Prologue
Northern Japan—1365
Dorian examined the unique long, slender blade that fit singularly in his palm, creating a seamless extension of his arm. “Do you have any others?” he asked as he expertly swung the sword at a phantom attacker. Pivoting on his left heel, he deftly ripped a swathe through the neatly manicured bushes. He grimaced at the unintentional destruction and forced his eyes to raise and receive the warranted glare from his brother. “My apologies.”
“Akihiko will not be pleased,” Aeolus murmured, eyeing the damage to the once beautiful shrubbery before answering his brother’s question. “Masamune was a genius. It was he who thought of combining soft and hard steel for use in swords. You are in luck that I made sure he taught his technique to others before his death. So if the katana entertains you, keep it. I shall also offer its mate. Somewhat smaller, but just as deadly.”
“I find it surprising you would so easily give up such a prize,” Dorian commented. “What is wrong with it?” he asked, speaking from past brotherly experience.
Aeolus chuckled and waved his finger, pointing at the sword. “Look at the saya,” he said, gesturing toward the handle.
Dorian shifted his grip to examine the handguard portion of the sword. The intricately carved design was a true work of art in which the lambda was prominently featured. The upside-down V-like symbol had played a role in both of the empires he had built, making it clear that the sword had been constructed for only one owner—him.
Dorian nodded, accepting the offer. Only a slight glimmer in his smoky gray eyes revealed his appreciation. He knew Aeolus understood that he was amused by little these days. Such feelings came and went with the decades. His brother was currently finding pleasure by building a dynasty in the East, an area of the world most of their kind refrained from inhabiting. Their considerable size and dark Greek features stood out, making it impossible to blend into the crowd—but discretion had never been Aeolus’s style.
“I’m impressed,” Dorian said, once again speaking about his unexpected gift. “You must be inspiring these humans for them to create such beauty.”
“And they are skilled fighters, able to defeat men twice their size,” Aeolus added, hinting that his own height was not quite the intimidator it had been elsewhere.
“Perhaps,” Dorian sighed in mock agreement. He was in no mind to argue, but he doubted Aeolus’s growing army could ever match Scotland’s Highlanders in strength or skill. Then again, the chances of the two cultures ever battling were incredibly slim.
“Why don’t you return to your beloved mountains and form something of those barbarians who live there?”
Dorian sighed and watched the sparkle of afternoon sunlight play on the waves from the safety of the shaded garden. “I already guided men to better lives—twice.”
“The Peloponnesian League and then Rome. Both times you prematurely left and both empires gave in to war and eventually crumbled so that now only a few of us can remember their glory,” his brother asserted, commencing one of their more common debates. “I’ll never understand why you abandoned them.”
The comment startled Dorian, for the discussion typically took a turn of encouragement, with Aeolus attempting to persuade him to end his wandering ways, plant roots, and establish another empire. “I would argue that I did not let it crumble. Mortals cannot grasp the value of anything beyond their own lifetime, and dealing with them is tedious and wearisome. I only walked away when staying became pointless.”
Aeolus stroked his long braided ponytail styled in the way of bushi. “Humans are bound to destroy anything great built, either by them or us.”
Careful to remain under the heavy shade the garden’s foliage provided, Dorian stepped forward and waved his arm at Aeolus’s men training in the distance with precision and stamina rarely seen in humans. “Hopefully not this?”
Aeolus sighed and nodded with knowledge of someone who had seen the future and knew what it held. “No, not anytime soon, but you and I both know that we will live to see it end. Meanwhile, it entertains me.”
Dorian stared quietly at the training fields, listening to the short staccato of the words the men barked with each movement. “I envy humans sometimes.”
“You wish to train in the sunlight?” Aeolus teased.
Dorian shook his head. The harsh rays didn’t immediately kill his kind, but they burned, making the warmth of the sun one of the few things humans enjoyed that he could not. But after nearly two millennia, the desire for sunlight no longer pulled at Dorian’s soul. “It is their mortality I covet. Living such short lives changes their view of the world.”
“It limits them, you mean.”
“Aye,” Dorian agreed. “And such ignorance is something to be desired.”
Aeolus shook his head. “Think, brother, you have been here in Japan, what? Five short years? To us, an extended vacation, but to a human that is a significant portion of their brief life. If you are to envy a mortal being, then envy a spawn. They at least live long enough to taste a sample of what life could be like.”
Dorian arched a single brow. Aeolus had a point, but a spawn’s lifetime was just long enough to make them crave true immortality. As a result, they were consumed with extending their already long lives. In the end, they possessed the same flaw as humans. Greed, something immortals understood to be unnecessary—and unfulfilling.
Aeolus and Dorian followed the green canopied path back to the house, pausing to look out at the calm bay where fishing vessels were returning with the afternoon’s catch. “You are welcome to continue to stay as long as you like, but your increasing boredom will not be alleviated here. You should find Ionas. He tends to keep your mind occupied . . . for at least a while.”
Dorian grimaced but kept his eyes focused on the bay. Aeolus was right. He was bored. For the past couple of centuries he had passed the time fighting, mostly covertly, and often as a Scot, just to antagonize his nephew. Ionas had initiated the Viking raids in an effort to prove a point—civility was not a requirement to conquer a people. Dorian believed otherwise. Either grow and prosper or be vanquished to the next brutal bunch of nomads overtly seeking power. All people secretly wished for a better life—no matter who they were or where they resided. Ionas held fast that it was power not prosperity that drove men. An old circular argument that had no end.
“I’m not Ionas’s keeper.”
“Who is? Who could be for any of us, at that point?”
It had been nearly two hundred years since Ionas went away to lick his wounds after losing their last quarrel. Communication concerning that part of the world rarely came to the distant islands Aeolus had chosen for his current home, but Dorian had no doubt his nephew was hatching up a new way to spoil the majestic lands Dorian had grown to love. To his kind, revenge was not something rushed or personal, but an art that required time to both plan and execute, a simple concept mortals could not grasp.
Unfortunately, to learn of his nephew’s newest brutal scheme meant interacting with humans, something Dorian now avoided whenever possible. Humans were ingenious, but tedious. Their short lifespan affected everything about them—their thoughts, ambitions, desires, accomplishments, and most especially their relationships. And yet, dawdling, when it came to Ionas, was nearly a guarantee of spending even more time mingling with mortals to clean up the mess. Two hundred years was not a lot of time, but it was enough to recover and plan bigger and yet less obvious forms of revenge.
Dorian twirled the long sword effortlessly in his palm, letting the sleek edges catch the light as he debated the idea of returning to Scotland. Never had Dorian held any blade of its like, and though he knew it was a petty emotion well beneath him, he secretly enjoyed the idea of irritating his nephew Ionas by possessing it. “I think it’s time to check on Kilnhurst,” he finally said after some time.
“And perhaps find another thorn to stick in Ionas’s side?” Aeolus asked, echoing Dorian’s thoughts. “He wasn’t pleased with the last one.”
“Nay. Just stop whatever he is planning.”
“Same thing,” Aeolus argued.
“Come with me. Last time you had fun, if I recall.”
“I was in between children then.”
“So?” Dorian remarked. Like him, Aeolus disliked coupling with spawns, which left one feeling more empty than satisfied. But his brother had no issue mating with a human, something he did regularly and not just with one. At first, Dorian believed Aeolus’s seemingly constant desire for more children was driven by the hope of eventually producing another immortal. But the mysterious inherited element that made their immediate family nosferatu was too diluted in their offspring to grant the burden of perpetual life. Their children could not digest blood. As a result, they ate meat and lived like all other humans—briefly. After nearly two millennia of watching Aeolus continue with his cavorting ways, Dorian decided that his brother’s affinity for human female flesh and the resulting mortal offspring was sincere and most likely would never change.
Aeolus shrugged, acknowledging Dorian’s simple but telling comment. “Still, this time our nephew is all yours. I intend to spend the next several decades seeing what these Eastern men can achieve. They are good, quick, and surprisingly clever.”
Dorian laughed out loud, hearing the spark of genuine interest in his eldest brother’s voice. “Well, ‘ruler of the winds,’ can you spare me a ship?”
Aeolus returned the chuckle. “An ancient title I have not heard for some time. I’m feeling generous. I’ll give you two ships and let you keep one. Just return both crews, and send back news of Ionas and whatever else might be of interest. When do you want to leave?”
“Soon,” Dorian lied.
“I know you, dear brother. Your voice says indifference, but Scotland holds your heart like this place holds mine. You may pretend otherwise, but now that you have decided to return, I know you are quite eager to depart.”
Dorian continued to stare out at the bay, which was now crowded with anchored fishing boats due to impending nightfall. Yes, he loved Scotland. Living among the massive peaks made him feel vulnerable, ignorant—mortal. It had been one of the few places where his unusual height and size did not look out of place.
But Aeolus was wrong about his desire to return. Then again, his brother was unaware of the real reason Dorian had left his beloved home.