Age of Myth (The Legends of the First Empire #1)

“So you have no confidence in Petragar?” the fane asked.

Gryndal looked at Lothian as if he’d made a bad joke. “Nyphron is dangerous, my fane, and one of your best warriors. I think you would be wise to send a Miralyith. The Instarya revere Nyphron and his Galantians. The longer they avoid judgment, the greater the risk becomes they could fuel a rebellion, as we saw with Zephyron.”

“But that wasn’t a rebellion,” Arion said. “Zephyron followed the law and acquired permission from the Aquila to blow the Horn of Gylindora and challenge for the throne.”

“It was legal,” Lothian told her. “But it revealed a mindset, a propensity for dissent against the rule of the Miralyith, that I don’t appreciate.”

“I’ll go!” Mawyndul? announced, eyes shifting between his father and Gryndal. “I’ll bring this Nyphron back on a leash.”

“The frontier is no place for a child,” Lothian declared.

“I’m not a child.”

This united them all in a smile, all except Mawyndul?.

“Actually, this is why I invited you to this meeting, Arion. I think you should be sent to subdue this Artless rebel,” Gryndal said.

Arion was stunned and not at all pleased. “I have responsibilities here. I need to continue Mawyndul?’s lessons. He’s woefully behind.”

“I can fill in for you,” Gryndal said.

The delight on Mawyndul?’s face was unmistakable.

“Besides, as tutor to the next fane, wouldn’t you agree that crossing the Nidwalden and seeing the greater world would enhance your ability to educate the prince?”

A good argument. Too good.

She didn’t have a response.

“It shouldn’t take long,” Gryndal assured, most likely to preempt any objection. “Certainly not for one such as you.”

“I don’t see how I’m any better suited than any other Miralyith,” Arion said.

“You’re too modest. Were you not handpicked by the great Fenelyus to be Mawyndul?’s tutor? And didn’t she bestow upon you the honorific of Cenzlyor? Surely you possess talents that impressed her. Why else would she choose you over me? Here is your chance to utilize such skills.”

He’s maneuvering me out of the way.

What she didn’t know was how long Gryndal had been planning the move. The comment about Fenelyus choosing her over him was troubling. He hadn’t shown any interest in teaching the prince, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been harboring resentment. Arion had the nagging sense that she ought to resist the invitation, but Lothian was nodding with a smile in her direction. The decision had been made already, and her opinion no longer mattered.





CHAPTER TWELVE


Gods Among Us




Although I still see the days of my youth as warm and sunny, I realize now that before the gods came, life on the dahl was a monotonous routine of drudgery. Afterward, nothing was the same.

—THE BOOK OF BRIN





“What are they doing now?” Moya asked Brin, who peered through the open door of the roundhouse. “Where are they?”

“Haven’t moved. Still in front of the lodge steps. They’re setting up a little camp, laying out beds for the night. I only count eight, though. One’s missing.”

They were all in Roan’s home. Although no smaller than Sarah’s roundhouse, it felt cramped, stuffed with all manner of things including: piles of antlers, string, branches, stones, boxes, tusks, bones, sticks, reeds, plants, and an abandoned beehive. Since returning, Persephone no longer felt comfortable imposing on Sarah’s hospitality. Her husband, Delwin, had appeared less than enthusiastic at the prospect of their one guest turning into five. It certainly didn’t help that one was a Dureyan, another a wolf, the third a mystic, the fourth an ex-slave from Alon Rhist, and that Persephone had been accused of murder. In contrast, Roan and Moya were delighted to have them. Roan even rushed out and enlisted Padera’s help to fix their meal. Roan hadn’t entertained before and was clueless about what to do. She wanted everything to be perfect.

“The missing one is probably up on the wall somewhere,” Malcolm said. “The Instarya are a militant group and always post a sentry.”

“The gods are making beds?” Moya asked.

“Yes,” Brin said, acting as everyone’s eyes and ears. “One’s setting up a fire. Two others are sharpening weapons.”

“So gods sleep?” Moya asked no one in particular.

“They aren’t gods,” Malcolm said. “Actually, they’re not much different from us. Some think the Fhrey, Dherg, and Rhunes are all related.”

“Like from the same clan?” Persephone asked.

“Originally, yes.”

Raithe, who was sitting on the floor beside Malcolm, Suri, Minna, and a goat’s skull, offered a sour chuckle. “We’re nothing alike.”

Malcolm smirked. “You’re worldlier than I thought. Met a number of each, have you?”

Raithe replied with a scowl and shifted the goat’s skull to clear a few more inches of room.

“I have,” Persephone said. “And although being from the same clan does seem to be a bit of a stretch, I can see the point. There are a lot of similarities.”

She sat in one of the net swings that dangled from the roundhouse’s main support beam. Hanging chairs, Roan called them. Roan had a habit of making unusual things, and her home, in addition to resembling an overstuffed squirrel’s nest, was a showcase of oddities.

The house had been built by Iver the Carver, who had been a part-time peddler. As a result, the place was always filled with a scattered assortment of trinkets. Having been Iver’s slave since birth, Roan had grown up as one more bit of scrap. Iver had died the previous winter, and Roan was still trying to figure out life as a free woman. Moya had moved in with her a few weeks after Iver’s death. Given Moya’s outgoing nature, everyone expected her to be a positive influence on the shy ex-slave, and Roan did seem a little better. But the improvement hadn’t extended to the house. Neither Roan nor Moya, it turned out, could be called tidy. The only thing not in abundance was floor space.

“How are we similar?” Raithe asked.

Persephone shrugged. “Well, we all sleep. I wouldn’t think a god would have a need for that.”

“So do rabbits.”

“Yeah, but rabbits don’t wear clothes, have language, or use tools.”

Moya nodded in agreement. She, too, was in a hanging chair and was using both hands to sip tea from one of Gifford’s beautifully crafted ceramic cups. His creations were delicate, perfect works of art that everyone treated with care. “What about Konniger, Brin? Any movement from the lodge?”

“Both doors still closed,” the girl replied with professional brevity.

“I’m going to have to go up there,” Persephone declared.

“Why?” Moya and Raithe said together, each with the same shocked tone.

“I have to tell Konniger what’s going on. He’s the chieftain and needs to know. Can’t imagine what he’s thinking with nine Fhrey on his doorstep.”

“Seven,” Brin corrected. “Seven Fhrey, one giant, and…I can’t tell what the other one is.”

“What is that ninth one?” Raithe asked Malcolm. “Do you know?”

“Goblin,” Padera said. The old farmer’s wife was deftly working the glowing coal bed in the fire pit. She was boiling water in a suspended skin sack and showing Roan how to bake bread wrapped in soaked leaves.

“Goblin?” Moya leaned over, dangling precariously in her swing and trying to look out the door Brin was holding open. “How can you see anything with those old, tired peepers of yours?”

Persephone had wondered the same thing. The old woman’s squinting eyes were so lost in the folds, creases, and wrinkles of her mushed-melon face that they all but vanished. When Padera spoke, one—and only one—would pop open with a powerful glare while the other squeezed tight as if she were taking aim.

At that moment, the old woman had her sight on Moya. “These old eyes can still thread a needle faster than you can explain why you’re hanging there and dangling your breasts in front of two men.”