Chapter 51
Zarek
YOU BOW TO ME
There’s something wrong with the world.
It’s the light, partly, and it’s also the way the air feels against my skin. And the strange golden glow rising from my arms. Hells, that weird glow is rising from my chest too.
I blink as the world swims around me. The air is thick and hot, like a swamp, and it leaves a metallic tang in the back of my throat. My skin is slick with sweat, and my legs are numb. I feel almost like I’m floating.
But that can’t be right. I blink again, then shake my head. The world sways like I’m underwater, then slowly comes back into focus. It’s very hot. The stone that Fyrris strung with silver wires appears to be burning.
Or maybe it’s Fyrris who’s burning. My eyes settle on his white robes.
They’re almost incandescent in this strange, syrupy light.
He’s standing before the stone wall, his arms outstretched, the wall pulsing before him.
The silver wires he spread across the stone now glow with an angry white heat.
The entire wall looks like something dangerous, something that would hurt if you tried to touch it.
And then, very suddenly, the wall shivers and freezes. A strange, violet light flickers across the stone floor. Cold wind cuts like a blade through the heat in the air. Several of the torches sputter and die.
Fyrris steps back. His white robes swirl in the strange wind.
Something shifts in the darkness that is now spreading across the stone wall. Despite the sweat dripping down my body, I feel cold. I can almost make out shapes in that black void, bending like trees in a gale.
And a figure. Someone tall, walking toward me.
Sweat drips into my eyes, blurring my vision. The figure comes closer and grows more solid. I shake my head.
The tall man steps out of the darkness that’s spread like an infection over the stone wall. He raises his hand, almost gently, like he’s going to caress the stone above him.
The darkness vanishes with one last gust of frigid wind. The torch closest to me spits and dies, leaving me in shadow. And the man, the one who just stepped through a wall of solid rock—
No. Not a man.
The angles are wrong. He’s too tall to be human, too oddly delicate.
I stare at the long taper of his ears as my mind thrashes against the obvious explanation.
I thought they were a myth, a story told to children to make them behave, or to keep them from wandering in the forest alone, or a morality tale about the dangers of war and magic.
Because who in their right mind actually believes in elves?
A shiver races down my spine as Fyrris clears his throat. He turns to the man, the elf, who just walked through the mountain.
“Lord Varitan Fenfyr?” Fyrris says, somehow making his words sound less like a question and more like a command.
The tall elf nods slightly. He seems completely unsurprised by his surroundings, which sends alarm bells tolling in my mind. Something’s wrong here. Something’s deeply, deeply wrong.
Fyrris takes a step closer to the elf. I want to scream at him to stay away, but hells, the man in white is no friend of mine.
“Can you understand me?” Fyrris asks.
The elf tilts his head.
“My language, I mean,” Fyrris continues. “Can you understand these words?”
“I speak many human languages,” the elf replies with an unfamiliar, clipped accent.
“Excellent,” Fyrris replies with a smile. “Lord Varitan, I’ve freed you from your prison. Now, you will serve me.”
The elf, Varitan, bows his head once more. He’s wearing strange clothes, dark and simply made, but something about the way he holds his body makes me want to melt into the chair. There’s danger here, clear and strong.
“In what capacity shall I serve you?” Varitan replies.
Fyrris looks almost gleeful smiles at the elf.
“I promised King Malrik of Vsenrog that I would bring him a weapon,” Fyrris says. “You will be that weapon. But, more than that, you will help me rebuild the Towers. You may answer to Malrik, but you will bow to me.”
The elf dips his head again. He steps closer to Fyrris.
“Tell me,” Varitan says in a low, soft voice, “what are the Towers?”
Fyrris takes a deep breath.
“Ah, the Towers,” he begins. “The greatest accomplishment of humanity. The reclamation of magic that should belong to us—”
The elf moves quickly. One moment, he’s nodding before the stone wall. The next, he pulls his hand from his side, and something long and bright appears in his fist.
I don’t think Fyrris even sees the strange weapon until it impales him.
Fyrris makes a sound, a choking sort of cough, as the bright spear-thing emerges from his back. Blood spills down his white robes. He collapses to his knees and starts to gurgle.
I turn away until the gagging stops. I hate to watch people die.
When the noises stop, I turn back to the wall. Fyrris lies motionless on the floor of the cave, surrounded by his blood-soaked robes. The glowing spear, or whatever it was that impaled him, is gone.
The tall elf looks directly at me. His eyes are pale blue, the color of the winter sky at dawn.
“I bow to no one,” the elf whispers.
“Great,” I whisper back. “Good for you.”
Varitan steps over Fyrris’s lifeless body and walks toward me. He flicks his hand over my shoulder; the torch behind me flares to life with a rush of air. My skin tingles. I swallow hard. Varitan tilts his head at me.
“Who are you?” he asks.
“The son of the royal gardener,” I reply. My voice sounds like it’s being forced through a rusty pipe.
Varitan narrows his eyes. I can only imagine the mess he must be seeing. Prince Syvan’s bastard soldiers had their way with me, then dragged me up a mountain to serve as some sort of magical conduit for a madman. I probably look like a plate of leftover dog shit.
“Interesting,” Varitan finally says. “Tell me, gardener’s son, what waits for me beyond this cave?”
I cough, then clear my throat.
“A bunch of assholes,” I say. “Armed assholes. Seven of them, maybe more. Under the command of Prince Syvan. He’s the worst of King Malrik’s four legitimate sons.”
Varitan brings his hand to his chin. He watches me for a long time with those strange, pale eyes.
“What kind of man is Malrik?” he asks.
I remember the way Malrik looked at me after I met Fyrris for the first time, when his tailor was fitting me for the beautiful clothes that I would wear on my way to my doom. It was the kind of look you might make when you’re forced to sacrifice a pawn in a game of kings and queens.
And it was so much like the look the king of Dungal gave me as the soldiers of Vsenrog led me away to pretend to be his son, the hostage prince, for the rest of my life. Or for however long I would survive.
Then I think of the metal vial that hung around my neck for so many years, the one Syvan’s soldiers must have ripped from my neck.
My lips bend into a smile, and I tell the strange elf every single thing I know about the kingdom of Vsenrog and its glorious king.