Authors: Mark Anthony
Eminda appeared unimpressed. “So you killed him then. I would not put it past one of the bulls of Vathris to make such a sacrifice for one of his lord’s plans. You thought you could use this story to frighten us, to force us to choose the way you wish. But I will not be made a fool by you, Boreas.” Her voice rose to a shrill pitch. “You will not have your reckoning—not until these arguments are done in proper order. I will not allow it!”
Boreas did not speak but instead let out a wordless sound of rage. Grace gazed at Eminda. How could the queen of Eredane be so blind? How could all of them be so blind? Didn’t they see what was right before them? She ran her eyes over the chamber in a desperate search for Logren. Maybe he could talk to his queen, maybe he could put an end to this. However, she did not see the high counselor of Eredane. There was no hope. The kings and queens rose from their chairs. Eminda turned away. There would be no reckoning, no muster for war.…
“What’s wrong with you?” a voice said. It was soft and quavering, yet somehow it carried across the air of the council chamber. “What’s wrong with all of you?”
Grace searched for the speaker, then she saw him. He stood before the first row of benches, clad in a shapeless tunic, his gray eyes stricken behind wire-rimmed spectacles. Travis. The rulers stared at him.
Travis took a step toward the table. “Don’t you hear what he’s telling you?” His voice rose, thick with anger and fear. “Don’t you see what’s right in front of you? The Pale King isn’t a myth. He’s real, and his servants are here in this castle. He tried to kill Kylar, and any one of you could be next. How can you all be so stupid?”
Travis started toward the council table. The kings leaped back in alarm. Eminda cried out in horror.
“Get him back,” she shrieked. “Get this creature back!”
Beltan sprang forward to pull Travis back to the bench, but the knight was too slow.
“You’ve got to do something!” Travis was shouting now. “You’ve got to do something before it’s too late!” As he spoke this last word he pounded his fist against the stone table.
A flash like lightning filled the chamber, and thunder rent the air. Cries of terror and dismay echoed off the walls. Grace blinked in disbelief. Even as she watched a dark line snaked across the council table from the place where Travis had hit it. The crack plunged toward the center of the table, then struck the white disk embedded there. The disk shattered into pieces, obscuring the symbol drawn upon it. Travis leaped back, then looked down at his hand, his expression one of horror.
The chamber was quiet now. All eyes gazed at the table. Then Falken spoke in a low voice.
“The rune of peace has been broken.”
Grace heard a sharp intake of breath beside her. She turned to look at Tressa. The red-haired woman gazed forward, her eyes bright and intense. A whispered word escaped her lips.
“Runebreaker.”
The council was in chaos now. The rulers hurried from the hall, and the nobles fled their seats. Travis still stood
beside the table and stared at his hand. Beltan, Melia, and Falken were with him now.
Grace rose and pushed against the crowd. She didn’t feel fear, but exhilaration. Something important had just taken place, something that needed to happen. These people had grown so complacent, their minds so closed. Now they saw that their precious peace could be broken after all. Now maybe they would do something.
She pushed past two fleeing nobles, then reached the others. “Travis,” she said.
He looked up, his expression haunted.
“That was wonderful, Travis,” she said. “What you did—you woke them up. It was absolutely wonderful!”
She reached out to grip his hand, but he pulled away.
“No, Grace. All I ever do is break things.”
Before the others could stop him, Travis turned and ran from the chamber.
Travis looked up at the iron-gray clouds that swirled above the castle and wondered if he would ever see the indigo-dyed Colorado sky again.
He shivered and gathered his mistcloak closer around him. Maybe it was better here. Maybe it was better to be a world away from the memories. Except somehow that never stopped him from remembering.
Good night, Big Brother
.
’Night, Bug
.
The winter wind carried his sigh away.
It had been three days since he had broken the rune of peace in the council chamber. Falken had said the rune had been bound centuries ago by the greatest of the Runebinders. How could Travis have had the power to break it? Yet somehow he had. He could still feel the energy coursing down his arm, through his hand, and into the stone table.
In their chamber, Falken had questioned him again and again about that moment, but Travis still wasn’t certain exactly what had happened, exactly what he had done. He had
been so angry, that was all—angry with the rulers and their unwillingness to accept the truth in front of them. He had seen the dark clouds over Imbrifale, he had seen the fell light of the wraithlings, and he had seen the iron heart Grace had cut out of a dead man’s chest. How could they still not believe? He had only meant to pound on the table, but the anger had flowed out of him, lightning down a wire, and he had not been able to stop it.
Queen Eminda had called for Travis’s head on a trencher when the council met the next day. It was no secret she cared little for runespeakers or magic. Luckily for Travis, Boreas had prevailed. The king had argued that if Eminda was concerned about the breaking of the rune of peace, then surely she had to be concerned about the broken rune Falken had showed the council, the seal from the Rune Gate. It had been a brilliant gambit on Boreas’s part, and Eminda had shut up at once. Travis had not seen it—he was not going anywhere near the council chamber—but Grace had described the scene to him, and he could picture the queen of Eredane, her face red and puffy with outrage, not daring to speak for fear of weakening her own position. Even in defeat there were little triumphs.
After Boreas defended Travis to the council, the king had requested to see him, and Falken had taken him to Boreas’s chamber. Travis knew, in some ways, that what he had done had helped Boreas’s cause. All the same, he expected the king to be furious with him for his outburst in the council chamber. Once the door shut he had braced his shoulders and wondered how much he would scream while Boreas used those powerful hands to tear him limb from limb.
To his astonishment, the king had nodded to him in solemn greeting, offered him wine, and bidden him sit down. He had spoken with Travis for a short time while Falken stood nearby. The king had wanted to know if Travis had broken any runes before, and if so how many.
At last, questions over, the king had gazed into the fire. “Legend held that Calavan would never fall while the rune of peace was bound in the council table.”
Travis had opened his mouth. Was the king blaming him for putting the Dominion in danger?
“No, Goodman,” Boreas had said. “Calavan is not in danger
because you broke the rune. You broke the rune because Calavan is in danger.” The king had drawn in a deep breath, then looked up. “You may go now.”
In the two days since, Travis had spent most of his time wandering through the castle alone. He had stopped his studies with the Runespeakers, despite the protestations of both Rin and Falken. The only point in studying runes was to learn how to control his power, and clearly that had failed. What was the point in continuing? To grow even stronger so the next time he could hurt more than just stone?
I won’t do it, Jack. I don’t know why you did this to me, but it couldn’t be for that—it couldn’t be to hurt people
.
Falken had grown angry when Travis refused to resume his studies, but—to Travis’s surprise—Melia had laid a hand on the bard’s arm.
“Let him go, Falken,” she had said. “He needs to decide this for himself.”
He had given her a grateful look, and she had nodded, her amber eyes thoughtful. Then he had left the chamber. He didn’t know what he hoped to find in his wanderings, but they calmed him somehow and helped him think. Maybe all he wanted were a few fragments of his own broken peace. After all, the storm would be coming soon enough.
A tangled wall of green rose before him, and an arch of stone provided a doorway. From beyond came a faint, sweet scent and the sound of water. The castle’s garden.
Travis started to move past the archway, then hesitated. He cocked his head. It sounded as if someone had called his name. He listened again, but now all he heard was the breath of the wind and the distant voice of water. No doubt that was all it had been. Still, the garden beckoned to him. He stepped through the arch into the private space beyond.
Despite the lateness of the year and the frosty air, some things still grew in the garden. None of the plants were familiar to him. There was a vine with glossy leaves that climbed up the walls, and a kind of feathery evergreen that grew in clumps. The ground was covered with leaves, and trees stretched bare branches overhead, weaving a net to catch the lowering sky.
A path of flat stones drew him onward, past a fountain rimed with ice. A mossy carpet surrounded the fountain,
dotted with pale flowers, each as small and delicate as a snowflake. It was from these that rose the winter-forest scent. The path took him deeper into the garden. Travis did not resist. This was a peaceful place.
No, not peaceful. It’s wilder than that. More like it’s resting, waiting. But waiting for what? Or for whom
?
He kept walking. The path led through another archway, into a grotto. Then he halted and looked up in awe.
They were locked in mortal struggle.
The stone they were carved from was white, but Travis sensed that, even in life, the bull would have been the same color. He could almost see muscles rippling beneath its milky skin, flexing as it strained against the warrior.
The man was naked and beautiful. Stone curls tumbled back from his brow. His visage was proud, fierce, and too perfect to be merely human. Like the bull, muscles coursed beneath the smooth surface of his skin, across wide shoulders, along lean hips, down powerful legs. The thick root of his phallus stood erect. Had he been molded in flesh instead of stone, Travis knew there was not a living person who could have refused the warrior’s will or desire. Or his knife.
The warrior gripped the knife in his left hand, and the sculptor had caught him in the exact moment of plunging the blade into the bull’s throat. The bull’s head was tilted back, its eyes wide and its mouth open, so that Travis could almost hear its death bellow. Liquid poured from the slit in the bull’s neck, only it wasn’t blood. It was water. The water ran down the bull’s throat, flowed into a basin at the foot of the statue, then trickled away, into the garden.
“A fine specimen,” said an admiring voice. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
Travis whirled around. A new patch of green had appeared in the garden, as brilliant as emeralds.
The woman walked toward him, though
saunter
might have been the better word. She was beautiful, though not at all in the hard, white manner of the warrior. She was all curves and soft edges. Dark gold hair tumbled over her shoulders, and her skin had the luscious glow of an apricot. Only her eyes were hard and bright, the same color as her gown.
Travis fumbled for an answer.
A fine specimen
. He didn’t
know if she meant the warrior or the bull. Or maybe she had been talking about
him
.
No, that wasn’t likely. He scratched his scruffy beard and hunched his shoulders inside his shapeless tunic. Who was she? What did she want of him?
“A friend,” she said. “And only to talk to you.”
He sucked in a breath.
Her lips parted to reveal small, white teeth. “I am Kyrene, Countess of Selesia.”
Somehow Travis remembered his manners. He fumbled for her hand, brushed his lips against it, and let it fall. “I’m Travis Wilder.”
Now that she was closer he saw there was a wildness to her, like the garden—no, that wasn’t so. The garden was calm and peaceful. However, there was an unsettling edge to her gaze. Her luxuriant hair was unbrushed, and her gown, though fashionably revealing, was crooked and in need of adjustment.
She moved past him toward the statue. “Vathris Bullslayer,” Kyrene hissed. She turned her emerald gaze on him. “There are those who think killing with a sword is the answer to everything. Is that what you think as well, Travis Wilder?”
He looked down at his hands. “No. It’s never right to hurt another. Never.”
The scent of apricots. He looked up, and now she was beside him. Her breasts were two ripe fruits in the pearled basket of her bodice. Wasn’t she cold?
“You travel in interesting company, Goodman Travis.”
“You mean Falken and Melia.”
“Yes, Falken Blackhand and Melindora Nightsilver are well known in these lands, if not always well regarded. But you have a fine, strong friend in the king’s nephew. Are you and Beltan very … close?”
She laughed, but it was a queer sound, and the hair on his neck prickled. Something told him he should go, but he felt rooted to the spot, as if the garden’s vines had grown up to tangle themselves around his legs.
“What do you want?” he whispered.
“Only to ask you something, love.” Her voice was soothing, yet pierced his skull all the same. She plucked a leaf
from a bush. “There are those of us who believe in the power of life.” She dropped the leaf to the ground and crushed it under her slipper. “And there are those who believe that destroying things is always the answer.”
He could not take his eyes off her. Despite the frigid air, sweat trickled down his sides. She lifted a hand and brushed his scruffy cheeks.
“You should not hide behind that beard, love. Yours is a comely face.”
He licked his lips. It was so hard to
think
. His mind felt like it was covered in honey. “What did you want to ask me?”
“It is nothing, really. Only a small thing. You see, I saw what you did in the council chamber, the rune you broke, and I was wondering if I might look at your hand.…”