Crown of Renewal(70)

“I’ll come with you,” Arian said. She picked up the sword that had lain by her chair and hung it to the baldric she still wore. “I’ll be glad when I fit back into my proper gear.”

Kieri touched her shoulder. “It won’t be long.”

Upstairs, outside Paks’s chamber, they heard nothing at first. Arian tapped on the door. A peculiar noise, like a truncated snore mixed with a gulp, came from the room. Then a yawn. “Uh?”

“Paks, it’s Arian and Kieri. We were worried.”

The thud of bare feet on the floor, then another yawn, and finally the door opened. Paks had color in her face again, and after a few more blinks, her eyes brightened. “I haven’t slept this late in years,” she said.

“I’m glad to see you upright,” Arian said. “Kieri woke less than a half-glass ago. Do you remember what happened?”

“We worked magery,” Paks said. “And—” She grimaced. “We’re going to have to work it again.”

“Not today you’re not,” Arian said. “And not alone, either.”





Chapter Fourteen

Paks left the next day as suddenly as she had come. “I must be back in Fin Panir for Midsummer,” she said.

“A rule for paladins?” Kieri asked, smiling.

“No … just … I must go.”

“Go with our prayers, then. Come again—we still have to wake those magelords, you know.” She waved, already moving away. Kieri sighed. Her Old Human magery had helped him, but what if she did not return? Supposedly he had it, but he felt nothing when he tried to imagine what it might be like.

The western elves, who had left immediately after the twins were born to take word to their king in the west, had not yet returned. Elves’ sense of time again … He had expected them back by now, since travel by their patterns seemed instantaneous, but to them it might be no time at all since they left.

On second thought, that might be convenient in this instance. He did not know how to explain to them what he and Paks had done. He was sure they would have questions he could not answer. How had he imposed enchantment on the past? He had no idea. Why had he not then broken the enchantment? And so on. It would be simpler not to tell them: in this day, the magelords were there, silent and motionless, and if the elves hadn’t known who put them there, they did not need to know now.

On that thought, he set to work in his office, reading through reports from supervisors of various project he had put under way. Every time his thoughts veered to what Paks had brought up—the possibility that Sekkady still lived, perhaps in another body, and might still be a menace—he pushed it away and forced himself into the details of the day.

Later, he tried twice—very carefully, with a King’s Squire sworn to secrecy at hand, and sitting down—to reach with his magery to Kolobia and do something—anything—that might wake those he had enchanted. He was sure he found the place again—he felt it the same way he felt his former stronghold, or Vérella, or the winter quarters in Valdaire. But that was the most he could do, lacking Paks and Gird. And though he asked Gird for help, nothing more happened.

Except that night after night, he remembered what Paks had said and could not push aside the thought of Sekkady still alive, in another body, searching for him, threatening his children. His dreams were troubled. He did not want to bother Arian while she was so busy with the babies. He would try something else.

Arian was asleep; the babies were asleep. Kieri sat by the window in his own chamber, the box of selani tiles open before him. He took one without looking and then read the rune. Sorrow. He took another. Loss. Another and another and another: pain, rage, distance, death, each one drawing a fine line of pain on his heart as Sekkady had long ago used a stone blade on his skin to draw a fine line of blood. And then, with the bloodstone he always had with him, Sekkady had sorcelled that blood into the stone and murmured to Kieri as he did so.

Even if you escaped this place—but you will never escape—you could not escape me, for your blood is with me, and with it your fear and your submission. By this stone I command you. Here you are, held motionless and silent, even when you know what I will do to you. So will you be always, everywhere and anywhere, every time and any time. And someday, I will let you have something precious to you, and you will think you are safe, but I will come, and you will kneel before me, helpless as you are now. And I may let you beg for mercy, but you know now as you will then that my will is greatest, and you will surely suffer all I desire.

He had heard that voice in dreams even after escaping; he had forgotten those dreams, the words that once more caught him, held him motionless, his throat clogged with fear. Cold sweat ran down his back, he could scarcely breathe, he scarcely knew where he was or when—