The Jerikova Wars, Chapter Three **UPDATED**

Chapter Three: Rana

Keep Vengarrn, Zaphyria 1319ҕ

Rana held the fragile, yellowed papers with trembling hands, her lungs shuddering, her chest tightening over them as an icy cold like she’d never felt stole through her body. She couldn’t focus, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. Everything around her seemed to stop as she stared down at the faded black ink in the musty and dusty dimly lit library archives.

The false brick that had hidden these documents from her for seven hundred years lay at her feet; the rickety bookcase, which she’d pushed to the ground only minutes ago, lay in pieces beneath her, the ancient, leather-bound books crushed beneath it. She’d been going through everything in the archives again, even though she’d been through it all hundreds of times before, looking for anything that could help end the Reh-Torr M’orka. Having found nothing, just like every other time she’d searched, she pushed the bookcase over in her anger. Its destruction had led her to the brick in the back wall, which had led her to these papers.

“K- Kaenok!” she cried, stumbling backward out of the archives and into the rest of the library. The white-haired librarian sat at his desk near the fireplace, peeking up at her nervously as she dashed down the marble staircase and through the white pine doors. Something like a panic flooded through Rana as she hiked up her ruby velvet skirts and raced across the Frozen Keep to the High Table Chamber.

With burning, heaving lungs she burst into the room, burnt red and jet black eyes wide and confused. “Kaenok! You must see this!” She held the papers out to him with a shaking arm. Six members of the king’s High Table were there, staring at her in bewilderment. They’d never seen their queen so rattled.

King Kaenok, frozen in place over his map of Zaphyria, finally straightened, looking just as startled as his High Table. “Rana, what is this?” he asked, his deep voice betraying a hint of worry.

“Just look!” Rana answered, indicating the papers once again.

Slowly, so painfully slowly, he moved down the steps that separated the doorway from the High Table. The king seemed to do everything at a tortoise’s pace. Sometimes Rana loved him for it, like when he had killed the traitorous Elders. They hadn’t deserved quick deaths, and they hadn’t gotten them. But other times, like now, she hated him for his slowness.

Kaenok’s crimson cloak spilled out behind him like a sea of blood, bright against his ebony hair that fell to his waist. Most days he kept it tied back in a warrior braid, but today he’d left it loose, held in place only by the heavy golden crown that sat atop his head. His red and black eyes, twins to hers, were intense and focused; not a single line or wrinkle on his face betrayed his age. In his seven hundred and fifty years Kaenok had seen much, just like she had, but neither could have been prepared for something like this.

Finally he reached the bottom step and crossed the floor, reaching out a pale hand and taking the fragile papers from her, his eyes sweeping over them. “This is my family tree…why are you showing me this?”

“Look closer, my love,” she stammered, ice in her veins.

He did, the same shock registering in him when he saw what she’d seen. There, under Kaenok Rikker Dvorak and Rana Valerica Reykjavii, joined by vertical lines, were the names Vyro Asphalion Dvorak and Ekaterina Galatea Reykjavii. According to the date beneath the names they had been twins, born seven hundred and twenty six years ago in 593ђ, the Second Era of Jerikova and just three years after Kaenok had started his reign. Kaenok began trembling. “What- what is the meaning of this?”

“We had children, Kaenok…” Rana said, tears threatening to drip down her cheeks, grief and fury roiling through her bones like a storm.

“But why don’t we remember them? And where are they?” he gasped and looked up at her.

“Because of this: Kaa Fiindigarr,” she replied and shuffled the pages, pulling out another one for him to examine.

His face hardened as he read over the enchantment. “A forgetting spell.”

The entire room was silent, like death; not a one of the High Table members even dared to breathe too loudly. They watched with terrified, anticipatory expressions, probably praying to the gods for mercy from the wrath of their king.

“The Elders made us forget our children, and then confined us within Zaphyria for eternity. They wanted to keep us from searching for them if we ever discovered their existence. As to where they are, I do not yet know, but I intend to find out,” she growled.

“But the Elders have been dead for over seven hundred years!”

Rana nodded sorrowfully. “I know, my love.”

“You mean we have not known about our children since we killed the Elders? Damn you, Asphalion!” Kaenok screamed in outrage, the torches on the walls blazing higher and brighter with the explosion of his rage.

“I'm sure your parents were in on it, too. They're probably the ones who took our children away! Who knows what they did with them?!”Rana spat with venom in her voice.

“If I hadn’t already killed them, I would kill them now! I will raise them from the dead so I can kill them again! I’ll break their bones one at a time, I’ll give them a cut from my dagger for every single day we’ve been without our children, I’ll have them drawn and quartered, I’ll-”

“You will do nothing until we find out what has happened to our children!” she interrupted angrily.

Immediately his red eyes flashed to hers, a fire burning in them, the black slits growing larger with his furor. Thin layers of ice suddenly began crackling across the stone walls and carpeted floor, bringing with them a cold so thick and heavy that Rana’s breath formed clouds in the air. Kaenok’s fists shook, frost and snow emanating from his body in a bout of unbridled magick.

“Leave, now!” the king ordered.

Though he was looking at his queen, the men at the High Table knew the command was meant for them. Without hesitation they leapt to their feet, rushed down the stairs and raced out the door, not once glancing backward. They knew better than to be near the king when he was angry.

“We've been trying to find a way to end our confinement for hundreds of years, but now with this treachery…” Kaenok trailed off, angry. “The Reh-Torr M'orka must be ended at once,” he simply said.

Rana stepped closer. “How are we going to do that? We’ve tried every possible way.”

Kaenok moved toward her, letting his icy hand slide across her cheek as he brushed her pale golden bangs to the side, his fingers trailing down the back of her neck to grasp her long plaited braid as he paused to think. The black skull brooch that fastened his cloak across his broad chest seemed to gleam in the weak grey light that filtered in through the window above their heads. The near daily snowfall and regular blizzards didn’t allow for much sunlight in Zaphyria, and after being confined to the frozen country for so long by the Reh-Torr M’orka, Rana would do anything to get out. The black skull seemed angry today, whereas many other days Rana felt that the ancient Zaphyrian royal sigil laughed at her. But not this day.

Shaking his head, Kaenok confessed to her a dark truth. “Not every way. There is one last option I have not told you about.”

“What?” she reeled backward in shock and betrayal, jerking out of his arms like he was covered in boils, her skin prickling. “How could you keep something like this from me?”

“Because it is dangerous, Rana! I did not want to put you at risk,” he said seriously as he looked down into her eyes.

“Kaenok, we are immortal and we have magick! How would I be at risk?”

“We would have to summon a god, and our magick cannot be used against the gods. Even if we used it only to protect ourselves, their magick is far more powerful, and it can strike us down like worms. We are immortal humans, not immortal gods,” he reminded her, the lines at the corners of his tightly drawn lips betraying his worry.

Kaenok was not afraid of anything, at least not anything she knew of and she’d known him a very long time. His magick was stronger than all of his ancestors’ powers, even Asphalion, who had possessed the purest of magicks gifted directly from Vaichitli herself. If her husband was afraid then she had better be, too. “But I don’t understand… If we summon the god, don’t we have control over them? And why would they want to hurt us?”

“Nothing is ever simple or predictable when working with a god. They may be under our control, but that doesn’t mean they can’t work against us if they wanted to, especially if they have an ulterior motive. Summoning a god would mean we have to constantly be on guard, always expecting to be attacked or undermined or betrayed by everyone around us. And trying to get them to leave after we’ve gotten what we wanted is no easy task, either.”

“Please, Kaenok! Our children could be out there, somewhere! What if they’ve been trying to come home to us and couldn’t because of the Reh-Torr M’orka?” she pleaded, tears filling her eyes, an icy cold stealing down into her bones.

“Rana-”

“You know how much I’ve longed to be able to have children these past seven centuries! You know that we’ve always wondered why you gave me my immortality before we had children. And now we know that you didn’t. You waited until after we’d had two beautiful little babies to give me my immortality, never once imagining they would be stolen from us!”

The king exhaled sharply through his nose, his nostrils flared angrily. “I am upset too, Rana, don’t think I’m not, but we need to be smart about this. First we need to decide which god or goddess to summon, then we need to find a suitable host for them, then we need to be able to entice them not to hurt or kill us and try to convince them to do as we say! When you give a god a host body so he can walk the earth, they can become unpredictable.”

“Are you telling me you’ve never considered which god you would summon? How you would control him?” she asked and crossed her arms, pulling away from him slightly, her step echoing loudly on the stone floor.

“No, I have, but-”

“Then just do it!” she screamed, blood rushing to her face, the nearby windows creaking and groaning against the intensity of her rage.

A quiet, guttural growl escaped Kaenok as he glared down at her. “When all of this is over, remember that it’s what you wanted.”

“When all of this is over, I’ll have what I wanted,” she said flatly. Thoughts of finding her children, being able to leave the frozen country and taste warm skies again, conquer both the known and unknown world, raced through her head in circles until she was dizzy, her heart pounding louder and faster in elation. She’d known Kaenok would make everything right, sometimes he just needed a little nudge. “What do you need for the summoning?”

“It starts with a sacrifice, but this time is different. I must sacrifice someone close to me.” The king turned toward the window for a moment as he deliberated, hands clasped behind his back against his black cloak, brooding brows set low on his face reflected back at him in the glass. Rana held her breath. Shortly she saw his chest rise and fall with a resigned sigh, his eyelids shut, his black lashes dark against his pale face. “Bring me Gorjon.” He didn’t sound happy.

“Gorjon? But he is like a brother to you-”

He whirled around so quickly the torches on the walls extinguished with a sharp crack. “We are immortal, Rana, I will meet many more men who are like brothers to me!” Kaenok’s voice shook the walls like an earth tremor. “If you want to find our children, bring me Gorjon!”

She nodded easily. “It is done.” Then she turned and walked from the High Table Chamber, warmth beginning to worm its way back into her body after the cold and numbness from learning of her missing children. All she had to do was bring Gorjon to her husband and then his death, his sacrifice, would make her world right again. Rana smiled.