Dawn of Swords (12 page)

I know our love is forbidden. I know our two worlds were meant to be kept separate. But I cannot bear another day without you. I need to see you. Tomorrow I leave for the delta with my brother. I do not know how long we will stay, but from the way my brother speaks of things, the visit may last for many months. I beg that you bid leave of the city you call home and meet me here. Please, come quickly. It will be difficult to evade the eyes of my brother, but if we must, we can meet at your sister’s cabin by the river bend as we did before. Perhaps this time we will make a son, and then neither of our families can deny our bond.

I love you entirely, my fearless warrior of the light.

Yours forever, in this world and the next,

Nessa

Crian Crestwell’s eyes traced back to the beginning of the note, taking in every looping letter written in Nessa DuTaureau’s whimsical penmanship, every
i
dotted with a circle, every
g
swooping low to invade the line below. He folded the curled parchment in half, then leaned back in his chair. The hawk perched on the windowsill crowed, and he tossed a hood over its head to silence it. His mind drifted back to the three days he and Nessa had spent at his exiled sister Moira’s secluded cabin by the river. It was then that they’d finally consummated their long-secret relationship, and now he could think of nothing but her. He felt a sort of lightness pervade his being.

Last month, his father had sent him to Brent, which bordered the Quellan forest, to assist his sister Avila in pushing back a group of brigands who had been poaching on elven lands. On his way back he’d tarried in Haven under the pretense of seeing Moira. It had been difficult to hide his meetings with Nessa then, and it would be even harder to see her now. As Left Hand of the Highest, it was his duty to keep Karak’s peace in the townships beyond the northern borders, where the regime’s authority was at its weakest. Both he and his brother Joseph, the Right Hand, served as de
facto judge, jury, and executioner when outside the boundaries of Veldaren or Erznia. Only now, given Vulfram Mori’s ascension to Lord Commander, Crian’s responsibilities included acting as Captain of the City Watch in Veldaren. Finding a suitable excuse for traveling to the delta was a troublesome proposition. His place was in the city now, not trolling the outlying townships in search of poachers, bandits, blasphemers, and other such lawbreakers.

The other fly in the ointment was the volatile nature of Haven itself. When last he visited, the town had been an afterthought for both his father and his god. But the attack had changed everything, and Karak himself had just returned after four decades. Though he had never met the deity in person—Karak had left Neldar before his birth—he and his family were still beholden to the god above all else.

Yet Crian knew he would still try, for even with his duties to his god and his realm, Nessa DuTaureau was all he could think about. It had been that way since their first meeting, and those feelings had only grown over their twelve years of clandestine correspondence.

Crian sighed, and walked over to the fire that burned in his room’s hearth. He placed a kiss on the folded parchment, and then dropped the letter atop the coals. He watched as it was burned away into nothing, ensuring that their secret was kept for one more day.

A commotion from the window summoned him over for a look. The heartless geometry of the cold, drab city beyond the castle walls simmered in a heat-wrought haze. Down below, inside those walls, a brigade of armored men marched through the portcullis and into the courtyard, followed by three figures on horseback. A fleet of supply wagons rolled in after them. Crian gasped as he recognized the polished dome of the Lord Commander and the shock of white atop the heads of his father and sister. He had not expected the party back for another two days at least.

Someone knocked on his door.

“Sir Crestwell,” shouted the voice of Leonard, his squire, “your father has returned.”

“I know,” Crian replied, his heart racing in panic.

“Do you wish me to help you dress?” the squire asked through the door.

“No…yes…just prepare my armor in the sacristy. I’ll be there in a moment.”

He heard Leonard’s steps quicken down the hall. Crian rushed to his mirror, a framed, foot-and-a-half square chunk of rare dragonglass, a gift from his father on his eighteenth birthday. It was his most prized possession, tangible proof that the man whose seed created him truly cared. Leaning forward, Crian examined his reflection. His jaw was rigid, his chin wide, his cheekbones sturdy. His eyes were hazel, imbued with emerald threads that shot from his pupils like starbursts. He was handsome and robust, resembling his mother more than his father. As the youngest of the Crestwell children, he had always looked upon his visage as a blessing, setting him apart from his brothers and sisters, who had all inherited their father’s silver hair and smooth, regal features.

But now that blessing had turned into a curse. A single strand of white pierced his flowing brown hair. It stuck out like a wolf in the middle of a herd of sheep, and he plucked it from his scalp, letting it drop to his feet while he anxiously searched for more. Thankfully, he found none. In a panic he dropped to his knees and searched for the rogue hair, dashing to the hearth once he found it. Onto the coals it went, to burn like Nessa’s letter. Then he went to his desk, jotted a quick note on a small scrap of parchment—
I will try. Love, C
—and fastened the message to the hawk’s leg. Afterward he opened a hidden compartment in his desk, removing a tiny swath of fabric from within. He cut free the wisp of birch bark that was tied below the hawk’s neck, replacing it with the fabric. Poking his head out the window to make sure his father and sister were no longer in
the courtyard, he thrust his arm out the portal, the hawk perched atop his thick leather glove.

“Fly, Atria,” he said after removing the bird’s hood, and it took flight.

Atria was Nessa’s bird, trained over the last ten years specifically to act as courier for the messages between them. Fasten birch bark to the bird’s neck, and it would seek out Crian. Do the same with a small bit of cloth dashed with rosemary perfume, and it would seek out Nessa. The system had never failed them in the past. He prayed to Karak that it would remain that way.

“Leonard!” he shouted.

It took ten minutes for his squire to assist him in putting on his plate armor. It was a bothersome ensemble, cast from pounded iron dipped in liquid silver. The breastplate was ornamented with the sigil of House Crestwell, that of a snake wrapped around the torso of a seated lion, their noses touching. A forked tongue, painted red, flicked from the face guard. As a finishing touch, he slid Integrity, the jewel-encrusted, curved saber that had been forged for him when he accepted the title of Left Hand, into the scabbard at his waist. The entire suit was heavy and uncomfortable, but his father, the Highest, had a weakness for custom and required his Left and Right dress according to their station on entering Tower Honor.

Sometime later, he stepped through the arched portal and into the Tower Honor, sweat beading on his brow from descending seventeen floors while in full platemail. The Palace Guard formed a line on either side of the corridor, eyes trained distantly on nothing, expressions blank. Crian passed between them, his footsteps muted by the purple carpet that led the way to the huge doors of the throne room.

Crian’s father stood before those doors, Avila beside him, both dressed in their black leather riding attire. They appeared to be deep in conversation. Lord Commander Vulfram was nowhere to be
seen. At the sound of his rattling movements, his father and sister looked up. The Highest offered Crian a dismayed look.

“You’re late,” Clovis said. “Tardiness is not an admirable trait for the Left Hand. In an altercation, the left strikes first. If the left hand is slow, the right will not be able to land the finishing blow.”

It was a phrase Crian had heard a thousand times before. Inwardly he rolled his eyes, but he kept his expression as firm as granite. His father was critical of all his children, expecting the absolute best of them at all times. In his own way, Crian guessed, it was how he showed he cared.

“I beg your pardon, Highest,” Crian said, dropping to one knee, taking his father’s hand, and kissing it. From the corner of his eye, he saw Avila smirk. “I was not expecting you back so soon.”

After he stood back up, his father fixed him with a sideways glance.

“And what were you doing?” he asked.

“I was getting some rest, Father.”

“But it is nearing noon. A little early to be tired, is it not? I have just ridden for a week, sleeping in a dingy tent each night, and I am as alert as ever.”

Crian tried to hold back an irritated sigh, but a slight puff of air escaped his lips.

“There was a riot in the financial district last night, Highest. A faction of disgruntled laborers set fire to the Brennan Depository in response to a supposed lowering of wages. It took most of the night to get the blaze under control and arrest the guilty parties. I did not return to the castle until dawn.”

His father shook his head. “Exhaustion is no excuse. You are a Crestwell, ageless and mighty. You have many years ahead of you in which to rest.”

“I’m sorry,” Crian said, bowing. “As always, you are right.”

A hand fell onto his plated shoulder. “Stand up, son. We must make our audience now.”

They opened the doors and stepped into the throne room. Inside was a madhouse. People were everywhere, commoners and high merchants alike, shouting at each other, seeking the ear of the king with some complaint or another. The Council of Twelve, a collection of eleven men and one woman from different points around the kingdom, chosen by their people as representatives, cowered against the walls at the back of the room. Interspersed throughout were members of the Sisters of the Cloth, wrapped head-to-toe in fabric so that only their eyes were revealed. The women were legal property of the merchants, and their job was to ensure that their owners were satisfied.

The noise was thick, the vitriol thicker. Ulric Mori, the Master at Arms, stood in the center of the mass, trying to adjudicate a heated argument between fat, bald Cleo Connington and the distinguished Matthew Brennan. Sentries from both houses were being held back by the Palace Guard. The atmosphere in the room was like dry kindling, needing only a single spark to set it ablaze.

Overseeing it all was a bored King Eldrich Vaelor the First. The king was a tall, willowy man of thirty-seven, his cheeks sunken and his hair sparse, with a beard that had grown in splotchy and incomplete. The crown resting atop his head was a plain gold band—
simplicity for a simple job
, as Eldrich’s father, the first king, had said. He sat on an ornate throne made from grooved ivory and positioned on a raised platform on the other side of the room. Grayhorn tusks, brought from the west by the earliest traders, formed a halo of curved spikes that encircled the king’s head and torso, exaggerating the carved lion that roared from the throne’s peak. Another set of tusks formed the armrests, and the king’s fingers tapped atop them, causing a barely perceptible
twang
to echo through the chamber. He had ascended to the throne eight years ago, after his father, Edwin, had died, succumbing to the red cough. Having been stationed outside the city for much of his life, Crian had rarely seen the king before assuming command of the City Watch. Since then, he had
gotten to know the man quite well. The king’s style of leadership was haphazard and inconsistent, and half the time he seemed drunk with his illusionary might. But his true calling lay in his ability to consolidate power. Unlike his father, most of the high merchants were completely dedicated to him, which kept gold flowing into the realm.

King Vaelor pointed at Cleo Connington and beckoned him forward. The Highest led his children out of the throng, and stepped in front of the fat rich man, cutting him off. Clovis bowed before the king and swept his arm wide.

“King Vaelor,” he said, “we have returned from the delta, and are ready to disc—”

“What the
fuck
,” the king bellowed, his voice unusually gruff for such a lithe man.

Clovis straightened, a look of shock on his face. Crian and Avila exchanged glances, just as stunned as their father was.

“How dare you interrupt me when my court is in session?” the king asked. He didn’t look bored any longer, and his eyes burned with rage. “Highest of Karak or not, you are still a servant of the throne, Clovis. I
will not
be disrespected.”

“Yes, my Lord,” the Highest replied. His voice seethed with resentment, and if a look could kill, all of the king’s insides would have liquefied in an instant.

King Vaelor waved dismissively. “Wait in the vestibule. I’ll see you when I’m done.”

Without another word, Clovis led his children around the raised throne and through the door behind it. When the door slammed shut, the ruckus in the throne room dulled to a muted hum.

The vestibule was mostly empty, and it felt like a gray, stony cave. The table where the Council debated sat squatly on the far side of the room, thirteen chairs surrounding it. Behind that was a large briarwood cabinet stocked with an assortment of liquors. Avila approached the cabinet and poured herself a mug of wormwood
extract. Crian leaned against the wall, as far from his sister as he could get, his armor creaking and badly in need of oil. Clovis stood in the center of the room, his normally ashen complexion red as a beet. The man ran both hands through his long white hair, and in an instant his normal coloring returned. Not that Crian was surprised. Clovis Crestwell was an expert at controlling his emotions.

The air in the vestibule was tense, but Crian refused to speak first. Thoughts of Nessa danced in his head, and he feared he would betray those feelings should he open his mouth. His father spared him the indignity of silence by strolling up to him as if nothing were wrong and asking after his brother, Joseph.