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“U’isi sol kin scinane mor potem luveclae?”
(“Does not the sun shine brighter after a storm?”)
—Ora Fal’kinnen 123:30
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Two Rivers Ford was gone.
The Ain Magne stood in the mud, the flooded riverbank before him. His helmet slipped from his grip to fall with a squelch in the filth. His hands hung limply at his sides. The newly torn edge of land lay raw in the distance, now visible in the soft light of morning. Bloody water and silt lapped at his boots. Exhaustion and a despondency far more debilitating than fatigue vied for his strength. The Ford was destroyed, and no amulet, no sword, no fist would bring it back.
His plan had been perfect. His Ken’nar had outnumbered the Fal’kin more than two to one, and yet it was his own warriors who limped away, his regiments in tatters. He had split his forces and surrounded the Kin-Deren troops, yet he had lost three thousand men and women, a full one thousand when the bridges fell. Vallia Edaran should have been captured and harvested, using her viciousness for him, and yet her life’s song echoed no more from within the Aspects. Her daughter Liaonne should have been killed, and yet her presence still returned to his mind.
His plan had indeed been perfect. Mirana Pinal, however, had been more perfect. He should have foreseen this, all of this. He should have foreseen her. Every time he made his plans, she and her Trine Aspects somehow divined them. Ai, she was a Trine. He knew that now for certain.
He wanted to be angry. Oh, how he wanted to be. He had every right to be. He should strike her down with his vengeance and the fullness of his Aspects, not even leaving ash behind. Anger, however, would not bring back the Ford nor move his war machine to Deren.
Anger certainly wouldn’t give him something even more important than a thousand Fords: Jasal’s Keep and its awesome and terrifying power. Only Mirana could give him that. Once he had the keep, Kinderra would be his and this atrocious slaughter of continuous warfare would, at last, be over.
The Ain Magne stepped a few paces from the flood plain and sank to the muddy ground. He buried his face in his hands. He had pushed himself during the battle almost beyond even his limits, leaving him spent and empty inside. Calling a battle while hidden under the cloak of U’Nehíl to the minds of his field marshals was taxing. Healing was taxing. Harvesting Aspected warriors was taxing. The procedure had drained him to his core. He would soon have aid in harvesting, however. That was perhaps the one feeble success of this contemptible campaign.
He let his hands fall away. They were covered in blood as was his armor, as was his sword. Some of it was his own. Most of it was not. Such a needless, senseless waste.
He reached for his amulet and pulled deep within himself for his Aspects. Not enough of the living surrounded him to allow him to draw upon the Power from Without.
Two Rivers Ford was gone, but the Aspects Above never took away anything without giving something back in return. That was an edict he believed in more fervently than the expectation that the sun would rise each morning. Had the Aspects Above taken the Ford from him to guide him toward a new future?
He called to his Seeing Aspect—and this time he smiled.
Images flashed through his consciousness. His victory had not been stolen from him by a woman-child. No. Instead, she only brought it one step closer.
He still had thousands of men and women, siege towers, catapults, and battering rams. Ai, an easy land route for his war machine was gone, but another one still existed. It would be more difficult, ai, but far shorter in distance. He needed steeds for his Ken’nar, perhaps now more than ever, to make up for the time he would lose with the difficulty of this new crossing. The conquest of Deren, however, had not changed, only its timing. If he moved swiftly, the losses the Fal’kin took at the Ford would work in his favor.
And if he left Mirana Pinal alive after this destruction, it could place a wedge further between his seer second and himself.
The Ain Magne pursed his lips. His servant wanted her dead, but the young seer had yet to realize her importance. He held his amulet tighter. His seer second remained critical to his plans. Though his most loyal servant, his second also posed his greatest risk. He knew his servant regarded him as a mentor, a patrua, even a father figure. He used those feelings to ensure that loyalty. But everyone, even his second, had a breaking point. If the seer continued to view the girl as a rival, this could become an issue, perhaps even a fatal one.
An even darker thought curled its way through his mind. The Ain Magne had come to power himself by earning the trust of one of the most dreaded Ken’nar warlords to have walked Kinderra—then killed him. The man was a despot and cared nothing for Kinderra or bringing peace to her.
What would happen when his second did finally come to understand Mirana as the key to conquering Kinderra? If his seer second and the Pinal girl united and conspired against him, he would have to make choices he did not even want to contemplate. For his plans to succeed, he needed both his second and the girl—and their undying loyalty. To him.
Jasal’s Keep flared once again before his mind’s eye, an otherworldly impression wrought by his Seeing Aspect. It exploded with unspeakable power and, once again, the image faded into Mirana’s face. The young Trine was linked to the keep and, for that reason alone, he had allowed her to live. He had meant to use her to gain Jasal’s Keep, then dispose of her. Her potential as a rival was too dangerous to allow her to remain alive forever.
He winced as a patch of skin on the side of his forearm pulled away from a bit of melted chain mail, leaving a raw wound.
What if the girl was not a rival, however? What if he, instead, shaped and forged her into a weapon to be used for him?
He rubbed his hand over the injury. The dark jewel at his chest glowed and the wound disappeared.
Another Trine by his side presented advantages he had not considered. An innocent, young Fal’kin girl who embraced his philosophy might be able to convince the Fal’kinnen to lay down their arms for the good of the land. If she could see that noble future herself and her place within it, she could show the Fal’kin the beauty and worthiness of his designs.
Legend said Deren could not be conquered. The Ain Magne did not believe in absolutes, save for the Aspects Above themselves. Despite the destruction of the Ford, had he not cut down Kin-Deren’s Fal’kin nearly to a man? Without the province’s Fal’kin, the citadel’s battlements would pose but a minor obstacle, and not even that if he held the keep.
He pursed his lips. Ai, controlling Jasal’s Keep would not only give him Deren but the whole of Kinderra. For Kinderra to remain his, however, would require a force even more powerful than fear: love.
The Fal’kin would love Mirana Pinal, adore her as an instrument of peace. She would become the symbol of true unity in a new Kinderra. He would head a glorious new Aspected Triumvirate—he at the crown, Mirana on his right, his seer second on his left—leading Kinderra into a new age of enlightenment. That day, that age, however, was still far off, with many tenuous skeins needing to be woven before such a future could unfold.
The Ain Magne rose slowly out of the mud. Bodies surrounded him. Thousands of them, Ken’nar and Fal’kin, a rotting carpet of rent flesh. He finally gave in to the anger welling up in him. The waste! The needless, senseless, waste! And for what? So one people’s path to the Aspects could be proven superior over another’s beliefs?
He looked down at the inert form by his feet and closed his eyes. A wave of sadness washed through him again, defeat threatening to return. So very much death.
The Trine girl did not know him yet. She did not understand the importance of her power, not truly. She would, in time. She must. Jasal’s Keep was too important. Kinderra was too important.
The Ain Magne hated killing, detested it, but he hated failure most of all.
Mirana Pinal must come to understand him. She must. Or the ultimate failure of death would be the only fate left for Kinderra.
