Voices of Blaze (Volume 5 of The Fireblade Array) Page 23

  Dorlunh sighed. “No, not to my knowledge. She is lauded in Sunidara for her faithfulness to him. Dutiful Dorinna, they call her.”

  Of course. Morghiad knew that. He had heard it said enough times during his years teaching at Fate’s.

  “As rulers go, she is pure as the snows in Kemen,” Dorlunh continued, “So I cannot fathom why you would want to manipulate her. If anything, Morghiad, this raises my suspicions about your motives, as does your secrecy.”

  Morghiad rolled his eyes. “I am not the untrustworthy one

  here.”

  Before they could continue with their discussion, there was a knock on the door. A messenger was admitted, and he handed Morghiad a note. It was from his daughter.

  He tore it open as fast as he could, but Kalad said the words almost as soon as he read them. “Mirel’s escaped.”

  No. No! It was too late!

  Pain woman, pain woman, pain woman! PAIN AND

  SUFFERING! the creatures screamed in his mind. Blazes, but they were so loud he could hardly hear anything but them!

  “I should take you out of here,” Morghiad said to his son. “While you are still alive. This place... it is too much of an opportunity to her.”

  Kalad folded his arms and shook his head. “No. We’ve come this far. I’m not turning back now. If we explain to Mirel how importa-”

  “She cannot be reasoned with. Dorlunh, tell him.” The monsters were still raging in his head, but Morghiad walked directly to the window so that he could stare at the sun and shut the little bastards up.

  Dorlunh cleared his throat. “Mirel is... she is a dangerous and mad woman. If you care for your own skin, you would do well to leave this place. If you wish to finish this treaty however, you do have Romarr, your father and I

  watching over you.”

  “Dorlunh!” Morghiad hissed, but Dorlunh did not so much as flinch.

  “The treaty goes ahead,” Kalad said. “We will tell Irannya to increase the number of guards she has about.”

  Morghiad sighed. “Guards are wooden toys to Mirel. She’ll only knock more of them over. Betterjust to let her walk in.”

  Dorlunh nodded in agreement.

  “Are you sure about this Kalad?” Morghiad asked. “This is your life-”

  “Exactly. My life. We continue.”

  Morghiad’s concerns soon shifted to Medea. She had Tallyn Hunter watching over her, but who could say if that would be enough? Blazes, how had Mirel even escaped? He would go to his daughter as soon as this was done, and he would take Kalad with him. It was the only way.

  Unless... Mirel would probably anticipate that much. Perhaps it would be better if the children were in different locations.

  It was then that he remembered something Artemi had given him. He reached to the buckle on his sword strap, unclasped it and took the weapon down from his back to hold upright. Slowly and carefully, he withdrew the glittering blade from its scabbard, and listened closely to its fine song. It was a

  beautiful thing to behold indeed, and made more so by the echoes of Artemi’s power that still lay within it. He waited there for a moment, his son and Dorlunh staring at him as if he had gone mad, but Artemi’s stream did not pop into existence as he had hoped.

  “What was that all about?” Kalad asked.

  “Doesn’t matter.” Morghiad said. “We have negotiations to be getting on with.”

  The talks soon commenced anew, and Morghiad found himself avoiding the gaze of Queen Dorinna throughout. Perhaps it would put her off, he considered, if he could find a family tree that demonstrated how they were related. All kings and queens of Sennefhal shared blood somewhere in their pedigree. Once or twice during the discussions, he even found himself wishing that Mirel would sweep in and remove the

  problem for him altogether. But she did not arrive, and Kalad’s speech the previous evening had oiled the talks enough to make them run like a mechanical clock.

  The negotiations drew to a close with remarkably little squabbling by late afternoon, but it took another seven days before each ofthe nine nations appeared, outwardly at least, to be ready to sign. In that time, Queen Dorinna did not retract her demands, or amend them

  even slightly. By the final night of the negotiations, Morghiad felt he had aged another century.

  Millennia of peace and a failure as a husband, he thought as he looked across the table at King Paolin. Ruler of the Shifting Sands of Sunidara; Hand of Justice before the Blazing Sun, to give him some of his titles.

  Dead-eyed fool, said the monsters. Deadfool.

  A servant approached the king before the monsters could

  say anything further, drew back his long hair and reached over to cut up his food. Then, he raised the spoon to his master’s mouth and the piecemeal bites were accepted gladly.

  “Eeh umm. That’s good,” the king slurped appreciatively. Blazes, could the man not feed himself?

  The queen appeared to be pushing her food about her plate, her lips expressionless and her eyes focussed on nothing. Five

  children. How had she managed to produce five children with that melted pudding of a man? Morghiad cast his eyes over the two boys who were present. They certainly looked like the man they called father; that nose was unmistakable, and one ofthem had his mother’s ravenwood curls about his head.

  Dorinna had done her duty for her country, it seemed, so perhaps it was not unthinkable for her to desire something

  pleasant for herself. Few kings or queens had ever married for love, and Morghiad knew that he had been more than fortunate to have Artemi at all. A life at court without at least a hope of her presence was unimaginable to him.

  He lived in hope now, he thought with a wry smile. Almost instinctively, he searched the ether for any trace of her stream, but it and she were still absent. Indeed, Morghiad understood all

  too well what it meant to long for something he could not have, and he knew how deeply the pain of that longing could dig its claws. He offered Dorinna a sympathetic smile as they ate, before returning to his conversation with his son.

  Afterward, he was able to sneak into her chambers – chambers unsurprisingly separate from those of her husband without her guards there to witness him. He only needed to

  wait until the moon had filled the frame of the nearest window for her to enter. So serene was Queen Dorinna that she did not even twitch when he moved out from among the shadows.

  A hand around the throat to silence her, whispered the monsters.

  No. Morghiad would not murder this unfortunate woman.

  “You have come to fulfil the terms of our bargain, good king?” she asked as she glided toward

  him.

  Years ago, Morghiad would have endeavoured to maintain a respectable distance from a woman who approached too steadily, but that had been his old, Calidellian self. Hirrahan men most certainly did not back away under any circumstances. To move away demonstrated fear, subservience and uncertainty of purpose. He felt none ofthose things. “I have come to reason with you. You are an intelligent

  all.”

  woman, after

  She came close enough to share his breath with him. “You give me something I need, and I will give you what you need.”

  “This continent needs the treaty. It is not about my needs or yours. And if this is truly what you want, you could choose anyone else to love you, Dorinna. Anyone but me.”

  Dorinna raised her hand toward his lidir; she began twirling them about her fingers.

  “With so much at stake, what I ask for is a small thing indeed.” He sighed and ceased her hand from making further explorations through his hair. “It does not need to be with me.” “The love you share with your wife is fast becoming a legend of its own.” The queen moved away and began a slow, ambling circuit ofthe room. “It has crossed so many boundaries: rank, nationality, age, experience... life and death. To

  know a love like that – what it must feel like! Fires, I cannot even begin to imagine!”
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br />   “It is difficult,” Morghiad said.

  “What?”

  “Loving her is no easy thing, believe me, but I am driven to it. I have no choice.”

  “I want to know that love.” She nodded toward him. “From you. No other man has ever loved a woman as you love your Artemi Fireblade. Let me experience it.”

  Words drained from his mind altogether, and several moments passed before he could summon any new ones to his lips. “It cannot just be set alight like a hearth log – and to suggest that I could love another woman... What you ask is impossible.”

  “I want to be her, with you.”

  “It would be a lie.”

  “Then learn to lie well!”

  Morghiad shook his head. “Out ofthe question.”

  “Then your peace will fail.”

  Morghiad seated himself on the edge of the bed and rubbed at his stubble. He had always known that he would give up everything and anything for Artemi. He had very nearly signed away Calidell in order to guarantee her life, and he would have done so again ifthe situation had demanded it. But this was not about her survival. This was about his guilt. He would be sacrificing his own conscience, and not any part ofArtemi. This

  did not have to harm her at all. He could not make himself love Dorinna, and certainly not when she had put him in so galling a position, but for the lives of thousands of innocents... surely he could pretend? He regarded her as she stood in the moonlight, ravenwood curls cascading to her hips and delicate hands clasped at her waist. She was long-faced and blue eyed, and undeniably beautiful with it. Men had been forced to do far

  worse things than make love in the name of peace.

  He rose, paced the room several times, and eventually said a very quiet, “I’ll do as you ask.”

  The Queen of Sunidara drew close to him on soft feet, and began raining kisses onto his neck. Blazes, but he missed Artemi! He would have been the first to admit that he needed something to take the pain away, to stop the hurt and quell the monsters in his mind. He was

  permitted that much, wasn’t he? And surely this could only help, couldn’t it - to prevent himself from revisiting that madness again?

  You were closer to sanity then.

  The queen had already begun unlacing his shirt, and her soft fingers brushed over his skin in a manner so reminiscent of his wife’s. How he wished he could hold her close to him at that moment; he needed her. Light of

  Achellon, which would have been worse: to see Artemi – fire of his lives, mother of his children heartbroken by his actions, or to watch the world they shared burn because he allowed himself to become morose in her absence? And it would be a pleasure with this queen, wouldn’t it? Even if it was not with the only woman he had ever truly loved?

  The queen kissed him, and she was so free of fire that each touch of her lips felt like a

  hundred snowflakes landing on his. Morghiad pulled her closer to him, his hands circling her waist as they had so often circled Artemi’s.

  She was not completely innocent of having ventured beyond their bond, either, he reminded himself. She had shared a kiss with Silar, and Morghiad had come to accept it after a time, though the thought still made his insides twist and knot. The Sunidaran queen’s hands

  were venturing... somewhere they really ought not to venture to, but it was not at all unpleasant.

  “Call me fire of your heart,” Dorinna whispered between kisses.

  “Fire of my heart,” he said back to her, imagining that it was his Artemi that he held.

  He ran his fingers through her hair, and it was as silky and as cool as his eyes had promised it would be. “My Artemi,” he repeated over and over.

  Dorinna had removed all his clothes from his skin, and already his nakedness added to the bitter ice he felt in his bones. To have spent more time unbuttoning her dress would have left him too cold, and so he grabbed his nearest dagger, pressed her body against his for her heat, and used the blade to cut through all of her complex fastenings. Besides, if it had been Artemi who stood before him, he would never have been patient enough to wait for

  sensible divestment.

  She was wide-eyed as he picked her up and cast her onto the bed, but all he could see now was Artemi. Artemi and her golden-red hair. Artemi and her beckoning lips. Artemi and her claws that dug at the flesh in his back when they made love. His perfect Artemi.

  Lannda shivered and pulled the soft wool of her robe more securely around herself. She could feel the way the world turned on its axis, she was sure, and something had just made it falter. The end was approaching now. She could feel its breath upon her neck and the ferocity of its gaze upon her back. It was coming for her. It was coming for everyone.

  With a tremor in her hand, she poured out the last piece of drinkable liquid from the fermenting barrel to the bottle. If there was one thing she knew about, it was how to make fungus turn plain food into excellent food. With a good harvest, a perfected technique and a little help from the Blazes, this was most certainly her finest batch of

  wine to date. She tasted a sample of it, and smiled to herself in spite of her own fears. Dry, tangy and rich: this was not just good wine, this would be the finest wine the world had ever seen. And what better time to enjoy such a creation than when the world was about to end?

  The barrel gave out a small creak as she set it straight again, and Lannda began the laborious process of hammering the corks into the bottles. She had owned

  this tanno vineyard for a good thousand years or so, and had only been forced to offtwo owners who presumed to buy it upon her deaths. Such small competition was surprising really, given the perfect nature of the land for the crop and the maturity of the vines. But then, it was said that the local village folk constructed stories about her, and that they were afraid. It did not matter; they still drank her

  Lannda looked to the east. “Sister?”

  “I am here.” Mirel approached on silent, graceful feet. There had been times when Lannda had envied the skills her sister had, but swords and blood had never been her strength. Lannda had another purpose, and another hundred roles. The Lawkeepers knew it, just as they knew all. “Things are changing,” she said, setting her hammer on the floor. “I can feel the advance of

  the decay. It moves faster through the air now.”

  Mirel nodded. “The girlqueen knows it too. She has scouts monitoring the deserts as they grow. They merge with Tegra’s now.”

  “That is nothing new.” Lannda sniffed. “Something else has changed. Something important. I hope you are ready for this fight, warrior.”

  “I have always been ready.”

  “Good. It is time for you to

  receive your instructions. You are to travel to Hirrah to find a young man and one other. You must take the Sky Bridges tonight and ride as fast as you can. The man’s name is Kalad Jade’an. I’m told it is a mission you will very much enjoy. Now, the details of it are this...”

  The cold fabric of a glove clamped over Medea’s mouth before she could scream, and another arm wrapped around her waist tighter than a lasso. She wriggled and squawked, and then tried to wield to push her attacker away, but the form melted to nothingness as soon as

  she had finished making it. She tried a second time, but again a kanaala tore her form out ofthe air. Fires burn him! Couldn’t her guards hear her muffled shouts, or even her wriggling?

  She kicked out hard with her feet, and managed to dislodge a bowl from a side cabinet as she was dragged past it. The bowl fell to the floor and shattered noisily, pieces skittering and tinkling across the crystal floor.

  Hah! Her guards would hear that and come to her rescue in an instant. Except, as she was manhandled all the way to the doors to her chamber, they did not come for her. Blazes, had they been... had they been murdered? They would not have dared to fall asleep at such a time, not when so much was at risk.

  Her captor kicked the door open with one foot and pulled her into the hallway, where she

&
nbsp; writhed and wriggled as violently as she could. But it was no good. The man had a hold on her like a damned vice! She glanced quickly around the corridor, but could see no sign of her soldiers alive or dead. What in the fires was going on?!

  Medea tried wielding again, but the form was snuffed out before she could blink. Whoever he was, he was worryingly capable. He all but carried her into a side-passage, though her

  feet still flailed, and Medea realised that this man must have had access to information about her security arrangements. Few people knew about this corridor, and few could possibly have known it was the route with no guards along it. Her heart sank as the truth became clear to her: someone close had betrayed her, and now they planned to use her for ransom. Ifthey had planned to kill her, then she would have already been dead in her

  chambers.

  Perhaps this was the work ofthe di Firenzans; perhaps they had offered a great deal of money for her capture so that they could lay claim to her throne. And perhaps Koviere had been right; perhaps she had nominated an heir too soon.