Storm Without End (Requiem for the Rift King Book 1) (14 page)

“But you’re one of us!”

“If you want to learn the truth, finish me off. When the Guardians find you—and they will—ask them. They’ll tell you all you want to know.”

“I’m not a traitor,” Derac snarled.

“You’re not a very good murderer, either. Less talk, more sword.”

“I will pray to the Lady of Light that I don’t regret letting you live.”

Derac grabbed hold of his arm and jerked him upright. It hurt enough that Kalen couldn’t even manage a scream. He was tossed across the horse’s withers and Derac mounted behind him. After positioning him on the saddle so he wasn’t flopped across it, the Kelshite kicked the horse into a gallop.
 

Kalen didn’t know who the Lady of Light was, but he wasn’t above praying that she’d either kill him or make the pain stop.

She ignored him.

“Not much longer,” Derac said.

Kalen clenched his teeth together to keep silent. His body trembled, but he couldn’t tell if it was from pain, shock, or the vellest wearing off. He hoped for the latter.

It wasn’t until a bright light roused him that he realized he’d fainted. The horse skidded to a halt and let out a startled whinny. Derac’s hand was tight on his arm, and it drew a pained gasp out of Kalen. Dismounting, his companion led the horse right to the door of a home and pounded on it with the hilt of the sword.

“What’s going on?” the sleepy voice of a man asked. The door opened.

“Get the healer and wake Uncle,” Derac snapped. Kalen tried to get down from the saddle, but Derac’s grip tightened. “There’s trouble.”

Kalen blinked and tried to force his eyes to focus, but all he could make out was blurry shapes and the unsteady glow of a light held in someone’s hands.

“Hurry on in, then. What happened? You’re covered in blood!”

“Most of it isn’t mine,” Derac replied before turning to help Kalen down from the back of the horse. His left foot tangled in the stirrup. He fainted with the sound of his choked-off scream ringing in his ears.

~~*~~

Pain raced up Kalen’s leg and spine before thundering through his skull with such intensity that it dragged him out from the black of blissful unconsciousness. “Hellfires!” Instead of screaming, he cursed.

“I could’ve told you he lived without you injuring his foot further,” a woman’s voice said from somewhere over his head. “Lay him down there. Gently, now!”

Kalen wasn’t certain if he wanted to brave opening his eyes. The only thing that didn’t hurt was his chest. It was so numb he couldn’t feel his breath for all he heard his raspy gasps for air.

“Accident,” was all that Derac said.

“Make yourself useful. Water, as hot as you can get it, and clean linens. Take them from the Lord’s closet if you must, but hurry with them. Elgen, wake Analee and tell her I need her,” the woman said. A finger prodded Kalen in the shoulder and drew a yelp out of him. “As for you, you must not sleep. Do you understand?”

“I’ve been healed before,” Kalen growled in the Rifter tongue. Realizing his mistake, he opened his mouth to repeat himself in Kelshite, but he was silenced by the woman’s probing finger.

“I understand you,” she replied in a thick accent. Without care for his discomfort, her hands worked over his chest. Heat washed over him when she peeled the shirt off of him.

“You know our tongue. I didn’t believe many Kelshites did,” Kalen gasped out between breaths. So long as he kept talking, and she kept talking to him, he could do as she demanded. “You may be wasting your effort.”

“A healer must try to save any in need. That is our way. But, you know this, don’t you? Why is it one so young has been healed so many times?” The woman’s fingers traced the lines of the scars across his ribs. Even when she touched his broken ribs, Kalen remained silent. “But you are not that young. You merely look it.”

“I am thirty, if you must know,” he replied.

“I can’t begin until Derac brings what I asked for. Analee will be most useful as well. I must ask that you open your eyes and keep at least one open. It will make our work easier. At least, then, I might know if you’ve fainted during the treatment.”

His right eye opened with ease, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t force the left to obey his will. A young woman bent over him. The frown he expected wasn’t there. Instead, the faintest of smiles creased her lips. “You’re supposed to be frowning. I thought that was in your oath. You can’t grin at someone’s misfortune.”

“You’re lively for a man whose next breath could be his last.”

“I’ve heard that before too. Do your worst, healer. The sooner this is done with, the better.”

“I’d rather not kill you before I’ve had a chance to heal you,” she replied. The frown he’d been looking for made its appearance. He knew better than to look down at his stomach where her fingers hesitated before trailing down to his left leg. Blood was something that he was accustomed to, but he still wasn’t quite sure what the Danarites had done to him. The memory of exactly what happened after the Lord Priest broke his foot was dim at best.

“These injuries weren’t caused by a fall from a horse. They weren’t caused by a sword,” the healer murmured.
 

Without replying, Kalen focused his attention on ceiling. The steady illumination of a lantern reflected on polished wooden beams. Above the beams were the shadows of rafters. It roused old memories that he had succeeded to forget for more years than he cared to think about.

“Talk to me.”

A door creaked open. Kalen strained to make out the pattern of the wood’s grain.

“You called for me?” another woman asked.

“Analee, prepare poultice for me. Bring your flute.”

“At once,” Analee replied.

“I hope that I won’t need to resort to that flute,” the healer said in a wry tone. “You’ll wish you could deafen yourself, should it touch her lips.”

“What’s your name?” Kalen asked.

“Marissa.” She didn’t ask for his name, and he didn’t offer it.

“Your accent is terrible. Who taught you the Rift tongue?” he asked in Kelshite. “That girl—Analee?—won’t need to play her flute. Recite some poetry or sing, and I’d seek a ledge from which to throw myself.”

“I can’t tell if you’re a fool for insulting the one who’ll heal you or a genius for it. Trying to irritate me so I’m done with you as quickly as possible?”

“I’ve brought what you asked for,” Derac said. Kalen tried to glance at the man, but he couldn’t see across the room from where he lay. He’d been placed on a sedan with a low back. Marissa stalked around him, making quiet, disapproving noises in her throat.

“Put it there,” the healer ordered, pointing at a nearby table. Derac obeyed, setting down a steaming pan of water and a pile of linens.

“What is going on?” someone asked from the door. It was a man’s voice, and each word emerged as a thundering rumble that Kalen felt as much as heard.

“Uncle. There’s trouble,” Derac replied.

“That I can judge from the amount of mud and blood staining my floor. Tell me something I don’t know.”

Kalen almost laughed at Derac’s bashful silence. “You’ve a nest of Danarites in your precious land,” he said without masking the venom in his voice. “And at least one of them will bring ruin to you and your house.” Before he could say anything else, Marissa seized his left foot and twisted. “Hellfires, woman!”

“So many broken bones. I am astonished you’re well enough to manage such rudeness to the Lord of this house. What did you do to yourself?” Marissa asked.

“I didn’t do anything. What do you think happened?” Kalen growled out through clenched teeth.

“When I first saw it, I thought a horse had stepped on you, but the breaks are too consistent,” the healer said. Kalen glanced at her face to see her puzzled frown. “All of the bones are broken like this. Clean breaks. Localized.”

Derac spared him from trying to answer the woman. “Torture, Marissa. They tortured him. When he refused to speak, they thought they’d get answers out of him one broken bone at a time.”

“And you brought him right to the villa, so the Danarites could follow you here to us,” the Lord said.

“I had no choice, Uncle. I couldn’t kill him. Not like that. Should I have left him? They wanted him dead or alive. They know where your villa is, anyway. There is a fool of a traitor with them.”

“He speaks the truth,” Kalen said. He switched to the Rift tongue and glanced over at Marissa. “Will sitting up interfere with your work? If you end up killing me, there are things they need to know.”

“It won’t.” With more strength than he thought her capable of, Marissa hauled him upright. He bit his lip to keep from cursing. “Remember. If you faint, you’ll die.”

“I’m aware. Do your part and I’ll do mine,” he replied.

“You’re a Rifter,” the Lord said in a thick accent that reminded him of Marissa’s. “You aren’t a Guardian.”

“I must ask the Guardians what they saw in you to make you an
Akakashani
, or do all Kelshite Lords make assumptions for things they do not know?” Kalen smiled through the pain. It had been a long time since he’d spoken the more formal version of the Kelshite language, but his tongue remembered the intonations. It felt like he was trying to seduce each syllable. He shuddered.

“How did you know that? Who told you?” Anger deepened the man’s voice.

“Uncle, wait. You don’t understand,” Derac pleaded, hanging onto the Lord’s arm like a child.

“I’m going to begin,” Marissa warned. “By all means, do argue.”

Kalen braced himself. He didn’t have time to draw a breath before she laid her hands upon his left foot and the pain was sucked out of him. Kalen’s muscles relaxed, and he slumped back against the support of the sedan. Lethargy set in as he stared at the Kelshite Lord. He summoned all of his hatred and loathing and let it burn through him. He wondered just how Derac would react if he learned his own uncle was just as much of a traitor as Garint. “Why are you an
Akakashani
?”

“I don’t see how that is your business.”

“Uncle!”

“I’m not speaking to you this moment, Derac. Be silent!”

The Lord stepped into view and dropped down onto the sedan that was on the other side of the table. Dark hair, still tousled from sleep, hung in front of a pair of blue eyes as pale as Kalen’s. A blue, unbuttoned tunic clung to the man’s shoulders. A short-cropped beard and mustache hid his mouth.

Kalen struggled to clench his fingers into a fist, but the broken bones refused to bend. It was a face he knew too well. He saw it every time he stared into a mirror. While there were wrinkles near the man’s mouth and eyes, Kalen couldn’t deny the truth.

~Kill?~
the
First asked. It was both an offer and a question, accompanied with the familiar sense of bloodlust, as well as images of battle and death.

Shaking his head was difficult, but he managed. Marissa clucked her tongue in disapproval. “I said you could argue, young sir. I did not say you could move.”

“Xorisi,” he muttered. If the woman recognized the Mithrian word of apology, she didn’t reply to it.

“A Guardian is not due to come, not for another season. You do not wear the colors, and you came in on a gray horse. Rifter horses are black. Who are you and why have you come out of your Rift?”

Kalen stared into the man’s eyes and wondered if the Lord noticed their resemblance.

“You should’ve killed me when you had the chance, Derac,” Kalen said. Without the pain to sustain him and keep him conscious, he had to focus on each word in order to speak. He muttered a curse.

“You know why I can’t.”

“And I will tell you why you will,” Kalen said in a low, even tone. His gaze flicked to Derac before settling on the Lord once more. “Who would you rather do it? Your uncle, this woman, or you?”

“She’ll heal you,” Derac snapped. “There will be no need for that sword!”

“What are you talking about?” the Lord asked.

“What is your name, Lord of Kelsh? What is your gifted name as
Akakashani?
Speak,” Kalen demanded.

“I am Lord Bresalan Delrose of Kelsh, and I have been gifted the name of Corasan.” Each word was clipped, as though forced out of the man’s mouth without consent.

Kalen let out a low growl from deep within his throat. For a brief moment, Marissa lifted her hands from him and the pain kept him from responding. His foot no longer hurt with the piercing pain of before. It was almost a relief when it throbbed with the beat of his heart.

Her fingers brushed against his ribs, and Kalen’s breath caught in his throat. He wanted to scream, but he bit down on the side of his mouth to keep the sound contained. He sighed when the pain once again was devoured by the healer’s magic. He cringed at the feeling of his bones shifting just beneath his skin as she stroked her fingers over his ribs. She muttered to herself, and he almost laughed when he recognized what she was saying.

The healer’s code of Kelsh wasn’t much different from the one used within the Rift.

“If Derac will not move his hand, then the task falls to you. Should you care at all for your people, and desire any hope of preventing what may come, you will take up the sword and ensure that it takes my life. When the Rift Rides, then you will know the significance of the words that you wrote with your own hand.”

“I take orders from no one but my King,” Lord Delrose said in a low and even tone.

“The second week of the harvest, the tenth year of the reign of Aelthor, son of Toretec, son of Horinst the Wise, son of Veritin, born of the Silent Queen. The harvest goes as well as ever, though there are vines that need pruning. I fear the trellises will tip, should anymore of these once fine grapes were to perish before they can be picked. Corasan.” The spy’s missive had caught Kalen’s attention when he’d first received it, on the virtue of how easily that the Kelshite
Akakashani
had transformed the evidence of his treachery into a simple harvest report.

“How do you know of that?”
 

Derac opened his mouth to speak, but Lord Delrose’s raised hand silenced the man.

“The reply contained but one thing,” Kalen said. “The parcel sealed clean through with wax unbroken until it reached your hand. There are three people who know what was stated within, and two of them are within this room.”