension. That had not been his plan. The words just slipped out.
The elves of Aravell joined them at the end of the corridor before they stepped out into the square. They had stood guard outside Calen’s room day and night, but that was the first time he laid eyes on them since the battle.
“It is no loss,” Gaeleron remarked when Calen gawked at the stump where his left hand had once been. “I wield my sword with my right, and I am not much with a bow.” That was the end of the conversation as far as the elf was concerned. Calen did not think he would be so calm had he lost a hand. He was not sure whether to laugh at the elf’s candour. He decided not to.
Calen’s heart held heavy in his chest as he looked over the elves. Five had followed him from the Darkwood. Only four stood before him now. “Ellisar—”
“Ellisar died with honour, fulfilling an oath that he believed in,” Vaeril said not allowing Calen to finish his sentence, “an oath that we all still believe in. We are with you, Calen, now
