The room’s emerald walls lightly twinkled with the fading glow from the coals. The room’s eastern-facing windows were covered with heavy drapes, blocking out light from outside. Still, Kindren could make out a pair of dressers arranged on one side of the room, a wardrobe positioned along another. Straight ahead was a four-poster bed, finely crafted from lacquered mahogany. The sheets on the feather mattress were silken and glossy, bulging in the center where a sleeping form lay.
Creeping across the room, Ceredon made sure his soft-booted feet made no sound. One wrong move and Conall would awake, summoning the Ekreissar to protect him.
When he reached the bed, he stopped, hovering over it for a moment. His father’s cousin rolled onto his back, eyes firmly shut, chest rising and falling at steady intervals. Ceredon slowly knelt, even the faint creak and crumple of his clothing sounding much too loud to his ears. With one hand he grabbed a pillow. With the other he pressed the dagger against the side of Conall’s neck.
In a single smooth motion he ripped it across the jugular. As blood erupted across the bed, Ceredon shifted, slamming the pillow against the older elf’s mouth to hold in the sudden surprised shriek he emitted when he woke from his dream. Conall thrashed, clutching at his gushing throat, and from beneath the pillow came a subdued gurgle. Ceredon pressed harder, keeping the pillow positioned so that no blood splashed on his own clothes. The crimson fluid soaked the satin sheets, forming macabre patterns.
When Conall finally fell still, Ceredon pulled back the pillow, and he shuddered involuntarily at the sight of the ghost-white look of horror on the dead elf’s face. Swallowing down bile, he moved to the window, careful not to step in the puddle of blood that had dribbled down to the floor. Pulling aside the curtain, he gave the pane of stained glass a quick strike with his gloved hand. The glass shattered, the shards tinkling when they struck the shimmering emerald floor.
The deed done, he hurried back to the hearth, sparing only a single look back at the mess he’d created, at the corpse of one of the three powerful members of the Triad in his fine satin sheets.
“And then there were two,” Ceredon whispered before crawling back through the raised corner of the hearth.
The occupied forest city of Dezerea was thrown into chaos in the aftermath of Conall’s death. Countless Dezren men were taken from their treetop homes and brought to the palace courtyard. They were forced to bow, near two thousands of them crowding the grass, while the Ekreissar stalked up and down the lines, prodding them, taunting them, trying to force a confession. Aerland Shen paraded Lord Orden and Lady Phyrra before the stooped masses. The former rulers of the city had been beaten so badly, they were barely recognizable, and the plain white robes hanging off their backs were torn and speckled with dried blood.
“One of our own has been murdered!” screamed Neyvar Ruven, standing on the dais in front of the emerald palace’s gate. “Who was it? Who leads the rebellion? Come forward, speak, and spare yourselves pain and suffering.”
None did, though a murmur began to rise from the sea of bowed heads.
Ceredon felt his stomach clench as he watched the spectacle from his position at his father’s side. A part of him did not understand the Dezren’s lack of action. They numbered greater than eight thousand, their ranks more than adequate to overwhelm the scant forces the Neyvar had brought with him. It seemed absurd that the only ones standing against them were Tantric’s rough and battered group of brave souls. Yet then he remembered his conversation with his father. Many of the Dezren were farmers, teachers, philosophers, musicians, and spellcasters. They were not warriors. The Quellan Ekreissar, on the other hand, were trained in the art of battle and had been since the Demon War a thousand years before.
“If the brother gods were not draining the power of the weave, the Dezren would have crushed us,” his father had said. Now their spells were but a sad echo of the deadly force they had once wielded. The Dezren had been lessened by measures not of their own choosing, and Ceredon promised himself not to forget that.
His father, the Neyvar, continued to pace back and forth on the dais, shouting at the cowering male populace. Ceredon could see through his façade now. The anger in his voice was too righteous, his gestures overly exaggerated. Ruven was acting a part, and it seemed as though others were beginning to notice as well, for Aerland Shen scowled when he looked at the Neyvar, his hideous, wide-set face crumpling into an animal expression. Neyvar Ruven scowled in return and then turned in a huff and left the dais.
Aeson took the Neyvar’s place, continuing the verbal assault on the kneelers. It was he who ordered Shen to lash Lord and Lady Thyne’s backs with five-pronged whips while they were strapped to the feet of Celestia’s grand monument. The lord and lady wailed, their eyes locked onto the goddess’s likeness as their clothes and skin were flayed from their backs. Ceredon had to fight his urge to end their torment. Killing Conall would help them in time, he knew, but it was a shallow comfort. Ceredon’s deed had brought them suffering. He had to remind himself that this was only further proof of the necessity of his nighttime assassinations.
They won’t be killed, he thought as Lord and Lady Thyne slumped before the statue, the beating finally over. They’re being used to keep the people in line. Once the last two members of the Triad were dead, once his father had regained full influence over the Ekreissar, the Thynes’ suffering would end.
Aeson ushered the anguished and limping royal family away, then ordered the masses to rise. They did, hesitantly, and Ceredon could see the hatred painting each and every face. His father’s cousin offered closing remarks to the Dezren men, and his words worried Ceredon.
“You are free to go,” Aeson said, his lips twisted downward with anger. “But think twice if you consider turning against us. Come the morrow, you will know the full scope of the power we have at our disposal.”
The next morning, Ceredon discovered the elf’s meaning.
Warhorns blared as the swarm descended over the hills bordering the Gihon River, using the same route Shen and the Ekreissar had traveled a lifetime ago, then poured into the heart of Dezerea. The humans were wearing black and silver armor, and the banners of the eastern god, Karak, flew high above them, the wrathful lion roaring down on all who witnessed its fluttering countenance. Ceredon watched the endless procession from the dais, where he stood beside his father. He tried to count the troops as they formed into brigades before the palace steps, but he could come to no solid number. There had to be near a thousand men on horseback, bearing long spears, heavy axes, and sharp swords. There were at least four times that number on foot, with a hundred horse-drawn wagons trailing behind. The entirety of the human force overwhelmed the forest city like an invading colony of deadly ants. The Ekreissar, who lingered around the humans, seemed nervous and resentful in the same instant. Of those on the dais, including the entire consulate that had originally traveled to Dezerea for the betrothal, only Aeson and Iolas appeared content.
The horseman in front approached the dais. He was a hefty, bald man, his black leather overlaid with bronze chain, and he rode a majestic white charger. Everything about him seemed wrong: his face was too broad, his posture too hunched, and his eyes emitted a reddish glow. His flesh was also abnormal, for it seemed stretched to the point of translucency. Ceredon could see a web of red and green veins running beneath it. Every so often part of the man’s body would throb, as if there were things lurking beneath his skin that might burst through the surface.
Then the man spoke, and the strangeness doubled.
“In the name of the mighty Karak,” he said, his voice quite odd, almost as if two beings were speaking as one, “we come to your fair city in the trees. We seek food and shelter, as was our agreement. This shall be our base of operations in the west: our ferries shall remain untouched in the river, and you will give us all we require.”