For Lord and Land

For Lord and Land
By: Delilah deSora
Chapter 1

**

. . . to dedicate my life . . .

**

Dark hair, so black it reflected glints of blue, floated aimlessly amidst the playful currents of the warm bath. The water teased the strands and rubbed against the muscled body of its playmate reminding the young man of nothing so much as an aqueous feline looking for a pat. As the water cooled it sank to the bottom of the tub to eventually slip away through the small cracks in the tiles where it would sink back into the earth only to be risen up again as the heat that resided beneath the land and gave Ardae its name excited it back to the surface and through the filters before allowing it to flow back into one of a hundred such baths.

It almost made up for what the man considered unforgivably foreign landscape.

Almost.

The young knight sighed and allowed himself to sink below the surface of the water, enjoying the feel of the currents against his face. With his eyes closed he could imagine it to be a hundred tiny fingers brushing over his skin in passing. Reaching out a large hand he pretended he was fish, trying to catch his tiny captors who always escaped his grasp.

“Dante!”

Dante shot to the surface with a start, staring in shock at the man who glared at him in exasperation.

His brother scowled at him but with no real malice as he stood, pulling lightly on the red jerkin he wore emonedoned with a red dragon, the emblem of the Aidans. “Really, you’re just like a child in the bath. One of these days you’re going to drown yourself by staying under so long.”

Dante flushed slightly at having been caught. “I haven’t been in that long.”

Cian threw his tunic and jerkin at him, making Dante dive to catch them before the cloth touched the water. “Get dressed, fish-of-the-sea. We have a meeting, or did you forget?”

Carefully placing his clothes out of the water’s reach Dante pulled himself out of the warm bath, choosing to ignore his brother’s age old teasing. “I haven’t forgotten.”

His brother’s tanned features softened into a smile and Dante snorted in exasperation as Cian tried to ruffle his hair. “Your first summoning to Lord Errol’s office, I do believe I’m going to burst with pride.”

Dante scowled at his dark haired brother as he dressed. “Stop trying to sound like father. You’re ten years older than me, not twenty.”

Cian eyed him critically as he straightened the red jerkin and dried his hair. “Somebody has to keep you on the straight and narrow. Now come along, Kaemons are never late.”

Dante followed his brother silently through the keep, trying to ignore the oppressively dark halls. Nobody had bothered to try to hide the bare bricks made of red mud and left in the sun to dry until they had hardened into a substance almost comparative to stone with tapestries or curtains as they did in the wealthier homes. Even the floor worn by generations of knights was left bare. It was a testimony to the ideal that the Knights of Aidan walked closest to their god and allowed nothing to come between them.

Personally Dante felt that a few tapestries and wider halls wouldn’t hurt that relationship.

It had been difficult for him when he had been accepted into training and come to this place. While his homeland, Aquilae, officially no longer existed and was recorded in all the annals as being “Southern Ardae” nobody actually referred to it as such. Aquilae and Ardae were as different as two lands could physically be.

Aquilae was a land of water, sand, and brilliant green jungle while Ardae was a land of rock, desert, and fire. Where Aquilae was soft, Ardae was sharp. Even the plant life of Ardae followed this pattern with thin brown vegetation that sported its own brand of spears that Dante had once seen actually ejected from the plant itself into one of his fellow trainees.

He had trained with a senior knight for four years, traveling the length and width of Ardae in preparation for when he too would be a full knight and called upon to do Aidan’s will. He\'d discovered that with every step he took he found himself longing for the shade of the green palms of his homeland and for the constant call of the sea.

He hated the quiet nights when he could hear the very earth underneath him rumble, seeming to him to threaten to split and send fire and death upon them all. He hated the red clay that clung to everything, making all appear to be bathed in blood. And he hated the closed, crowded buildings that the Ardae built for themselves.

Far too often he found himself longing for the wide open rooms of his homeland. He longed for the numerous windows that covered the ceilings that could be open to allow the wind to dance through and the glass walls where colorful fish captured from the sea swam from room to room.

He’d spoken to his brother of his longing and been relived with Cian had admitted that he too missed Aquilae and their home in Wyerllyr. However his brother loved his duty as a knight more. As foreign as Ardae was to the them both it was part of their land and Ardel Aidan was their lord. Cian was willing to give up the land of their youth to be closer to their god and carry out his will and Dante felt that he could do no less than imatate the brother he admired more than anything. Secretly, Dante admitted, he too loved the idea of being so close to such a powerful man.

So he resigned himself to a lifetime of saving villagers from their own fire wracked land.

But did everything in this land have to be so . . . red?

**

Dorjan closed the door to the Emperor’s chambers firmly behind him, biting back a growl and the urge to slam it.

“Not a favorable meeting, my lord?”

He glared at the silver haired figure standing silently across the hall from him but reined in his temper. His rage was not directed or caused by this man. “I fear it is my fate to make our master angry, Kaze.”

Kaze, the head of Ardel Aidan’s personal guard smiled slightly. “I would not worry, my lord. His rages are like the fire within him, quick to flare but quick to settle.”

Dorjan shook his head, exchanging places with the man and effectively turning the care of the Emperor back over to him. Over a thousand years ago the army of Ardae had become fractured, splitting into four distinct parts, reflecting the country’s increasing obsession with class structure and duties in serving their emperor.

The army consisted of a homeland army, whose duty it was to keep Ardae, and the lands it had since won in wars past, in order and loyal to its ruling emperor. Next there was the external army whose duty it was to keep outside countries from venturing into Ardae’s territories. It was also this army who was in charge of overrunning whatever country Ardae’s emperor decided he wanted. Smaller and more selective of those it employed was the Emperor’s personal guard. It was this faction that Kaze headed, choosing to keep the most skilled and trusted of his men in the palace and sending the others out to protect whomever the Emperor felt like gifting. Or spying upon, but that was a lesser-known function of the personal guard. The fourth division was Dorjan’s own knights who had fractured off of the original army first, taking its practices and methods to a quiet fortress in the mountains at the behest of Emperor Cassan who had been the first Aidan to fully understand the price he and his forefathers were forced to pay for their status.

According to histories that existed only within reach of the head of the Knights of Aidan Emperor Cassan, who was the first of the Aidans to be heralded as the mortal embodiment of their fire god and the great grandson of Aidan himself, had discovered the truth of the nature of the Leviathan. He had also discovered that the powers of the Leviathan could not be reliably traced from father to son. It appeared that the only requisite for a person to hold the cooling blood was for them to be a son of the Llyr family.

Even during Cassan’s reign the neighboring lands feared the power and strange aggressiveness of the Aidan Emperors and Cassan had feared the knowledge reaching the ears of his enemies. To keep the secret safe while still providing for the children who would also carry the Aidan blood Cassan had established the knighthood with two of his guards and his half brothers. They in turn chose those they felt best suited for providing the Emperor’s needs. Needs that those who hailed him as a god reborn could not know about.

During Cassan’s time all the knights had known about the dragon’s blood that flowed through their Emperor’s veins and the heavy price it demanded. They had also known the truth about the quiet black haired slave that the Emperor kept with him at all times. They knew the story of Saraes, Cassan’s grandfather, and Milya, the prince of Aquilae who had given up everything, even his freedom to help the man he had come to love. With time, however, the ranks swelled from ten to the sixty who now served and the need to keep the knowledge secret meant that only three knights knew the true state and story of their lord and land.

Dorjan sighed and ran through the story of Saraes and his Leviathan in his mind to soothe his anger at his master’s claims of foul play as he traveled the service halls back to his office.

The army of Aquilae, in hopes to keep Ardae at bay, had captured Saraes, the son of Aidan. Saraes had languished as a prisoner of war in the home of the Llyrs, who were then the rulers of that land. During his time there Saraes had fallen in love with the king’s youngest son, Milya. They had carried out an elaborate affair, desperate to keep it from the king but unable to keep it from the heir. Milya’s oldest brother, however, had reluctantly agreed to keep silent about the affair for he was greatly relived to see his youngest brother happy and he believed Saraes’s claims that he would not harm the prince.

During his captivity Saraes’s father was killed, supposedly by his own ministers after he had ordered all the guards of his household killed for allowing his son to be captured. Aquilae refused to release Saraes, who was now Emperor of Ardae, and for three years he staid under lock and key. He was eventually rescued and he and Milya were forced to part. They met again in another three years when Ardae’s army invaded Aquilae and the youngest prince was captured and taken before the Emperor.

Milya’s brief joy at being reunited with his lover was dashed with the discovery that the gentle, witty man he had fallen in love with was insane. The histories of the next two weeks were vague but anyone could read the underlying message. In his madness Saraes had taken his lover and made him nothing more than a debased slave. Dorjan had found an account written by one of Saraes’s guards that had lamented on the prince’s situation. Apparently Milya had spent the majority of those two weeks tied to the bed or dragged around by collar and leash for the emperor’s amusement. It spoke of how Saraes would be gentle with his former lover and then suddenly fly into an unprovoked rage, beating the frail man until his guards feared that the captured prince would be killed or permanently damaged.

Dorjan suspected that it had been that guard who had helped the prince escape and return to his homeland where he had been tended for his injuries. Amazingly, though, as soon as he could speak and walk again Milya had gone to his father and begged him to help find a way to cure Saraes of his madness. Horrified by the treatment of his son and of the knowledge that that same son was in love with not only another man but also the enemy of Aquilae the king refused.

Not to be deterred Milya left his father’s castle. His oldest brother went after him and it was to him that Milya related everything he had learned from Saraes’s more lucid accounts and from overhearing the ministers. From what he had gathered it was the dragon’s blood that Saraes’s father had taken into his own body and passed on to his son that had caused Saraes’s madness. Upon hearing this Milya had sworn he would find a way to soothe the fire and bring his lover back to himself.

Milya and his brother had then traveled extensively but had not been able to find a way to help the Ardae Emperor. During these travels they were set upon by Ardae’s army and were forced to escape to one of the islands that sat just off of Aquilae’s coast. While sailing there, however, Milya had broken down, crying bitter tears for the blood of his own people that had been shed and for the pain he knew Saraes felt. According to the legends these tears attracted the leviathan that protected Aquilae’s coast and had been worshiped by Milya’s family for generations.

The leviathan had asked the prince why he cried and Milya had recounted his story. The leviathan was disturbed by the knowledge that the Ardae emperors had taken the blood of their protectorate. He agreed with the prince that it was the blood of the dragon that was causing the insanity and Milya had flung himself at Aquilae’s protectorate, begging for the leviathan to tell him how to cure his lover of the curse.

The leviathan had admitted there was a way to soothe Saraes’s madness but he warned Milya that it would require him to sacrifice all for the enemy of his people and for the man that had stripped him of his pride and hurt him so grievously. Milya had declared that the Saraes he had known was neither the enemy of his people nor was he to be held responsible for the ravaging of his body and mind.

The leviathan had asked him once more if he was prepared to give up all for this man and his descendants and Milya had once again refused to be budged in his faith. Hearing this the leviathan had directed him to kneel, holding his arms over the sea. When Milya had done so the protectorate had ordered Milya’s brother to take his knife and slit his brother’s wrists as deeply as he could. Milya’s brother had refused but with Milya’s urging and the leviathan’s declaration that it was the only way Milya’s brother had done so, spilling his youngest brother’s blood into the ocean.

What happened next was never fully recorded but somehow that night the youngest son of Aquilae died and was reborn as the Leviathan. Milya was warned that as the dragon’s blood flowed through the Aidans so too would the blood of the leviathan flow through the Llyrs. He was also warned that only one person would have the power at one time. Milya and his brother returned to the mainland where they parted ways and Milya allowed himself to be captured and returned to Aidan Palace and to Saraes’s bed.

Like the time before Dorjan could only guess at what had happened to Milya during the first few days but, as the leviathan had promised, Saraes began to regain his senses. Within a month Saraes had called his army home and brought his country’s attention away from war and towards more native problems. The lands and hostages captured during the wath Ath Aquilae were returned.

All except for Milya.

A point that his father, King Llyr of Aquilae, had found completely unacceptable.