The Onyx Throne - Book One

“We are going to go through the first three basic sword movements but this time I want you to hold the light cantrip in your mind as you perform each one. Hold it but don’t release it. Do you understand?”

Mitchell nodded and Lethelin saw him set his feet, bring his practice sword into the ready position, and a look of concentration descended over him as it always did when he quested for his mana. Allora stepped back then and Revos moved a little closer, no doubt to better sense when his human student had ahold of the power and when he lost it. Then, they began. Mitchell almost made it through the first movement before Revos barked at him to start again. He grimaced, set his feet once more, and did as he was instructed.

They would reach Basari sometime in the morning and Lethelin knew Allora would ask her to continue on with them. She could see it in the way the elf had been watching her. Almost a year in the making, her personal mission of vengeance was finally over. She thought that she would feel a great sense of fulfillment once Ivaran had lain dead at her feet and, while it was there, it also wasn’t what she thought it would be. The elf who raped and killed her mother was dead along with the men in his squad who had covered for him. She was glad that it was her hand that had brought them to justice. Finally, her mother could rest in peace.

Except that last part was a lie and Lethelin knew it.

Maribeth would not have wanted this for her only daughter. Vengeance is a dark night that blinds all who seek it. That’s what her mother would have said. The woman was so stoic and imperturbable that sometimes Lethelin had wanted to scream at her and, in fact, had done so often enough. The thief felt the deep well of shame swell inside her chest and swallowed thickly as if she could force it back down.

“If you hadn’t stayed away so long, if you hadn’t let your stubborn pride get in the way and apologized…” that little voice said inside her mind.

Almost unconsciously her hand went for the hilt of her stiletto and squeezed. Luckily she was saved from another walk down that painful path by the crack of Revos’s voice and Lethelin’s eyes once again focused on the sword and magic practice that Mitchell had been enduring almost nightly since they were freed.

“You must hold the lines firm in your mind. It must be instant!” Revos barked at Mitchell. “There can be no hesitation or you risk the spell collapsing and being struck down by the feedback of the dispersing energy. How many times must I explain it?!?”

“I am trying!” Mitchell barked back.

For a moment Lethelin thought he was going to swing the practice blade at the towering cambion but he held his temper. Her respect for him grew slightly at that.

“Try harder,” Revos growled back. “Back to the first position.”

She looked at Allora standing off to the side. The beautiful elf was trying to look unconcerned but Lethelin could see the tension etched across her athletic form. Allora hid it well, though. Lethelin had to give credit where it was due. The knight kept a firm countenance as she watched Mitchell try to go through the motions she had drilled him on for the last several days while holding onto a spell rune in his mind. But every time Revos reprimanded him or, worse still, whipped him with some small line of magically-hardened air or a tiny shock spell, Lethelin saw the elfin warrior flinch. She was doing her best to look stern and unrelenting but it was clear how much the pain of Mitchell’s training was hurting her.

“The fish-brained girl is in love with him and doesn’t even know it,” Lethelin thought to herself and shook her head slightly. Not that there wasn’t much to admire, Lethelin thought.

The night when Allora revealed that he was the next monarch of Awenor had been a shock for sure. And when she drew her blade on him–a true blade of an Onyx Knight, no less!--Lethelin thought for sure the woman would kill him. She couldn’t help but agree that, at that moment, she thought him a coward too, the same as Allora. But then she learned a little more about the foreigner and had come to suspect his reluctance had more to do with the strange way in which he’d been brought here. Revos had filled her in on much when they’d been out hunting together and she didn’t envy what had happened to him. She tried to imagine what it would be like to be pulled into a strange world so alien from one’s own and thought she might want to bolt, too.

But then he’d surprised everyone. Mitchell said he would stay and help Allora reclaim Awenor. Despite herself, she felt a swelling of pride that this stranger who didn’t know the sword or magic, nor even how to speak the language, would take up the fight for her homeland.

Lethelin had never been much for patriotism. Sure, her father had been a city guardsman for Varset, but she was a thief and part-time assassin. The fish couldn’t swim much farther from the school, as far as she was concerned. She didn’t pay taxes and she only followed the law when it was convenient for her. What difference did it make to her who sat on the Onyx Throne or if there even was one? There was always coin to be lifted from an unwary pocket and an occasional throat to slit if she felt they deserved it so why should she care? Yet suddenly, she did. She saw how hard Allora was fighting, how thin that last thread of hope was to which she still clung. But Stollar’s swinging cock if she wasn’t hanging on like a reef snake to a fisherman’s leg.

The thief had no doubt that Allora would have faced any challenge and fought any opponent until her last breath to save Awen and their home. In the face of such staggering courage and determination, how could Lethelin do less?

Her whole life she had heard stories of the famed Onyx Knights. Catching sight of them during the parades at High Sun and the winter solstice as a child had always been cause for excitement. There was barely a boy or girl alive who didn’t dream of becoming part of their ranks at some point. And here she was now, traveling with one. Maybe the last one if the stories were true.

For centuries, they had been the famed defenders of Awenor and Lethelin had long suspected that the real reason the people didn’t fight harder to throw off Milandris and drive out his mercenaries was that the shock of losing the Knights had struck the entire nation dumb and left them partially paralyzed with grief. People roamed around listlessly for weeks after the news spread and were a pushover when Milandris’s own soldiers and functionaries had taken control. Monarchs came and went but the Knights had always been there, as stalwart as the Skybreaker Peaks themselves. Until suddenly they weren’t. Lethelin couldn’t think of a more effective way to undercut the will and spirit of the Awenorians to fight back than that.

“Better,” Revos’s voice echoed across the barren sand. “Now, do it again. Faster this time.”

Lethelin’s eyes tracked Mitchell as he moved back to his starting position. His chest and back were covered in welts, a few of which dripped blood. His muscles were hard and glinted with perspiration in the fading light. Allora’s punishing physical training, along with a better diet than he’d gotten while a prisoner, had thickened him up nicely. He didn’t argue with Revos. He never once complained during his training. He set his rather impressive shoulders, tightened his jaw, and did as he was asked until he got it right.

Being dun, Lethelin had only second-hand knowledge of what went on at the various magic training academies that the throne subsidized. But even with limited information, she knew that the pace that Revos and Allora were working him was unheard of. And the brutality of it was sometimes shocking to her. She didn’t think she would have put up with it. She could see Mitchell start to crack sometimes. The anger at the constant small pains inflicted by Revos grew in him like a storm surge, but then he would look at Allora who was always nearby and he would find it somewhere within him to control that rage and push on. She thought she could follow someone like that. She’d worked for men and women in the gangs that didn’t have half the will Mitchell displayed every night. Oh, they were hard-bitten killers, to be sure. Not a one of them wouldn’t gut you and sell you for chum if you crossed them, but she knew they would have crumpled under the intensity of the training Mitchell was enduring. That was worth something, Lethelin thought.

Revos called a break after Mitchell completed the series of sword blocks and parries for the third time while holding the rune in his mind and she watched as Mitchell stalked over to the water barrel and took a long drink. He then went off a bit and sat down on a rock to rest, saying nothing to anyone. Lethelin watched Allora as she gazed at him and saw her start to take a step towards him and then hesitate.

“Go to him, you silly sea cow,” Lethelin muttered under her breath. “He’s doing this for you.”

But of course, she didn’t. Instead, she turned and searched for Lethelin, her eyes passing over her for a moment before moving back and settling on her, her face slightly confused, then began walking towards her.

“Are you sure you have no magical talents?” Allora asked with a small frown on her full lips.

“They tested me twice when I was a kid, just to be sure. I’ve got the reservoir but it’s inert. Can’t even light a candle.”

“It is odd,” Allora responded. “Sometimes, it is like you are not there. I knew you were sitting on the wagon, but when I looked you were not there. Then you were.”

Lethelin grinned to herself. It was something her mentor had called her knack. Not magic exactly, but something she could do. If she sat still for long enough people sort of forgot about her or didn’t notice her. In her line of work, it came in very handy. She had become quite adept at sitting unmoving for long stretches at a time.

Instead of trying to explain that to Allora, she only shrugged.

“Did you need something?” the thief asked her.

Deciding not to press the issue, Allora switched topics. “We will arrive in Basari tomorrow. I want to know if you will continue on with us. Frankly, we could use you. We have few friends across the peaks and every blade will help.”

Lethelin looked at the woman as if sizing her up. Allora was strikingly beautiful, even for an elf. Her long black hair shimmered in the orange light of dusk and it hung almost preternaturally still even as the dry wind blew across the dunes. Her violet eyes were intense and penetrating and her dedication to her quest to save Awen almost seemed to glow from within her adding to the power of her gaze. More than once Lethelin found herself drawn to the Knight’s eyes as if they were a lodestone and she nothing more than iron filings.

Allora’s body was not lost on Lethelin, either. Tall as most men, she was as female as they came. Lethelin envied her bust and the curve of her hips. Allora had the kind of breasts men–and some women–were always fawning over. Standing next to her, Lethelin felt more like a boy than a woman with her flatter chest and slimmer physique. The gap in her shirt and the swelling of cleavage there drew Lethelin’s attention as often as the damn woman’s eyes did. And though the newer baggier clothing hid the curves of her hips and rear, Lethelin remembered well enough how she had looked in the strange garments from Mitchell’s world. It had been some time since she’d been with a woman but, if Allora ever invited her into her bed, Lethelin would have gone.

“What’s in it for me?” Lethelin said, feigning disinterest rather than letting her mind get too tangled up in fantasies of Allora’s legs wrapped around her head. If she was going to bargain she needed to have her game face on.

Allora blinked in incomprehension.

“You want payment?”

“This is a job offer, isn’t it? If I do a job, I expect to get paid. It’s only fair.”

“We are fighting for the life of Awen herself and the salvation of our entire kingdom! How can you speak of payment for something like that?”

Lethelin did feel a small twinge of guilt at that. Allora was right and Lethelin knew it, but a girl still had to eat. Anyway, it was in her blood. Patient as her mother might have been, she’d still run a shop in Varset and could haggle a councilman out of his breeches if she needed to.

“Last I checked, patriotism didn’t put a fish on the hook. I work for coin. I can see that’s in short supply at the moment but I’m willing to accept that you’re good for it. If you actually manage to pull it off, that is. If I’m going to be a part of that, then I expect to be well compensated.

Allora’s nostrils flared and she crossed her arms across her chest which only accentuated her breasts and nearly made Lethelin forget what she was bargaining for. The longing she felt only reminded her how long it had been since she’d lain with someone. Watching Mitchell dance around shirtless and sweaty had not been helping, either.

“Stollar’s hairy taint, Leth, stop thinking about sex!” she chided herself. “Cast your line right and this could set you up for life!”

Allora tried to stare her down and Lethelin had to admit that it was a good glare. She held her ground though, knowing that she had the bait the woman needed to catch her fish. After a long moment, Lethelin saw some of the tension ease out of Allora’s shoulders as she made the decision to agree to Lethelin’s terms.

“How much do you want?” Allora asked. Her voice was tight with annoyance.

“Not much,” Lethelin paused. Did she dare? “Five thousand Awenorian crowns should suffice.”

Allora’s eyes bulged. “What on Tewadunn could you possibly need with five thousand crowns? Castles have been built for less!”

Lethelin gave her a slow smile.

“That’s not really your concern. It’s my price. You want me to join you, to trek across the peaks, charge headlong into Milandris’s army and risk my life on a mission that will probably fail and see us beheaded and our bodies thrown to the blood pikes, I want five thousand crowns. And look at it this way: If we fail you don’t have to pay me a single copper. But if we actually manage to succeed I’ll have helped you save Awen herself. I think that’s worth it.”

For a moment Lethelin worried she had overplayed her hand as she watched Allora resist the urge to throttle her, but a voice suddenly spoke up from behind the elf, surprising both of them.

“Deal.”

It was Mitchell. He’d come over and must have overheard at least some of the conversation and understood enough to agree to her terms. He was learning fast.

Allora’s head swung around to see him standing there, still shirtless, his chest a criss-cross pattern of welts, blisters, and singe marks.

“Mitchell, you do not understand how much that is. She is asking for an insane sum. You could fund a colony across the Olydian Ocean with four ships and supplies for a year for less than she is asking.

It was clear to Lethelin that he didn’t understand all of her words but he apparently understood enough.

“We need her, right?”

“Yes, but–” Allora began but Mitchell interrupted.

“Then we should pay her fee. She already knows about me and you and she’s already here. I think it’s safer to have her on our side than trying to sell information about us to whatever mercenary group she comes across.”

His accent hurt Lethelin’s ears and he made mistakes, but Lethelin understood what he meant easily enough. So did Allora.

“You should close your mouth before it fills with sand fleas,” Lethelin said to the incredulous elf, a smirk forming on her lips.

The glare Allora turned her way was enough to shut her up though. Lethelin wisely held her tongue after that.

“Mitchell, I do not think that is wise. We can find others who will assist us for far less.”

Mitchell stared at Allora for several heartbeats. The silence grew tense. As Lethelin watched she couldn’t help but notice something was different about him. He seemed harder in some way.

Finally, he said, “I’m the king, right?”

For the first time since the conversation started, Allora looked somewhat uncertain.

“You will be, yes. Once you are fully bonded with Awen.”

“Can I afford her price?”

Allora looked back toward Lethelin and then back to Mitchell. “You can. Milandris was not able to plunder the palace and its wealth should still be there once it is reclaimed.”

“Then we pay it,” Mitchell said, a note of finality in his voice.

“Thank you, my king!” Lethelin said, all smiles.

Mitchell then turned his cold blue eyes to her and the expression on his face drained the smile from her lips like water through a net. He stepped closer to her and glowered down at where she sat on the edge of the wagon. It took all she had not to reach for her blade.

“The language spell, please,” Mitchell said to Allora while never taking his eyes off of Lethelin. Allora, in almost as much shock at his sudden change in demeanor as Lethelin, cast the spell without comment.

“Lethelin, I want to be perfectly clear with you. If you betray us, you had better hope we’re captured and killed. Because if we aren’t, then I will command Allora to hunt you down until either you are dead or she is.”

Lethelin felt a cold sweat begin to form on her back and she wanted to shy away from him. Something had definitely changed.

“You seem to have no small amount of fear and respect for her. Do you have any doubt that she could kill you?”

Lethelin was unable to look away.

“None,” her voice was so meek it sounded almost like a whisper.

“I will have your word that you will honor our agreement and help us reclaim the throne or die trying.”

“Under Stollar’s holy light, I, Lethelin Ne Forlia, swear it in the name of my mother, Maribeth De Forlia. I will see you to the Onyx Throne or die in the attempt.”

There was only the barest hint of daylight left, but it was enough for the oath to hold.

Mitchell searched her eyes for several heartbeats until he found whatever he was looking for then gave her a curt nod. He turned back to Allora who stood mute with shock.

“Satisfied?”

Allora only nodded, her eyes wide. Mitchell stalked off and called for Revos.

“Where are you, Revos? You son of a motherless goat! Break time is over.”

Lethelin and Allora watched him walk back over to what had been serving as their training ground, both of them mute with astonishment. Where had that come from?

Lethelin spoke first.

“I… What?”

She wasn’t quite sure she had come out ahead in that deal all of a sudden.

Allora turned to look at her then. “What is a go-oot?”

Lethelin shrugged. Mitchell began to move through the sword exercises as Revos returned from wherever he’d been lounging and they picked up the practice again. For the first time since this whole mad endeavor had begun, she thought they might actually have a chance.