Asunder Read online

  Two more guards had been posted outside the council room door, but judging by the sounds coming from the hallway, those two were either outmatched or dead. The interior guards looked at each other, and then at the door. There was another crash, and this time the sound of splintering wood was plainly heard throughout the room. Whatever this interruption was, it was a legitimate threat.

  Korith cut off his speech in mid-thought, gesturing to the Hunters he had brought with him. Garen had advised against the show of force, suggesting that perhaps the assembled nobles would respond more favorably to the Duke if they weren’t intimidated by a wall of muscle and steel. As usual, he had made the better choice.

  At his signal, Bethcelamin was immediately flanked by two of the huge men, their weapons at the ready. Garen too, had a guard, which he appeared to resent immensely. Korith, surrounded by his remaining warriors, spoke.

  “Duke Derbin, honored Earls, gentle guests … be assured that whatever lurks on the other side of that door, it will be defeated as all dangers are - with strength and steel. Let my warriors fight alongside yours until this threat is eliminated!” At his nod, five of the Hunters stepped off the raised dais and joined the two Porthold guards.

  A few of the men cheered, but their approval was cut short when the door splintered again, this time visibly. One of Derbin’s guards turned to face the paralyzed attendees.

  “Get to the back!” the young man shouted. “Hurry!”

  The nobles and their wives moved quickly away from the door, but the chamber was too small for them to gain any real distance.

  Bethcelamin, clutching Bashara’s hand, went where the Hunter led her. She realized she should be panicking, terrified like the others, but for some reason, nothing felt real. The Hunter with Garen tried to usher the Chancellor out of harm’s way, but the burned man with the twisted face was having no such nonsense— he had drawn himself to his feet and held a jeweled dagger in his one good hand. Korith remained where he was.

  When the door finally shattered, the smell reached them before the real danger did. It was a damp, rotting smell that closed the throat and made breathing a chore - more than a few people retched. The two guards bravely stood their ground beside the Hunters, but the walking dead men who were forcing their way through the opening cared little for bravery.

  Korith’s chest tightened at the sight— this couldn’t be happening. Despite the stabs and slashes from both guard and Hunter alike, the intruders kept coming, relentless and worse, bloodless. They’re already dead, his mind insisted, but that was simply not possible.

  He took an involuntary step backwards as the door splintered again and still more of the creatures pushed into the chamber. His Hunters were ready, cutting down the corpses when they entered, and forming a second line of defense when the dead stood back up.

  Only when the first corpse fell without its head and remained where it lay did Korith regain his composure. The things could be killed after all, and with steel. It was still impossible, but it could work to his favor. He saw opportunity, and shouted.

  “See!” he cried, standing behind his Hunter guards and looking out at the scrambling nobles. “Do you see? When left unchecked, the magic will turn! Do you see? See what comes of it!”

  What few nobles heard his voice amid the din of the fight nodded their heads in agreement, but as a whole the group was far more concerned with simply surviving. Some of the men had taken up abandoned chairs and were swinging them at the dead who had made it past the guards and refused to stay down.

  Safe between his own Hunter guards as the dead men swarmed into the room, Korith continued his impromptu speech.

  “The Lich King is dead, my friends, we know this for fact. So who sends these monsters, his minions?”

  The Hunters cut down wave after wave of the living dead, but the well-trained soldiers were tiring. Even they were affected by the gruesome task and the cloying stench - and still more corpses came.

  “After the destruction of Foley by one single girl, can you truly not imagine? Surely she died in the blaze, but who will say that she stayed dead any more than these creatures did? We may have overcome the Lich King, my friends, but his Queen is a bigger danger still!”

  Bethcelamin could not believe her ears. Had she been looking towards Garen, she would have noted unfeigned shock on the Chancellor’s face as well. Her gaze, though, was focused on her husband. Korith was nodding to himself, secure in the protection of his warriors and looking triumphant, as he always did when a lie began to sound plausible to him. Her grip on Bashara’s hand tightened as she processed what he was saying.

  She had been able to pretend that the girl in his story was not who she feared – because the girl in his tale had died, and Bethcelamin knew that her daughter was very much alive. She had felt it when Solus was murdered. His sudden absence had shattered her heart while she embroidered in the garden. Lucian, too, had been ripped from her and she had felt it before she was told. With no such agony since, Bethcelamin was certain her child lived.

  Jayden - despite his outward denial that Melody ever existed - believed her daughter to be responsible for Foley, for the shocking condition of his Chancellor. That was absurd enough, but now here he was, plainly claiming that Melody was— well, it was unthinkable enough that she could have screamed. When several of the attackers burst through the ranks of Hunters and began to approach the tight knot of gathered nobles with slow, steady footsteps, she actually did scream, a little.

  The inescapable smell had paralyzed everyone, including her husband, who had finally – thankfully - been reduced to silence. The two Hunters flanking Bethcelamin stepped together, shoulder to shoulder as the creatures approached. The bulk of their bodies shielded her from the spraying blood of several high-ranking nobles, but enough made it through so that Bethcelamin understood the very real danger they were all in. It was Bashara’s turn to let out a small shriek as the blood spattered across her forehead, and she and Bethcelamin stumbled over each other as the Hunters pushed them roughly back.

  The rest of the battle was a blur to the women as they huddled against the tapestry-covered wall, but the sounds of the screaming and breaking bones would haunt their sleep for weeks to come. When the low groans of the undead had finally faded away, over half the nobles assembled were either dead or wounded, more than a few of them women.

  Duke Derbin stood surrounded by the dead, his fine blue coat splattered with the blood of his friends and guests. His jaw hung slack, and his disbelieving eyes were empty and stunned.

  Korith surveyed the aftermath, noting Derbin standing so helplessly in the center of the carnage. He caught sight of his wife, pale and shaking, climbing unsteadily to her feet behind her bleeding guard. He snapped his fingers once, sharply, and the Hunters returned to stand at attention in front of him.

  “You, return my wife and her maid to their quarters. You two, secure the Keep; make sure there are no more and find out where they came from. The rest of you, help these people and see to the dead.” Korith assumed control immediately with no resistance at all from Macob Derbin. The remainder of the assembled nobles, as confused and aimless as their Duke, looked to Korith for their direction as well.

  Chancellor Garen watched the fool of a Duke barking orders, and limped out of the room, unnoticed. Jayden was excellent at crowd control, he thought as he tucked the knife back into his belt, but his assumptions left much to be desired. The truth, for one thing.

  Garen knew that Melody had nothing to do with the attack tonight. He had touched her power, he had known her mind - however briefly. She was capable of violence, certainly, but at her own hand. She would never command anyone, or anything.

  Yet the undead had come. Things that hadn’t been seen in the land since the Lich King himself walked among them had somehow risen again. These unnatural creatures, which over the span of a thousand years of relative peace had been reduced to scary stories meant to frighten children, no more real than werewolves or trolls - had just
slaughtered a double handful of influential Earls and Barons inside the walls of a city famous for its security.

  Which could only mean, he mused as he made agonizingly slow progress up the stairs to the room set aside for him, that the Lich King was not quite as dead as everyone believed. Precious few had studied the histories at all, but no one was more versed in the rise and fall of Phelwen Semaj as Garen himself was. To achieve power, one must study powerful people, and he had.

  What he had learned was that Semaj was the only mage to ever conquer death - it was what had earned him the title of Lich King, made him the most feared ruler in history. He could extend life, he could defy death. There was no escape from Phelwen Semaj. Using the darkest of magic, he could reanimate a body, even bones, and continue to use them.

  Which was why some scholars had written of their fears that the Five had failed in their mission to defeat the Lich King. They speculated that Semaj couldn’t be killed, that he was merely weakened by the efforts of the Five. The long years with no threat, these historians wrote, may be the years in which Semaj was regaining his strength, determined to return and finish what he’d begun.

  If Phelwen Semaj could survive the attack of the Five - an attack that tore the very earth apart - if he could be returning to the world a thousand years after … That was power.

  Power like that, Garen thought, could return him to what he had been, and more. His own visions of assuming the throne with Melody at his side were not easily dismissed, of course, but she had escaped his grasp, leaving him twisted and scarred, forcing him to rely on the fool Duke… Garen could rule no one as he was, he knew, magic or no.

  Only one person had the power to restore him, to give him any position worth having, and that person might not even be human anymore. Garen was past the point of caring. He knew what he wanted, and he knew what - and who - he needed to get it.

  Which meant he had a letter to write.

  13

  Bethcelamin couldn’t think. With Bashara at her side, she followed the Hunter out of the stinking chamber full of the dead and wounded. She realized as they stepped over the lifeless body of a young Porthold guard that she was angry. She should be terrified, weak-kneed and trembling at the shock of it all, like Bashara. Except she wasn’t. She was furious. How dare he?

  Bethcelamin didn’t care that her reaction made no sense. This was no nameless, faceless Foley girl that he was accusing so casually of such terrible things. It was her daughter. It had to be. Solus had possessed enormous magical ability and her own - despite having been suppressed for most of her life - was undeniable. No one else could have done what Jayden claimed. Even so, Bethcelamin could not believe the girl was the terror he presented her to be.

  “I wish to speak with my husband,” she announced when their exhausted escort had seen them safely to their chambers and checked that there were no intruders present. Her voice was clear, her repressed anger emerging as only the smallest of shake in the words.

  The Hunter inclined his head. “When the Duke has seen to the wounded and addressed the others, I am certain he will wish to speak with you, my Lady.”

  Bethcelamin set her hands in balled fists on her hips. “I am his wife, and I am certain that is unacceptable. You will send him to me at once, Hunter, do I make myself clear?”

  The Hunter once more inclined his head. “As you say, my Lady.” He bowed before leaving the room, his expression unreadable.

  Bashara had no such self-control, however, and her face plainly showed her astonishment. Never once in all the maid’s memory had the gentle Lady Korith allowed her emotions to come before her manners. Bethcelamin had never commanded anyone with such a tone - in truth, Bashara thought, she had never commanded anyone at all. The Duchess had always believed that kind words inspired kind action.

  The maid twisted her hands in her apron, heedless of the blood there that had not yet dried. “My Lady?”

  Bethcelamin ignored the maid’s shock as she paced the room. Her lips moved silently as she rehearsed her words in her head. Jayden had gone too far this time. This was her child he was talking about.

  “Lady, I— are you ill?”

  “No I am not ill, Bashara.” She practically spit the words, thinking again of the terms her husband had used. He had all but called her daughter the Lich Queen. “I am not ill at all, I am angry. Beyond angry. How dare he accuse her of such things? How dare he?”

  Bashara followed Lady Korith to the huge, stuffed leather chair that angled towards the window. She knelt beside her when the Duchess threw herself into the cushion.

  “My Lady, please—“

  “Does he think me a fool? That she would do anything so awful? What can he hope to accomplish with this falsehood?” It was more difficult to put her fury into words than she thought it would be, and she clenched her fingers into the arm of the leather chair in frustration.

  Bashara patted her Lady’s shaking hand helplessly. She knew what the Duke would insist on. “Perhaps some tea would calm—?”

  “I don’t want to be calm!” Bethcelamin stood abruptly, knocking her maid to the floor.

  The door had opened just prior with no warning knock, and Jayden Korith stood witness to his wife’s raised voice. “Be easy, dove, she is only trying to help.”

  Bethcelamin spun, her eyes all ice and anger. “You.”

  It was all Korith could do to not take a step back. The look on her face was like nothing he had ever seen in his mild, gentle wife. The ache in his head, already significant after the unexpected battle during his speech, was fast becoming unbearable.

  “Bashara. Tea. Strong. Now.” His voice could be as cold as his wife’s eyes, just see if it couldn’t.

  Bashara looked with wide eyes from her Lady to the Duke, then scrambled to her feet and out the door, closing it behind her.

  “You will take care how you speak to me, wife.”

  Bethcelamin let her lip curl. “I? What of you? How do the lies you spin not make you dizzy?” The contempt in her voice was nearly tangible. “Have you ever spoken truth in your life, husband?”

  Korith’s shock at her outburst showed only in his raised eyebrow. He kept his tone smooth and even. “Beth, my dove. You’re distraught. The attack has upset you—“

  A wide bracelet torn from her wrist sailed across the room and struck his shoulder, clattering noisily against the stone floor. He did not flinch.

  “Distraught?” she cried. “The attack did not affect me nearly as much as you!”

  Korith took a deep, steadying breath. She was unstable. He would need to handle this carefully. “What have I done, wife? Tell me, for I truly do not know what could have frayed your senses so markedly.”

  Another bracelet – her last, he noted gratefully – sailed wide of his head and clattered against the wall. The noise of it sent showers of pain behind his eyes, but he remained impassive.

  “Frayed my senses? Frayed them?” She sputtered, and drew herself to her full height, shaking with anger. “I am not frayed, my husband. I am offended. Can you truly not know? Do the lies come so readily you mistake them for truth?”

  Korith waited patiently. He had been a diplomat before he was a husband, and approached each duty in much the same way.

  Her eyes narrowed, and her lips formed a thin, colorless line. “I am not an assembly of nobles, Jayden. I can wait all night. Why do you lie about her?”

  “Lie about whom, dove?”

  This time it was a pillow that she hurled across the room, which he refused to side-step. It bounced harmlessly off of his leg. At least the pillow was quiet.

  “We both know this girl you say destroyed Foley is not some faceless nobody. But my daughter? The Lich Queen? Have you gone so insane for power that you would invent an enemy out of a child you’ve never even seen?”

  “Bethcelamin—”

  She didn’t let him speak. “You have hunted my daughter her whole life, all the while telling me she didn’t exist. You have lied to me and sedated me, but I
am not mad, and she is not dead - nor is she undead, as you dared suggest tonight.”

  Korith kept his face blank, though how she knew about his search for the witch-child was of some concern.

  “Why do you do it? I am your wife! You claim to love me, yet at every turn you lie, you insist me mad for knowing the truth. And it is the truth - you know it is! You lie to me, you lie to Bashara, you lie to everyone, and for what?”

  “I would think you’d appreciate my protection of your reputation,” he said. His voice was low and even, contrasting her shrill complaints. “Since you will soon be Queen, thanks to me.”

  “You would rather have a mad Queen than one who once knew love? Real, honest love? You would prefer a drugged, insensate Queen to sit and smile while you invent new truths so you can claim power you don’t deserve?”

  “You really must calm yourself,” Korith said, firmly. “Your outburst accomplishes nothing.” His voice was flat, inflexible. Bethcelamin would see reason, or she wouldn’t – but the end result would be the same. He would regain control here; there was no question of that. “What is it you wish me to say, wife?” His eyes were as emotionless as his voice.

  Bethcelamin closed her mouth, staring at him. Her heart tightened in her chest, and she knew. There was nothing. Not one word or phrase could pass his lips that would bring her back to a place where she believed in him, or forgave him. Her face smoothed into a mask of resigned calm.

  “I wish you to say that I never have to lay eyes on you again, husband. I wish for you to leave this room and never come back, never look back. I wish you to pursue your quest to be King without me at your side. I wish to know what plans you have for my daughter, if you ever manage to find her. But to tell you the truth, Jayden, I don’t think I would believe you even if you told me those things.”

  Bethcelamin returned to the stuffed leather chair and sat, gently this time, as if she were porcelain that would break at the slightest pressure. Her leaving Korith was not an option, and they both knew it.