The Two Kings Read online

  Description

  Even though her enemies within Varund have been eliminated, Derethe’s troubles are still far from over.

  With her one powerful ally gone and her two friends ripped from her world, Derethe has no one. Her goal of liberation continues to loom outside of her grasp, but it feels farther away now that her powers have diminished for some mysterious reason.

  But gods and kings care not for the trials and tribulations of the meek. With their own plans being woven, Derethe is ensnared in a series of quests that will take her tumbling down a perilous path of deception, assassination, and magic. If Derethe intends to survive the will of those far more mighty than she, sacrifices will have to be made and new powers summoned. Thousands of lives hang within the web of giants, and Derethe is their only hope.

  The Two Kings

  The Varundian Series Book Two

  Marian Gray

  Coca House

  Copyright © 2019 by Marian Gray

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  For Helena.

  Contents

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  XIX

  XX

  XXI

  XXII

  XXIII

  XXIV

  XXV

  XXVI

  XXVII

  XXVIII

  XXIX

  XXX

  XXXI

  XXXII

  XXXIII

  XXXIV

  XXXV

  XXXVI

  XXXVII

  XXXVIII

  XXXIX

  XL

  XLI

  XLII

  XLIII

  Thank You for Reading!

  The Varundian Series

  About the Author

  I

  For Your Ark

  I thought I had lost everything when I was taken as a slave to Varund. But now I saw it for what it was. Not a loss, but a critical and cruel rebirth.

  This, however, this was loss. The black stone city had never felt so cold and empty, despite the summer shine and bustling crowds of foreign traders. Without Fenh, Cirithe, and Iver, Varund was empty. I was alone in a sea of people.

  In the four weeks since their departure, I couldn’t count the number of times I had so desired to smell Cirithe’s familiar dogwood and honeysuckle scent or meet Iver’s indigo stare or feel the warm comfort of Fenh’s hug. They were all fading memories of a past life that I could never return to. The idea rested with a heavy weight on my shoulders. The slender fingers of the black sadness had wrapped around my neck, and their grip tightened each day. I didn’t know how to stop it. There was no burning spark within my limbs spurring me into action. There was no physical monster to fight with my fists. It was a battle within my head that even my best thoughts couldn’t defeat.

  Sooner or later, it would strangle me.

  I sighed. My breath made the linen paper flutter, but it didn’t float away. Its edge was woven with others into a tight binding to form a religious codex. My eyes had been staring at the same page for the last fifteen minutes, but my mind wasn’t soaking in anything.

  My gaze dropped and focused on the work in my lap instead. The cloth ran around the toe, pushing the slick oil across the aged boot. The leather was old and beaten, as though it had been years since anyone cleaned it. With each swipe, the grime built along my nails. Tiny flecks of soil and soot sank beneath the white, irritating the skin.

  “Derethe,” Hetla called from the other side of the room.

  I glanced up from the oil cloth. “Yes, Hetla?”

  A large bandage still encased her ankle, and her arm clamped tight to her chest. It had been more than a month since they had returned from battle at Arus, yet Hetla’s body had only just begun to mend itself. It was odd, but I kept my lips closed. It wasn’t my place to ask questions.

  Her neck strained as she lifted her head from a square pillow. Her body stretched across the cushioned bench, small and meek. “Svotheim’s boots will need to be scraped, scrubbed, and polished as well.” Her mouth opened wide and yawned, and she settled back into her blankets. “Gods only know when he last ran a cloth across them.”

  I nodded. Life was easier when she was healthy and moving and had things to do with her time. Now, she occupied herself by doling out hourly commands and decrees.

  “And once you’re done with the summer boots, start on the winter pairs. We’ll be needing those in the coming weeks.”

  “Yes, Hetla.” I counted the tiny circles my cloth drew along the leather to contain my aggravation. I wanted to scream. I was desperate for a moment without her, for time to heal my own mind and body. Hetla’s ever watchful eye was the wooden stopper that kept every emotion bottled inside me.

  “And how are you coming along with that text? Are you finding Norrender easy now that you know Varundian?”

  This had been another one of her new projects to entertain herself: teaching me Norrender. The old language from which all the others were birthed. There were fewer letters than Varundian, but the speech was more complex. I learned it to indulge her because the spirits know I was never going to have need of it. But the more I gave in, the more she demanded.

  “I wouldn’t say it’s easy, but knowing Varundian makes it possible,” I told her.

  She opened her mouth to reply but was quickly silenced by the metal click of the front door lock. Golden daylight poured in as Svotheim and Ark Ulfur treaded through the lit path. Two guards stopped just at the threshold and turned, blocking the entrance from the street.

  “Wine, please, Derethe,” Svotheim called out as he pulled his chair from the table for the Ark. The seat had been cleaned and reupholstered days ago with red velvet from the Maylian Empire. It was a throne built for the man of the house.

  “I appreciate the wine but would prefer miode if you have it.” The Ark sank his old bones into the pillowed chair. He wasn’t dressed in his usual lavish manner. No fluffed furs donned his shoulders or metal beads gripped the hairs of his beard. His tunic was plain and colored a modest brown. The trousers he wore were crinkled, and his boots specked with mud. The only tell of his status was the ornate gold bracelet around his wrist, signifying it was to him that all Varundians swore their fealty.

  “We have more than enough,” Svotheim said as he sat on Ark Ulfur’s right hand side. “Brungen gave us his cask before he sailed. Said it wouldn’t fit on the ship.”

  My fingers gripped the cool metal handle and twisted the spigot open. Honey liquid poured through the small hole and into the silver goblets. Their small inventions never ceased to amuse me.

  “I apologize, Ark Ulfur.” Hetla’s singsong voice cut across the room. “I would stand—”

  Ulfur held up his hand, stopping her midsentence. “No need to explain, Hetla. I am well aware of your injuries, and the circumstances they have left you in.” His gaze rose to me and held as I placed their goblets on the table. He had never been a very expressive man, but I knew that look—his mind was chewing on something. “Svotheim,” he began as his attention turned to the shipbuilder at his side, “I have come to your home rather than summon you to mine because I have a request. And it’s a rather sensitive one.”

  Svotheim’s back
straightened, and eyebrows raised. “Anything you have to ask of me, I am at your service.” His voice maintained a respectful, serious tone, but I could see the excitement playing in his eyes.

  Irska had rejected her uncle’s offer of being the commander of Varund’s army. Instead, she had chosen to move to Arus with Iver, leaving the position vacant.

  Ulfur had yet to extend the title to anyone else.

  Svotheim had made small comments about it every day since Irska’s refusal had been made public. He wouldn’t admit it, but it was burning in his mind. He was hungry for it. Svotheim wanted to be Varund’s commander.

  “Wait.” Ark Ulfur shook his head. “I want you to hear me out before you make any promises. It is not an easy thing I have come here to ask of you.”

  Svotheim swallowed hard and nodded. “I am listening.”

  Ulfur leaned back in his chair, and his fingers steepled before him. The skin was thin, revealing slender blue lines behind the pale aged flesh. “Are you familiar with our brothers to the east?”

  Svotheim nodded. “Yes, I know of the Rekke, the Askas, and the Besks.”

  “Ark Godromar’s assault took quite a toll on us.” Ulfur’s face fell with his voice. Most had been too ashamed to utter such a thing aloud. Their pride was injured by how hard the small town had struck them. “We lost a lot of good men, and they burned plenty of our ships.”

  “Those men will reenter the world, greater, stronger, and richer than they were before.” Svotheim’s words were full of confidence as he recited the religious mantra.

  Ark Ulfur raised his cup, and together they drank in the name of the dead. “I do not doubt you are right.” Ulfur rapped his knuckles on the table. A metal tap rang out where his rings met the wood. “But their deaths and Iver’s departure have left us with a paltry army. I still want that peninsula, Svotheim. I want my people to feel victory again. I want our Norrender brothers to know that Varund is still the juggernaut of the west. I want glory to smile upon us once more. But I need soldiers. I need men. I need boats. Most of all, I need a commander.”

  Svotheim’s chest puffed out at the utterance of the Ark’s last two words. His shoulders squared, preparing for whatever the Ark was about to bequeath upon him.

  Ulfur continued. “You are my best sailor, Svotheim. You are devout to the gods and have shown nothing but astute obedience. I am not blind to all you have done, and once again, I must call upon you.” Ark Ulfur leaned forward so that his old stare bore into the young boatbuilder. “I need you to sail to our Norrender kin and convince them to join our ranks. Sway them to follow my sails into battle—to pledge their men, boats, and swords to my name and to Varund.” He paused, and his eyes scurried over Svotheim’s face, measuring his reaction. “Will you do this for your Ark?”

  Svotheim fell back into his chair, smacked with the gravity of the request. Ulfur was asking him to spend months at sea, coddling dangerous strangers and requesting they swear their arms to a western city-state. All while winter dangled before us. The waters would be icy in a couple months’ time.

  “I need you to do this, Svotheim.” Ark Ulfur’s voice was soft. “Because you have the girl—the Sairan. She is proof of our victories and the riches that lay across the sea.”

  All eyes in the room fell upon me. I stood at my post in the kitchen, pretending as though I were still scrubbing boots and not listening to their conversation.

  Hetla cleared her throat and sat up. Her injured ankle draped off the side, and an angry purple circle ran around her left eye. “Svotheim, the Ark is placing a great honor on you with this request.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at her and then turned back to Ulfur. “If I sail and my slave comes with me, who will care for Hetla?”

  “I will have her moved to the hovve, my own home. My servants will mend and attend to her. She will eat at my table and sleep under my roof. I would never leave one of my injured warriors to fend for themselves.”

  Svotheim’s apple bobbed in his throat, unable to decide which words it would allow past. His face shifted to a paler hue. “I’ll do it. I’ll take my slave, and we will sail east. I will not return home until I have men, boats, and swords for you, Ark Ulfur.”

  My heart seized. The saliva in my mouth thinned to a watery run. What horrors had he just sworn us to?

  The old man’s lips swirled into a smile, and he raised his cup. “To you, Svotheim.”

  Svotheim didn’t respond but met his glass with the Ark’s. Again, the two men drained their cups. But this time Svotheim drank the liquid with a visible discomfort.

  He was drinking to our deaths.

  II

  Tissue & Tendon

  I missed the smell of the cold ocean and the ancient pines. The bay of storms was an unmatched harmony of land and sea, converging at the city center. I hadn’t realized how attached I was to that minute detail. That unique aroma was home. Within that scent my adolescence and adulthood had been spent. Any time I stepped away from Varund, I stepped away from my entire life—everything that was special and dear to me.

  And this was no different.

  Arus was farther south than Varund, and it showed, not just in sight but in scent and sound as well. The days were brighter and warmer. The air was thick with moisture and carried any smell with ease—more often than not that smell was mud, shit, piss, and rotting animals. And the worst of it all was an ever-present yellow hue in all the grasses and leaves. Pine needles had this calming blue undertone, whereas broadleaves had a warmer tinge, buttery yellow almost.

  “They’re in there,” Brungen said as he sauntered back into the cover of the forest. One hand rested on the metal hilt of his sword while the other held an old hunch of bread that he probably stole from the inn. “I saw them myself.”

  “How did you see them yourself?” Irska asked. Skepticism colored her tone.

  Brungen shrugged. “I paid the keeper like anyone with some sense would do.”

  Irska smirked. There was hope on those lips. “And he unlocked all of their rooms?” I knew she was sick and tired of this insatiable hunt even though she hadn’t spoken a word of it to me. She held it all in as we are taught to. But the dam was about to break. Every now and then, I glimpsed it in her eyes. She was rife with weariness, exhaustion, and she was building indifference to our goal.

  Our quest for stability and legitimacy in Arus felt like a never-ending one.

  “Well.” Brungen sighed. “He let me peek into the room of one—Oba.”

  My attention tore from Irska. “You saw Oba?”

  Brungen nodded. “Still asleep with a whore in his bed.”

  “If Oba’s there then the others will be as well,” I said, rising to my feet. “They follow that coward everywhere.”

  “We’re going in then?” Irska asked.

  “Yes, but we’re going to keep this one quiet and swift. I don’t want it to be a raid but a simple execution.” There were nine of us total, but only four I felt I could trust to carry out the task: Irska, Brungen, Cirithe, and myself. “We’ll enter their rooms, arrest them in their beds, and carry them out to the forest to be beheaded.”

  “Why not just murder them where they lie?” Brungen asked. “It’ll be easier and quicker.”

  “Blood is difficult to get out of sheets. The innkeeper has been kind enough to hand them over to us. I’m not going to spoil his business.” I had worked too hard to foster a positive image with the people of the region. One slight against an innkeeper could see all of that ruined. Arusians talked.

  Brungen sighed, displeased with having to act civil. “Fair enough.”

  The small tavern hall was empty, save a drunken trader snoozing along a bench. The ceiling was low and uneven, patched together with mixed materials. It reminded me of the inside of a barn, with straw and dirt strewn across the floor from last night’s patrons. It smelled like one, too, save the unforgettable scent of stale beer.

  I hated it.

  My stomach knotted and shoulders tensed. We
wouldn’t stay here tonight, but it put me on edge nonetheless. I had spent more nights than I could count sleeping in a stable or barn since I arrived. The fleas and lice were rampant. If Cirithe hadn’t been as adept with a comb as he was, I would have shaved my head due to the constant torment.

  The keeper stood behind the bar with a solemn look and five brass keys laid out before him. He didn’t say a word, just nodded his understanding. He was older, with gray hair and a balding head. No doubt he’d seen several arks come and go, accustomed with how these things played out when leadership changed.

  “Which one is Oba’s?” I asked Brungen.

  His thick fingers picked the most tarnished key out of the bunch and handed it to me.

  “I want you each,” I began, speaking to my trusted three, “to take a key and guard with you. Whatever two guards are left get the last one. Remember: capture them, bind them, and carry them out to the yard. Do not kill them in their beds if it can be helped.”

  “Well, wait a moment,” Brungen said. “You’re going to take on Oba by yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  Nobody questioned my answer, but I knew from their uncertain gazes what each of them thought. Yes, Oba was taller and bigger than me, but he was also afraid of me and older too. Why else would he have run if he didn’t fear me? I would have the advantage in this fight. “Let’s go.”