Solace Shattered (8 page)

Arvana closed the book, with one finger holding her place. It was chance, the circumstance of her birth, which brought her this task, allowed her to use the Blue Eye. She was dead before her father revived her.

The candle flashed extra bright. It was down to a stump. She lit another and reopened the book.

“Once in the spirit world, the Supreme Judge drew his colleagues into Hell by grasping their souls. Before their physical bodies expired, he brought their souls back into the world. Taken this way into and out of Hell, his colleagues were acclimated to the path between the physical and supernatural worlds. Some withstood the journey’s strain and could then use the Blue Eye. They became the Judges, who after receiving their own Blue Eyes, walked the earth to claim millions of souls. Other minds cracked, and they became idiots who the Supreme called his Prophets. Later, he learned to read his followers’ futures and could predict who could become a Judge. He did not reveal his finding to the candidates. Their willingness to risk their sanity was a mark of their dedication.”

Arvana wet her fingers and snuffed the candle. Chane was taken into Hell and it hadn’t broken his mind. The letter was lucid. Keithan said he’d changed, but the change was for the better, not one to lunacy. Did Chane expect her to turn the Blue Eye over to him because he was able to use it? Why had he sent this translation ahead of him? At least he wouldn’t try to take it—he’d promised on his soul that he wouldn’t. She touched the front of her habit. One thing she knew: if he tried to take it, this time she’d leave him to Hell. Captain Degarius was the man to take the Blue Eye. How could he not be? In the dark, she conjured an image of him passing into Hell after a battlefield injury or while in the depths of the lake. If he could use the Blue Eye, Chane must consent to give back Assaea. With the Blue Eye, the captain could threaten to decimate Acadia if the sword wasn’t returned.

She had to test him before Chane’s homecoming.

The Citadel

“I
want it back,” Degarius said to Fassal as they crossed the Citadel’s central courtyard on the way to their appointment with the king and his cabinet.

“I told you yesterday I don’t have your pipe. You must have mislaid it.”

“My sword.”

Fassal raised a brow at the black velvet wrapped treaty Degarius carried under his arm. “You didn’t write
that
into it, did you?”

Degarius balked. “Of course not.” The accord was a solid week of labor. He’d never had to write one before, but having sat through the reading of several of his father’s, he knew the style and form. What was tricky was making a sound document. He doggedly wrote and rewrote the terms, rewording any vague passages so nothing was subject to misinterpretation, misapplication, or mischief. The mention of his sword, a supposed mere family heirloom, had no place in the document. Besides, if the king didn’t already know what the sword was, writing it into the accord would make him suspicious of its worth. “But if it can be regained in any way.”

Fassal exhaled sharply. “I’ll buy you a Te-a Raha.”

“Brother...” Degarius wavered at what to say. He couldn’t tell even Fassal what his sword was. “Tell the king I wish to trade him my Gherian blade.” Degarius’s grandfather had a sword that belonged to a Gherian back in the old land whose chieftain was one of the first men in the wider world to receive the missionaries Lukis set out in boats to proclaim the death of The Scyon. Spurred by a vision of plundering The Scyon’s hoarded wealth and establishing a great kingdom, the chieftain raised an army and sent the women and children, too, across the sea. So no one would be tempted to stay behind, he’d burned the villages. In the new land, the Acadians fought them, torched their ships, and drove them to the north where they settled. “Tell the king I wish to trade because the sword he took is an heirloom I wish to pass along.”

“You have no heirs and at the rate you’re going, will never have any. Miss Gallivere was mortified that you came in sopping at the ball, unfit to dance or say a fair word to anyone. Then her mother—”

“Brother, do this one thing for me.”

The king’s secretary was waiting for them at the gated portal to the staterooms.

“I’ll do what I can,” Fassal said. “But not until after the accord is signed. I’ll not jeopardize it by instigating the king’s ill humor. I’ve run afoul of him once already.”

In the most lavish room Degarius had ever seen, the king, a general, and an admiral sat around an enormous table. Gilded molded plaster and official state portraits of the Lerouges covered the old stone walls. The signing of this accord was no light matter.

“My witnesses,” the king said. “Shall Captain Degarius suffice as yours?”

Fassal assented, so Degarius presented his work, and they took seats at the far end of the massive table.

The king, with no show of either approval or condemnation, took his time digesting the accord. Finally, he said to his witnesses, “This duplicates the stipulations I made orally with the Sarapostans for the deployment of Acadian forces against the Gherians. I agree as it stands, unless there are objections.”

None made, King Lerouge put his bold mark to the paper. The copies circulated to acquire the signatures of the witnesses. In inking his name, a small satisfaction settled on Degarius. It was nothing to a generalship, but his life’s goal was, after all, to assure peace for Sarapost and this document was a step in that direction.

The king dismissed the admiral and general. He extended his hand to Fassal. “Tonight, Sarapostans, come to dinner.”

Say something about my sword
, Degarius inwardly urged Fassal.

Fassal heartily shook the king’s hand. “Dinner? With pleasure. And I have a proposition for you. I’ve felt bad that I offered you a sword as paltry as my captain’s as assurance of my intentions. Your daughter is worth far more. I wish instead to give you one dear to my heart.”

Degarius’s hope rose. Oh, Fassal was damnably brilliant and eloquent. If the king didn’t know what his sword was, he’d surely agree to the terms.

“Swords, you say.” The king started past, motioning them to follow. “Come with me to see my collection. I know you are both connoisseurs of the blade, and I have a gift to dispense.”

A gift? Following the king far into the windowless interior of the Citadel, hope simmered in Degarius that King Lerouge was going to return his sword as a mark of goodwill.

They stopped before a heavily fortified door guarded by six soldiers. The king withdrew the key from a pocket deep within his robe. If this was where his sword was, it was a good thing Degarius never seriously contemplated trying to retake it. He’d have been able to handle three, but not six guards. And they didn’t have the key, the king did. To bust down that door, one needed a battering ram. The king opened it.

Rack after rack of historic weaponry hung from the walls. It was a magnificent collection in scope and depth. Where was
his
piece, Assaea? There it was, between a Tremblador blade and a wicked serrated knife with a carved bone grip. As when his grandmother first took the sword from his grandfather’s trunk in the attic at Ferne Clyffe, all his boyhood awe over the sword welled anew. After a summer spent plowing, mowing, and harvesting, it was nothing for his fourteen-year-old frame to haul his grandfather’s trunk into the dormer’s light. From the trunk, his grandmother unfolded a black uniform coat decorated with a patchwork of medals. It had belonged to his grandfather, General Stellan Degarius. She held it up to young Degarius’s shoulders and said, “You are Stellan all over again. He was the bravest of men. He would be so proud of you, Nanie. You work as hard as a grown man.” She gestured approvingly at his widened shoulders. “Your father couldn’t plow a quarter of what you do in a day.”

Being at Ferne Clyffe wasn’t hard, the boy Degarius thought. He loved the work, how it made his body ache and grow strong at the same time. He loved the smell of freshly broken earth, of green growing things, of hay drying. Was anything finer than hearing the crack of a watermelon splitting open and then feasting on the miracle of its sweet, red middle? It was hard, though, to hear his father disparaged. His grandmother never forgave his father for choosing a career in diplomacy. She said Gherians were a stubborn race. They never listened to words, only force.

“I want to show you something,” his grandmother said. She set aside the uniform and dug a velvet-wrapped parcel from the bottom of the chest. “It was found in Gheria, at my childhood home when my father dug footings for a barn.” She uncovered an old sword and scabbard. “I gave it to my Stellan when we married.” The faraway, wavering glint of nostalgia animated her eyes. “What do you think of it?”

“It is beautiful, Grandmother Lina.”

“Your grandfather would want you to have it.” She placed the sword in his hands. “Would you like it?”

The sword’s grip was surprisingly at home in his grasp. “Yes, I’d like it very much.”

“Study hard, Nanie. Learn how to handle a sword. Only then will I trust it to your keeping. You see, it’s a special sword. Can you keep a secret, one even your father doesn’t know?”

So much for trusting it to his keeping. Now the king had it. Lerouge motioned them to another rack. “As a mark of our friendship, I show you something few have seen. Here is Artell, the most famous of all swords.”

Degarius looked with earnest awe...and relief. Artell looked nothing like Assaea. Lukis and Paulus had carried distinct, unique blades. The king hadn’t stored them together. Perhaps he didn’t suspect what Degarius’s sword was. He paid no extra attention to it. The Solacian had kept his secret.

The king’s hand went to the rack, but it didn’t take Artell. He removed the blade below it. “This is the Citrian Heart, my personal favorite piece.” The king fondled the silver hilt whose end encompassed an enormous heart-shaped ruby. “The stone is flawless. The Citrian prelate’s foolish second son, Demetrius, filched it and secretly wagered it against me for autonomous rule of his province in the ’04 Brevard tournament. Though held to be the best swordsman of his time, Demetrius fell before ever reaching the round with me. It was the easiest bet I ever won.”

Demetrius. What unsavory thing had Degarius heard about the famous swordsman’s last tournament? Ah yes, Degarius’s sword master was at Brevard when Demetrius, deemed unbeatable, fell to an unknown Acadian in only the second round. The sword master insinuated that Demetrius’s death was a foul thing. With only a little cut upon him, Demetrius collapsed and died. The king’s physician said his heart gave out. Poisoned blade, Degarius’s sword master said.

The king’s loving expression as he replaced the Citrian Heart rankled Degarius. The king was utterly without honor. By duplicity, he took what he wanted. What would he have done to get Assaea if he knew the truth of what it was?

“Now, what I came here for,” said the king. “As a symbol of Acadia’s good faith in your commitment to our treaty, I present you with this Te-a Raha, a fine sword from our renowned Acadian craftsman. It’s not fancy, isn’t for show or to display its owner’s wealth because it’s merely what a sword should be—strong and lethal. Te-a Rahas must swing. Other pieces, the ones you see here, need to be locked away, kept pristine. They are a record of history not to be defiled by common hands.”

“My humble thanks,” Fassal said as he accepted the blade.

It was the least valuable piece in the room, the only thing that wouldn’t be defiled by
Sarapostan
hands. How did Fassal manage to thank the king with such seemingly real gratitude?

Fassal glanced to Degarius and then to the far rack. “King Lerouge, there is Degarius’s sword. I truly wish to give you much finer.”

The king headed to that rack and took Assaea from the support.

Though he never prayed, Degarius asked in his heart for his sword. It was the one thing dear to him.

King Lerouge held the sword, turned it this way and that. “You make a generous offer, Fassal, but my son will like this well enough. He will be home in the next moon, but it is his birthday within the week and I wish him to have it.” The king called for a guard. “Have this delivered to Prince Lerouge. Send it on the
Triesis
. It’s leaving on the next tide, within the hour. Hurry.”

As the sword left the room, bitterness over the futile prayer gushed into Degarius. The sword wasn’t in his hands,
and
it would be on a ship. One foul blast of weather could send it to the bottom of the sea. So much for a benevolent Maker. Degarius considered begging off and trying to intercept the soldiers on their way to the docks. Perhaps even sneak on the ship. It might be done. But King Lerouge wasn’t dim. Even if Degarius hired men to do it, the king would suspect Sarapost behind the theft as they had just practically begged for the sword’s return. Wouldn’t it be worth the risk? Still, he came back to the fact that the king would intuit him behind the theft of the sword and put a price on his head. Then, even if he escaped to Sarapost, Degarius knew Fassal would never forgive him unless he revealed what the sword was. The one thing Degarius cherished in this life was irretrievable, at least until the prince returned to Acadia. The prince!
He
might be persuaded to trade. Reputed to be a historian and a man of taste, he would see the value of the Gherian blade.

And Lerouge would be back in the next moon.

Feast of the Saviors, Shacra Paulus

T
he bell of the Saviors’ Gate rang midnight and the lamps in Acadia, and every place in the Easternland, went dark. With far less than his usual enjoyment of the event, Degarius held his paper boat, a sleeve of white paper fixed to a light wooden base. Its cargo was a short candle. As a boy at Ferne Clyffe, he’d delighted in this final day of the Feast of the Saviors. After two days of fasting to remember the dark, hard centuries under The Scyon and the draeden, the midnight ceremony of a bonfire burning of an effigy of a draeden and the lighting of the candle-boats ushered in a grand dinner and games to celebrate Lukis and Paulus’s victory and the return of the world to its natural order. Like most boys, on the second day of the feast he’d dressed as Lukis or Paulus and taken his sword against a straw draeden. Later, because of what his grandmother whispered about his sword, he’d always chosen to be Paulus. It was a damn cruel time to lose the sword.