~~*~~
Bones broke with a dull sound, not with a sharp snap, but every time Crysallis trod over a twig, Kalen remembered. He stared at nothing, unaware of when the sun had set, leaving him trapped in the evening gloom, faintly lit by moonlight.
When he closed his eyes, he relived the nightmare over and over again, hearing his bones crack beneath the hands of a Danarite while a Kelshite Knight watched in silence. His pain was an echo of the interrogation, and he shuddered.
In the back of his head, the First lurked, and instead of its cool malevolence, it radiated warmth. The sensation of safety and security ate away at the edges of his anxiety, but wasn’t strong enough to smother it completely.
The First whispered to him, but the words were lost in the throbbing beat of his pulse in his ears.
“Breathe, Kalen,” Crysallis said in a firm voice. “Deep and slow, before you make yourself faint.” She paused, sighed, and adjusted her grip on him. “Maybe it’d be better if you did.”
“No,” he whispered. Sleep was the last thing he wanted. If he slept, the nightmares would haunt him, each bloodier and more painful than the last.
“Try to relax a little. No one is going to do anything to you while I’m here. If you keep panicking, your Guardians
will
know. You’ve been trying to hide this from them, haven’t you? You don’t want them to know what they did to you.”
Flinching at the truth in the witch’s words, he forced himself to nod. They didn’t need to be burdened by him any more than they already were.
The First’s presence in Kalen’s head cooled, its disapproval strengthening at his unwillingness to rely on his Guardians.
“You could try trusting them a little,” Crysallis suggested in a gentle voice, making Kalen wonder if she was like the Yadesh, capable of reading minds.
“They don’t need to know,” he replied.
“They don’t, but it’d help you if you told them. I know, I know. You can’t show anyone weakness. You’re the Rift King, right? The Rift King can’t afford to be weak in front of anyone; not his Guardians, and certainly not in front of his father.”
Kalen grimaced. “They’ve made it clear what they think.”
“They’re Guardians. Not a single one of them is content if they don’t have someone to protect. In this case, it’s you.” After slowing to a halt, Crysallis knelt and set him down, resting his back against a broad tree trunk. With a gesture, she conjured a witchlight. “I think that’s far enough for tonight. You really need to rest, and we may as well give your Guardians a non-moving target to find.”
“Crysallis, their duty isn’t to protect me. It’s to protect others
from
me. You know that just as well as I do.” Kalen couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice.
“It has been fifteen years, Your Majesty. They worry because you have not fully ascended. You almost did,” she replied, her tone a match for his. “I failed. You won’t ascend now. I should have known Breton and Maiten would find a way to reverse the change before it was completed.”
The First’s presence surged. As Kalen’s awareness of the creature heightened, fragments of the memories bombarded him. He shivered at the glimpses of the past, of those he had killed in the Upper Reaches, all while Maiten watched and did nothing.
He remembered the faces of those he had crushed, not with human hands, but with golden, clawed hooves. When he had finished tearing apart his enemies, he had allowed his Guardian and a single woman to live, witnesses to the thing he had become—and the carnage he had delighted in.
In his head, the First purred its contentment.
“Do you remember Arik’s ascension?” he asked.
“And Nerisan’s, and Sorasis’s, and every other Rift King before them,” Crysallis said.
“You witnessed them all?” Kalen lifted his gaze to meet the witch’s eyes.
She didn’t look away from him. “Yes.”
“Tell me.”
Crysallis sat down beside him, reaching over to lift his hand so she could inspect the splint. “You’re the first Rift King to ask me about the ascension of others.”
“I know. I’ve heard it before, and I’ve said it more than a few times myself. I’m no Arik. I’ve always known that my Guardians were never there to protect me, but to protect others from me. If the others didn’t want to know why, they were cowards.”
“You are not a coward.”
Kalen considered how his heart still raced in his chest and the cold sweat soaked him. He forced a weak laugh. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
Despite his efforts, his anxiety and fear boiled right beneath the surface, threatening to bubble out of him at any moment. The ascension, at least, didn’t frighten him—not any more. It had, long ago when he had no memories of the month following Arik’s death.
In that first month, when Kalen had been something other than a man, he hadn’t killed anyone who hadn’t deserved it. That had been enough to allow him to accept the monster he had become.
“I would. You are not a coward. Being anxious over what happened to you is not cowardice. The pain you’ve endured is enough to break even the strongest. Had I known what you’ve endured, I wouldn’t have tried to force the ascension.” Crysallis made a thoughtful humming noise. “I’ve never seen it protect someone before, not like it does with you. Any other Rift King would have ascended fully in Morvinale. I was convinced you would. What I don’t understand is
why
you didn’t.”
All Kalen could feel from the First was smug satisfaction. “Tell me about Arik’s ascension.”
“He became a skreed like any other, black and twisted. The Guardians restrained him and forced him back into his human shell. There is not much to tell. Did you see the skreed in Morinvale?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Some might call you blessed. They are as black as the taint they leave behind. Scales cover them, and they secrete a dark fluid. It can eat through metal and make stone boil. It corrupts living things, as your hand has been tainted. They are tall, taller than a man, and stand on two legs. Their tails are thick and long, and are strong enough to crush stone. There are some variances in their shape, but many have blocky heads. The more dangerous skreed have longer muzzles and necks than their lesser brethren.” After hesitating, the witch shrugged. “I could create an illusion for you, if you would like to see. They… are difficult to describe.”
“Not necessary. I have a feeling I’ll see one soon enough.”
“You might not live long after you see it,” the witch warned.
After considering whether or not he really wanted to know the answer, he asked, “So Arik became one of these skreed?”
“Yes. Well, close enough to one. There were some human qualities left after his transformation.”
Kalen frowned, staring at his left shoulder. Why did he remember gold, white, and sapphire? Had he been scaled? He remembered tufts of bloodied fur caked to his clawed hooves. He shivered. Was the First really a skreed? If so, what was it doing being passed from Rift King to Rift King?
The only thing he was certain of was that humans weren’t supposed to have hooves
or
claws, let alone both at once. There was nothing human about the First’s malevolence and desire to kill anything in its way—or destroy anything that proved a risk to him.
Sucking in a breath, Kalen straightened. He jerked his hand out of Crysallis’s grip, reaching for the sword no longer at his side. Gorishitorik’s hilt was silver and gold, with a blue stone in its hilt—the same colors he remembered from after he’d become the Rift King. “They were all black? Not just Arik?”
Crysallis frowned. “All of them. You seem baffled. Why?”
“Gorishitorik is silver, gold, and blue. It’s the Rift King’s sword. Why is it those colors if the First is
black
? That blade binds the Guardians to me, doesn’t it? Why were they black after ascension? That doesn’t make sense to me.” Kalen shrugged, wincing at the pain the motion caused.
Crysallis’s eyes widened. “You’ve been dreaming, haven’t you?”
Her question surprised and baffled him. “Dreaming? What do you mean?”
“Of a white, gold, and blue beast.”
“No, I haven’t had dreams like that,” he said. Memories weren’t dreams. Although his recollection of what he had become was hazy, he was certain he hadn’t been black or stood on two legs. “Why would you think I’ve been dreaming?”
“Because the First was never meant to be black and tainted like its brethren. It is too late, but I know better now. Humans were never meant to be hosts for them, and because of that, they taint us and we taint them. They don’t belong in our world, but there’s no way I know of to send them away once they’re here.” Crysallis sighed. “When the Rift Kings ascend, they become violent. They kill and eat anyone in their path, until the Guardians manage to subdue them. I’ve never seen a Rift King ascend more than once in their reign.”
“Why is that? Where
did
they come from, if they’re not from here?”
“The answer is the same for both of your questions. I don’t know. The Danarites were the ones to unlock the secrets of creating them. As for the Rift Kings and their single ascension, I don’t know. Maybe it is because of the Guardians? That’s probable. I may have cursed the Rift King with the First, but the Guardians were the creation of another.” Crysallis swallowed, shaking her head. “My sister. I should have listened to her. She was right. Perhaps that is why I became a witch and she did not.”
Narrowing his eyes, Kalen watched the witch. While her expression was passive, her dark eyes were anguished.
“So the First was the very first skreed the Danarites summoned?”
“That’s what Gorishitorik named it. I don’t know why. I guess it had belonged to the Danarites, once upon a time. Gorishitorik found it, and after seeing what the Danarites could do with theirs, he wanted the First for his own. I gave him what he wanted. It was a mistake.”
“A mistake you’ve been trying to undo ever since, by trying to force the Rift Kings into ascension?”
“Correct. I wish to break the line of the Rift Kings. Then, perhaps, we could be free. But none of the others were right. They were tainted. Your arm was not. It was gold and white, as it should be. But you didn’t ascend—not completely. And now you won’t. It only happens once.” Crysallis’s voice was bitter. “For my plans to work, I must find another Rift King like you.”
Kalen resisted the urge to lift his hand and rub at his forehead. What would the witch say if she learned the truth?
The First seemed amused.
~Truth,~
it encouraged.
“I have a secret,” he said, wondering if listening to the First’s counsel was wise. Would telling the witch the truth make matters worse? Or would he be inviting her to kill him as a result?
“You are the type to hold many secrets,” she agreed.
Kalen sighed. “I ascended a week after I became the Rift King. In full. Maiten was there and witnessed it. I made him swear never to speak of it.” Not even Maiten knew that Kalen remembered what had happened, that he had pieced together the truth over the years. He had refused to acknowledge it, pushing it aside until the First had demanded he recognize the facts for what they were.
Crysallis sucked in breath. “That’s impossible. Rift Kings
never
remember. And in Morinvale, you…” With widening eyes, the witch covered her mouth with her hands. “That’s twice.”
“I didn’t want to remember. I still don’t want to, but I do. But why do the skreed stand on two legs when the First stands on four?” Kalen shrugged. “For the first few years, I couldn’t remember anything after Tavener had killed that Guardian up until a month or so later. It came back in fragments over the years—some of it, at least.” He paused, thinking about how he couldn’t remember what had happened to his boots—or how he had left the Rift and reached Kelsh.
Like at the beginning of Kalen’s reign, there was a month-long gap in his memories. “Maybe three times,” he admitted ruefully. “I don’t know how I left the Rift and ended up in Kelsh. From what I’ve pieced together, I lost a month somewhere.”
Ironically, it meant that the Kelshites in the forest
had
been hunting him, and he had been the cause of the destruction, the great furrows in the soil, and the overturned trees. He jerked his hand up, staring where he’d been bitten by the kingmaker. “I remember now. I’d been bitten by a kingmaker, a day up from Blind Mare Run. Next thing I remember, I was in Kelsh.”
“You need to stop letting those serpents bite you, Your Majesty. It is not good for your health—or our sanity. Is it possible that you made it out of the Rift on foot while suffering from the venom?”
Suffering was a mild way of putting it; the bite of a kingmaker caused convulsions, memory loss, and general misery for several weeks. He could count at least four times he’d angered one of the serpents. The first time, Breton had been shocked that Kalen had survived, ultimately coming to the conclusion that vellest had saved his life.
“Ferethian had been with me when it happened. He wasn’t with me in Kelsh.” Kalen frowned, trying to remember what had happened after he’d been bitten. “Maybe I sent him back for help.”