The Broken Realm Read online

  Mads reached for his desk and felt around for a piece of rope. He tossed it to Cian. “If I have to do it, you’ll be joining her.”

  “Do it,” Yesenia whispered through gritted teeth, burying her mouth into her shoulder. “Now.”

  Cian fumbled with the rope. He whimpered, loud enough only for her to hear. Her heart ached at the sound. He was the same age as her own son, Torquil, who was safely tucked away at university in Oldcastle. She beseeched the Guardians that Mads would forget this, as he’d seemed to forget Aiden’s other sons studying there. If the adults failed to stop the darkness descending over the kingdom, it would fall to the children, as it had two decades before.

  Yesenia held her hands behind her. She winced as Cian tightened the rope, though poorly. No one had ever taught him how to bind a man. She could easily escape this, but for his sake, she would not.

  Mads called for the guards. Two appeared in seconds.

  To the first, he said, “Lady Warwick is my prisoner now. See that she is taken to a cell far from prying eyes. Once you’ve secured her, her husband will join her. And be wary of this one. She’s wily.”

  Yesenia was jerked into the action by the rough handling of the guard. Cian flashed her a terrified look as she passed, and she had no time to say anything to him, to give him a sign that would ease him. And what had she to give him now that would not be deception? Maeryn was gone. His father was likely dead. His aunt and uncle could not help him now. Cian was alone, with only his guile and men who would use this.

  As she stumbled into the dim hall, she heard Mads issue his orders to the second guard.

  “Send word to our commanders in the Westerlands. Sack the Great Cities. Begin in the north and work your way south. Leave nothing, leave no one.”

  “Sir?”

  “Your head, in exchange for further clarity.”

  The man shuffled off.

  “Let it not be said,” Mads called after him, “that the men of the Eastern Reach were idle when it was action demanded of them.”

  * * *

  Mads dropped into the chair at his desk, releasing a breath it seemed he’d been holding since before breaking his fast that morning.

  Maeryn had told him Warwick would visit his chambers. And she’d been right.

  Yet Yesenia’s boldness in the act left him unsettled. She’d been secretive enough to not want to be caught, but met his gaze with confidence she’d be allowed to walk away without punishment.

  Why?

  A shadow appeared at the door of his chamber. He glanced up with a start, shocked to see Mortain.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “You arrested Lord Quinlanden’s brother and sister-in-law.”

  “Spies, you mean. I caught Lady Yesenia in the act myself.”

  “Spying is a matter of perspective. If Lady Warwick’s choice to move about freely in her home, then what must we call Lady Quinlanden’s slinking about in the shadows with you?”

  “Without Maeryn, I would’ve been blind to the treason brewing in this very keep!”

  “And yet, where is she? Gone. Slipped away in the night. Those loyal to no one are greater foes than those clear in their intentions.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “You forget the words issued by your lord himself. That Lady Yesenia and Lord Corin are to be left alone. You have overstepped your authority here.”

  “I haven’t forgotten the words. I know they did not come from my lord, and I answer to no one but him.”

  “Your bold assumptions will end poorly for you,” Mortain answered.

  “Will they? And what if you’re the one who is wrong?”

  “You’ve also sent men to the Westerlands against his orders. You intend to start a war, when neither your lord nor your king desires for one.”

  “I don’t answer to you, Mortain.”

  Mortain’s face was lit by the flickering sconce. He seemed to be smiling. “Ahh, and yet you can no longer be sure who you answer to, can you?”

  25

  Not Tonight, But Soon

  Khallum licked his lips. Crazed energy rolled off him as he scrutinized the small group of Brandyn’s trusted Blackwood Banners. “Aye, well, I came here to aid men with courage.” He reached between his legs and squeezed. “This all ye do then? Sit around talking about war, and never doing it?”

  “A man with sense,” Easlan chimed in. A few of the others murmured in spirited agreement, namely Khallum’s own men. “A man who isn’t afraid to fight for what others would take from him.”

  “This is the Westerlands we stand upon, not the Southerlands when last I checked the signs.” Blackfen shook his head, sharing a look with the Grand Minister, Tyndall.

  “Does that make ye better?” Khallum challenged. “That you’ve nay been where my men have, ready to die before allowing their lands and spirits taken by a king with no right?”

  “Your quarrels with the crown are different than ours,” Tyndall said.

  “Aye, they were different, till the craven ratsbane sent the bootlicker’s men to show ye a new one.”

  “And how did standing against the crown work for you last time?” Blackfen challenged. “An entire peninsula, gone. Taken. Property of the Rhiagains.”

  “It didnae have to be so, had the courage of the kingdom risen up beside us, as it should have been! As it once had been, before the Rhiagains raped our shores and claimed this kingdom for themselves! And now they’ve done the unthinkable to the Saleen? Do ye even care about that, the lot of ye? When will it be enough?”

  “Not every fight is won at the end of a sword,” Blackfen countered. “And once drawn, steel cannot be re-sheathed.”

  Rutland snorted. “Says the bowman.”

  Jesse hovered in one corner, watching, Joran perched in the other. Brandyn valued their words, but it seemed they would both keep their counsel today.

  Brandyn folded his hands, waiting patiently for his turn to talk. He could feel Khallum’s annoyance from across the room, laced through a nervous, volatile energy that was almost scary. Khallum and Brandyn’s father had been brothers, but the two men were on different ends of the same sword. Byrne had been the cooling hand of the Westerlands. Khallum was the swirling chaotic center of the Southerlands.

  Still, he needed him. Needed his men. His leadership, too, though this was where the boundaries were undefined. This was Brandyn’s land, and his mother would have never bent her knee to a lord of another Reach.

  “Thank you, Lord Warwick. Uncle,” Brandyn said when there was a break in the rousing words of war. “For answering our call, when others didn’t answer yours.”

  “Aye, well, I know what others didnae. One falls, we all fall.”

  Brandyn nodded. “You’re right. It’s time for us to take action, one way or another.” He paused then, not for the effect of his prior words to settle, but because he didn’t know how to find the ones he needed to say next. “Enchanter Joran and I have both received visions, separate of one another, showing the same thing. Quinlanden’s men will move to destroy our towns, unless we can stop it.”

  “Then why do I sense you are hesitant to move, Lord Blackwood?” This one, Samuel Law, reminded Brandyn more of the men his mother would have taken counsel with. Calm. Rational. He needed men like that.

  “I’m not hesitant to move. I’m hesitant to make the wrong move,” Brandyn said, confessing the words aloud. If his mother were here, she’d chide him for his transparency. But Brandyn couldn’t follow anyone he didn’t himself trust, and trust started with honesty. It’s why he’d taken to Christian Dereham right away. Christian always spoke plainly and true, even to a young boy like himself. “I’m recommending we move on Whitechurch.”

  “Whitechurch!” Khallum exclaimed. “But the ratsbane’s men are here, on your lands.”

  “Yet their orders come from Whitechurch. And without the orders, the attacks on our lands stop.”

  Blackfen stepped forward. “There’s reason in this, as we’ve ta
lked about before. Sever the source, the blood dries.”

  “These men are cowards and traitors,” Rutland said, sliding his ale across the table in a rush of anger. “They donnae deserve to simply cease to follow orders. Death is the only language we all speak that conveys consequence.”

  “Punishment will come after we stop the enemy from further damage,” Brandyn said reasonably. “These men will be dealt with. I assure you. For what they’ve done to my people. My own father. But we can do this without causing further destruction to our people and their land.”

  “You cannae let them see you as weak, Lord Blackwood. Your father would have understood this,” Khallum pressed. “Byrne knew an enemy could be dealt with in one way only.”

  “My father is who instilled in me a sense of caution,” Brandyn retorted. He could feel his defenses forming; the heat rising. He had to squelch it or be lost to the moment as the men older and better than him were preparing to do.

  Khallum snorted. “Bowing to your mother, no doubt.”

  “My mother,” Brandyn said through clenched teeth. “Is the greatest warrior I know, and my father loved and respected that.”

  “Ye nay know many warriors then, lad?” Rutland quipped. He turned to Khallum. “Seems we’re needed here more than we realized. Just take the lead and be done with it.”

  Storm dropped a hand to her knife. “Try it and die.”

  At this, Easlan began to look concerned. “Come now. Lord Blackwood may not have the wisdom of our years, but he is our leader here. Our lord. We are here to counsel him, not take that from him.”

  “There is still one with greater authority than any lord,” Khallum muttered.

  “My lord,” Law cautioned. “Now?”

  “If Lord Warwick has wisdom he’d like to share, he is welcome to his words,” Brandyn said.

  Khallum’s brows knitted in mounting consternation. He seemed both angry and afraid, his foot tapping in frenetic staccato, tongue rolling around the inside of his mouth as if preparing to wind up and unleash. He looked at his two stewards, and then at the other man, the one known only as Godfrey. Fingers twitching, at last, he looked up.

  “Aye, well, there is one, as I said, with greater authority. One we donnae look up to because we must, but because we so choose.” He seemed to deliberately ignore the wariness coming off Law and Rutland as he continued. “I didnae come only to aid you, nephew, though I would see that done as well. I came to light the spark that will end the madness that came over this kingdom when Khain ascended the throne and laid an even darker pall at the rise of his son. The wrong son.”

  Easlan emptied his drink and slammed the mug on the counter in agreement.

  Khallum pointed at Jesse. “The Strong men are some of the most loyal to all the Southerlands. Jesse. His father. And now, Ryan Strong, who we sent into the Wastelands not to punish but to retrieve Darrick Rhiagain, who had been hiding as a prisoner for five years.”

  Brandyn’s breath caught in concert with the collective gasps chiming around him. Had he heard right?

  “Aye, your hearing doesnae need adjusting, men. Eoghan Rhiagain ordered the death of his brother, but there were others in Duncarrow less eager to see this deed done. Real men. He was instead sent to languish in prison, in secret, contrived by none other than his sister, Assyria.”

  “It’s not possible,” Blackfen said, breathless. “A secret this big could not have been kept this long.”

  “A secret kept safe by those who knew what it could mean,” Khallum pressed. “Aye, it’s easier kept than ye think. It was Assyria who came to me, judging I would be the proper man to see Darrick freed and restored. She was right, I ken, for that’s Darrick Rhiagain standing to my left, alive as ever.”

  “No,” Brandyn whispered as his eyes, as with those of every other man present, fell upon the young man sitting off by himself. He looked like Jesse, Brandyn thought, dark and serious. But there was something else about him, something Brandyn, in his youth and inexperience, could not define in words. Something that killed any shred of doubt that he was who Khallum Warwick said he was.

  The man Khallum had called Darrick Rhiagain slowly stood. His dark eyes were glassy, but no tears fell. “It’s true what Lord Warwick says. Eoghan ordered my death, and Assyria stayed it. But I have to confess to you all that I lost hope, long before Ryan came for me. I never expected to stand before any man or woman in this kingdom again, and so I have no speech prepared for you. I am still adjusting to the reality that I am here now, a free man. That my wife, who I never had a chance to share with all of you, yet lives, as does my son.” He turned to Khallum. “Words fail me even now, as I know I must find the means to express my gratitude toward all who have sacrificed to retrieve me from my prison. For I know that Rhiagains have been responsible for greatness but also terribleness, and every last one of you would be in the right to want to see us thrown aside for something better.”

  Easlan fell to his knees. Slowly, one by one, every other man in the room followed suit. Brandyn lowered himself, shaking.

  “No, please,” Darrick said. “Please, I ask of you not to come to me with your reverence, not now. We have work to do, and I’m here to aid you in this, however I can.”

  “As ye can see, this isnae about a battle for the Westerlands. Nay anymore. Tis a war for the future of this kingdom,” Khallum boomed. He looked satisfied, as he should, but Brandyn remembered something his mother once said about his uncle. Khallum Warwick is a proud man, but even he knows it is the false pride of a man who has not yet earned it. It seemed to Brandyn that Khallum knew he was earning it now.

  “Your Grace,” Tyndall whispered. “We never... I thought...” He lowered himself again, then, remembering Darrick had asked him not to, fumbled back to his feet, wiping away tears. “Can it be? Truly?”

  Darrick approached him, taking the man’s hands in his. “You are a man of the Reliquary, are you not?”

  Tyndall nodded. “Grand Minister Tyndall, Your Grace. My king.”

  “I am not your king yet,” Darrick said. He released him and turned to the others. “I would like a word alone with Lord Blackwood, if that’s all right.”

  Brandyn caught Jesse rushing out of the tavern from the corner of his eye.

  Khallum flashed a meaningful look at his men. Brandyn could read it well enough. He thought the prince could speak sense into him where Khallum had failed, but Brandyn could read the prince, too. And that wasn’t what he saw at all.

  The men filtered out, leaving Brandyn alone with Darrick Rhiagain.

  * * *

  Darrick had been told that Brandyn was a child, little more than a decade of life in him. He could see it, of course, for Brandyn was a small boy, perhaps, even for his age. But age was more than how tall you stood next to men. In the young Blackwood lord’s eyes, Darrick saw what the men following him failed to. To them, he was their next in line, and for that, their last hope. But for that to be all he was, was to gravely underestimate him.

  “I’m sorry about your father, Brandyn.”

  Brandyn regarded him with that solemn stare he’d used when speaking to his men earlier. Darrick could almost read his thoughts; the boy was mulling, now, what had happened before Darrick dismissed the others. Was he still the leader? Did he still matter? Was Darrick, in fact, who they said he was?

  “Did you know him?” Brandyn asked without breaking his gaze.

  “I met him once. Not long before the kingdom believed me dead. I met your mother, then, too. She’s an exceptional woman.”

  This elicited a small smile from the boy. “She is. Hers are hard steps to follow.”

  “A leader doesn’t aim to follow the steps of those before them, but to honor their path while making their own way.”

  Brandyn shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. She’ll be back soon, and then I’ll return to the Sepulchre, and all of this will have felt like a dream.”

  “I told myself this when I was sent to the Wastelands,” Darrick mused.
“In the beginning, I believed it. Then reality proved my hope false.” He watched him from across the table. “I don’t say that to scare you, Brandyn. I hope your mother does come back, for you’re still a boy, and you deserve to be that until you cannot anymore. But you should lead these men as if her time is done. Until you have reason not to.”

  “How? Lord Warwick has all but taken over. And now... and now... you are here, and who am I now, but the youngest child of Asherley Blackwood?”

  Darrick grinned. “You are so much more than a child, Brandyn. But no matter what Lord Warwick may believe about what is best for your Reach, it is still your Reach. This war has not spread to the kingdom yet, which means it is not mine to lead, either. What has your instinct been telling you? You say you saw yourself in Whitechurch?”

  “It’s more than instinct. I’m a magic wielder. A seer,” Brandyn explained. “Like Joran, who was my mother’s soothsayer. She trusted him, and so I must, for I know my mother trusts almost no one and never does so easily. And we have both seen ourselves in Whitechurch. We have both seen the castle in the trees, the Medvedev milling around the forests, mindless. I know why Lord Warwick wants to lead the war here in the Westerlands. Maybe he’s right. Maybe my vision isn’t what should be, but what could. Perhaps there’s more I haven’t seen that would spell disaster if we do it my way.”

  Darrick leaned back in the rickety chair. “Have you been blessed in your life with a true friendship? One you can count on, no matter what?”

  Brandyn looked toward the back room where the men had disappeared and nodded. “Storm Wakesell. She saved my life. More than once. I think the friendship is fairly one-sided, though. I don’t have much to offer her in return.”

  “Probably more than you know,” Darrick answered. “I saw the way she looked at you. Protecting you gives her a sense of purpose. I’ve also known true friendship, more than once. Most recently, with Ryan Strong. Your friend Jesse’s brother.”