* * *
Stevane
* * *
"Do you sense him, Stevane?" Unkie's got his hands under my jaw, tilting my face up so that I'll look at him. It's not that I don't want to, really - it's just that even more I want to close my eyes and not think at all. But I just say:
"Yes, Unkie."
He frowns, his brow creasing in thought. He still keeps holding me, but then he's been hovering over me since he took his crown back. His crown. And here I always wondered why he didn't bother with having a crown for being Emperor. Now he has Jhe h'Lete's crown. Which is just as well, someone should now, since Jhe h'Lete's--
Unkie hugs me, and I shush the thought. No one else should know. The other man who sounds so much like Jhe h'Lete has been so good at convincing the rest of the Poets that nothing's wrong, that we haven't lost Jhe h'Lete. He's been such a good actor that no one's started to poke into the tragedy that was Jhe h'Lete's death. I hope they never do. No one should have to see that.
And right now's the last time they should panic.
He puts his hands on my shoulders. "Stevane... I know today has been difficult for you--" he cuts off what he's about to say. Maybe he doesn't know what to say.
I saw a lot of things when I held his crown - saw his past all the way back to Chethar. I hardly understand any of it, and I don't know if I ever will. My head hurts so much from everything that's happened today, and my Arms are twitching somewhere in the pocketspace they're hidden in, and something's building up in me. I want to burst.
Unkie pushes me forward a bit. "I think we need to get you outside, Stevane." He... he sounds nervous? "You can lead. You can find him."
There's something unspoken, but I can sense it on the edge of his thoughts because he's so close to me: And you need something to carve through. I blink. What's outside? But, before I can ask that, something else pops into my head. "Why can't you find him? You've got the crown and everything."
He laughs, the sound still nervous as he begins to lead me out. "Stevane, if I could have found him I'd have done it long ago. He's one of the few things that I can't see. He was made to be hidden from me, I wager. Elete--" His voice breaks off for a moment. It's a raw wound for him. For me, it's numb. "Elete was intended to be Thelea's project to undermine me. This other man is likely the same."
I'd ask him why he's seeking a person who's supposed to be his undermining, but I already know. I can feel where fate is leading him on. Not only that, but I can feel something else pressing me on, and I can't ignore it at all. In fact, I have trouble waiting for my Uncle to open up the wards so that we can leave his quarters.
Unkie was right. I can feel a fight outside, and more than anything else I want to carve my way through it.
* * *
Gerude
* * *
Lute, being Lute, managed to lose me about three seconds into this fight. That's fine. Just fine. I don't need anybody else around. Certainly not a meddlesome Poet who just gets in the way and would just keep whining about how everything's so creepy and he wants to be somewhere safe and warm and drunk.
I don't miss that at all.
I didn't miss fighting Arachne-fovos, either. They're even more nasty in broad daylight than they were in that dank dungeon - more details to notice, out in the open. Like the beads of slime skating over their fangs, or the spiky hairs along their armor-plated abdomens.
Still, I've got to be thankful for the chance to go outside and get some fresh air, right? I've just got to wonder, though - did the Arachne-fovos follow us from Lyiannethe when we escaped to Radia? Strange that they'd lay low for so long, only to rise up and attract so much attention now. There's certainly a lot of them, too - where were they hiding? It's all Erynn's fault, I'm sure - had his head in the clouds when he walked us through the Pass, let a few spiders through... just like him, really. Except, I think maybe he left a door to Lyiannethe open or something, because they keep coming. I'm killing them off pretty well this time around, but fresh ones keep popping up--
Was that Stevane I just saw? No way. She's recovering from the Lyiannethe incident. No one'd let her out right now, anyway, she just got her Arms! She's crazier than normal! She's being watched, right? By Jhe o'Radia, most likely--
Yup, I'm right. There he is, marching behind her as she mows through Arachne-fovos with a furied efficiency that frightens me at the same time that I'm proud of it. Strange to know I'm not the angriest person on the battlefield, but hey. She's had a rougher day than I, and maybe maybe she's even more pissed off at Lyric than I am. It certainly explains that strange burning smell I'd started to notice a couple of minutes ago. Arachne-fovos don't smell very good roasted, by the way. Just in case you had dinner plans.
I follow along behind Jhe o'Radia - he's the top priority to protect, after all. I sense Lute nearby as well, covering our passage. It's Jhe o'Radia's own business why he needs to cross a battlefield at this very moment wearing Jhe h'Logos's crown - at least my being out here has a purpose that's not mindless slaughter. Order is prevailing, and that's a comfort.
Then, we converge with the pirates, and I regret that thought immediately.
* * *
Jules
* * *
So, there's some other people in this fight besides me and my mates. A couple of my men make moves to take hostages, but I wave them off. Not really the time for it, right now. Too many things to do right now, and the people seem to be opposing the blasted spiders that are after Ales, so I'll leave em to it unharmed. Besides, Ales is off form today. My coat's already gotten nicked, and he knows better than to let my outfit get messed up in the thick of battle, when I'm at my most triumphant.
Something's wrong with Ales, though, that's evident. He's too shaken. But then, I know what's after him, and I know that it's found him, and Ales knows too. I can't blame him for being afraid, can I?
Well yes, yes I can, especially when he's supposed to be seeing to the safety of my men. I told him ten years ago not to waste his time being afraid of anything else but me, and now look at him - whimpering in the shadows, unwilling to even come out and see the fight. No sport at all, no bloody sport. I cut through the carapace of one of these blasted spiders, but the satisfaction is taken from me. The fun's not in it anymore, somehow.
Something's changing.
Right as that thought runs through my mind, the man steps in front of me. Tall - though most men are tall compared to me, right up until I cut them off at the knees - blonde, seems rather regal. Dressed similar to that fop that called himself the Judge. I have just the slightest inkling that he might be important.
Could be the crown.
I'm still sizing him up when the girl that's slicing up anything in the man's path sets her eyes on me. For just a moment - a strange moment, to tell the truth - I feel... mortal. As if I might actually end. In a fight, no less! Horseshit. I tell myself it's imagination, and then it passes anyway - she makes an odd shrug, as if I'm not hers to contend with, and then sets into one of the spiders with a zeal that I must appreciate if only on an artistic level. I note the red curls and the sour demeanor right as I see it on another man - the one who keeps the crowned one's other flank clear of buggy-eyed monsters.
Hm. Must be a lot of redheads in this Radia place.
I'd just go cut up some more eight-legged scum, but I still keep getting the feeling that this blonde crown-wearing freak is important. It takes me another minute or two of staring to realize that it's Ales who finds this guy important. Well, Ales does have a thing for fashion - he's a swishy lad, he is - and this Radian guy's certainly fancy about himself.
Huh. There's a funny way he's looking at me. Like somehow all of this is my fault. I'd say that's a familiar expression on people's faces when they look at me, but quite honestly they tend to be dead before I get close enough to notice. "Yeah? What? I got things to kill here!" Really, all this slaughter around and I'm not even participating!
His mouth quirks up into a grin, of all things. He lets out a choked laugh. "I can't believe it. I really can't. Of all the places to find something like you." His eyes are looking at me all funny, like they're looking right through me. Reading me, if that makes any sense in the world. "No wonder he picked you as his guardian. You're... fearless."
My lip pulls back in a snarl. "I am fear, matey, and don't make me feed you your own liver to prove it to yeh."
He holds up his hands in joking defense. "Parley, parley. I've no grievance with you." He smirks. "Even if you did raid the latest coffee shipments from Moana, you guileless cretin. And you were about to sell them to Astoniarche! How wonderfully shameless of you. It's almost deserving of some sort of... medal."
I blink. How in blazes did he know we were going to do that? I brandish my cutlass at him, with a more serious intent to it, this time. "No funny business, here. What do you want?"
"You have an ally you're guarding. I wish to speak with him. We'd cut through the spiders on our own, but I don't wish to pick a fight with your band. That would in effect be picking a fight with him, and as I'd like to help him, I find that rather counterproductive." He puts a hand on his chin, ruminating as if there's no chaos brewing around him, no black ichor flying through the air, no screams intertwined with unworldly chittering. "I can guarantee your ship back. The Chetharians will consider the galleon tainted, in any case, so why waste it? And I can make you an Admiral, or something like that." He shrugs. "I'm easy to negotiate with, really."
I narrow my eyes. I can tell a blatant lie when I hear one. "No deals, not for Ales."
He puts his hands up again. "Just to talk with him. I wouldn't dream of taking him from you. Really, though - it's in your favor to allow it. After all... the one who's hunting him is hunting me as well, so I suppose I could consider the man my ally, right?"
I'm about to give him the same reply again, only this time with sword-reinforced punctuation, when I feel the prod from Ales.
The idiot wants to let this crook through?!
The not-so-subtle reminder that I myself am a crook is neither welcome nor necessary, in my opinion, but it's enough to make me relent. If I don't, Ales will get stupid and try to sway the fight, and there's nothing worse than when Ales makes a fight into something pathetic.
* * *
Ebrelle
* * *
I shouldn't come to. I shouldn't see, shouldn't hear, shouldn't feel anything at all. If anything I should be a ghost, right? The dead don't experience life the way the living do. They can't. That, at least, I learned from Mother.
I am alive. I am in pain, I am bleeding, I am a mess, and I am very much alive. It is the biggest letdown of my life.
Nothing really gets much better from here, either.
The Kommissar holds me down as he keeps a bundle of sheets pressed against my wound. It's already been bound, in a rudimentary way. He looks down at me, sees that I'm awake. He says nothing, just grins. He appreciates the show I've put on.
I don't know what's to happen to me, but I know Alestere has at least escaped the future, if I haven't. It's a relief - I can relax, lie back, let my fate take me. Maybe it'll turn into the numb haze that was most of my time in front of Nul's throne. If so, then I suppose there are worse eternities.
Then I hear a weak cough, and my heart sinks.
The Kommissar glances back for half a second. We're on the floor by Alestere's bed - out of view of my brother, but very near Mother, who is leaning over the bed, presumably over Alestere's body. "Is he going to recover, then?" The Kommissar doesn't sound concerned - he sounds bored.
Mother hisses through her teeth. "He certainly did a good job of it. There was less to work with that I thought. Ebrelle stabbed deep." She takes in a deep breath, straightening up as she does so. "Thankfully my skills as a White Lord are a match for this wound. I've kept the soul inside the body."
She pauses. I just hear a strange rushing in my ears, as if everything's falling down around me.
"At least, part of it. Ebrelle stabbed deep." She sounds concerned. I don't understand, though. Is Alestere dead or not?
"Was the sacrifice enough?" Tension runs through Xen's voice.
Mother exhales slowly. "Our King... says the sacrifice was more than enough. He is... quite pleased."
Xen's brows draw together. "Oh? You don't sound pleased, my Lady."
"I think a rather large piece of the boy's soul ended up with Nul. More... more than I'd intended, and far more than necessary. I'm unsure how it will affect the boy." She looks down at my brother. "I... am unsure of how long he will live." She sounds annoyed by the prospect, but not sad. "I have a bad feeling about this," she says in a quiet voice.
Xen raises an eyebrow.
"I rather think that the blood of the Jherent o'Radia which flows through this boy's veins has not ended up in our King's possession as intended." She sighs in disappointment. "A wasted effort. I'd have used this boy for other projects if I'd have known this was to fail. Our King can't take the Radian throne if he can't take the Jherent o'Radia as a host. He may not even accept the sacrifice, if there's no throne to claim with it. At this rate, I can't tell which of my sons has been the more useless."
I pray for Alestere's death, then wonder what I am praying to. We're guarded by Nul - we make pacts with Nul, pledge our Kings to Nul, give possession of the throne to Nul through them. Am I praying to Nul? What then? Will Nul take me?
Isn't that like dying?
And then I wonder why I've been fighting at all - if I just give myself up... if I just let it take all of me... it would damage me enough to kill my body. Then I'll simply be dead before Nul can keep my soul, and I'll likely just become a ghost as Eistinn did.
I start letting go.
* * *
