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  Knight Awoken

  The Shackled Verities (Book Four)

  Tammy Salyer

  Introduction

  Hello and thank you for being here! Should you enjoy the words on these pages (and I hope you do!), I encourage you to join my Reader Group and visit me at:

  www.tammysalyer.com

  I occasionally send newsletters with details on new releases, special offers and other bits of news. New Reader Group members will receive a handful of novellas and short stories FOR FREE. Sign up for your copies of A KNIGHT’S CALLING, prequel to the Shackled Verities series; CONVICTION, prequel to the Spectras Arise series; plus a short story collection. More details at the end of this book.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Afterword

  THE FIVE REALMS

  GLOSSARY

  Also by Tammy Salyer

  About the Author

  Knight Awoken

  The Shackled Verities (Book Four)

  * * *

  Copyright © 2021 by Tammy Salyer

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover by: Miblart.com

  Chapter One

  Could anything make time move both slower, and quicker, than one’s own children?

  Isemay was turning seventeen today, or would be if Ulfric were reckoning time by Vinnr, but his daughter seemed to have forgotten all about the date in her excitement. To be honest, he had too, but Symvalline hadn’t. She’d reminded him in the early morning hours, shortly before the last of Arc Rheunos’s three moons had faded to ghosts in the sky and its sun rose over a land that was in every way renewed. Seventeen, and still when he looked at her, all he saw was his little girl. Verities eyes, Ulfric felt old. No, he felt ancient.

  Despite his own mixed feelings about his daughter’s celebration day, with the Equifulcrum bringing freedom to the Verity Mithlí and a reunification of Arc Rheunos’s peoples, the realm was having a kind of birthday as well. Now that the long feud between the Minothians and the Zhallahs was over, the fear and deceptions that had divided the two peoples would soon be buried with that past. And before the sun reached midday, Isemay, his little Crumb, would become the first newly ordained Knight and protector of Mithlí the Everlight in nearly four centuries.

  Archon, he reminded himself. Here their Knights are called Archons.

  Ulfric’s eyes, or rather Urgo’s, flicked proudly toward Isemay, who sat side by side with the young Zhallah man Salukis in places of honor at a massive feast-laden table in Everlight Hall. Next to them was a shriveled old man named Widin, whom Isemay had insisted deserved a seat of honor. The old-timer had aided Symvalline in trying to rescue their daughter from the now dead and dishonored Archon Tuzhazu.

  Wizened and gaunt, the elder’s bruises were at least as much ghosts as the realm’s moons now. When Ulfric had first seen him, he appeared to have been beaten and was barely able to walk on his own. But the Everlight had touched him, as she’d touched all the others who’d been wounded in the battle of two days prior, and he had straightened and smiled with a vigor that belonged to someone who hadn’t lived long enough to accumulate half his wrinkles. That same vigor now seemed to flow through all those gathered at the feast. With their Verity freed and their realm now united, the people of Arc Rheunos could heal, not just from their physical wounds but from their centuries of suffering. Ulfric wanted to take some satisfaction in his small role in that, but he couldn’t. Not yet.

  A kind of internal doomsday clock still ticked in his mind. This realm may be free, but his own was moving inexorably toward complete domination and eventual ruin by Balavad the usurper. Yet looking into his daughter’s smiling, nervous face, he tried to put this aside, just for the moment. Isemay deserved all his focus now, not only because he loved her and was filled with more pride than he could contain at her choice to join the Arc Rheunosian Archon Order, but because she, more than ever, was now caught up in the Cosmos-wide battle too.

  The last living Archon, Deespora Raamuzi, entered the hall, though she was more than an Archon now. Deespora had become Mithlí’s vessel, and for the next three hundred turns, or years, as they were called in Arc Rheunos, she would be both.

  Symvalline and Urgo, with Ulfric as passenger once more, stood against the wall behind Isemay. He saw Deespora’s eyes flash briefly toward them as the rest of the assembly all swept to kneeling bows before her. In her glance was the woman he’d met upon coming to this realm. The Verity lay hidden in Deespora the way Ulfric himself was hidden in Urgo. Biding her time? Slowly, silently reacquainting herself with her creations? There was no way to know. A Verity’s mind, if it could be called such, was as opaque and unknowable to him as ever. Perhaps more than ever. There’d been a time he believed he understand the Verities and his place in Vaka Aster’s realm. But since Vaka Aster had all but abandoned Vinnr before Balavad had come to shackle her, since Ulfric had learned the fate of Himmingaze’s own Verity, and since he’d become acquainted with the dark, plague-ridden history of Arc Rheunos, Ulfric no longer pretended he could understand even the simplest of the Verities’ reasons or actions.

  Flanked on either side by leaders of the reunified people, Isemay and Salukis had also taken a knee as Deespora approached. She carried the Arc Rheunos Scrylle with a Fenestros joined at the crest, creating an orb and scepter ensemble that reminded him of the one Arch Keeper Beatte carried in Vinnr, though hers was made of simple gold and gemstones. Deespora stopped in front of the two youths and said something too quietly for Ulfric to hear. Isemay and Salukis both looked up, and Isemay’s wide eyes shined with wonder. This was it, his little girl’s big moment.

  Unexpectedly, Ulfric felt a burning, panicky sensation, as if his chest were being squeezed in a vise. Urgo must have felt it as well, as the bird ruffled his feathers and let out a low-pitched, uncomfortable churr. A few heads turned in their direction questioningly, but Ulfric hardly noticed.

  Seventeen years old. Only seventeen years old. Had he ever known anyone to have joined the Knighthood at such a young age? No, the youngest had been a man of twenty-five, several hundred turns ago, Knight Peke of Magdaster, north of Asteryss. Isemay was too young, too inexperienced. He couldn’t let her take this oath, pledge her life to a being that he could not deny would think alm
ost nothing of it.

  He almost gave in to the urge to push Urgo forward and grab his daughter with Urgo’s beak, to yank her away before she could make this horrible mistake, when Symvalline’s quiet whisper came to his ears.

  “It’s her choice, Ulfric. We can’t, and have no right, to stop her now.”

  No right? He was her father! … But he knew she was right. There was only a vanishingly small handful of things in the Cosmos he could control, and his daughter was no longer one of them. Hadn’t really ever been, frankly.

  One after the other, Isemay and Salukis swore the short, solemn oath of allegiance to Mithlí. When they finished, Deespora’s colorless skin took on a subtle glow, like light at the edges of a crystal, and she said in a voice that resonated like singing crystal as well, “As you serve me in eternity, eternity is yours.”

  Then the ceremony was over. Ulfric was struck by how brief it was, just as it was in Vinnr. In each realm it appeared the charge of Knighthood was predicated on a sense of duty, not a desire for pomp. Even if the people of Arc Rheunos had once had more illustrious traditions for the ordination of a new Archon, no one was left who knew them besides Deespora. The last two—Tuzhazu and Deespora’s sister Akeeva—had perished. Tuzhazu had murdered Akeeva, and he had been destroyed when the Cosmoculous exploded. Perhaps Deespora had decided a more traditional ceremony was unnecessary, or perhaps not quite right, when it came to ordaining a woman from another realm. Even Jaemus Bardgrim hadn’t gotten this much.

  Isemay rose to her feet and took a deep breath as she turned to face her parents. She smiled slightly, showing only a hint of teeth, and her eyebrows were cocked quizzically, as if to ask That’s it? I thought there’d be more.

  Oh, Crumb, Ulfric thought, there will be. There will be.

  He projected himself as best he could through her memory keeper, now dangling around Symvalline’s neck in order to keep from distracting Isemay at this important moment. He didn’t know if she could see his reassuring smile—as reassuring as he could make it, anyway—at that distance, but she gave them both a tiny shrug and turned back to Salukis.

  The young man had risen as well and smiled awkwardly at Isemay. Then he reached for her hand, and Ulfric could see how tightly she grabbed his. For a moment, he had the uncomfortable sensation that he was witnessing his daughter’s wedding, not her ordination, and wasn’t sure if that made him more or less panicky than before. Then Sym was striding forward and hugging their child.

  “Congratulations, my darling daughter. You have no idea how proud of you we are. Ulfric and I both know you’re going to be a great, no, a legendary Archon.”

  “Thanks, Mum,” Isemay said self-consciously, and in some ways this reassured him. She was still young, still his little girl.

  They parted, and Ulfric was able to speak to her as well, with the memory keeper no longer pressed between Sym and her. He realized he had no idea what to say. All that came to mind was, “Your courage and strength are already greater than your parents’, and Mithlí is lucky to have you. I love you, Crumb.”

  Beaming now, Isemay responded, “I love you, too, Da.” Her smile turned devious. “And that’s Archon Crumb now.”

  The feast and merriment lasted throughout the day. Hundreds more people were gathered in the courtyard and beyond outside, everyone who had recently been locked in battle in the vast Minothian valley now eating and drinking together in a timorous but hopeful peace. The fortress itself had been prepared for a feast already, Ulfric had learned. The Feast of Future’s Hope, a celebration that was to have accompanied the Equifulcrum but had been stalled because of Tuzhazu’s treachery. What a change this world had seen. Ulfric did his best to keep himself and Urgo still and patient, biding time until he could ask Deespora for what he most needed. A chance to peer into the Arc Rheunosian Scrylle, to search it for a way to free Vaka Aster and save Vinnr from Balavad.

  Toward evening, the opportunity came.

  Deespora sat aloof in an ornate throne built for the Minothian liege, watching Symvalline and Ulfric’s approach. Urgo and Yggo had flown to a high gallery overlooking the feast chamber, but Ulfric remained visible in the crystal of the pendant around Sym’s neck.

  “I’ve been waiting for you to come speak to me,” Deespora said, her voice slightly deeper, yet still recognizable.

  “Our realm is troubled and we need to return,” Symvalline said simply. She reached into a durable pouch at her side, one of the items of clothing she’d been provided by their Arc Rheunosian hosts, and pulled out two gleaming black fist-sized Fenestrii with tiny, almost imperceptible runes etched all over their surfaces. Balavad’s celestial stones.

  Deespora’s eyes flashed as black as the stones briefly, then paled back to a blue so clear and light it was nearly invisible against the whites. The woman, as most vessels did, would likely harden to stone eventually. Ulfric had seen the stone edifices of former vessels lining Everlight Hall’s feast chamber. It was one difference between here and Vinnr, where former vessels were rare, and those that remained received a ceremonial sending off in decorated ships to rejoin the realm at the bottom of the Verring Sea.

  “But before you go, you would like to study our Scrylle.” Deespora stated this as an acknowledged fact, though they hadn’t yet discussed it.

  “That is true,” Ulfric averred. “Unless there’s another Cosmoculous we can use to unshackle Vaka Aster as we did you.”

  “The Cosmoculous is of the Churss, and another shall eventually come into being. But it won’t serve you in the way Akeeva learned until the next Equifulcrum, when Maiztos, Kahros, and Znopho are once more in alignment.”

  “In three hundred of your years,” Symvalline said, her voice quiet. Deespora nodded, and Symvalline asked, “Then yes, may we search your Scrylle?”

  “You don’t wish to wait?” The curiosity in her tone was genuine, as if the passage of three hundred years was inconsequential enough to make their haste remarkable. It was just one more confirmation to Ulfric that Verities, despite their ability to emulate a human, were anything but.

  “The people of Vinnr need our help now,” he said, firmly but respectfully.

  “Of course, then. But I am afraid it will disappoint you.”

  Those were not the words Ulfric wanted to hear. Deespora reached out to pass them the artifacts, and he noticed how smooth her hand had become. Like marble, he thought. Soon, all resemblance to the woman Deespora would fade, he knew. Many people who became their creator’s vessel held on to themselves for a few thirty-nights, sometimes a few turns, but never for much longer. Was his body already hardening to stone? Would it be too late to return to himself, even if they found a way to unbind Vaka Aster?

  Symvalline took the Scrylle and looked up at the gallery where the bruhawks waited. We may need Urgo for this, she sent to Ulfric.

  Let’s go outside where we won’t be disturbed.

  They started toward a stairway leading up to the bruhawks, but Isemay’s voice stopped them.

  “There you are,” their daughter said. And in an attempt at sounding as if she were scolding them, she added, “I know what you’re planning. Don’t you think it’s time I start to learn how to… how to read the archaneology of the Scrylle, too?”

  Symvalline laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “There will be time for you to learn everything you still don’t know. And there is much you don’t. But now isn’t it. The situation is—”

  “Dire,” Isemay finished, her face a complex mix of fear and relief. “I know, and I understand.” She glanced quickly toward Deespora’s throne, then back to them. “Now that my, er, duty is here, just please promise you won’t leave me without saying goodbye. I keep thinking of seeing Mylla at Aster Keep for the last time. And now she’s gone, and I never got to… got to…”

  Symvalline pulled her in a hug and held her for a moment. “We all miss her, Isemay.” Through their Mentalios link, Ulfric heard the words Symvalline didn’t say aloud. And none of us will ever forget her sacrifice.
The sacrifice all of us have sworn to make. Even you, my daughter.

  Isemay’s shoulders shuddered once, then she relaxed, taking control of her emotions. She pulled back. “Sorry, Mum. I’m just—it has been a lot to take in these last few days.”

  Ulfric shared Sym’s sadness and anxiety at seeing their child distraught. She was thinking the same thing he was. Isemay was too young, too inexperienced, too much of a child still to witness much less bear the burden of such turmoil and so many battles.

  Yet, he reminded himself and Sym, Isemay had already saved one world from Balavad’s treachery. Without her forethought and formidable courage, Tuzhazu would have spread Balavad’s dominion indefinitely. So like her mother. Stronger than the core of a mountain.

  So like her father, Symvalline sent. More stubborn than a cheflbein shark tracking its prey.

  “This celebration is about you, Isemay. And Salukis,” Symvalline said. “Would you like to come with Ulfric and I while we read the Scrylle or stay here and enjoy what you’ve earned?”

  Isemay hesitated. “We all earned it. And neither of you are taking the time to enjoy it.” With a sigh, she finished, “I’ll come with you at least. I may not be ready to look in the Scrylle yet, but I might learn something if I pay attention. Right, Da?”