The Heart of Death Page 2

  “It gets darker back here,” she explained.

  “Tighter, too,” I commented.

  She didn’t reply, but trailed her fingers across the books until she found what she was looking for. She pulled a leather-bound tome from its place on a dusty shelf before turning back the way we’d come. Once we reached a small table, she placed the book down, sending plumes of dust into the air that tickled my nose. I suppressed the urge to sneeze. I’d have to task someone with cleaning the library soon. ‘Twas a crime for a place so important to have fallen into disarray.

  “Why didn’t you leave the book out?” I asked, wondering what made her put it back into the library’s darkest corners.

  “Hm?” she asked distractedly, flipping the yellowed pages.

  “Earlier. If you looked at it earlier, why not just leave it out to return to later?”

  “Oh, I didn’t want anyone else coming across it.”

  As though anyone else would be spending time in the darkest corners of the dungeonesque library.

  She ran a finger across the words on pages before finding what she was looking for.

  “Here!” she said, sliding the book toward me.

  I took a moment to center myself before reading the bad news that awaited. Here. I am here. Here and now. Then I let my eyes scan the page.

  The true king sits

  On the throne at last

  A short-lived peace

  Which passes fast

  Months at best

  ‘Til the scale tips

  The kingdom has

  Until the first eclipse

  What’s dead is alive

  What’s alive is dead

  The veil has thinned

  In places shred

  To mend what’s broken

  Three must travel

  Scour the Plains

  Or worlds unravel

  The Bringer of Life, the King,

  The One Who Failed

  Find the Heart of Death

  Through much travail

  Only in Death

  Can balance restore

  For a time at least

  ’Til the next great war

  For the Chaos Wielder

  Has allowed

  The balance to slip

  Too long, too proud

  That Liron may fall

  To darkness and mayhem

  When the power rests

  In the stone of the diadem

  To fix forever

  Chaos bound

  Only then

  Balance found

  Fiermi. Reina was right.

  ****

  The horse’s hooves pounded the earth beneath me, the rhythm beating itself into my very bones, soothing my thoughts in a way nothing else had in the past few weeks.

  I wasn’t running away.

  I didn’t know how to run.

  Even if I wanted to.

  The life of a king and ruler wasn’t meant for a hermit like me. Oh, I recognized the irony. I accused Reina of being a hermit once. Maybe it was because I could see so much of myself in her.

  With the coming and going of what seemed like a hundred advisors every day, the forming of the Guard under Brigantino’s command, and reassigning agents from the Order as they arrived in the capital, my head was spinning. Most days I couldn’t even hear my own thoughts. Add to all of it the weight of another prophecy and I’d lost my balance entirely.

  But here, crouched low on Chiron’s neck, galloping across the nearby plains, the wind in my ears, for once I could breathe. We approached the small stream that wound its way in coils back and forth across the land and rather than splashing through it, I shortened the reins, stood in my stirrups, hunched over Chiron, and gave him the signal to jump.

  He was more than ready to oblige, and we sailed through the air, landing on the other side of the stream with hardly a thump, as though the horse had been born with wings. Then I felt myself doing something I hadn’t done in a long time. I laughed.

  This horse could jump.

  I slowed him down a bit, intending to circle around and jump again just for the hell of it, but I was greeted with a surprise.

  Reina.

  She charged across the fields on Aeros, not slowing a whit, heading straight for the widest portion of the stream. Before I could open my mouth to warn her, she and the horse flew through the air, a blur of dappled gray and flying green cloak.

  After arriving in Irzan, I’d sent a courier for Aeros, and I’d made it clear the horse was needed quickly. Reina and Aeros rode together like a single being. I’d never seen anything like it. I could ride any horse for any task on any given day and feel no bond with the creature, but Reina…Reina and Aeros were of one mind.

  As if to prove my point, Reina hollered as they landed perfectly, then led the horse to where Chiron and I had stopped, winded and heaving. Amazingly, neither she nor Aeros seemed out of breath.

  “That was dangerous,” I said.

  She let the reins fall to Aeros’s neck and allowed the mare to drop her head and relax.

  “If the king can do it, so can I,” she responded with a shrug. “Where are you running to?”

  “I’m not running.”

  She gave me a flat stare, round, dark eyes unamused. “You think I don’t know running when I see it? Should I remind you of my own expertise in the area?”

  “Fine. I’m not running away, though. Just running.”

  She was quiet for a moment before commenting, “It was pretty bad.”

  The prophecy.

  “It was.”

  My eyes scanned the swaying high grasses of the plain. Habit, I supposed. Always in motion, always moving, always scanning for danger. Even when there was none.

  But that wasn’t exactly true, was it? There was danger aplenty. Just not visible.

  “So what are we going to do about it?” Reina asked, her eyes never leaving my face even when I looked elsewhere.

  “What we do best,” I answered, turning my gaze to meet hers. “Meet the danger head on. Are you ready?”

  She tilted her head and offered a small smile, but there was fire in her eyes.

  “Always.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  False Promises

  Quinn

  Slipping away wasn’t going to be easy. I’d become a public figure wherever I went and going unnoticed wasn’t an option. Not to mention, the daily reports needed to go to someone for review and action.

  Luckily, someone arrived just in time. I waited impatiently for my newfound grandmother, Reina standing beside me in the high-ceilinged receiving room. In the weeks we’d spent in Gillesmere, I’d developed a soft spot for Madam Bonverno. The old woman had become like family. And now…now she was family. Reina grabbed my hand and squeezed it once to stop me from pacing the floor again. I swallowed and stood beside her, quieting my thoughts.

  “She’ll be here soon,” she murmured. “I doubt she’ll let the carriage stop before flinging open the door.”

  The image of the silver-haired woman in a high-necked gown of satin and lace leaping from the carriage in excitement formed itself in my mind, and, before I could stop it, a smile spread across my lips.

  “That’s better,” Reina said.

  “Are you the keeper of my emotions now?” I asked, amused.

  She nodded earnestly, dark eyes dancing. “I am. I must ensure all emotions are in the positive spectrum at all times, particularly where I am concerned.”

  “Where you are concerned, my emotions are molten,” I replied, leaning to kiss her while we enjoyed a rare moment alone together.

  A giggle escaped her throat before I stole her breath away and deepened the kiss, weaving one hand through locks of her hair and placing the other in the small of her back, molding her body to my own. She leaned in willingly, standing tiptoe to kiss me back.

  I wanted to devour her lips. Emotion I had suppressed for so
many years overflowed in kisses I had waited too long to share. She tasted of mint and fuisberry and Reina, and, God, I wanted so much more. A pressure welled in my chest.

  Was it because Reina kissed me back every bit as fervently, with matching desire, with equal emotion? This thing I had wanted for so long with Reina, it was real. If the rest of my life fell apart in every way, what Reina and I had never would. She was my forever.

  “She’s here,” Reina said, pulling back, her eyes glittering with mischief. She composed herself, smoothing her gown, attempting to look as though I hadn’t just kissed her senseless and wanted nothing more than to continue doing so. The sound of boots echoed across the highly-polished floors of the castle’s corridors, and Reina’s breath caught with excitement. With reluctant effort, I focused my attention on my grandmother and her escorts.

  Madam Bonverno wasted no time on formalities when she entered the room. She rushed past McElson, almost knocking over one of Brigantino’s guards stationed at the room’s door in the process, then gripped me in a hug with a ferocity someone her age and size shouldn’t have possessed.

  “Glad to have your heir back,” Governor McElson said with a laugh, his hand still against the wall he’d used to steady himself.

  “Heir be damned,” she said, her eyes shining with tears. “He’s my grandson, blood of my blood. I’ve been too long without family and now, my dear boy”—she turned to me, tilting her head upward— “I have you.”

  Her voice cracked on the last word, betraying her emotion. I hugged her back tightly, a feeling I couldn’t discern taking root in my chest. Family. Madam Laurelle Bonverno was family.

  And she knew how to rule a kingdom.

  “You can’t know what it’s like to find something you’ve lost when you thought it was gone forever,” she said. “I thought my entire family had been taken from me. Losing Isobelle was bad enough, but when the baby—when you were taken, well I almost gave in. I wanted to, you know. Saints, how I wanted to.”

  “But it’s all right,” I said, stroking her back lightly. “You’ll never be without me again, I promise.”

  Except that I was planning to leave her again…and soon. Guilt began to form in the base of my skull, and I brushed it away. There’d be time for guilt later. Not now. Now, I had gained family.

  She wiped her eyes as she pulled away, nodding. “Foolish old woman am I.”

  “Nonsense,” Reina said. “Family is everything.”

  Madam Bonverno snuck a sideways look at Reina, not releasing her from intense scrutiny for a moment. With a motion quicker than seemed possible for her many years, she released me, turned to Reina, and embraced her with just as much enthusiasm.

  “Pah! Don’t you get on about not having a family, child. I suspect you’re part of this one already, and if you aren’t”—she leaned outwards, holding Reina’s arms, examining every inch of her face— “we’ll remedy that shortly.”

  She returned a stern gaze to me, leaving little doubt of her implications. I almost had to bite back a smile. She’d known all along of my feelings for Reina. Unsurprising.

  And further proof my gut was right about her from the start. My grandmother was a sharp woman. And she’d make an excellent ruler while I was away.

  Naturally, there was still the matter of slipping away from Reina. She wouldn’t make it easy, but there was no way I’d allow her to throw herself in danger’s path yet again. After the last year, she, of all people, deserved the peace and luxury of a fully-staffed castle and a fully-stocked larder.

  The new prophecy made it clear Reina would need to be involved, but the less I dragged her into it, the better. I’d let her get involved…eventually. But first, I’d do the legwork. Reina wasn’t trained in the ways of death. She wasn’t conditioned to ghost, to spy, to hide in the darkness. She shouldn’t be pulled into another death-filled prophecy.

  I saw what it did to her, the killing. She might not regret killing Bruenner, not really, but the memory of it lived on, tormenting her even in her sleep. She thought she could hide it, but deep in the night, she whimpered in her sleep beside me, and it wasn’t hard to guess what horrors her dreams held.

  I wouldn’t let her throw herself back into that kind of life, not when I could keep her safe in Irzan, on the palace grounds, with at least a dozen people who would keep her from harm’s way.

  What’s dead is alive, what’s alive is dead.

  What did that say about Reina? Reina was life itself.

  And I wouldn’t let her die.

  ****

  “I’m thrilled to see the kingdom returning to her former glorious state, Your Majesty, but there are some…unsettling concerns that have been brought to my attention most recently.” McElson cleared his throat and pushed his spectacles upwards on his nose.

  I studied him closely. He was as direct in person as he’d been in his letters over the past weeks. An uncomfortable quiet fell over the dining table. So much for pleasant dinner conversation. I’d hoped to spend at least one night not discussing pressing issues, but since this was the first time my ears weren’t being monopolized by citizens of the kingdom begging for help with matters of restoration, I couldn’t blame McElson for seizing the opportunity. At least he’d waited until the dessert dishes had been cleared.

  I leaned back in my seat, folded my arms across my chest and studied him, giving a slow nod. “Go on,” I said, steeling myself for the worst.

  McElson hesitated, at once nervous. Perhaps he hadn’t expected a willing audience. His eloquence in speech suddenly lacking, he stuttered while trying to figure out where to begin.

  I waited.

  Finally, he cleared his throat again and began anew. “We’ve had word, reports from numerous sources. There’s unrest in the south.”

  “Unrest?” I questioned, my eyes never leaving his.

  My gaze made him uncomfortable, but I didn’t let up. There was as much to be said from a man’s body language as there was from the words he spoke. The way McElson played with the corners of his napkin while speaking, and the number of times he blinked while trying to pull together his thoughts told me all I needed to know about whatever was on his mind. It wasn’t good.

  My thoughts wandered back to the prophecy Reina found. Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten dessert after all.

  “Well, I don’t quite know how to put it,” McElson said.

  Reina eyed me from her seat beside me, willing me to look her direction, but I resisted, unwilling to turn my attention from McElson. There was no need to confirm her suspicions anyway. McElson would do that soon enough on his own.

  “There’s unrest throughout the kingdom, Governor. There has been for years. It’s going to take more than a few weeks to right what’s gone wrong for so long,” I said.

  “Quinn…” Reina murmured, placing a hand on my arm.

  I covered her hand with my own, firm pressure letting her know I had no intentions of letting McElson’s concerns go ignored.

  “You’ll need to be more specific, I’m afraid,” I said.

  “Oh, just say it already, Rolf. You did nothing but talk my ear off on the way here and now suddenly, you’re all ‘ers’ and ‘ums.’ On with it!” Grandmother Elle spat, throwing the scarlet napkin from her lap onto the table, where it sat in striking contrast to the starched white tablecloth. “The details, Governor.”

  McElson’s face turned a fierce pink. My grandmother had called him out on his dawdling, something I suspected she did to anyone wasting her time . She would have been an intimidating woman to grow up with. For a moment, regret at being denied that opportunity welled within my chest. I pushed it down. Regret later.

  “Right, well then. There’s been reports of…monsters—er, creatures—prowling our southern borders.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Monsters?”

  “I don’t know how else to explain it, I’m afraid.”

  Exasperated, Grandmother Elle took over, and McElson took the opp
ortunity to hide behind his water glass. “Undead. McElson’s people report seeing undead things in their fields at night.”

  McElson coughed on a misdirected sip of water. “At night, midday, it matters not! It started in the darkness, but they’ve been spotted now several times in the fields while the noon sun still shines.” His voice echoed a desperation I hadn’t heard in months.

  I gritted my teeth. What’s dead is alive, what’s alive is dead. This time, I met Reina’s gaze and nodded. Yes, I confirmed. It’s as we feared.

  “Can you describe these undead things?” I asked McElson, hoping for some rational explanation.

  He shook his head. “I haven’t seen one myself.”

  “It might just be a misunderstanding,” Reina said, her voice thick with hope. “Perhaps nothing more than desperate farmers needing help with a wild animal?”

  “Wild animals don’t walk on two legs,” Grandmother Elle said. “The Governor’s reports describe instances of both four-legged and two-legged creatures.”

  McElson nodded, toying with the corner his napkin once more. “I have reports from two different residents who tried to approach one of the…things. They spoke of unseeing eyes and mindless wandering in these creatures.”

  I let the conversation lapse into silence a moment, knowing I needed to respond, knowing they waited for my thoughts. I allowed my gaze to wander over the far corner of the painted recessed ceiling with its gold trim and cornflower blue center.

  “Has anyone tried to capture one?” I said finally, turning back to McElson. “Or kill one?” I added as an afterthought.

  McElson’s gaze dropped to his lap. “No one who has lived.”

  “They’ve killed! The undead creatures you speak of?” Reina cried. “Why didn’t you say that from the start?”

  “It’s happened twice, so far as I know. The first time was in the middle of the night, and the farmer’s son found him facedown in the fields the next day. It appeared he’d been…mauled.”