Age of Myth (The Legends of the First Empire #1)

The prince stared with tear-filled eyes at the corpse of Gryndal. He shouted, “You’re a traitor!”

The words came out in a high-pitched rage, and with red-faced fury he began to gesture feverishly with his hands. His fingers moved as if he were manipulating some complicated and invisible thing. He spoke words Persephone didn’t understand, singing them with an awful voice and a halting rhythm.

As he sang, a light formed before the young Fhrey. It whirled with a fiery streak and flew at Raithe, who raised the shield once more.

“No,” Arion said. There wasn’t any force to her words, no effort, but the fiery ball snuffed itself out before it got anywhere near Raithe.

Mawyndul? chanted once more and waved his hands, but nothing happened. Mawyndul? looked livid. He tried again and again, and each time Arion blocked him with no real effort.

Once more the prince began to conjure. This time Arion shoved out her palm and spoke a word. The prince was thrown off his feet.

Arion faced the lion-helmed soldiers with a granite glare. “Take the prince out of here, now.”

“Don’t listen to her!” Mawyndul? ordered in a shrill voice from where he lay on his back. “Kill them all!”

The Fhrey in lion helms hesitated.

“They can’t,” Nyphron said. “Only your father can sanction the death of another Fhrey, and I’m guessing he didn’t give anyone but Gryndal that lovely gift.”

Mawyndul? looked furious. He got to his feet and yelled, “Kill all the Rhunes then!”

The lion helms retreated from the Galantians and moved toward the mob of Dahl Rhen.

Raithe, Malcolm, and the rest of the dahl villagers moved to meet them.

“Stop!” Arion ordered, and the soldiers in the lion helms froze. “You are Talwara Guards. You have one job. You must protect the prince. He’s in danger here. Take him back to his father where he’ll be safe. That’s your only responsibility.”

“Fhrey can’t kill Fhrey! I’m in no danger. And he killed Gryndal! He has to die!”

“Gryndal was going to kill me,” Arion shouted back. “He nearly did.”

“That doesn’t change—”

A spear flew across the yard and pierced the wood frame of the lodge less than a hand’s length from the prince’s face. Mawyndul? gasped, staggered backward, and fell again. Malcolm stood in the courtyard without his spear. “Fhrey can’t kill Fhrey,” Malcolm shouted. “But if you stay—we’ll kill you.”

The prince got back to his feet, his eyes filled with fear.

“Go home, Mawyndul?,” Arion said.

“You’re—you’re defying the law. I’m your prince, and you must obey me.”

“I don’t care! Go home. Leave—all of you.”

Mawyndul? looked fearfully at the mob gathered before him. He crossed the porch and descended the steps. As he did, the lion soldiers rushed to create a barrier around the prince. As a group they marched toward the horses. “I’ll tell my father how you defied him. I’ll tell him how you protected Gryndal’s killer. He’ll declare war. He’ll send an army. An army of Miralyith!”

“Out!” Arion shouted.

The prince climbed atop a horse. Then all eyes watched as he and his guards filed out of the dahl.

When they were gone, Arion waved her hand, and both gate doors slammed shut. She turned toward the lodge and staggered, falling to her knees once more.

“Take her back to the lodge,” Nyphron said.

“Little help?” Grygor shouted from inside his bubble. “Getting hard to breathe.”

“Oh, sorry.” Arion looked embarrassed and the bubble burst.

Moya and Brin began escorting Arion up the steps when she stopped and looked at Nyphron. “Are we friends now?”

“I hate Miralyith,” Nyphron replied. “Today you’ve demonstrated precisely why. But…well…I also hate winter, mud, and biting flies, but I’ve learned to live with them.”

“Thank you for saving Minna,” Suri told Raithe. She had an arm around the wolf’s neck.

He was still in the center of the yard and had put his sword away but continued to hold the shield. At the sound of her voice, Raithe lifted his gaze from Gryndal’s corpse and smiled at the girl and her wolf. He reached out and stroked Minna’s head. “Can’t let anything happen to the world’s wisest wolf, can we?”

Suri stared at him for a moment, tears in her eyes. Then without warning Suri threw her arms around Raithe and hugged him.





CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT


The First Chair




I still remember when Persephone stood on those steps, when she faced us and said everything would be all right. I believed her. I think everyone did. Persephone was not a magician or a mystic, but she performed magic that day. She gave us hope.

—THE BOOK OF BRIN





Maeve was buried along with Jason the digger and Neft the builder, both of whom had been struck by lightning. Lyn the bead-maker was laid with them as well; she had been crushed by half of the Killians’ flaming home. The Galantians took care of Stryker, Medak, and Gryndal’s remains, the sight of which forever shattered the notion that the Fhrey couldn’t be killed. They bled and died like any mortal. The display of power when Arion and Gryndal fought, however, demonstrated that some Fhrey did indeed possess godlike power.

Suitable to a day when so many had died and it appeared the world had slipped further toward an abyss, almost everyone on Dahl Rhen acted with quiet reserve. In addition to those killed in the battle, the villagers mourned the passing of their chieftain and the others, like Hegner, who had vanished overnight.

Surprised to learn that Tressa had no idea where her husband had gone, Persephone told her of Konniger’s death. The woman faced the news with teary eyes but a straight back. Persephone told her that Konniger and the others had formed a rescue party after hearing about Maeve’s and Suri’s mission regarding Grin the Brown. Sadly, the bear had killed him and the others. She didn’t feel it was necessary to explain all the details about how Konniger and The Brown had faced each other. As disagreeable as Tressa was, Persephone wanted to preserve the new widow’s memory of her husband. No one should experience what she had with Reglan.

Suri surprised Persephone by showing no hurry to leave. After all that had happened, she had expected the mystic to depart immediately after the battle. Instead, she found the girl sitting beside Minna against the south wall.

“I don’t suppose this—what just happened—will be the end of it? The end of the warning you originally brought me?”

Suri shook her head. “Still not big enough. This is the start, just the turning of leaves. Winter is still on its way.”

Persephone frowned and nodded. “I suppose you’ll be leaving us to return to the wood?”

Suri looked up as if roused from sleep.

“You know, this could be your home,” Persephone said.

Suri looked skeptically at the massive hole in the ground that was still bubbling goo, then toward the shattered gap in the western wall. Her eyes scanned across dozens of scorch marks on the grass and through the roofs of homes.

“Okay.” Persephone shrugged. “So Rhen has seen better days.”

“When?”

Persephone smiled. “So maybe I should come live with you.” She sat down beside the mystic and rested her back against the wall. “That was quite clever. What you did to Arion’s bandages.”

“The markings in the little Dherg caves block the spirits. I’ve never been able to start a fire in there and can’t read bones. Nothing of the spirit world works when surrounded by those marks.”

“You’re very smart. You know that?”

Suri shrugged. Her gaze was focused beyond the opening in the wall. “Maeve—who was she?”

“Maeve? She was the Keeper of Ways for Rhen. The one who remembered all the old stories from our past. Luckily, she taught others, passing on what she knew. Brin, for example. She loves stories and has a great memory.”

“What was she like? Who was she married to?”

“Maeve never married.”

“She had a daughter.”

Persephone nodded. “She wasn’t married to the father.”