Allegiance (River of Souls 3)

“What of me?” she said. “What of Morennioù?”

“That is a simpler question,” he said. “Morennioù needs its queen. You need a witness to your court and council. We cannot take any ship—Markov and the army watch the ports—and you admit you cannot traverse the magic planes. That leaves only one choice. I will be your witness. I will carry you home.”

He dismounted and held up a hand to Valara. “Come with me.”

Valara accepted his hand, which was warm and dry. Comforting. They had misspent so many of their lives together. She wanted to think that in this life, the gods offered another chance, but she remembered his words about bearing witness to her council. They would not forgive him for leading the invasion.

“I know,” he said quietly. “I know what I do.”

He helped her to dismount. She needed his arm to steady herself.

Miro spoke in an unknown language—not Károvín, but a dialect of the north. Magic sparkled in the air. Both horses snorted. He repeated the command, more insistently. The stallion bolted first, followed by the mare, the two galloping away from the strange scent and texture of the current. Miro watched them a moment before he turned back to Valara.

“Are you afraid?” he asked.

They had no gear, nothing beyond the weapons Miro carried. If they did reach Morennioù, they would need none of that. Except she knew the magical plane. It never cooperated fully. It liked surprises.

She swallowed. “Very much.”

He folded her into an embrace, but loosely. She could free herself at any time. Her mother’s admonition echoed in her mind. Never show weakness. But was it weakness to accept another’s gift?

“What of your home?” she asked. “What of Taboresk?”

He pressed his face into her hair. He was taller than she, lean and strong. He wore a scent that reminded her of ocean winds. His heart beat quick and light against her cheek. He, too, was afraid.

“I give Taboresk to my cousin,” Miro said. “He loves it as much as I do. He will do what is right with Veraene and Morennioù. Are you ready?”

“No. Yes. Please, let us go.”

He kissed her once—a brief ghost of a kiss, as though he would not trespass further—then spoke the words to summon Lir’s magical current. Her palm itched. Magic prickled against her skin. She clenched her fists, felt the pang of the scar on her palm where she’d held Lir’s jewels tight as the Mantharah worked its impossible magic. Miro bent down and whispered, “I love you. I’m sorry I failed you before.”

An apology from now, from centuries ago.

“I’m sorry I did not understand,” she said.

The current roared past with the strength of a hurricane. She had one last glimpse of Károví and Taboresk before the world vanished into darkness.

Blackness. Pinpoints of light. Worlds upon worlds wheeling beneath their feet.

We are lost, she whispered. We cannot make it.

We can, he said. Think of home. Think of what you most desire.

She stared at the maelstrom around them. She searched. She saw … the waves breaking upon Enzeloc’s shore. The sun rising behind her father’s castle. For a moment, her heart faltered. Her father had died. Her mother and sister a year before that. She would come home to a land devastated by Leos Dzavek’s invasion, one still occupied by his soldiers.

I want it. I want it still. I always shall.

With that thought still echoing in her mind, she and Miro Karasek plunged downward to Morennioù’s islands.

CHAPTER TEN

TEN DAYS BROUGHT Raul Kosenmark and his guards to the western edge of the Gallenz Valley. Unlike the eastern quadrant of the hills, these parts had no regular roads, and for the past day, they had ridden single file along a narrow trail that wormed upward through the trees, stopping from time to time to cut through brush so the horses could pass.

As the forest trail rounded the shoulder of a hill, the trees opened up to bare sky, the land dropped away into folds to the great central plains of Veraene stretching outward and forever to the west.

Raul drew rein and gave the signal to halt. The company took up new positions around him with a minimum of fuss and discussion. They were all veterans in his service, handpicked by Benedikt Ault and himself for this mission. They hardly needed any direction from him, for which he was grateful.

It had proved a difficult journey. The ever-steeper hills. The wild oak and pine forests, interrupted by expanses of bare rock, which they had to circle around. Over six hundred years ago, in the early days of the empire, the soldiers from the Gallenz kingdom had staged their attacks against the encroaching imperial army from these heights. Eventually they surrendered. A century later, the empire had absorbed the larger princedom of Károví.