Grudgebearer (47 page)

“Our human scouts sighted an Aern male traveling north toward Oot,” Grivek said as he walked up to the table. “Reports from Silver Leaf claim the Vaelsilyn spotted a female Aern traveling alone two days back.”

“Either one is good news,” said Dolvek. “So the Grudgebearers really are sending . . . someone.” He paused, noticing the displeasure on his father's face and the amusement on Yavi's.

“Kholster gave his word, son,” Grivek said. “Barrone itself would have to break in half and be scattered into the ether before he or his representative would fail to arrive for the Conjunction.”

“I'm sorry, Father, but you must admit they have held a grudge against us for centuries. The Eldrennai have offered reparations, generous reparations, over and over again and have been rebuffed . . .”

With a scowl and a slight movement of his fingers, Grivek sent a bolt of green flame at his son's plate, disintegrating the fragile china. Impressed by the prince's reaction (barely a flinch), Yavi retreated hastily beneath the table, taking her plate, the small pot of butter, the honey, and the jam with her. Taking a brief moment to adjust the tablecloth so she could spot any further pyrotechnics, Yavi removed her samir.

Howard picks great boars
, she thought as she bit into a piece of bacon.

Queen Kari had not mentioned this particular aspect of Oathbreaker dining, but Yavi had gotten used to it after the sixth broken dish. Much more fun than the plays, recitals, and art showings they continuously tried to engage her interest in.

If they'd only have a real duel . . .

“We created them and then enslaved them!” Grivek shouted. “We made them fight our battles for seven thousand years. Just slightly longer than the service we forced upon the Vaelsilyn. They fought the Zaur for us, not to mention the humans, the dragons, and the Ghaiattri.”

There was a whoosh as he lifted himself into the air. Yavi feared for the chandelier but not enough to say anything or interrupt her breakfast. Instead, she began to slather honey, jams, and butter onto pieces of toast.

“We would have been slaughtered without them, but when they asked for their freedom we refused. At the slightest sign of discontent, my father punished them.” Grivek's eyes unfocused and in that instant he seemed to see something horrible from the past, which haunted him. “Brutally.”

“Debts long paid, Father.” Dolvek's palm slapped the table. “We now owe them nothing!”

And away he goes
, thought Yavi just before Dolvek took to the air as well.

“Don't owe them?” Grivek snarled from somewhere near the ceiling. “When the world crystal was shattered, it was Kholster himself who led the combined task force to rescue the pieces and hide them so they could not be threatened again. He saved our entire plane of existence and we still called him slave. And you say we don't owe them. Gods! Is it any wonder he . . . they . . . rebelled?”

On the “rebelled” Yavi heard another gout of flame and the tinkling crystals of the jostled chandelier. Yavi braced for a crash, and when it didn't come, decided to try a quail egg, her eyes closing raptly as the perfectly cooked yolk burst on her tongue.

“Apologists like you need to stop playing the weeping woman about the past, Father.”

Maybe if I drilled a little hole in the table I could see better.
She peeked out from behind the table's edge, a jam-covered piece of toast sticking out of the corner of her mouth. And why “weeping woman”? Were human women or Eldrennai females more prone to tears for some reason of which Yavi was unaware?

“The Aern need to move past these exaggerated horrors of an over-­dramatized apocryphal past.” Dolvek floated next to the chandelier facing his royal father, a war of emotion displayed plainly on his face, fury fighting against duty and propriety. “And I am not the only one who thinks so!”

“They happened,” Grivek said, his voice firm.

Yavi suspected that if they ate more meat, the Oathbreakers as a whole would be less irritable. She brandished a strip of crispy bacon in her hand as if she might charge into the fray and save them with it, but she couldn't bring herself to waste good bacon on an Oathbreaker.

“My memory may not be as clear as an Aern's, but I trust that my son does not mean to imply that his father the king is a liar.” Grivek gestured angrily at his son, sparks sizzling at the tip of his accusing finger. “Just because the Vaelsilyn saw fit to forgive us, to make peace with us, doesn't mean . . .” The king's voice trailed off as he noticed Yavi under the table.

“Great Aldo,” he sighed. “What have we done?” Landing in a kneel at the table's edge, he peered beneath the rich dark wood. “Please forgive me.” From this perspective, he looked less severe, almost grandfatherly. Yavi decided she liked him after all. A little.

“The green fire bolt was prettier than the purple one yesterday.” Yavi smiled at Grivek. “But I think the blue from the night before was best. I've been wondering though . . . can you do pink? Oh, and we use the word ‘Vael' now. Just say it like you're saying ‘Vaelsilyn' and when you get to the ‘s,' stop.”

Grivek chuckled despite himself. “If only the Aern were as amused by our tempers as your people,” he said softly.

“Your crazy great-great-great grand evil created us to be amiable.” Yavi handed him her plate and crawled out from under the table, taking her seat once more. “Besides, Your Majesty,” Yavi said sparklingly, “I never get to see flashy magic at home unless it's being used on shadebeasts or irkanth. Though you're right; my mother said that at the last Conjunction Kholster almost left because of what the Eldrennai representative said.”

“According to the history books,” Dolvek protested, “it was Aernese pride that caused the Sundering. All Bloodmane had to do was kiss the king's sword and swear fealty, and instead he murdered him!”

Grivek shot an angry glance at his son, who winced. “It was more complicated than that, Dolvek. And why would an Oathbound slave need to swear loyalty to his master. Half the points you and your fellow ideologues propose make no sense at all.” The king sounded tired, as if this were an argument he had with his son over and over again. “King Zillek—my father—could have dealt with things differently. We are all very thankful to the . . . Vael for helping us survive.”

“Without your people,” Dolvek simpered at Yavi, whose
samir lay on the bench next to her plate, “all three races would have died out long ago . . .”

“Fallen into darkness,” Grivek cut him off. “Aldo said all three races would fall into darkness if the Conjunction failed to take place. There is a difference.”

“I bet Kholster would prefer to take his chances with prophecy,” Yavi said in a whisper, picturing not the Aern her mother had described but Bloodmane, Kholster's armor, with a warpick in its gauntlets. She remembered the armor's gentle touch on her cheek.
Here where you are safest.
Convince Kholster to come back in another hundred years. Pollination optional.

Grivek nodded, favoring Yavi with a tender smile. “Only the Vael could convince him to agree to come, and he has done so personally each century not because he fears what will happen if he does not but because of a promise.” He let out a long breath. “In a small way, we are lucky that the Aern share our immortality. I'm not sure any other Aern would come, unless Kholster gave the order.”

“Then why don't you go, Father, if you like this butcher so much?” Dolvek asked.

“I doubt he would tolerate my presence. I was the one who exiled his people after he killed my father, and . . . Rivvek has scars on—” King Grivek winced at whatever he had been about to say, swallowed the words like bitter medicine, and continued. “I was the one who insisted they leave their armor and weapons behind. I had no way of knowing at the time that the Aern had wrought life into their armor. It was the Aern's most closely guarded secret, though it seems Uled suspected it.” Grivek looked at Yavi, who raised an eyebrow.

“You were taught that Uled went mad after creating your kind? Driven mad by the one flaw in his last masterwork, your people?” Grivek shook his head. “He was no longer King Zillek's court Artificer, and it's true he was unhinged. Which is one reason I never paid much attention to his scribbling from the years afterward; it all seemed too much like Dwarven rune magic to me.” Grivek said that last bit quickly and with what sounded to Yavi like a hint of regret. “If I had known, things might have been different.”

“Okay, so thanks for breakfast.” On that uncomfortable note, Yavi popped the last egg into her mouth and replaced her samir. “I'm heading to Oot this morning.”

Flustered, Dolvek bit his lip, head cocked to one side. “The time of the Conjunction is near.” Yavi said the words in unison with him, even getting the emphasis on “is” to match. Dolvek's frustration grew in proportion to the twinkle in her eyes.

“I've already gathered my things,” she said. Darting out into the hall she grabbed up her pack from beside the door outside the dining room. Snatching her bow out from under a china cabinet and her quiver from the top of a display case, Yavi walked past him ready for traveling: pack on her back, her quiver over one shoulder and her bow on the other. “Come along, will you? We mustn't be all day.”

*

As they traveled, Dolvek expounded on their destination, but Yavi paid him little heed. She knew all about it, could not wait to see it, for Oot was one of the few spots on Barrone where mortals could see statues of the gods as they actually appeared. Or perhaps, as they chose to appear. One such location, the Great Temple of Shidarva, had sunk beneath the waves with Alt in the last Demon War. Now, the one most people visited was in Castleguard. Yavi wanted to see it too someday.

Oot was special, though, and the excitement of seeing it for the first time put an extra spring in her step the farther they got from Port Ammond. Where the monument on Pilgrim's Hill was made of a white marble impervious to harm, Oot's construction was blacker than obsidian. Near Oot, the forest gave way to three separate black paths, one for each race of the Conjunction, approaching the statue of Shidarva. The goddess of justice and retribution's statue had not always been in that position, according to Dolvek. Once the god Kilke had stood at the entrance, his three heads tilted at a haughty angle, resplendent in his role as king of the gods.

Shidarva's statue now held a curved blue sword in its left hand, dangling at its side; her right hand held a scale with a dagger on one side and a shield on the other. Kari had told her daughter that when she saw the statue, Shidarva had been holding Kilke's disembodied head, and when she'd seen it, she had wanted to run from it or warn the goddess, because the head's eyes still seemed alive, its expression twisted toward Shidarva in a mask of hate.

Yavi imagined Shidarva could take care of herself, but she still wanted to see the statues. After all, it wasn't bad luck to visit Oot during a Conjunction. Visiting it at any other time was said to incur the wrath of the gods. As the expression went: “On Pilgrim's Hill, the gods smile still, but blackest Oot shows their dispute.”

“You believe that drivel?” Dolvek asked, puzzling Yavi until she realized that she had spoken the old expression aloud.

“Well, my mother has been to the Garden of Divinity,” Yavi said defensively, “and she said that the gods' statues all faced toward a fountain and that they were all smiling, even Kilke's disembodied head.”

“Perhaps the Garden of Divinity is a fake, then,” Dolvek allowed. “Everyone knows that Jun has been angry with the other gods since time immemorial, facing away from them completely. If my people were allowed to go there, then perhaps we could study it for ourselves.”

“But the kings of Castleguard have always sided with the Aern on that one, I know. I know,” Yavi said gently. “You can't even hire Long Speakers anymore and I'm sorry, but the Vael have nothing to do with that.”

“You're right,” Dolvek answered softly. “Please forgive my manners.”

“Maybe you should try being polite to Kholster when you see him,” Yavi offered, “Try asking him nicely if he might allow a few of the Eldrennai, the ones born after the Sundering, to visit the south?”

Dolvek did not answer, and Yavi let the silence hang between them as they walked on along the extension of the White Road. At one time the Eldrennai had wanted to build a grand road to Oot, surround it with walls, and guard it. Fortunately they had asked the Vael's opinion about it before they actually began construction, and the Vael had pointed out that if they proceeded as planned, the Aernese representative would not set foot on it. Instead, they had built an extension of the Big Road that stopped five miles short of the obelisk and had then ceded the borderland on which the obelisk stood to the Vael. Over the years, the forest had reclaimed the land, running almost up to the coastline.

As they entered the forest, Yavi felt a profound sense of homecoming. As if The Parliament of Ages had missed her almost as much as she'd missed it. But The Parliament was disturbed here, ill at ease. Yavi strained her senses, listening for a trace of what caused the disturbance, but Dolvek interrupted again, distracting her.