Strife & Valor: Book II of The Rorke Burningsoul Saga by Regina Watts (red queen ebook .TXT) 📕

me approximately four hours to sleep before the duel—and even that, I could not do without delay. There was a reward there, though. It warmed me to see Erdwud reunite with Lively, who sprang up from the armchair by her private room’s window to see that the person in the doorway was him. Their joyous celebration attracted the innkeeper, who arrived to tell off the people making so much noise…but, on seeing his friend, Sharp simply joined the ruckus. Soon Lively had kissed us all and bowed and thanked us hundreds of times. She and her husband promptly retired, and I and my companions did the same.

After laying the wrapped Scepter across the dresser in the corner, I disrobed. Branwen looked shyly over at me, then at the relic. After a few seconds, she asked, “Are you worried I’m going to do something stupid again?”

I laughed just slightly at that, looking over at her and assuring her as I bent to remove my boots, “If you do anything like you did before, it would only be because of Weltyr’s command…now that we have the Scepter back, Branwen, I have no quarrel with you.”

Satisfied, her hands worrying together, Branwen edged nearer to me and begged to know, “This duel—what are you going to do?”

“I’m not sure. I suppose I’ll see what happens.”

“You can’t just blow off preparing for a fight like this. He could kill you!”

“I’m aware…but I have no choice. I must put my faith in Weltyr.”

“Whatever happens,” she said, grabbing me by the hand and catching my eye before I could resume undressing, “you have to win, Rorke. You can’t die. Seeing you fight that golem for those people, and making peace with the gimlets, and—I love you, Rorke. I’m so sorry I ever betrayed you.”

Her eyes were glassy with tears, I was amazed to realize. Softly tutting, I drew Branwen into my arms and caressed her cheek.

“And I love you,” I told her. “Will you think me selfish if I love you and Valeria both?”

“Of course,” she said with a light laugh, “but I’m very selfish, myself, so it won’t stop me. At any rate…I’m very fond of Valeria lately, too. It’s my pleasure to love her with you…if—if you’ll let me stay with you, Rorke.” Her soft hand tightening in mine, Branwen peered uncertainly into my face. “I’m not sure what your plans are once you give the Scepter back to your Church, but—”

“Only to fetch Valeria’s ring,” I informed her while the door to the room opened. Her eyes widened and I explained, “Before my duel, I intend to speak with Father Fortisto to gain a lead on the ring…then, after my duel and the Scepter’s return, I fear I may be severing ties with the Order.”

Looking astonished to have walked in on such a conversation, Valeria stood in the open doorway and asked me, “How can you say such a thing so easily? You don’t intend to fight it?”

I shook my head, almost frightened to admit aloud that, having divined the sign of my broken sword, I believed it was Weltyr’s will that I be ejected from the Order one way or another. “I won’t have a choice…either I’ll have proved myself unfavored by Weltyr, or I’ll humiliate the Commander by defeating him in battle. No matter what happens, I don’t think they’ll continue with my confirmation.”

After peering at me closely, having experienced the change in me even more acutely than had Branwen, Valeria stepped into the room and shut the door behind her. “What happened while we were in Soot, Rorke?”

“I’m not sure,” I confessed with a shake of my head. “And what I am sure of…I don’t know how to explain.”

Branwen and Valeria exchanged a look. No doubt they worried I was going mad, or had at the very least grown incoherent with lack of sleep. Weltyr knows I certainly felt that way at the time…but that is the humbling truth about those humans who consort with the divine. They are exposed to knowledge that, to most, is so utterly without context it cannot help but seem insane. In fact, if anyone had the least of hope of understanding the magnitude of my experience, it was Valeria—but even she had not met the godhead incarnated in any form of Roserpine’s.

Mere proximity to the memory of my experience brought upon me such a violent trembling, such a wave of fear, that I felt foolish straightaway. I’d experienced enough fear on that journey to humble a man for eternity! Soon, I hoped, it would be the time for me to build myself back up. Had I not sufficiently been destroyed?

Evidently, no—not quite.

That night was the night of the second strange dream, the bulbous hivemind organ of the spirit-thieves pulsing in the water of its storage chamber like the hideous homunculus of a mad alchemist. The flesh of its hateful body quivered in the shimmering darkness, its thoughts vibrating through the human mind that was, during those hours of slumber, empty of everything but the message it sent.

You are truly skilled, Paladin…and beginning to understand what is really happening. It must be strange to find yourself opposed to your own Order; there is much you do not know about it…and yourself.

A flap of skin opened with a noise like a sigh, the pulses of the hivemind permitting water to lap into the hole only occasionally.

Your god delivers scraps of information, then behaves as if he has satisfied your curiosity…you do not even know what a Wotsung is. You still do not know where you came from. You still do not know what it is the Order believes itself to be fighting for.

A slot opened in the side of the chamber. Fresh water flooded in to raise the level of liquid above the flesh-vent. The entire organ gave a pleasurable shudder, the very membranes rooted in the walls quivering to receive the intake of fluid.

Why, continued that hateful voice, he did not even tell you the truth