Chapter 3

Art and Warfare

After Jaret's funeral, I hoped to be sent back to Mnemon Rai immediately, but my Aunt Garel fell ill and decided that I should care for her. What was originally a delay of some months lengthened into nearly ten years as my aunt recovered and worsened more times than I could count. I often wondered if I would be sitting at her bedside helping her page through old books for the rest of my insignificant life. It was good to be close to her and to hear her stories again, but I ached to be out in the field. I would rise before dawn and go over my forms just to feel the sensation of a sword in my hand. It was like air to me. I couldn't live without it.

Though he understood familial duties as well as any Dynast, Mnemon Rai was unwilling to count me as a permanent loss. He found work for me to do on the Blessed Isle, the sort that he personally detested. I became his political liaison in certain circles, helping him to recruit and train young officers with skill and potential. While many Dragonblooded scoffed at being asked to deal with a mere mortal, very few were willing to provoke Mnemon Rai… or my father, for that matter.

My father was very pleased to have me assume Aunt Garel's duties of managing our House so that he could focus on his Scarlet Legion, and my stepmother could dabble in politics as she preferred to. I became master of all the servants, in charge of the monthly expenses, and disciplinarian of the children. And whenever I had a moment away from the affairs of House Cathak, I immediately stepped back into my role as Mnemon Rai's chief secretary.

I applied myself diligently. Since I was not a "Prince of the Earth" and never would be, I was so far beneath notice that no one, not even the members of my own family seemed to remember what year I had been born in. Of course, that was to my benefit… it kept them from asking why I had not aged a day since Jaret's death.

One might wonder how was I able to avoid being detected for so long. For the most part, it was very easy not to show the world something I did not want to believe in myself. I was able to avoid particularly tense situations because I was not a Dragonblood. My House never needed me for anything overtly political, and the Exaltation of my young cousin Teric gave my father someone else to train as his heir.

At first, I simply filled my schedule with perpetuating domestic harmony and sifting through mountains of paperwork, but it was not long before those simple tasks left me feeling bored, anxious and irritable. I took up playing Gateway, a popular game in the Imperial City and saw in it an outlet for my burning desire to think strategically. Most famously, I beat Ledaal Kes in a match which left him sore and fuming for several months. How could a mere mortal have bested him at a game which he considered himself to be the unparalleled champion of?

Now I suspect he probably knows.

Following my Aunt Garel's death, I read my way through her entire voluminous library. I took on as many styles of martial arts as I could fit into my already complicated schedule, begging lessons from the most exclusive and demanding masters on the Blessed Isle. As my own knowledge increased, I augmented the usual training regime of would-be Winds with new drills I devised myself. Impressed with the quality of the recruits that I turned out, several Winglords from other Legions requested that I come to instruct their soldiers.

After effortlessly whipping two impatient young Dragonblooded in a demonstration match, I realized that if I did not want to draw attention to myself, I would have to be very careful.

I asked my father if I could have the use of his old hunting lodge, which was located on a lake some miles north of the Imperial City. I told him that I wished to meditate and could not do so at home. Smiling slightly, he called me by my old nickname, "Little Monk", and told me to go "refresh my spirit", provided that I promised to return before the entirety of our House was reduced to a state of chaos. With forty-three relatives and all of their respective servants living virtually on top of one another within the confines of those walls, I knew that I had less than a week.

Still, my first trip to my father's hunting lodge went far better than I'd ever hoped it might. In that place of solitude, I found that I was able to train as I preferred to, brutally. I was no longer compelled to intentionally miss the target when I shot my bow, or feign exhaustion when I had only just begun to run. There was no one to tell me what I could not do or what I should not be capable of. I had become my own master.

Going over familiar sword patterns in my father's rock garden with only the rhythmic sound of the water clock to pass the time, I was more at peace than I had been in all the years since my brother's death. Working hard enough to sweat was the only thing that quieted my thoughts, my real meditation. The frightening thing was, the more I trained, the more quickly I exceeded all of the limitations that I'd ever believed I had.

Roach, who was still technically my "student" became increasingly annoyed with me as my private retreats became more frequent than his lessons. He chafed at being left alone in the hostile quarters of House Cathak, where he was treated as a sort of unwelcome pet. I trusted Roach more than I trusted most of my relatives, but every time I considered telling him my secret, a sick feeling welled up in my gut and I remembered my brother running his blade through me.

It became so that I spent the first week of every month working for Mnemon Rai, the two middling weeks running my father's household, and the last few days alone up at the lake.

When I was certain that no one was following me to my retreat, I began to attempt exercises far more daring than cutting stacks of cane. Though I still believed that I was damned, any student of martial arts knows that only a fool carries a weapon he cannot wield. A dagger that a man cannot use is all too quickly turned against him... and how much worse would it be for me if I could not control the enormous power that I possessed?

I decided to experiment with my own Essence. I had my dreams for guidance and I had secretly listened in on many lectures given by Ledaal Tsumi, a well-known master of the Water Dragon style. Once I understood that Essence could not only burn, it could flow… I instinctively understood how to improve my training regime.

The results of my first few ignorant attempts left me questioning if there could be something wrong with the world I lived in, if people were mistaken about the power wielded by the Anathema. I had always been told that it was demon-born, dark and uncontrollable… but to me it felt very different, as pure as a sutra on the lips of a saint.

I discovered that I could jump huge distances, and I found myself a mountaintop perch on the far eastern side of the lake. I began going there every morning before dawn to watch the sun rise. If the God of the Sun knew that I was waiting to hear from him, he gave no sign of it. My meditations did not help me to find the answers to any of my questions either, but the transcendent beauty of that place left me compelled to return. I sought inside myself the stillness of the lake, and let my ancient dreams take me away.

On the tenth anniversary of Jaret's death, I emerged from my morning meditations shaking so badly that I could barely stand. It was still very early, and there was a heaviness in the air that made me expect rain. As fast as I could, I made my way down the mountain and through the woods to the back door of my father's hunting lodge. I splashed my face several times with the nearly green water from the rain barrel near the door, and then stumbled into the dark kitchen like a drunkard, not bothering to light a lamp. I didn't need one.

Because I had been using it so freely, the Essence all around me was flaring bright as day... or brighter, given the clouds gathered overhead. As the sun had cleared the mountains on the horizon line and pierced the morning fog, one of my most pressing questions had been finally been answered. I knew what had happened to my former self.

I had always known that the Dragonblooded had once served the Anathema. Their revolt against tyranny was the very cornerstone that the Realm was built upon. But nothing could have prepared me for the experience of witnessing that legendary rebellion from the opposing side, the horror I felt in seeing my friends killed and my home burning to the ground. What the Dragonblooded had done was far worse than salting the earth… it was absolute desecration, something akin to painting a temple with blood.

The Realm had to call us demons! They had to turn people against us while we were still weak, and destroy us all before we regained the strength that we had once possessed! For many centuries, it had been their greatest fear that we would return… and that we would remember! There was no possibility that they would defeat us a second time. What hope could the "Princes of the Earth" have against the rightful Lords of all Creation?

The sickness that welled up inside of me, knowing that the beautiful world I had seen in my dreams had been destroyed by the heroes of my childhood was too much to bear. I wanted nothing more than to run to the nearest Immaculate Monastery and tear everything off of the walls! Was everything that I had ever believed nothing more than a pack of lies?

"Hello?" A familiar voice wondered. "Cousin? Loren? Are you in there?"

I froze. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my cousin Teric and friend of his standing in the doorway of the hunting lodge. They were carrying their bows, and enough supplies for a weekend trip.

"Hunh. Guess he must be out," Teric observed, stepping inside.

"Your cousin lives up here all alone?" His friend inquired. She was clearly a Wood-Aspect with a nose that made me suspect House Sesus.

"On and off. He used to be a soldier, but he lost his nerve after his brother was killed. Now he runs our servants around and spends the rest of his time hiding from the world. Uncle Chiron basically gave him this house," Teric explained. "Which is a bit stupid, because you know… I asked for it first. And Uncle told me 'no'."

I'd never guessed that Teric had been so interested in my father's lodge and was secretly pleased that my father had withheld it from him.

"Loren's useless! He's just a mortal… he'll be dead in twenty years! I don't know why everybody is so soft on him!" Teric snorted.

"I think it's because he's nice. And you're a jerk!" the girl teased, elbowing Teric. "Look at all of these broken swords! What has he been doing?" She approached the table, observing my stack of books. "Advanced Military Engineering? Famous Generals of the Early Shogunate? That's some light reading, eh? Who does he think he is, Cathak himself?"

Teric didn't reply. He was staring directly at me, as if he could see through the walls to the spot where I hid. I flattened myself against the door and prayed that he hadn't used a Charm to detect my presence, though it was obvious that he'd noticed something. "Shh!" He hissed. "Someone is here."

"Your cousin?" The girl suggested, elbowing Teric playfully.

"No. Whoever it is, they've been burning Essence. A lot of it," Teric paused, sounding very apprehensive. He paused momentarily. "Kira, your necklace is glowing."

"Hunh? Oh my, it is!" She observed, holding up the little piece of golden stone. "It's never done that before. It was a gift from my grandmother. She said it... oh. Oh no." She suddenly gasped.

"What?" Teric wondered uneasily.

"It's supposed to detect Anathema," Kira replied.

"Anathema?" Teric blinked in disbelief.

I didn't need to hear that word twice. I bolted, accidentally throwing the door off of its hinges as I fled. The sickness I had felt only moments before evaporated like dew and I became a hunted animal, as certain of my own evil nature as I had been of my innocence.

Anathema. Monster.

I could hear Teric and Kira following after me, but they were far enough behind that I was sure they couldn't see anything more than a golden light blazing through the forest. An arrow laced with fire came within inches of my shoulder as I raced towards the falls. Without hesitation, I leapt the chasm in a single bound and kept running.

Teric and Kira skidded to a stop on the edge of the cliff.

"Did you see that? That… that was a demon! A real demon, here on the Blessed Isle! I… I've got to warn my uncle!" Teric stammered.

"What about your cousin?" Kira demanded.

"Forget Loren, he's probably dead!" The last thing I heard from Teric was a string of unintelligible curse words. When I was sure that I was no longer being followed, I sat down and attempted to compose myself until I stopped burning like a bonfire.

It took me several hours to muster up enough courage to return to the Imperial City. The sun had nearly gone down, and I was no longer glowing when I arrived, but I still felt that I was very close to revealing my terrible secret, and I feared that someone would sense all the Essence I had burned in my escape. I had never heard of a stone that could detect Anathema before, but it made sense that if such a thing existed, someone from House Sesus would know about it. Many of their children went to study sorcery at the Heptagram in lieu of military school. My father did not trust sorcerers, and even being an "Anathema" myself, I was still inclined to believe that most people who invested so much in something so capricious were up to no good.

I tried to head directly for the port where I might find a ship to steal away on, hoping not to see anyone I knew and not caring where I found myself, so long as it was as far from my home as possible. I almost jumped out of my skin as I passed Roach and some of the Winds drinking at the local tavern.

"Boss!" Roach exclaimed. The men jumped to their feet and saluted. Though I hadn't left the Imperial City in years, Mnemon Rai had long since named me Fanglord, and I officially commanded all the Winds who were on the Blessed Isle, regardless of whether they were serving in an administrative capacity, on leave, or in training. Though I preferred not to lord my status over anyone, I was one promotion short of Talonlord, the highest rank a mere mortal could hold.

No one seemed surprised to see me dressed simply in my monkish training clothes and not my official lamellar armor.

"C'mon, drink with us!" One of the soldiers gestured to an empty chair. "We were just talking about Chiarascuro. You've been there, haven't you, sir? You know all about the hungry ghosts and the salt lines I bet."

I nodded. Roach grinned proudly. I could tell he'd been sharing stories of our great "adventures" again. He was a substantial part of the reason that my reputation was as overblown as it was.

"Well, we just got back. Hot as hell there this time of year. Killed ourselves another Anathema. This one was a big ol' bull, one of the Frenzied with half an army of crazy cultists! They must have known they couldn't win, but they charged us anyway. Cut through the rest quick enough, but the Anathema was unstoppable! Now it may be heresy to say so, but it was amazing, like nothin' I'd ever seen! Old Thunderstormer put em' down." The soldier grinned broadly. "Good fight. You should've been there."

I forced a weak smile.

"Anyway, take a look at this! Found it out in the desert." He pulled something wrapped in a handkerchief out of his satchel and held it up for my examination. It was a golden ball the size of my fist.

"It's orichalcum," he informed me. "It looks like gold, but it's heavier than lead and harder than steel. The Anathema used to make everything out of it."

His companion snorted with distaste.

"Go on, sir! Have a look!" He rolled the ball across the table in my direction. I picked it up with one hand, and the men blinked in surprise. I realized belatedly that it was probably very heavy, but I did not bother to wince. Most of the soldiers in the Winds already thought that I was ridiculously strong.

Of course, they had no idea.

I slowly ran my fingers across the nearly invisible designs etched into the smooth surface of the ball. Though I had never held such a thing in my present life, the way the metal responded to my touch was unmistakable. My Essence flowed through it as easily as it flowed through my body.

It was orichalcum!

I immediately wanted to keep it.

"You picked up some Anathema junk?" Roach raised an eyebrow at the soldier. "You do realize that you shouldn't do that, right?"

I said nothing. I was still feeling the effects of my long meditation, and more importantly, I was holding a physical object that had survived from the long-ago First Age, the days of the Solar Deliberative. The word "Anathema" did not even occur to me. It rang unusually harsh and false on my ears as Roach spoke it.

"It's just a hunk of metal," the soldier responded.

"Old Thunderstormer won't like it," Roach informed him. "Boss?"

I ignored him. I was lost in the past, staring at that relic of a world gone from memory. I unthinkingly fueled the ball with some more Essence, and smiled slightly as it responded. It started to feel warm and light in my grasp, less like a cannonball and more like a child's plaything. In a sputter of golden light, the ball unfolded into a delicate little flying contraption. It looked like an insect, and it hovered for a moment just above my head, evaluating me with interest.

"Whoa!" Roach exclaimed. A familiar sensation made me worry that I had revealed myself, but even if the mark on my brow was almost visible, the construct that I'd awakened was impossible to ignore. Golden Essence bled from the creature as it shot into a violent upward spiral. The men who'd brought the thing were as surprised as I was, and they immediately dropped to the ground. Roach drew his sword.

When the construct had gone up about a hundred feet, it froze in midair and then suddenly dropped, zooming across our table like an out-of-control firework. All of our drinks shattered, and a girl shrieked in terror as the thing shot in her direction. I leapt in front of her to stop it, but what I hadn't anticipated was the speed at which the creature was flying. It took me straight into the wall, and then exploded in my face. The force was enough to stun me, which meant that it might have killed someone else. The soldiers all gathered around me and stared in disbelief.

"This," I slowly rose to my feet and dropped the burnt-out core of the construct in front of the man who'd first thrown it to me. It hit the table with a heavy clunk. "Is why you never bring home souvenirs!"

"Sorry! Very sorry, sir! It'll never happen again, sir!" He looked embarrassed and bowed more than once.

I excused myself. Though I'd been in a hurry to escape the Blessed Isle a few hours ago, I'd decided that I couldn't go anywhere in my current condition. At very least, I needed to wash the soot off my face and change my clothes. I didn't stop walking until I made it home, slipped through the gates of Aunt Garel's neglected garden and collapsed into the soft grass near the koi pond. A shower of cherry blossoms brought me back, not to the familiar days of my childhood, but to an afternoon many centuries ago when Amira and I had danced together. The lines between my dreams and my reality were blurring. I was beginning to think like a demon, to do things that would prove what I was without even considering the consequences! And I knew with sick certainty that it was only a matter of time before I would be detected.

Some hours later, I returned to the main house. The first thing I learned was that a letter had arrived for me. My father was reading it when I stepped into his library, a very grave expression on his face. I knew that I had beaten my cousin and his friend back to the city but I still expected them to come charging in at any moment with their tale of my disappearance and the terrible Anathema they'd stumbled upon.

"Loren? You're back?" He observed.

"I left early this morning. There's a thief poking around your hunting lodge," I paused. "Things have disappeared. At first I thought it was animals, stealing food… but then some of my clothes went missing off of the laundry line. I thought you should know." The lie was surprisingly easy to swallow. When my cousin and his friend returned, their story would corroborate my own. If Teric had seen me well enough to describe me at all, he would tell my father that the Anathema had been a tall blonde man wearing a white jacket and red training pants. There were many stories about demons impersonating their victims, so it seemed reasonable. Though I hated deceiving my father, I was not in a hurry to be hunted down and executed.

"Heh. Taught the villain a lesson, I hope," he replied.

"I haven't caught him yet," I sighed, doing my best to sound defeated.

"Well, perhaps your cousin Teric will have better luck. He left for my lodge this morning with one of his friends. I don't know how you missed them on the road." My father nodded.

"I've no idea. Maybe they passed me when I stopped to rest?" I suggested.

Dragonbloods are never surprised to hear mortals complain about being tired. I used the excuse of "taking a nap" frequently because it was always believed. If anyone ever found out how little I actually slept, I was sure they would guess my secret.

"So what is this letter about?" I wondered.

"Well, I wasn't going to disturb your meditation with it, but I suppose you have a right to know. Mnemon Rai thinks he's tracked down the fae that killed Jaret. The spider woman you described. He wants you to board the first available ship for the Scavenger Lands."

"The Winglord has asked for me personally? To hunt her down? I'd be very happy to do that," I paused, knowing that things were certainly more complicated than my father was making them sound.

"Well, apparently he's also had some trouble with Sesus Calil that he wants you to settle," my father admitted. Of course, he wouldn't forbid me from taking revenge on the monsters that had murdered my brother, but I could tell from the expression on his face that he would prefer it if I continued working for Mnemon Rai in a bureaucratic capacity.

"Why? I'm no one. Why should I get between two Princes of the Earth?" I demanded.

My father sighed. "Loren, you have two of the most decorated demon-hunters in the Realm wrapped around your little finger... and you know it! Mnemon Rai has written me a dozen letters demanding that you be returned to the field as soon as possible because without you, he thinks his entire Wing will rise up and trample him!" My father laughed. "Hesiesh as my witness, I shudder to think of what you might have been, were you only better bred!"

It was meant to be a compliment, and so I decided to take it as such.

"I suppose I'll be going then," I decided.

My father smiled slightly. "I've already packed your things."