CHP24

In a flash of light, Sael left, leaving Revik clutching the bloody bundled robes with the deceased infant cold and lifeless in his arms.

In the distance, the falling form of Tuval, Acryan’s body, spiraled from the sky to the earth, crashing to the ground as his grandson watched in open-mouthed horror.

The king, at that time, still lived, clinging to the last vestiges of life after his queen had gone, both of the wasting disease.

“Should we tell the king?” Shythe couldn’t stand to look at the child.

“He’s already disowned her. He’d not want to know.” Revik whispered, bending over the child to brush his fingers over fine black hair and tiny pointed ears.

“We’ll ready a pyre for him and bless him as we would any child.” Shythe turned his head, still refusing to look at the bloody mess, the colorless babe. His bright blue eyes swam with tears, but he wouldn’t shed one.

They stole away to a marble plinth that raised above an amphitheater of space.

Revik blinked as tears spilled over his cheeks, shedding all that Shythe wouldn’t.

“En ren ti ek elt,” Revik whispered as he brushed his fingers over the child once more, charging green fires as hard as he could. Shythe gritted his teeth and waited the few moments it took Revik to slump from loss of fire, exhausted. The child did not stir.

“Come, Revik. Quit sputtering your drunken nonsense,” Shythe said and turned to the plinth as the strangely-spoken man glared daggers at him.

They placed the bundled child atop the plinth and held their mana aloft. Revik’s green fire met Shythe’s blue flames of ice. Children had no mana so young, and their bodies would not burn away over time. They needed to be burned by others. They needed the mana to burn away.

“We remember that which is created is also destroyed,” Shythe said, speaking softly.

Revik did not speak with him, not knowing those ancient words. He knew how to dispose of a body, though, and just as the flame was about to touch the infant’s skin, a shrill cry rang out into the dark of night.

They withdrew their hands sharply, eyes wide and wild.

Revik pulled the child from the bundle, looking at his bloodstained flesh as he cried in shrill protest. Shythe stared down at the babe with mixed horror. He had his tail already, as all seraph children did. It curled about in Revik’s arms as he screamed to the skies, I am alive in the way that only a baby could.

The alarm bells for the kingdom rang, and Zaien ran to them, crying as he announced that Acryan had died.

Revik and Shythe stared at the bawling child in the bloodied blankets.

Princess Niala had died. Her son, their only heir, had lived.

“King Taluk needs to be told.” Shythe sighed and lowered his head.

Revik and Shythe walked fretfully into the castle to bear the messages to the king.

At only one hundred and fifty years old, he had aged well beyond his years. His hands shook weakly as he opened waning gold eyes.

“I hear the bells.” The decrepit man spoke as he lifted himself in the bed.

“We have the child he reincarnated in already,” Shythe said sternly as he carried the babe to the king.

“An Acerraien child,” Taluk said, disappointment in his voice.

Revik bowed his head. “It comes with other much graver news, your majesty.” He tensed as he waited for Shythe to speak.

“It’s a half-bred, sir.” Shythe stood stiffly, resolute as he looked at the bloodstained fabric bearing the crest of Afryth, Sael’s robes.

“Niala,” the king whispered. Tears flooded his guilty eyes.

“She has passed,” Shythe said quietly.

“Who? How?” The king’s eyes went wild. His face transformed into a sudden mask of misery. Despondent, heartbroken. Regret flooded every inch of him.

“Please, calm yourself, King Taluk,” Shythe spoke softly,

“I sent her to the lion’s den. I sent her away. She was safe here, and I let that monster Kael have her,” He breathed.

“It was not Kael that saw her demise.” Shythe metered his words with caution. “The prince brought the child here for protection. He is the last of the Lightwing bloodline and the only true son of Kael Afryth. Niala was murdered by Kael’s queen. Niala did not have the protection of our crown because of you.”

“Was she alone? Did she die alone?” King Torrin cried. His arms stretched out for the bundle.

“One presumes the details will come soon enough. For now, all we know is that prince Sael did all he could.”

Shythe tilted the child into his arms, and he held it with shaken sobs. The king shook his head.

“I disowned her. I thought I could have another child, could do-over, but it didn’t work. I let this happen.” His sobs shook his frail old body, but he somehow managed to hold to the baby.“What is his name?”

“Briel,” Shythe said with reverence.

“And Acryan, he died as well?” King Taluk asked.

Revik confirmed.

“Sael halflighted the baby from her corpse. He offered us anything, peace, his crown, just to revive him.” Revik said with shaken composure. His accent grew thicker when he was upset.

King Taluk clutched the bundle tightly.

“See that he gets a prince’s life. See that my heir is made ready for my crown and keep him from the Acerrai until he is ready. He will be no son of Vrahe. I will decree it, and the council will silence themselves. The day this finally takes me is the day that he becomes king in all but name. He is not an Afryth. He is Lightwing.” The king clutched tighter to the bundle.

“If Kael ever finds out. If Sael finds out. We could have war.” Shythe panicked as scenarios played out in his mind.

“Then keep him a secret until he is ready. Sael is taking the throne soon, and Kael may yet be an ally if we can offer to unite him with his son.” Ever a tactician, the king stared at his grandson, dark of hair, cute and pale in the way all babies were when born. Finally, the spade of his tail came into view, a membrane coating its dark glossy surface. Taluk pulled his fingers over it, brushing away the protective coating of his tail, revealing something quite familiar to him, a pattern of freckled feathers. Where his daughter’s had been white with golden flecks, he was black with pristine white flecks.

Shythe drew his eyes over at it with a frown. “He will be black of wing, like his father.”

“Then maybe that’s what we deserve,” Taluk said as he offered the child back to Shythe. He recoiled from the king’s offering.

“Acryan was your friend, was he not?”

“He was, bu-.” Shythe, pale white, ghostly so, managed to go whiter, still in shock and threat.

“Take him! He is your responsibility now. May all those drunken nights have created a better bond so that you won’t place upon him the hatred.” Taluk laid slowly back to his bed and closed his eyes. “I’ll issue my edict come morning, but for now, I must grieve. Be gone with you, Shythe. I’m sure Esca has words for the child. But Revik, you stay.”

Revik stiffened his posture, and Shythe carried the child to Esca, Sai’s reincarnation, to look upon the child and affirm what Shythe already knew.

Revik took to his knee and bowed before the king, waiting for what his orders would be.