Chapter Twenty-Five

 

 

A frantic knocking on the door woke Av in the middle of the night. He had been dreaming that he had been looking for Aren through the village. He could hear her shouting, but he couldn’t find her anywhere. Her voice seemed to rise from the ground itself. The first knock did not completely wake him, but the sound caused Aren’s shouts to turn to screams of pain.

He stumbled to the door and snapped it open.

“Someone had best be dying,” he snarled at the hooded, blurry figure.

“Sort of and yet never again,” Laeder’s voice squeaked out.

The scribe pushed back the hood of his travelling cloak and stared at Av. He looked paler than usual. Av peered past Laeder into the darkness, wondering if there were a threat waiting in the night that Laeder couldn’t voice.

“Av, down,” his father grumbled, shuffling to Av’s side. “You’ve frightened the boy.”

Frowning, Av pulled away from the door, not understanding how he had scared the scribe. He was clothed. With children in the house he made certain to sleep with at least something over his hips. With all that had already happened to the children, he didn’t want to accidentally show them something that they weren’t old enough to understand.

“He’s—” Laeder said quietly to Ervam, moving into the house slowly. “Is he…?”

“He’s obviously had a bad dream. Have a seat, scribe,” Ervam said sternly.

A command for Laeder to sit before he fell over, and a reminder for Av that Laeder had no training and was not a threat. Av almost took the seat across from Laeder, but thought better of it. He walked down the hall and knocked on Jer’s door before he entered the room. The children were sleeping in the fourth bedroom beside their father’s, once meant for guests, now hesitantly belonging to Mie.

Jer and Av had claimed, and kept, bedrooms at their father’s that would never be slept in but for by them.

The first step in training a warrior was teaching him control. They hadn’t found a bit of territory to ‘lose’ to Mie yet, but the boy was slowly coming to claim Anue. He made certain the girl ate breakfast, followed her around telling outrageous stories. Mie was much like a younger brother in how he behaved, and Anue seemed patient to a point.

Mie had yet to assert this claim over the will of his older brothers. They had been careful to only tell Anue to do things that Mie might support. This built in Mie’s mind the proper way to treat one he had claimed. Normally, when a person was claimed, that person was let in on the secret.

There hadn’t been a chance to tell Anue, and then what would they say? That the boy she thought they had brought in order to force her with a male of their choice, had attached himself to her? It seemed a fast way to see just how far the little queen’s rage could go.

“What?” Jer asked from the darkness of his room.

“Laeder’s here,” Av murmured quietly, not wanting to alert the scribe to the fact that his brother was awake.

If Jer didn’t want to see Laeder, then so be it. Av would take the information from Laeder and send the man back into the darkness to find his way home before the sun rose.

“I’ll be out in a minute,” Jer grumbled, sliding out of bed. “Stall them. When they get going it’s like two gossiping hens.”

“Oh dear,” Av said, closing the door quickly.

He walked back to the living area, half expecting Laeder to be mid-tale. Instead, he found his father pouring steaming water into a teapot. Small buns with cold meat from dinner were on a plate in front of Laeder, waiting to be eaten.

Of course Ervam would offer food and beverage to his guest before he started questioning. The dark was cold. Laeder needed to come back to himself before he was questioned about what had happened.

Av took the seat across from Leader, helping himself to a bun. Laeder watched Av eat and hesitantly took a bun for himself. Jer joined them as tea was poured for all four of them. Leader looked at Jer, looked as if he had something he wanted to say, but made no comment as he turned back to focus on his tea and the half-eaten bun before him.

“Why are you here?” Jer asked.

“Telm came to me and unburdened herself,” Laeder said. The scribe glanced up at Av, concern playing over his features. “Story goes somewhat similar to what we know. Her cousin bedded her, bred her, and took her home to his parents. There was an old magic in the village, latent at the time because it can sleep without a queen present, much like how the throne can sleep when there are no queens available. Except it's weaker, a great deal weaker, and doesn't drag down the minds of others.

“When the village was razed the first time, Telm was taken hostage by the throne. Each queen cared for her, simply passing the girl on to their successors. When she came of age, Telm found a man she fancied and bore a daughter.”

“Er's mate?” Ervam asked. “My son's aunt is Telm's daughter?”

Laeder nodded and said, “The daughter was as beautiful and dangerous as the mother. The daughter grew at court and headed north, forced out by Telm who didn't want her daughter linked to the throne. I don't know if her daughter knows this, but Telm was vicious on purpose and it broke her heart to do so, but it was the only way to save her.”

“She's still pissed,” Ervam said. “Only thing I've ever seen her take to anger about is when her bloodline is brought up. Says they're dead. But let's face it, something doesn't feel right when she tells that story.”

“She might have sat the throne, Telm said,” Laeder said. “She might even have been a long-lived queen, but the court wasn't ready for a long-lived queen, nor the throne. Whatever that means, because the throne was pissed at Telm for sending her daughter away.”

“The throne wanted her?” Jer asked. “But it's spent generations making Aren.”

“Aren's not the first, nor the last,” Laeder said. “After losing Telm's daughter, the throne seemed to change its intent.”

“Make two, instead of one,” Av said, drawing the eyes of the others. “That's why Para had two daughters, that's why Anue is like Aren in magic. Both are long-lived queens, aren't they?”

“Without putting them on the throne, there's no way to tell,” Jer said to Av.

“That was what Telm thought,” Laeder said. “It wants Aren to sit it, but is perfectly fine with accepting Anue, given she's immune from consumption.”

“More people are going to die,” Ervam growled.

Laeder nodded. “Telm figures another bout of consumption will strike the palace once Anue returns to court. We could keep her away, but it's best if she's made immune while the throne has control. Others will die, yes, but would you want to lose Anue later on? Aren didn't mention her sister much, but when she did she made it very clear that she cared for her sister a great deal. If Anue dies of consumption because you didn't bring her to the palace when she should have been at court, and the throne tells Aren... She'll rain terror down on you like you would not believe.”

“Back to Telm, perhaps?” Ervam asked.

“Telm told me to tell you that before I told you the rest. Though, she also asked I wait until spring for this story.”

“Why tell us that first?” Av asked.

“So that when I tell you what Telm did, you will know that Aren could do the same to you,” Laeder said. “And Aren is stronger than Telm ever was.”

“What do you mean, ever was?” Jer asked. “A queen is born strong or weak, and it doesn't change over their lifetime.”

“Aren became stronger,” Av said to Jer, cutting off his brother's protest. “And a warrior becomes weaker with age, so why not a queen?”

“Boys,” Ervam growled at the two of them. “Let the scribe tell the story. Laeder? Stop hesitating and giving them the opportunity to interrupt.”

“Sorry,” Laeder said. “Telm's cousin took her out when she was pregnant, to keep her from fighting back. But the link there won't latch onto a queen who's about to birth a queen. Which is what Telm was carrying at the time, a little queen. The reason for this is because that link was created in order to prevent the destruction of the queen attached to it. It links a queen to give her the territory, but if she has magic, it takes it the way the throne does.

“Finding out that he couldn't force Telm to link to the magic, and finding Telm capable of using her legs and her knees, her cousin cut the babe from her belly. Meaning to then force the magic on Telm. Mother and babe were dying. Telm described it as going all cold and then all emotion disappeared, the terror vanished and she knew that the only way to save them both was to fall into the rage.”

“She did it on purpose? Queens can't do it on purpose!” Ervam shouted at Laeder.

“Calm down,” Av and Jer said to Ervam as one.

“The throne, even so far away, showed her how,” Laeder said. “Its queen had just died. It wanted Telm to sit it, so it was reaching for her. She doesn't think she could do it again, she's not even certain she's capable of the rage were someone to do something ridiculously stupid.

“When she came to she was a day away, holding her own guts in as riders from the palace, who had been headed out to retrieve her at the dying queen's wishes, came across her. They went to check the village and came back, babbling stories about the undead and how the land itself was dead.

“Since then, Telm has pieced it together from myth and then the archivist, who has access to records she cannot even read. Originally she thought the magic cursed the village by thrusting it into the spirit realm and sort of bringing the spirit realm into ours. Causing disease and famine to spread from the village and ever outward. But suddenly the spread stopped and sort of reversed. For a generation, it's simply existed, but Telm said recently it got bigger again. Now she can't sense it at all, but she once knew how large it was and whether it grew or shrank. It will shrink for a few months, then grow again. Each time it grows, the middle of the spell, the village itself is ruined in a new way.”

Laeder paused to sip his tea as the others at the table contemplated. Av watched Laeder watch him and came to a conclusion that he thought was quite obvious.

“Queens—queens were stumbling into the spell, linked to the magic that was there in the first place like they are to the throne,” Av said.

The scribe nodded. “They're drawn to the deadened land, since it’s in their nature to help, but when a queen rages, others are drawn more so, to fix what one of their own destroyed. Thing is—and Telm only learned this recently—the only way to get rid of the spell was for the one it was cast on to die.”

“But the land was cursed,” Jer said.

“That's what she thought,” Laeder said. “That's what I thought as well, but it's not the land. Telm would never attack the land itself, her rage was launched onto the one who did her harm. There were people in that village who tried to help her escape. There were innocents there. Her rage and every ounce of her magic was poured into the man who caused her pain. Her cousin.”

“As long as he lives, so does the spell?” Av asked. “How do we find him? Could he be closer than the village? Can I stab him right now?”

Laeder held up his hands in his own defence. “We don't know where the cousin is. He could be mobile, but he's got to be ancient by now. The spell slowed Telm's aging. She was just over thirty when the spell was launched which—as your father will tell you—was several years before you two were born. Age of consent for a queen was twenty-five when Telm was young. In order to prevent a queen from being taken advantage of by her mate.”

“She was twenty-five,” Av said, turning to his father. “How old is Aunt?”

“Fifty-five,” Ervam struggled to get out.

“She was twenty-five when she found herself a man,” Laeder corrected. “Making Telm well over eighty.”

“Spry for such an old woman,” Jer muttered.

“I have a question,” Av said. He waited until everyone was watching him. He knew that they were expecting some stupid question that had nothing to do with the topic at hand. “If we break this spell, what happens to Telm? To her age? Lose Anue, we're in trouble with Aren. Lose Telm? We're in trouble from every queen on palace lands and some who aren't.”

The table was silent. None of them had thought of that, no one considered Telm.

“Better yet, if that's how Telm aged, how did her cousin?” Jer asked. “Are we looking for an old man, a man just past his prime, or did he stay in the village?”

“Making it almost impossible for him to age, let alone die,” Laeder said. “Those who weren't consumed in the blast were locked to the land. Telm thought it was in a bid to keep her daughter alive. The only way for them to die was by their own hands or—and uh, I kind of got a chuckle out of this—or at the hands of the one true love of the one linked to the magic within the village, thusly redeeming your entire rank in the so-called eyes of Telm's rage.”

“What happens if I go but I'm not actually her true love?” Av asked.

“You get locked into the spell to suffer agony for all eternity and she is killed,” Laeder said. “In order to spare her from the heartbreak and abuse you would surely cause her.”

“Surely that's theoretical,” Jer said.

“The archivist and his kind are capable of viewing, in a way, a queen's rage and the magic she creates during the rage and writing it down in spell form. The spell is blurry in some aspects, but in that it's clear. Either he has to take his own life, or die of old age, or you have to pray to the good spirits that you're Aren's one true love and she is in fact linked to the magic.”

“And that you don't miss,” Ervam said. “The cousin was a warrior, who's had quite a bit of time alone to do as he pleases.”

“Who may, or may not, have an army of spirit villagers backing him,” Jer muttered.

“True love or not, I can't just leave her there,” Av said.