Prologue
A pale hand reached up. Long, elegant fingers brushed softly over smooth, milky skin.
Unblemished. Immortal.
He traced the outline of his acutely pointed ear, finger travelling down a high, angular cheekbone until it reached a strong jaw. His glinting blue eyes strayed to rosy-red lips, delicately curved. There was life behind his eyes, despite the deathly pallor of his skin.
I am exquisite, he thought.
He waited for a soft ripple of water to steady his reflection.
Cocking his head to one side, his finger moved back up to follow the lines of his almond-shaped eyes and the long, dark eyebrows that framed them perfectly. All the while his mind grappled with the conundrum that had accompanied him for almost all his life.
A rough hand, a warrior’s palm, smoothed down the silken locks of long blue-black hair. Dark silk hugged the honed muscles of his back, like liquid onyx spilt over white marble.
His eyes moved downwards, past the thick neck and strong chest, the ridges and plains of his body lending him the perfect equilibrium. He was tall, much taller than the rest of his kin, and yet he was not as stocky as his younger brother had been. He was fast, too, his reflexes almost instant, speed akin to that of the northern mountain lions. And Gra’dón had seen them; had stared, in awe of their prowess; had coveted their ruthlessness.
They, too, were predators.
He smiled, first tentatively in satisfaction at the beauty of his own face, and then in pride as his two long incisors emerged, reaching just past his bottom lip. Their pointed tips were lethal, designed for piercing, for tainting elven blood.
Beautiful, said the Deviant side.
Monster, said the Elven side.
Another ripple of water and his image wavered, distorted his jaw, twisted it. But it soon settled—it always did.
His smile widened, lips stretching tight around his teeth, jaw opening wider than any elf should ever be able to manage. It pulled on his features until he was unrecognisable.
But he was an elf.
This body could not be vanquished. No warrior could kill him, for he was harnessed power, pale and lethal, terrifying to look upon because he was grotesque—and he was beautiful.
Beautiful monster. Nim’uán.
His was a species doomed to extinction. He knew this beyond doubt. His half-Elven soul rebelled against his human side, was ashamed of its weakness, but so, too, was he ashamed of his Elven side, for had they not rejected a mother and her children in their direst hour of need? How she had pleaded, explained, begged for them to understand, but all they did was stare back at her, shake their heads and order her away. She had had no choice and left. But she took her children back another day.
Closer.
Beyond the Last Markers.
Yet still, they had been cut off, chased but not caught. Gra’dón closed his eyes and willed the memories away, conjuring instead the brother that was missing.
Xar’dón had been a good warrior, an excellent apprentice, but he had always been rash, too quick to rile. He was too much like his human father. He was fire, had burned too brightly and waged his attack on Tar’eastór before Gra’dón, Saz’nar and Kay’hán had been ready.
Xar’dón had paid the price: killed by some Alpine mage, they said, skewered on a tree branch and hoisted high above the forest.
Left to rot.
Gra’dón turned from the well, the last he would see for some time. His jaw pulsed in barely repressed ire for the terrible fate of his younger brother. It was yet another reason to wage his revenge upon the elves. They had all but killed his mother with their refusal to allow her children passage into the Source. And then they had killed his younger brother.
How dare they? They had a home, a place to go when this life no longer held meaning. All Gra’dón had were his brothers and the dream that perhaps there was a place somewhere, where he could be normal, where he could be accepted and even loved.
His own people had rejected them, feared them and had forced the king’s hand. They were exiled, though they were not forgotten. Their many-times-removed nephew now sat upon the throne of Calrazia, ruled it with a stony fist and a cruel mind, and for that he, too, was respected. The four royal princes of Calrazia could never make a home in the land of their birth, despite their legitimate claims to the throne. Still, the crown had acceded to helping their exiled princes. Calrazia would be rid of its dangerous, immortal lords at last. The Sun King would have the water he so coveted, and in return, he would help them find their own lands to rule over.
Gra’dón and his twin brothers, Saz’nar and Kay’han, would not make the same mistakes as Xar’dón. They were the tacticians, the wiser brothers, more like their mother. They would find such a place for themselves, do it for the memory of their brother, and for her, the mother who had killed herself when her sons began to change—when the rot had set in and she could no longer look upon them.
She was the only elf they would ever love.
It was a beautiful place that Gra’dón had chosen to live, a place of majestic trees and deep valleys, close to the lands of his forefathers in Calrazia. It was a land soaked to the brim with water.
Ea Uaré, the Great Forest Belt. That would be their home, land of the Nim’uán and their lesser kin. Lands they now set out to conquer.
There was the promise of a good life, for they were princes, and princes were destined to rule and, one day, become king.
1
Restoration
“The Battle of Tar’eastór was won. Six warriors and a forest had changed fate that day, before a foe none had ever seen. Nim’uán. Beautiful Monster. But he was vanquished … and so were the trees.”
The Alpine Chronicles: Cor’hidén
To anyone else, the warrior who wielded his blades on the field was perfection. To anyone except a master of the Kal’hamén’Ar.
Fel’annár was very good, but Gor’sadén of Tar’eastór saw the details, the small things that would one day make him excellent. He was capable, more than any other apprentice he had seen, and Gor’sadén had seen many. He could count them, still see their faces, remembered their weapons of choice, and would sometimes even contemplate them upon the battlements. They were all there, forever suspended in the Dance.
All Fel’annár needed now was the guidance of his Kah Master, the wisdom of the Kal’hamén’Ar and its teachings. Then, he would be great, perhaps even the greatest of them all.
But Gor’sadén was crippled.
Be it temporarily or permanently, the Nim’uán had incapacitated him, driven his oversized sword straight through his thigh, severing tendons and muscle. The beast had wrought damage that Master Healer Arané said he had fixed, even though he could not say if Gor’sadén would ever completely recover.
“Patience,” he had said. But Gor’sadén had never been good at that. Whichever way he looked at it, it would surely be years before he could fight as he once had, dance the Kal’hamén’Ar as he once had.
Fel’annár, too, was still recovering from the horrific bite of the Nim’uán, the one that had scarred him for centuries to come. Gor’sadén could see the over-compensation, the slightly higher left side, how his elbow protected the healing ribs. But he was still good enough to take this test and become a Blade Master.