by Callie Bates
She rolls her eyes. “It looks like your hair.”
“You are spectacularly unhelpful, do you know that?”
“I try.” She smirks. “You look fine, Sophy.”
I don’t know about that, but I also don’t have time to argue. The Tinani are coming onto the island now: their standard-bearer plants their flag on their side of the turf. Count Hilarion shoots me a reassuring smile.
I smile back, but my attention is distracted by another man dismounting from his horse. I’ve never met Alfred of Tinan, but I’ve seen his portrait, and it’s a decent likeness, except the painters have politely covered up his balding head with hats. He’s in his mid-forties, a man of middling height who reportedly keeps himself fit with an hour in the fencing hall each morning. He advances with a commanding air.
“Sophy Dunbarron,” he says.
I return his stare. “Alfred Tinanlai.”
His eyebrows lift at that, and he looks me up and down. Then, surprisingly, he smiles. “How nice that we can be on a first-name basis.” He speaks Ereni with a crisp accent. “Your Lord Hilarion here has insisted I must speak with you—practically dragged me out of Darchon by the back of my coat. I hope it’s worth my while.”
“I hope this meeting is useful for both of us,” I reply, and King Alfred chuckles. He settles on the stool across from me. I remember to take a breath. Our meeting has begun.
“Here is the situation,” I say. “I understand why you threw your support behind Rambaud and his followers, but Paladis has been taken over by a new regime—one that supports sorcery. Change is upon us, King Alfred, and the only ones who haven’t recognized it are Euan Dromahair and his friends—including Phaedra and Augustus Saranon. I want your reassurance that when they are removed from our kingdom and I resume my place on the throne, we can look to you as an ally. I trust you are a pragmatic man.”
“I do pride myself on being such,” he replies with a faint smile. “Allying with Eren interests me. Yet I am curious—what possesses a girl such as yourself to fight her own father for a crown?”
I press my lips together. I have to think for a moment before I can respond.
“When a father is without honor,” I say at last, “a daughter must do her duty.”
“Without honor? Indeed?”
I hesitate. Telling the truth seems horrible, yet I can’t think of a suitable evasion. “I could tell you how he’s levying Ereni and Caerisians to fight in his army, with a plan to retake Ida. Maybe I’d persuade you if I told you how he fired on a crowd of his own people who had done nothing but come to honor him. But on top of all this, the truth is that this is a man who assaulted my mother. I am not the child of a love affair, you see. I am the child of rape. And I will not condone a man who would do such to sit on the throne of Eren.”
Alfred of Tinan presses a finger against his lips. He looks thoughtful—haunted, I might almost say. The sound of him has quieted.
“You are right to take a stand,” he says at last, still troubled. “Such things should never be condoned.” Alfred pauses, then looks at me. “You’ve given me a truth, and I feel I owe you one in turn. Shortly before our marriage, my wife suffered an assault similar to that of your mother’s. It is not common knowledge, and she did not tell me the truth until years into our marriage. But what happened to her does not define her. It has shaped the way she sees the world, perhaps, but it has not hindered her ability to love, nor her intelligence and wit.” Ruefully, he says, “I would have brought her with me, had I known. She makes a more formidable political opponent than I do, in truth.”
“I find that hard to imagine,” I say through the lump in my throat. “Thank you for telling me. It…” I think of my mother, and all the unanswered questions that press on my mind. “It does comfort me.”
He gives me a thoughtful look. “Then I will continue to speak frankly. I did not come here intending to ally with you. I confess I was merely curious what you might have to say. You have had some decisive defeats, yet you seem convinced you may still win. It is…interesting.”
Or stupid. I wince. “I don’t suffer any illusions that the people might want me to reclaim the throne. I’m doing this for our futures.” I touch my stomach. “For my future.”
“Given the reports I’ve heard of King Euan, you may stand a chance. But…” He looks at me. “I have for some time now pledged my help to the Ereni who oppose you. Rambaud is my friend. I will not back you against him.” He pauses. “If you came together, however, I would back you both against Euan.”
My brief surge of hope is squashed by the thought of attempting an alliance with Aristide Rambaud—even though he can’t be much happier with my father than I am.
“So magic does not concern you?” I ask Alfred, genuinely curious.
“To tell the truth, I always rather liked the old myths.” But there’s an edge to his voice when he says, “It seems sorcery is in our future, whether we will it or no. I won’t lose my kingdom because I was unwilling to change.”
“That’s wise,” I remark.
“We shall see.” He stands and extends a hand. “Let me know, Sophy Dunbarron, if you can come to an agreement with my friend Rambaud. I wish you the very best luck.”
I clasp his hand, fighting down a sense of disappointment. It’s not as if I truly expected him to immediately offer to help us. “And I thank you for meeting.”
He nods and turns to go. Count Hilarion comes over to clasp my hand with an all-too-brief greeting, and then they ride away back across the ford.
I turn back to the shallow ford, the water running white between the rocks. Ingram Knoll has already led the bulk of the soldiers back across. Rhia and I trail at the rear. “Maybe we can rent a coach in that town,” she says. “You look done in.”
“It’s just my back. It—”
Noise breaks out in front of us. A man screams.
Gunfire.
Rhia tackles me to the ground. I wrestle with her, fumbling to protect my stomach. The water soaks up my skirts. Ahead, a man falls. Horses stumble, whinnying. Rhia’s tumbled off me, her broken arm tangled under her. She’s struggling to lever herself back up. I glance frantically back and forth. Alfred’s successfully retreated to the far shore. Did he alert our attackers? It seems unlikely.
The land is level, flat, grassy, except for the low-sloping hill overlooking the forest. A plume of gun smoke rises from the crest of the hill. They have us pinned here.
Our soldiers are running for their muskets, but another volley of gunfire brings more of them down. Ingram Knoll is shouting, trying to rally the men. A stampede of horses surges north from the camp into open farmland.
I grab the back of Rhia’s coat and help haul her to her feet. She flings herself in front of me as I try to move forward. “Stop!” she gasps. We’re just out of firing range. Rhia’s right. If we move forward, we run straight into the enemy guns.
Behind us, on the other side of the river, people are shouting. Count Hilarion’s urging his horse back across the ford, toward the island.
Gunfire erupts once more. Ingram Knoll is running toward the hill, urging the men to take shelter behind trees and carts and tents to fire back at our enemies. He stands on the edge of the woods, his arms raised.
And the gunfire catches him.
His body jerks. He’s thrown backward at an unnatural angle. Cast onto the ground.
Rhia is screaming. Despite her own injunction, she begins to race forward, splashing over the final rocks of the ford. I fling myself after her, snatching for the back of her coat. She stumbles, and I grip her hard, holding her back. She’s sobbing, her mouth open, but I’m too stunned for tears. Ingram Knoll, dead? Who’s ambushed us—my father’s men, or someone else’s?
More gunfire erupts on the ridge. I throw Rhia to the ground just as a blast shakes the air where we were standing.
We lie for a moment, stunned. I risk a glance up. Our ambushers are approaching, apparently growing more confident of their victory. They wear Euan Dromahair’s colors—gold and white.
I drop back. And then I glimpse her among them. Her face drawn with exhaustion, her robe ragged. It’s a temple novice—not Felicité, but one of the others. Does she have magic, too? Somewhere a witch stone is humming. They must have captured her at the temple.
The realization hits me. Euan’s forces haven’t been anywhere near the Ard, and they only arrested the novices yesterday. If she’s a sorcerer, there’s only one way they could have gotten here. They’re forcing her to help them; she must have tracked us, and somehow helped transport them all the way out here.
Rhia is crawling over to her father’s body. Across from us, another soldier falls.
We’re not going to defeat them. There might not be many men firing down on us, but we’re trapped between them and the river. We can retreat to the island—to Tinan, if King Alfred isn’t behind this, if he didn’t trick me—but that would give Euan’s men possession of the ford.
Ruadan’s voice drifts into my mind. Sometimes a tactical retreat is the closest one can come to victory. At least you’ll live to fight another day.
I gather my legs under me. We’ll have to risk the Tinani. “Retreat!” I shout. “To the island!”
I charge back into the water. Now would be a good time to have Elanna’s help, or Jahan’s—anyone’s, really. But they aren’t here. The men are covering our retreat, but we’re leaving soldiers behind among the tents and the carts—some dead, but more wounded and living. I know what my father’s soldiers will do to them.
My feet hit the grass of the island. Hilarion’s stopped halfway between it and the opposite bank, his horse pulled around so he can shout back to King Alfred, on the shore. I gather my skirts and run across the island, as fast as the sodden fabric will allow.
“Help us!” I scream to Alfred.
He sits on the opposite bank with a fully armed contingent. Enough men to ride through our camp and turn back my father’s soldiers—or at least to make a good effort at it.
His head is turned toward one of his lackeys. I don’t even know if he heard me.
I stop, my lungs heaving, beside Hilarion. He looks down at me from the height of his horse, his face grim.
“Is Alfred—?” I pant.
“No. Those must be Euan Dromahair’s forces.” Hilarion jerks his chin toward the far shore. “Let’s get our people to Tinan. Regroup there.”
I glance over my shoulder. The gunfire has mostly ceased. Rhia and the soldiers have reached the island, for the most part. My father’s soldiers are approaching down the road. Bodies litter the camp.
Then I see one man lift himself up on his forearms. Look toward us. He starts crawling on his belly toward the river.
He knows what fate awaits him.
I close my eyes. If we retreat into Tinan, I save those who have made it to the island. But I don’t save that man. I don’t save any of the others who might still be living.
I turn my back on Hilarion—startled, he speaks my name—and I cross back over the island. I pass our men, and Rhia, who all stare at me. I walk back, once more, into the ford, facing the camp. I let my feet anchor on the slick rocks.
I pull the bone flute from my pocket and play a single note. It shears over the water, a noise far bigger than me, and yet somehow less sound than vibration. It gathers wings and beats around the soldiers walking down into camp. It’s a hum, not a song. It holds all my desperation. All my hope. All my terror.
I see the moment it sinks into them. Their footsteps slow. Their heads lift.
“Stop,” I say.
The word whispers across the water straight to them. An arrow. A plea. A hope.
Some hesitate—but some don’t. One lifts his bayonet over a fallen mountain lord—
Every shred of logic tells me to turn tail once more and bolt for the Tinani shore. To save myself, and those I can.
Yet my bones tell me no. My rage propels me forward. I am stalking through the water, the bone flute still at my lips. I feel the power growing in me, feel the movement of the child in my stomach. I am a mother, and these people are my brethren as much as the baby I carry. This is my war.
The soldiers have seen me now. They slow, bayonets raised but not striking those wounded on the ground.
I lift the bone flute and begin to play. The sound is wild, high, sinewy with fury. It pours out of me, inexorable as a rising tide. I release my rage into it. My grief. My guilt. It strikes like a fist across the camp. My father’s soldiers have all stopped now, even the Paladisan commander. The others are Ereni. I see it in their faces, in the clothes they wear, in the words they shape in their mouths.
I walk to the center of the camp, past Ingram Knoll’s crumpled body, and stop. I’m trembling. With rage and fear.
I widen my stance. Hold out my hands.
“If you kill them,” I say, “you are killing our country and our people. You will have to kill me, too. And the child I carry.”
One man drops his bayonet. It thuds dully to the ground. He starts to back away. The others are staring from me to their captain, who’s watching me with a look of ill-concealed terror.
I look back at him. In Idaean, I say, “The choice is yours.”
One of the other soldiers turns with a cry and drives his bayonet into the throat of a wounded Ereni soldier.
The captain whirls around so fast my eye can barely follow the movement, and strikes the soldier across the face. The man staggers back over the legs of the fellow he just killed.
Another points. I glance briefly behind me. People are streaming back into camp from the island. They are all throwing down their weapons. Standing with their hands empty. Rhia takes up position beside her father, tears falling openly down her cheeks.
I turn back to our attackers. The captain looks strangled, and the temple novice hollowed out. Relieved, and afraid.
I hold out my hand to her. She casts a single, frightened look at the captain. He hesitates, and she bolts over to me. She stands at my shoulder, staring defiantly at the men.
“I don’t need to fight with weapons.” I widen my stance and fix my gaze on the captain and his men. “I won’t kill my own people. I will never attack you.”
The captain’s head jerks back. He’s staring at the ford again; I look, too.
It’s a river of black and metal now. King Alfred and his men are crossing toward us.
“I won’t use a weapon against you,” I say to the captain. “But I doubt Alfred of Tinan has any such compunction.”
His nostrils quiver. My heart thumps; I squeeze my hands into fists. I won’t relinquish this rage. I won’t stand down, no matter what they do to us. Let them know this is how Caerisians fight—not with blades or gunpowder, but with all their hearts and blood and bone. This is how mothers fight. A mother doesn’t strike her children. She shows them what real mettle is made of.
The captain lifts his hand and brings it sharply down. He mutters something.
“What?” an aide asks.
“Retreat,” he says, already backing away. “Retreat!”
* * *
—
RHIA’S KNEELING ON the hard ground beside her father, her hand cupping his face. Her shoulders shake. I look around at the other men fallen to the ground—wounded, most of them. One is struggling to rise. He took a wound to the shoulder; red blood stains his coat. I go over and help him up.
“My…queen,” he murmurs.
“Where’s the physician?” I call. There isn’t one, it seems. A man is being sent over from the Tinani camp, but he’s only just coming up from the river.
Rhia looks over at me from her father’s body, a few feet away. “He’s gone.” Her eyes are shining with tears.
<
br /> The temple novice crouches beside the soldier, motioning me to go to Rhia. But Rhia just shakes her head and gestures me away. “No,” she chokes out, “you’re going to tell me it’ll be all right. It’s not all right. It never will be.”
I want to protest; I want to shout that I’m afraid and upset, too. It’s hard to believe such a vigorous, powerful man could have been cut down in a coward’s ambush. Yet he has been, and now our world has tilted again. Who will be the warden of the mountains now?
I walk away unsteadily, toward King Alfred, who has dismounted and is standing on the turf. He looks at me soberly.
“That was brave,” he says, “and foolish. Don’t you think it’s better for a queen to survive than to die making a futile stand?”
A smile wobbles onto my lips. “It worked.”
“I suppose it did.” He runs a hand over his balding pate. “What will you do now?”
“We’ll go find our people.” If sorcerers are being made to track us down, perhaps I’m too late. Perhaps they already found the Spring Caves, and our friends. I close my hands into fists. “See who’s left, I mean. And fight.”
He gives me a shrewd look. “Perhaps we could hold the ford for you.”
Despite everything, I feel the unexpected urge to laugh. “I mean this in the best way, King Alfred, but I think my people would feel more comfortable if you retreated into Tinan. I’m grateful, though, that you put your muscle behind me.”
He gestures to the destruction around us. “I am sorry for your losses. Perhaps you will allow us to bring our medics and help your men clean up, instead?”
“Thank you. I—” I think of Victoire, Juleane, the women in the caves, and panic sweeps under my breastbone. “I must go see no one else has been attacked.”
He nods. “I’ll work with your men—Hounds, is that what they’re called?”
I feel my lips quirk. Softly, I say, “And mountain lords.”
“I’ll be happy to give them a hand. Although”—he lifts an eyebrow—“I hope it’s a decision I don’t come to regret.”
News of what happened will reach my father quickly. We need to act before Euan turns on Alfred. “I will do everything in my power to ensure you don’t,” I say. “But I’m not a god.”