Chapter 38 Remember #3
Then her grandfather died. She felt the hope she had had for her future under her father’s rule.
She would be sent North to find out why rimeshade were a plague that would not go away.
Then her father’s birthright to be King of Skol was challenged by her cousin, Greggor.
He wanted to make a deal with the King of Lamar.
A deal behind the back of the eastern kings of Fjern and Elderice, ensuring that the two western Kingdoms of Nordraven would split with Lamar all of the Hyalites the Everburning Forest produced.
They fought in single combat, her cousin winning and killing her father.
She was ordered to go back to the South, where the fight over Hyalites with Lamar’s Paragons continued.
It wasn’t until months later that she intercepted a damaging letter between her cousin, the King of Skol, and King Agadorn of Lamar. She brought it to Barrik, unsure what her cousin would do to her if she revealed that she knew.
“You must keep this information private. The eastern Kings would turn on ours if they knew,” Barrik told her.
“Fjern and Elderice are the two kingdoms hit the hardest by this perpetual war with Lamar. How can your son go behind their back like this? Deciding which Paragon will win the Hyalite before the storm has even started? Is this a game for them?” Lark demanded.
“This is best for Skol. With Wintermire’s help, we’re collecting twice as many Hyalites and Yogos as ever.”
“Because King Agadorn is letting us take them?”
“It’s not like every time a Hyalite is produced we’re deciding which Kingdom will have a chance at it. Only the ones where Skol, Wintermire and Lamar arrive at first,” Barrik said.
“It does, though, you must see. You let Lamar take power away from us, then they purposefully let us win the next few storms? Where are all these Yogos and Hyalites going?”
“We’re making a reserve for when the Flashover comes. We have it protected; it’s safe,” Barrik said.
“You’re depriving half of our country the right to benefit from Hyalites and Yogos. The half of Nordraven that is fighting Lamar on the ground.”
“That is where the war must be fought, the Everburning Forest south of Skol and Wintermire burns too frequently and intensely. This is how it must be if we’re going to make it through the Flashover and come out on top,” Barrik stated flatly.
“I can’t believe this. You and your son ignore the threat from the North.
We could be using those powers to suppress the rimeshade before the Flashover has a chance to make things worse.
Then we could use them to win this war against Lamar.
Instead, you would have thousands of people die so that our Kingdom will have a better stockpile of wealth when the Night Court chooses to attack Sataran. ”
“It’s how we as a Kingdom will survive,” Barrik growled.
“I’ll bring this to the other Kings,” Lark said.
“And start a civil war, now? That will destroy Nordraven. The other kingdoms would fall. But if we do this, Skol will be able to protect them when the darkness comes.”
“Your goal is to have Skol to be an empire over all others, isn’t it? Is that what Greggor is trying to do, set us up to take over the North?”
“We must rule with an iron fist if we’re going to survive the Flashover. The Night Court has had five hundred years to prepare for this. The rimeshade will welcome their cousins from the fae realm and, if we’re not ready, we’ll be taken out like the rest of the world,” he insisted.
“Which is why we should be fighting the rimeshade now and not waiting,” Lark said, trying to take the letter back from Barrik.
Barrik uttered a word, and the letter turned to stone. The writing vanished into a slate of smooth granite. “Don’t be the catalyst to bring on the North’s demise. Think of our people,” Barrik said as Lark stormed off.
In the empty throne room, Lark’s memories flashed by more rapidly now.
Her reaction to this horrible truth became her violence when fighting in firestorms. She let herself go too far, killing any Paragon from either side of the conflict who challenged her.
She couldn’t control where every Hyalite or Yogo went, but those she won went to Fjern and Elderice.
King Greggor’s outrage drove Barrik to confront her time and again.
“Stop this rebellion you’re playing at and put it behind you. Do this and your future will be secure. Greggor will not allow you to continue as a dragonrider if you don’t back off. He’ll make me put an end to it, and I will. You know I’m right,” Barrik warned.
“You’re right about one thing,” she replied.
“I never want to start a civil war in the North by letting the other Kings know. But I won’t stop fighting anyone who comes near me in a firestorm.
That is my arena and Greggor can’t do anything to stop me there.
Every time I go out into the Everburning Forest with White Eye, I’m showing the world that I’m not caged by a dictator.
I’m representing the people of the North. ”
“This won’t end well for you, Ella,” Barrik warned.
Lark realized then that she’d become the very thing her grandfather wanted.
She was death from above. But she was fine with this moniker as long as it meant that she was trying to put an end to the corruption that had infiltrated their politics.
She needed to stop the pre-determined allocation of Hyalites before the greedy became the most powerful.
Her memories rolled forward to her first meeting with Cheyanne in a truly contested battle for a Hyalite.
This elf Paragon from Gambria was not playing by the rules.
She intrigued Lark when she spread the power of the Hyalites she won among those who followed her, rather than turning them over to Lamar’s King.
Those actions quickly forced Cheyanne out of the role of Paragon and into the role of instructor at a Paragon training Academy.
Time passed again and Lark’s focus shifted to the growing threat of the rimeshade that the Kings of Skol and Wintermire continued to ignore.
Morsythians were being displaced into regions of Skol they had agreed to leave centuries earlier.
Whispers of a rebel force hiding in the Everburning Forest came to her attention.
This group was trying to expose Lamar’s and Skol’s corruption, their plot to exclusively collect all of the Sapphires and Hyalites and keep the power for the elite few.
Then Lark began meeting with the Morsythians, the people most affected by the rimeshade attacks in northeastern Nordraven. Lark made a promise to help deliver Hyalites to them to create Morsythian dragonriders and give them the ability to defend themselves when the rest of Nordraven wouldn’t.
Barrik’s probe burned through, bringing up the memories of how she planned to rob her mentor.
How she persuaded one of his servants to steal a most valuable object that had been trusted to his care.
The astral lathe, a round object that forecasted firestorms. It was said to be from the original twelve dragons who came from the Light Court in the fae realm and settled here in Sataran.
It foretold which storms would contain power and which god was producing that power.
The memories were painful, but Barrik’s probe pushed on. Now she was plotting to betray her King, using the predictions offered by the astral lathe to steal a Hyalite. This was one of the most powerful Hyalites to have been produced since the last flashover nearly five hundred years earlier.
On the day of the firestorm, she went to meet with the elf leading the rebels, Cheyanne.
But somehow Barrik had learned of their plan.
He burned Cheyanne’s home to the ground.
Lark watched it burn, her rage building.
The Nordraven army had already been deceived and was too far off the mark to intervene. But Barrik. Barrik was coming for her.
She tried to throw him off, but he came prepared.
He was dressed in the armor of a Paragon of the Vermillion Keep.
Of course, Tel Roan was at the fire. His senses were keen when it came to the Hyalites.
Lark tried to stop Barrik, but some chilling energy had prevented her.
Tel’s death was unavoidable, a result of Barrik’s doing.
Lark had to put her dragon and the Hyalite first. She couldn’t save them all.
Then she and White Eye had slain Barrik’s dragon.
One that he’d been warging into while Killaborden, his bonded, hung back.
Barrik knew she was stronger. But in the last moments of their battle, when she had broken the elven spells of Tel’s chest to retrieve the Hyalite, she cast her spell at Barrik a moment too late. His hit first.
The probe slid out of her mind. Lark stumbled from the shock of so much information. “No,” she said, horrified by the unfettered history of her past blending with everything that had happened to her following Barrik’s spell.
“Yes,” Barrik said.
She shook her head, struggling to sort out her emotions. “No. This can’t be. This isn’t right. I am not the enemy. You are,” she said.
“You brainwashed yourself when you trusted that little pest of a boy in the forest village. Nix did nothing to help, which is why I needed to cage her and keep her from you,” he said.
“I didn’t know who I was,” she said.
“You do now, don’t you, Ella? You can see it all. You are Marcel. You are your own enemy. Stop this ridiculous crusade of yours and come home.”
“I was never Marcel,” she said.
“I trained you to become Marcel. You are what your kingdom needs, a weapon. Come with me. Reunite with your dragon,” he said.