Wolves of Empire [EPIC DARK FANTASY] [Book One Complete]

Thirteen

Endarion

Dujaro, Tharghest-Kalduran border

9th of Tournus

The formidable walls of the stronghold of Dujaro spanned the harsh slope of the valley it guarded. It straddled the border in the only significant break in the chain of the Sidian Mountains—the range that separated Tharghest and Kalduran. Though the mountains themselves were nowhere near as tall and dominating as the Cloudbreakers that bordered the Imperium, they still made for a forbidding sight.

As the Imperial party traversed the field of rubble spilling away from the mountains' foothills, Endarion thought of the narrowing valley beyond the stronghold, and how arduous it would be to march their entire force through, should war be the result of this negotiation. The valley was narrow enough to force any marching armies into thin columns vulnerable to ambush, though just wide enough for the permittance of lumbering supply trains.

Their delegation arrived at midday, having departed Aukruna an hour after dawn. Khian was present in his first official outing as Warmaster, Nazhira and Dobran on either side trying to play the part of united parents, but ill-suited to the task. Endarion, as Paramount-General, should be directing the negotiations, but he knew he was just a figurehead. He would nod and agree and bow down before whatever ridiculous performance Khian and his parents had rehearsed and know he was helpless to do anything else.

Daria walked at one side, trying to maintain an aura of calm confidence. It was easy to forget she'd never been an active part of a military campaign before. The most she'd seen of a battlefield had been when she and Estrid had fought his captors on Shaeviren, and that had been a brutal skirmish at most. He suddenly understood Iana's anger that night when she'd confronted him with the fears she harboured for their daughter. Daria has that for her future, she'd said, referring to the hate and the violence that saturated his existence. Struck by that, he reached over to her and patted her on the shoulder, reaping a wary smile from her.

Slightly behind them, pacing in their shadows like a loyal bodyguard, was cold-faced Palla Hasund, his cavalry-general. Though more than a decade his junior, Palla wore the stern, unbending countenance of a jaded veteran. She'd tied her blonde hair tight behind her head, sharpening the cutting lines of her cheekbones. Her grey eyes swept across their surroundings with impassive regard.

Despite knowing he needed her present for her worldstriding should a quick escape become necessary, he wished he'd brought Avelyn or Cato with him. Those two would be more of a reassurance, where Palla only inflated his paranoia. He knew it was foolish to mistrust one of his own so deeply, but he knew so little about her, he might as well have had a stranger at his back.

His daughter had hired the woman during his captivity, citing Palla's worldstriding as the chief reason for offering her employment. When he'd returned to the head of his army, he hadn't wanted to undermine Daria's decision to bring Palla on by removing her from the chain of command, so she'd remained cavalry-general these past four years. Had he not been so preoccupied with battling his mental state, he might've found the time to develop a professional friendship with the emotionless woman. But he'd been too busy. Going mad.

Despite her skills and the competency of her command, Palla's well-timed arrival had always struck Endarion as too convenient; Endarion had been absent, and Daria had needed to promptly fill the vacant cavalry-general post. There Palla had been, the perfect candidate.

He shook his head and focused on the impending confrontation.

Dujaro's central hall lay embedded within twisting hallways and long-derelict chambers. Once, the stronghold had served as a trading station between Kalduran and Tharghest. Now, its rooms rang eerily silent as their party paced through, its corners and doorways thick with cobwebs, its stone floors carpeted with dust.

The Imperial party entered the hall. An iron fist of nervousness squeezed Endarion's ribcage at the sight of the group already waiting at the other end. His stomach flipped, his breathing shallowed, he felt sick; Estrid was here.

A table marked the hall's centre, lacking seating and designed to have two opposing sides face each other standing up. Soldiers from both nations had already swept through the stronghold and dragged this table in place, before silently retreating to opposites sides of the border to let their superiors debate in peace. Because to boast an armed escort was to signal distrust, those soldiers wouldn't be summoned again until after the two empires had conversed and war was either declared or discarded.

There were only four faces confronting Endarion, but he knew them all.

Centre stage posed the Baltanos, Aladar Baltakis. Brown-haired and of middling height, he was unimpressive to the point of blandness, with nothing to indicate his aptitude for power. Beside him, his husband Tanas, who guarded himself so well it was impossible to read him. Tanas stood taller than the Baltanos, and was prematurely grey-haired, though Endarion could glean nothing else from him.

Flanking Tanas leaned Kandras Elek Danukos, the general Endarion understood to be in command of Kaldurani Prime, the province's largest army. He'd heard that, before Estrid had distinguished herself in Kalduran, Elek had long been considered Aladar's unofficial heir to the title of Baltanos. He looked too young and scrawny to be so powerful, no older than his mid-thirties.

Endarion dragged his eyes to Aladar's other side, to where Estrid stood.

Four years hadn't changed her, hadn't diminished her as they had him. She had her aasiurmancy to thank for that; it slowed aging, ensured she looked most of a decade younger than her true age. She was still striking, with a sharp face, steely blue eyes, and shoulder-length hair so black it shimmered. Her jaw was noticeably crooked and her nose was bent, injuries dealt when her family had been killed, but which she wore with pride. Hers was a rugged beauty, a cold allure that drew in even as it warned off. A strong pang of longing pierced his gut as he admired her. She didn't look at him as he studied her, though the bunching of her jaw implied she had to forcibly prevent herself from meeting his eyes.

Khian asserted himself with a cleared throat, breaking the tense silence and eliminating the need for forced pleasantries. "I won't waste anyone's time," he said as soon as the Imperial party had straightened at the table on either side of him. "I will ask directly: why did your envoy murder my predecessor?"

Aladar didn't hesitate. "My envoy didn't murder Novissa Boratorren. He was scapegoated. He was, in fact, sent to you with the intent of arranging an end to your campaigns into Kalduran. An alliance, if such a thing was possible. Why would I jeopardise everything I hoped to gain by murdering one insignificant old woman?"

"Ah, but Novissa wasn't an insignificant old woman, was she?" Khian countered. "She was a Boratorren. It's known the families of Boratorren and Tyrannus are rivals. Killing a Boratorren would exacerbate that rivalry." He scanned the opposing line, settling on Estrid. He jutted his chin at her. "That woman would know the intimate details of this rivalry."

Estrid faced the Warmaster with her coldest stare. "I turned my back on your depraved nation for a reason. Why would I collude to once again become involved?"

"For you personally?" Nazhira interjected from her son's side, her voice as frozen as the stare Estrid transferred to her. "Revenge on the homeland you believe wronged you. For the Baltanos and Drasken? To gain power."

The tension between the two sides thickened to smog, charged with the energy that preceded all violence. A pregnant silence descended.

Endarion swallowed a stubborn lump in his throat and prepared to speak. He was, after all, Paramount-General. An empty title, and the catalyst of his eventual downfall, but the opposition didn't know that.

Estrid's voice stole into the silence before he could open his mouth. "If the envoy didn't kill the Warmaster—as we know the case to be—the Imperium has no reason to war with us. Perhaps you should focus your attention on uncovering the true assassin. I suggest looking inwards."

She slid cold eyes over to him, meeting his for the first time. Her gaze contained a maelstrom, though she kept her expression passive. But he knew her too well and could spy the sadness, the loss, the anger, all trapped within her stare. It seemed as if she tried and somewhat failed to look at him not as a lover or a friend, but as an enemy. Her expression softened when she looked across to Daria; there'd been a time when his daughter considered Estrid her mother, and to have them now standing on opposite sides of a potential war made him clench his fists. Estrid's crooked mouth quirked in the briefest smile, and Endarion felt his daughter's shoulders relax.

"We have been informed by an exalted source that the Drasken Empire has designs on our Imperium. That your 'godly' Varkommer and the Baltanos, their lackey, wishes to one day conquer us, to expand the dominion of their ridiculous oligarchy." As he spoke, Khian spared a brief glance for Endarion, making it clear to all present who his 'exalted source' was. "With Elerius's knowledge of the potential for civil strife between our families, all your empire needs to do to weaken us enough to strike is to incite civil war and derail us long enough to sweep over the toppled remains."

Nazhira delivered the death blow, triumphant. "That is why the Baltanos allowed you to save Paramount-General Boratorren on Shaeviren four years ago: to prepare for this conflict." She nodded at him. "Boratorren informed us that you tried to seduce him into defecting with you, to undermine his loyalty to the Imperium. We can add attempted corruption to your long list of crimes."

He felt Estrid's eyes on him, but he couldn't meet them. Instead, he turned on Nazhira, who was already regarding him with one cocked brow. "That is not what I said to you," he seethed.

Of course Nazhira would reveal he'd betrayed Estrid's trust. He knew, after their conversation a few days ago at Aukruna, she'd undermine him somehow. He'd been foolish to share such sensitive information with her, even if he'd thought she tried to paint him as a traitor at the time.

"Not verbatim, perhaps, but that is the spirit of your revelation to me," Nazhira countered.

Endarion swung his gaze to the space between Estrid and Aladar's shoulders, unable to meet the eyes of either. "I did not tell her that Kandras Elerius tried to seduce me," he said. "The word I used was sway." Hardly better in the grand scheme of things, he supposed, but the correction mattered to him. He didn't want Estrid thinking he'd described her as a wanton seductress and him the lovestruck victim.

"It's clear my supposed 'plan' didn't work," Estrid snapped, addressing Nazhira and ignoring him. "Boratorren stands right there with you, in command of the army that will go to war with the people who saved him."

Tanas placed a placating hand on her shoulder. The gesture was so familiar Endarion felt a sudden burst of unbidden jealously.

"In light of what Boratorren told us, the Warmaster's assassination is no longer the sole cause for war," Khian said. "If Drasken has eventual designs on the Imperium, then you are a threat to us. An enemy."

Elek Danukos opened his mouth in outrage. Aladar stilled him with a raised hand. The Baltanos's eyes had emptied, his face deadened. "How many of your exalt-lords and -ladies were even aware of my envoy's presence in Empyria, before he was killed? I sent him with the intent of gaining peace, of putting a stop to your futile campaigns in Kalduran. If either of us is the threat in this situation, it is the Imperium, which continues to attempt an expansion into territory rightfully claimed by Drasken.

"You are certain my man killed your Warmaster," Aladar continued. "Just as you are certain Drasken desires your Imperium. I would ask now what you plan to do, seeing as you are determined for war, regardless of what is said here today."

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Khian delivered his reply without thought. "We will do whatever it takes to eliminate the threat your nation has become." He bowed his head and retreated from the table, though not in surrender. When the opposing side offered no rebuttals, he said, "If that is all for today's session, I have grown weary of your pointless lies. We shall meet again this time tomorrow."

Endarion expected Aladar to challenge the Warmaster. They had, after all, been speaking for less than fifteen minutes, and for Khian to dismiss them all was an affront and showed a blatant lack of respect. It was obvious what he was doing: force the negotiations to drag on into a second day to stall proceedings and frustrate the Kaldurani into mis-stepping. But the Kaldurani said nothing, and Aladar offered only the slightest shrug as he turned away.

Endarion stole a final glance at the Kaldurani as they departed, his eyes falling on Estrid. She met his gaze, the anger gone, and offered him a small, disappointed head shake.

Then she turned her back on him and left.

The tension that had surrounded the gathering in a choking cloud dispersed. For Endarion, a storm cloud of anger replaced it. When they were in the hallway beyond the central hall, he strode towards Nazhira, not quite in control of his actions. He felt that old tyrant within him stir.

"What the fuck was that about?" he snarled. "How dare you use Estrid to foment conflict where none exists? How dare you stride into the Imperium like it's yours to command?" He was seething, practically salivating like a rabid dog. He had everyone's attention, though that only fuelled his rage. "I told you about Estrid asking me to defect to prove my loyalty to the Imperium, not so you could stoke war. This has nothing to do with who did or didn't kill Novissa."

Nazhira raised a hand to her chest, feigning injury. "Those Kaldurani are dangerous. If you can't see the benefit of war, however it comes about, perhaps I was wrong to think you loyal after all."

He knew what game she played, trying to goad him into making an ill-advised comment. She had her husband and son as witnesses, and an accusation from her supported by them would surely end him. So, instead of commenting on the state of his loyalty, he went for the childishly low blow: "Is it spite and bitterness? I revealed the truth of Khian's parentage all those years ago and now you punish me by ruining the entire Imperium?"

Nazhira laughed. "Don't flatter yourself," she said. "This conflict is bigger than your oversized ego."

Beside him, Palla seemed poised for an attack. She hadn't uttered a word the entire day, preferring to play the role of silent sentinel, and Endarion found her far more menacing for it.

Khian took up position in front of his mother, his hands balled into fists and his jaw set in grim determination. He made to lurch forward, to strike Endarion for slandering Nazhira. Before he could, a fist landed squarely in his face and sent him reeling into his mother's arms.

Daria blurred with the momentum of her punch, then took up a defensive stance in front of Endarion. The Warmaster recovered quickly, apparently eager to start a brawl, the blood leaking freely from his nose awarding him a feral aspect.

"We needn't waste our time with these dogs," Nazhira said, laying a hand on her son's shoulder and pulling him back. "They have shown how uncontrolled and dangerous they are."

As aggressive as Khian seemed, Nazhira drew her son away with minimal effort, a macabre smile darkening her face. Dobran, uncharacteristically as silent as Palla, lingered for a moment and Endarion half-hoped his cousin would try to fight him, to regain his son's honour. Instead, the man frowned. "That was probably a bad idea," he murmured, just loud enough for Endarion to hear. Then, before anyone could offer a reply, he turned away and followed his wife and son.

Estrid

"You predictable bastard," Estrid whispered to herself as she scaled the stairs that led to the highest room on the Imperium's side of the stronghold. She'd met no resistance, though she hadn't expected to; it was an hour after midnight, and no one with any sense remained awake, except perhaps the soldiers from both sides camped just beyond the stronghold's walls. That, she supposed, was why she now stalked narrow corridors, and why Endarion was almost certainly still up.

He always chose the highest room available, wherever he went. He liked heights, liked looking down on things, liked being able to survey his surroundings. He also hardly ever slept. Even before Shaeviren, he'd suffered violent nightmares and would sleep in fits and starts, often awaking with a terrified jolt she'd long ago grown accustomed to. After Shaeviren, he hadn't even been able to close his eyes unless someone else was in the room with him.

So she wasn't surprised to find him sitting at a worn desk, bent over a sheath of papers he absently scribbled at. When he heard her enter, he shot to his feet, his hand extended towards her. He clasped a dagger he'd whipped from some hidden pocket and, for a painfully long second, kept it trained at her face.

"Hello, Wolf," she said, keeping her voice steady.

He frowned at her, then grimaced down at the dagger before setting it on the desk. Estrid noticed he didn't relax, though. "Did you come here to kill me?" he said, his rumbling baritone hushed.

"Don't tempt me."

She stepped into the room and closed the door behind her, denying herself the chance to retreat from this confrontation.

She made herself look at him properly, now they were alone.

Four years had changed him. He may have regained some of the muscle that had been starved off on Shaeviren, and adjusted to his crippled leg, but he still seemed diminished somehow, as if a part of him had been permanently removed. Grey stained his temples and flecked his full beard. His face was lined, and the sternness for which he was famed had dissolved into a kind of jaded weariness, as if he struggled to maintain the walls he'd erected around himself. He'd always been attractive in a hard, weathered way, and that hadn't changed now, but little remained of the vital, boisterous man he'd been in his prime. In short, the Iron Wolf was aging, and it pained her to see him like this.

"You got old," she said.

"So did you," he replied. "It just hit me harder."

"You're used to being hit," Estrid said, allowing herself a forced chuckle that calmed her even as it seemed to prompt Endarion to drop his guard.

She noticed he lacked his leg brace, and found her eyes drawn to the injured limb. During the peace talks, she'd been focused on the task of confronting enemies and hadn't spared a thought for the ramifications of Endarion's many severe injuries.

"How is it?" she asked.

"I'll never be free of the pain," he said. "But the brace helps."

"I'm sorry I couldn't get there sooner." Suddenly, the all-too-vivid memory of his rescue resurfaced, floating to the top of her mind like a bloated corpse. A significant part of her hadn't expected to find him alive back then, and she'd mentally prepared herself for the possibility of recovering nothing but his tortured carcass. When she'd located his cell, he still stubbornly clung to life. His captors had ruined him, but they hadn't yet killed him.

She remembered pulling him from the cell herself, his unconscious body too light draped over her shoulders and offering no resistance. She remembered grasping his hand as the camp physician had stitched up the splits on his back where a whip had scoured him to the bone, had cleaned the wound on his thigh inflicted in a botched attempt at castration, had bandaged the raw patches on his arm and chest left by messy flaying. She remembered sitting at his bedside in the weeks that followed and watching helplessly as nightmares consumed him.

What she remembered most of all, however, and what was most prevalent now she stood before him again, were the last words she'd shared with him before she'd departed for Kalduran and he'd returned to the Imperium.

"I still love you."

It wasn't until he raised a heavy eyebrow that she realised she'd voiced the words. He opened his mouth to reply, but she raised a hand to cut him off. A part of her demanded his response, desired it, craved it, even. But the logical part of her knew it would only complicate matters.

"But I hate you so much."

He flinched, wounded. "Estrid, I—."

"—No," she snapped. "You told everyone that I rescued you. Told them of the things I told you. Not only have you assured war, but you've given your Imperium the best chance of conquering us."

"Us?"

"Yes. Us. I am Drasken. Have been for twelve years. You are my enemy now because you betrayed me."

"I had to," Endarion said weakly. Apparently, he couldn't even convince himself.

"I know," she spat. "For your fucking insurrection. It matters more than anything else, doesn't it? I bet it stands even above Daria on your list of priorities."

A low blow, and she knew it. She felt a pang of guilt at bringing Daria into their argument. Daria, who'd been like a daughter to her. Daria, who had looked every inch her father's heir in the hall. Daria, who now stood on the opposite side of this conflict.

"That is unfair," he said.

"Unfair?" she snarled. "Let me tell you about unfair. Unfair is being abandoned by your lover when you are most vulnerable." She flexed her hands to keep from punching something. "I was being attacked from all sides. There were assassins hounding my every step. There were six attempts on my life in half as many weeks. And then Dobran fucking Tyrannus turned his army on mine and tried to eradicate my men just to get to me. And where were you? Standing on the side-lines, doing nothing. All those years together and you couldn't even try to defend me?"

"What would you have had me do?"

"Stand by my side, as I have yours," she said, feeling worn. "Fight for me as I fought for you. Prove to me that those promises about our future meant something."

He leant back against his desk. "They meant everything to me," he said at length. "You meant everything to me. But the Caetoran threatened my daughter. He would have killed Daria, gotten to her when I wasn't there to protect her." He lifted his head to look at her, his face a picture of hopelessness. "But he also promised me he'd do to you what he did to my wife if I interfered. At least, in not intervening, I gave you a fighting chance, because Janus promised he'd let you live if you crossed the border. I knew you'd survive the ordeal and make yourself stronger. And I knew I'd lose you too, but I had to make that choice."

She moved towards him and made to rest a gentle hand on his shoulder but stopped herself. Maybe he spoke the truth and Janus Tyrannus had threatened to have her executed the way he'd executed Aemilia Calerus, Daria's mother. Maybe, in leaving her to her fate, Endarion truly had saved her life. Maybe. It was too late for those maybes to make any difference now, twelve years after she'd abandoned her homeland. Whether because he hadn't thought to or hadn't been able to, Endarion had never before shared his motives behind leaving her to her fate.

"Why did you save my life on Shaeviren? You could have been rid of me," Endarion asked.

"I never wanted to be rid of you. That's the problem with us: I've never been able to move on the way you have."

He shook his head. "I never moved on," he said.

She scoffed. "I don't hold your myriad lovers against you, Wolf, because what you do with whom when we aren't courting isn't my business, but don't fucking insult me."

When he lifted his head to look at her again, the lines marring his face had deepened. "My lovers mean as much to me as I'm sure I mean to them."

She canted her head. "Meaning?"

"Iana, Kesa, Avelyn, even Tali's mother? I gave them children, the power of my name, the dubious benefit of my attention, and they gave me some companionship to chase away the desolation of losing you over and over again. I liked them, respected them, even cared for them. But never more than that." His brow bunched harder, making of his face a craggy cliff. Thoughts she couldn't discern assailed him. "Iana came to me shortly before I left. Valerian thought it was so that I could bed her, but she was only there for my signature on the contract of our business deal. The mother of one of my children, a woman I once cared for greatly, and do you know what she called me?" He didn't wait for her to guess. "An emotionless, loveless killer. Not wholly inaccurate, but that's coming from someone who should know me well. And you believe I stand a chance of ever moving on from you? You, the only one who ever truly saw beyond the nonsense reputation of the Iron Wolf? You, the one who watched me descend into madness and wasn't galled by it? You, who understands the violence of our livelihoods and how it has shaped me?"

When he met her gaze again, a faint echo of his former self illuminated his face. "You were the first and last, Estrid. I deserve your blade in my chest for how I squandered that, but it is the truth. I should have ignored the Caetoran and stood with you, fought with you, gone down in flames with you if that's what it took. I should have come with you four years ago when you asked."

Her heart wrenched at the admission. She'd understood his reasons for declining, even if she wished that he'd act in his own interests for once rather than allowing his loyalty to his family name to dictate him. She also understood that he'd protected himself in revealing her part in his rescue; Nazhira had almost certainly been trying to trap him into admitting to one treason or another when he'd betrayed her.

But the fact remained: he had betrayed her. This man she'd once loved, once wanted children with, once believed she'd marry. This man who could never truly be hers.

Without thinking, she stepped closer, took his head in her hands, and drew him into a kiss that started out harsh, almost violent, as if she could channel her anger through it. They could never be together, not now, but she could pretend, for just this moment, that it was possible.

He didn't resist, instead cradling the back of her head with one calloused hand and returning her bluntness with a soft, delicate passion she hadn't known he was still capable of. It set her aflame, softening every muscle and blurring her mind until nothing remained but the warmth and feel and pressure of his hand on her head and his lips against hers, his tongue flicking out against her teeth. The proximity of his body, his towering presence, the endless possibilities of a few snatched hours spent here in this room with no one any the wiser as they strove in vain to recreate a fleeting version of what they'd once shared.

That was why she pulled roughly away. She pressed her fist against his chest as if she meant to slam it there, but couldn't bring herself to. "How is it possible that I want to kill you just as much as I want to push you down onto that bed?"

"You should," he murmured, looking down at her. "It would solve many issues for Kalduran."

A rough laugh bubbled in her throat. "Killing you or bedding you?"

His eyes flicked briefly over her shoulder to the bed in question, before returning to her. "The former, as much as I'd prefer the latter."

She inhaled deeply, drawing in the familiar scent of leather and warm stonehound fur that seemed to permeate him. "Would you stop me, if I stabbed you?"

"I don't know," he admitted, his exhale stuttering. His eyes flared, as if threats of murder aroused him. "Maybe we should find out."

His dagger was right there, and she even glanced at it. But she wouldn't wield it against him, couldn't. He surely knew that, even if he seemed to know nothing else.

How was it possible to hate someone so deeply and yet love them so fiercely at the same time?

"I'm sorry," she said, breathless, backing away. "I shouldn't complicate things."

"Estrid," he whispered.

"You've betrayed me too many times," she said, raising her voice, anger whetting her tone. "I never wanted it to end this way."

He was too stunned to say anything more as she slipped out of the room and shrouded herself in the shadows of the corridor beyond.