Knight Redeemed: The Shackled Verities (Book Two) Read online

  Ulfric couldn’t help but catch how Jaemus stared wide-eyed at the Yorman.

  “What is it?” Mallich asked.

  “It’s…well, it’s just, I thought you had some kind of speech limiter or something that only allowed you to speak a handful of words at a time. You’ve just said more than I’ve heard you say in the whole time I’ve been here.”

  Mallich’s lips hinted at a smile and he said, characteristically, nothing.

  Ulfric thought Mallich’s statement over. After he and Eisa had spoken the other night on the Gildr, and she’d had the chance to unburden herself of what had happened to the Mystae in Himmingaze, he’d seen an old fire in her eyes for the first time in hundreds of turns. It burned warmly, not coldly and almost cruelly like it had for so long. He realized then that he had overlooked the fight she’d been waging against her own inner dragørs for too long, too mired in his own burdens and battles—and, he admitted, in his own wishes to leave the Knights and be a simple family man.

  We are not meant to live this long, he thought, not for the first time.

  Was Mallich right? Was this something Eisa needed to do? He considered that light in her eyes more carefully. Unlike some of the Dyrraks he’d met in his long life, even long ago when they’d still been called Lœdyrraks, it wasn’t blind zeal that drove Eisa but a depth of willingness and devotion to her oath and her Verity. It was why he trusted her so deeply, why he’d always believed he could rely on her when needed. So much so that he’d been ready to turn over the rank of Stallari to her when he and Vaka Aster eventually parted ways, believing Eisa would finally be ready to wear the mantle. Yet today, now that she was once again playing loose cannon, turning away from the Knights Order and toward her own agenda…he wondered, would she ever be ready? Would she ever be worthy?

  “Ulfric?” Mallich urged.

  He sighed. Perhaps, if she was finally redeemed from her long exile of the spirit through righting, as Mallich had said, this one last wrong, then she would finally be fit to lead the Knights. Vaka Aster knew he’d had enough of it.

  “We’ll give her an hour,” he finally conceded. “One. After that, we’ll need to go get her.”

  Mallich dipped his head.

  “Let’s get back to the Verity chamber. Jaemus, you hold on to the map. Come get us before you do anything else, should Eisa fail to meet you. Understood?”

  “Of course. Just one last thing.”

  Ulfric nodded expectantly.

  “You’re going to send me back, right, once I have the Fenestros shards?”

  “As I said.”

  “That’s terrific. But I’ve been thinking. It’s possible, though I hope remotely, that I could be there for a while. I don’t know how long, and I don’t know how much longer Cote and the ’Nauts can hang on.” He swept his hand from one side of the chamber to the other. “But I can’t take them with me while they’re in this condition…”

  “Jaemus,” he said, “maybe there is something I can do. Will you allow me to try?”

  “I’d let you dip me in smookshark blood and send me naked into a vat full of fleeches if you thought it would help.”

  Stepping around him, Ulfric dug inside the map case holding the artifacts and pulled out the Fenestros. Laying it on Cote’s chest, he whispered the chant he’d used while kneeling over Mylla on the shrine’s floor in Himmingaze. She’d been nearly dead from a battle with the flying sea worms of that realm, and he’d known Jaemus had assumed there was no hope for her. Yet she’d risen to fight on, none the worse for wear. Could it work on these Glisternauts?

  Moments passed as the Fenestros came alive in his hands, a tiny sun of blue and green and yellow that swirled exactly as his eyes now did. He could feel the ambient energy of the room pouring into the stone, into his hands, into him, then back out through the stone into the sleeping Captain Illago’s chest. He’d left his eye shields in the Verity chamber and watched in a kind of numb awe as brilliant light seemed to physically push through the sleeping man’s chest, diffusing through his entire body once it seeped into him.

  Though the Glisternaut captain didn’t move, seemed unaware anything was happening, Ulfric stopped and withdrew the stone. The captain’s breathing deepened into the breathing of someone who was soundly, and through welcome providence, peacefully asleep, no rattle or rasp remaining. Jaemus leaned toward him, about to speak, but Ulfric put a hand on his arm.

  “Let him rest. He will feel restored—for a time. But I must warn you, it isn’t permanent. The invocation I used works well on other Knights because the spark we hold can’t be extinguished, only diminished or taken from us by our maker, unless we are outright hacked into pieces. Commoners, even Himmingazian commoners, don’t have this. Their own lives, whatever spark sustains them, are finite and will eventually burn out. Do you see? I may have renewed his life temporarily, but it cannot last forever.”

  “If it buys some time, that’s all we need.” Jaemus looked back at his heartmatch and took his hand, adding, “What about the others? Can you do this for them too, or does it only work once?”

  “I will do what I can.”

  Ulfric rose and began making his way to each Himmingazian. Within a short time, they all rested or sat at ease with the same peaceful disposition as Illago, better at least for now. Ulfric found himself feeling unaccountably renewed with each person he aided, as if part of the energy he absorbed stayed with him. Or perhaps he was just buoyed by a sense of renewed hope with each person he healed.

  When he was finished, Jaemus paced beside him and extended the citadel map from Eisa. “Here, I memorized it while you were busy.”

  Ulfric glanced at him. “You memorized the entire citadel?”

  “Don’t act so surprised. I may not be adept at swinging a sword but that doesn’t mean I can’t swing some intellect. You don’t become a Glint Engineer by being—” He cut himself off when he noticed Ulfric’s impatient scowl. “Anyway, it’s better that you keep it. It’ll save some time if I don’t have to bring it all the way up here. If, that is, Eisa isn’t where she’s supposed to be. Which she will be. She seems the reliable sort.”

  “Reliable,” Ulfric said flatly.

  “Erm, well, she seems like she’ll be reliable for this particular thing.”

  Ulfric glanced to the window. “It’ll be High Halls in a couple of hours. You should be getting to your meeting. If Eisa is there, let us know and Mallich and Stave will join you.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  After leaving Jaemus, Eisa wound down a series of staircases, deeper and deeper toward the epicenter beneath the citadel, lower even than the vaults. Soon, the only light illuminating the stairway was from her own Mentalios. Like in Ivoryss, illuminate orbs that drew their light from Halla were spaced throughout the pyramid. But not in the depths. The Speaker had been exiled to a dark place, to fit her dark deeds.

  Oil lamps were interspersed in alcoves on the way down, but Eisa didn’t bother lighting them. The interior smelled smoky and carried a hint of dampness, despite the dryness of the countryside. She frowned at the confinement. She’d never grow used to the thickness of these walls, the way they closed everything off. She idly wondered if deep down she’d chosen to become an acolyte at the Conservatum in part to escape the citadel, with its many secrets and unspoken-of nooks, where she’d have lived out her life if she’d stayed.

  Her steps were slow, as if her feet sensed her reluctance for the task she’d embarked on. Before seeing Lillias on the Gildr, she hadn’t faced the Speaker in hundreds of turns. Did Starkas intentionally reveal her without telling me? Was he trying to unbalance me? It wasn’t important. The Ecclesium’s days of malice would soon, very soon, be behind him.

  She’d made herself believe the woman who’d betrayed her, the woman she’d once loved, had ceased to exist, and the revenant Eisa had turned her into was nothing but a tool, as necessary in facilitating Eisa’s distant role in ensuring the Dyrrakium Empire remained safe as ships were to traversing the ocean
. Why waste moments considering a tool if the tool was doing its job without causing trouble?

  Trouble. That was the word. Ulfric hadn’t needed to look inside Eisa’s mind through a Mentalios lens to see how troubled she was. How many of her fellow Knights had remarked—some to her face, most not daring—over the turns on how much she’d changed after the Cataclysm?

  Eisa?

  It was Roi through the Mentalios. She hesitated a moment before answering…but it was Roi. A friend and a warrior she’d always respected. As worthy as any Dyrrak to serve Vaka Aster. I’m here, she said simply, continuing her descent.

  I want you to know, I understand why you did it. I’ve known you all these turns. We’ve stood side by side through so much. You’re my kin, my sister. And when you’ve done what you need to do, we’ll stand side by side again. As Knights. We will never forsake each other.

  She paused on the steps, an uncomfortable tightness in her throat. She could think of nothing to say.

  One last thing, sister. I hope you find that releasing one tortured spirit can release another.

  Moving again, she said simply, gratefully, Thank you, Roi. I’ll see you after High Halls.

  For the next few steps, she thought it over. Roi was right. Dyrrakium had Vaka Aster now. What purpose could the Speaker serve any longer? Better to release her, for all and for good. For my own good.

  Finally, the winding stairwell came to an antechamber with a single iron-reinforced door. Eisa studied it for a moment, one hand unconsciously clutching the hilt of her now incomplete dagger, the one she’d kept and had used to carve out Lillias’s heart and replace it with stone. She opened the door and went inside the Speaker’s chamber.

  Unlike in the stairwell, the sconces around the walls of the pentagram-shaped chamber were lit, likely from when the Speaker had been returned here. A hefty, ornamental carved chair sat in the center on a stone platform. Small figurines and statues of various Vinnric animals dotted the platform, a menagerie of Vaka Aster’s many creations.

  A muted yellow glow illuminated the Speaker. Her tunic bunched around the pearly stone embedded in her chest, giving Eisa an unrestricted view of it. She stared at it, unwilling to lift her eyes to Lillias’s face.

  That night she’d learned of Lillias’s betrayal came back to her. She’d returned to Yor after a short stay in Lœdyrrak. In those days, when the Knights’ numbers were much greater, a few fulfilled roles as Keepers of the Fenestrii, which were still dispersed throughout the realm. As a Keeper then, her place was in her homeland, but she went to Yor whenever she could get away, seeking Lillias’s arms. Her lover, her muse, her escape from the hardships of life. Lillias wanted nothing from her but affection in return, and Eisa had come to depend on the freedom, the frivolity, that came from such an undemanding love.

  And she had loved Lillias. Until she’d learned the truth.

  Through the interrealm well, she’d arrived in the Fenestros chamber in Umborough, Yor’s capital city and home to its royal seat. The chamber itself lay at the heart of the Resplendolent Conservatum grounds in a building that could be barred and guarded effectively from all but the hardiest of outside sieges. In each kingdom, their respective Fenestros halls were the only places under the Knights Corporealis’ strict control, a miniature kingdom within a kingdom. And, of course, only the Knights knew the secrets of the interrealm wells that connected to Mount Omina, allowing them to escape, unfollowed, with their protected Fenestrii should it become necessary.

  Roibeard along with Allanach, another Yorish Knight who’d served the Order at that time, and Griggory, had the hall barred when she arrived, and the noise of upheaval and chaos seeped through the walls as if the entire population of the city was running rampant. Ambassador Sœrnec of Lœdyrrak and most of his entourage were with them. Wasting no words, Roibeard explained what she’d arrived to: the Arch Keeper Connaugh had been slain. Word had spread that the murderers were Ambassador Sœrnec and the Lœdyrrak emissaries.

  The news at first shocked her, but that had quickly turned to anger. “That’s all lies,” she had scoffed. “What point or purpose would there be in Sœrnec, or the Domine Ecclesium of Dyrrakium for that matter, having Yor’s ruler assassinated? The Dyrrak want nothing from this kingdom, aside from trade and assurances of peaceful borders. Connaugh supported both those ends.”

  “There’s more,” Roi said and gestured to Sœrnec.

  The ambassador, an elderly man whose black and red Phase brands had already faded to nearly the same color as his skin, approached her, holding out a sheaf of letters. Their wax seals were broken. “You need to read these, Knight Nazaria.”

  Coldness began to creep up from her stomach into her chest then. There was something else happening besides a ruler being killed, and she sensed danger, a cutthroat hiding in the dark. She pushed back at the feeling, and at her companions. “Later. I must see to Lillias and ensure she is safe.”

  “Eisa,” Roi interrupted, taking the pages from Sœrnec and nearly shoving them into her hand. “You need to see these first. They contain information that will…will be difficult for you to hear.”

  She hadn’t wanted to take the pages, but Roi was Roi. Always serious, grave even at times, and more grave at that moment than she’d ever seen him. If he thought she needed to be made aware of something in those letters, it wouldn’t be wise to dismiss them.

  And it was all there, half in Lillias’s own well-known handwriting—how many letters of love and devotion has she received from the Yorwoman?—details of a plot by Lillias and her coconspirators to overthrow the Arch Keeper of Yor and an intent to blame the visiting Lœdyrrak ambassador as a traitorous spy who’d orchestrated it all.

  They had gotten one thing right: Sœrnec was more than adept at spycraft. He’d uncovered the plot while attending events at the Conservatum the day prior. A hushed conversation between Acolyte Lillias Grannd, already expected to be the next Arch Keeper, and an unnamed other had set his well-honed perceptions, one could even say paranoia, alight. From a hidden alcove, he’d listened to them and seen letters exchange hands. A good ambassador knew the sounds of a conspiracy when he heard one, and a Lœdyrrak ambassador was trained in more than diplomacy. That night, Sœrnec paid a local asset to visit the residences of Lillias and the man he’d seen her speaking with and steal any correspondence the asset could find. Their contents had confirmed his suspicions, but it had been too late to matter. Connaugh was assassinated the following morning before he left his bedchamber. Perhaps the discovery of the missing letters had prompted the conspirators to action. Regardless, the Lœdyrraks were now on the run and the Arch Keeper was dead.

  The letters contained enough hints and details of the coup and their reasons for Eisa to piece things together. With a new leader and a cabinet of advisors handpicked by the conspirators, and the Lœdyrrak exposed as traitorous and wicked enough to attack another country’s leadership, the Yorish usurpers would then petition Ivoryss to relocate Vaka Aster’s vessel in Yor where the maker’s protection was most needed.

  Of course, Eisa had thought when reading this. Lillias had suggested dozens of times that Yor should be the celestial vessel’s residence, had implored her to ask Ulfric to see it done, but Eisa had never granted that wish.

  Lillias and her coconspirators craved the power and prestige that Ivoryss now exerted through virtue of being the location of Vaka Aster’s vessel. Any Knight would say that power and prestige were merely perceived, not tangible—Vaka Aster’s will was not something any person or kingdom could prevail upon, no matter where the Verity was.

  But commoners were too short-sighted and simple to know that. And with villainous Lœdyrrak closer to Ivoryss than it was to Yor, thus an immediate threat to both Ivoryss and Vaka Aster’s security, it would only make sense to move the vessel farther from their reach. Even if the conspirators’ lies touched off a war with Lœdyrrak, if Vaka Aster were in Yor, they assumed the advantage would go to them. Perhaps, the letters went on, even enough advantage t
o invade Lœdyrrak and take without compensation what they would lose in trade with the dishonored empire.

  For what felt like an eternity, Eisa consumed the letters, over a dozen of them, each word stoking a wrath in her that steadily grew too hot to contain. The last outlined Lillias’s own ambitions. As one of the highest-achieving and most respected acolytes of the Yor Conservatum—the very same qualities that had drawn Eisa to her—she intended to take the throne of the Arch Keeper herself. What role she had envisioned Eisa would serve in her schemes was equally clear. She’d use her as a pawn in the match against both the Knights and the Dyrraks, manipulating Eisa to persuade both to do Lillias’s bidding.

  She had assumed Eisa was totally devoted to her and would be easily led along her string of deception. No one in the history of Vinnr had ever so badly miscalculated Eisa’s loyalties.

  Eisa had laid the last letter on a table, using every ounce of her will to hold back the trembling she felt pulsing under her skin, to hold in the scream that threatened to choke her. She went silent as the three other Knights planned what to do. With the capital of Yor in full riot, which was likely to spread, and no legitimate Arch Keeper on the throne, the Knights quickly decided the Yor Fenestros should be moved to a safer place. Allanach had taken it through the interrealm well to Mount Omina and from there to Ivoryss to warn Ulfric and the rest of the Order of the Yorish treason.

  “No one knows Sœrnec and the Lœdyrraks are with us,” Roi had told her. “You must return to Elezaran and brief the empire. Take the letters. They can be used to prove it has had no hand in this deed. When the havoc dies down enough, Griggory and I will secure the Lœdyrrak entourage anonymous and safe transport back.”