here, I am obliged to help them on their way. I cannot, even out of lonely spite, keep them here to mitigate my endless sorrow through pleasant discourse, nor may I exchange tales of lives spent in other realms, but rather I must endure solitude.
‘For upon your arrival, I began to feel pain, and with each passing minute the pain increases. It will not cease until I send you on your way, returning to my isolation. I may not end the suffering by my own hand or the hand of another,’ he sobbed. ‘Alone on this world I am immortal and indestructible.’
‘Why endure the pain?’ asked Magnus. ‘Why tell us your tale? Why not just hurry us along?’
‘The pain is a price worth paying to interrupt my loneliness,’ Pepan said, weeping openly. ‘Now it must end.’
He waved his hands in precise pattern and a vortex appeared in the air. It was obviously an opening of some sort, but as they readied themselves to leap through it, Pepan held up his hand. ‘Wait!’
‘What?’ asked Pug.
Pepan closed his eyes, tears now streaming down his cheeks. ‘Each of you must follow a different path.’
‘We must split up?’ asked Miranda, obviously not happy with the idea.
‘Apparently,’ said Pug. ‘If someone laid a trap for the four of us, then it’s literally set for the four of us.’
‘It waits for all of us,’ said Nakor. ‘Yes!’ His expression turned gleeful. ‘You do not spring a trap on soldiers when only the scout is there: you wait for all of them to gather.’
Pepan’s expression now contorted into one of abject pain. He waved a hand and the size and colour of the vortex changed, growing smaller and tinged with orange energy. ‘You!’ he said, pointing at Nakor.
Without a word, Nakor leapt into the vortex.
Again Pepan waved his hand and the colour of the vortex changed to a faint, shimmering blue. ‘You,’ he said, pointing at Miranda.
She glanced at Pug and Magnus, hesitating for a brief moment, then with a quick nod she leaped into the swirling air and vanished.
Again the colour changed, this time to a brilliant white, and Pepan pointed at Magnus. Without hesitation, Pug’s son jumped into the magic portal.
One more wave and Pepan said, ‘I am to tell you one thing, magician.’
‘What?’ asked Pug. He watched the vortex turn dark until it became a black maw.
‘This is the beginning of the end. You will meet your companions again, but only at the most dire moment, when you must all be ready to sacrifice everything to save everything.’
‘I’m not sure—’
‘Go!’ commanded the wretched creature, and Pug obeyed.
He ran and jumped, crouching as he entered a cone of darkness.
• CHAPTER TWO •
Confrontation
SHIPS DOTTED THE HORIZON.
Hal stood on the battlements of the royal palace at Rillanon, at its heart still a castle, but one which had not seen conflict for centuries. This portion of the ancient rampart, a large, flat rooftop of thick stonework, had once supported war engines defending outer walls long torn down to expand the royal demesne. A fortification that once hosted massive ballista had been converted to a garden, one lush with flowers as summer faded. The stone merlons had been replaced in centuries past with a stone balustrade cleverly carved to be both strong and graceful. Yet the footing beneath Hal’s boots felt as solid as the palisades of Crydee Castle had. And given the forces gathering below, he wished those long-gone outer walls were once again in place here in Rillanon, with ballistas and trebuchets instead of fading blooms.
He let out a slow breath. It was hard to find ease, despite the rigours of the past few weeks fading into memory as troubles associated with fleeing Roldem with the Princess Stephané had been replaced by troubles on a far grander scale. His personal distress over knowing he would never have the woman he loved had been made to seem a petty concern in the face of the threats now confronting his nation.
Yet he was constantly haunted by her memory, along with his friend Ty Hawkins, who had spirited her away from her home and brought her safely to the Kingdom. All of it seemed unreal at times, yet other times it was vivid. Every detail of Stephané was etched in his memory: the grace of her movement, the laughter as she found delight in small things, her worry for those she loved. He struggled to let go, even though he knew that to wallow was to prolong the pain.
He glanced around, and saw his brother Martin was looking his way. Martin inclined his head: a wordless gesture asking if he was all right. Hal returned a slight nod. Their brother Brendan, standing beside Martin, had his attention fixed on the ships in the harbour. Hal turned his attention that way as well. Nearby stood Lord James, Duke of Rillanon, and his grandson Jim Dasher.
Rillanon’s harbour was south of the palace, at the bottom of the hill. Sails had been appearing on all quarters of the horizon for days: hundreds of ships from every port on the Sea of Kingdoms. This ancient island nation had seen fleets such as these, but not in living memory. War had not touched this soil, the ancient home of Hal’s ancestors, in centuries. The prime motive for conquering the surrounding islands and nearby coasts for Hal’s forebears had been fatigue from continuous clashes with minor warlords and raiding clans across these waters. The constant need to defend the home island had turned a relatively peaceful community of fishermen and farmers into the most effective army north of the Empire, creating the second largest nation on this world.
It had been a triumph of the Kingdom of the Isles that this city and the king’s palace could do without the massive defence works, as the king’s navy for centuries had become ‘the wall around Rillanon’. Now that navy was divided. No man could look out upon that sea, and the many sails upon it, and judge just who they were defending: Edward, Oliver, or some other faction. That irony was not lost on Hal.
He couldn’t find ease because he could smell war coming on the afternoon breeze. And unlike the struggle against Kesh, this was the war to be most feared by any noble in the Kingdom: a civil war.
Hal knew the Kingdom’s history well. A determined ruler named Dannis had united all the clans of the island, and his descendant, Delong, had been the first conDoin ruler to establish a foothold on the mainland. After the sack of Bas-Tyra – a rival village that had risen in power to challenge Rillanon – he had not returned to the island stronghold, but had forced the ruler of that city state to swear fealty to Rillanon in exchange for his life and the lives of his followers, creating the Kingdom of the Isle’s first mainland duchy and elevating Bas-Tyra to the rank of second most important city after the capital. That first victory had led to many others, as Rillanon and Bas-Tyra’s combined might had overwhelmed Salador and the southern coast. Only the Eastern Kingdoms, with the help of Roldem, had stemmed that early Kingdom expansion.
Now the ruler of that city stood to Hal’s right asking, ‘What is Oliver thinking?’ Duke James of Rillanon looked at both Hal and the man on Hal’s left, James’s grandson, Jim Dasher Jamison, head of the Crown’s Intelligence Service.
‘He’s not thinking,’ Jim said sourly. ‘Or he’s thinking that some here might object to a foreign-born king, so he’s
