PROLOGUE - PART 3
Doranei watched as
shadows stole through the streets below, slipping through the
alleys and coalescing into darkness. He blinked, and the curved
avenues of Byora faded from his perception as the stepped city was
swallowed by the dark.
Been taught my whole life to look for shadows, he
thought. Now they’re all I see. ‘I saw
another prophet today,’ he said aloud, the sound feeling out of
place in the high, silent room.
‘I’m sorry? You saw
what?’ Zhia Vukotic came closer, her sapphire eyes shining in the
light of a single candle.
‘A prophet, didn’t
you hear?’
She ignored the edge
in his voice. These past two weeks there had been an ever-present
air of anger and antagonism about the Narkang man, even in bed. The
scent of violence would have frightened any normal woman, but Zhia
feared only for him. She tried to remember how long it had been
since grief had consumed her every thought.
‘I was watching your
face,’ the vampire admitted; ‘I wasn’t paying attention to the
words. Tell me about the prophet.’
Doranei remained
silent for a time, his face twitching slightly, as though words
were fighting to get out but couldn’t quite force their way
through. Tsatach’s eye had only just sunk behind Blackfang and the
striated clouds over the mountain were tinged a startling burnished
orange. It was a beautiful sight but Zhia realised he saw nothing,
barely noticing even the bulky silhouette of a dragon, rising to
circle on the high thermals like a hunting hawk.
There was a black
need for destruction fizzing through Doranei’s blood, not unlike
that in the maddened beast Kastan Styrax had awakened and left to
devastate the Circle City. Zhia and her brother, Koezh, had caused
its slumber; the spell they used had corroded what had already been
an unknowable, unpredictable intellect. Now hatred filled its mind,
arbitrary and unquenchable.
‘A man this time. It
struck him in the middle of the street,’ Doranei said abruptly, no
louder than a whisper. ‘No warning. I thought he was drunk when he
staggered into a wall.’ Unconsciously he raised his goblet and
drank. She saw his lips twitch just before the rim touched, a name
spoken silently.
They stood alone in
the high room on the topmost level of a whorehouse known as the
Velvet Cup. Doranei had pulled open the shutters on one side of the
room to watch the sun set - at least, that was what he would claim.
Zhia knew it was the sight of the Ruby Tower wreathed in shadow
that obsessed him; that and watching the junction where his friend
Sebe had died. The choice of vantage point had been pure chance, as
was the direction Ilumene and Aracnan had taken as they went to
lead Byora’s soldiers against the Farlan. When you were angry at
chance, and Fate had been murdered mere miles away, who could you
take it out on?
‘That’s something I
have never witnessed, not in all my years,’ Zhia said, ‘but I do
not envy you it.’
‘He didn’t hurt
anyone,’ Doranei continued, more to himself than in response.
‘There was a detachment of Ruby Tower Guards at the crossroads; one
of them laid him out as he made for a beggar. They manacled him to
a pillar while they sent for orders, he stood there for an hour
snarling like a rabid dog before they worked out what to do with
him.’
‘Did he say
anything?’
Doranei turned to
face his vampire lover. Zhia frowned under his scrutiny as Doranei
appeared to search for something in her face. Her black hair was
tied up in a way he’d not seen before, braids woven together and
bound by a thin copper band on the top of her head. It wasn’t quite
the style many mercenaries used, but it was similar.
‘It was fast, too
fast to follow properly. I only heard one scrap.’ He gestured at
the Ruby Tower, now just an outline in the evening gloom. ‘What
your friend will have to say about it I don’t know.’
Zhia didn’t rise to
the bait, knowing he was looking for an excuse to rage, to vent the
grief he felt over Sebe’s death. He didn’t want to hurt her, she
knew that, and anyway, any confrontation between them would leave
Doranei injured, not her, but she suspected he’d prefer a beating
to the pain of grief.
‘Ruhen is not my
friend; you know that’s not the reason I cannot join your
assault.’
Lord Isak’s death had
resonated throughout the Land with enough force to turn a dozen men
and women in Byora alone into prophets, but it was a death less
than an hour before Isak’s that had cast this veil of anguish over
the King’s Man. Zhia had seen the destruction of the junction of
roads not long after; she could easily picture the wild storm of
magic unleashed there by a maddened Demi-God. Buildings had
shattered at Aracnan’s touch; the cobbles were torn up as though
fifty-foot claws had ripped through the street.
Sebe’s body was
buried in the devastation, and the wrecked houses were still
burning fiercely when she returned to the city and found Doranei,
filthy and soot-stained, tearing his hands on the rubble, alongside
dozens of others. Only fifty bodies were recovered in the end;
hundreds more, Sebe amongst them, had been lost to the ferocity of
the flames.
Zhia had dragged
Doranei to safety, all but imprisoning him in the tavern’s cellar
to keep him off the streets, but he had barely slept since. He
would lie in the bed they shared, his eyes wide; staring at
nothing, while she lay powerless to help. At times he looked almost
frantic, bewildered, as the tears refused to come, undone by a
lifetime of stoicism and detachment.
From his own position
three streets away Doranei had heard Aracnan’s crashing response to
Sebe’s poisoned arrow, increasing in violence as the seadiamond
venom burned ever hotter in the Demi-God’s veins. It was a weak
poison compared to most, but Aracnan had made the mistake they had
been counting on. When he’d been struck in the shoulder he’d
realised the bolt might be poisoned, and had used magic to counter
the effects - but this particular venom was magnified by the
presence of magic.
Witnesses had
reported the stones cracking under Aracnan’s feet as he screamed in
agony - the flesh of the nearest bystanders had blackened and
burned even before he started lashing out with arcs of fire. The
house where Sebe was positioned, most likely levelling a second
crossbow at Ilumene, had exploded under the magical assault. Only
Aracnan’s collapse into unconsciousness from the mounting pain had
saved the district.
Zhia’s voice forced
its way into his thoughts. ‘Doranei, what did the prophet
say?’
The King’s Man looked
down, knuckles white as his hand tightened on the window sill. ‘A
great lord falls, a new God rises.’