Blood Betrayal Read online

  Titles by Martin V. Parece II:

  Blood and Steel (The Cor Chronicles, Vol. I)

  Fire and Steel (The Cor Chronicles, Vol. II)

  Darkness and Steel (The Cor Chronicles, Vol. III)

  Gods and Steel (The Cor Chronicles, Vol. IV)

  Blood Betrayal (The Cor Chronicles, Vol. V)

  Blood Loss (The Chronicle of Rael)

  Copyright 2018

  Parece Publishing, Martin V. Parece II

  Cover Art by

  Martin V. Parece II

  Hana K. Parece

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be printed, scanned, reproduced or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.

  To the people of Rumedia, especially Cor and Thyss, whose lives unfold before my very eyes. May they find peace.

  Prelude

  Cor

  Cor retrieved the scroll from the corner of his small square office. As he picked it up, he shook the dust from it, watching gray specks float to the floor as they glinted in the afternoon sunlight that shined warmly through his single window. He had thrown it there over two weeks ago in disgust at his inability to put what he thought and felt down in writing. It seemed he was always on the edge of some thought, some great understanding and then he lost it entirely. He dropped the partially unraveled scroll unceremoniously onto his table, a table which took up most of the room’s available floor space, and then turned to look out the window.

  It was a warm day in Byrverus, as the summer months were almost upon the city, but not so hot as to make things unbearable. The city, recovering well from the destruction and loss of life from a few years ago, seemed to buzz as the people went about their tasks like busy bees. He could see much of the city from this room in the Crescent, and he couldn’t help thinking the city still hadn’t regained all of the life Nadav had stolen from it. “Would it ever?” he asked aloud, though there was no one around to hear the question.

  Even with such thoughts, this day had seen one of Cor’s better moods in recent days, and he even considered that he may leave the Crescent tonight to attend King Rederick’s table. Thyss had been after him to show his respect to the king more of late, but more for the friendship the two men shared than anything else. As she pushed him that direction, he sometimes wondered what happened to the golden haired sorceress. She was so different now – the woman he met in Losz those eight, nine, ten years ago had little use for such niceties.

  Cor supposed they had all changed, for better or worse.

  As months and then years passed since Bloody Gorge – where the war ended – the Lord Dahken had found himself less drawn to others. He no longer walked Byrverus’ streets to see how the city and people recovered. He no longer visited amongst the soldiers of Aquis who had saved all of the Shining West, if not Rumedia, just as he no longer stood among them telling and listening to stories of the war or Bloody Gorge. He rarely attended Rederick’s Council, allowing Keth to cast both votes on matters that needed such, and he claimed that it was better that way, since Keth was so much more level headed than he anyway.

  Cor hardly ever ventured through the Crescent to seek out, watch or train the younger Dahken either. It seemed so unnecessary to him, for he had Keth and Marya for that. What could he teach them anyway? Keth and Marya taught them how to fight, how to find what powers they had over blood, and Cor no longer needed steel. What he had done at Bloody Gorge proved that fact and that anything could be blood if and when he needed it to be so.

  He looked down at the scroll that he had laid not so elegantly on his heavy desk. On this scroll, he had tried to write words and thoughts such as these, explanations as to why he no longer felt drawn to the people and things around him. A long time ago, a giant spider or a lone Loszian necromancer seemed a threat to the Dahken, and later it was an army of walking corpses. He’d defeated them all and even slain gods. What more could matter? He wanted these thoughts written down so that, in the future, others would understand why Lord Dahken Cor Pelson suddenly faded from the world he helped create. Perhaps such is the task of men like Ja’Na and the Chronicler, he thought as he flicked at the scroll with a lone finger.

  A child’s voice echoed through the halls beyond his door, and Cor smiled at the sound. It was a high pitched scream, but out of happiness or joy rather than fear or pain. Somehow, he knew it wasn’t his son’s voice, nor was it nearby, but the feelings it evoked immediately allowed Cor to dismiss any thoughts of writing on his accursed scroll. He shuttered the only window and left his office, closing and locking the door with a simple brass key before plodding down the hallway. He knew where to find Cor’El.

  About this time every afternoon, the Dahken broke away from any studies or training to do as they pleased until the evening meal. Cor’s son could usually be found among those that were between five and ten years old, though he did not always involve himself in whatever amusements they enjoyed. Often, he would just sit and observe.

  Cor’El was different from other children, even the Dahken, because he knew from birth that he controlled power that others did not. Cor remembered his son exuding heat as a newborn, much like his mother in rain or cold weather, and there was always what he had done at Bloody Gorge. Cor’El had saved his mother with the power of Garod, his rash and arrogant mother, from Loszian magicks that surely should have killed her, and he was barely walking at the time. At seven years of age, did he know how different he really was? Or perhaps it would be better to ask, did he know how powerful he truly could be if he truly willed it?

  Cor prayed not, but to whom he prayed he wasn’t sure. He had no use for the gods anymore, nor had he for a long time.

  Cor reached the end of the hall and found the source of the child’s voice. A stair led down to the ground level of the Crescent as well as an exit, but at this point was a window that looked down onto the street below. Window was not even a fair assessment, as it was shaped like a kite shield turned upside down, and it was large enough to admit a fully grown man, so long as hunched his back and bent his legs. It was from beyond that open portal that Cor heard the sounds of children, stamping feet and shrieking voices intermingled with normal city street sounds.

  About a dozen Dahken children played in the street below, running after each other and using the occasional passerby as an obstacle behind which to hide. It looked to Cor like they were playing “Plague”, a game in which one child has the plague and must touch another child to pass it on and heal him or herself. The newly stricken child would continue to chase the others, though the newly healed child was immune until the next plague victim was selected. It was a game, like many childhood games, that was both endless and, in fact, rather grim if one thought about it for just a moment.

  Cor’El ran with the children below as they all evaded the oldest of those that played, a Dahken boy of Tigolean blood whom Cor thought was named Hun. Hun had been found among the Tigolean nobles two years before, and Naran had convinced the boy’s parents to send him to be with the other Dahken in Byrverus. Not to be separated from their son for long, Naran had to buy the boy’s parents a small but lovely home near the Crescent. Hun had to be ten, Cor thought, and so he was larger and faster than the other children.

  Cor smiled. As a group of the children dispersed suddenly, Hun found himself nearest to Cor’El, and Cor’s son squealed in fearful delight as he narrowly avoided Hun’s grasping fingers. Cor’El ran away and turned hard to the right just in time to avoid running headlong into some random citizen. Hun was not so lucky and barreled into the man, causing him to fall to his ass and curse all of the running children. Cor’El crossed the street and scrambled up and to the top of a large section of rubble left over from Nadav’s destruction.

  Cor’s
eyes narrowed, and his face grew serious for two reasons, the first of which being that his son was so ignorant of any danger in climbing a seven foot pile of rubble. His other concern was just that this particular pile of rubble still existed. It had settled and was mostly packed down, but under the smaller rocks and pebbles was one large piece of granite. Apparently this piece of granite was one of the only things supporting an old thirty foot tall shrine directly behind the rubble. They could not remove it without first removing the shrine, and it was determined that the project could wait. After all, the shrine wasn’t going to fall as long as the granite chunk under the rubble pile stayed put.

  Hun regained his feet and charged over to the bottom of Cor’El’s perch, with the single minded determination of a child and heedless of the fact that there was easier prey. He started up one side, and Cor’El immediately moved to jump down the other. Hun saw this coming, and Cor’El barely made it back to his high point before the older boy’s fingertips touched him. Hun moved to the rubble’s center, so that he could easily move left or right, and placed one foot on its side.

  “I’ve got you now,” he said in a heavy accent, a glint in his eye.

  He slowly started his way up toward Cor’El, and Cor knew that his son would soon be afflicted with the plague. Hun went up the rubble with measured movements, being careful not to take his eyes off of his quarry. One misstep, one moment of not watching and Cor’El might have just been able to slip off to one side. Hun climbed over half way up the side and, with his superior height and reach, was well able to touch Cor’El.

  He took one more step, relishing his victory, and that final step was one too many as some of the pebbles and small stones shifted under his weight. His left foot slid back toward the street and, suddenly off balance, he lunged for Cor’El, but it was in hopes of saving himself from falling rather than passing the plague. His fingers lightly brushed the brownish-gold of Cor’El’s tunic before the boy slid uncontrollably down onto the paving stones in a rain of small rocks and dust. His legs flailed as he went down, and at the bottom he landed his full weight on the left, causing it to bend unnaturally. Hun’s scream pierced the air, this one not so gleeful or joyous, and accompanied with a sound not unlike the snapping of a handful of wet twigs.

  Cor had killed enough men and seen enough to die to know the sound of a bone breaking, and he immediately turned and bounded down the stone steps leading to the ground floor. Once there, he turned the corner and sprinted through the doorway that was guarded yet kept open during most of the day. He crossed the street where the Dahken and several Western children had gathered in a throng. He could see over their heads easily enough, but Hun was hidden from view, lying on the street. As Cor pushed his way gently through the children, he found Hun leaning against the loose pile of rubble, his leg bent and twisted sideways at the knee, and Cor’El knelt down low next to him.

  “I can help you,” Cor’El said to the other boy, who grimaced in pain but, to his credit, did not cry. Cor’El continued in a low, serious tone. “Tell me what you want. I can fix your leg. It will be as if it was never hurt.”

  Cor found himself frozen in place as his son made this offer, and Hun nodded while biting his lower lip, probably to keep from crying out.

  “Or,” Cor’El offered, “I can take all pain from you. The world’s full of pain, and you don’t need to feel it ever again, if you want.”

  Cor heard the words, as they all did, and watched as Hun’s face changed. It went from a visage of pain to calm and then confusion. Cor realized that he shared the boy’s confusion. What did Cor’El mean by his words? He shook off the feeling and realized as if struck by lightning that he’d been watching the scene as if in a fog. He moved forward to stand right behind his son, and the older boy’s eyes moved up to the Lord Dahken’s face. Cor placed a hand on his son’s shoulder, and Cor’El turned his head to look up at him.

  “Go to my room, Cor’El,” Cor said, holding out the brass key to his door.

  “But…”

  “Don’t argue with me. Go there, and I’ll be there in a moment.”

  The children, Dahken and Westerner alike, parted as Cor’s son stood glumly and began to move away from the fallen Hun. He passed between them, and they watched him silently, showing no hint of their thoughts. Cor, too, watched his son walk away slowly.

  When the boy reached the doorway leading into the Crescent, he stopped, turned and said, “It’s not my fault.”

  “I know,” Cor replied, “Everything is all right. Just go inside, and I’ll be right there.”

  Once he knew Cor’El had started up the stairs inside, Cor turned back to and knelt beside Hun, who was again grimacing in pain. He looked little different from other Tigolean children with epicanthic folds at the corners of almond shaped eyes and silky black hair, grown long and braided. Of course, the gray skin of the grave, the tell-tale sign of the Dahken, replaced the normally bronze, brown or mostly yellow complexion of a Tigolean. In addition to stifling the pain on some level, Hun’s biting of his lower lip also seemed to suppress a cough.

  “I’m sorry it hurts, Hun,” Cor said, “but you’ll be all right in just a moment. I’m sorry this is going to hurt quite a bit, but it won’t last.”

  Hun nodded and squirmed a bit as Cor’s hands touched his twisted and broken leg. To an ear piercing scream and the revulsion of the other children, Cor firmly and quickly moved Hun’s leg to a straight position. It didn’t need to be perfectly set as a physician might; it only needed to be close enough, and the healing would do the rest. Cor laid his hands on the boy’s knee and leg, and soft warm light emanated from underneath them. Some odd sounds, some pops and a crack, emanated from the knee, but the pain faded from Hun’s face as Garod’s power healed the injury.

  Of course Cor knew he could access the power with or without Garod. It had been bred into him, supposedly.

  Cor stood from his kneeling position and held his open hand out to Hun, who took it gladly and marveled over his completely unbroken leg.

  “Thank you, Lord Dahken,” Hun said.

  “You’re welcome,” he replied, and he turned to the others who looked upon him with new awe. They had all seen Dahken heal themselves when they attack, and even Marya heal others when she herself was wounded, but none had seen the power of Garod work upon a Dahken. “I want you all to go back in the Crescent. I think that’s enough of playing in the street for one day.”

  Cor made his way back into the Crescent and up the stairs as the children filed in behind him, and he found his son right where he expected – sitting in one of the heavy oak chairs that sat on either side of his desk. He looked defiant, his mother’s fire showing in his eyes and on his face. He looked so much like her so often, and he had a willfulness to match. Cor didn’t move to the other side of the desk, but instead leaned up against it as he looked at his son’s golden hair and gray face.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” Cor’El repeated, his face turning to a pleading expression.

  “I know.”

  “He just slipped and fell.”

  “I know,” Cor said, nodding.

  “Then why are you mad at me?” Cor’El asked, his expression turning again, this time to the longing of a child needing answers.

  “I’m not mad at you. Why would you think that?”

  “I was going to help him.”

  Cor shifted uncomfortably and rubbed the fingertips of his right hand back and forth across his forehead for just a moment. He stopped and instead stroked the stubble of his chin for a moment while returning his son’s innocent gaze. “How?”

  “However he wanted me to.”

  “You gave him a choice, I heard. You offered him healing or something else. What were you going to do to make it so that Hun would never feel pain again?” Cor asked, leaning forward slightly.

  “I could’ve made him go away. He’d’ve never hurt again,” Cor’El replied immediately.

  Cor knelt down next to the chair to bring his eyes to his so
n’s level, and he put a hand on the boy’s leg. “You mustn’t say such things to people.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s not right. You must not use what you can do to take from others.”

  “But if he wanted me to, and I can…” Cor’El started, uncomprehendingly.

  “No,” Cor interrupted, “you can’t do things like that, even if Hun had wanted you to, even if you did offer him the choice. You have no right to do such a thing, even if you have the power and even if he asks you to do it.”

  “But, I’ve heard the stories,” Cor’El persists. “I know you’ve done things like that before.”

  “Yes, in war, against an enemy who would destroy everyone and everything. I was protecting the world. Does that make sense?”

  Cor’El looked blankly back at his father, and the emptiness of the gaze unsettled Cor a bit. After a moment, he said, “I think so.”

  “Believe me, and believe it to be true. Don’t worry,” Cor said with a reassuring pat of his son’s leg, “you’re still just a child. It will all make sense in a few years. I had no knowledge of such things when I was seven, and I’m not angry with you at all. All right?”

  “All right.”

  “I love you, son. Now, I think we may have two hours before supper at King Rederick’s table. I wonder if we both shouldn’t bathe before we go.”

  “You’re going?” Cor’El asked with upraised eyebrows.

  It may be bad that my own son is surprised that I’m attending Rederick’s table tonight, Cor thought. “Yes, for a little while at least. Your mother has said I must, for I have been too lax in those regards. Go, and find a bath. I’ll be along shortly.”

  Cor’El slid out of the chair, carefully lowering his feet to the floor, and left the small square room. Cor watched him go until the boy turned to the left to follow the hall that led to their private chambers, and once he was gone, Cor looked back at the scroll that lay on the top of his desk. He stared and wondered as it mocked him.