Chapter 72
The Keeper
We ride for a long time before anyone speaks. Kentan rides beside me without being asked. I notice this about him, that he positions himself where he is needed before anyone thinks to place him there.
Since we left Shalvar, he has simply been present.
Close to the transport, close to the children, close to whatever requires his attention without drawing attention to it.
I look at him now, at the particular quality of his stillness on horseback, the way he carries himself like someone far older than he looks.
"What are you?" I ask.
He considers the question with the seriousness it deserves. "A Keeper," he says.
"I don't know what that is."
"No," he agrees pleasantly. "You wouldn't."
He is quiet for a moment, looking ahead at the pass, and then he begins.
"A long time ago there was a country called Urasal.
Below the surface." He glances at me. "It had creatures and beings of considerable power.
We lived peacefully, though we often intervened in matters above the surface where we had no business intervening.
" A pause. "I was born a Keeper. It is what I am.
Keepers are guardians and sentinels for the young. "
"Whose young?"
"A ruler's." He says it simply. "We are constantly at their side. We have a connection, an ability to sense when danger is near. We are not loyal to their realm or even their parents." He looks at me directly. "Only to them."
"And when they reach adulthood?"
"The role never changes."
I think about that. "What about the one you kept before?"
Something moves through his expression. "They never came into fruition," he says. "For years we were without a ruler. Keepers are trained from youth and then the young ruler ultimately chooses us themselves."
He is quiet for a moment. "A Keeper without a kept is not quite whole," he says. "The power is there but it has nowhere to go. It is like carrying something with no one to give it to." He looks ahead. "It is not painful exactly. It is simply...incomplete."
"How do you know they choose you?"
"A marking appears." He holds out his palm briefly. "If it matches, it is destiny."
I look at his hand and then back at the path ahead. "What happened to Urasal?"
He draws in a slow breath. "Rumors of Morrath and its growing strength began to circulate.
Urasal has always been a hybrid of creatures and beasts and beings.
One of them, a creature called Flagsar, had a strong calling.
He became convinced that the future princess was inside Morrath.
That he must go there and wait for her. That she would bring power both above and below the surface. "
I frown. "I thought only feeders can pass through Morrath."
Kentan nods. "This is true. But if you are a Keeper, you are an extension of that ruler. In theory, if his princess was intended to be his kept, he would have been able to enter as an extension of her." He pauses. "Even if she was not yet born."
I raise an eyebrow but say nothing.
"What happened to everyone else?" I ask.
"I do not know for certain," he says. "Only that Flagsar felt this calling, and that many of a creature nature chose to follow him. Not only for the princess but for the promise of..." He clears his throat. "Plentiful food."
"Food?"
"They have a similar diet to feeders," he says, without apology. "And it is no secret that the King of Yorali feeds the pits of Morrath with humans he has used dark magic on. Similar to what we saw today on the road."
I am quiet for a moment. "And they just went."
"They decided to go and called their new country Umbrelai," he says.
"Those left in Urasal are peaceful. I am the only Keeper remaining, and the closest thing to a ruler, though in truth I do not do much. It is a world not dissimilar to this one, only with more magic and, now that the creatures are gone, considerably less...dark.”
He clears his throat again. "I went to save the children when I saw the mages coming toward them. I aimed to fight the mages off, but Urasal kept calling. So I lifted them and closed my eyes and we were there."
"It was beautiful," Cambra breathes from behind us. I had not realized she was listening.
Kentan looks at me then. He opens Ari's small hand first, then Kiss's.
I look down.
A faint marking traces each of their palms, delicate and unmistakable.
"They each bear the marking," he says quietly. “Yours are not the same,” he adds, his eyes lifting to mine. “Theirs bind me to them. Yours give you passage to where they are.”
I close my eyes for a moment. "I do not know what this means," I say. "Nor do I have the ability to learn it right now."
I reach inward with my intunar, letting it move toward him carefully. What answers me is genuine intent. And a depth of care I did not expect from something like him. A protectiveness so complete it has no agenda underneath it.
"You saved the children," I say. "Colsar trusts you." I look at him. "I cannot handle another kingdom or succession right now. But if they are ever unsafe you have our permission to take them there, provided you can show us how to reach it.”
He nods once.
"And in Veynar," I continue, "there is a role. Sometimes called an adjasar. A close friend or family member who has permission to care for the children should their parents not be available." I hold his eyes. "That can be you. For now."
The relief that moves through him is quiet and real.
"You do not take them anywhere without our permission unless there is danger," Colsar says from behind me, his voice carrying the particular finality of someone who is not asking.
"Understood," Kentan says.
I look back at the road ahead, turning it all over. I still do not fully understand his power or what Urasal is. But I know what my intunar told me and I know what he did on that mountain road with my children in his arms.
That is enough for now.
"Open your hand," he says.
I look at him. Then I open my palm.
The same faint tracing marks my skin.
I turn to Colsar. He opens his hand without being asked. The same.
"You need only think the words," Kentan says, "and its doors will open."
I close my eyes and think: Urasal.
Whispers find me immediately, soft and certain, saying welcome. I see light briefly. A silver chair. The smell of pine fills my lungs and then it is gone and I am back on my horse in the cold with the mountains around me.
Colsar looks at me. "Well?"
I nod.
Then I press my heels in and move ahead to where Trophi and Wyn ride at the front of the line. "Can we resume at lightpace?" I say. "This journey has lost its novelty."
Trophi laughs, low and genuine. "Yes, Queen Heir." He calls it out and the magic moves through the line of soldiers, a warmth moving through the air as the pace changes.
Colsar comes up beside me.
"How much longer?" I ask.
"Hours," he says. "Not days."
I exhale. "I think I will nap with the children. And then I wish to dress and wash properly." I glance at him. "As will you."
He looks at me. "Dressed and washed?"
"It has been a long time since Veynar has seen us," I say. "I plan on having quite an entrance." I pause. "I picked out what I wish for you to wear."
Something crosses his face that I was not expecting. He smiles.
"You don't mind?" I ask. "My desire for theatrics?"
"They walked all over you," he says, "and you return as queen." He looks at me steadily. "I wish to look even somewhat worthy of you."
Something in my chest does something unreasonable.
"I will do all decorum demands, Asha Bear," he says quietly. "I hope you bring everyone to their knees when we arrive."
Then, after a pause, lower: "It makes it all the sweeter when I get you to myself. And you are no longer queen. You are simply mine."
After everything this road has held, I cannot believe something still flutters in my chest at that. My cheeks warm. I say nothing because there is nothing to say that would not give him entirely too much satisfaction.
I ride ahead.