Majestic and grand; the mountains continued to fall behind them. Cool winds smelling of the sea remained faint yet existent as they began their third day through the Rhiyan lands. In all his years kept within his cell, Narvakhan had lost his concept of time, but it was only now he realized he too lost touch with the seasons themselves. Brisk winds could mean fall or spring, he was unable to tell. From his youth he remembered flowered trees, unlike the lush needle filled trees they passed through. He found himself admiring the towering giants that still allowed the warmth of the sun to permeate their mass. Following from tree to tree, his eyes locked onto the one known as Khelidra.
Narvakhan knew she was older, yet couldn’t help being entranced by her vastly different appearance. Since the first night of their escape, she changed from the grayish priest robes into an elegant tapestry of fabrics, hiding the layered armor beneath. To his pleasant surprise, her entire ensemble followed gentle womanly curves. Yet it was the slightly different skin tone, high cheek bones and the slightly slanted eyes that he often found himself staring at. Unlike the other woman, her hair was not only jet black and long, but was amazingly straight with intermingled metal loops tied within it.
Khelidra’s walk and posture told him everything he needed to know. Beside the hidden sword he knew traced her left leg, she held daggers in various places as well. While he had never heard of a warrior woman, he knew he was the company of one now. What Narvakhan still failed to understand, was the strange ceremonies she completed each day. Always in private yet not in silence; the words were alien to him. He, as a man, was forced to admire her in more ways than he could explain.
Nohric was everything he knew of a soldier and terribly familiar to him both in posture and manners. Armed heavily from head to toe, he offered no excuse, nor turned from any task. Much to Narvakhan’s surprise, shortly after they left Hnarn, Nohric handed him the hammer slung to his back. No explanation, it was simply given without word or ceremony. Everything else about Nohric was what it appeared. Each night he brought them food, always serving Narvakhan first. Never rude or abrupt, Nohric completed such duties at every stop without prompting, word or assistance. Narvakhan did notice all three often communicated with their hand and gestures. While he didn’t notice it in the others, Nohric always did such in front of him and seemed to exaggerate the motions. Several times, Narvakhan had noticed Nohric looking at him while he did it instead of Khelidra or Ovijah.
Ovijah left him conflicted in almost every way. While he recognized the beauty of her face and the well developed womanly body, there was no desire. But where one would find desire, he felt some connection he couldn’t understand. All of this was outside the power he felt in the air when she barely moved, let alone the few times they found themselves talking their way through Rhiyan troops in patrol.
Each time she used her ‘will’, Narvakhan was awash with raw emotions and almost choked on the forced the woman kept in control. In counter, it was all extremely familiar. He found he could mimic her actions, almost as if he added his own will to hers. While Narvakhan had no idea if she could sense him the same way, he knew everything she felt. With some trial and error, he was sure he could even anticipate her moves to the point of reading her mind as she worked.
“STOP IT!” Ovijah suddenly yelled out and spun to face him. “My thoughts and my mind are not for you to simply take a stroll through. Do you understand me?”
Fire danced in her eyes and he could feel her will compressing the air in natural defense. While Narvakhan could hear her words, he could not stop the sheer wonderment of what he had discovered. He pushed back hard, carelessly shoving her defenses aside, unraveling a glimmer of a thought that was suddenly once again hidden from him.
No longer was this a natural defense, she was combating him. Narvakhan never heard her yell more for him to stop. He knew this she was hiding specifically from him. As he continued to assault her thoughts carving through her recent memories as if they were merely a river his hand glided through. Her last scream shattered his concentration. But he was finished; he found what she was hiding.
“Why would you hide this?” Narvakhan ran to her, suddenly pulling her into his arms, holding her close. “Am I so hideous you would turn me away? In all my years of torture and captive, have I no right to see and know what a part of me is?”
Her tears fell heavily as her body shook from sobbing. Ovijah clutched him in response crying harder. “Too much to take in at once after so many years. There are no words I can offer or give.”
Narvakhan struggled with the new knowledge and actions. Part of him could not trust what he was feeling, what he now knew. But deeper and more familiar, he knew how he must act. “But Vi,” he began. The nickname plucked from her mind while he searched earlier. He knew the name gave her comfort. His mother had called her this. “My sister? How long I wondered if I was alone, forgotten and gone from the world.”
“I am so sorry Narva.” She stepped back just enough to look at his face. Taking his hands in hers she cried and simply looked at him. “So many years we have looked for you. Your Father never knew where they took you. When he left our Mother behind, she had to take a new life. While he is an outcast in his kingdom, she is treated well. I am a part of her new life. For three years I have looked for you. From the moment I knew you existed still.”
Narvakhan dropped to one knee to look directly into his sister, also giving support to the sudden weight he felt upon his shoulders. “That is why I feel your power each time. It’s the same in us.”
“Yes, you amplify mine.” She nodded as she spoke. “I can’t seem to do the same for yours, it’s so raw and unrefined, but it screams its existence. It is far more powerful than what I was trained to handle.”
She stopped and looked at Nohric giving him a nod as a slight smile passed between them.
Nohric calmly lifted his hands and placed them on both Ovijah and Narvakhan. “This is a good place to rest my nephew and liege. It would likely be best if we explain everything to you. I had wanted to wait until we made it deeper into Dorgan’s realm, but it is obvious this will no longer wait.” He bowed deeply and waited.
Narvakhan lost track of the time as they told him everything he had missed in his fourteen years. As more and more became known, he found less and less words to share. Everything was surreal and put fear into every fiber in his being.
Delvakhan; his father, originally united the lands under a single banner against the Rhiyan people and their attempt to control both those with the power of ‘will’ as well as the trade throughout the lands with an exorbitant tithe amount to the church. It was short lived alliance for the second generation king; as the money promised to the other royal families never surfaced. It was unknown which family sold the royal son’s to the Rhiyans, but it was generally agreed it was done to pay part of Delvakhan’s debt. Narvakhan and his older brother Kelvakhan were assumed to be dead. Originally as their Mother fled Windra, Kelvakhan had found and stayed with her. After only a few years, he too disappeared to find his younger brother. Some say he was found and hung for the debt of their Father. But that was like all the other rumors about the final events of the royal lineage.
Much was dispelled recently as Delvakhan was found traveling the wild lands beyond Dragonspine, running from his debt and attempting to pay it by freeing those with the ‘will’ from the Rhiyan Ministry; with a fee of course.
Khelidra was originally one of those he had found with the will that was fleeing from the Ministry. As the Princess of the Rakshar nation, there was a tremendous payment made on her behalf and she was release almost immediately. Many thought such paid Delvakhan’s debt in full. True or not this unfortunately caused her Mother to retreat deep within the Rakshar nation; keeping as much distance from the Rhiyans as possible. Only recently had Khelidra returned to work more on her studies. It was at the Temple of the Timewalker she met Ovijah and decided to help her find her brother.
Much to his additional surprise, Narvakhan learned he had yet another brother, a younger one. Viktrakhan was his brother born to his father’s newest wife. This child Delvakhan kept from the Southern Realm and the small home kingdom of this wife after he had left the mother in yet another search. However, it didn’t change one very basic fact of the Southern Realms and the source of its anger.
Through all the payments made by freeing the children of various powerful families, there was still a political debt to be paid. Delvakhan through all his actions was still the King of the Southern Territories. A crown created during the first unity of the territories. To satisfy his political debt, Delvakhan abdicated his thrown to his eldest son, Kelvakhan. As a child king, Kelvakhan never actually took power and thus the throne was relieved of the debt, on paper. In practicality the strength of the crown, already tarnished, fell to the level as title only as both of his heirs were considered dead or captured. In this consideration, each family created their own barony and paid a tribute to the Ministry to keep the Rhiyan forces from encroaching on their lands. Originally there were dozens of families, but through brief and local battles the Southern lands were split into five families, with only the far south remaining loyal to whomever was the King of the Southern Territories. Through various agreements and pacts, the far south was sealed from the Rhiyans in the north, waiting.
Nohric was in fact his great Uncle and from before the unity, a great general of the people. He remained loyal to the King and his family, serving as the royal man-at-arms and personal guard to the king. In the absence of a king, his sole charge was to find the King of the South. Nohric kept the official royal records, as his father did. As the confirming source, he published Narvakhan was the heir of the crown and the King of the Southern Territories, or King of the South as Nohric liked to call it. All the ceremonies of the royal court were kept through and in him.
They sat in silence once the explanations were done, each of them waiting for Narvakhan to speak. He could feel it. His mind raced, not for understanding of history but rather for understanding of the direction he would take. Deep in him, anger, fear and emotion overload swelled and passed. At eighteen, if he kept his time properly, he was suddenly a king. Those before him not only loyal and devout, but looking for his guidance. He wanted to speak royal, regal and defined, yet no words flowed. Nothing even wanted to come forth. Still they sat in silence waiting for him
Closing his eyes for a moment, calming all around him, silencing his mind as he learned during his torturing, Narvakhan said the only thing he knew, the only thing he could say; his truth. As the moon rose and began to retreat he told them everything he could remember. Of Ahryn and his daily tortures, even those actions he himself found shame in. For the first time in his life, he cried of his experiences and didn’t care what they felt. Held just under the surface of his mind, everything exploded in his words, reopening the wounds and scars he left bleeding in his memories. Everything of what he was poured out in his words. As the hardest moments were shared, the strong supportive hand of his Uncle would clasp his shoulder as his eyes tried to hide the horror of the things her heard. Ovijah held onto his hands and lowered her head to hide her tears. Khelidra simply locked her eyes onto Narvakhan’s listening without wavering to every detail.
As he continued, Narvakhan saw the tears, heard the gasps and watched them shiver. Then as he saw their faces, Narvakhan, King of the South understood why he had done such a thing. He was giving them his trust. The first trust of his life, wild, blind and without restriction passed from ruler to those to be ruled. With this knowledge they would either give their lives for them, or he would lose his. Either found equal serenity in his thoughts.
Finally his history was finished and silence returned. Saying nothing more, Narvakhan found his pack and slept in peace for the first time in many many years. Life to be lived or taken, no longer mattered. Others now knew he lived and what he lived through. Tomorrow this knowledge would be locked and buried in their minds and he would simply be their kin and King. Tomorrow, he would continue to take his own life down the path he started.
****
In surprise, Narvakhan awoke to find the sun had not yet risen. He was unsure of the amount of sleep he actually completed, but he was wide awake and alive. Never had he found such refreshment from rising in a new day. In absolute wonderful shock, he watched the sun rise spraying vibrant colors dancing from one end to the other of the morning sky. Life itself seemed to wake, announcing a new day. From the birds both singing and flying too and fro, Narvakhan realized it couldn’t be fall. The young king was witnessing his first spring. Just beyond his vision the strands of life danced around him and welcomed them into the world. Touching the earth he could feel all the vibrations, songs and language as it coursed through currents others could not see. Close to him he could see the life essences flow in them and around them as they slept. There was calmness in the vibrations and strands.
Returning his full view to the physical, Narvakhan watched the sun finish breaking through the darkness of the night. As it rose strong and proud, Narvakhan packed up his roll and sat calmly waiting for the others to awake. In no surprise, Ovijah awoke almost immediately after he sat down. With a smile, she walked over to him, bid him good morning and kissed him on the cheek. Wasting no time she roused Khelidra and Nohric. All three quickly packed their rolls.
“We will visit each family, state our cause and purpose.” Narvakhan announced.
“What is our cause my Lord?” Nohric questioned. “I have taken a hefty amount from the royal coffers to pay our way through anything we should come across. I need only your direction.”
It was exactly what Narvakhan had assumed in hearing Nohric recount his duties the night before. “We must build their trust, yet not lessen our authority. We have to heal what was wounded or all the suffering all have experienced will be wasted. One thing I have learned is power is not simply given; it must be demanded, and then found worthy. Authority is just another form of power, so we will follow the same logic. We will be doing both. If we visit these barons as beggars, weak or wounded, we will be treated as common poor or needy. This will make any effort moot; therefore our first step will be to obtain the supplies to have a proper camp and caravan. That will get us beyond any silliness of station or possession.”
“We will not give personal audience, but rather speak to all the people at once, this will be our demand. From this, I will sequester a company of men from each of them. These companies will become our force as we establish our home.” Narvakhan waited for their responses.
“Lord Narvakhan,” Khelidra began. “Where is home? Will you return to Windra?”
“No an island detached from the rest of the Southern Territories creates a distance we don’t need. I saw once a city north East of Hnor and north of Crow’s pass.” He explained.
“I know the place you are talking about; Marva. I visited it as a girl with my mother. I believe its almost all rubble now.” Khelidra stated. “Rubble isn’t much of a city and certainly not one that fits the regality of a royal court.”
“We will rebuild it and use it as a beacon.” Narvakhan quickly answered.
“My Lord, Marva will put us very near the Rhiyan boarder.” Nohric added with shock. “Not to mention it was your father that originally sequestered funds to build that city. Any reference to your father can be seen as homage and will stir rather ill feelings from the people.”
“I have paid those debts in full. Any that wish to say otherwise will find an anger that will not be denied. Someone, regardless of the reason betrayed my father and I paid the price, as did my brother.” Deep frowns pierced his forehead and he glared at Nohric. “I plan on making that very clear with any we respond to in challenge.”
Nohric nodded in response. “Yet that still leaves us very close to the Rhiyan boarder. Our cover and protection from their forces will be limited. Though after what I saw in Hnarn, I shouldn’t be worried?”
Narvakhan now smiled as he spoke. “That is exactly my intention. We cannot ask a people to do what we are not willing to do. Additionally, we will need to fight the Rhiyan forces soon. If they are able to reach us, they will not cause the others in the realm to suffer, just to get to us. It’s the only way to keep our homes safe.”
“They will pull as many legions necessary to simply march over us. I do not believe we can withstand such an assault. Nor do I believe the people can handle such a defeat.” Nohric added, dropping his head as he spoke.
“How impossible is it, a King is capture for fourteen years and still has a people loyal to him, though they have never seen him? In your actions you have defied such a thought, yet now you doubt it. Or do you simply trust yourself and doubt me?”
“No, he always doubts, don’t ya Uncle Ric?” Ovijah chided.
Nohric stood in silence, refusing to look at Ovijah. After just a moment, he looked up and nodded to his King. Narvakhan walked to him, took him bay the arm and embraced him. Carefully his whispered into his ear; “Thank you”.
“So what say you Khelidra, you have remained silent through this.” Narvakhan questioned.
“By the Light you were found. By the Light you were freed. By the Light I follow. That Light has chosen you and so I shall stand at your side; to protect you, to love you and to keep you, where you go, I follow.”
“Then it is time I introduced myself to the Baron of Darga.”
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