Heritage: Book One of the Gairden Chronicles (38 page)

“That is a serious charge,” Tyrnen said, nodding. “But I ask you to look at each Edmund Calderon closely. Who can see any difference between them? I, for one, cannot.” He pointed at Aidan. “Who’s to say that this deception is not Aidan’s creation?”

At this, many onlookers regarded Aidan uncertainly. He knew right then that targeting his false father would not work. That there were two Edmunds was the most obvious abnormality, but Tyrnen made a valid point. There was no easy way to prove the harbinger’s false claim. He needed to target his mother. The Crown of the North. The sword-bearer.

Get ready
, he sent to his grandfather.

“The time for words has passed,” Aidan said. Mouths fell silent as Aidan turned to Annalyn’s impostor. “My mother has yet to share with us which story she believes. Surely the Crown of the North can point out her own husband.”

Aidan nodded to his father, and Edmund looked at him hesitantly before lowering Heritage and stepping away from the harbinger. She turned to Aidan, her face heated yet uneasy.

“Mother,” Aidan said, dipping into a low bow. “Your people and your family need guidance only a sword-bearer can provide.” He gestured to Edmund. “The sword my father—my
true
father— holds is Heritage, sacred to the Gairden family. Any man can hold the sword, but only the sword-bearer, can tap into its full potential. Mother,” he continued, his voice sweet, “please take your sword. Help us solve this mystery so that our people may rest easy once again, safe in the knowledge that the Gairdens watch over and protect them.”

—That was dramatic,
Charles said.

It’s a natural talent.

—No arguments there.

Aidan ignored that. “Father, would you please present the sword-bearer with her blade?”

Edmund knelt stiffly at the Annalyn-harbinger’s feet and held out Heritage. The creature’s hands fidgeted, clenching and unclenching.

“Mother,” Aidan said, sounding utterly perplexed, “why don’t you take Heritage?”

Annalyn glared at him. Then she slowly, slowly raised shaking hands and wrapped her fingers around the hilt. She flinched, as if expecting the sword to drive back into her belly. Nothing happened. A grin spread across her face. She gave a triumphant yell and lifted the sword high above her head. Tyrnen looked nonplussed.

Drop,
Aidan commanded.

The blade dropped with a crash. A look of confusion splashed across the harbinger’s face. Her hands remained fastened around the sword’s hilt. She strained to lift it, grunting, but the point of the blade rested on the ground, immovable, as if fitted with a giant weight. Suddenly the Eye flashed, and a clap like thunder rang through the air. Red sparks hissed and spit from the Eye, which pulsed a low, angry red. As one, every voice in the crowd cried out in fear.

Calmly, Aidan crossed the dais to Heritage and picked it up.
Grandfather, could you...?

The bonds around his magic fell away. Aidan raised Heritage and blinked. The people appeared as black outlines on a pure white canvas, their eyes wide as they stared up at him and pointed at his ivory-colored eyes. The masks worn by the harbingers vanished; they appeared to him in their true forms: hollow eye sockets, fleshy bars spread across their gaping maws.

“I am Aidan Gairden,” his voice rang out. “I am the Crown of the North. I am the sword-bearer.” He leveled Heritage at the Annalyn-harbinger. “And that is not my mother.”

“This has gone on far enough!” his mother’s impostor cried. “Wardsmen! Obey the Crown. Seize my son!”

The Wardsmen spread across the platform took a hesitant step forward, then regarded Aidan’s glowing eyes warily. Shrieking in rage, the Annalyn-harbinger charged. Aidan drew light and snapped off a prayer. Two beams shot from the Eye of Heritage and lanced the platform at her feet. The Edmund-harbinger lunged at him from the side. Aidan raised Heritage to strike but his father got there first, swinging Valor up to crash against his impostor’s blade, forcing him back.

Cries rang out from every direction. Many in the crowd shoved their way toward the gate. They needed to see what he saw, or Aidan would lose them.

Anastasia. Can you reverse transfiguration?

—I... could try,
she sent back.
I need light. Lots of it.

Aidan opened every pore of his body, drinking in the Lady’s warmth. He had only been tied for a few hours, but gorging on the sweet warmth was like diving into the clearest, coolest lake after crossing the Plains of Dust. The Annalyn-harbinger drew light and prayed, throwing a ball of fire at him. Aidan raised Heritage, deflecting it, then shifted behind her and grabbed her around the throat.

—Now!
Anastasia cried.

The light drained from his body and into the sword. The Eye flared red, then the energy poured forth, baking the harbinger in a red glow. The skin beneath Aidan’s fist shifted like loose fabric. Ripples spread over her body, her face, her legs. Sounds like snapping twigs filled the air. Her skin became moldy and cadaverous.

—It’s done!

Aidan reeled back and stumbled, falling to his knees. He felt light-headed and feverish, drained. The fever was not as debilitating as it had been after Sharem, but he felt far from spry and alert. He was so faint that the first few cries of alarm did not register. Then he saw trembling fingers pointing at the platform behind him. Aidan looked. His Sight had fallen away, but his mother’s impostor stood revealed. Fleshy bars covered her mouth and vacant eye sockets stared sightlessly. His father’s impostor stared at her in horror and compulsively reached up to pat at his face.

“What in Dawn’s name...?” his father breathed.

The courtyard exploded in pandemonium. Several of the Wardsmen turned on their fellows, rushing them with flat, dead eyes. Several men died before they could grasp what was happening, blood spilling from torn necks and bellies. Those who did get a hold of their wits could do no more than raise their blades and deflect blows, gaping in confusion and horror as the fleshy masks of their adversaries faded to reveal skulls spotted with dirt and rot. Shrieking, the crowd boiled over, spilling out into the mountain trail, shoving and trampling in their terror.

And there, far in the back near the gate opening on to the mountain pass, was the massive head cook herself, striding toward the platform against the current of terrified witnesses. Vagrants threw themselves at her, their blades glinting in the Lady’s light. Helda never so much as glanced at them. She swung a stout log in cleaving strokes, batting them aside and roaring like an angry bear.

The sight of Helda cutting a wide path toward him left Aidan amazed and deeply comforted. But he had only an instant to register Helda’s inexorable advance. Behind him, Tyrnen growled a prayer. Aidan whirled but the old man vanished, kicking up a gust of wind. Howling in rage, the exposed harbingers rushed them. Behind them, the executioner stalked in, clenching and unclenching hands as large as Helda’s biggest plates. Edmund tore Valor from its sheath and adopted a defensive stance. Raising Heritage, Aidan stepped beside him.

Another gust of wind tugged at his clothes. Before he could turn, a hand gripped his neck. Nails dug into his skin, pinching hard enough to make him gasp.

“You have ruined my plans for the last time,” Tyrnen whispered.

Blackness swept over him.

Chapter 37

Night Terrors

T
HE PINCHING SENSATION DISAPPEARED
and Aidan whirled, spinning Heritage in a wide arc. The sword bit through the air— nothing else—and not the fresh air that announced the arrival of spring. He was in the center of the throne room. All the windows along the walls that normally flooded the room with the Lady’s light were blank, as if the panes of glass had been removed and replaced with slabs of wall painted black. The flicker of torches between the balconies lit the room with a dusky glow. Shadows stretched out from corners and the gaps between balconies like cobwebs. Behind him, the Crown of the North and its smaller companion throne sat empty.

—What’s happened?
Charles asked, sounding uncertain.

Aidan was not quite sure how to answer. His thoughts were hazy, as if he had been woken suddenly from a deep sleep.

—Night Terror
, Ambrose said tensely.
He’s pulled you in.

Aidan felt panic creep in. He raised Heritage and asked his family to illuminate the Eye. The jewel flickered, bathing the room in deep red light for an instant. Then it faded.

—We cannot see, Aidan,
Anastasia said.
The Eye is blind.

Fear washed over him, prickling his skin. He forced himself to take a few deep breaths and think the problem through.
I can’t see normally
, he thought, then felt a rush of triumph as an idea came to him. Tightening his grip on Heritage, he summoned the Sight. Black on white greeted him as the
Ordine’kel
swept through him, mating with
Ordine’cin
to flood every fiber of his being. Every mark on the floor, every contour of the walls, stood out as if an artist had sketched the room using charcoal.

—Excellent thinking, boy
, Charles said, sounding proud.

Behind him, Aidan heard a gasp. He turned smoothly, his terror buried under the calm discipline of
Ordine’kel.
A form huddled between the thrones.

—What’s wrong?
his grandfather asked.

“Someone else is here,” he whispered.

He took a few cautious steps forward, Heritage raised and ready to turn away blows using precise parries that Aidan did not, would not understand. The man wore the mail and colors of a Wardsman. He looked up, and Aidan saw scraggly beard that barely covered cuts and bruises.

—Who is it?
Charles said.

“Father,” Aidan said, releasing Sight and kneeling in front of Edmund.

Edmund looked up at him, teeth gritted in pain. “What happened?”

“Tyrnen pulled us into a...” Aidan frowned, wondering how to explain. “It’s like a dream, this place, except what happens is real. If we die here...”

His father nodded. His teeth began to chatter. Aidan removed his cloak and wrapped it around his father’s shoulders. “Are you all right? Father?”

The general’s eyes rose to take in the dancing shadows that began to slide down the high walls behind Aidan. The wispy shapes crawled toward any torches in their path, wriggling around flames as they descended.

Edmund had spun without thinking the moment he had felt the pincer-like grip on his neck, thrusting Valor out. He drove the blade into a tree bare of leaves, rattling its branches and calling down a shower of snow and ice. He yanked his blade free and took in his surroundings. Snow covered the ground and fell thickly from gray clouds. Bare trees covered in snow and ice stretched around him in every direction.

He started to sheathe Valor then thought better of it. He crept forward, eyes flitting front trunk to trunk. The unbroken snow glittered under the Lady’s glare as he moved along. That pulled him up short. The Lady had been settling over the far horizon as he had entered the courtyard minutes before. Had Tyrnen used some trick to send him to the far reaches of Crotaria where the Lady had not yet turned the sky over to the Lord of Midnight? Perhaps that was it.

He resumed his slow, cautious pace. Minutes later he emerged from the grove to find a small cabin sitting near the frozen bowl of a lake. He was at Lake Carrean. Terrible memories came rushing back, burying years of fonder ones.

“Kahltan damn you, old man,” he growled. He glanced near the cabin. Annalyn’s body was gone, or perhaps hidden under the snow. He told himself that he could not dig for it right now, not with their son in danger. Annalyn always wanted him to tend to their boy first, him second, herself last. Emotion welled up in his throat. He swallowed it and stalked toward the cabin. If Tyrnen was inside, he had better be prepared for a fight.

Movement at the edge of his vision. He went to the shore and scanned the horizon, but saw nothing amiss. Then he detected motion again, this time at his feet. Looking down, Edmund gasped and fell to his knees. The bloated face of his wife stared back at him from beneath the surface of the frozen lake. Her hands pressed against the ice as if trying to lift it away. Her eyes were wide with sadness; questions and accusations swam out of her glassy eyes and stabbed him in the heart.

Edmund pulled himself to his feet. “I’ll get you out of there,” he mumbled. Gripping Valor like a dagger, he stabbed the blade into the ice. The jolt from the impact almost brought him to his knees. He stabbed again and again, chipping at the ice but making no real progress. He was so involved in his labor that he didn’t notice the shadow sliding along the ground beneath him, swallowing up his own silhouette.

—Something doesn’t feel right,
Charles whispered.

What do you—?
Aidan began. Something cold, like a rag dipped in ice water, touched his foot, seeping through his boot. He grabbed his father and dove to the side. They landed in a mass of tangled arms and legs. Sitting up, Aidan pulled Edmund to his feet. “Father, are you—”

The cadaverous face of the harbinger stared back at him. Aidan kicked free of the creature’s grasp, rolled to his feet, fell into a run—and slammed face-first into a column of stone. Pain exploded across his face and his eyes filled with tears. Aidan ignored them. The torches had been snuffed out, leaving him in darkness.

“Your end is near , boy.”

The words were close. Aidan felt his way around the column and stumbled forward, fingers fumbling for his sword. They brushed an empty sheath. Heritage was gone, he realized, probably near the thrones where he’d dropped it when he’d thrown himself and the Edmund-harbinger out of harm’s way. He turned around— at least he hoped he had turned completely around—and hunched over, groping his way back to the throne. Hoarse laughter from afar reached his ears and abruptly rolled closer, rising in pitch.

Aidan threw himself forward and collided with one of the thrones. The chair crashed to the ground, and Aidan tumbled along with it. He groped about and decided he had found the sword when his finger nicked the edge of something sharp. Patting the blade, he seized the hilt and blinked, calling forth Sight. Whiteness descended over his vision like a curtain. He saw the harbinger halfway across the room, its true face open in a silent scream. It stood calmly, a sword in its hands, its shoulders shaking with... laughter?