The Dragonrider Heritage Second Series, page 85
Fortunately, when it came to the Lunostri priest, he spoke only in Sokraal. His careful phrasing suggested he was highly educated—not unlike Isandri. Not surprising, given their similar occupations. No doubt, they’d had a lot of the same training.
Since Arlan was going to lead the interrogation, I decided to put my focus into watching his expressions for any traces of deception or reluctance.
That, and exacting any amount of pain necessary to … encourage his full cooperation.
I hoisted him off his feet and lugged him over my shoulder, marching off a distance from the other two before I flung him back down to the ground and shoved him back against another slab of cracked, moss-covered stone that had once been a part of the temple grounds. Clamping a hand around his neck, I pinned him back against the stone and forced him to look me in the eye.
Then I gave him the full force of what Reigh had lovingly dubbed to be my “murder stare.”
His pupils narrowed to pinpoints. Beads of sweat rolled down the sides of his face. His pulse hammered like mad under the grip of my palm. There was no faking that response. He was terrified.
Good. He better be.
“Now then, I suggest you sit very still and choose your next words wisely, priest,” I warned in Sokraal. “Whether intentionally or not, you have meddled in the wrong affairs and found yourself in dangerous company.”
He stared up at me, choking on his words as his sharp, angular features drew into a frantic look of horror. He squirmed against my grasp, gasping like he couldn’t breathe, his gaze darting between the rest of us as Jae and Arlan stepped into view. Like a pack of wolves surrounding a snared hare, we stood before him and waited, considering his every move.
“I-I speak the truth. I swear it. P-Please,” he gasped, curling back against the stone and cringing as though he expected one or all of us to start beating him.
I did like that idea. Nothing wrong with softening him up a little. But I knew better than to try. Jaevid would never allow it.
Not yet.
“Let us begin with your name,” Arlan said, standing right in front of the bound-up priest with his hands clasped calmly at his back. “And what brought you and the Hands of Fate to this place.”
“I-I … I am Edarix. I am a priest of Clysiros. I serve in the emperor’s temple in Lahn’Siir,” he stammered, stopping to swallow hard. “Please, I … I don’t know the details. She did not divulge such things to me. But I know she has been searching for the Codex of Avgior. First at the Compendium Library, and now here.”
“She?” Jaevid stepped forward. “Who are you referring to?”
“Auguress Riva,” he answered quickly. “She is the chief holy advisor to the emperor himself and claims to serve Milontos.”
“What does she want with the codex?” Arlan pressed, his eyes narrowing ominously.
“She … she has promised many things to the emperor,” he said, his voice halting as he breathed fast and hard, likely struggling to keep his composure. “That she could give him a holy weapon that would ensure his success in reunifying the Southern Kingdoms under his ruling hand again. B-But … I …”
“You what?” Arlan took a step closer and bent down, his glowing golden eyes boring into the priest’s with cold, relentless fury.
For a few seconds, all Edarix could do was choke and sputter. His chin trembled and he bowed his head, as though some internal fortification had finally broken. “I believe she means to destroy us all! Fates strike me down, but that woman is evil in ways you cannot fathom! If you only knew the things she’s done, the people who have been slaughtered at her command—m-my friends. My brothers and sisters of the Hall of Holies. I have watched her dismantle and destroy the place that I loved, that I was trained and charged to care for until I draw my final breath in this realm.” His shoulders shook as he began to sob, tears rolling down his face as he looked between us pleadingly. “If you must kill me, so be it. But I beg of you—you must stop her. She must not find the codex! She must not open the gate!”
His words hung in the air like a poisonous vapor as we all stood around, staring down at him, in complete silence.
Gods and Fates, it really was true. Whatever lingering doubts I’d held about Arlan’s stories of world-ending disaster all dissolved at once, and I felt the weight of the world shift under my feet. This was it—the fight Proleus had chosen me for.
All of our fates, our destinies, converged here.
“If all this is true, then why serve her?” Jaevid questioned. “Why go along with her campaign?”
“At first, it was survival. Defying her was the same as asking for death, as she holds powerful sway over the emperor’s mind. But then, after the library, there was … the boy.” He sniffled, trying unsuccessfully to wipe his nose on his shoulder. “I-I could not just leave him. He was another innocent ensnared in her scheme. I could not bear the thought of abandoning him to a fate at her hands.”
I saw Jaevid’s hands curl into fists. “What boy?”
“H-He came from the library. We found him there,” he explained, his voice still shaking some. “He was young and … Goddess, I have never seen such destructive force like the power that boy holds. I’m not sure how, but Riva gained control of his mind. She commands him like a sentinel, and he does her bidding without question or hesitation.”
“What does he look like?” Jaevid demanded. “How old is he?”
“I-I’m not sure how old,” Edarix panicked. “Fourteen or fifteen at the most? His hair is black and—”
“Does he have a mark on his hand?” Arlan asked, still somehow able to sound as calm and composed as ever.
“Yes! The seal of Enais.” Edarix’s eyes widened with recognition. “Do you know him?”
“Fates, it’s him,” Jae gasped. “It’s Ronan. He’s still alive.”
“Ronan Derrick!” Edarix blurted, suddenly sitting up straighter. “He told me that is his name!”
Oh. Oh gods. She did have Ronan. And she was using him as her personal executioner because of his curse.
I swallowed against the burning of bile rising in my throat. He was an innocent child. Reigh’s nephew. Our queen’s only child.
Gods and Fates, we had to get him away from her as soon as physically possible. The more that boy used his power, the stronger it became, and the less able he was to control it. As Arlan had explained to us at great length, the curse was slowly consuming his mind already. Having an evil sorceress impairing his thoughts and forcing his hand would absolutely make it worse.
Ronan was running out of time. The longer he stayed that way, under her control, the less likely it would be that we could actually help him at all. Even if we did manage to rescue him and take him back to Maldobar, his mind might be broken beyond all repair.
But I wasn’t ready to accept that just yet. And I guess Arlan wasn’t, either.
“I want you to listen to me very carefully.” He leaned down farther, his tone becoming eerily quiet and soft as he stared unblinkingly into the priest’s eyes. “You are either very lucky or very unlucky. Time will tell which. The woman you have served, the one you call Auguress Riva, is far more dangerous than you can appreciate now. You must tell me everything you know about her, her plans, and where she might be right this second. Lives far more important than our own now depend on it.”
“Do you think he’s telling the truth?” Jaevid whispered as he and I went to begin searching the bodies of the dead for more evidence.
I stole one last look at Edarix over my shoulder as we left him to continue filling Arlan in on every single detail he could about this so-called Auguress Riva and what she might be planning next. “It doesn’t matter what I think,” I muttered. “Arlan believes him, and we are at his disposal. The real question is do we trust Arlan?”
Jaevid didn’t reply aloud, but his expression darkened as he stopped over the line of bodies spread out before us on the mossy earth. Twelve in all. Most of them were men, but there were three women. Four looked like regular human soldiers with Nar’Haleenan armor and weaponry. But the other eight were far stranger. They all had the same pasty, pale complexions and vibrant red eyes.
Viperi.
I bent down to check each of them, searching for any more marks or tattoos like I’d found on the dwarf. But there was nothing. Hired muscle, then? Or more victims of Auguress Riva’s brainwashing? The former seemed more likely. If legend proved true, then it wouldn’t take much in the way of convincing to get the Viperi to do something violent in exchange for coin or power. Their subterranean society was built upon a constant, bloodthirsty struggle for dominance, and they had absolutely no love for those who lived on the surface. They also happened to be highly efficient warriors, with reflexes that were unrivaled even by the finest Ulfrangar.
They didn’t often associate with people of the surface world, however. Violet was an enigma in that way. I had never questioned her about leaving her people behind, but as I understood it, the Viperi held similar sentiments as the Ulfrangar for those who dared to abandon their society.
To defect was to become a target. A fate I understood all too well, and one that very well might have driven her from the Southern Kingdoms and into Maldobar.
All of the now-dead members of the scouting party, as Edarix had explained, were dressed in similar ensembles of dark silks and well-oiled leather armor. They carried light weapons befitting of scouts and spies. Hands of Fate, no doubt. Apart from the dwarf, of course.
He wore no fine armor and had many old injuries—bruises, cuts, and gashes that had already begun healing. The deep purple bruises around his wrists suggested that his hands had been bound at some point. That, paired with his marking that identified him as a bladesworn of the Zenith’s Call, made me scratch at the back of my neck. Had he been their prisoner, then?
“TRAEGAN!” a voice cried out behind me suddenly.
Jaevid and I whirled around to find the white-haired boy standing right behind us, his face still smeared with blood and his eyes welling with tears. His expression collapsed into a look of anguish as he shoved past us and fell to his knees beside the fallen dwarf.
What the—he wasn’t a member of Auguress Riva’s forces?
For a moment, Jaevid and I stood in silent shock, watching as the boy buried his face in his hands and sobbed. Doubled over, with his blood-spattered robes hanging off his bony frame, it was difficult to imagine this boy was any sort of warrior. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen, and there was nothing about him that even hinted at combat proficiency.
Then I heard Jaevid mutter quietly, “The boy mentioned he was traveling with two friends when I first found him. He called them Traegan and Noa.”
“If this is one of them, then where is—?” I didn’t get a chance to finish that thought.
“I’m here,” another, deeper voice spoke up in the common tongue. This time, it was the older Rienkan elf who came hobbling over, still favoring his freshly bandaged leg. Apparently, he did speak something other than Sokraal and Rienkan. Curious.
Isandri and Roxus followed only a few paces behind him, their expressions a similar mixture of somber concern. Isa walked quietly over to crouch down next to the white-haired boy, speaking to him in a hushed whisper I couldn’t discern.
“You’re Noa?” Jaevid asked, giving him a quick glance over.
“I am,” he answered. “And that is Clarke.”
“They were ambushed by the Hands of Fate when they came out of the old temple,” Roxus announced as he wandered over to stand with us, still watching Clarke and Isa with a hint of unease putting a deep crease in his brow. “It seems the mad sorceress was set upon capturing or killing the boy, they aren’t sure which.”
“What were you doing down in the temple in the first place?” Jaevid asked.
Noa’s chest puffed some as he took in a deep, steadying breath. There was weary resignation in his features as he kept his gaze trained on Clarke, almost like he was afraid to let the kid out of his sight. “It was an accident. We were kidnapped by goblins and taken underground. The rest is … sort of a long story.”
“It’s a good thing we love long stories,” Roxus mumbled. “Especially ones that explain why you caught Sadeera’s special attention.”
Noa’s broad shoulders sagged some, and his expression seized with pain as he tried to rebalance himself on his one good leg. “I’ll be happy to tell you anything you like so long as we can find a place to rest and get something to eat. We’ve been down there several days without any food. He won’t complain or ask for it, but I know Clarke must be starving, too.”
“We can manage that,” Jaevid assured him. “And we’ll take time to bury your dead. The Hands of Fate, however, we’ll have to burn.”
“Not before we take whatever good weapons’n armor they’re carrying. Waste not,” Roxus huffed, and ambled off to start outfitting himself.
“We should make camp, but not here,” Jaevid said as he glanced at the ruins all around us. “Not where Sadeera knows exactly where we are.”
“Hard to be discreet when we’ve got dragons with us,” I pointed out. “And with so many in our company, most of us will be moving on foot.”
He sighed heavily. “True. We’ll have to be careful. Perhaps the dragons can transport the injured if they’re not able to go on foot.”
“I’ll get him up.” Noa hobbled forward, making his way one wobbly step at a time until he stood at Clarke’s side. He bent over and put a hand on the boy’s back, speaking to him quietly.
“NO!” Clarke shouted suddenly, throwing off Noa’s hand and shambling up to his feet. He staggered back, nearly tripping over himself in the process. “Stay away from me! D-Don’t you get it? Don’t you understand? All of this is my fault! It happened again! AGAIN—because of me!” he yelled, his voice breaking and halting as he fought back sobs. “First, the library. Then the village. A-And now this! Anyone who gets close to me is going to DIE!”
“That’s not true, Clarke,” Noa protested.
“YES! Yes, it is!” he cried, his expression wild and desperate as he stared around at all of us. “A-All this time, it’s been me. I’m the one she wants—what’s inside my head. The codex. I-I read it. A-And now … now she knows who I …”
Isandri rushed him, throwing her arms around the boy and hugging him tightly. With a hand on the back of his head, she cooed gently as she held him tightly against her. “I know it hurts. I know you feel like this was your fault. But please, believe me, this was not your doing.”
“I-I couldn’t stop them. I couldn’t save a-any of them,” Clarke whimpered against her, gripping her back just as tightly. “Even though I’m supposed t-to be … Avgior.”
I froze. My pulse skipped a beat and seemed to halt completely. Did he just say he was Avgior? This mysterious, draconic God of Fate was a scrawny, white-haired boy with spectacles? No, that couldn’t be.
Could it?
Taking his face in her hands, Isandri gave him an earnest smile and wiped at his tears with her thumbs. “Then you are my brother. Your soul knows mine. Do you not see me?”
He blinked owlishly, still sucking in shallow, fast breaths as he stared back at her. A slow blink and his eyes flashed with a flicker of silvery light. Then, a twitchy, broken smile brushed his lips. His eyes closed and he leaned down to press his forehead to hers, and the voice that left his lips was different. Deeper. Smoother. But no less tearful and desperate.
“There are no words in the mortal tongue … for how I have missed you, Adiana.”
12
CHAPTER TWELVE
We couldn’t afford to linger in one place for long, not when Sadeera knew exactly where we were and that we now possessed something she wanted: Clarke.
Or Avgior, rather. Ugh. Whatever name he was going by—it didn’t matter. I wasn’t sure what the actual dynamic between that boy and the deity was, and frankly, there wasn’t time to sort it out right then. We had to get moving.
There was just one loose end to tie up, first.
No one felt good about leaving Clarke and Noa’s fallen comrade, Traegan, unburied or burning him with the rest of the dead Hands of Fate agents. Unfortunately, we could only spare a few minutes to lay him to rest. We found a decent place at the feet of one of the mostly intact statues within the temple grounds and dug a grave. Then we all gathered around in solemn silence while Edarix performed a brief ritual and prayer over the gravesite. I suppose that was his area of specialty, being a priest of Clysiros. And while it was a nice gesture, it wasn’t sufficient to win him enough of our trust to let him roam freely.
Jaevid still insisted on keeping Edarix’s hands bound and forcing him to walk between Garnett, Roxus, and me—just in case he decided to try anything especially stupid. So far, the priest had kept his mouth shut and his head down, looking appropriately downtrodden and worried. He probably assumed we would kill him eventually.
Depending on how truthful and cooperative he was, he might not be wrong about that. Especially now that we knew Ronan’s life was hanging by a thread.
It took time to move everyone through the jungle on foot, and every minute made my nerves draw tense. But with a group as large as ours, and the knowledge that our enemy was likely still somewhere in the vicinity, using the dragons to speed things along would certainly give away our position. We had to be careful, quiet, and cover our tracks well. Even having the dragons circle too closely was a risk, so we sent them off to hold in patterns in the area.
I didn’t like that one bit. Judging by his deeply set frown, Jaevid didn’t care for it, either. The dragons were usually our primary defense, and if the Hands of Fate did attack us, we would certainly need their help. But the risk that our scaly comrades might give away our position was too great.
