Oathbreaker ch. 10.2 - The Pinnacle (Patreon)

It felt very strange being back home.

I could have laughed at myself. I’d spent less than a single decade of my four in the Karledale, and less than half of that living inside the royal palace. I’d lived in the Herding, a wholly different country, until I was seventeen, and then I’d been sent to Elfhome and…

My life had taken some strange turns.

But this place still meant something to me.

I didn’t go to sleep as Rosanna recommended. It would have been smart to, but I felt restless and my mind wouldn’t stop spinning itself into knots. So I walked the halls of Harren’s Pinnacle, not for the first time in the weeks I’d been there, and lost myself to memories.

The royal house of Karles had very little in common with the brutalist grandeur of the Fulgurkeep in the far north, or even with the regal dam-castle of the Hall of Heralds in Tall Carreweir. Its corridors had high arched ceilings with many windows, and every window was set with glass to allow moonlight to shine through. The moonlight seemed to soak into the stones, giving everything a cold lambency even in the depths of night. The sconces were lit with auratic flames rather than alchemical ones. Many of those had remained cold for years, only beginning to burn again when the blood of the High House once more resided within these halls.

There were many balconies, and walkways that brought one outside onto the sheer cliffs of the great pillar of rock from which the Pinnacle took its name. Hidden springs in caverns within that natural spire emerged into the open air as steaming waterfalls, and on every surface not covered by the blue stone and white granite of the palace green things grew. There were many hidden nooks, gardens, and patches of moss one could access even several hundred feet up, and in the fashion of elven halls, laid masonry would often blend seamlessly into nature.

Beyond the Pinnacle sprawled the Karledale, the greatest of the Dale Kingdoms. Under the two moons, distant mountains shrouded in mist rose over rolling hills and sleepy pastures. Dense forests carpeted the horizon, full of strange and wild things.

My wandering took me into one of the hidden gardens outside the halls of the citadel. Sheer rock spilling with ivy rose dizzyingly high, and the pale blue walls of the palace seemed to catch the moonlight where the builders had cleverly used smooth marble to accent the more solid material beneath, so the castle itself seemed almost a shard of the moon fallen from the heavens.

Some stories said it was.

I’d stripped out of my armor after retrieving the prince with the help of my new page, and wore a burgundy kaftan stitched with faux-gold threads and dark hose in the southerner fashion. Though autumn had done barely more than give a perfunctory stretch and yawn, the nights were already getting cold in the southern realms and the air had a bite. Thanks to the seed of warmth always burning inside my chest, I hardly felt it.

“Brooding again, my lord?”

I turned to see Tzanith Balesdotter, handmaiden to the Queen of the Sidhe and ambassador to the Accorded Realms, glide into the garden like something out of a dream. She was slim and long-limbed, with skin such a light blue it was nearly white and a braid of violet-black hair long enough to trail down to her ankles. She wore a long dress of autumn reds with dashes of yellow, something I guessed she’d picked to match the impending season, almost a harbinger of it. Her left eye shimmered black-blue like deep water, while the right was hidden behind a sealed lid with a pale line of scar crossing it, two golden rings piercing the brow.

Her beauty and presence were literally breathtaking, but I’d grown used to it and only gave her a curt nod. “Lady Ambassador.”

She made a face. “Don’t be like that. We’re not at council.”

Her musical voice seemed to titter through the air like the notes of a flute, and several flowers bloomed in the grass as she padded over to stand at my side. She had two dragonfly wings folded behind her like a transparent cloak, and they fluttered briefly as she came to a stop. I stood at the edge of a narrow shelf that overlooked the dale. The shadow of the sleeping castle town spread out almost directly beneath us, the closest roof almost two hundred feet below.

I shrugged. “Habit.”

“You mean how you always use titles to address people?” She smiled to take the sting of criticism from the words. “We’ve been practically joined at the hip for most of a year now, Alken. Haven’t I earned even a touch of familiarity?”

I considered her out of the corner of one eye. “Fair enough. Then what would you prefer I call you?”

She thought about it a moment. “I’ll admit, I liked it when you called me Tzan. It made me feel like a member of the group, the way you have an endearment for everyone else you care for.”

She was right, though I’d never put much thought into it until then. Just like I called Emma Em, Hendry Hen, Lisette Lis, and Penric was sometimes Pen if we were having ale together. Even Vicar, I realized, though he hated it when I called him Vic and I usually did it just to annoy him.

I’d called the elf Tzan only once, when we’d had a very difficult and personal conversation and I’d wanted to dispense with all my instinctive formality. We were coworkers, fellow ambassadors of the Accord who served different masters but tended toward a mutual good. Or so I hoped.

Were we also friends?

Tzanith sighed. “I didn’t think it would be such a difficult question.”

She said it lightly, but I detected a touch of hurt in the words. I let out a breathy laugh.

“Sorry,” I told her. “It’s been a hard day.”

She nodded sympathetically. With her injured eye, she always had a tendency to look like she was winking mischievously. “I heard. The prince is safe?”

“What, you think I came out here to hurl myself off this cliff?” I lifted an eyebrow at her. She didn’t seem to find that funny, so I acquiesced. “He’s safe. I’m not going to say he’s alright.”

She knew about Darsus’s condition. She was also aware of a potential solution, and had the good grace not to take advantage of my pensive mood by reminding me of her lady’s offer.

I decided to change the subject, because thinking about Darsus made me feel helpless and I hated that feeling. “It’s a habit I never really dropped from childhood. The nickname thing, I mean. My sister and I used to call each other pet names. I was Al, and she was Dee. Short for Deirdre.”

I felt awkward all the sudden, talking about my baby sister, who was certainly no baby anymore, to this powerful immortal. I’d been thinking a lot about my past since returning to this place. I couldn’t even show up at council without being reminded about it. The thought made me grimace.

“Anyway.” I cleared my throat, feeling Tzanith’s intense stare. She could stare very intently with one eye. “I did it to the Empress when we were still young. Back then, I did it to annoy her — she was a pompous aristocrat without a throne, and I was a sullen teenager who thought getting a rise out of people was the same thing as being more clever than them.”

Tzanith gave a thoughtful nod. “Now you do it to mark those who fall within the small circle you allow to see glimpses of your true self.”

“Elves.” I spat the word like a curse. “You make everything sound so portentous. People are more casual with their friends. It’s normal.”

“So does that make us friends?” Tzanith asked sweetly.

I folded my arms over my chest. It was a serious question. Tzanith’s mistress had already tried to do me and mine harm. I wasn’t sure she wouldn’t do it again.

But… I’d shared important secrets with the faerie. She’d saved my life more than once. She’d been in love with me for a while, though I was dense enough not to realize.

She knew I was still in love with someone else, and she could use that knowledge to ruin me at her whim. She hadn’t, and for that if nothing else…

“We’re friends, Tzan.” I lifted a hand and showed her the new ring on my right hand. It was on the ring finger, a band of silver with a small clear crystal set on it. An elf tear, shed by Tzanith herself. “I still owe you. I’ve not forgotten.”

She smiled a genuine, brilliant smile that made her seem more human. I knew that her true face couldn’t make such expressions — beneath the glamour, she was an insectoid thing of fractal glass eyes and sharp mandibles. I’d begun to suspect that all the Sidhe were, which made for some disturbing implications.

But I liked to think the personality was real. She could laugh, and had an easy humor. I didn’t like to think of it as a front.

“You’ve distracted me,” she accused. “I asked why you were brooding.”

There seemed little reason to prevaricate. “The prince, mostly. Everything else. It’s been a bad year, Tzan.”

She nodded somberly. “That’s true. I assumed you were thinking about your lance. They’re due to be back soon, aren’t they?”

Hendry, who was only informally my subordinate and a belted knight in his own right, was scouting out the situation in Osheim, which seemed to worsen every month. He’d volunteered for the assignment, and when it’d been obvious that Lisette hadn’t wanted him to head north alone, Rosanna had encouraged her to go. And that meant Penric had to go. And Emma, while she’d pretended to be aloof, had obviously not wanted to be left behind. She’d barely needed a nudge.

I hadn’t expected the whole damn group to go. I would have gone, but Darsus was getting worse and Rosanna needed me here.

“I’ve felt like a gargoyle since the Banner,” I admitted. “Sitting on these walls and just staring out at our problems. For a while, it was one crisis after another. The Vykes last year, then the Credo Ferrum in winter, then Evangeline this past spring…”

“The Gatebreaker,” Tzanith whispered.

I wouldn’t say his name aloud and darken such a beautiful night, but I nodded. The Gatebreaker, also called the Gorelion, had appeared at Tol in winter and murdered a member of the Choir there. The country was still in chaos, with bands of irks, woed, and marauding soldiers, some of whom might be ordinary bandits and others something worse…

Osheim lay just to the north of the Karledale, the only barrier between the two kingdoms being the River Os. Rosanna had seen some of the growing devastation there during her journey south. There were stories of plague, and Tol was said to be quarantined. Baille Os, the capital, had seen riots and there was a new duke who’d taken command after the death of King Kale. He’d made no pronouncements of loyalty to the Accord, which had people nervous.

“Reports say he’s been seen again in the Baern Cities,” I said darkly. “Last word from the northern capital is that the Emperor is raising troops to help quell the rebellion there, which leaves us on our own down here.”

A cursed prince wasn’t the only reason I was staying in the Pinnacle. The south had been poorly attended in recent years with the Accord’s attentions focused on Talsyn and the recent summit in Garihelm. There were still clans who were fighting the Karlesian House War in their own minds, and Recusant holdouts gardened by Rhan Harrower before his capture and execution.

And there was Seydis further east, a bleeding pustule everyone expected to burst any year.

“It’s like we’re just reacting,” I added in frustration. “Waiting for the enemy to make their move so we know where to fight. I hate that. It feels like we’re losing, and besides the attack on Tol and the Fulgurkeep last year there haven’t even been any real battles.”

“Our enemy is an ancient evil who has been waging wars since before your civilization existed,” Tzanith reminded me gently. “He likely knows that open battle gives us the advantage. He doesn’t have great armies, but he has many knives and many clever deceits to exhaust and divide us. Already, he has put a wedge between the nations of the Sidhe.”

The Underworld had practically closed its gates, and the Briar — never anyone’s friend — did not trust anyone after the events in the Spring. They’d circled their wagons and left the Seydii under Maerlys to fend for themselves.

“So we’re fucked?” I asked with grim humor.

The elf’s wings fluttered. “No. But you are being bled by many cuts. My queen sees this. It’s why she is biding her time and preparing new weapons.”

My mind went to Jocelyn and Karog. If they were the kinds of weapons the Elf Queen was preparing, then I didn’t like imagining what else her burnt hands were dabbling in.

Tzanith took a step closer, forming an almost intimate distance. There wasn’t any seduction in it — we were mostly past that — but her voice had an earnest edge. “Passivity is not always wisdom, but I think your Emperor and your Empress are wise in this. Trust that they are not idle in their caution, my friend.”

“I trust Rosanna and Markham,” I agreed. “But they’re both mortal, and the Accord is an alliance of many factions. I’m just afraid that we’ll be people about the whole thing and hang ourselves. I’m afraid that’s what the enemy wants us to do.”

The enemy. Such a vague moniker. Trick was, we didn’t know our enemy. The demon lord in Elfgrave seemed an obvious villain, but he hadn’t been the mastermind when all of this started.

The question lurked in many minds like an evil root. Where is Reynard?

Tzanith seemed to retreat into her own private thoughts just as I did for some minutes. We both watched the moons rise and the stars blanket the sky in a brilliant swathe of light.

“Do you know the story of this palace?” Tzanith suddenly asked.

I assumed she meant to distract me from my brooding. “I’ve heard a few things.”

It struck me that Tzanith was hundreds of years old and probably had first hand knowledge. Hell, she was probably here when it was built. It was a surreal and humbling realization, but I often felt that way being around so many supernatural beings.

She smiled as though she read my thoughts, but didn’t comment. “After the breaking of the west, the Cambion’s armies were scattered and devastated but not defeated. Millions perished when the God-Queen split the earth and widened the great inland sea of Oroion, with which She drowned that mighty nation. The great Houses of Edaea were laid low, drowned beneath the waves or made vassal to the young goddess, but even within that apocalypse there were still armies and battles.”

I’d been raised by a very pious mother, and a very exacting father who liked to appear educated. Nodding along, I said, “Millions? Maybe we’d be better off with the Gorelion…”

Tzanith’s wings buzzed in agitation and flashed briefly with light, and it was one of the very few times I’d seen her angry. “Don’t make those kinds of jests. It’s ugly.”

“Right. Sorry.” Within my own thoughts I added, I’ve been spending too much time around Emma. It’s the kind of commentary she would have made.

“Your ancestors came to this land by many roads,” Tzanith continued. “They launched ships from the northern seas, and traveled through wilderness and mountain from the ruin of a hundred lands. Did you know that it’s common in certain parts of the world to never see anyone who doesn’t have the same skin color as you? The same eyes, or the same accent?”

That seemed goring odd. Tzanith noted my look and nodded. “Urn has been settled by the remnants of kingdoms and tribes and empires from across the wider world. Your heritage is that of many peoples. It is a blessing, but it is also the shadow of a terrible calamity. One that nearly destroyed this world.”

She turned and gestured to the hanging gardens and moonlit cliffs from which the castle rose. “In those first years, when humans flooded over the mountains and struck land on the northern coasts, they made war with my people. There were humans here before, but my kind held dominion over this land since long before the time of Nekhral and Aghar. Since before there were humans.”

I’d not heard either of those names. Old empires in the far west, I assumed.

“Lias told me once that there was a nation called Yrrk here,” I said.

“They were a nation of mortals long ago,” Tzanith agreed. “Though, not humans.”

She must have seen my boyish curiosity, for she smiled tiredly. “I am still young, Alken. I was born after the Edaean exiles came, and I’ve counted little more than half a millennium on this sphere. I have dreams of my past lives, but they are just dreams.”

I knew that elves, being immortal, never really died. Their spirits were tied to the lands, the seas, and the moons, and they existed so long as those things existed. When one died, they returned to the world and were eventually reborn in an endless cycle.

It seemed a sad existence.

“You have distracted me again,” the elf accused.

I waved a hand. “Sorry. Please, you were talking about how this castle came to be.”

She nodded. “One of the High Houses of the Oroion was the House of Lupercal. I see you know that name?”

I did. “They were the last emperors of the Oroion Kingdoms.” Every child knew that much. The tale of Lorian Lupercal, the great king made werewolf and lunatic, was a story reenacted in every festival across the subcontinent.

“Yes, though they did not enjoy that honor in the end. One such scion was among those who followed the God-Queen east, and he came by a hard rode to this very pinnacle. In his despair for the horrors he saw in the western lands and in penance for his own bloodline’s hand in them, he climbed all the way to the top of these stones and named his sins to the heavens.” The elf lifted a softly shining hand to the stars. “Then, having confessed and begged forgiveness, he made to hurl himself to the earth and to his death. But my people’s cousins who dwelt above heard his desolation, and one rode down upon her palanquin and caught him as he fell.”

I glanced up at the Living Moon, the larger and nearer of the two that hung in the world’s sky. Its surface was a patchwork of cold blues and dark greens, and when full — as it was that night — I could make out what looked like great lakes or even seas upon its surface.

“She asked him what purpose his death might serve?” Tzanith continued. “He lamented death, and yet he sought to heal it by causing his own? The moon maiden was confused, for those who dwell above do not live among the living and the dying as we who know you mortals do. Harren Lupercal wept upon her shoulder and professed that he no longer wished to live in a world that, to him, seemed to have died along with everything he loved.”

“And the moon maiden, whose name was Erthri, said to him, ‘Everything has not died. Look! Look upon the green hills and the silver lakes. See how my homeland shines in the sky, untouched by the troubles of this earth. Your pain has called me down from that place, and now that I see this lower realm, I find it beautiful for all its sorrows.’”

“Wait, wasn’t Erthri the name you used when—”

She spoke over me. “Harren was still dismayed. ‘All my clan is dead,’ he told the elf maid. ‘The western world burns, or drowns beneath angry waters, and my own kinsfolk are to blame. We invited the demons of the Abyss into our halls and broke the covenants of the Old God. We are forsaken and forsworn.’”

“And Erthri told him, ‘I see the shadow over the mountains, and I see that this land you have come to shall face it again. Your work is not done, Harren of Nossus. See this barren rock that would endorse your suicide? I shall call upon my brothers to rend it open and make the life within spill forth. Plant upon its gray face green things, and so long as your blood adorns it and my people’s light shines upon it, then life shall grow here whether it be in the heat of summer or the cold of winter. Your work is not done, fallen king.’”

Tzanith paused, and after a moment I realized her tale had come to an end.

“Let me guess,” I said. “Because this is an Urnic fable, he married the faerie and they had a pack of changeling brats?”

She swiped at my arm with her glowing hand, which smarted more than I would have expected. “You are always crude when you want to hide your emotions.”

I said nothing, mostly because she was right.

“As a point of fact, the Lady Erthri did marry Harren Lupercal, who abandoned that name. Her blood still mingles in the royal line of this kingdom. The story I just told you is based on a real event. King Harren was the first king of the Karledale, and he did meet his queen upon this rise.”

Realization struck me like a thunderbolt. “That’s Rosanna’s ancestor. She’s descended from the goring emperors of the Oroion?”

They’d once ruled the world. If not for the war between the Cambion and the God-Queen, they still might.

“House Silvering was made of the mingled blood of Erthri Illithari and Harren Lupercal,” Tzanith confirmed. “The Empress has inherited a great and terrible name.”

I shook my head, half in awe and half in confusion. “I thought all changelings were… well. They tend to come out wrong.”

Tzanith’s smile held a touch of wistfulness in it. “The earliest generations of Silverings had to wear glamours in public, it is true, but over time they became merely long-lived and auratically potent humans. It’s when the half-mortal begin to breed among others like themselves or with my own kind that they become warped. The ones you are thinking of are the product of many generations of this.”

She’d given me a lot to think about. I wondered if perhaps there was more behind Maerlys’s attempt to kidnap Darsus and raise him herself. That event was still a thorn in both my and Rosanna’s thoughts, and it hadn’t been easy convincing the Empress to permit Tzanith into her council.

“We are being watched,” Tzanith said in a lower voice.

I nodded. “I know. Something out there, I think. I’ve felt it for days.”

I gestured to the distant hills and dark forests beneath the night sky. It should have been too great a distance for anyone or anything to see us where we stood high up on the cliffs, and yet I felt it sharply, like needles whispering against my skin.

Tzanith pursed her lips. “I fear our brief season of peace is about to come to an end. There’s an anger in the air.”

My own gaze went west and up, to the distant shadow of mountains and what might have been thunderclouds flickering over them. Heavensreach lay that way, atop the heights of the subcontinent’s fences where gods and angels held council.

I’d stewed in anticipation long enough. I’d defied them. Now, it was about time to see how they would punish me for it.