Heritage: Book One of the Gairden Chronicles (40 page)

Aidan ran his hands over his face. His mad flight from Sordia to Calewind, the energy he had given to Anastasia to reverse his false mother’s transfiguration, the bone-chilling cold of the dark magic used to swim the shadows in his battle against the Edmundharbinger... His grandfather was right. He did not feel as weakened as he had after the battle at Sharem, but he certainly wasn’t ready to race Daniel through Sunfall’s corridors.

Frowning, Aidan looked around again.
How did I get back to my own bed?

—You were found in the throne room, barely cognizant and delirious from fever. Wardsmen found you, and Christine—

His face warmed at the mention of her name, and the memory of the night they had spent together. And, his grandfather hadn’t referred to her as “that Sallnerian girl.” It was a start.

—put you to bed and gave you healing. How do you feel?

“Tired,” Aidan said.

—Do you remember much of what happened?

“Yes.” He remembered all of it: the trial, the fight for his life in the Night Terror. But what he remembered more clearly than anything else was his mother’s tortured face peering at him from within the spirit stone.

“I saw her, Grandfather. I saw my mother.”

Charles said nothing.

“I will free her. She will not suffer another night as Tyrnen’s prisoner.”

—Once a soul is captured, it cannot be released unless the stone is broken, or unless the stone’s master grants it release,
Charles said. His voice was firm, practical, but Aidan knew his grandfather well enough to see past his gruffness. There was an underlying despair in his tone, not much, but enough to shake the old man’s confidence like a wind pulling leaves from a tree.

—The harbinger you killed in Night Terror is, for all intents and purposes, still alive,
Anastasia interjected
. You only destroyed a temporary vessel. As long as Tyrnen controls their souls, he can resurrect his slaves again and again. All he needs are bodies.

“But destroying Tyrnen’s spirit stone would free those souls,
and
prevent him from creating more harbingers.”

—Yes,
Anastasia said.

“Then that’s what I’ll do.”

—It isn’t that simple,
Charles said.
Getting to the stone means getting close to Tyrnen.

“That’s fine with me,” Aidan said grimly.

—It shouldn’t be. Remember, your soul is vulnerable to him.

I thought you would want her set free as badly as I do,
Aidan thought angrily. A wave of shame settled over him as Charles inhaled sharply.
I’m sorry, Grandfather. I really need to learn to keep a hold on my temper. I just felt so helpless seeing her that way.

—I understand. And I do want her with us. But remember that Heritage cannot protect you from a spirit stone. It did not protect your mother. You must be careful. If you fail, every soul on Crotaria will be lost to Tyrnen, not just your mother’s.

Aidan nodded and swung his legs to the floor. “I’d better get moving. We can—”

—There’s something else we need to discuss
, his grandfather said, voice prickly.

Aidan sighed again. He should have known this was coming. “Dark magic.”

—We know you used it to run the tunnels
, Anastasia said.
We understand.

You do?

—You needed to reach the Prophet quickly, and she... did not dissuade its use, exactly. But dark magic is still forbidden.
Remember what it did to my parents.

Aidan’s eyes widened. Aside from the legend relayed during every Gairden’s Rite of Heritage, little mention was made of the fact that Anastasia was Dimitri and Luria Thalamahn’s daughter. In a very, very distant way, the Thalamahns were family. And he thought
his
parents had been strict.

—It leads to corruption in all who use it
, Anastasia went on.
Darkening is dangerous.

“I haven’t sprouted a second head, nor do I feel any inclination to take over the world.”

—Do you ever listen to yourself talk?
Charles muttered.

Aidan ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, Anastasia” he said. “Please forgive me.”

—You have been through a lot
, she said after a moment.
You are a remarkably strong young man. But I will not let the matter drop so easily, Aidan. This is important to me. I need your word that you will not darken again.

Aidan folded his hands. “No.” He braced himself for a tirade, but received only silence. Anastasia drew in a large breath. It was like the creak of a catapult drawing back.

—Perhaps we should ask Aidan about his reasoning,
Ambrose interjected in a soft tone.

—Husband!
Anastasia sounded shocked.
You saw firsthand what my mother and father became. You agreed that—

—I did then, and I do now
, Ambrose said.
But Aidan has given you your say. I think we deserve to hear him out.

—I agree, Anastasia,
Charles said.
Aidan can be impetuous, yes. Emotional, very much so. A bit slow at times, I’ll concede that. A procrastinator, no doubt. And he tends to—

“Where exactly are you going with this?” Aidan said tensely.

—My grandson is an intelligent young man,
Charles said.
I say we hear his reasoning.

The three Gairdens muttered for several moments.

—Very well
, Anastasia said.
You may speak, Aidan.

Aidan took time to wrestle with his thoughts. His feelings on the subject of dark magic, and its brighter counterpart, had been jumbled and slippery since his first time darkening in the tunnels. He had not had time to sort through them in all the excitement since then. Now, he knew, was the time. Not only to share his thoughts with his family, but to finally take firm hold of a concept that had been dancing just out of his reach for days.

“When I darkened in the tunnels, I was not sure what to expect, what I might feel. What I felt was... well, I felt cold, like I had decided to go hiking through a blizzard wearing only my skin. The sensation was the opposite of what I feel when I kindle the Lady’s light. Other than that, everything felt the same. I used the Language of Light—which seems an inappropriate name for what appears to be a universal language of magic—and Kahltan answered my prayer.

“That surprised me, at first. Why would the Lord of Midnight answer the call of a servant to the Lady of Dawn? But he did.” Aidan hesitated, his heart beating faster. “And then, in the recall spell, I watched as the Lady gave Tyrnen spells to kill my mother.”

—That is blasphemy, Aidan
, Anastasia said sharply.

—Let him finish, please,
Charles said. The old man also spoke tightly, but he also sounded curious.

“Thank you, Grandfather. And Anastasia, you know my thoughts. You must know I love the Lady of Dawn, as I loved her Prophet. But I saw what I saw, and I heard what I heard. Tyrnen prayed to the Lady. She answered. I’m not so sure that’s how it works, now.”

—How what works, Aidan?
his grandfather asked.

He fell silent again, try to shape his thoughts. “When a man fires an arrow, he chooses the target. Magic, to me, seems to function the same way. We draw in the resource we need, speak the words, and create a result. We use the word
prayer
, but that doesn’t seem quite right. We set the arrow, take aim, and release. I mean, it makes sense, doesn’t it? Why would the Lady answer Tyrnen’s request for magic to destroy a Gairden, a member of the bloodline she chose to protect her people? Because he didn’t
ask
her.”

His voice grew quieter. “Why would the Lady grant me the power I needed to cause such destruction and bloodshed at Sharem? What I did was terrible—and it was my choice. Not hers. That’s how the Prophet described it to me in the Duskwood. She said the Lady’s light can be used to destroy, or to protect peace. It seems to me that dark magic works the same way. Your parents, Anastasia, used it to destroy. I used it again to battle the harbinger, a force of destruction, who used it to battle me, an agent of peace. We selected the same tool and used it to achieve different ends.

“Why would the Lord of Midnight help us both? Well, I don’t think he did. Maybe... maybe he doesn’t have anything to do with what we do. Maybe the Lady doesn’t, either.” Realizing what he had just said, he rushed on: “Or maybe not as much as we think.”

He sat back, took a deep breath, and waited for someone to break the silence. Not surprisingly, Anastasia spoke up first. What did surprise him were her words, and tone.

—You have given us much to think about
, she said thoughtfully.
I... am sorry for being so harsh before. You have indeed put a great deal of thought into this.

Aidan shrugged, smiling a little. “Just a little here and there, in between running for my life and battling the walking dead.”

She laughed, full and rich. Then she grew quiet again.
—I would like to talk more of this. For now, we need to concentrate on your immediate concern
, Anastasia went on.

“Tyrnen,” he said.

—Nichel,
Charles corrected.
You have a war to stop, first.

Chapter 39

Promises from the Past

A
IDAN GROANED
.
“T
HE CLANS
. I almost forgot.”

—There wasn’t any ‘almost’ involved, boy,
Charles said, though his voice was light.
Now then, find your father, and—

“My fa...” His eyes widened. “Is he...?”

“Alive,” said a voice from the doorway.

The door swung open to admit Edmund. He limped into the room on a sturdy pair of crutches. His breeches and green shirt seemed odd to Aidan’s eyes; he was so accustomed to seeing his father in armor that Edmund had convinced him that he wore it to bed until his mother had rolled her eyes and intervened. Weeks’ worth of stubble had been shaved away, revealing a smooth face covered in faint scars.

Aidan rose from the bed and embraced his father. Edmund said nothing, only patting Aidan’s back.

“I haven’t seen this much of you since we went swimming in Lake Carrean when we were twelve,” said a voice from behind Edmund. Daniel, his face covered in sweat and his clothes stained with dirt, grinned as he entered. Christine flowed in behind him, her eyes bright. Looking down, Aidan blushed and leaped back under his covers. Christine sat next to him and scooted close. Edmund frowned disapprovingly between them, but neither noticed.

“How did you get here so quickly?” Aidan asked Daniel.

“Christine learned how to travel the tunnels,” Daniel said, shrugging.

“What tunnels?” Edmund asked.

“The sneaks move underground to get from place to place,” Aidan explained, glossing over the method of fast-travel. He was not ready for another discussion on dark magic just yet.

Edmund looked crestfallen. “You already know about those?”

“How are you feeling?” Christine asked, placing a hand on his forehead. The other was curled protectively around her belly.

“Better than I was, thanks to you,” he said.

Christine blushed. He was once again struck by how beautiful she looked when he managed to catch her off guard. He would have to get better at that.

“You look awful,” Aidan said to Daniel as he took in his friend’s haggard appearance.

“Not as bad as you,” Daniel said back.

“I mean you’re filthy. Did you run here all the way from Sordia?”

Daniel’s smile was not quite genuine. “I just returned from an errand,” he said, glancing at Edmund.

“An errand?” Aidan repeated. He looked questioningly at his father.

Lowering himself beside Aidan with a weary sigh, Edmund said, “We’ll discuss that in a bit. What did Tyrnen do to us, Aidan? One moment we were in the courtyard. The next, I was back at Lake Carrean with...” He swallowed and looked away.

“A spell called Night Terror. It is like a nightmare, but what happens there is real.”

“They pulled me in with you,” Edmund said. “Probably wanted to get rid of both of us in one fell swoop.”

Aidan’s eyes widened as his father’s story unfolded. When Edmund reached the point where the beast unmasked itself, Edmund stopped, swallowing hard.

“I don’t know what manner of creature it was,” he said. “It had a curved head with red scales that turned away Valor like a rock turns away wind.”

—Did it have sharp, pointed teeth?
Ambrose asked.

Aidan relayed the question, then his father’s affirmative answer.

—A leviathan,
the Gairden patriarch said.
During the Great War, the world saw all types of aberrations created by dark magic. The leviathan was one of them. No one except Luria—and now Tyrnen, of course—knows how they are created. They have the bodies of men, but their heads are impenetrable, made from the thick, scaly hide of creatures rumored to exist many, many eons ago.

“What happened next, Father?” Aidan finally said.

Edmund blinked, then narrowed his eyes in thought. “I finally tricked the beast into shattering a weak part of the ice. With its enormous weight—and my sword stabbing it anywhere I found an opening—it didn’t have a chance for survival. I began to crawl back toward the shore, when suddenly one of harbingers pulled me into the water. I struggled with it when suddenly everything started to shimmer. Next thing I knew, I was in the throne room, and the harbinger was right there with me. There were Wardsmen surrounding our sleeping bodies, and—you won’t believe this— Helda was there, too. She pounced on the harbinger and bludgeoned her to death with a log.”

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Aidan broke into a wide grin. “I can believe that.”

“You were there as well, though we didn’t know that at first,” Edmund said. “As I was being helped to my feet, we heard you cry out from the uppermost balcony across the room. You were thrashing about on the floor. The other harbinger’s body was with you.”

Shaking his head, Aidan said, “Why would Tyrnen take us to the throne room?”