by Matthew Ward
“What about you?”
“I have to find Viktor.”
“No. I can’t—”
Rosa transferred her grip from forearm to shoulder. “You can. You will.”
With an unhappy twist of the lip, Zephan stepped back. “Until Death, mistress.”
Rosa limped towards the stairs, fighting to conceal a growing tremor. By the time she reached the first step, she abandoned all pretence, her good shoulder propped against the curved wall and the bad screaming as the arrowhead shifted in her flesh.
Down she went, knees buckling with every onerous step.
This is where it starts to go wrong.
She forged on. Clung to the Raven’s words as mantra.
Halfway down, the drums sounded again. By the time she reached the piled dirt and broken stone at the pit of the stair, the sounds of battle raged anew. The Raven’s words drove her on.
Mist shimmered in the lantern light of the half-excavated passageway. Alcoves yawned from the walls, the columbarium grander than in the temple above. Gold glinted, grave-hoard and offering. The not-cold sensation grew.
Great slabs of black stone emerged from the mist. One, split in two, lay flat upon the rubble. The other sat canted against the wall, its petroglyphs of piercing eyes and spread wings gleaming gold. The sanctum door, unbreachable by mortal toil, had yielded to Viktor’s shadow. The force of its breaking had set the Hadari to flight.
Shalamoh scuttled to bar Rosa’s path. He flinched at her bloodied aspect, then gathered himself to stillness, save for an outstretched, shaking hand. “Lady Orova—”
“Where’s… Viktor?” The words ripped free, more gasp than speech.
“I caution against going further, lady.”
This is where it starts to go wrong.
Rosa shoved him aside. Three more steps, and the mists swallowed scholar and shattered doors as if they’d never been.
“Viktor?”
There was no lantern beyond the doorway. The only illumination came from wisps of diffuse, whitish light that danced past her and vanished into the drifting shroud. Weary eyes glimpsed curved walls and a low, vaulted ceiling. Corvine faces leered from every pillar.
Stone skittered from Rosa’s boot and into an abyss edged with broken tile and the remnant of a descending stair. No impact echoed up from the catacomb below.
“Viktor?”
She staggered across a gaping floor more collapsed than intact, past ancient tombs, the bas-reliefs familiar in style, and yet not. The stale scent of yesterdays grew stronger. White-green mist tinged with writhing black.
Viktor stood with his back towards her, shadow a shifting cloak about his shoulders. His hands rested on a glassy, black orb. Even looking at it hurt. As if it didn’t belong in the living world. The orb, in turn, sat upon an ornate pedestal. Pale green cracks pulsed in time with the wisps dancing like glimmerbugs about his shoulders. Opposite, beyond the remnant of a frayed carpet, an empty archway loomed above unbroken stonework. A door leading nowhere.
What is buried here must remain buried.
Wisps bobbed past Rosa and joined the dance about the orb. Those that touched it vanished, swallowed by glimmering green. She shuddered, wracked by horrified recollection of her torment as the Queen of the Dead. Soul sparks, freed from those who fought and died above. The last gasps of the dying, drawn to the orb… and to what?
This is where it starts to go wrong.
“Viktor…” Speech was an excruciating effort now. “What are you doing? What… is all this?”
He didn’t turn. Didn’t move.
Two ragged breaths crept by, each accompanied by an unsteady step through coils of mist and shadow.
Three.
Four.
“I’ve found it,” he said, his voice a rumbling, reverent whisper. “I hear them. I can reach them. This is where everything changes.”
The last words, so similar to the Raven’s, scattered Rosa’s last doubts.
Galvanised to one final effort, Rosa shouldered Viktor aside and shoved the orb. It toppled free of the pedestal, struck the floor and shattered. A burst of viridian light left dark splotches on Rosa’s vision. Glassy fragments spilled across the gaping floor and into the abyss.
“No!” Viktor spun about, eyes blazing. His shadow pulsed, hurling her against the empty arch. He bore down, face inches from hers. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
Ragged heartbeat slowed. Fire faded into numbness.
Viktor’s brow softened, anger yielding to despair. For the first time since she’d entered the chamber, Rosa had the sense he recognised her. “Rosa?”
She tried to speak, but found neither words, nor the breath to give them licence.
Closing her eyes one last time, Rosa clung to the memory of Sevaka’s face, and wondered if the Raven would be waiting for her in Otherworld.
Maladas, 26th Day of Wanetithe
I’ve lived my whole life in Tressia, and still the city finds ways to surprise me. But in one thing it is wholly dependable: the quieter the streets, the larger the storm brewing somewhere out of sight.
from the diaries of Malachi Reveque
One
Soot spiralled through heavy snows, soaring over twisting alleyways and broad, cobbled streets, the rich woodsmoke from hearths mingling with sour blackstone from factory and forge. Priests proclaimed that blackstone tainted the air as surely as it did the soul. Altiris – who’d spent most of his twenty summers clinging to life in a slave’s shack on Selann for his family’s supposed transgressions – loved priests even less than the chill that had never quite left his bones, and rejoiced that the bitter scent banished both.
Tressia had lost much in recent years, but it seemed never to lack for priests.
At Altiris’ side, Viara rubbed gloved hands together and stared gloomily along the nearly empty street. “I didn’t realise we’d be walking halfway across the city.”
“Exercise does you good.” Altiris lengthened his stride, boots crunching on the thickening snows. A broad-brimmed rover’s hat, woollen cloak and thick gambeson beneath phoenix tabard kept gooseflesh and shuddering joints at bay. “Gets the blood moving.”
The cold had summoned a fair portion of Viara’s blood to nose and cheeks, all of which conspired to shine brighter and ruddier in the lantern light than the scarlet ribbons woven through her blonde plaits. For all that she was Altiris’ elder by three years, she looked younger – a soft-skinned highblood for whom service in the Stonecrest hearthguard was the first physical work she’d known.
She cast a longing look at the Brass Key’s swinging sign – at shadows moving against windows hung with bright-painted wooden pendants with the silhouette of trees and angelic serathi. The tokens of the season. Muffled notes of ribald carols shuddered onto the street. “We’ve passed dozens of taverns already.”
Altiris nodded at a pair of constables heading in the opposite direction. “Squalid dives, hardly fit for Stonecrest Phoenixes… much less for the Lady Boronav.”
Lady Viara Boronav stifled a scowl at the reminder of the times to which her family had fallen. All the more reason to offer it. Life as an indentured slave was no more easily forgotten than the livid rose-brand on Altiris’ wrist. The Boronav family had prospered from the oppression of the south. Even if Viara herself was too young to carry the blame, the sins of her kith hung close. There was joy to twisting the knife.
Especially as she so wanted to be liked.
“Yes, lieutenant,” she replied glumly.
“‘Altiris’ is fine.”
For all that Viara nodded, the correction fell flat. It was supposed to be largesse. A gesture of equality. Lord Trelan pulled it off all the time. Altiris never quite managed the right tone.
He longed for Lord Trelan’s easy authority. The ability to make suggestions that were taken as orders. And if Josiri Trelan – separatist, outcast and apostate – could cheat monolithic tradition and become a hero of the people, then surely fate could be persuad
ed to allow the same for others.
To be acclaimed a hero in his own right. To have his opinion feted and his name celebrated. A decade ago, it would have been impossible, but with the decimation of ancient families by war and misfortune, the old conventions were coming apart.
Maybe there was opportunity, even for a lowblood southwealder. And wouldn’t that be something? But for all that, Altiris was only a young man with a sword and something to prove, and there were plenty of those to go around. Other talents outshone the mundane.
He nodded to where the timeworn timbers and leaded window of the Ragged Wayfarer clung to the crossroad’s eastern corner.
“Here we are.”
“Thank Lumestra,” Viara muttered. “My fingers are about to fall off.”
They skirted the derelict townhouse on the crossroad’s southern corner – its collection of huddled souls gathered around a guttering fire – and crossed the dunged roadway. As the last sparks of the year died, the lucky ones might find shelter in church or alms-house, some wealthy patron easing conscience by letting the downtrodden pass Midwintertide in fleeting comfort. But not tonight.
The city wall loomed, tarpaulins and scaffolds dark shapes against the billowing snow. One of a dozen new fortresses to bolster the city’s defences. All of it behind a stout fence, and the silent, towering silhouette of a kraikon. Sunlight crackled softly across the giant construct’s bronze skin and steel plate, the magic that powered its metal frame still vibrant, even in the snows. There’d be simarka too, somewhere close by. Kraikons were all very well for throwing a scare into trespassers, but the bronze lions were faster, and far more suited to running those self-same intruders down.
After the quiet chill of the streets, the warmth of the Wayfarer’s hearth stole away Altiris’ breath. The buzz of conversation and mournful refrain of an unseen piano were loud beyond words. Beneath the low, bare-joisted ceiling, the scent of woodsmoke and ale hung heavy with promise. Drifting eyes made incurious inquiry, then returned to the serious business of staring moodily into glass or tankard.
Not so the matronly woman behind the bar. “Lieutenant Czaron! Here to settle your tab?”
He met the glare with practised nonchalance. “Next week, Adela. On my word as a Phoenix.”
“You said that last week.”
“Did I?” The smile was for onlookers, not Adela, who was immune to such things. “If it helps, my companion’s paying.”
Adela snorted and turned her attention to another patron.
“Oh I am, am I?” murmured Viara.
“You wanted to talk. It’s only fair. A lieutenant’s wage doesn’t go far.”
She regarded him stonily. “I’m starting to believe what the others say about you.”
“And what do they say about me?”
“That you’re a rake who spends entirely too much time carousing with the likes of Konor Zarn, and not enough at minding your place.”
“Folk invite me to parties. It’d be rude to say no.”
“And miss the chance for a little social climbing? Absolutely.”
“I’ll take wine. There should be a little of the Valerun red left.”
Taking her expression’s descent from stony to scowl as his cue to depart, Altiris threaded his way through the crowd to an empty table beneath the window. Like so many of its era, the leaded upper frame trammelled a small, stained glass sun, though accretion of smoke had long obscured its radiance.
He peered at the crossroads, the fire in the derelict house just visible through the snow. Where he’d be, but for Lumestra’s grace. Setting aside hat and gloves, he smoothed unkempt red hair to something resembling respectability and made silent note to spare a few coins on the return journey.
Viara slid a bottle and two glasses onto the table and sat on the bench opposite. “Adela says that if you don’t clear your tab by the end of the month, she’ll send her son to settle the debt.”
“You’re misreading the situation. She likes her little amusements.”
She eyed the Wayfarer’s clientele warily. “Yes, lieutenant.”
Altiris frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“People keep staring.”
“You’re a Phoenix.” He filled both glasses with a flourish and set the bottle aside. “You’ll get used to it.”
Phoenixes transcended myth. The firebirds of legend who carried Lumestra’s tidings through the stifling Dark that devoured all things. The hope that never died. Then again, it didn’t hurt that even swaddled in a hearthguard’s unflattering uniform, Viara was easily the most stareable thing in the Wayfarer. Enough to set hopeful hearts aflutter. All the more ironic – and not a little depressing – that Altiris felt no such stirring himself.
“If this isn’t a squalid dive, I’m glad we passed up the others.” Viara raised her glass, dark eyes on his for the first time. “Or is it that your debts are slighter here?”
Altiris took a sip of wine and made note not to underestimate her. “What was it you wanted to talk about, anyway?”
“It’s complicated.”
“I’m discreet.”
Again that appraising, careful stare. “That I doubt.” A sip of wine, and she sat back, lip twisted in irritation. “My father has… expectations.”
“I see.”
“He suggested working for Lord Trelan might restore lost opportunities.”
Opportunities. A seat on the Grand Council that granted a generous stipend without asking much in return. Oversight of an office of state while others scurried around doing the actual work. Once a highblood’s birthright, now callously ripped away by Lord Droshna’s reforms. No Grand Council. No Privy Council. And no station to which Viara and her peers could aspire.
Time was, she’d never have lowered herself to join a hearthguard – even one so storied as the Phoenixes. Nobles went into the chapterhouses to earn a knight’s plume. But with most of the chapterhouses gone or faded, and conscription making no exception for a family’s wealth? Well, better to stand service in a noble’s guard than trudge beneath a regimental banner or crawl around alleyways in a constable’s tabard.
It explained her disgust that Altiris was welcome in what wealthy circles remained, even though she apparently was not. It remained a sour note with Altiris that his invitations from Konor Zarn in particular sprang not from personal regard, but because a phoenix tabard at Woldensend Manor’s lavish balls implied rather more influence with Lord Trelan than facts supported. But it was better than nothing.
Motion beyond the window caught Altiris’ eye. An officer in a Drazina’s midnight black and silver swan drew into sight at the crossroads, his horse champing restlessly.
“And these opportunities haven’t arrived?” he asked, eyes still on the street. “What do you expect? You’ve been at Stonecrest for what, a few weeks?”
“Two months. Lord Trelan hasn’t even acknowledged my existence.”
Beyond the window, the officer headed deeper into the city. A pair of cloaked Drazina knights followed in his wake. A low dray cart in theirs, its rider swathed against the cold. Four others brought up the rear. A heavy guard for something so unassuming.
“I’m surprised you didn’t try for the Drazina,” said Altiris. “Lord Droshna’s ear is worth more.”
“They wouldn’t take me.” She offered a self-deprecating smile tinged with bitterness. “I’m too short.”
“Ah. I don’t know what to say.”
“Tell me how I can get Lord Trelan’s attention. Lumestra, but I wasn’t brought into the world to guard someone else’s silverware!”
There it was. The entitlement. The sense that the world existed only in service to one’s desires. It was disappointing, somehow, for a woman of Viara’s obvious intelligence to be so blinded by her upbringing. But wasn’t everyone?
“What makes you think I can help?” asked Altiris, his attention now on the inside of the Wayfarer more than on her. Something wasn’t quite right, but the more he tried to determine what, the further
he strayed.
“Can’t you?” said Viara. “You live in the house, not the barracks. You dine with the family, and as for how you carry on with Lady Reveque—”
“That’ll do.” The last thing he wanted was to talk about Sidara.
Viara regarded him with a poisonous mix of uncertainty and embarrassment, afraid she’d overstepped. It’d be so easy to knock her down a peg or two. One more small act of recompense for old harms. But no. Childishness was all very well, until it crossed the line into malice.
Besides, Viara wasn’t the only one who wanted to be liked.
Altiris took a deep breath. “Lord Trelan prefers deeds over words… and bloodline. He’s a man of action. Why else do you suppose he runs the constabulary?”
“Father maintains that action is vulgar.”
“I’m sure he does. But it doesn’t change the fact that if you want to…”
That was it. The tavern was quieter, a small but significant number of faces having departed into the cold. Unheard of in the Wayfarer this side of midnight. And across the road. The fire blazed in the derelict, but its supplicants were gone.
Snatching hat and gloves from the table, Altiris started to his feet. “Come on.”
Viara blinked. “What? I don’t—”
“Do you want to catch Lord Trelan’s eye, or don’t you?”
The challenge did its wicked work. She emptied her glass and, with a last despairing glance at a bottle still half-full, followed into a snow-swathed world. A world Altiris swore was colder than before.
“What’s going on, lieutenant?” she asked through chattering teeth.
Colder or no, the snow had definitely thickened, tracks and boot prints softened beneath soot-spattered white. Enough to follow, but not to show how many others had passed that way.
Altiris set off in brisk pursuit, exhilaration counteracting the chill. “A cart came through not long ago. Guarded by a half-dozen Drazina, no less. And just by chance, folk lose their taste for drink, and our friends by the fire forget the cold?”