The Destroyer Book 4 (12 page)

“What if I told you the location of the Radicle I came from?”

“That mitigates some of our risk.” She licked her lips and then smiled. “But I imagine my daughter is on this world somewhere. It might take me several years to find her, but I will. I have an army at my disposal.”

“What if she isn’t on this world? You intend to destroy the Radicles. I am offering her location and the location of two Radicles.”

“Two?” Her emotions did not show plainly, but I guessed I touched on information that she wanted.

“But I am not done with my requests. Prevent Kannath from taking me back. I will return with Jessmei, you will surrender your forces to her and we will negotiate some new territory for your people to inhabit.”

“You overestimate her importance to me again.” She shook her head and sighed. “She is nothing but a tool for me, a weapon with powerful potential. But you have already guessed at my intent for the Radicles. Once they have been destroyed I do not need her.”

“Very well. It seems we cannot come to terms.” I tried to hold my face firm and control my heart rate. The empress was better at this than I. I imagined that she spent countless hours negotiating with her own people as well as the O’Baarni clan leaders. All I had was that brief second when I surprised her with knowledge of her daughter, that small flicker of emotion in her eyes and the assumption that parents must love their children, or at least, want the chance to love them and have the sentiment returned.

I stood up again and walked toward the exit of the tent. My back was to the empress, but I doubted she would strike me down with so much at stake.

“Kaiyer.” Her voice finally sounded behind me when I was halfway up the stairs. I turned and saw her amber eyes flash. We stared at each other for a few seconds before she spoke again.

“Kannath and his warriors have to die. It will buy us more time before the clans find out.” I nodded at her words and pondered the morality of colluding with the empress of the Elven people to kill my own kind so that I could save a world of humans.

“You will tell me of my daughter immediately upon your return,” she continued.

“After your army has surrendered to Jessmei.”

“You think disarming and surrendering will stop my conquest? We have magic. We hardly need swords. You are just one man.”

“Earlier you said you never go back on your promises, but then you said you might have to make an adjustment to that statement to kill Nadea. Are you saying you will betray our agreement as soon as I tell you of your daughter?”

“No.” She clenched her jaw. “But this puts me in a predicament. I’ve promised my own people freedom. This is now our world and I intend to lead my people to safety.”

“So you are deciding between your people and your daughter. That is unfortunate.” I forced myself not to smile. One wrong word and I could destroy the progress made so far.

“I will surrender. Then you tell me of my daughter and the Radicles. You will keep your word and negotiate with Jessmei on our behalf for our own territory.”

“Agreed.” I sighed and felt hundreds of pounds of pressure lift from my shoulders.

“My sister will shadow you to where Kannath’s men are holding the princess. Indicate when you want to attack and she will make her move.”

The wind’s howl echoed through the courtyard of the keep and startled me into the present. The sun had set and I was now sitting in absolute darkness at the foot of the staircase. If Telaxthe had captured Nadea she would have discovered that she was her daughter. That leverage might be gone, but there was something else I could use. It would depend upon whether the empress cared for her daughter or simply wished to use Nadea as a weapon.

The rest of my quest could wait until morning. I would have to forge my way west directly toward Nia’s capital to see if there was any trace of Nadea’s army. I could leave now, in the stillness of this dark night. But the idea of descending from the mountain keep and then crossing the endless valley did not appeal to me at the moment. There were enough pieces of broken furniture and leftover bedding for me to make a comfortable camp for the night. I had nothing to eat, but fasting was easy for one night, and there was plenty of food awaiting me in the village at the base of the mountain.

“Kaiyer,” a voice called out to me, echoing across the hallways and up through the vastness of the tower that spiraled above me. The hair on the back of my neck stood and I shot to my feet. Silence fell and I tried to determine if the voice was real or imagined. Then I heard it call my name again.

The voice was carried on the wind from the courtyard outside of the keep. It was a woman’s timbre, familiar, but unclear. I moved to the door of the tower and opened it cautiously before stepping out into the starlit night.

I saw no one on the ledge of the wall and detected no movement outside. I listened for heartbeats or breathing, but the wind was masking any subtle noise and preventing me from using my sense of smell. The voice rang out a third time, calling my name from deeper in the courtyard. I headed toward it, regretting my lack of a weapon.

My eyes were drawn to a glowing object on a bench in the middle of the garden. It was not there when I first came through the courtyard, but there was no mistaking the Ovule now. It pulsed yellow, its network of spider webs glowing with an alien energy beneath the etched surface of the globe.

There was no movement in the courtyard.

I approached the glowing sphere, picked it up and marveled as the glow grew brighter. The web network seemed to move in response to my touch.

“That is yours,” the woman’s voice said from behind me. I turned around and braced for an attack, but none came. Instead, she stepped out of the shadow of the small tower and walked through the courtyard.

“How did you find me?”

“Your companions told us of your plan,” Vernine said. She adjusted the dark gray cloak she wore and then crossed her arms.

“So you captured them?”

“Of course. They almost made it to the keep. We spent many days looking for you in the castle, but you had disappeared. Once we caught up with Nia’s army and interrogated them we knew that we would eventually find you here."

“You have been waiting for me?”

“Yes.” Her lack of emotion wasn’t surprising to me now, though I did recall the passion she so unabashedly displayed when I had fucked her and Isslata for hours.

“What do you intend now?” I set down the sphere so that my hands were free.

“You’ve lost, Kaiyer. My empress has asked me to come here to present you with her parting gift. Take the Ovule, go to the Radicle in the Teeth Mountains, and leave this world. You belong with your own kin and deserve the fate they have in store for you.” In the strange yellow light from the Ovule, Vernine’s pale, ashen skin and placid face made her look like a corpse.

“Where is this Radicle?” I didn’t really care about the answer but it was the easiest question I could come up with while my brain scrambled for a plan.

“We don’t know yet. I’m sure you will find it after a few weeks of searching. Take the Ovule.”

“Did you come alone?”

“No.” She gestured behind me and I turned my head slightly. On the distant wall I perceived the movement of a few dozen shapes. They were about two hundred yards away from me, so I doubted they would be able to hit me with arrows if I ran.

“I am surprised that you didn’t bring Isslata.”

“You are trying to make me angry,” she seethed the words. “The empress has been very generous and you choose to mock Isslata’s death.”

“Isslata is dead?” The news struck me in the stomach like one of Thayer’s kicks. I did not believe I had any feelings for the woman, but the clench of my gut told me otherwise.

Vernine opened her mouth to reply, but no words came. She tilted her head slightly and examined me for a few seconds.

“By your hand,” she finally said.

“I don’t remember
—
” My voice caught in my throat as a tidal wave of images crashed into my head and drove me dizzy.

I remembered the halls of the castle, my friends leaving through a hidden passage in the wall. Isslata stopped me in the hallway and demanded my surrender.

Then the battle unfolded in my mind.

Her guards had been skilled, quick, and deadly. One by one I killed them while giving up some ground and moving deeper into the castle. Finally, the golden Elven and I were the only ones left. She might have actually killed me. Her attacks were a clever mix of wild strikes, elegant sweeps, and precise stabs. By then my weapons had been reduced to notched saw blades, and one shattered when she blocked it with her decoratively-etched sword. Neither of us expected the weapon to snap, but I was quicker to react and slammed the remaining part of the blade into her chest.

“May the Dead Gods damn you, O’Baarni! We could have had so much together,” she whispered into my ear with a blood-soaked voice as I laid her gently on the ground.

“I am sorry,” I remembered saying to her. I meant it. Then I closed her eyelids, grabbed replacement swords from the guards I had killed, and moved to find Jessmei.

The princess was in the kitchen. We went out into the courtyard, right into the empress’s trap.

Then my memories stopped making sense.

“I’m having problems remembering,” I said to Vernine while my brain struggled to understand the rest of my memory. I wore my skull-emblazoned armor. The images of Elvens blurred with images of my fellow O’Baarni and then morphed into images of other beings I did not recognize who wore armor I had never seen.

“She was important to our people, more so than you can probably imagine. Take the Ovule and leave this world, Kaiyer.”

“No!” I spat out. My skull started to hurt again, the ache that I was all too familiar with.

“Don’t be a fool. I have more than thirty warriors here.” My head swam with more recollections. It almost felt like there were two sets of concurrent memories in my mind. Then there were three. The pain in my head was unbearable. My vision grew dark. I was either going to faint or smash my skull against the rock of the courtyard to end the agony. I searched for something in my past to stabilize the waves of pain and confusion, to give me shelter amidst the torment of death I had inflicted, loves I had betrayed, people I had destroyed.

Then I found it. Something to ground and focus my life around.

The anguish disappeared, replaced with hope.

“Take me back to the empress. I want something else from her.”

“No.” Vernine crossed her arms. In the starlight I saw her glance over to the warriors she had stationed on the wall. I heard a set of boots move in our direction, but it didn’t concern me now.

“Then we don’t have much else to discuss. I reject her offer. I will not be leaving this world.”

“Then you will die here.” Vernine’s hand moved to her sword hilt. The pewter-haired Elven’s voice reminded me of Isslata’s before her guards battled me. The tone convinced me that she would allow me to change my mind. She wanted me to change it. She did not want to kill me, neither had Isslata.

“You couldn’t kill me at the castle. What makes you think you can kill me here?”

“Because now we realize you are the Destroyer, and we know how to defeat you,” the newcomer’s words called out from the direction of the wall. I recognized the voice and felt a chill move down my spine. “Come and dance with me, Kaiyer. My sword hungers for your neck again. This time you will not return from the dead.” The moons’ light caught on Fehalda’s white hair and pale skin. In her dark black armor, she looked like a ghost.

Bowstrings twanged in unison and I jumped back, twisting in the air and praying that none of the arrows found their mark. I landed next to a stone bench which provided me cover from the archers but was exposed to the advancing sprint of Fehalda and Vernine. I took another gamble and leapt over the bench, dashing toward the switchback that led from the keep to the city at the foot of the mountains. Another set of bowstrings twanged and dozens of arrows bounced around me like missed rain drops.

I rounded the corner of one tower and skidded to a halt. I was safe from the arrows here, but a new problem presented itself. The gates to the fortress were still locked of course, but the gate house exit I planned on using to escape was now guarded by the shadows of dozens of Elven archers. Nadea's keep had become the perfect prison and I had stumbled into it like a fool.

The archers at the gate were ready for me and this time a few arrows did find their marks.