Son of Khyber_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [63]
“How would I know you?” she asked.
“It’s nothing. You just remind me of someone I knew a long time ago.” He shook his head. “Foolish, I know. You weren’t even born when I died for the first time.”
Thorn raised an eyebrow. “So you’re serious about that? You’re telling me that you actually fought in the
War of the Mark?”
They’d reached Daine’s quarters, and he turned to face her. “I know it’s an unbelievable story. Yet it’s true. There is work to be done in this age that only I can do. And so my soul was caught between life and death, until enough time had passed and a proper vessel could be prepared.”
“Vessel? So this—”
“This is not the body I was born in,” Daine said. He sat down on the hard stone bed and ran his fingers along the bare skin of his left arm. The sense of sorrow was stronger than before.
“What happened?”
“Back before I died, back when my mark first burned its way across my body, I was thrown into another world, a place of magic and wonders. I battled strange beasts and overcame treacherous spirits and finally made my way to the palace of the Queen of Dusk herself.”
Aureon’s Word, she thought. Aberrant marks had always been said to cause madness, and he possessed an exceptionally large mark.
Daine shook his head ruefully, and for a moment Thorn thought that he’d heard her thoughts. “I know what you’re thinking. Soldier from the past, marked by destiny, champion of the feywild … how can it be anything but madness? And yet, this is the nature of our world, Thorn. Great powers are all around us. The balance of the thirteen planes and the gateways waiting to open. The Sovereigns watching from on high, if they truly exist. Dragons and demons fighting wars measured in millennia. Just look at your own life.”
“What about it?” Thorn said. “I serve Breland.”
He smiled, his dragonmarked eye gleaming. “So there are no mysteries in your life, then?”
Well … except for strange bursts of strength, sucking out a man’s life, and the fact that I can see in the dark—and that someone in the Citadel might know more about it than they’ve revealed? No. But Thorn kept her thoughts to herself, speaking calmly. “We were talking about you.”
“So we were. I’d been drawn into another plane of existence. The Queen promised to show me the way home, in exchange for certain … services. And she told me that whatever happened in my war, I would not die until my work was done. I thought I spent years in that place, but when I returned home, only days had passed. The war was at its height. I worked with my cousin. I met many brave souls. And I saw all too many of them die.”
Thorn nodded. The story still sounded outlandish, but it was clear that he believed it. He was lost in thought, reliving the events of the past.
“I was here, in the old city of Sharaat, when my cousin broke the earth and brought the towers crashing down. My body was crushed within the rubble. And yet I did not die. Instead I found myself bound within the dreams of dragons, trapped within their fears and desires. It was all I could do to hold on to my sanity and sense of self. Time had no meaning. And then this man”—he tapped his chest—“this man came before the dragons. ‘The way is prepared,’ they told me. ‘Take this gift, and walk the world once more.’ There was a battle, and then I awoke. You can’t imagine what that was like, returning to reality after centuries of alien dreams. But my freedom came with a price. The soul born in this body was left behind. My freedom damned him to my prison.”
He’d killed the Cannith child without hesitation, but Thorn could hear remorse in his voice now. She sat down beside him. “Do you know who he was?”
He laughed ruefully. “A man named Daine, of all things. A scion of House Deneith, carrying my sword and bearing an aberrant mark.”
“That’s quite