Heir of Autumn Read online

  “What do you mean? I want to help Ohndarien be whole again. I want to face whatever might come, to stand as her protector.”

  “That is a noble cause, if that is truly your reason.”

  Brophy’s eyes on the horizon faltered. He looked back at her.

  “Or are you going into the Heart to satisfy your own curiosity? Are you going as a Child of the Seasons or as a boy angry at the father he never knew?”

  Brophy winced as though she had slapped him.

  “It is the right thing for me to do,” he said. “I know it here.” He put a fist against his chest. “Isn’t that enough?”

  Baelandra took his hands in hers again. He let her, but the softness was gone from him. He was stiff and cold.

  “Brophy, you have strength of heart that I’ve never seen before. But fifteen is too young.”

  He pulled his hands away. “Don’t mother me,” he said. “You’re not my mother.”

  His words stung. She swallowed and tried to let them go.

  Brophy bowed his head, looked up, and pulled her into a sudden hug. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

  She clung to him and wished that Celidon had half of this boy’s insight. “It’s all right,” she murmured into his shoulder. “We all do things we regret sometimes.”

  Then, fearing she was about to make her own words come true, she said, “Brophy, there’s something I never told you about your father.”

  He pulled back, his body tense again. “What do you mean?”

  “I was waiting until you were old enough.”

  A fierceness lit his eyes, a fire she had never seen before. He waited, quietly burning.

  “The Lost Brothers aren’t missing. I know where they are, and I know what they are doing there.”

  “What? Where?”

  “They are still in the Vastness. They are trying to keep something hidden that must never be found, something more important than the council, more important than the fate of Ohndarien.”

  “What do you mean? Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “I didn’t think you were old enough.”

  “Then tell me now.”

  She looked to the west. The sun was close to setting. “I can’t. Not today, it’s a long story, and Celidon’s Test is about to begin.”

  “Bae, no!” he protested, “You can’t say something like that and walk away.”

  She put a hand on his chest. “Patience, Brophy. The Brothers have been gone for thirteen years. Another day will not matter. We will talk about this and about your taking the Test tomorrow. I promise.”

  She turned and left him standing by his father’s torch.

  BAELANDRA HURRIED down the marble path toward the Autumn Palace. The building was mainly used as a school where the Children of the Seasons were trained in the arts of the sword, spear, and unarmed combat. The palace was little more than a covered courtyard with a few attached rooms for foul-weather meetings and weapons storage. Baelandra had a small room on the second floor where she changed before formal functions in the Hall.

  She jogged up the stairs and slipped through the unlocked door. Torches were already burning in the sconces even though it was still light outside. Her formal gown had been laid out for her, and there was a small plate of food resting on the table. Grabbing a hunk of cheese, she slipped out of her dress.

  A man softly cleared his throat behind her. The Sister of Autumn pulled her dress back over her naked shoulders and turned around.

  Scythe stood in the darkest corner. The torch beside him still smoldered.

  “What did you find out?” she asked, retying the neck of her dress and turning to the food. It would be a long night, and this would be her last chance to eat.

  The man regarded her with his dark eyes for a long moment before he spoke.

  “Your suspicions were correct. The Physendrian army is mustering two days south of here.”

  Baelandra nodded, taking a gulp of cold tea. “How long until they can march?”

  “Any day, but they are still training raw troops. It could be several months before they are ready.”

  “Good, that gives us some time. What about Celidon?”

  “He and Krellis went sailing together yesterday morning. The boy announced his intention to take the Test to a friend right after he got back.”

  Baelandra pulled an olive pit out of her mouth and set it gently on the plate. She took a deep breath and blew out as much of her anger as she could.

  “What about the third matter?”

  Scythe shrugged. “I could not determine what Krellis and the ambassador discussed.”

  “What is your best guess? Why is he here?”

  “We are on the brink of war. The Opal Empire would make a powerful ally.”

  “What does Krellis have to offer them?”

  “Ohndarien?” Scythe suggested.

  “He wouldn’t do that.”

  Scythe raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

  Baelandra shook her head. “My apologies.” She picked up a piece of bread, but she no longer had an appetite. “Any chance Krellis and the Physendrian king are working together?”

  Scythe shook his head. “No. Krellis hates his brother. The two would never make common cause.”

  Baelandra nodded. “Once again I thank you for your skill and discretion.”

  The dark man gave a slight bow. “Shall I leave you now?”

  “No.” Baelandra paused before speaking. “If I may ask you for one more thing?”

  Scythe waited.

  “Brophy intends to take the Test.”

  The former assassin pursed his lips slightly.

  “I don’t believe he can pass,” she said. “He is too young. He has been too…sheltered.”

  “What would you like me to do? Torture the boy?”

  Baelandra walked up to her old friend. She lifted a hand as if she were going to touch his face, but paused and let it drop back to her side. “Not exactly. I want you to mentor him.”

  “Are you sure I am the man you want for this job? You have been critical of my methods before.”

  Baelandra swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Brophy is strong. He never shied away from hardship.”

  “Just because you want the boy to be strong does not make it so. We have disagreed about such things in the past.”

  Baelandra turned away from the bitterness she saw in the man’s eyes. She picked up her mug of tea and forced herself to drink. “Then try his mettle, if you doubt me. He has all the skills, Scythe, but he believes the world is good and just. I do not want him to discover that he is wrong at a moment that could cost him his life.”

  Baelandra did not look up from her plate and she held her breath during the long silence. Finally, Scythe spoke the words she waited for, that she knew he would speak.

  “I will do as you ask,” he said with a slight bow. “You deserve nothing less.”

  7

  STEAM ROSE around her. Shara imagined it curling like smoke into her nostrils and mouth. Closing her eyes, she resisted the urge to lick her lips, to trace her hand through the hot water. She hovered on the brink and must hold herself there.

  The flickering torchlight shimmered across the skin of the naked young men surrounding her. Theras sat on the edge of the pool beating the deerskin drum in time to her breath, keeping her steady. One of the twins, Baksin, washed her hair, while the other, Bashtin, massaged her feet. She floated free in the bath, each of the male students holding a fraction of her weight as the water held the rest. She floated in a constant caress while Caleb roved over her body, sensing where she was, reminding her to stay at the brink by the liquid motions of his hands, titillating her when she pulled back, halting her if she teetered too close to the edge.

  All four boys remained silent. They all had the same purpose, to prepare Shara for the final gate.

  There should have been five students guiding her, but Gedge had recently been cast from the Zelani school in disgrace. He and Reela h
ad been with each other behind the backs of their instructors. They broke their vows, shattered their discipline. It wasn’t just that they had sex outside their training, outside ritual space. That would be punished, but forgiven, but they allowed themselves to complete the act, and the sound of Reela’s climax had betrayed them.

  A Zelani used the body and the power of its pleasure as a doorway. Shara had spent the last nine years learning to contain that energy within herself, but she never released it, not once in all that time.

  “That energy is your life’s blood,” Master Victeris would say. “You would not open a vein and spill your blood upon the ground, just as you will not give in to release and cast your power to the winds.”

  The disgraced students were thrown naked into the streets. Their shame drew quite a crowd. As much as their neighbors revered the Zelani school, they enjoyed it when a student fell from grace. They couldn’t resist the jibes, the offers, the rude touching as poor Gedge and Reela fled past them.

  Shara closed her eyes and cycled through both sorrow and disappointment. Caleb massaged her shoulders, kneading away her tension. His hand slid slowly across her breast. His fingers brushed along her belly and across her thighs. Her skin sparked along the trail he left and she drew a quick breath as it brought her to the brink again, back to where she should be.

  Shara had been so close to losing control so many times. Only the strongest children were recruited, and not one in ten made it this far. The body craved release, the undisciplined mind feared power. Building such sexual energy was a strain, it threatened to overwhelm and destroy. But there was no limit to the power a human could contain within her body if she had the courage to face it and the will to control it.

  Shara let go of her thoughts, breathing them out like steam. Each of her attendants felt the ritual as she did. Their erections stood rigid against their bellies despite the heat of the water. They were the most advanced Zelani students, strong and full of will. Together they balanced the energy like dancers on the edge of a cliff. The boys had learned their lessons well. They would make powerful Zelani in a few years.

  Unlike Gedge. Unlike Reela.

  She heard they were recently married and had found work at the Scarlet Heart, the most respected brothel in the city. It was an honorable and profitable profession, but they would never be Zelani. They gave up their power and for what? One moment’s pleasure? For love?

  Shara had also pushed the boundaries of the rules, especially with Caleb. At times she had been merciless to the younger boy. She had climbed through his window, woken him with his cock in her mouth. Once, she snuck into the baths when he was meditating. She lay down alongside him as he sat cross-legged on the tiles. She wrapped her body around his and touched herself until she drifted into her spirit, lost in a haze of desire. Caleb never opened his eyes. He never reached for her, never rolled on top of her and pushed her thighs apart to bring a final end to the torture.

  That was why Shara chose Caleb. She trusted him. She left that night in the baths exploding with power, and he the same. They were stronger because they dared step so close to the edge. They were stronger because they never stepped over.

  Never until tonight. Tonight Shara would take that final step.

  She concentrated on diffusing her attention. The edge of ecstasy closed in from all four sides. She steadied her breath and accepted every sensation. If she focused too much on any part of her body, her desire would explode into orgasm. Doubt, anticipation, her private fears of Victeris, all mingled into a swirling storm of longing. She let her desire flow out the tips of her fingers and toes. She guided it to the very ends of her hair and let it float away into the water.

  The boys were there with her. The whole room was one body, her body, and she touched each of its parts delicately, savoring every moment. Each one of these boys had been inside her. She knew them—lips, hands, backs, bellies, cocks, thighs, tongues, and toes—all were familiar to her touch. She felt their heat as if lying naked between four raging bonfires. Yet they held their fires in check, they burned without being consumed.

  And what was beyond that control? Shara had an inkling, but those were daydreams, fantasies, not true knowledge. Only the graduates really knew. That secret could only be found beyond the fifth gate, and Victeris had the keys. The Master held the secrets of Efften. He alone could pass the female students.

  She had waited long enough. Tonight she would discover what was beyond the fifth gate, or she would fail and follow Reela and Gedge into disgrace.

  Shara felt the water, the smoothly shaped stones that lined the steaming tub. She felt the flickering firelight. With her eyes closed, she extended her awareness into the other students. She could feel herself within Caleb’s own flesh. She felt the hot water flow around his penis, over his thighs. His desire was hers. His need called to her, thrilled through her, the need to grab her by the hips and thrust deep inside her. It mingled with her own desire until she could not recognize which belonged to whom. To be the entered or enterer, it was all the same, and she was feverish with the wanting.

  She drew a swift breath, too swift. Caleb clenched his teeth. His control brought her back, and the energy was held.

  She opened her eyes and smiled at him. He smiled back. She breathed herself into him, past the flesh and into the man within the flesh. She felt his generous heart, his playful nature. He had saved her, and he surged with pride at doing so.

  Their breathing reversed, and she drew him into her eyes. A chill thrilled through her as they became one for the length of that single breath.

  She wanted more of him. She wanted all of them. Baksin, Bashtin, Theras, and Caleb, all of them inside her, in every possible way. But that was child’s play, a wicked fantasy. Her preparations were done. She was ready. For nine years she had gathered the energy, it was time for her to take a step beyond mere intimacy, mere self-control, beyond mere love. It was time to step into true power.

  The setting sun shot a beam of light through a tiny window high on the rough-hewn western wall. For the last hour, that brilliant square of light slowly crept across the shimmering water of the bath toward where she floated. As the sun dipped below the Windmill Wall, the square of light softened from bright white to orange and finally purple. The last breaths of sunset faded to dark, and it was time to go.

  Water cascaded down Shara’s body as she stood. Her slick skin glistened in the torchlight. She smiled and silently touched the cheek of each of her attendants, wishing for more, knowing she would never find that pleasure with these men.

  Pushing off the algae-covered wall, she swam away from her attendants, crossing the pool with slow, luxurious strokes. When she reached the far wall, she drew in an endless breath as if she would draw the entire world into her lungs.

  And she dove.

  She stroked smoothly into the tunnel under the wall. Many times she had ducked beneath the water to peer into the blackness. The pool on the far side of the school had a tunnel like this one, heading in the opposite direction. She assumed the tunnels met in the middle somewhere, far beneath the center of the school. No student knew what lay beyond the inky blackness.

  The darkness closed around her like a hand on the throat. She released her worries with every stroke, praying she would not run out of breath before she reached the far side. The tunnel kept going down, ever down.

  Shara’s lungs began to burn. It was too late to turn back. She had swum too far. Her chest spasmed uncontrollably. She let a few bubbles out and regretted the decision at once as she defied her body’s urge to draw a breath. The first sparkles crept into her vision. Her stokes became awkward, unproductive.

  Wait, it wasn’t a sparkle. It was light! The tunnel curved abruptly, leading straight upward.

  Flush with hope, she swam for the surface. The circle of light grew larger and larger. She could see the flickering glow reflecting off the surface. With the last of her fading will, she pushed upward and broke the surface of the pool. She opened her mouth a
nd drew a long, slow breath, maintaining control. The first gate, breath, belonged to her. She must remember that and make it so. She would not come to the place of her final test gasping and sputtering like a novice.

  When her breathing was slow and easy, she looked around.

  The cavern was not unlike the baths she had just left. It was rough-hewn stone, arcing into a dome overhead. No windows opened the walls. There were no doors. A dozen torches lined the walls, illuminating a small, perfectly circular island in the center of the cavern.

  Shara pushed the lingering threads of panic from her heart, breathed the fear down her arms and legs, out of her fingers and toes. She left it swirling in her wake as she swam for shore.

  Water splashed on the steamy stones as she pulled herself out of the pool. Victeris pushed himself up on the other side of the island at the same moment. She did not question the timing. This was the ceremony. It had a life of its own.

  She mirrored him, standing slowly and watching him on the opposite side of the island. He was a tall man, slender and muscled like a warrior. He was nothing like Caleb and the other boys. They had the lithe, smooth bodies of youth, but Victeris was hard, defined. His shoulders and arms stood out like smooth rocks beneath a thin sheen of river water.

  His face was rugged and angular, with sharp jawbones and a pointed chin. His long, black hair had two snow-white streaks in it, just above the temples. Thin, dark eyebrows arched over his eyes, giving him an air that was either piercing…or cruel.

  The natural island was covered with a tile mosaic polished to a mirror shine. Two intertwined spirals—one black, one white—coiled five times around the center.

  Drawing a smooth breath, she placed her bare foot upon the dark tile path. Victeris nodded, mirrored her, placing his foot on the white path. He moved to her left as she moved to the right.

  They walked slowly, circling the center. On her fifth step, he spoke.

  “What is the first gate?” he asked. His voice was deep and resonant, the kind of voice she could close her eyes and dream with.