Oathbreakers' Guild (The Rose Shield Book 2) Read online

  “Excellent.” Algar fetched a fresh bottle and second goblet from a serving table. He poured the wine and handed a goblet to Kadan. “I will hear your vow, and we’ll drink to Mur-Vallis.”

  Kadan gazed into his cup. “I remind you that my first oath is to Ellegeance and my second to the guild.”

  “You needn’t lecture me,” Algar sneered. “I’m well aware of your guild’s maneuverings, and as I understand it, those vows are routinely a matter of interpretation. I too desire what’s best for Ellegeance. We’re family, Kadan. We understand each other and always have.” He picked up the orders for Justice. “Think of all we can do.”

  Kadan’s future lay in Algar’s hands, constrained by his influencer’s oaths. He’d warned Algar as Algar had warned him.

  For a heartbeat, he gazed into the future. A vision of a just and prosperous Mur-Vallis sparked in his head, a time of prosperity and reconciliation forged under his rule. He rose to his feet and lifted his goblet. “I must travel back to Ava-Grea for my initiation into the guild. When I return, I shall be honored to give you my oath.”

  ***

  In Ava-Grea, the eleventh-tier hall brimmed with noisy aspirants crowding the benches. On a row of wooden chairs, a smattering of initiates sat with a display of greater dignity, there to support the handful entering their ranks.

  Vianne stood on the dais with the other doyen. Beside her on an oval table rested six crystal goblets of luminescence, swirling with color more vibrant than any found naturally in the world. The Poisoner’s final preparation.

  As senior doyen, Dalcoran occupied a spot at the platform’s center, Vianne to his left. Brenna-Dar, the new doyen from Dar-Callin, stepped to his right. The brown-eyed, graying woman stood shoulder high to Vianne and considerably wider. Chosen to replace Piergren, she had served her tier for years with a clear, if somewhat stringent, understanding of the nuances of leadership.

  Next to Brenna, servants had provided a comfortable chair for Tunvise, the old man’s health continuing to decline. He would sleep through most of the proceedings, and as long as he didn’t snore, they’d agreed to ignore the matter of his repose.

  Six aspirants stood before the council, attired in plain undyed robes, the same they’d worn to the Poisoner’s hall for the woads patterning their skin. Four of them had completed their mercy trials with the compassionate administration of death in the sick rooms.

  Two had taken the final step.

  Vianne’s gaze fell on Catling. Though she had initially refused to complete her last challenge, she had reported a change of heart. Vianne hadn’t asked if Piergren’s death was her doing. She didn’t want to know, and Catling wasn’t required to disclose the identity of her victim.

  Vianne patted a looped braid into place. The doyen’s death hadn’t pleased her. Yet, in light of the circumstances, it hadn’t troubled her either. An oathbreaker, Piergren routinely abused his power. If Dalcoran suspected Catling, he never voiced an accusation. The dead servant had complicated matters, and he’d ordered the guards to quietly sweep her body from the tier’s edge into the river.

  “Your attention, please.” Dalcoran raised a hand, and the assembly hushed. “This hour on Brightest Night we join in acknowledging the achievements of six aspirants, and in doing so, initiate them into the lifelong ranks of the Influencers’ Guild. In truth, they entered into this covenant long before the first woads were carved, the first influence fed into their veins. For an aspirant there is little turning back; for an initiate, the power of luminescence is endowed with such responsibility that relief is only found in death.”

  The newest aspirants, perched on the first benches, blinked with youthful trepidation, and Vianne sprinkled them with comfort, merely softening the natural fear that would keep them safe.

  “Kadan-Mur of Mur-Vallis,” Dalcoran called the first aspirant. Kadan approached and halted before the dais. Vianne smiled. Despite his difficult start, the young boy had grown into a man of eighteen winters, tall and angular, his hair in a tight tail, his nature gentler than she’d believed possible. He’d also confessed to the completion of his final trial, and the careful control of his demeanor and words had confirmed that he hadn’t enjoyed it. The thought pleased her. He would return to Mur-Vallis to serve his uncle, High Ward Algar, a fate she didn’t envy. She handed him a goblet of luminescence which he raised in two hands.

  “Speak your first binding oath,” Dalcoran recited the call.

  “I swear my first binding oath to Ellegeance, to act always for the benefit, safety, and advancement of the realm.”

  “Speak your second binding oath,” Brenna intoned.

  Kadan lifted his chin. “I swear my second binding oath to the Influencers’ Guild, to act second for the benefit, safety, and advancement of my guild.”

  “All further vows,” Vianne said, “will be subservient to these two. Do you swear it?”

  “I swear it.”

  “Then you may drink the light, Kadan-Mur, initiate of the Influencers’ Guild.”

  The goblet lowered to his lips, Kadan drank the bright luminescence. Vianne accepted the empty goblet, and he stepped back, letting his breath ease out of him. She pushed a ripple of joy in his direction.

  Minessa-Kar followed, her training completed in the sick rooms, her mercy skills beyond compare and her place as a healer in Kar-Aminia assured. Her father, High Ward Barrick-Kar, would require nothing untoward of her. She had served Catling admirably as a friend, and Vianne wished the unusual woman well.

  Three other initiates followed, Catling planned for the ceremony’s end. Everything about her was wrenching, every waterway littered with stones, every gain for the kingdom a loss for her. Even her vows would take an extraordinary turn. Catling had given her first oath to the heiress, an aberration Vianne had arranged and paid for with a lashing across her back. The realm merited the scars.

  “Catling.” Dalcoran beckoned Catling forward, and she stepped before the dais. A child of the warrens, she lacked a surname, a tier to claim. Vianne passed her a goblet that she raised in her hands.

  “Your first binding oath has been spoken, is this not so?” Dalcoran asked her.

  “It is so,” Catling responded, offering no further explanation, a condition of the heiress to which they’d agreed.

  “Speak your second binding oath,” Dalcoran called.

  “I swear my second binding oath to Ellegeance, to act always for the benefit, safety, and advancement of the realm.”

  “Speak your third binding oath,” Brenna ordered.

  Catling glanced at Vianne, her expression indescribable. “I swear my third binding oath to the Influencers’ Guild, to act thirdly for the benefit, safety, and advancement of my guild.”

  “All further vows,” Vianne said, “will be subservient to these three. Do you swear it?”

  “I do.”

  “Then you may drink the light, Catling, initiate of the Influencers’ Guild.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Catling climbed from the ferry to the pier in Elan-Sia. Similar to Ava-Grea, watery luminescence surrounded the tiers, but there the comparisons ended. The royal city towered over the delta with a view of the Cull Sea, the vast horizon, and the colorful sails of Cull Tarr double-masted dragnets and slimmer skudders.

  Three years had passed since she laid her eyes on the twenty tiers, sweated in the northern heat, or tasted the salty breeze. On that visit, she had sworn an oath to the heiress sealing her future. She and Whitt had bid each other farewell, and he’d left her for a life in Guardian. From the heiress, she’d learned of her family’s murder and wrested permission to exact on Algar a penalty of death.

  Elan-Sia was now her home.

  Three influencers awaited her on the dock with four muscled servants in plain trousers, likely her porters. She strolled toward her peers, focusing with her rose eye, instinctively testing the air for influence. She smiled, pleased she didn’t encounter an oathbreaker on her first day.

  “Catling…um.�
�� The younger of the two women blinked and dipped a head bursting with carrot-colored curls. She wrinkled her freckled nose, clearly struggling with Catling’s lack of a surname.

  “Simply Catling.”

  “Oh.” The woman sighed and smiled. “I thought I’d, um, gaffed up again. I’m Chava-Lim from Lim-Mistral, but I suppose you knew by my name. I’m new here too, a bit, since last Summertide, so that would be a year. I served the high ward at home until the doyen sent me here. Primary vow and all, duty to Ellegeance takes priority. It’s not too bad, um, once you get used to all the formality and the—”

  “Chava!” A tall woman interrupted the ramble and bowed. “Moira-Nor, my respects. Welcome to Elan-Sia.” The tight brown bun at the back of her head seemed to stretch her features to the sides of her narrow face. She flipped a thin hand to the third of their party. “Fontine-Se.”

  The handsome man winked and bowed. “I, for one, am pleased to know the heiress has an influencer.”

  “I am too,” Chava added. “We serve the king along with another, um, four of us, which is more than he needs, especially lately with his health—”

  “Chava!” Moira huffed and addressed Catling, “You have belongings on the ferry?”

  “Yes.” Catling gestured at two chests behind her. “Those two.”

  Moira waved the porters down the pier. “Eighteenth tier.” Without further ado, she turned and strode toward the ramp. Fontine swept a hand after her, indicating for Catling and Chava to follow, and then stepped in behind them.

  Her rooms, like the other influencers’ chambers, lay at the tier’s core with a view of the interior lanes rather than the delta and sea. Daylight quarters were reserved for the king’s councilors, the Cull Tarr ambassador, and an unending pageant of visiting dignitaries.

  This high up, the luminescence swimming through the tubes glowed brightly. Cushioned chairs, carved tables, and a tall vase of Springseed flowers adorned her salon, and her bedchamber boasted a wide featherbed.

  No sooner had her chests arrived than a guard knocked at her door. The tall man stood in the corridor and bowed. His shorn hair reminded her of the warriors of Guardian, and his clean-shaven chin bore a thin white scar. In his hand, he carried a reed basket like a kitchen girl sent to market. “Influencer, I’m Colton, guard to the heiress. She requests your presence on the royal pier.”

  “My name is Catling without a surname,” she replied, the explanation forestalling any awkwardness. “Are we picnicking?”

  “Sailing.” He smiled. “If you would follow me.”

  She accompanied the guard down the lift to the royal pier. Beside a massive ferry, a sleek catboat rested among several larger cutters, all rigged, manned, and ready for the sea. Colton directed her to the catboat where the heiress waited, shed of her azure jacket, blond ringlets free in the breeze.

  “Catling,” Lelaine called up. “Join me.”

  “Heiress.” Catling bowed.

  “My first order is that you must stop bowing unless we are in a formal gathering. My second is to call me Lelaine when we are alone. I won’t be treated like a doll fashioned of glass with everyone choking on formalities. My third order is to hurry down here so we might depart.”

  Catling climbed from the pier into the boat. Colton handed down the basket and jumped into one of the larger cutters. He looked back at Lelaine and smiled with eyes that Catling could have sworn expressed love more than duty.

  “Since my encounter with the Cull Tarr,”—Lelaine used a paddle to push off the pier—“they’ve stuck me with a smaller sail, a larger escort, and a rather handsome guard, don’t you think?”

  Catling held on to the gunwale. “He seems fond of you.”

  The heiress blinked at her and laughed. “Not as fond as I’d like. Of course, the entire tier city would tumble into the sea if I considered anything untoward. As long as my father lives, his councilors attempt to sway my heart to a man of title and means. When I am queen, I shall do as I please with regard to my affections. It will be my one luxury.”

  Catling smiled, uncertain how to respond to the intimate revelations.

  The heiress hauled up the sail and secured her seat at the stern, operating the tiller and mainsheet with practiced ease. The catboat glided amidst the cluster of cutters that formed a loose flotilla around her. A balmy wind caught the sail, and the Summertide heat abated on the waves.

  “I wanted to speak with you privately before the teeth of the royal beast chew you to pieces.” Lelaine turned into the wind, picking up speed. Though at a respectable distance, the larger cutters experienced little difficulty keeping up. “But first, open the bottle of wine in the basket.”

  Catling lifted the lid and extracted the bottle. She pried out the cork and rummaged in the basket for goblets.

  “I prefer the bottle,” Lelaine said with a mischievous smile. “Less to juggle while sailing, and I forbid you to drink.”

  The order gave Catling pause, and a swell of emotion dampened her eyes. She blinked into the sun, forcing the moment to pass. Given her responsibilities, the limitation wasn’t unreasonable. The heiress might call on her ability to shield or influence at any time, day or night. What stung was her shift into the role of servant without a will or life of her own.

  “As you wish.” Catling handed her the bottle.

  “I suppose I would be remiss if I didn’t also advise you never to influence me. I need to trust you, Catling.”

  “I assumed as much, Heiress.”

  “Lelaine.” The woman took a swig of wine and wedged the bottle between her knees. “You’ve met a few of my father’s influencers?”

  Catling nodded. “Chava, Moira, and Fontine.”

  “Ah, the trio.” Lelaine’s eyebrows arched. “There are four others, all stodgy and loyal to the king. They take orders from my father alone, and when he isn’t sleeping, he’s babbling, which thankfully they ignore. In other words, they are useless.”

  “And the trio?” Catling asked.

  “Don’t let Chava mislead you with her prattling.” Lelaine raised the bottle to her lips. “Her silliness veils her cunning. I assume she’s a tool of your doyen, swaying us all to their ambitions. Moira is beholden to no one but Moira. Fontine is pretty and a favorite of Councilor Oaron-Elan. I wouldn’t be shocked to learn they are lovers.”

  “Your father’s council is trustworthy?”

  “Indeed, but they’re in a pickle. In essence, they are ruling by committee and have difficulty agreeing. With the exception of Oaron, I am patted on the head and advised to marry so they might have someone worthy of advising.”

  Lelaine thumped her chest and burped. “I needn’t say it, but no one is to know of your ability to shield. The council believes you are a weak influencer, an accommodation made by Ava-Grea to placate me.”

  “I’m not a strong influencer,” Catling said, a half-truth. Her emotive and sensorist skills were adequate and powerfully subtle. It was her mercy skills which lacked. And she still hadn’t revealed to a soul that Piergren had shattered a barrier, enabling her to shield and influence simultaneously.

  “No matter. It’s your shield that delivered you here.”

  The catboat sailed west offering a view of white beaches and bleached driftwood against a backdrop of wild scrub. Catling served treats from the basket and watched giant, winged waterdragons sluice through the luminescence beside the swift boat. They reared their scaly heads and blasted the air with blowing spray. Now and again, the opalescent wings rose from the water as the creatures rolled and dove beneath the swells.

  “There are two other reasons for this sail,” Lelaine said when she’d finished the bottle of wine, her cheeks flushed. Though a beautiful woman, sailing in her underdress with wind-tangled ringlets and sun-blushed shoulders, she resembled a seafarer more than she did a future ruler of Ellegeance.

  Catling sipped from a flagon of water, waiting.

  “First, to devise a series of hand signals to control your shield. There are times whe
n I might desire a full shield or none at all. I may request a partial shield to taste the influence directed my way. My ability to adjust the shield while in the presence of others gives me the greatest power.”

  “I thought the same, Heir… Lelaine.” Catling had already mused over a variety of scenarios and handy signals. “And the second reason for the sail?”

  “I wish you to kill my father.”

  ***

  At the dawn of Summertide, Catling turned seventeen. The heiress kept her closer than her own shadow, close enough that they breathed each other’s air. Catling accompanied her to the king’s chamber each morning and evening as the weeks warmed, standing quietly aside as Lelaine sought hints of her father, wishing to bid farewell to him and not an empty shell.

  That possibility slipped farther away with each passing day.

  On Darkest Night, she paused beside the luxurious bed, holding a haggard hand. He looked childlike among the down pillows and brocade coverlets, swimming in his sleepwear, his pallor ashen and mouth hanging open.

  Catling touched his hand. His heartbeat limped, slow and devoid of rhythm, his breath wheezing in and out of him like a leaky bellows. If his chest didn’t rise and fall, Catling would have thought him cradled by death. He merely existed now, insentient when awake, calmed by hourly doses of godswell and soothing influence.

  Had she knelt by a cot on the sixth tier of Ava-Grea, she would not hesitate to end a life that finished living long ago. But she stood at the shoulder of the Ellegean king, ordered to commit regicide by the heir, by a daughter who wept genuine tears of love for her father. Catling’s first mark as a royal influencer would be to deliver the monarch to the brink of death and leave his failing body to do the rest.

  On the other side of the bed, Lelaine lay beside her father, swollen-eyed, her hand resting on his chest. Her words whispered across the bed with her breath, “You swore an oath to me, Catling. Do it now before I lose my nerve.”

  Catling blew out a soft breath. Her gaze drifted to the king’s frail hand, influence flowing from her fingertips into his veins. She imagined the light streaming through him, the emotive quality of pure love, the ecstasy of the sensorist, the death of the mercy.