Requiem of Reprisal Read online

  Requiem of Reprisal

  Book four of The Mindstream Chronicles

  by K.C. May

  Requiem of Reprisal

  Copyright 2016 by K.C. May

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

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  This book is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents depicted herein are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Book 4 of The Mindstream Chronicles

  Gatekeeper and Minister of Truth Jora Lanseri has defeated the otherworldy monster sent to kill her, despite Dominee Ibsa’s refusal to help. Jora must journey to the neighboring city to recover the stolen godheart and bring Ibsa back to face justice for betraying the queen. But when Jora returns to the capital, she finds powerful forces have converged with one goal in mind—to force the Gatekeeper to do their bidding.

  The Mindstream Chronicles consists of

  Song of the Sea Spirit

  Call of the Colossus

  Verse of the Vanguard

  Requiem of Reprisal

  Dirge of the Dormant

  Cover art by Damon Za (www.damonza.com).

  Map of Aerta: The Inner Sea Corridor by Jared Blando (www.theredepic.com)

  Edited by Carol Scarr (www.pharosediting.com)

  Dedicated to my aunt Marilyn Farrar

  You’re my hero.

  “Beware how you take away hope from any human being.”

  ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

  Chapter 1

  If all went as planned, Emelia Falyordek wouldn’t have to spend another season away from her two children, pretending they didn’t exist, pretending she was living among friends. She thrust the staff into the sand and hammered it deeper by pounding the top end with a rock. Her arms and shoulders burned from her efforts, but she couldn’t rest yet. A cool breeze pushed the violet hood off her head and cut through the thin fabric, a sign of the coming winter. A coat would have been a boon, but she’d have been hard-pressed to explain her need for it.

  She switched hands to continue pounding the staff into the sand while she dreamed about reuniting with the people she loved. That she’d adopted the Serocians’ vernacular was both humorous and shameful. Her family would laugh at her accent and funny speech patterns until she slipped back into her native patois. It wouldn’t take as long to do that as it had to train herself to speak like a Serocian, but she would be glad to rid herself of such a graceless cant.

  When she was satisfied the staff was deep enough not to fall over in a gust of wind, she drew a Canticus symbol in the air, thinking its Fenzaran name as she formed the lines, and breathed intent into it. A pinprick of light appeared and began to grow, spinning too rapidly to track with her eyes. Soon, it was the size of her fist, bobbing in the air at eye level. With gentle hand motions, she nudged the light ball into place atop the staff, pressed it down, and drew a quick inscription to tether it there, then gazed across the beach at her handiwork. Six staves, each with glowing balls on them, formed a semicircle to mark the safe landing zone.

  Around each staff, Emelia tied a strip of cloth she’d painstakingly prepared over the previous weeks. The Canticus symbols she’d inked on them would dim the beacons for two days by preserving the magic within. When those inscriptions were consumed, the lights would flare to their full luminosity for a good three hours before going out. If luck was with her, they wouldn’t attract the notice of a passerby. The last thing she needed was someone calling the Legion’s attention to her work.

  With that task completed, she shook out her hands and loosened her neck with a few slow movements of her head. The next step was particularly difficult, and she’d only done it once before.

  She started with the easy part—the framework upon which she would attach the more important symbols. Drawing with her index finger in the air, she composed them one after another, building and linking them between the staves that would light the way. The Canticus symbols, laid out like this, translated to fence. It was like erecting a fence, she imagined, first inserting the posts and then weaving the wood that kept out the vermin. Or, in this case, the curious Serocians, who were pests in their own right. Any passerby would see through her latticework of inscription, but they wouldn’t hear anything out of the ordinary, nothing to draw their notice as they followed the Northerly Road. It was unlikely anyone would go traipsing through the forest or along the beach for no reason. Emelia was not inclined to give them one.

  She started at ground level and worked her way first across and then up, drawing the symbols in the air and infusing them with her breath. Because she had to expire each inscription with one breath, she had to pause periodically to keep from getting dizzy. When a row between two of the six posts was completed, she began anew, finishing each fence section before moving on to the next.

  By the time she’d finished creating the entire barrier, the sun was barely visible over the peak of the western mountains. Emelia stood at the water’s edge and peered out to sea, hoping her signal lights would be bright enough to see in the dark of the night with a spying-glass.

  For now, her part was done. It was time to resume her place among the Justice Officials and wait.

  She collected her belongings and started back to Jolver, trudging through the forest with the skirts of her robe gathered in one hand to avoid becoming snagged on the brush and bramble. By the time dusk gave way to night, she’d reached the Northerly Road. There she headed south, past the many farms that supplied the city. Candlelight flickered in the windows of the distant farmhouses, and she occasionally caught the movement of families inside.

  She couldn’t help but think of her own children, growing up on her father’s farm so far away. The twins would be thirteen now, their memories of her long faded. It had been painful leaving them behind, but she had a unique gift which, as a Mangendan subject, essentially belonged to the grand duke. Wishing he’d seen fit to keep her closer to home as he had her former mentor, Zivenna, was nothing but her own ridiculous self-indulgence. There were bigger, more important matters than one woman’s attachment to offspring she should never have given birth to in the first place.

  “My life is his to command,” she murmured, pinching herself between the thumb and forefinger. “I dedicate my life in service to the grand duke.”

  Aided by an inscribed light ball, she walked another hour or so, keeping up a brisk pace while she wondered what state she would find Jolver in when she arrived. Had the Krykon made it that far? Was the Gatekeeper dead yet? She had to admit, the prospect of Jora’s death had saddened her a little at first. Living among the Serocians, Emelia had been weak and formed attachments. Lorense treated her like a friend, and she’d come to think of him as one too. Jora Lanseri was so gentle and unassuming that Emelia
had initially scoffed at the news that she’d become the Gatekeeper. To this day, Emelia hadn’t seen any of those infamous allies Jora claimed to control or the result of her deadly magic.

  At the very least, the streets of Jolver would be filled with gold statues by now. As far as Emelia knew, the Krykon Urielle sought only the preter-bent—those with the talent to visit the outer realm of perception. It had no interest in turning people to gold for amusement. Anyone who got in its way was fair game, but it was a creature on a mission not a rampage.

  With the uproar and panic that would most certainly have ensued, the Truth Sayers and enforcers would be in disarray until the Krykon ended its killing spree. Once it dispatched the Gatekeeper and any other preter-bent Serocians in the city, it would move on, and life for the rest would fall back into routine. If fortune was on Emelia’s side, she would return in time for supper. Her feet ached from all the walking and standing she’d been doing. It would feel marvelous to sit down for a time and even better to collapse onto her bed and sink into the blissful oblivion of sleep.

  At least until bedlam escaped its cage, as her own people would say.

  Under the evening sky outside the palace, the few Colossus warriors who could walk helped carry those who couldn’t to the waiting wagons. Jora Lanseri knelt beside a fallen warrior and tied another bandage around the ugly wound in his thigh. Unconscious as he was, he didn’t complain about the pain, though she suspected he wouldn’t have, even if he’d been awake. Hadrian, like the others of his kind, was more inclined to sacrifice himself than to bemoan his lot.

  A stable hand arrived with buckets of fresh water and offered it by the cupful to the injured men. Two of the serving staff brought armloads of clean bandages. With Hadrian’s leg wrapped, Jora shuffled to her next patient and pressed a thick pad of cloth to his shoulder wound. “The surgeons will have you patched up in no time,” she said.

  He grimaced but didn’t cry out. Instead, he put his hand, bloodied from the battle, over hers. “Worry nie, portwatcher. I witnessed Rivva eat the godfruit afore the Krykon broke through.”

  “The whole fruit?” she asked.

  “Nay,” he said with a thoughtful hesitation, “I did nie see her finish it, though I am certain she did so.”

  She nodded, grateful for his reassurance. Without faith that Queen Rivva would relive, Jora didn’t think she would have the strength to face whatever came next. She’d lost too much. Giving up would have been easier.

  Behind her, an injured Colossus warrior groaned as Archesilaus and Tylia eased him into the wagon.

  “Send this one on,” Tylia said. “The first wagon should return soon.”

  Jora slid her hand out from under the warrior’s. “Hold this here.” She pressed his palm firmly to the cloth covering his wound before climbing down.

  The wagon started off to the hospital, its wheels kicking up pebbles and dust. How many more Colossi would succumb to their injuries? Two had died already, and four others had yet to regain consciousness. The surgeons would do what they could, but until she received word on the warriors’ condition, she couldn’t relax.

  Behrendt, the head steward, hurried from the servants’ quarters with a pair of lamps. Their yellow glows cast eerie shadows on his weathered face from below. A shudder rippled down Jora’s body. The monster was gone, she reminded herself. They were safe.

  Domitius and Cloelia exited the palace, carrying Paulus between them. Ciriaco hobbled behind, hopping on one leg, with his arms draped over the shoulders of Jora’s ally Sonnis, who mimicked the height and appearance of the Colossus himself, and Gerad, who stood nearly a foot shorter.

  “Nay,” Arc said. “‘Tis not good.”

  Jora heard the distant crunch of several footfalls on brick before she saw a group of about a dozen people emerge from the archway beneath the royal command building that separated the palace courtyard from the rest of Jolver. Without royal guards manning the sentry station near the street, it was only a matter of time before the curious would come to inquire after the queen. Four of the citizens carried lamps, which bobbed with their every step. They squeezed to one side to let the newly arriving wagon pass. It turned in a wide arc and stopped where Jora and the others had gathered.

  Arc put a hand on Domitius’s shoulder. “Stop them.” He stepped into the space Domitius vacated and helped Paulus into the wagon.

  The dark-haired warrior started toward the crowd with Tylia on his heel. “Return to your homes.”

  “Someone saw the monster come this way,” a man said. “Was the palace attacked?”

  “Where’s the queen?” asked another.

  Domitius stopped halfway between the crowd and the wagon. With Tylia beside him, they formed a protective wall, ensuring no one got too close. “She is fine,” he said.

  Jora stiffened. The queen was not fine. She’d been turned into a gold statue like her mother, the three cabinet ministers who’d opted to hide with her in the palace, and the royal guards who’d tried to protect them.

  “Where is she?” asked a woman, craning her neck to see past them. “What happened?”

  Behrendt set the lamps down beside the courtyard driveway. “Perhaps you should address the citizens in the morning, Lady Minister,” he said in a low voice.

  “Aye,” Arc said. “Thou canst use Sonnis to address them as Queen Rivva or place the silver cuff on thine own arm.”

  She stared up at him, wondering where he got such a ludicrous notion. Dominee Ibsa had inscribed the king’s old wrist cuff with Rivva’s name so her niece could wear it and pretend to be Queen Rivva after the real queen was dead. Jora couldn’t stomach the thought of doing the same thing, temporarily or otherwise. “I can’t. I won’t.”

  “Yah,” someone else said. “Where’s Queen Rivva?” The group had stopped in front of Domitius and Tylia, but they looked like they would break past and rush the palace at any moment.

  “Look at those Colossus warriors,” another shouted, pointing at the injured men in the wagon. “You can’t deny the monster came here.”

  Jora chewed her lip, unsure what to do. Her forearms, still healing from the burns her ally Foul had inflicted, itched like mad. She rubbed the tender flesh.

  “As you can see,” Behrendt called to them, “some were wounded while guarding Queen Rivva’s life, but some were not.”

  “We must tell them something,” Arc said, looking down into her eyes. His expression was sympathetic and warm. “Rumors will swarm like stinging wasps. A monster hath torn through their city and broken into the palace. The people need to know the country is stable and all is well.”

  “But it isn’t,” Jora argued in a hushed voice. “We have no queen. Not yet.”

  “As leader o’ the Iskori Temple, the reign falls to thee, doth it not? Dost thou wish to tell them that instead?”

  Cloelia opened her mouth as if to interject, but Arc shook his head and she stayed silent.

  Jora pressed her lips together. Absolutely not. She had every intention of tracking Dominee Ibsa down and taking the godheart from her.

  The scene played out in her mind: Gerad would administer the godblood to Rivva according to the god Retar’s instructions, and the gold would return to flesh. Though Rivva would be dead, the godfruit she’d eaten before being statued would restore her to life. It must. Every hope was riding on it. Jora had found a partially eaten piece after the battle was over. Cloelia had compared the bites taken from the fruit to Barika’s mouth and announced with some confidence that the girl hadn’t finished her piece before the monster arrived. Jora felt bad for Ibsa’s niece, flayed open by the Krykon’s sharp claws, but it was the more hopeful scenario. The possibility that Queen Rivva had been the one to have left the fruit unfinished was painful to contemplate, and Jora preferred optimism over despair.

  Arc was right. She had to tell them something that would set them at ease. Her mind overworked and sluggish, Jora groped for a plausible story that would buy her time to restore Rivva to flesh and blood. Th
e citizens were pressing forward, paying little attention to Tylia and Domitius, whose arms were spread open to keep them back.

  “The Gatekeeper slew the monster,” Tylia said. “E’eryone is safe now.”

  “Queen Rivva will address the citizens o’Jolver in the morning,” Domitius said. “Tell your family, friends, and neighbors to gather here at nine o’clock.”

  Jora gaped at his back, stunned.

  Arc cursed under his breath. “My apologies, Jora. I know not why he said such a foolhardy thing.”

  “Because Domitius is a heedless man,” Cloelia said. “Hast thou forgotten in these last five hundred years?”

  “No,” Jora called, her heart thumping excitedly. “Not tomorrow. Queen Rivva has been through quite a frightful ordeal and needs rest, but I assure you she’ll be fine. Gather at nine o’clock on...” She met Berendt’s wide-eyed gaze. “What day is today?”

  “It’s Mercurs Day, Minister. Are you certain—”

  Jora counted off the days on her fingers. “On Saturn’s Day,” she called. “Queen Rivva will address the citizens of Jolver then.”

  “In three days?” Arc asked.

  “That gives us time to go to Renn, track down the godheart, and restore the queen,” she said quietly. To the crowd, she smiled and nodded reassuringly at their excited murmurs.

  “Is that Jora the Gatekeeper?” an older woman asked, pointing at her. “How did you defeat the monster?”

  “Go home,” Domitius said, pushing them back the way they’d come. “Return on Saturn’s Day. Minister Jora will regale us with the story then. We must see to our wounded bro’ers now.”

  Though the people grumbled amongst themselves, they did as they were told. Once they were gone, Domitius and Tylia walked back toward her.

  “That was reckless,” Arc said. “Thou didst put Jora between the anvil and the hammer.”