Rise (20 page)

BOSQUE’S TASK OFFERED
Alistair a welcome distraction, but it wasn’t always enough. Though he’d set himself to spending long hours in the scribes’ quarters, jotting notes and sketching visions of his ultimate goal, his mind still found occasion to wander until it came upon Ember.

He’d made an effort to avoid confronting his worst fears about her. As Eira sent her emissaries to entreat their counterparts across Europe and Asia to join her, they’d had a few reports about what might have befallen the small band of rebels who fled Tearmunn. A rash of shipwrecks had plagued the western European coast, with the few survivors relating strange tales of their doomed voyages. Some spoke of a terrible sea monster that attacked their ship, while others recalled only a maelstrom suddenly appearing beneath their vessel, the vortex pulling the crew and passengers into a watery death spiral.

The stories of chaos and death abounded, but no reports of stranded knights appeared in the flurry of news, leaving Alistair to wonder about Ember’s fate. Setting his quill on the desk, Alistair stretched his arms back. His muscles had grown sore from maintaining a hunched position so long.

“Interesting work.”

Alistair gave a yelp. He hadn’t heard Bosque enter the library, but now the tall man was leaning over his shoulder, peering at the drawings Alistair had scratched out on a length of vellum.

Recovering himself, Alistair turned to face Bosque. “Will you sit? I have some ideas I’d like to share with you.”

“I’d be honored.” Bosque settled into the scribe’s desk next to Alistair’s.

Alistair handed Bosque a sheet of notes he’d already cut from the vellum scroll. He waited while Bosque’s eyes flitted over the page.

“An ambitious plan.”

“But possible.” Alistair considered putting his words to Bosque as a question, but had decided to do so would make him sound doubtful about his work.

“Yes.” Bosque set the page on the desk. “What do you need from me?”

Picking up the quill, Alistair stroked the length of the swan feather to calm his nerves. “If you’ve found any of the clerics who have sworn fealty to Eira particularly skilled, I’d like to have their names.”

Bosque nodded, but watched Alistair expectantly.

Of course he knows that’s not all
, Alistair thought. Bosque had an uncanny ability to sense things that remained unsaid.

“And…” Alistair’s mouth had gone dry. “Your blood.”

Though Alistair hadn’t known what reaction to expect, he didn’t know what to say when Bosque simply tilted his head, as though amused.

“It’s the key to their healing,” Alistair continued, tapping his quill on the page.

“I understand,” Bosque replied. “That’s very clever.”

Alistair ducked his head in respect. “Thank you, Lord Mar.”

Rising, Bosque said, “Hamish has considerable power, but has been disconsolate since losing his ability to weave. He needs a new focus for his magics. I will send him to you.”

Bosque placed his hands behind his back, taking a turn around the desk. “You should find somewhere to put your enchantments through trials. It should be hidden. I’d suggest the catacombs beneath the chapel. Father Michael can show you the entrance; it is known only to a few within the keep.”

“I’d like to begin the trials,” Alistair said, gazing at the sketch he’d just finished. He glanced at Bosque and his heart convulsed with fear. “But who—”

Bosque answered before Alistair had finished his question. “The stockades have begun to fill with those whose reluctance to join us has made them suspect. Start there.”

“We don’t need them for questioning?” Alistair asked.

“I’ll send you those who have nothing to offer us but cannot be trusted to go free,” Bosque told him. “They are prisoners now and will remain prisoners under your… care. Be prepared to receive them on the morrow.”

Alistair stood and gave a quick bow. “I will, my lord.”

As he passed Alistair to depart the library, Bosque said, “I’m pleased you didn’t limit your vision. Ambition is the fertile soil in which true power can be cultivated.”

When Bosque was gone, Alistair settled back into the desk. He found he couldn’t return immediately to his drawing, due to the shaking of his hands. It wasn’t fear that caused the tremor through his limbs, but excitement crackling beneath his skin. Not only had Bosque been pleased with his work, but he believed it would come to fruition.

My vision. My creation.

Lifting his still-trembling hand, Alistair delicately touched the image on the vellum. At a glance, the sketch might have appeared to be someone’s dream of strange knights who rode to war upon wolves.

But wolf mounts were not what Alistair aimed to create. Not at all.

Alistair opened and closed his fingers several times, hoping to still them.

“Lord Hart!” A servant burst into the library. “Lord Hart! You must come!”

Jumping to his feet, Alistair rushed to meet the breathless servant. “What is it?”

“In the armory,” the boy panted. “A portal has opened.”

“From where?” Alistair asked. He grabbed the boy’s shirt, tugging him along as he made quick strides through the manor.

“They didn’t tell me,” the servant answered.

Alistair grunted in frustration, his mind a rush of possibilities. Eira had been waiting for a portal to open. They would send a group of emissaries through, to continue the work that the first envoys had begun. No longer able to open portals at Tearmunn, they’d been forced to rely on conventional means of travel, slowing their ability to reach the furthest outposts of Conatus.

“Has Lady Eira been alerted?” Alistair asked as they crossed the courtyard.

The boy wheezed, trying to catch his breath. “I think they sent another servant.”

“If you don’t know for certain, then make sure.” Alistair let go of the boy and shoved him in the direction of the manor. “Go to the great hall.”

The servant darted away, and Alistair broke into a run. He slammed his way through the barracks, ignoring the startled cries of the servants he plowed over as he bolted to the armory.

A cluster of guards and clerics had gathered there, and Alistair had to push his way through them to reach the portal. He stopped when he reached the edge of the crowd, pausing to take in the shimmering doorway. Two guards with weapons drawn had taken up sentinel posts on each side of the portal. They stood up a bit straighter when Alistair approached.

“When did it open?” Alistair asked them.

“About ten minutes ago,” one of the knights answered. “Lady Eira’s orders were followed—two of the Guard went through so the portal would not be closed.”

“Very good.” Alistair gazed at the gleaming door. “Has anyone come through?”

The other knight shook his head. “Not from their side yet. I suspect the appearance of two of ours on the other side the moment the door was open shocked them, and they wanted to know why. Our men will explain quickly enough.”

“Where is it?” Peering at the door, Alistair could see the hazy image of a room not unlike the many halls of Tearmunn, but no identifying details were in view.

“I’m not sure, my lord,” the knight answered.

A knight wearing the Conatus tabard came into sight on the other side of the door, followed by a hooded, cloaked figure. Alistair stepped back, making way for the travelers to pass through the portal.

When the knight emerged in the armory, he eyed the gathered crowd and his two armed counterparts with surprise.

“Have things gone so badly here that you expect enemies to come through our portals?” the knight asked, his words inflected with a heavy French accent.

Alistair stepped forward. “Not so, my friend. We are well. I am Lord Hart, commander of the Guard at Tearmunn.”

The Frenchman’s mouth twitched when Alistair named himself commander, but he didn’t offer a reply.

“May I have your name?” Alistair pushed his cloak back, putting his sword hilt in plain view.

“Jérôme Fauré, of the Cernon Guard,” the knight answered. “I took it upon myself to conduct a lost soul back to your keep.”

Jérôme moved aside, beckoning to the hooded figure waiting on the other side of the portal. From the sway of the stranger’s hips, Alistair took Jérôme’s companion to be a woman.

“Who seeks us?” Alistair asked Jérôme, frowning as the woman passed through the shimmering door. Her cloak and hood flared with light as she left the door.

From beneath the shadow of the hood, she answered Alistair, “A friend.”

Though the voice was familiar enough to make Alistair’s throat constrict, his heart didn’t dare to hope until slender hands pushed back the heavy wool hood.

Ember sank to her knees before Alistair and began to weep.

AGNES HAD ALWAYS BEEN
more likely to cry than Ember, but now Ember found it all too easy to summon tears. She’d been saving them.

At each moment before she stepped through the portal to Tearmunn, Ember had held back her ever-welling sorrow. When she’d disentangled herself from Barrow’s arms before sunlight touched their room at the inn, Ember had bitten back tears. Riding away from her companions, she’d swallowed the hard stone in her throat. Meeting Jérôme at Cernon, she’d conveyed the events at Château de Lusignan and her plan to return to Tearmunn without giving any sign of her distress.

But now she was here, facing Alistair, who needed to believe that she came back to him full of remorse and perhaps even shame. So Ember closed her eyes and called up each moment of fear and sorrow that haunted her. And the tears came.

Through her blurred vision, Ember looked up at Alistair, but he stood frozen, staring at her.

Ember bowed her head, suddenly terrified that she’d presumed too much feeling on Alistair’s part. What if in the space of days since he’d let her go, he’d regretted his decision? What if his brief moment of empathy had turned into wrath, and all he would offer Ember now was retribution?

As she choked on a sob provoked by her newborn fear, Ember felt hands grasp her shoulders.

Alistair helped her stand. “It doesn’t befit a lady of your station to grovel like a servant.”

His words were flat, making Ember clutch at her cloak, her anxious fingers digging into the wool.

Bending close to her, Alistair asked in a low voice, “Why have you come here, Lady Morrow?”

Ember drew Agnes’s letter from her pocket, giving it to Alistair. “I went to Château de Lusignan and was given this.”

Alistair took the parchment from her hand. “You went to La Rochelle.”

“My lord.” Jérôme drew Alistair’s attention. “I would return to my duties if you will take the lady into your care.”

“You may return,” Alistair told him. “But the portal must remain open until you receive other orders.”

Jérôme frowned, glancing at the open doorway behind him. “Lord Hart, the clerics cannot sustain a portal for long. Its very presence draws from their spirit.”

“I’m aware of that.” Alistair gave Jérôme a hard look. “The order stands.”

Squaring his shoulders, Jérôme asked, “Does Tearmunn give orders to all of Conatus now?”

Ember tensed, knowing she couldn’t risk trying to warn Jérôme off his line of questions. She silently willed that he would abandon his rebellious tone before doing himself harm.