The Collapsing Path (The Narrowing Path Series Book 3) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  Further Information

  Author’s Note

  COPYRIGHT

  The Collapsing Path

  David J. Normoyle

  To save Arcandis, he must first destroy it.

  In a world that burns up every six years, only the fittest survive. Bowe Bellanger has not only survived, he has flourished, reviving his family from the ashes, and in the process becoming one of the most powerful men in Arcandis.

  The Path must be walked once more, and now it's Bowe's responsibility to stand in judgment and decide who lives and who dies. Having watched friends die on the Path six years ago, can he now oversee a new one? Despite Bowe's promises to help, nothing has changed for the lower classes, and too many await a trip on a suicide barge.

  The traditions of Arcandis are harsh ones, but they create the stability that allows survival of the fires of the Infernam. Interfering with the structures of society creates devastating risks.

  From a position of power, Bowe had hoped it would be easier to help his people—instead it becomes even more difficult. To see real change, he has to sacrifice everything he has built and more.

  ~

  Join the author’s mailing list and get the prequel to The Narrowing Path, plus prequels to two other great series: http://davidjnormoyle.com/readers-list/

  Chapter 1

  51 Days Left

  The sun wasn’t smiling.

  Bowe stood up from his chair and walked around to look at it from a different angle, but the expression didn’t change. He was in the small hall, and in the center of one wall hung a picture of an azure sun above a field of golden wheat. The sun had a face painted on it, and over time, Bowe had come to realize that the expression on it matched Bowe’s mood. When Bowe was angry, the sun in the picture was angry; when Bowe was worried, the blue-colored sun was worried.

  But Bowe was happy, and the sun...wasn’t.

  More than happy, this was the moment of Bowe’s greatest triumph. At the start of the sexennium, Bowe had a few followers and a half-derelict mansion. No power, no income, little prospects. Yet he needed to return the Bellanger to its previous glory as one of the four great families, or he and all his followers would be refused entry to the Refuge, and therefore die, either by their own hands, or in the fires of Infernam.

  Bowe had succeeded and was the guest of honor in that night’s ball at Lessard Mansion. Still the sun didn’t smile. Bowe looked around the small hall, and his eyes fell on the wooden sculpture of a lion on the hunt. He hadn’t seen the artist who had created it in three years. He’d told himself to get rid of the sculpture, the reminder of her, but he hadn’t yet managed to make himself do it.

  “Guardian,” Toose called from outside the door of the small hall. “Are you ready to go yet?”

  “Just about.” The Bellanger ascor, Sorrin, Sindar, Thrace, and Oamir, and single ascora, Zofila, had already left. Bowe, as guest of honor, would be the last to arrive. He exited into the entrance hallway, where Toose, tall and broad-shouldered, stood to attention.

  Two staircases flanked by polished bronze poles holding up a marble banister swept upward on either side. Paintings and tapestries decorated the walls, several of which told the story of the defeat of the Jarindors outside the walls of the city in the Battle of Pots and Pans. Expensive vases and statues filled the alcoves and shelves. The mansion, like Bowe himself, had come a long way since Bowe had first seen it, when it had been layered with dust and hosted only spiders and vermin.

  Above the main entrance was a space that was noticeably blank. Bowe had it in his mind that a portrait of him should go there. But perhaps he was too young yet, only nineteen—portraits of Guardians tended to be painted when they were in the prime of their lives. He was getting ahead of himself with such thoughts. Sorrin would surely suggest such a portrait when the time was right.

  Bowe glanced down at his stump. Amazingly, he sometimes forgot that he no longer had a right hand. He wondered if the lack of it should appear in his portrait—he was known as the one-handed Guardian after all. Should he downplay his disability or display it proudly as a war wound and a badge of honor?

  Bowe ambled out the main entrance, still looking around, soaking in all the good feelings he got from seeing the mansion looking so grand. His footsteps echoed hollowly against the tiles, the mansion feeling empty with all its ascor at the ball. The family had no children and only a single ascora. That would change, starting at this ball. Many of the noble girls from the other families would be hoping to pick up a Bellanger husband. Still, it would take several more sexennia to grow the family as large as the other great families.

  Outside, the heat in the air gave him pause; he still wasn’t used to how the suffocating heat lingered through the night. Helion’s light poked through the clouds, its purple rays casting deep shadows across the city skyline. The sliver that was visible spoke for how big it had become. The Infernam was close, but he didn’t want to think about that until he absolutely had to. These last few years he had concentrated on the revival of the Bellanger family, and tonight he wanted to celebrate that.

  Toose’s footsteps crunched on the gravel as he strode past Bowe. Several Bellanger suns were prominently displayed on banners hanging off the side of the waiting rickshaw. Bowe liked to display the family emblem as often as possible; he didn’t want his family to ever be forgotten again. Toose held the door of the rickshaw open for Bowe.

  “Guardian, are you absolutely certain I shouldn’t I accompany you?” Toose was in charge of Bowe’s security. His azure-mist cloak shivered at a sudden gust of wind.

  Bowe gestured toward the two Bellanger marshals who held the handles at the front of the rickshaw. “The pullers can mind me. Take care of the mansion while we are all gone.”

  Toose gave a jerk of his head and shut the door behind Bowe. “Sorrin told me to remind you that you still have to name the Bellanger mentor.”

  Bowe nodded. Toose closed the door and the rickshaw lurched forward. I wish you hadn’t reminded me, Bowe thought. That, of course, was the reason that the sun hadn’t been smiling in the small hall. Bowe had been pushing all thought of the Green Path as far away from his mind as he could. But he had known it was coming, known it would have to be faced. But how?

  Bowe leaned back into the cushioned seat. He had walked the Green Path, as all noble boys had to. But he had decided it to be an evil, twisted thing, abhorrent to his own nature, and he had refused to compete normally. Instead, he had joined up with several other Greens and managed to persuade the Guardians to name them and himself to be ascor in a reborn Bellanger family.

  The Green Path was due to begin again tomorrow. How could Bowe now be a part of it as a Guardian? To name a mentor and watch while the boys slaughtered each other competing for attention? To eventually select only one boy out of over a hundred to become a Bellanger ascor and know that almost all the rest would perish?

  Bowe shook his head. Those thoughts were exactly what he wanted to avoid. It was a night for celebration,
and Bowe wasn’t going to let the Path ruin it.

  “Bell-ger.”

  Bowe jerked. What was that? Had it been an actual voice, or just the creaking of the rickshaw playing tricks on his mind.

  “Guardian Bellanger.” This time the voice was clearer.

  Bowe looked down at his feet from where it seemed to be coming from. “Who’s speaking?” Bowe slammed the front panel of the carriage. “Marshals, what’s going on?”

  The rickshaw came to a halt, then tilted forward as the marshals released the handles. Liaano, one of the senior marshals, came around to the side and pulled back the curtain. “Is everything okay, Guardian?”

  “Did one of you ask me something? I heard a voice.”

  “It’s just me.” The voice was definitely coming from below. “Don’t hurt me; I mean no harm. I just wanted to talk.”

  “Where are you?” Bowe raised his feet and peered down, almost expecting to see a tiny person.

  “I’m underneath the rickshaw.” It was a boy’s voice. “Holding on to the axle.”

  “What in Helion are you doing there?”

  “I hid here in the hope that I’d get a chance to talk to you.”

  “Well, come out,” Bowe said.

  “I can’t; I’m stuck. My tunic got caught.”

  Bowe nodded to Liaano, who crouched down and stuck his head underneath the rickshaw. Bowe checked up and down the street—it was empty. The ascorim—the way the great families jostled for position—never ended, but things had been quiet lately. Even the Grenier Guardian’s antagonism toward Bowe had eased. Bowe couldn’t see how this was a trap.

  Cloth tore underneath the rickshaw, then Liaano re-emerged with a scruffy-looking boy. The boy’s tunic was ripped, and his clothes were now more brown than white from all the dust he’d picked up from under the rickshaw, but he was clearly a Green. Despite his situation, he had a bright-white smile.

  Bowe looked him up and down. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

  “About the Path,” he said. “It begins tomorrow, and I don’t have a plan. Everyone talks about how you turned the Path on its head six years ago.”

  “And you didn’t just present yourself at Bellanger Mansion?”

  “I tried. I wasn’t allowed in,” the boy said.

  As it should be, Bowe decided. He didn’t want the Greens bothering him every time one of them felt upset. “The Path doesn’t even start until tomorrow.” Perhaps Sorrin should be the Bellanger mentor, assuming he agreed to take the position. Who better? After all, Sorrin had evaluated Eye fighters well enough to win money off the bet-takers during the previous Path.

  “I needed to meet you before it began and get a start on everyone else. One boy is killed off on the first day, and I fear it will be me.”

  “And why should I help you? Over all the others?”

  “Because I asked,” the boy replied simply.

  Bowe chuckled. Though he didn’t want all the Greens to come knocking on his door, he admired this boy’s daring. It reminded him of his own journey on the Path. “Get in. We can talk on the way to the ascor ball.”

  Liaano looked a bit perturbed as the dusty Green climbed into the rickshaw, but he knew better than to say anything. He returned to the front and the rickshaw started forward again.

  “What’s your name?” Bowe asked.

  “Coinal,” he said. “Coinal Raine.”

  “A Raine no more. You’ll have to earn the right to that name, or a new one. What age are you?”

  “Fifteen,” Coinal said.

  “It’ll be hard to compete with the older boys. What’s the situation with the Greens in your house?”

  “I’ve no doubt that Yorshin will become an ascor. He’ll be the only Elect from the Raine household. A good half of the other boys from the Raine family will act as Defenders for him.”

  “You’re not one of them?” Bowe should probably already know about the Greens since he’d have to select one, but he’d avoided all talk of the Path.

  “He doesn’t like me much. He has five good friends around his own age and he’ll choose one of those as Chief Defender when he becomes the Select. So I don’t have much hope with him.”

  Each family Guardian got to nominate a single Select to join his family. That Select then decided on another Green to join him, a Chosen. That way each of the four families expanded by two ascor each Infernam. The rest of the Greens perished.

  “Any other obvious contenders from your household?”

  “There’s Biringer. He’s the best fighter among us. He practices every day. He’ll be a Wolfling for sure and fight in the Eye. But the Greniers are in a different class when it comes to fighting. So I’ve no idea how he’ll do against them, or against established Eye fighters. He’s tall and slender, fast as the wind, but he mightn’t have enough strength against bigger opponents.”

  “Any possible Shadows?” There were four main ways of surviving the Path and being selected or chosen. The first was to become an Elect, a leader among the Greens, and undertake an enterprise that impressed the Guardians. The second was to be a Defender and support an Elect and hope to become his Chosen. The third was to be a Wolfing and impress in the Eye fights. And the fourth was to become an assassin, a Shadow. “Never mind. Good Shadows won’t have revealed themselves yet.” Talking with Coinal was bringing back memories of Bowe’s own Path. Exactly what he had wanted to avoid. “I can’t help you. You have to choose your own path. There are ways for those who are smart to win, without having to be big and strong, but part of that cleverness has to be used to figure out how. Consider what the other Greens are doing and look for opportunities.”

  The more he talked about the Green Path, the more depressed Bowe felt, but Coinal hadn’t lost his smile. It was Coinal who had to face the Path, and Bowe couldn't help admiring his attitude. Bowe knew it was a mistake to feel a connection to a Green. Ascor were careful to never get close to their sons. They knew the odds were against those who walked the Path. The Guardians and mentors decided who lived and who died, and they, above all, had to remain neutral and unfeeling. And despite offering Coinal some small encouragement, Bowe knew that the Green was likely to be dead in a few short weeks. Coinal was young and didn’t look particularly strong and he had no Defenders. Vitarr, Bowe’s childhood companion, had known from the first that he would die on the Path, and so it had proved despite Bowe’s best efforts. Bowe hadn’t thought of Vitarr in a long while, and the memory twisted painfully within him.

  “I heard it said that you wanted to do away with the Path.” Coinal watched Bowe closely.

  “What an outrageous thing to say.” Bowe didn’t manage to get the outrage into his voice, perhaps because those thoughts had been on his mind earlier.

  “I wasn’t sure whether I should have said anything.”

  “You certainly should not. The Green Path is one of the foundations of Arcandis society. If the wrong person heard you saying anything against it, you would be locked up in the Fortress. That would be the end of your chances of making the Refuge.”

  “I’m not saying anything against it.”

  “I certainly didn’t either. I understand the Path is harsh, but there’s no other way.” Bowe’s expression didn’t betray his misgivings. Who had been telling people that he was against the Path? His ascor knew about his hatred for the Path, so perhaps the rumors were started by loose talk from Thrace or one of the others. Or perhaps the other families were maliciously spreading rumors. If Bowe decided to do something about the Path, it would have to be carefully planned. The ascorim was full of traps.

  “I understand,” Coinal said.

  The rickshaw slowed as it turned a corner, and Bowe glanced out the window. “We are near Lessard Mansion. I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help.”

  Coinal grinned. “Not at all, Guardian, sir. You’ve been more helpful than I could have dared hope. I’ll be going now.”

  To signal the pullers to stop, Bowe reached forward to slap on the front pane
l, but before he had a chance, Coinal just opened the door and hopped out. Dust kicked up and Coinal disappeared in a swirl of arms and legs. Bowe scrambled across to look out the window. Coinal lay on the dirt, but before Bowe had a chance to worry, the young Green jumped to his feet, gave Bowe a wave and a wide grin, and disappeared into the shadows.

  Bowe settled back into his seat, and a moment later the rickshaw came to a stop. Liaano opened the door and Bowe stepped out.

  A row of torches lit the green carpet leading to the entrance of Lessard Mansion. Flags showing the Lessard green eagle in flight on a gold background snapped in the wind. Bowe walked between the flickering torches, feeling troubled, wishing Coinal hadn’t disturbed the celebratory mood he was trying to cultivate.

  He paused to compose himself. His clothes had been carefully chosen and made for the occasion by the best tailor in Arcandis. He wore polished black boots and his cloak was brilliant white. Black trim lined the sides of his pants and curled up the center of his tunic. He knew he had never looked better. He deliberately had no Bellanger symbols, and wore no trace of Bellanger blue. When he had been powerless, he’d worn the azure to remind the other families that the Bellangers hadn’t disappeared. That reminder was no longer needed.

  The Bellangers were back where they belonged—as one of the four great families at the center of Arcandis power—and they weren’t going anywhere. That was the statement he wanted each ascor to leave the ball with.

  A Lessard marshal directed Bowe through the main entrance and up the stairs, then down the corridor to a landing overlooking the ballroom. The band stopped playing.

  “Esteemed ascor and ascora,” the Lessard marshal said. “I’m delighted to announce the arrival of tonight’s guest of honor, Guardian Bowe Bellanger.”

  Skirts rustled as the ascora and their daughters curtsied. The ascor bowed their heads in his direction. Bowe bowed back. Someone started clapping, and an instant later everyone was clapping. The wave of applause swelled inside Bowe’s chest. He had worked hard for this, not for the acclaim of course, but to ensure his family’s survival. Still, he deserved the public acknowledgment. He had accomplished a lot over the previous six years, going from a Green on the bottom of the lists to this position.