Grudgebearer Read online

  Vander? Kholster thought. Are you getting this?

  We can’t become that, Vander thought to him.

  Maybe it wouldn’t be horrific if we were all outcast together?

  There were once two Foresworn, Kholster. They repelled each other, too.

  The Dwarves made a big deal over that, as I recall. Something about polarity?

  Yes, but then one of them said something about domains and they all cheered and patted him on the back. No idea what they were talking about, but . . . Does he look sick to you? Can you picture Rae’en like that?

  Kholster didn’t answer.

  “Parl,” he said under his breath, “Fifty-Third of One Hundred. You look like . . .” What did he look like? Death, if Kholster had to put a word on it. He was too pale, and his mouth seemed drawn in. And those eyes. Those eyes made Kholster shudder. No Aern should have eyes like eggshells. He pictured Rae’en with those eyes and the image made him sick.

  Everything goes well with the Elevens, Vander pushed on. Rae’en and her Overwatches are drilling with Quana’s squad. Nothing to report.

  I wonder if I should have brought Rae’en. Let her see him.

  She can be there in little more than a candlemark.

  Kholster frowned. Perhaps it would not be cruel, but just, to have witnesses here. Bring yourself and the Foresworn’s Incarna, as well as Rae’en and her Overwatches. I want Rae’en to kholster this decision.

  Decision?

  You know what needs doing, Vander. I know what needs doing. Rae’en is Freeborn . . . I choose to follow her words on this matter. She, also, must know what needs doing.

  We’re on our way, Vander thought.

  Good. Let me see what’s taking him so long.

  Kholster watched as the Foresworn picked his way along the edge of the steps, being careful not to place his feet too close to the edge. In some spots he raced along the snow-covered rock, but in others, he scaled the rock face, scrambling for purchase.

  “Something wrong with the stairs?” Kholster called.

  “They’re seeded with bone metal,” Parl answered. His voice was different, too. Kholster couldn’t quite place why. As Parl reached a flattish plane, he attempted to set foot on the steps, but his foot hovered above the step in a wobbling way as if he could not quite manage to force his foot down.

  “I’ll come down,” Kholster said with a curse. “I should have realized.”

  “Please don’t, Kholster,” Parl choked the words out. Was he crying? “I can do this. Please.”

  “In your own time.” Kholster nodded. Would you rather I look away? Kholster wanted to ask that last question but didn’t.

  “What did he do?” whispered the Dwarf Kholster had forgotten.

  “There are many oaths I advise Aern against making.” Kholster grimaced between words as Parl lost his footing and fell across the steps, sliding across the tops like oil on water until he managed to grab a stone to stop his slide. “Promises of eternal anything or unequivocal success. I have experience with oaths. I tell them take an oath that you will make a reasonable effort, instead. Oaths should hinge on effort, not outcome.” Let all other Aern take care; Kholster’s own oaths bore enough weight for his people to carry.

  “And the oath he took?” The Dwarf leaned toward Kholster with eager eyes.

  Below them, Parl negotiated the troublesome patch where he’d fallen. The wide steps lay close to the edge as the path turned, the rock face too steep to climb without tools. Parl. Kholster was finding it hard to think of Parl as the Foresworn while watching the familiar look of determination on his face. Parl balanced on the edge, using the force of the bone-steel’s push to help steady himself on the narrow margin.

  “He swore an oath to convince another Aern to spare the life of his son’s new bride.”

  “And the other wouldn’t hear of it, even to spare the Grudger being Foresworn?” the Dwarf asked, shock clear in his voice.

  “Midio of North Number Three.” Kholster closed his eyes as he spoke. “Do you know the name?”

  “Sounds familiar. Something to do with the last elections?”

  “She was a beautiful Dwarf.” Kholster could still see her in his mind’s eye. “Jun’s touch was clear on that one. Hair like the deepest depths, eyes the color of lava flow. Toymakers could have copied her in miniature and sold the likenesses to human children. She did not lack for,” Kholster searched for a Dwarven euphemism and found it, “mineral deposits, either.”

  “I can picture her,” the Dwarf agreed.

  “She had taken a different name for her work in Polimbol’s bid for foreman, when he opposed Glinfolgo.”

  “I’m not ashamed to admit that I backed Polimbol—”

  Kholster’s eyes flashed open, irises expanding, amber aching to fill the black.

  “—until I found out about the weak metal in his character,” the Dwarf finished quickly. “Girders built with flaws that deep have to be melted down and forged again. I even heard tell he had that mistress of his rig a . . . collapse.”

  “It is not common knowledge.” Kholster felt the calm creep back in. “But she did indeed. The tunnel’s collapse was meant to kill Glinfolgo, to default the election back to Polimbol . . . but it killed Glinfolgo’s sister instead, and almost killed her daughter, too. There was a public trial.

  “Parl’s son, his Incarna, swore he thought his wife was innocent. Thought,” Kholster searched the Dwarf’s eyes for understanding. “Do you see the difference? Taking an oath is proof one is telling the truth. It’s dangerous, but a powerful tool—particularly among older Aern who remember being oathslaves to the . . . Oathbreakers. To lie with an oath would make an Aern instantly Foresworn.”

  “Parl’s son begged for his father’s intercession?”

  “And Parl swore not only effort but success . . .”

  Below, Parl managed his balancing act and made it through to the wider portion of the path. The slope was steeper, but the distance between step edge and drop-off more than enough to make the climb possible.

  “No gold, I take it?” the Dwarf asked.

  “No gold,” Kholster repeated. “The worst sort of mining. It would have been hard to convince any Aern to spare the woman, but the Aern he needed to convince was me . . .”

  Parl moved more quickly than before, traveling on all fours. He stumbled once, twice, and then he was at the lower edge of the watchtower’s steps.

  “Glinfolgo’s sister, killed in the collapse, was my wife, Helg. I swore to find and kill at least as many of those responsible for Helg’s death as I, while remaining sane and reasonable, could before my Overwatches cried out for me to stop.”

  “As oaths go,” Parl panted, “it was well-thought out, with good limitations, and an excellent safety valve to allow the oath to be abandoned honorably.”

  “Unusual for my oaths.” Kholster walked down the stair to meet him. “Particularly when I’ve just lost a wife.” And I almost lost Rae’en, too.

  “My own oath was regrettably less well-managed. ‘I will save her life, son,’ I said.” Up this close, Kholster identified the source of the strangeness about Parl’s voice . . . there was something wrong with his mouth. His teeth were gone. Pale gray gums. No teeth. Had they fallen out? Had he sold them? Had they . . . rotted? “I will make Kholster spare her. You will grow old together. I swear it. He will listen to reason. If only I had started with ‘If she is truly innocent’ . . .”

  “If only you hadn’t said the ‘grow old together’ part, I could have spared her for a day and spared you in the bargain.”

  “It was a stupid oath.”

  “I’ve made my share of them and yours beside, but . . .”

  “His boy’s wife, Midio,” the Dwarf put in. “She was Polimbol’s murderous mistress?”

  Kholster and Parl nodded.

  “The one you dragged out into the deliberation chamber and tore apart with your bare hands?” the Dwarf asked.

  “I was angry.” Kholster sighed.
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br />   “You will note,” Parl added almost cheerfully, “the great disparity between ‘spared’ and ‘torn apart by the First Forged with his bare hands in front of the voting committee.’”

  “Then the rumors that you killed Polimbol . . . ?”

  Kholster frowned. “Untrue. My brother-in-law did that. It was his right according to Dwarven custom to avenge his sister, and my Overwatches interceded on his behalf . . . cried out for me to stop and allow Glinfolgo the kill.” Kholster froze, pupils blazing amber as the memory caught him. Glinfolgo wielded a bone-steel mattock Kholster had forged for him as a Groom’s day gift from Kholster’s own shed teeth. Polimbol died again and again in Kholster’s memory and he would never consider it enough.

  Sense memory washed over Kholster, the feeling of Midio’s skin breaking in his grip. Her screams. And then they’d brought out Polimbol. As he’d told them to do, Vander and the other Overwatches cried out in Kholster’s mind. He’s to be Glinfolgo’s kill . . . not yours. Stop. Kholster bared his doubled canines and snapped at the air, slightly embarrassed by the lack of control even as he surrendered to it.

  “Best if I do my rounds,” said the Dwarven guard, taking two quick steps away from Kholster. “You’ll keep an eye on things, while I trek northward to check the next tower?”

  “For a time.” Kholster nodded. He watched the Dwarf go, doing his best to ignore the Foresworn. Kholster found he had nothing left to say to the former Aern. All his questions had been answered. All that remained was to see if Rae’en felt the same.

  CHAPTER 12

  WYLANT’S CHOICE

  The twin Root Trees of Hashan and Warrune stood at the center of a nexus of cultivated streets and byways forming, along with their brother trees Fergin and Balnas, the central palace or, as Wylant’s hosts preferred to call it, the Heartwood of Hearth, the capital city of The Parliament of Ages. Long ago, Wylant had preferred the old Eldrennai name for the forest, but the land belonged to the Vael now and they could call Great Wood what they liked.

  Beneath the intertwined lower branches of the Twins, little half-height sproutlings—looking more like miniature versions of full-grown Vael than the weeks-old beings they were—gamboled happily, if a bit loudly for Wylant’s comfort. The underside of the Twins’ branches glittered with silver and blue spirit lights, casting a soft, even luminescence. The smooth wooden walls encircling the private garden were formed, Wylant noted, by the commingled root system of the Twin Trees themselves. How the Root Trees grew rooms within themselves, much less the double doors through which Wylant passed upon entering Queen Kari’s garden, was beyond her.

  “I don’t know how they do it, either,” Queen Kari remarked, her age betrayed by a gentle quiver in her otherwise musical voice. “I’ll never be a Root Tree as I am not a boy-type person.”

  Queen Kari, clad in a simple white gown that may or may not have been cotton (and Wylant was not certain whether she actually wanted to know or not) watched her children chasing each other about in the garden, the corners of her wide umber-colored eyes wrinkling with amusement. Her head petals, long and white, cascaded down her back, the scent of her—cool, clean, and sweet—stood out uncloyingly even amongst the floral scents of the other Vael.

  Gender roles seemed far more complex among the Vael than the Eldrennai, but then again no Eldrennai Wylant had ever met was likely to take root and become a house. She’d wanted to ask Tran more about Taking Root, but the prince had left her in the hands of the Parliament’s Warders and had returned to the outskirts of the forest to resume his quest for the perfect place to begin his long growth into a Root Tree, forming the core of a new city nearer to the humans.

  Two Warders, somewhat severe and withdrawn for Vael, stood toward the rear of the garden not-quite frowning at the children. Both wore hunting leathers and had the same deep purple head petals, clipped short. Their heartbows were casually at hand, the deep, rich wood kept alive by the Vael’s unique form of spirit magic. Wylant could sense the power moving tenuously about her in the forest, like a whisper on the breeze or a twig snapping far off in the dark.

  Shamanism, she thought to herself, I wonder how different it is from Kam’s New Elementalism.

  “So, kholster Wylant,” Queen Kari said, tearing her gaze away from the children, “How long do you suppose it will be before Dienox deigns to lift his fog of war to allow you to discern the location of your ancient foes?”

  “So you also believe they are hidden from me,” Wylant raised an eyebrow, “and not that I’m poor Wylant, the mad General who smells nonexistent Zaur on the wind where’er she goes?”

  “It takes little faith to believe what one can see, kholster.” Queen Kari’s eyes narrowed. “The shroud of the god hangs over your spirit so that it pains me to see it and not be able to help. Your soul struggles so valiantly to keep you free of him that he only manages to blur the edges. He does not control you, but he has in the past.”

  “Control me?” Wylant snorted. “The gods cannot control the living unless the living are willing. I’m not some foolish God Speaker.”

  “But you have opened yourself to war, to the thrill of victory. The times Dienox has reached in and pushed you in one direction or the other have left his burning handprints on your living spirit, marks your soul cannot scour away in this life. I see a conflagration engulfing your right wrist . . . and one trailing fire from the back of your head as if he’d grasped your skull one-handed, forcing you to change direction . . . and . . .” Queen Kari looked at Vax, and Wylant closed her fingers around the pommel not as if to draw it but as though to obscure the queen’s view.

  Sensing her dismay, Vax drew in upon himself, shrinking down into his sheath, hidden from the queen’s piercing gaze.

  “Your husband could help with that, you know,” Queen Kari said softly. “If you sent word to him, he would come. He longs for you.”

  “Kholster?” Wylant took a jagged breath, emotions so mixed and raw she didn’t even try to tell them apart. “He remarried. He doesn’t think about me. And this . . .” She clutched the top of her scabbard. “I could never explain.”

  “He thinks monogamy means only one spouse of any given species,” Queen Kari said, her smile as gentle as her words. “Your kin taught them that.”

  “He’s had centuries to figure it out,” Wylant said.

  “And in all that time he married only once, and she did the asking.” Queen Kari frowned sadly. “She passed, you know.”

  “I . . . no . . . I wasn’t aware.”

  Wylant looked back to the sproutlings, wanting to change the subject, but even there, the subject was her former husband. Which Vael here could, in thirteen years, convince Kholster and Prince Dolvek not to kill each other for three days and three nights while they camped together at the feet of the statues of the gods? Which sproutling could convince Kholster to renew his oath and come back for one more Conjunction in another hundred years’ time to stave off Aldo’s Prophecy?

  There was a poem about the so-called prophecy in Vaelish, a language Wylant didn’t speak, but the translation went something like: “Listen to me, my favorite mortal children. The peace you have is fragile. Once every hundred years, the Aern, the Vael, and the Eldrennai must each talk to each other and renew your truce, or one day the Aern will show up and kill the Eldrennai so quickly the Vael will not have time to talk them out of it. Then there will be no one left to man the Port Gates and demons will creep into the world once again. So play nice and spend at least three days and three nights together, because the Vael representative is going to need at least that long to make Kholster not want to eat the Eldrennai.”

  The Vael representative.

  “Was this . . .” Wylant hesitated, uncertain whether she wanted to ask the question on the tip of her tongue. Though all of the children were attractive and playing, Wylant tracked one of them in particular. Among peers with petals in colors as varied as the many varieties of plants and flowers in the wild, this sproutling’s head petals were sun
flower yellow. Her facial features, well . . . Wylant realized she was going to have to ask. “Was this something you did on purpose?”

  “If you mean,” Kari said, her limbs creaking softly as she walked over to a stone-wrought chair and sat down, “did we make Yavi look like you or did it happen naturally, I believe I may take umbrage.” She laughed. “Mild umbrage. It happens with every Vael who meets Kholster.” The queen’s eye seemed to look far away. “Some of our sproutlings in each season tend to look like you or like him, or both. Tran said we should send young Kholburran.”

  Wylant’s gaze went instantly to the bronze-skinned sproutling boy with the shock of red hair petals like the leaves of a blood oak, cut so short it looked like overgrazed pastureland. Despite the donkey-like nature of the ears, the boy was Kholster’s spitting image. His eyes were a solid and startling jade. When he laughed, his dental ridges showed spiked thorns at the corners of his mouth as if to mimic an Aern’s doubled canines.

  “Maybe,” Wylant said. “Success is more certain with a girl, one who is a fighter but has a good heart and a strong will. She will need to be able to understand him, to really see him, to stop him. Usually he wants to stop, but he requires an honorable excuse.

  “And,” Wylant released her grip on her scabbard as Vax resumed his most usual shape, “she’ll need to be able to keep him from getting so angry he starts making oaths.”

  Queen Kari grinned at that, revealing her pruned dental ridges, worn by age, browned at the edges. “One of the harder tasks.”

  “And she’ll need to be very careful about sleeping with him.”

  “The hardest task,” Queen Kari said wistfully, “given that we were grown to specifically desire the Aern and them us. He is, as Firstwrought, perhaps the most Aern of the Aern. I wanted to run away with him and let every Eldrennai be arvashed. You have Rivvek to thank for the current lull in hostilities. Though recently . . . I dreamed . . .”

  “What did you dream?”