Ten

In which Daystar and Emberlace pick up some companions and visit a mysterious woman

“A sellsword?” Emberlace said weakly, after the suggestion had sunk in. “I…” she trailed off, uncertain, sinking down on the bed beside Daystar. “I think I want to wait until he wakes up and I could ask him,” she admitted.

Daystar continued to sit, staring at nothing, but he was awake, and Emberlace could only hope he was aware.

“Who are you?” she asked, realizing she knew less about the strangers than they knew about her and backtracking quickly, cursing her upset state that let her reveal information so quickly and emotionally.

“Jonathan and Bess,” the young man replied, gesturing to himself and the young woman. “Originally from the Barony of Hawkstream.”

“And what was your trouble? Who were you mistaken for?”

Jonathan shook his head and sat down on the edge of the straw mattress across from Daystar and Emberlace. “We don’t know. We were taken abruptly from the fields near our village over a year ago and imprisoned in a castle north of Northmarch Barony. There, we were interrogated for some weeks for information on the Drageklek.”

Daystar’s head snapped up, and his eyes fixed on Jonathan, a spark coming into them. Jonathan started at the sudden movement and stared back. “That mean something to you?”

“What did they know?” Daystar asked distantly.

Jonathan shrugged. “Probably little more than we did, which was nothing.”

Daystar drooped again, and Emberlace nudged at him, hoping for him to rouse again, but he only swayed with the movement, vanishing again into whatever dark place he’d chosen to inhabit at the time.

“They really thought we knew something.” Jonathan stared at the wall behind them without really seeing it, hands clasped around one knee, rocking absently back and forth. “And when we realized they wouldn’t let us go, we… let ourselves go. Bess killed the first, I killed the second, and we ran, snuck out of the castle, and headed south. We found our village.” His gaze fell. “Or what was left of it. Burned to the ground.”

“Destruction?” Daystar asked again in that distant voice.

“What?”

“Destruction.” His voice was a little clearer this time. “How was the destruction? Widespread? Just that spot?”

“Just that spot. Each house burned individually.”

“The fields?”

“Untouched.”

“Not dragons.” He subsided again, rocking back and forth now as he stared distantly at the wall behind Jonathan, who looked at him curiously.

“Does he know something about the Drageklek?” Bess asked, puzzled.

“Dragonhatched.” Daystar’s voice broke the silence again, and they all stared at him. “Drageklek. Old word. Dragonhatched.”

They waited for him to elaborate, but he slumped again, despite Emberlace’s encouragement to continue speaking with them, and after a moment, Jonathan continued.

“Whoever it was who captured us didn’t want to let us leave easily. The hunters found us down the road from our village, and we stopped them.”

“Not dragons.” Daystar’s gaze finally snapped to Jonathan. “Not dragons? Burned village.”

“Yes,” Jonathan said carefully. “The village was burned.

“Hawkstream?”

Emberlace’s heart lifted. He was listening, in some way.

Daystar looked completely bewildered. “Hawkstream. No dragons. Who attacked you?”

“We don’t know.”

“No attacks.”

“No attacks?” Emberlace asked. “They just said-”

“No attacks. Lord Baron of Hawkstream said nothing.” He looked apologetic. “Not to say that you weren’t attacked, but we heard nothing of it. No one saw anything, no one heard anything. And an entire village wiped out and no one reports it? Doesn’t that strike you as very odd?”

“No one reported anything?” Bess said in a shocked voice.

“We heard nothing. I could-” his eyes turned off again, and he sunk back down. Emberlace sighed and rubbed his shoulder, watching him descend into silence again. The peculiarity of the situation must have awakened his interest long enough to hold him thinking about Jonathan and Bess as if he were still their prince. His offer would have been to check the records, see if anything had been overlooked, maybe speak with the baron and see if he had covered anything up or dismissed a report from one of his outlying villages. But without his position, he had none of these options, and the darkness had fallen back onto him. She sighed.

“I’m sorry,” she said to them. “You knew the people?”

“We knew them well,” Bess said quietly. “Our friends, our family. I suppose we can understand where Daystar is at the moment. We went into a state like that when it finally hit us you know. Our minds wandering, feeling lost. Wondering what we would do with ourselves. Where we would go in the world. But we found new skills and kept going.” She looked a Daystar for a long moment, then commented, “You should take him to the Sister.”

“The Sister?” Emberlace asked. “What can she do?”

Bess lifted her hands uncertainly. “She might be able to help. I’ve heard she has a knack for people with troubled minds.”

***

A week later, Bess stood in the foothills of the Cinderstrand, the wind tugging at her cloak and snapping it beside her. The Great Cathedral sat tall on the knees of the mountains, covered in moss and overgrown with trees. All the glass had long since shattered from the windows, leaving only the frames, and the towering, pointed spires dwarfed her. Jonathan’s head barely reached the top of the great stone foundations, and the building seemed to be a mountain in and of itself.
Lacy climbed painfully down from her horse. The former noblewoman was not used to riding, and Bess felt her legs twinge empathetically, remembering her first few weeks learning to ride. Lacy’s pain roused Daer from his self-imposed stupor, and he caught her gently, bearing her up while she walked out the worst of the soreness. Lacy’s care seemed the only thing standing between Daer and oblivion, and Bess flicked her gaze away from the former prince, unimpressed. She knew what it was to loose everything, and such an event warranted sorrow, but Daer’s despair went beyond what she thought reasonable. Lacy was clearly the stronger of the two, and it was for her sake that they had brought Daer here.
A stream ran out of the door, and they followed the bank of it into the cathedral, staring up in awe at the towering ceiling above, held up with rows of graceful, pointed arches. The walls to the side seemed mostly made of tall windows, and light poured in from every direction. The stream emptied itself into the cathedral from the windows at the far end, cascading over rubble to pool deeply at the center of the nave and burble happily out the entrance. Ferns and wildflowers coated the soft, mossy floor, though the broken paving peeked through in some places, sparkling white in the sunlight.
“It’s no good, Emberlace,” Daer muttered quietly. “Whatever information she has, it’s not like I can take it to the barons. They’re bent on war.”

The Sister appeared from the foliage like a ghost, and the travelers jumped. Daystar stared at the woman. Her gaze looked straight into him, and he felt uncomfortable, as if she was reading his mind, sorting through what was there, and finding it interesting. He could not put a finger on her age - she was not young, but neither was she old, though he could see long years behind her eyes. Her dark hair smoothed back into a loose bun, and she dressed simply in a long, hooded robe of dark blue, a thick strip of leather tied around her waist for a belt. The Sister stepped past his companions and caught his face gently in her hands, looking deep into his eyes.
“How long has he been like this?” she asked Emberlace softly.
“Three days.”
Three days? Daystar grappled back, trying to organize the time that had passed since they fled from Ebon Reach. It felt like an eternity, and he could place no precise sequence of events. Somewhere, they’d joined two people, sellswords, and he did not feel threatened by them anymore. Emberlace would be safe and not alone.
“What’s wrong with him?” Emberlace asked.
“That I shall learn presently,” the Sister replied, letting go of Daystar’s face. “Rest yourselves here; he and I must go further up and talk.”
Daystar let the Sister take his hand and lead him up around the edge of a pool while the other three fell back. Normally, he thought vaguely, he would have been disturbed to be separated so abruptly from his companions, but this place seemed to be void of fear. They wove back between pillars under a canopy of climbing ivy until they reached a small alcove occupied only by the remains of a broken statue.
“Now,” said the Sister, gesturing for him to sit and settling across from him, “What has caused you to loose hope?”
“My name is Daystar, and I am the only son of King Felstar.”
The Sister’s gaze sharpened, and she took a quick breath, hands clenching on her knees.
“Three…four…several days ago, the barons took control of the Kingdom of Upper Vale. They killed my father and attempted to kill me - I was saved by my wife. We fled Ebon Reach, but were caught two hours after sunrise.” He looked down at the grassy floor between his feet. “Rather than kill us, the baron leading the party stripped us of our nobility and let us go.”
“Then you owe your wife more than to despair completely over the loss of a title,” the Sister intoned sternly.
“It’s not the title,” Daystar replied, shaking his head and twisting his hands. “Well, it is the title, but not the title as in…the title.” He sputtered off for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts. It wasn’t the fate of not being Prince Daystar that had him so upset, it was the fate of not being Prince Daystar. He rubbed his face, wondering how to explain the problem in a way that made sense. “I’m not angry that I’ve lost my rank, Sister,” he said at last. “It’s that I don’t have my rank anymore. I was born and raised to be the prince of the land. To rule it. And that’s all I know how to do. I can’t do what I know how to do anymore. I can’t influence people anymore. I can’t keep the kingdom from falling anymore. The barons want to war with the dragons, and I can’t stop them anymore. Who knows how many lives it will cost; I know the most about it, and I am the most powerless to keep them from doing anything.”
“Why do you say you know the most about the dragons?” the Sister asked him curiously.
“Well,” Daystar replied, “I’ve researched it for some time, and found that Drageklek means Dragonhatched. That’s more than we knew before, a step toward negotiation rather than war.”
“You believe in a peaceful resolution?” the Sister inquired.
“I believe in fighting a war that we can win,” Daystar told her. “And we can’t win a war with the dragons. If we anger them any more than we have, they will simply cease to tolerate our presence. We cannot hold back the entire might of the Cinderstrand.”
The Sister leaned back, hands resting lightly on her knees. “You bemoan your loss of powerful problem-solving ability, then, not the shame of loosing your rank?”
“I’m used to being prince. Being able to do things that meant something.”
“You have not lost your purpose entirely,” the Sister smiled. “You came seeking information that would allow you to treat with the dragons, and I shall give you some, though it may not seem like it.
“You should know, that King Felstar and his wife were barren. They had no children for so long as they lived, though they loved you as their own, and told no one of your origin.”
Daystar stared at her, not understanding, though it seemed impossible that she could be lying to him.
“I only know this because I found you in my cathedral and took you to the king and queen to be raised as their own child, a security for the royal family.”
“I’m not,” Daystar fumbled. “Who were my parents?”
The Sister shrugged. “I truly have no idea, Daystar.”
“They abandoned me.”
“I do no think so. The way I found you… it implied they were forced to leave you for some reason, and only left you here because they believed you would be safer.”
Daystar reeled with the information, and the void in his mind rose up again, threatening to consume him. The Sister leaned forward and put a hand on his knee, giving him a focal point and letting him pull out of the darkness again.
“Will the barons succeed in their attempt on the Cinderstrand?”
“No.” Daystar looked down into the floor as if he might stare straight through it. “And who knows how many people will die.”
“Whatever customs your court holds, you were still the prince for a long time. People there know and respect you. And even if they cannot see reason now, it may be that they will remember your voice in the years to come, when their endeavors have failed and they are left open to the full rage of the Cinderstrand. When that happens, you will need to be there, perhaps to step into your place again.”
“I would never be accepted, not after this.”
“Do not be so certain. Much can change, even in a few days, I think you know this now. In a few months, when the barons are faced with all the hardship you bore up under for so long, who can tell? I do not think Providence is finished with you.”
Daystar looked up at her, sitting calmly, her eyes full of light and some sort of secret knowledge hidden behind them.
“And what would Providence have to do with it?”
“Many have tried to foil Providence, and none have succeeded in it. What is meant to happen will happen, and certain things cannot be undone or avoided.”
“I was fated to be disinherited, then?” he asked her.
“The means are not set in stone, Daystar. Only the end. We may control how we come to a place, and from time to time, the places we come to. If this kingdom is meant to fall, nothing you attempt will prevent it, but if it is meant to stand, I think you will find some part in it. You do not carry your knowledge for nothing.” The sister’s eyes grew stern. “And do not allow it to waste away in that mind of yours. Even if you must store it, keep it with you always. You may have need of it someday.”
She spoke with the authority of a Mediator, and Daystar decided that she must be a Fervent of some sort, though he didn’t know if they had orders.
“Does Providence have anything to tell me?” he wondered curiously. He avoided the Mediators - they struck a wrong chord with him somehow - and had never consulted one for guidance. Not that many people did.
The Sister’s eyes twinkled gently. “That is between you and Providence.”
Certainly a Fervent, then.
“I cannot tell you what intentions Providence has for you specifically, Daystar, but I can tell you we are meant to live as best we can. You are traveling with the sell swords?”
“I guess. Emberlace made the arrangements,” he admitted. “I was hardly in a state to think straight.”
“Such an occupation will keep you traveling, and you have skills that would tend toward it. The opportunity has been placed in your path, and it is my advice to you that you take it. Whether you take my advice, Daystar, is entirely up to you, but I also advise you to push against the darkness in your mind. It will only consume you if you let it remain. Further than that I will not say.”
“You said you would give me something that would help me treat with the dragons?” he prompted hesitantly.
“I believe I have,” the Sister replied mysteriously. “I told you it would not make sense now. You cannot be told everything. Some things you must find out for yourself, and I think this is one of them. You will have opportunity to learn more of your past and your future.”
Daystar stood suddenly. “You know more than you are telling me.”
“Most do,” the Sister replied impassively.
“Why not tell me now? If the barons go to war with the Cinderstrand, hundreds, thousands will die. Two cities have been attacked already. I need everything that I can get so that I can actually do something. Please. If you know anything that will help, tell me.”
The Sister’s face gentled deeply. “There are some things you must find for yourself,” she repeated. “If I told you, I do not think you would believe me, and you would not, I fear, react rightly.”
“But the people,” Daystar protested, pleading.
“Your care for your people will be your strength,” the Sister reassured him. “And you will be the better for it. I shall tell you this. The dragons will not attack again, it is not in their nature. They have given their warning, and now they will wait. If the barons go to war against the Cinderstrand, they will battle against whoever comes against them, but it will be much longer before they are angered enough to lay waste to the entire kingdom, and they will warn you before they do it.” She stood to face him and rested a hand on his shoulder.
“You are accustomed to command, but the time comes, Daystar Kingskin, when you must allow people to suffer the consequences of their own actions. You did not abandon your kingdom, you were thrust from it, and it is the barons who must bear the weight of their decision, not you. If the dragons do attack, that is upon their shoulders, not yours.”
The Sister looked past his shoulder to where Daystar’s companions sat near the pool, speaking quietly with each other, and her eyes grew deep and thoughtful. “There is far more going on than even you know or I know. You are not the only one interested in the Dragonhatched. Jonathan and Bess were held and interrogated over it by someone else to the north.”
“Who?”
“They have no idea, and neither do I. You have long held that the kingdoms around you fear Upper Vale’s power too much to invade them, but now, with your energy stores weakening and limited? Someone else might be interested in picking up your broken contract for themselves and getting a kingdom on the side.”
Daystar slumped. “And I cannot prevent that either.”

“Pining over it will do you no good,” the Sister told him sharply. “What I tell you, I tell you so that the information will be of use to you in the future, not so you can waste away thinking of it. Go with Jonathan and Bess. Travel your kingdom. Understand it. And when the time for action is come, you will know it.”