Firestorm Read online

  ‘You have heard the Starborn’s tale.’

  Sesh stood before the gathered Lleu-yelin, her tawny scales glowing under the weak sunlight. They were only fifty or so in number. A small people, Kyndra thought, wondering how rarely offspring were born. Throat dry from her story, she stood awaiting their verdict. She’d described her role in reuniting Rairam with Acre, contending with the political chaos, meeting Char, being hunted by Khronostian assassins.

  Medavle’s betrayal.

  Kyndra rubbed her withered hand. Could I have stopped him? It wasn’t the first time she’d asked herself. The dark-eyed Yadin had once saved her life. He’d helped navigate Acre; freely offered counsel when she’d sought it. And day by day, he’d grown distant. In the rare times he slept, she’d heard the moans of someone enmeshed in a nightmare. But it wasn’t a nightmare – it was the past. Medavle had tried and failed to save his love, Isla, and he had never forgiven himself.

  Or Kierik.

  ‘Now,’ Sesh continued, speaking the common tongue presumably for Ma’s benefit, ‘there are things we must discuss.’ Her eyes passed over them, beyond them, to the grey haze that hid the lowlands, many leagues to the south-east. ‘We must speak of our future, of the Lleu-yelin and Magtharda.’

  The sound of wings, like tanned leather snapping in a breeze, announced Ekaar’s return. Char landed behind her, not quite as gracefully – he had to take two stumbling steps to find his balance on land. Ekaar looked at Ma; they exchanged civil, if not friendly, nods. Good, Kyndra thought. We can’t afford to be divided.

  ‘We “woke” to find ourselves in stranger circumstances than we could ever have imagined,’ Sesh continued. ‘The Chimer gone, his corpse little more than ash, as if his passing occurred many years ago. Our city devoid of amberstrazatrix.’ She gestured at Char. ‘And our youngest a risling of twenty cycles when by all rights he should be an infant. The world has left us behind.’

  A rumble swept through the gathered Lleu-yelin like the first stirrings of a storm.

  ‘Those responsible,’ Sesh concluded darkly, ‘walk free.’

  This time the rumble was a roar. Before it grew out of hand, Ma stepped forward, seeking permission to speak. When Sesh nodded, she moved to stand beside the tawny female, holding out her arms for quiet.

  ‘Not only do the du-alakat walk free,’ Ma said in a ringing voice, ‘but their leader plans to travel back in time, to change our very history. He will destabilize the empire before it grows strong, unravel the fabric of the last five centuries.’ She paused, meeting individual gazes. ‘For good or ill, you made a pact with Sartya. Thabarat technicians built Magtharda as you know it. Without them, all this –’ she swept a hand at the city – ‘would be undone.’

  ‘Many of us regret the Concord,’ one of the fully fledged dragons said. A male, Kyndra thought, from the tone of his voice, with scales as grey as the stone of Magtharda. ‘Humans are undeserving of our power.’

  Ma took a breath, exasperation in the crease of her brow. ‘Be that as it may, a change of this magnitude – the disestablishment of Sartya – would have consequences for the whole world that even I cannot see.’

  ‘And who are you, human?’ the male asked, fixing her with an iron-grey eye, ‘except a traitor to the very people you warn us against?’

  Ma’s face tightened. ‘Be thankful that I am a traitor,’ she said quietly. ‘Or the world would be doomed already.’

  ‘Listen to her,’ Char called out. He worked his way clumsily through the gathering until he stood next to the grey-scaled male. ‘She’s telling the truth about Khronosta. She’s here to help.’

  ‘Silence, risling,’ the other dragon snapped. Spines like steel swords flexed along the length of his spine. ‘You go too far. But for this woman, you would understand the hierarchy of speech.’

  ‘But for this woman,’ Char retorted, ‘I’d be dead.’

  ‘I will not permit—’

  ‘Oh do shut up, Vaachane,’ Ekaar said from the back of the crowd. ‘Let my son speak. I am your elder. He can have my voice.’

  The grey dragon glowered, but, caught in his own trap, he backed down. Char glanced at his mother, grateful, Kyndra thought, for her help.

  ‘I may be of you,’ he continued, ‘but I grew up human. It wasn’t an easy life. I saw and did things I’d rather forget. I exploited others for personal gain. I put a price on compassion, showed kindness only if there was profit in it. I lived amongst those who cared nothing for the world, for politics or people. They looked no deeper than the lining of their pockets.’ Char hesitated. ‘You could say that I have seen the worst of humanity.’ His voice dropped lower. ‘You could say I was the worst of humanity.’

  Kyndra noticed Ma gazing at him, her eyes wide and dark. The watching Lleu-yelin remained utterly silent. Wind hissed over the paving stones; clouds raced across the sun.

  ‘Any knowledge of right and wrong, I learned from Ma.’ He looked at her. ‘Her life has been hard – harder than the one she gave me – and she has done things that the honourable would condemn.’

  Kyndra, her ears sharpened by Ansu, was the only one to hear Ma murmur, ‘Don’t overdo it, Boy.’

  ‘But she’s saved my life more times than I can count. She’s been –’ Char glanced hesitantly at Ekaar – ‘as a mother to me. Betraying her people was the price I cost her. And if you knew what she is to them, what they are to her, you would think it far too high.’

  His voice died. In the silence that lingered, Kyndra detected a mixture of interest, of doubt, of plain confusion. Fleetingly, she wondered why Ma didn’t tell the Lleu-yelin who she really was. It might make things easier. Her secrets are not mine to divulge, she thought. And Ma had made it clear that her time as Khronos was over.

  ‘The eldest of Khronosta’, Ma said, ‘needs an anchor to enter the past – someone who was alive during the time of Sartya’s ascendancy. He has the Yadin.’ Her hand settled on the kali sticks tucked behind her belt. ‘But we, too, have an anchor. A Wielder born in Solinaris itself. He has agreed to help us.’

  ‘And you, Starborn?’ Sesh asked, folding her scaled arms, ‘What is your part in this?’

  ‘Ma will send me back in time,’ Kyndra said, feeling her heart quicken at the words. Am I ready? There’s still so much I don’t know. ‘I will stop the eldest … or die trying.’ She kept her gaze averted from her withered hand, unwilling to think about the confrontation that awaited her. There would be none to aid her but the stars. Automatically, she reached out to them, but again they were oddly silent, just like the time she’d woken from the dream of Medavle.

  Sesh tapped one bronze-tipped claw against her folded arm. ‘What is it you want from us?’

  ‘The emperor is dead,’ Kyndra told them. ‘Acre is in chaos. This is our chance to break Sartya’s hold, to end military rule. The Fist’s ex-general leads the Republic, a force which seeks to dissolve the empire, to restore the traditional rights of its territories. I’ve agreed to support them.’ A gust blew hair into her eyes and she brushed it back impatiently. ‘But there’s a problem. The woman who deposed Hagdon has taken command of the Fist. Instead of realizing the threat Khronosta poses, she intends to split our energies, to attack Rairam.’ Her eyes drifted to the east, as if she could penetrate the leagues that separated her from the place of her birth. ‘My country is undefended,’ she said, turning back to the Lleu-yelin. ‘The only resistance Iresonté will meet are the Wielders of Naris and they are too few to stop the Fist.’

  The dragons were silent. With her sharpened hearing, Kyndra could just detect the hiss of ambertrix as it rushed through the channels beneath her feet, carrying power to every dwelling.

  ‘I want your allegiance,’ she said.

  ‘We do not involve ourselves in human conflicts,’ Sesh replied amidst nods and murmurs of agreement. ‘Such is the way it’s always been.’

  ‘This is not just a human conflict. If Khronosta succeeds, you may find yourselves wiped from the pages of history.’ Kyndra
was surprised to feel the flush of vehemence in her cheeks. ‘With Ma’s help, I will deal with Khronosta. But I do not wish to return to this time to find my homeland subjugated and Iresonté installed as empress. We must free Acre together.’

  ‘We have allied with Sartya in the past.’ It was Sesh’s mate who spoke this time. He spread a wing as if to encompass the whole of Magtharda. ‘Look at what that alliance built.’

  Kyndra shook her head, but before she could answer, Char spoke up.

  ‘Did Sartya come to your aid when Khronosta attacked?’ He squared himself off against the larger dragon. ‘No. It was us who freed you. And we didn’t do it so you could turn your back on the world.’

  ‘The emperor’s death marks the end of Sartyan rule,’ Kyndra added before the dragon could voice his protest. ‘The next weeks, months and years will decide what replaces it.’ She held out her hands. ‘Would you forfeit the right to a say in our future?’

  ‘The future must look to itself,’ Sesh answered, ‘but the Lleu-yelin do not deny the service you and your companions have rendered us. And’ – she looked around, as if for support – ‘we owe Khronosta blood-vengeance. If you oppose them, we are blood-bound to aid you.’

  Under the Lleu-yelin’s rumbling agreement, Kyndra breathed a sigh. Thank you, she used Ansu to project at Char, smiling a little when he jumped at hearing her voice in his head. I don’t think they’d have agreed without your help.

  You did the hard bit, he thought back tentatively and she nodded to show she’d heard him.

  ‘We have no Chimer,’ Sesh said matter-of-factly. ‘As eldest among us, I will seal our pact.’

  About to hold out her hand, Kyndra swiftly retracted it, offering the other. Sesh’s keen eyes didn’t miss the movement. ‘What happened?’ she asked.

  ‘The eldest,’ Kyndra said, trying not to betray how much the sight of her own withered fingers unsettled her. Weeks, Ma had said, perhaps a month. It has to be enough. I need time to prepare. ‘Ma’s contained it for now, but my life depends on defeating him.’

  Sesh held out her hand and they clasped wrists, pale skin against bronze scales. ‘Then, Starborn, I wish you good hunting.’

  13

  Gareth

  Kingswold rose with a rattle of armour. It hung off him, ill-fitting his bones. Without speaking, he descended the steps, leaving his sword behind. Gareth too kept his sheathed. This battle wouldn’t be fought with swords.

  Standing, the knight was tall, well over six feet, and Gareth found himself looking up slightly in order to meet his gaze. They were only steps apart when Kingswold stopped. Hond’Lif encased his fist in liquid light. ‘What are you called?’ His voice rasped; a knife dragged across ancient strings.

  Once Gareth would have answered: Gareth. Perhaps he’d have included his second name, the one he had taken when his mother cast him out. But that was before the gauntlet, before it had doomed him to this waking death. So he said, ‘Kul’Gareth.’

  ‘A title of blood, if I am not mistaken,’ Kingswold replied. ‘I am known as—’

  ‘I know who you are.’ Gareth nodded at Hond’Lif. ‘I know what you guard. What guards you,’ he added softly.

  His horned half-helm concealed much of Kingswold’s face. Gareth was glad; the rasping voice was terrible enough. ‘Then you are a fool to have come here,’ the knight said, ‘but a fool who has rendered me a service. Five centuries have I spent, unable to stray beyond the bounds of Ben-haugr. My brother and his Wielder ally saw to that.’ Silently, he indicated the runes carved into his throne.

  If Gareth’s heart was capable of beating, it would have quickened. Perhaps Kingswold hadn’t sensed his connection to the Solar. ‘A Wielder did that?’

  ‘Yes.’ The word was a hiss. ‘Meddlers, locked in their glass towers, too arrogant to see the threat that Sartya posed.’

  ‘Solinaris fell,’ Gareth said, though he didn’t know why. A part of it was fear; if he kept Kingswold talking, it would postpone their battle just a little longer. ‘When Kierik the Starborn sealed Rairam away.’

  ‘So his plan succeeded.’ Kingswold sounded pleased. ‘A great warrior, a great man. With my knights, I aided him against Sartya when Solinaris refused to ally.’ A smile touched the withered lips, little more than flaps of skin over bone. ‘Truly he was worthy of the title he took: Worldmaker.’

  ‘The new Starborn is his daughter.’ Gareth paused. ‘A friend.’

  ‘Starborn have none.’

  ‘Kyndra is—’

  ‘I see you,’ Kingswold tilted his head, ‘a boy desperate to escape his fate. While I long for news of Acre, there is a swifter way to win it.’

  His empty fist lifted, fingers spread, and Gareth found himself flying backwards until he crashed into the wall of the crypt. Something shattered within him. He glanced down and recoiled – bone protruded from his chest, a broken rib. He was riddled with fatal wounds; flesh punctured by arrows, body torn by the blade of a greatsword. If life was somehow restored to him, would he defeat Kingswold only to die?

  These thoughts flashed through his head in the time it took Kingswold to advance across the bridge, each footfall the last gasp of a dying man. Gareth struggled to rise, feeling the sick grating of bone on bone, but Kingswold lashed out with the fist clad in normal armour and sent him sprawling back to the cold stone. Gareth rolled, instinctively shielding his head, and Kingswold laughed. He didn’t need a sword, not when he could throw so swift and strong a punch. And he wasn’t even using Hond’Lif. Gareth tried to dodge the next one, but his rotting body was too slow. The force of it slammed him back against the wall.

  ‘I expected more,’ Kingswold said. It wasn’t a taunt, merely a statement. ‘I thought Hond’Myrkr would choose a worthier bearer.’

  He’d always been slow to anger. Rage had to be stoked, built like a careful fire to last the night. Ever since donning the gauntlet, all Gareth had felt was fear and uncertainty. If anger was there, he’d had no one to direct it at except himself. But it was there, he realized, smouldering somewhere out of sight. Now, ears ringing with Kingswold’s insult, ribs shattered by the undead knight’s fist, that slow burn finally flared to life. ‘The gauntlet didn’t choose anything,’ Gareth said, raising it before his face. ‘I did.’

  He caught the knight’s next swing; Hond’Myrkr closed about Hond’Lif and images like foaming water cascaded into Gareth’s mind.

  ‘Exquisite.’ Serald lifts a finger to stroke the gleaming metal.

  He catches it, brings it to his lips instead. ‘No, Serald.’ He kisses the finger, the knucklebone, the back of the bronzed hand. ‘Don’t touch them. They are dangerous.’

  The squire laughs, perhaps with delight at his gesture, or to lessen the threat of his warning. The gauntlets lie on a table beside their bed, light, dark – perfect mirrors. Serald is the only one for whom he ever removes them. He runs his hand down the young man’s leg, from naked thigh to knee. Serald leans into his touch. His skin is as burnished as the metal of the gauntlets.

  Idly, he tells him so.

  ‘Are they all you think about?’ Serald frees himself, wraps the sheet irritably around his waist. ‘You have compared my skin to them and my hair, even my eyes. Your true desires are clear.’

  ‘Serald …’ It is a feeble protest and they both know it. He would trade away every last one of their embraces if he had to. As long as the gauntlets, Hond’Myrkr and Hond’Lif, remain his.

  Bedchamber became tomb. Kingswold disengaged with a snarl and Gareth stumbled back. Did he see it too? The memory of Serald lingered behind Gareth’s eyes and its intimacy made him feel a voyeur. Abashed, he looked away.

  It was a mistake. Kingswold lunged and this time it was the white gauntlet that seized the dark and pain – the first real pain he’d felt other than grasping the Solar – scythed through Gareth. He cried out …

  … as he falls, small hands grazing the earth of the training circle, his wooden stave thumps down beside him and rolls out of reach.
<
br />   ‘Pathetic,’ says his mother. She stoops to collect his fallen weapon; with the other hand she hauls him up as a bitch would a pup, placing him back on his feet. ‘Again.’

  ‘Ilda, don’t you think that’s enough?’

  Yaralf walks into the circle, fur mantle across his shoulders. ‘The boy is tired. Six years is young to start training.’

  ‘I began at five,’ his mother says. The stave, sized for a child, barely reaches her thigh. ‘I do not expect less from my son.’

  Kingswold’s grip loosened, just for a moment, but it was long enough for Gareth to wrench himself free. Both of them retreated, haunted by the forest, the training circle, Ilda’s cold words.

  ‘Your mother,’ Kingswold said, ‘she still lives?’

  ‘Yes.’ Gareth thought of the last time he saw her – the mantle of Ümvast heavy on her shoulders, grey in her hair. The pact they’d made, the pact that promised her the gauntlets.

  He kept a healthy distance, determined not to be distracted. He had no desire to relive Kingswold’s memories and even less desire to reveal his own. Because Kingswold didn’t know that Gareth was a Wielder – not unless Hond’Lif pulled the knowledge out of his head. It might be the one thing that could tip the scales in his favour.

  But I can’t use the Solar.

  He had no more time to muse. Kingswold’s armoured boot flashed out, trying to trip him; he lurched drunkenly to avoid it, hearing the knight’s laughter. ‘Why do you resist? Hrafnasueltir, shamed one, you have nothing to prove, at least not to me.’