by Matthew Ward
“Guilt?” Rosa snorted. “You forget, I saw the bounty notices before the Council confirmed your pardon. You walked a bloody trail to Davenwood.”
“Everyone I gave a ripper’s grin wore an oppressor’s uniform or took their coin. Their choices set ’em in the soil, not mine.” She shook her head. “I’m a hypocrite, right enough. But not for that. For Davenwood.”
“I don’t understand. You fought at Davenwood. If you hadn’t—”
The smile faded. “That’s just it. I nearly didn’t. A few of us, we’d a notion it might be better to let the Hadari win. No, not even that. That if we helped the Hadari win, we’d be better off under their boot than yours. Even if it meant fighting our own people. Thank Lumestra that Lord Trelan talked me ’round.”
“I didn’t know.”
“I’m not surprised. Lord Trelan always remembers his friends, even when they’re not exactly friendly. Keeps a secret well, he does.”
Rosa knew so little about Josiri Trelan. For all that he and Sevaka had become fast friends, Rosa had never quite made the connection. It didn’t help that she so often struggled with the personal, or that his meteoric rise from wolf’s-head to Viktor’s likely inheritor meant he transcended the structures of oath and authority by which she’d defined her life. But Drenn had offered a glimpse of a man careful not only with his own honour, but that of others. Another effort should be made, not just with Josiri, but with Drenn. Honour, like sunlight, could not reveal something not already there.
“So all this.” Rosa cast a hand to the window. “Penance for throwing in with Kai Saran?”
Drenn narrowed her eyes. “For almost throwing in with Kai Saran.” A twitch of the shoulder. “Maybe. Turns out all the pleasures of an easy life in Thrakkia can’t keep conscience at bay. Figure it’s time I did for others what Lord Trelan did for me… even if he seems to have forgotten the lesson himself. It’s the city that does it. Spend too long there, and it changes you. Stops you seeing the world for what it is. It’s only once you’re outside the walls that you see things clear again.”
That much, Rosa couldn’t argue with. For all that humbled Tarvallion lacked the comforts of Tressia, it felt more grounded. Fashion. Intrigue. Politics. Things that had mattered so much in the city – for even resisting them was to play your own tedious part in the game – held less purchase here. But that didn’t mean delusion was unique to the capital.
“You drag the people of this town along with you, you’ll get them killed.”
“That’s war, Lady Orova. You of all people don’t need a lecture on what it costs. Better a day lived free than endure a lifetime as a slave. Not that I’d expect a northwealder to know.”
Northwealder. Now it stung. It was one thing to comprehend the horrors meted out on the Southshires by an unfeeling Council, another to truly understand what it was to live through them. “This isn’t the same.”
“Of course it’s the same!” Drenn sprang to her feet, the fire of the marketplace in her eyes once more. “People are suffering, and the Lord Protector, like the Council before him, does nothing. Because they don’t have the coin to be worth saving. Because they lack the right bloodline. Because it’s easier to look the other way.”
“If Lord Droshna is doing nothing, it’s for a reason.”
Rosa fell silent, surprised at her own words. Old habits died hard, even in the face of recent troubles. Worse, she felt empathy’s first stirring. She’d come to defuse Drenn’s recklessness, but now…?
A memory clicked. The night the Council had formalised the Southshires’ occupation. She’d only been a girl, years from squirehood. The first time she’d ever heard her uncles arguing. Gallan had abhorred the Council’s actions, while Davor – who’d lost a sister in the brief civil war – had welcomed it. Three days, they’d spoken only to continue the argument. A frosty Ascension that had been, and warmth restored to the household only after Gallan put aside his principles to preserve his marriage. She’d no doubt the scene had repeated itself across Tressia. If others had spoken out – if they’d acted – the occupation might have ended years earlier. How many could have been saved? Was this the same mistake made over again?
She shook her head. It wasn’t the same. The Eastshires suffered because, for all their vaunted talk of honour, the Hadari cherished it only when convenient. Provoking Thirava and the treacherous Empress who’d granted him the stolen lands would invite only disaster.
But still the pang of empathy remained. That, and treacherous desire for battle in a just and necessary cause. Because she’d lied to Eckorov as she lied to Sevaka. It wasn’t anger alone that drove home the chisel. Stepping down as the Mistress of Essamere had been the hardest thing she’d done, for all that it had been necessary.
“Listen to me,” she said, speaking to herself as well as to Drenn. “The Southshires were freed as much through the efforts of those in the north as in the south. Men and women who held back the worst of the occupation for years.”
Drenn snorted and stared out of the window.
Rosa stood and seized her shoulder, forcing the other to meet her gaze. “If you provoke the Hadari, they will crush you.”
“Only if they catch me. They haven’t so far.”
“And when they do?”
“Then I’ll die, and when Lumestra raises me up into the Light of Third Dawn, I’ll stand before her proud and unashamed.”
A fanatic’s answer. Or a soldier’s. Maybe even a martyr’s. The difference lay more in victory or defeat than unyielding fact. But Malatriant’s influence wasn’t the only thing absent from Silda Drenn. Save for her jibe about Sevaka – one that had only cut so deep because it was more true than it was not – she’d been courteous. She’d even used Rosa’s title, which was not the behaviour expected from a wolf’s-head bent on anarchy. In short, the woman in the Thief’s Bounty was not the self-aggrandising demagogue of the marketplace.
It was just possible that Silda Drenn meant every word she said, but that only made her more dangerous, not less.
Rosa let her hand fall. “I’ve no doubt you’ll convince folk to follow you. At the very least, you should be certain they’re every inch as prepared to die as you.”
Teeth flashed behind parted lips. “The good citizens of Tarvallion? I didn’t come here for them, though I’ll not turn aside any who understand what’s at stake. I came here for you.”
“Then you’ve wasted your time,” Rosa replied coldly.
She stepped closer. “I’ve been watching you, just like you’ve been watching me. Your eyes don’t lie, Lady Orova. You know something has to be done, but you’re lost. For all you’ve pretended otherwise these past months, you’re still a soldier. You need someone to tell you a war’s worth fighting. Well, I’ve a war worth fighting, and it could use you. The people of the Eastshires need your help, in the way you never helped us of the south.” She backed away, halting briefly in the doorway. “I’ll be at Morten’s Rock for two days. Tell the reeve if you like. Ring us in with constables and whatever you have that passes for soldiers. But if you’ve heard anything I’ve said, you’ll come alone.”
Then she was gone, her companions falling into step behind, leaving Rosa alone.
Seven
“Where is she? Where is my daughter?”
Tavar Rasha held his composure as an esteemed jasaldar of Immortals should, his weathered, olive-toned features respectful and every inch as enduring as the palace’s vaulted oak ceilings. “Your daughter, savim? Is she not sleeping?”
Melanna bit back an unkind response. “Her bed is empty and her chambers quiet. Her night-maid was in the next room the whole time and heard nothing. Find her. Rouse the palace if you must.”
Grizzled grey eyebrows furrowed. “She’ll be found.”
Rasha set off at a jog, golden-scaled armour rustling. Unthinkable for an Immortal to behave with such indignity – much less the captain of the guard whose authority was second only to that of the Imperial family’s. But Rasha had two
granddaughters of Kaila’s age, and knew as well as Melanna that the heir to the Hadari throne wouldn’t need to travel far to meet misfortune. A few paces might be enough, especially with a conclave of the Golden Court due that night.
Melanna told herself none would dare so obvious a blow against the House of Saran, but the words rang hollow. The throne was a prize grand enough to soothe any conscience.
She clenched her fists, aware of the losing battle against her fears but unable to sway its course. There’d been no guard set on Kaila’s room. Tomorrow, yes. Additional precaution against cyraeths loosed from Otherworld by a dying year to settle unfinished business in the living world. Fleenroot and duskhazel were all very well, but stout hearts and steel served better. But such precautions shouldn’t have been necessary at other times – not in the Imperial palace, which lay behind thick walls and a garrison of Immortals.
A thousand fates yammered for attention, each bleaker than the last. Where was the courage of the battlefield now? She’d thought herself tempered. Had she not walked divine realms and bartered with gods? But such deeds had been poor preparation for motherhood’s fears. Those for a lost child, straying from safety. Not for the first time, Melanna understood a little of how her father had felt each time she’d picked up a sword. Though he’d gone to Ashana’s care years ago, she felt closer to him than ever, and wished she could tell him so. That she could tell him anything. But for all that his gilded likeness now guarded the approach to Tregard’s Triumphal Gate, Kai Saran was lost, blessed with Evermoon’s tranquillity, or with a hunter’s station in Eventide’s court. And for all that the palace was seldom quiet, it always felt empty.
Voices echoed along the corridor, boots muffled by the rich weave of Itharoci rugs as Rasha marshalled the household to the search. An Immortal rounded the corner and drew to solemn halt.
“I am to stay with you, savim,” she said. “Jasaldar Rasha wonders if you’d retire to the throne room, so you’re easily found once there’s word.”
Melanna nodded, her eyes on the reflected lantern-light of a gilt-framed mirror hanging between the swirling linework frescos. She barely recognised herself. The woman who met her gaze had not a hair out of place beneath the filigree silver chains, no crease to her golden gown, nor a smudge to the powder that darkened her eyes to wells of shadow. The woman in the mirror yet resembled an Empress, despite fears brewing beneath. Melanna Saranal, Dotha Rhaled, Queen of the Silver Kingdom, and Empress of the Hadari.
Better to be that woman if she could.
That Empress would wait out the search in the throne room, as Rasha had not so subtly suggested – or perhaps in the solitude of her own chambers. A display of detachment and composure expected of one who was mother to a nation that spanned from the cold seas of Rhaled’s northern coasts to the shifting deserts far to the south.
To worry over a single child – even of her own blood – would be proclaimed unseemly. A gift for those on the Golden Court who offered fealty to a woman only with reluctance. That might even be the point of the abduction – if abduction it was – to fuel whispers that it might perhaps be better for the Imperial consort to assume the throne. If it transpired that the disappearance was no disappearance at all, but merely the night-time wanderings of a sleepless child, the whispers would be more brazen still.
Melanna’s father had never worried over such things, of course – nor his father, or his grandfather before that. Her earliest memories were of her sire breaking off from the business of state to comfort her tears, or scold girlhood’s transgressions. Weakness was relative, and she was forced to prove herself twice over – once for her youthful twenty-five winters, and once again for committing the cardinal error of not being born a man.
Yes, the expected thing would be to retire, and let others conduct the search. But for all that motherhood’s ambition had lain secondary to the birthright of rule, a mother Melanna remained.
Raven take them all, anyway.
She shifted her attention to the Immortal, still standing close by – but not too close. A little older than her. Old enough that she’d likely learned her trade masquerading as a man, identity concealed by a close helm, an uncinched belt and the loyalty of fellows who cared more for comradeship than tradition. Such was the reason Melanna discouraged helms within the palace grounds, where an Immortal’s duties were largely ceremonial. Harder for staid elders to deny the warrior’s path to a new generation of young women when others walked it plainly.
“What’s your name?” she asked. Even an Empress could not know all who served her.
The Immortal hesitated, lip twitching in discomfort. “Tesni Rhanaja, savim. Daughter of Kael Rhanaja, who bore your father’s banner at Coralta.”
“My daughter is missing, Tesni. I intend to join the search. Jasaldar Rasha will find me easily enough.”
She nodded unhappily. “As you will, savim.”
Melanna retraced her steps to the east wing and Kaila’s chambers, little caring that Rasha’s Immortals had been there before her. Activity was as much the point of the exercise as discovery, an outlet for anxiety’s strange energy. And besides, for all that Melanna trusted the royal guard with her life, the shepherding of children lay somewhat beyond their skills.
Barked command summoned maids with lanterns, and renewed search was made of bedchamber, washroom, nursery and neighbouring corridors. The adjoining chapel too, for though it had fallen out of use after Melanna’s great-great-uncle’s eastern campaigns had seen the House of Saran’s family tree reduced to a single, sickly branch, it had been one of her favourite haunts as a young girl, and daughters were ever apt to imitate their mothers.
When the chapel’s moon-shadows garnered nothing, Melanna returned to the bedchamber and had Tesni haul the wardrobe away from the wall. A few moments’ brutal industry with a prybar and the door concealed within the oak panelling sprang open. But if Kaila had somehow found her way into the network of passageways woven through the palace walls – or had been forced to do so – it had been accomplished without disturbing the dust of decades.
Melanna left others to re-site the wardrobe, pulled aside the terrace drape and stared out into a night lit by stuttering blue-white ghostfires. Lanterns and the gleam of gold in the sculpted, snow-wreathed gardens told of Immortals carrying their search into the grounds.
Clouds parted and the snow of the terrace shone, the icicles of the fence beyond become glittering teardrops wept by a distant moon.
But it was another shape that caught Melanna’s attention. A huddled bundle resting atop the snows. A wool-stuffed doll, one of two presented to Kaila on her fifth birthday but weeks before, the golden cloth of its armour dull in the moonlight. One of two, though that one had instantly been the favourite. After all, the other had worn a gown, and had not carried a sword.
Melanna fumbled at the door, mind and fingers numbly refusing to credit why the key wouldn’t turn, nor the bolt unlatch. Only when she pushed at the door, a cry of frustration ripping free from the pit of her racing heart, did she realise the cause. The door had not been locked, merely pushed to.
She barely felt the night’s chill embrace as she dropped to one knee and plucked the doll from the snow.
“Savim?” Moonlight yielded to Tesni’s shadow, the sickly glow of the oil lantern drowning silver with gold. “You’re not dressed for this, majesty. Please, come back inside.”
Teeth chattering, Melanna clasped the doll between shaking fingers, and raised it for the other to see. Her hands shook so fiercely – though from cold or pent-up dread she could no longer say – that it seemed to jerk of its own accord.
“Three weeks, and this has never left her side. It was with her when she kissed me goodnight. The door was unlocked.” She flung a hand towards the billowing drapes of the open door. “She might have reached the key, but never the bolt.”
That made it abduction. Or worse.
No. She couldn’t think that. Wouldn’t think it. Corpses granted no leverage, only retr
ibution. Willing back hot tears, Melanna gazed up at the moon, but found no more guidance there than she would have beneath her father’s portrait.
Anger helped. It came easily enough, welling from appraisal of the night’s failures. At her detractors, who held themselves to be men of honour, but who now struck through a helpless child.
Melanna snatched the lantern from Tesni’s hand. Golden light revealed what silver had not: the shallow indentations of a child’s footprints in the packed snow. They led away from the palace and out into the darkness.
She flinched as Tesni’s hand fell upon her shoulder. “Go inside, majesty. I beg you. I’ll fetch Jasaldar Rasha.”
The low, practical words vied with Melanna’s chattering teeth. But they’d no hope of besting the terrible, unsought imaginings of another huddled figure face down in the snow, or screaming into a gag as strangers bundled her away, wondering why no one came to help her.
Lantern trapped tight in trembling hands, she fled the terrace, following the sorry trail.
“Savim!”
Ignoring Tesni’s cry, Melanna ran on into the night, Kaila’s footsteps and the wan lantern her only guide. Her impractical courtier’s shoes snagged as she crossed the stone garden’s high wall. She left both behind in the sand and ran barefoot through the snows.
Shouts rang out as Immortals scattered through in the grounds hastened to pursuit. But Melanna had always been light on her feet, and heavy boots and armour were no friend to those who sought swift advance through snow.
That snow grew thicker as the formal gardens fell away into the wild, dark corner of the grounds – the old wood, where few ever trod. She stumbled on, feet numb to the relentless cold. Briars snatched at her dress. Golden silks tore. Blood welled hot on cheek and calf, and trickled away chill. Still she stumbled on, mind closed to all save the trail of footsteps that had become a muddled furrow in the drifted white.
The path widened to a glade, unseasonal roses black beneath snow. The gnarled oak with whom Melanna had shared many childhood adventures reached its wizened branches towards the stars. The ivy about its venerable waist rustled whenever thin breeze cheated the younger trees.