Restoration Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Praise for the acclaimed Rai-Kirah saga by Carol Berg

  “Vivid characters and intricate magic combined with a fascinating world and the sure touch of a Real Writer—luscious work!”—Melanie Rawn

  “A spectacular new voice.... Superbly textured, splendidly characterized, this spellbinding tale provides myriad delights.” —Romantic Times

  “This well-written fantasy grabs the reader by the throat on page one and doesn’t let go.... Wonderful.” —Starburst

  “Both a traditional fantasy and an intriguing character piece.... Superbly entertaining.” —InterzoneMagazine

  “The prince’s redemption, his transformation, and the flowering of mutual esteem between master and slave are at the story’s heart. This is handled superbly.” —Time Out (London)

  “Vivid characters, a tangible atmosphere of doom, and some gallows humor.”—SFX Magazine

  “Wonderful.... Carol Berg hooks the reader with vividly drawn characters.... Her heroes come alive on the page ... and the magic is fresh and full of purpose.” —Lynn Flewelling, author of The Bone Doll’s Twin

  Also by Carol Berg

  Transformation

  Revelation

  ROC

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

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  First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, August 2002

  Copyright @ Carol Berg, 2002

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK-MARCA REGISTRADA

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-15381-9

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  To all true heroes and heroines

  CHAPTER 1

  I was living in the land of demons when I first came to believe that the god-stories of the Ezzarians were true. Being Ezzarian myself, I had heard tales of Verdonne and her son Valdis from the time I was cradled, my faith in their relevance waxing and waning as I progressed along the journey of my life. But by the time I had survived sixteen years of slavery and reclaimed my life. I had discovered undeniable evidence of the gods. I had seen the feadnach—the light of destiny—emblazoned on the soul of an arrogant Derzhi prince, which told me that the heir to the most brutal of empires was destined to transform the world. Beside such a wonder, how could I doubt my growing suspicion that I had some part to play in the story of the Nameless God?

  “You know planting,” said the woman from behind my shoulder. “You’ve a deft hand with seedlings.”

  Wiping the sweat from my brow with the back of a dirty hand, I shifted myself and the basket of rista shoots down the newly tilled row. Though the early spring air was still cool, the morning sun on my back was broiling. “My father worked the fields of Ezzaria,” I said. “He took me with him every day until I started my schooling. It comes back.”

  I picked off the lower leaves of the plant, then scooped out a hole, inserted the tender shoot, and repacked the cool black soil snugly about the feathery roots and stem, winding about them the simple enchantments of steady growth and resistance to disease. Rista seedlings were fragile, but with a little nurturing and a nudge of sorcery, they would provide a harvest far more bounteous and reliable than wheat.

  I was a guest of the woman and her husband, repaying a night’s stay in their quiet green valley by helping with spring planting. For most of my life I had been caught up in the death and violence of a war that could not end. Now that I had done what I could to change the course of that conflict, a quiet morning and a little dirt under my fingernails felt very close to happiness.

  The woman came around to the other side of the double row, set down her own basket, and went to work. Her shining black braid draped gracefully over her shoulder, and her long fingers made quick work of setting the plants. Elinor had a lively intelligence and a wide knowledge of the world, despite the isolation of her current home. But she knew very little of Ezzarians. “So your father was not a warrior as you were, a ... what is it called?”

  “A Warden? No. He had no melydda, thus he had no choice in his profession. Ezzarians without true power must do whatever work is required of them.” Those of us found to have power for sorcery were nurtured and trained and allowed to choose
our own way to fight the demon war. Until one learned new truths and betrayed it all.

  She glanced up at me without pausing her quick fingers. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to bring up painful matters.”

  I sat up to ease the cramp in my right side—one too many knife cuts in those muscles, the last injury deep and unskillfully repaired. After eight months I feared the painful tightness was caused by internal scarring and might never leave me. An unwelcome reality for a warrior—even one who has no intent to raise a sword ever again. “There’s no pain in remembering my father, Mistress Elinor. He was as fine a man as ever lived. Though farming was not the life he would have chosen, he was well content. I learned more of true value from him than from any of my more scholarly mentors.”

  The tall woman sat back on her heels and assessed me as boldly as any queen. Reddened hands and a coarse, worn tunic could not hide her mature beauty. Dark, slightly angled eyes, along with lustrous red-gold skin, were the telltale of her own Ezzarian heritage, though she had grown up far from our rainswept hills and forests. “It’s just that you speak so little of Ezzaria, Seyonne, and I know the love Ezzarians bear for their homeland. I thought perhaps it was uncomfortable for anyone to bring it up now that you’re reviled there.” Elinor was nothing if not direct. Ordinarily I liked that in my friends.

  Of course, to call Elinor a friend was presumptuous. We had spent some hours in one another’s company, talked of the weather and her brother Blaise’s retired outlaw band. But, in truth, we knew nothing of each other save a few superficial facts. She had once been an outlaw herself, a rebel against the Derzhi Empire, but was now settled in this lovely valley, where she and her husband fostered a two-year-old child. I was a sorcerer, a retired warrior of thirty-eight years who had a demon living in my soul.

  “If I were to avoid everything uncomfortable about my situation, I would have very little to talk about,” I said. I moved down the row again and set another plant. Though I enjoyed Elinor’s company a great deal, at that moment I wanted nothing more than to lose myself in sweat and dirt and unthinking labor. Duties were awaiting me, truths to face, some of them terrible and dangerous, some of them more personally painful; but every day I could put them off and absorb such peace as this green valley could provide gave me time to be ready.

  “My brother says you’ll be executed if you return to Ezzaria.”

  “It is no matter. There’s nothing for me there anymore.” I wished she would leave it.

  “But—”

  I smiled at her, trying to apologize for my poor company. “A man cannot become something his people have abhorred and feared for a thousand years and expect them to be swayed instantly into acceptance by his charm and good manners.” Especially when he was having the devil of a time accepting it himself. I dragged the basket closer and carefully pulled apart a tangled clump of roots and moist soil. Abomination, my people called me.

  “I’ve been trying to decide how to thank you. Words seem so impossibly inadequate. You’ve saved my brother’s reason ... and our child’s and our friends’ ... but at such cost to yourself ...”

  My skin began to itch. I felt her eyes searching to see the demon that now lived inside me, not an inborn element of my nature as were the demon aspects of her brother Blaise and the child she fostered, but a separate conscious being with voice and emotions and ideas of his own

  “I have no regrets,” I said. Just worries. Just fears. Just terrifying uncertainty about the future and my place in it.

  Elinor could not know how well she repaid me for my deeds of the previous year. Even as I shifted down the row and fixed my attention on my work, hoping to escape her scrutiny, I heard the faint music of my solace from the far end of the valley—a child’s laughter, giggling, bubbling, making the golden noonday magic. Before very long, footsteps came pounding across the meadow—tiny bare feet on short sturdy legs, followed by the galumphing boots of someone much taller, someone who was holding back just enough to keep up the merry chase.

  “Da!” squealed the little one as he streaked across the fields toward the sod-roofed cottage tucked into the edge of the trees. In the cottage doorway stood a large, square-shouldered man—a bearlike Manganar with brown curly hair and only one leg. He set down a heavy barrel and leaned his crutch against the door frame just in time to catch the boy and rescue him from the tall, dark-haired man giving chase.

  “Have you outwitted your uncle Blaise, Evan-diargh?” said the one-legged man, rumpling the boy’s short dark hair. “Have you played the clever fox to his hound, then?”

  “He has indeed,” said the pursuer, a spare, large-boned man of thirty. He patted the boy’s back. “I’ve never seen a mite could run so fast. Especially after we’d been working hard all morning to catch these few paltry trout.” He pulled a canvas bag off his back. “As it is, I still need to clean them. The boy was falling asleep on the bank, so I thought I’d best get him home.”

  “I’ll wager he’s ready for a bite to eat and a rest,” said the big man, reaching for his crutch.

  “Then I’ll take care of our supper and be back in a bit.” With a quick glance and a nod to my companion and me, the dark-haired man started back across the flowered meadow toward the stream that meandered through the valley.

  The kindly rescuer nudged the boy, who clung to his neck. “Give a wave to your mam, child.” The boy loosed his grip just long enough to waggle a small hand at Elinor. The child’s dark eyes, their blue fire hidden only by distance, sparkled happily over the man’s shoulder. With one arm around the clinging child and the other expertly maneuvering his crutch, the man carried the boy inside the house. A child could have no safer haven than Gordain’s arm.

  I turned back to my work, swallowing the uncomfortable knot of joy and grief, gratitude and loneliness that lodged in my throat whenever I watched Elinor and Gordain and the child that fate had given into their care.

  “Night’s daughter.” The woman was staring at me, her hands fallen limp and lifeless on her knees, the blood drained from her strong and lovely face. “How could I have been so blind? All these months Blaise has brought you here to visit ... to help you heal, he told me. I’ve seen you watching Evan ... devouring him with your eyes. But I never caught the resemblance until now. He’s your son, isn’t he?” Her eyes darted to the shabby cottage. “Why are you here?”

  I shook my head, trying to think of what to say. “Ehnor—”

  “Why would you hide the truth? You and your cursed, wicked, vile Ezzarian ways ... You left him out to die, willing to murder a child because he was born different from you. Because you were afraid of him.” She wrapped her arms about herself and rose slowly to her feet, her eyes on fire. “And now you’ve learned that you were wrong to do it. Are you here to appease your conscience? Do you think to make it up to him that you were willing to let wolves tear him apart? Or did you plan to sneak him away? You’ve never even touched him. How dare you set foot within a league of him?”

  “Mistress Elinor, please—” How could I explain all the reasons I dared not touch him, that it was the most difficult thing I had ever done, and that only her goodness and her husband’s made it possible? “I’ve no intention—You and Gordain—” My blundering inability to respond quickly exhausted her willingness to listen.

  “You’ll never have him. Go away.” She spun on her heel and strode toward the cottage, crushing the newly set plants under her feet.

  I jumped up to follow her and cursed the catch in my side that stopped my breath for a moment, as if Ysanne’s knife were still buried in my flesh. The sun glare dazzled my eyes, making my head throb as I limped across the rista field. Sweat dripped beneath my coarse linen shirt, and clouds began to gather on the horizons of my mind. Creeping darkness ... With growing misgiving, I halted at the fenced corner of the goat pen next the house, not daring to go closer. Gordain stood in the cottage doorway, his face fierce, determined. Pitiful ... as if a mortal human could block my way if I chose to summon power. I gritted
my teeth, banishing these hateful feelings that were not mine, though they seethed inside my head like boiling tar. I forced my tongue to obey my own will, stammering as I searched for the right words. “Forgive my secrecy. I never intended—I could never—”

  But before I could get out the explanation, the storm of rage exploded in my mind, thundering fury that threatened to split my skull. My hands flexed, demanding to grasp Gordain’s thick neck and twist it, to hear him scream and choke until the muscles snapped and the bones cracked. My feet were ready to kick the cripple’s leg out from under him, my hands to snatch the ax on his wall, and my eyes to watch his face pale as I hacked off his remaining limb.

  My hands were shaking as they gripped the fence post, my knees trembling. “Please, get Blaise. Hurry. I’m so sorry ... so sorry ...” Only a moment’s hesitation and a blur of green and brown streaked past me. Shouts faded into the pandemonium of fury and raging death.

  Running feet. Anxious voices. “Get in the house, Linnie. Bar the door! I’ll explain later.”

  Rumbling ... growling ... erupting in a roar of madness ... The fence post dissolved in fire, and a cloud of blackness obscured my sight. I was lost ...

  “... Listen to me, my friend. Hold on to my voice. I’ll not leave you. We’re going to bring you back, Seyonne, and get you away from here safely. I know you don’t want to hurt anyone. Remember who you are: good friend and teacher, guardian of a prince, most honorable of warriors, loving father. This sickness is not you.”

  Determined hands gripped my shoulders, and I wanted to rip them from their puny arms. I bit my lip and tasted blood, and it gave me strength. I would kill him for keeping me captive. Only his voice—this vile bondage of calm words and reason—held me in check. As soon as he stopped speaking, I would strangle him. Snap his neck. Pluck his eyes. Eat his heart.