“I confess, I haven’t heard this tale, certainly not in any detail,” Nazar says diplomatically, giving Daggar the opening he so plainly seeks.
“Then listen well,” the man declares, thunking his heavy goblet down on the table. Somewhere near my right ankle, I hear a querulous humph at the noise. Biting my lip, I glance almost furtively to Fortiss, only to find him staring at me, as if waiting for the opportunity to meet my gaze. As Daggar leans into what will undoubtedly be a long-winded tale, Fortiss lifts his fist to his chest and holds it there, his golden eyes fierce in the dimly lit room. I hear the message as clearly as if he speaks in my mind. Daggar can think what he wants. To Fortiss, I am a warrior, a lord. With Fortiss, the lord protector of our great land, I have nothing more to prove.
Well…not quite nothing. I’m all too aware of Tennet sprawling on the other side of the table, eyeing us both. With amusement? With annoyance? I’m losing my patience for not knowing where I stand. I bow to Fortiss swiftly and shoot Tennet a glare, only to meet his gaze, hot and smug, as he sips the Eighth House wine. My stomach tightens at his scrutiny, but my heart doesn’t twist, my pulse doesn’t race.
Something happened on that overlook between us, but it sure as the Light isn’t going to mean anything more than what I wantit to, I decide. I’m a lord and a warrior, after all. I make my own rules.
Oblivious to my racing thoughts, Daggar swaggers on. “The delegation from the Imperium had swept in a more-or-less straight line across the heart of the Protectorate, taking note of its riches and its ruins. This clearly had been a land of great wealth at one time, but there were no people anymore—anywhere. They explored uncontested, all the way to the jewel-like foothills of the Meridians, the entryway to the Western Realms.”
“Jewel-like?” Fortiss murmurs, his voice rich with curiosity, and Daggar turns hard eyes on him.
“Jewel-like, Lord Protector Fortiss, by all accounts. The Great Conflict devastated these lands, and their luster never returned. But the spirit of the mountains still feeds us and makes us strong.”
“Well, that is definitely true.” Fortiss waves for Daggar to continue, and he does, after taking another long drink of his wine.
“At that time, the delegation was led by General Mirador, the future founder of the Eighth House.” He glances around, his smile turning a shade more self-satisfied. “You don’t know much more than his name because he didn’t want you to know much more. At the close of the Great Conflict, he deferred all leadership to other members of the party, two warriors whose loyalty to each other was unmatched. One of them, warrior Lanark, was gifted in diplomacy. The other, warrior Bertrand, excelled in warcraft. The diplomat took the lead and became the first lord protector we so venerate today. To him, Mirador gave the winged crown.”
“He did?” Caleb pipes up, drawing Daggar’s gaze. “Forgive me, Lord Daggar. I’ve made a study of the history of theFirst House—there’s no record of that crown, anywhere. All the accounts just say it’s been lost.”
“It was a sacred trust,” humphs Daggar. “Not the stuff for idle chatter. There wouldn’t be record of it.”
He turns back to Fortiss, while Caleb and I exchange eyerolls. “Lord Lanark’s family has continued to rule all the way to present day, while his faithful second built a legacy of strength and skill to support him all these generations since. All the while Mirador and his children faded into quiet obscurity, content with the role of serving as the protector no one knew.”
I take another sip of my wine. Clearly, Daggar isn’t as content as he’s trying so hard to convince us, given how he’s brought this point up at least a hundred times already today. But I school my face into polite interest as he continues.
“But before all of that happened, the Great Conflict occurred.” He exhales a heavy sigh. “None of the Imperial delegation could have predicted what awaited them in the shadows of the Meridians. They rode into the mountains fully expecting to continue their journey west, but three quarters of the way up those slopes they encountered sheer stone walls blocking the path. Walls that looked poured, not natural, the stone forged from water, ash, and limestone but as pure and unblemished as snow on a crisp winter’s day. They couldn’t go around these walls, they couldn’t go over them. So, they decided to go through them.”
“None of these men would have been stonemasons,” Tennet points out. “How did they have the tools to make any sort of tunnel?”
“They were determined to use whatever they could to keep their journey moving forward. Understand, these were men—and women too—who had accepted a commission from the Imperium and who set out on a journey where they were not under anyone’s control but their own. They answered tono one while they were on this journey and were completely independent except for the order of their own leadership. The moment they had to turn around and go back home would have been the beginning of the end of that freedom.”
I grimace, but it’s Miriam who puts my thoughts out in the open this time. “From what I know of Imperium history, this adventure would have allowed a highly unusual level of freedom particularly for the women in the group too. But they wouldn’t have been warriors in this delegation. They would have been cooks and healers, seamstresses—and maybe scouts? But not warriors, correct?”
I blink at her direct question and am a little shocked when Daggar answers her.
“Pressing women into battle was as bad an idea then as it is now,” he says, his mouth settling in a hard line that I desperately want to punch off his face. “General Mirador saw the truth of that in the end and ensured the future of the Protectorate would remain in the care of those who could defend it. But every member of that delegation who could fight—did. However they knew how. Because with the first chip into the wall that barred the way into the Western Realms, the warriors awoke the creatures on the other side. By the time they had forged an opening, the enemy was ready. Snakes poured through the fissure and into the mountains. Frightening enough, to be sure, but nothing compared to the beasts that climbed over the walls next. Shadow monsters as tall as any Divh, terrifying to behold. The Sahktar.”
“Climbed over,” Fortiss echoes, leaning forward. “They could have done that at any time then. Why didn’t they?”
Daggar points at him, clearly satisfied that he’s captured the lord protector’s interest. “No one’s ever determined that.” He grins. “Perhaps they needed to be asked.”
He continues on, but I no longer hear Daggar’s droning recitation of what happens next, which does follow the history as I’ve heard it so many times. The attack of great evil on the delegation, the desperation of the warriors. Only thirty—not three hundred or even three thousand as the legend eventually grew—“A legend we at the Eighth House have always known is wrong but held our tongue,” Daggar says proudly, recalling my focus.
He leans in, staring hard at Fortiss. “But the horror of the attack was real and the threat plain. If these monsters continued across the wide, verdant lands and reached the Imperium, the delegation that had been sent to expand the Imperium’s borders would have essentially destroyed it instead. In their pain and despair, they donned the garb of the ancient rulers of this land and cried out to the Light, and the Light responded in a way no one could have imagined. By sending the Divhs.”
All this I know, all this at least has been shared even with me, an unwanted female of a royal house. But I can’t unhear Daggar’s flippant assessment of why the skrill and shadow monsters attacked in the first place. I can’t help recalling my own words to Fortiss. Skrill and Divh alike responded to the warriors of the Fated Plane because they wereasked.
“You said all this to Lord Protector Rihad twenty years ago?” My words don’t even sound like myself. I’m quiet, deferent, almost meek, but a warrior uses the best strategy for the moment, and what I want more than anything is answers. “Surely he was amazed.”
“He seemed to be, yes.” Daggar nods, addressing me with far more civility this time. “Asked me to take him up to where the wall was eventually rebuilt to the sheen of smoothest glass, as strong as ever through ways we still have not replicated all these years since. Walls that stood stable and solid for hundreds of years until Rihad stood before them.”
“What happened then?” Tennet asks.
“Then he left,” Daggar forms a fist to gently tap the table, as if for luck. “And now you are here, you will want to see them as well I assume? To reassure yourselves that all is well in the Eighth House? Because all is as it ever should be, and we are ready to serve.”
“We would be honored.” Fortiss nods. “With the events of these past several days, I’d like to simply see with my own eyes that the wall remains sturdy and true. You have performed the highest service in the Protectorate for generations upon generations here at the Eighth House. But if that threat is no longer sleeping…”
“You’ll see the truth. We are ready to serve.” Daggar says all this resolutely, then his gaze turns hard as he stares at Fortiss. “And then, Lord Protector Fortiss, you will repay me the men I have lost in your foolish tournament games, or I’ll take my complaints straight to the Imperium.”
