by Matthew Ward
“Who’d feed them if we didn’t? For all its faults, the Crowmarket strove to help those that greed left behind. Your master and his friends were quick enough to drive them into the sea, but they’ve done little to fill the void. The poorhouses are overwhelmed, and charity grows thin. For those hale enough to carry a sword, the army offers respite, but for the rest? What are they to do?”
“Lord Trelan is doing everything he can,” said Altiris.
“Is he? When was the last time he walked Sothvane’s streets? Can he hear the cries of starving children from behind Stonecrest’s walls? Do its windows afford clear view of those shivering because their homes were demolished to site new fortifications?” The Merrow paused, a deep breath bringing passion under control. “I have lived in this city all my life, and even under the Council’s worst excesses, it functioned. Everyone had a place, a body to whom they had recourse. The Crowmarket for the poor, the Council for the wealthy—”
“And southwealders?” growled Altiris. “What did we have?”
“You’re right, of course. Privilege blinded me for the longest time. I’m not free of it. But that doesn’t alter the fact that this city – this Republic – is changing, and not for the better. Or do you suppose you were the only child of Exodus at Seacaller’s last night?”
The Merrow stepped closer, then checked himself.
“There is a darkness growing in this city. It spreads from the Lord Protector, leaving those closest to him blind. Conscription. The Eastshires abandoned. The streets patrolled by automata, answerable only to a priestess in her alabaster tower.”
Uncertainty only fed Altiris’ swell of anger. “Watch your mouth!”
He hissed in pain as Kasvin dug her fingers into his upper arm.
“Josiri Trelan is a good man, as Malachi Reveque was a good man,” said the Merrow. “But good men are easily deceived.”
“But not you?” Even Altiris recognised his response lacked weight. Too many truths in among the lies. Or what he hoped were lies.
The Merrow tilted his head. “No. Not on either count. When you wore shackles, is this the future you hoped for? Or did you want something better? There is wealth enough in the Republic, but none of it goes where it should.” His voice quickened, passion returning. “This is what we seek to address. Join us. Help us do for others what was not done for you. I know you’re loyal to Josiri Trelan. I’ll ask nothing that would set you against him.”
The grifter’s promise. The first path along a slippery road. Altiris’ wavering resolve hardened to crystal. For all the Merrow’s protestations of righteous cause, he was exactly as bad as the Crowmarket. “And if I don’t? You’ll have Kasvin ‘convince’ me, as she did Hawkin?”
“Hawkin Darrow is earning redemption,” snapped the Merrow. “As are we all.”
A crash of breaking glass sounded downstairs. Shouts followed. Close behind, a scream split the air.
The Merrow’s head jerked towards the door. “What—?”
The door burst open, a merrowkin with a naked blade and a bloody brow framed against the landing. “They’ve found us! Go!”
The Merrow nodded. “Kasvin?”
Shoving Altiris towards the merrowkin, she ripped open mouldered drapes. The balcony door swung open onto a pitch black, snow-strewn night. “The streets are clear.”
The Merrow started for the balcony.
“No!” Altiris stamped on the newcomer’s instep. The man howled and staggered away. Altiris lowered a shoulder and barged him back through the door. Hands still bound, he ran for the balcony and the fleeing Merrow.
Kasvin’s forearm took him across the throat.
A chair shattering to spars beneath Altiris’ back. Crushed hands throbbing, he fought to rise. Kasvin glared down, her vicious hiss more serpentine than human. Her hands hooked, black fingernails like claws.
“Leave him!” shouted the Merrow.
Black skirts swirled, and Kasvin was gone. By the time Altiris regained his footing, so had the Merrow. The first snows drifted through the drapes and melted into the ruined carpet.
A wet gurgle sounded from the doorway, a thump close behind.
Altiris spun about. Constans stood above the erstwhile captor’s body, a bloody dagger in his hand, and his lips twisted in that familiar, self-satisfied smile. Altiris blinked in surprise.
“You might say ‘thank you’.” Stepping forward, Constans slit Altiris’ bonds. “This is a rescue.”
Steel chimed downstairs. A ragged bellow bled to a scream.
Altiris winced as renewed circulation made prickly displeasure known. “You fetched the constabulary?”
“Better.”
Then who? If there was anyone less likely to call upon Sidara than Altiris himself it was her brother. And the Stonecrest Phoenixes wouldn’t have followed the manor’s outcast son on his word alone.
When Altiris reached the top of the stairs, he had his answer.
Bodies lay strewn across the hallway, some slumped and moaning, clutching at mangled limbs. Most were unmoving, with the vacant, skyward stare of folk fled to the Raven’s welcome. Three remained standing. Two merrowkin – one bloody and both bearing the rictuses of doomed men – and Captain Tzila, her twin sabres in mirrored grasp, their points downward.
With a ragged cry, the merrowkin nearest the stairs flung himself forward, sword arcing down at Tzila’s shoulder in a two-handed grip. The other lunged in the same moment, a dagger spearing at her spine.
Even as Altiris opened his mouth to offer warning, Tzila spun her bloody swords. The black silk of cloak and bases awhirl, she stepped aside – each footfall, each flex of limb graceful and possessed of unflagging purpose. Her left-hand sabre severed the swordsman’s arm at the wrist, the thump of the falling hand lost beneath the merrowkin’s agonised scream. The right struck the dagger aside and loosed a bloody riposte that left his comrade clutching a torn face. Tzila turned a graceful gyre, and steel flashed to silence both.
Then, her arms again at her sides and her sabres angled down, she turned towards the stairs, her posture that of a mummer awaiting applause.
Awestruck, Altiris descended the stairs. Four dead. Three moaning their pain. Not a mark on Tzila in exchange. The blood spattered on breastplate and vambrace was most assuredly not her own.
“Are any of these your work?” he asked Constans.
A shrug. “Just the one back there. I try to stay out of her way.”
No wonder. Altiris turned his attention to the motionless Tzila. He’d never seen her fight – never heard of anyone who had. Few who did walked away, it seemed. “Thank you.”
She tilted her head to one side and, stiff-armed, levelled a sabre at a door hanging off its hinges and the cold night beyond. Unspoken though it was, the order was clear.
Eleven
Josiri started awake, scattering blankets to the floor. Inconstant nightmare bled away as reluctant fingers loosed their grip on the chaise’s backrest. Bleary eyes sought sense of the darkness, urgent with the growing fear of something amiss.
Fumbling behind, he opened the drapes a crack. Moonlight granted shape to furnishings and the huddled figure on the bed.
A dream. Just a dream.
But as sleep’s veil peeled away and turgid thought gathered to something approaching function, Josiri looked again at the bed, whose shape seemed somehow amiss.
“Ana?”
He rose unsteadily. The huddled figure was not a huddled figure at all, but blankets cast hastily aside.
At once, he recalled what had startled him awake, the thud of falling body now impossible to forget. Heart in his mouth, Josiri hurried about the foot of the bed.
Crunch.
Something gave under his heel. Hard, but yielding. He stared down at a dusty white smear speckled with smooth, irregular flakes. A piece of fired porcelain, crushed to powder. Daylight seethed from the remains, and faded to nothing.
The floor between the bedside and the suite’s bathroom was strewn with such fra
gments. Most were no larger than a shilling, but over by the bedside table, moonlight gleamed on what was unmistakeable as the thumb and forefinger of a right hand.
Overcome by dizziness and with a sick, sour ache at the pit of his stomach, Josiri grabbed at the footrest.
Only then did he hear it: a low, breathy sound somewhere between a gasp and a sob. It stuttered and faded, muffled by the intervening door and the shrill buzz of Josiri’s tumultuous thoughts. Earlier, he’d have given anything to see Anastacia crook a finger or twitch a hand. That she was moving about would have occasioned joy, but for the proof that she’d left so much of herself behind.
A stumbling swallow did nothing to clear a parched mouth. “Ana?”
A heavy, scuffed scrape sounded beyond the door. The sob faded.
Josiri edged closer, careful of his footing. Trembling fingers found the handle. The latch turned.
An icy draught from the open window stole his breath. The bathroom’s curtains snapped and tugged at their mountings as if fleeing the darkness. Seized of sudden, plunging dread that Anastacia had given herself to both the night and the Raven, he ran to the window. Three storeys below the sill, the pristine snow remained unbroken in the moonlight.
Stepping back, he calmed the curtains and set the window closed.
“Josiri?”
He froze, the husky, trembling voice unfamiliar. Eyes strained as they readjusted to gloom. At the bathroom’s far end, a blanket-shrouded figure hunched over the sink, head level with the mirror. Porcelain fragments lay strewn across the tiles.
“I’m here.” He drew closer, more careful than ever.
For all that it had been a woman’s voice, it hadn’t sounded like Anastacia. It lacked the singsong resonance that had become so familiar. And the blanket… Anastacia had never been modest, treasuring clothes for what they enhanced, and not caring what they concealed.
“Ana… What’s happened to you?” He swallowed. “How can I help?”
A curved piece of porcelain slipped from beneath the blanket’s folds and shattered on tiles. This time, enough remained whole that Josiri saw it was not solid chunk, but thin, concave.
Dusty hands drew back the blanket’s folds, revealing a stranger’s face. Or not quite. Beneath the chalky dust and smeared blood, there were signs of the Anastacia he’d known before Viktor had sealed her in clay. The button nose and high cheekbones; thin lips that made every smile fleeting and every frown a curse. Thick, dark stubble bristled at her scalp. Tears glistened on cold-stung cheeks. And her eyes… no longer the swirling black of a trammelled spirit, but the white sclera and green irises of an ephemeral woman, bright and uncertain.
She reached for him with trembling hand, the last porcelain cracking and slipping away from her fingers. The low, halting sob again fluttered from parted lips, though now Josiri realised she cried not with sorrow, but disbelief.
“What’s happened?” she breathed. “Something wonderful.”
Her knees buckled, and she clung to him for support.
Heart fit to burst, Josiri clasped Anastacia’s head to his chest, and held her tight until dawn.
Lunandas, 28th Day of Wanetithe
Midwintertide
From the ashen threads of the old year, Lumestra wove the new, binding it with such light and splendour as to ensure that the Dark would hide its jealous face until winter returned. And ever after, Midwintertide was a time of hope, not despair, for all knew that where the Goddess had wrought one miracle, others could follow.
from the sermons of Konor Belenzo
Twelve
Altiris lingered before the mirror, as ever uncertain of a reflection belonging to someone else. He understood what the Phoenix uniform asked of him – even if he’d made a mixed job of complying of late. The softer, closer cloth of the well-to-do was different.
Knuckles rapped softly on wood. Without leaving opportunity for response, the door eased open. Sidara’s black Drazina uniform was – for once – in abeyance in favour of a rich velvet gown the same sparkling blue as her eyes.
“Are you coming down?”
Altiris tugged at his cravat. “When this is sitting straight, yes.”
She shook her head. “You look fine.”
Easy for her to say. This was her world, not his. Take away the uniform, and Sidara was still the Lady Reveque. With the Phoenix gone, what was he? A southwealder in a costume.
On the other hand, Sidara didn’t go in for spared feelings. Maybe it didn’t matter if it was a costume, so long as he wore it well.
“I’m surprised you’re not in the Panopticon.”
“Josiri would never forgive me if I missed today.” Blue eyes shimmered gold. “Besides, I see plenty from here. I understand you had another eventful night.”
He tensed at the reminder of black and red in the tally of deeds. Black, for information gathered. The woman with the blue-green eyes had a name. Kasvin. Add to that a description of the Merrow – though this was so nondescript as to be almost worthless – and confirmation that the Crowmarket was not resurgent. Last of the positives was that a constabulary raid had recovered stolen possessions from the Sothvane warehouse, acknowledged by a solemn letter bearing Lord Droshna’s seal, delivered to Stonecrest before dawn.
But still the red hung heavier. He’d been captured. Worse, he’d endangered Constans. And then there was the matter of Hawkin Darrow. There’d been no way of avoiding her mention this time, which would only lead to questions about why he’d said nothing before.
“If I agree to come downstairs, do I avoid the lecture?” he asked.
“Strictly one lecture a week.” She glided into the room, perfect posture softening. Lady Reveque slipped from her shoulders until she was simply Sidara. “I might have been a little brusque. I’m not at my best when tired, you know that.”
“I think that may have been my point.”
Narrowing eyes to slits, she punched him lightly on the arm. “It’s not kind to interrupt an apology. I don’t know why I bother.” But the smile broadened.
Altiris returned it with one of his own, the unfamiliar suit less of a burden. “Nor me.”
“Then we agree on something,” she replied, mock-archly. “But about last night—”
“You promised no lectures.”
“Hush.” Sidara set a finger to his lips. “I’m glad you’re still in one piece, that’s all.”
“Am I? My pride’s seen better days.”
“An acceptable casualty. Not everyone in my brother’s orbit escapes so lightly.”
Constans. Who’d displayed magic of his own, of a sort darker than his sister’s. Sidara surely didn’t know, and should be told… but perhaps not at that moment, where it would only sour things. Another lie of omission. “He rescued me.”
She scowled. “I know. He won’t shut up about it.”
“He’s here?”
“I’m as surprised as you are. In the kitchens, of course. Scavenging from plates meant for others. He gets taller, but he doesn’t get older – not in any way that counts.” She straightened, Lady Reveque once more. She crooked an elbow for him to take. “Are you coming down, or not? If only to save me from Josiri’s guests?”
“Leave you alone with those ruffians? Never.”
In the event, no ruffians were present amid the lanterns and decorations of Stonecrest’s hallway. Nor were there any servants, who’d still be labouring in the kitchens – although they, like the hearthguard, would be well compensated for their efforts, and soon released to their own celebrations. Another of Lord Trelan’s foibles. Stonecrest’s worthies would be left to their own devices from the stroke of one until the next morning.
The chime of the brass doorbell drowned the murmur of conversation from the drawing room. Reluctantly disentangling himself from Sidara, Altiris slipped back into duties scarcely set aside, and slipped the bolt. Izack stood on the porch, a cloak cast rakishly back from the shoulders to reveal an immaculate hunter’s green Essamere uniform beneath, rath
er than the blue of the regular army. He, at least, had chosen to be himself.
He stepped inside without invitation, and delivered a weighty clap to Altiris’ back. “Well, well, well. If it isn’t the hero of the hour. Eventful night?”
Altiris glanced over his shoulder for rescue, but Sidara had gone. “I’ve had quieter.”
“Dregmeet may be drowned, but the dregs will always be with us. Only good thing about conscription is that we get to sift the mire.” Izack shrugged off his cloak and set it on a crowded hat stand fashioned in the likeness of a gnarled tree. “Reckon I could manage a captaincy, were you interested.”
Altiris blinked. Army captaincies went to the sons and daughters of the nobility – those schooled in war by the knightly chapterhouses. For all that he recognised Izack’s offer as being born of the army’s hard times at least as much as his own worthiness, he swelled with pride. Him, a southwealder. A proper soldier. A proper officer.
“Truly?”
“I don’t waste time being a tease,” Izack replied. “I won’t pretend it won’t mean some hard lessons, mind. Josiri’s a good man, bless him, but he’s no concept of soldierly discipline – you just have to see the way he dresses to see that. But I’ve confidence you’ll learn.”
“Th-thank you,” Altiris stuttered.
Izack hooked a lopsided grin. “That a ‘yes’?”
Altiris hesitated. Loyalty to Lord Trelan was part of it, but not the whole. Mistakes made in Tressia’s backstreets were one thing; those committed on the battlefield were tallied in soldiers slain and battles lost.
He wasn’t ready.
To his surprise, no shame accompanied the silent confession. Maybe, just maybe, he’d learned more the previous night than he’d first thought.
Aware that Izack was still waiting for an answer, Altiris stiffened himself to reply. “I—”
But Izack’s attention was elsewhere.
Altiris followed his gaze across the hall to a petite woman in a clinging, bare-shouldered red dress, a white wig worn loose across her shoulders. Mischievous green eyes glinted in an ageless, beautiful face – one more expressive than it had any right to be, and flushed with colour lacking only a day prior. The Anastacia of before had been intriguing, even beguiling. Now, she was little short of stunning, and impossible to imagine any other way.