Arc 4: Chapter 19: All The World’s Troubles
I remember little of what transpired next. There was some talk of tribute paid by Talsyn, “reparations” for past transgressions. The delegation from Graill made a fuss, until the Farram princess’s advisor took her aside for a private talk which ended with her storming out of the chamber, her expression furious. She left the gathered court with the faint memory of her cloak’s silver bells singing ominously.
I left early as well. My mind became a chaos at the revelation in that chamber, at its implications.
Calerus and Hyperia Vyke, the children of King Hasur Vyke, the last great clan of Recusants left in the land, had been at Caelfall. They had been part of Orson Falconer’s heretical council. They had participated in the slaughter of the villagers there, the desecration of holy ground, and the restoration of Yith’s physical body.
I had known, from Karog, that the Council had been Hasur Vyke’s guests. Now, I had very good reason to believe that he wasn’t only their ally, but that the old king of Talsyn had been the power behind that dark gathering all along.
The wizard Reynard had been the mastermind behind the Fall, binding demons to himself, courting and coordinating with malcontents across the land, turning both the Briar and the more savage or desperate changelings against Seydis, conspiring with the knight-captains. Rhan Harrower, formerly King of Duranike, had been the great champion and general of the Recusant armies.
But it had been the cunning, aged lord in Talsyn who had been the true leader of the Recusants. Reynard had never seemed to care for his feudal allies beyond their use as a dramatic distraction, and Rhan had been a soldier more than a strategist. But Hasur Vyke had coordinated the traitor armies from his mountainous bastions in the north, proving a canny and vicious adversary.
We’d never managed to beat him, only settled into an uneasy stalemate. Talsyn hadn’t had the strength to fight all of the Accord after the war had stalled, but neither had the Accord been willing to engage in a costly siege on the fortified valleys where House Vyke made its abode.
So Talsyn had sat, a brooding threat in the subcontinent’s heartlands, quiet but unbowed. There had been rumors that many noble houses still firmly Recusant had taken refuge in King Hasur’s lands.
And now his children were here, making homages of peace even as the monster they’d helped give flesh still lurked somewhere in the city. Only days after a dark godling of the west had made an attempt on the streets. Had it been a test of the capital’s strength?
I smelled an elaborate conspiracy, and it made my weapon hand itch.
I had warned Umareon.