Chapter 2 Crown Of Bones #2
Here there was a sense of permanence. The Kindreth had been here for ages and planned to be here for ages more with no end in sight.
There was no sense that they ever had intended to leave.
And Vex has left things here sealed in amber.
At any moment, Rhalyf could imagine the city bustling with life.
He wondered if the food inside people’s homes was still fresh and ready to be eaten.
This sense of timelessness–or rather of time held still–was overwhelming.
A sleeping city. Waiting for a king to kiss her and bring her back?
A yet deeper sense of melancholy flowed over him. Vex had seen and done so much. His knowledge was likely as deep as the Under Dark. But other than a few stray words in his millennia of life, Rhalyf had never spoken to him.
My own uncle. The elf who has always held my fate in his hands and we have nary said a word directly to one another. Never been in a room alone together. Never even touched…
He remembered as a boy going to the royal court for some function or another.
He’d been within ten feet of his uncle. Vex had been sprawled on his throne.
A beautiful if imposing figure who looked more like a carved statue than an elf.
But then his red eyes had flickered and landed upon Rhalyf.
He’d been staring quite hard at his uncle, fascinated and afraid of him.
Then Vex smiled.
And waggled his eyebrows.
Delighted, Rhalyf let out a stifled laugh, knowing even then that laughing too loudly would have been a bad idea in such a place.
His uncle gestured for him to come near.
Rhalyf took a step towards him, but then his mother’s hands–claw-like in that moment–slammed down on his shoulders.
Her fingers had dug into his shoulders until pain had caused him to see black.
She kept him by her. She didn’t allow him to go to Vex and the Night King sighed and looked away from him.
Afterwards, his mother had beaten him. And while she had, she’d told him what a fool he was. Hadn’t he understood what would have happened to him if he’d gone to Vex? He would be dead! Foolish, stupid boy!
And he’d believed her.
For a very long time.
But later, when he knew her better, when he understood her as someone other than as a child knows a parent, he’d wondered if that was true. What if he had shoved her hands away? What if he’d gone to Vex? Would his uncle have killed him? Or would he have taken Rhalyf under his wing?
That seemed to fly in the face of all he knew–or had been told–about Vex. But his own sense had been that he’d missed an opportunity. He hadn’t thought of that moment in hundreds of years. But now it was so strong that the regret tasted fresh on his tongue.
First, a desire to simply wander Illithor forever! And now regrets about Vex? Maybe the city–or the pollen–is having an effect on me. I must stay focused!
He came to the end of the building and followed the path around to the back of the temple.
He stepped through a final arch of those red flowers and really did gasp this time.
Though many of the buildings in Illithor were built practically cheek to jowl, this temple had a back garden. A magnificent back garden.
More narcotic plants in all their dizzying glory. Oh! And so many poisonous ones. But lovely. So lovely.
The garden sprawled out in front of him.
Dozens of winding stone paths interspersed with elaborate displays of flowers.
And in the center of it all was another stag.
Proudly staring ahead as if gazing into the horizon, into destiny.
A bubbling fountain surrounded the stag’s hooves.
Fish as large as his hand and colored violet, orange, green and blue flitted underneath the surface.
What is this place? Who is worshiped here?
“The Hunter,” his sister’s voice rose up behind him.
He was already turning. He had sensed her just a moment too late.
It was always this way between them. He spun around and looked upwards.
There were two sets of curving stairs that lead from the temple down into the garden.
She was standing at the top of the nearest one that emptied out by his feet. She smiled down at him.
“Brother, it’s been too long,” Haera said, her hand lightly landing on the stone railing.
He gritted his teeth. So much for not getting caught! So much for spying on her! Dammit why was he always flatfooted around her?
“Sister, you look as beautiful as always!” he lied.
She let out a tinkling laugh and her free hand rose almost self-consciously to the crown of antlers. Haera was not beautiful. Her raw ambition and ruthlessness cut her features into hard planes. That bony crown did not soften her, but seemed to sharpen those qualities about his elder sister.
Is that how she sensed me so easily? What can that do? What is it? And how did she get such a thing?
“Flattery is always so thick on your tongue, Rhalyf, that I wonder if you can ever speak a bad word,” she smiled.
Considering how he had nearly sliced Darcassan’s head off with his words earlier, he would have to say yes, he could say a bad word. He had just watched himself with her. Most of the time.
“What brings you here?” He asked casually as if this were a meeting on a usual street, as if they weren’t both trespassers here.
Unless she is with Vex. Maybe she convinced him that she was not behind the plot to unseat him from the throne. It makes sense that he did not travel all the way here alone.
“Is not Illithor a perfect place for a family reunion?” She lightly began to glide down the steps. “Our home. Our rightful home.”
Her red eyes were not on him as she said the last. But were, once again, gazing out at the city as she had when he’d first spied her with a sense of utter satisfaction.
He remembered his own feeling of drunkenness in the city.
Was she experiencing the rush of power that he had?
Of course, she was. But she wouldn’t have pushed it away but reveled in it.
He hoped it was dulling her a little bit.
“Are you here with King Vex?” he asked as she drew nearer.
He resisted the urge to run. It was useless. She’d strike him down the moment his back was turned and he’d taken a step. Lament desperately wanted to appear in his hand. But he kept it at bay.
Her eyes suddenly left the city and sharpened on him. No longer were they dulled by wonder. “Our uncle?”
Does she not know he’s here? Interesting.
“Yes, Haera. Our uncle. The Night King. He’s here.” Rhalyf smiled back at her, but he made his smile easy and relaxed as if he was with Vex himself.
That might buy me some time here.
“So that is how you found your way to Illithor,” she murmured as she continued to walk down the steps towards him. “Of course, it is. You wouldn’t have found the city any other way.”
He let the insult slide off of him and he didn’t correct her. In a way she was right. He was here because of their uncle. Let her think they were boon companions.
“You said that this was the temple worshiping the Hunter?” He made that into a question.
She nodded. “Yes. The Forever Hunt. And his prey.” She nodded towards the stag who looked ready to leap off its plinth and take off. “Our uncle is so interesting, is he not? To allow a religion based upon his death to exist in the heart of Illithor?”
Rhalyf blinked, but then he remembered what Helgrom had told him and Aquilan about the two meanings of the song. “That’s only if you believe our uncle is the stag.”
She paused in her descent. A flicker of something went through her eyes. “I heard you fled, brother. But you went to Vex yourself, did you? Threw yourself at his feet as you so wanted to do even as a child? Somehow got him to spare you?”
Another blink. She meant that time Vex had gestured for him to come to him.
The time he’d just been thinking of. His memory expanded of that moment and he recalled that Haera had been standing beside him when he’d taken that step towards Vex.
Her eyes had flickered between them when Vex had called to him.
Her mouth had flattened into a thin line.
And she’d smiled when he’d moaned in pain at their mother’s too rough grip.
“You make it sound as if being loyal to our king is a weakness,” he laughed, but uneasily.
He had run away. That she didn’t know his true fate meant… what? That she had fled too? Maybe right after him. And what of their parents? He couldn’t ask her that or risk exposing that he had left the Kindreth when she had.
“You’ve always wanted to hide in his shadow, Rhalyf. While there are those of us who wish to step outside of it,” she answered.
She was now only three steps above him. They’d been at striking distance magically from the first time she’d spoken.
But now if they struck at each other there would be no room for error.
If either of them missed a hand movement, flubbed a syllable, zigged right when they should have zagged left, it would be likely a fatal blow.
“I wonder how many people have said something similar over the millennia, Haera. Probably too many to count,” he said softly and wearily. “Were you in on the original plot to overthrow him or did losing everything just push you over into this madness?”
Her red eyes flared hot crimson. “How dare–”
“No! How dare you!” He snapped. The anger came from out of nowhere and also out of countless hurts. But it surprised her. And him, if he were honest. “I want to hear the extent of your idiocy! Tell me! Tell me! NOW!”
“Why does it matter? He sees me as a traitor either way,” she said.
Yes, he knew that. He was in that same boat and yet…
“It doesn’t matter if you’ve decided to betray him now,” Rhalyf realized. “If you seek to go against him at this moment then whether or not you were innocent in the past is irrelevant. But if you were innocent back then–”
“He doesn’t make that distinction, brother.”
“Doesn’t he?” He was asking it rhetorically. He had been so certain he knew the answer. Maybe he still was. But maybe he just hoped for something different.
“I am a Vex. Same as him. My blood is the same as his. My magic is–will be–as powerful. You will see.” She stared at him. “I found the city. It appeared for me–”
He laughed. He couldn’t help himself. He laughed right in her face. It wasn’t what she was saying or her foolishness for saying it, but out of the grief he felt for everything suddenly.
“Why are you laughing, brother?” Her voice dipped into the arctic zone.
“Because,” he laughed bitterly, “because only you would think that. No, actually you're not the only one. You’re just the first of many fools who has stumbled into something and believed it was destiny.”
For a moment, he saw Vex in his mind, sitting on his throne, staring at him. Smiling and waggling his eyebrows. Wanting his youngest nephew to come near. Vex extended a hand towards him in his mind. In his memory though it seemed so real now. Would he take that hand? Would he…
“You have a choice now, Rhalyf,” her voice lowered, “you can take my side against him. The two of us could take him down. Especially with what I’ve found here.” Again, she touched that crown. “You’ve no idea the power here! The possibilities! It’s all ours for the taking! We are Vexes!”
Maybe before he had met Aquilan, he would have taken her offer.
And even though he now believed he had lost Aquilan and was likely in Vex’s crosshairs, he found he still did not want it.
Besides, he considered himself a citizen of the Aravae Empire.
A Kindreth, true. But he was a representative.
He would not dishonor that. And oddly, he kept seeing Vex’s smile.
“Vex is our uncle. He is our king. He is the only king the Kindreth will ever truly have. This is his city and these are his things. We can only play dress up in them,” Rhalyf told her.
Her expression became thunderous. “You fool! You still want to play it safe! You still don’t want to choose a side!”
But she was wrong. For he had. And now, he would find out if he had made a terrible mistake. At least, in saying what he had before backing away.
“Haera,” he said even as he called Lament to his right hand and the power of the Void to his left, “I wish we had never met here.”
The Blood Weapon sliced through the air even as he pulled all his magic to shield him. It swung towards her neck and…
It stopped a millimeter away from it. No matter what he did, Rhalyf could not move the sword. Nor could he strike with his magic. He was completely frozen in place. That damned crown must have given her powers that put her well beyond him. He glared up at his sister.
Except it wasn’t Haera.
His uncle was smiling down at him. “How interesting! Finley was right. I do so hope he lives for me to congratulate him on his keen observational skills regarding you, dear nephew.”