by Matthew Ward
And then, too soon, the time of parting arrived, heralded by carriages on the gravel driveway, and reinforced by the arrival of a polite young officer of the 1st. As guests both unsteady and sober made farewells, Josiri sought words fit for the burden on his heart. Family was more than blood, and to have so much of it so close and complete – if only for a few hours – was a rare and wonderful gift. He found none and, when Viktor requested leave to speak, gladly assented.
Viktor nodded, steady and clear-eyed despite drink taken – which, now Josiri thought on it, had not been to any great quantity, though the lack had been artfully concealed.
“I should have done this long ago.” He looked from one to the next, ending with Josiri. “I know what folk say of me. That I’m distant, even heartless. Some of you have said worse, and I’ve certainly deserved it. But though my words may be lacking, never doubt my affection. You are my friends, and more than my friends, and dearer to me than life itself. Whatever gods listen or care, I gladly thank for today, and those days that led us here. Have you anything to add, brother?”
There it was. Proof that despite the quarrels behind and yet to come, they were more alike than not. A peculiar friendship, but shouldn’t the unusual be treasured all the more?
“Not a word.” Josiri clasped Viktor’s hand and embraced him. “Safe travels.”
Thirteen
Tarvallion blazed with light, the bonfires at the forest’s edge joined by lanterns welcoming the coming year and ghostfires warding off the vengeance of the past. And above them all, the full moon, soft silver amid the stars. From her vantage in Brackenpike’s unruly terrace garden, Rosa fancied almost to see the city as it had once been, the towers of old reflected in the clash of lights – a promise of what might one day be again. History was ever a cycle. It walked old paths unless guided anew.
“So this is where you’re hiding?” Sevaka let the outer door fall closed and joined her beneath the ivy bower. A heavy black shawl atop cream and silver gown was her one concession to the night’s chill. “The ceremony at the grove dragged on longer than I expected.”
“Did everyone behave?”
“More or less. With rumours flying, there’s little appetite for religious quarrels. The cloudless night helped.” Teeth glinted in the dark. “It’s a brave soul who threatens a Lunastran with the moon looming large.”
“It won’t last.”
“I know.” Sevaka sighed. “When war comes, too many Lumestrans will forget hardships and triumphs shared. They’ll see only a people who don’t worship as they do – worse, who revere the same goddess as the shadowthorns. But today, at least, they stood together in celebration. Maybe they’ll remember that.”
“They’ll remember it because you’ll make them.”
“That’s me. Sevaka the Tyrant. Everyone trembles at my name.”
Rosa grunted. It was precisely because no one feared Sevaka that she was so effective a governor. Fear was the vexed harvest of the unknown, and Sevaka left no uncertain ground in which such crops could take root. Those who came to her with grievance or need were assured of fair hearing; those who transgressed the law were equally certain to face justice. Empathy and retribution, wielded as shield and sword. For all that Sevaka had so often been derided as weak – not least by herself – there was steel in her soul. No one in Tarvallion doubted it.
“When were you going to tell me that you’re leaving?” asked Sevaka.
“After supper. I didn’t want to sour the day.” The wind shifted, bringing with it bitter cold and the sweet, tantalising scent of Starik Wood. “How did you know?”
“Because you told me, just now. But you’ve been distant since I returned. I know the signs.” She drew the shawl closer and sat down on the stone bench, back to the house and eyes on the moon. “It’s the Eastshires, isn’t it?”
“Do I have no secrets at all?”
A frown flitted across Sevaka’s face. “That’s not for me to say.”
Her hurt was plain for all it went unspoken, and all the worse because Rosa had no words to ease it. “Our people are suffering, and I’ve been playing at sculptress. I can’t be that woman any longer. Folk are gathering at Morten’s Rock. They mean to fight Thirava.”
“Soldiers?”
“Men and women who won’t stand by any longer.”
“Do you rate their chances?”
“Against the stag of Redsigor, and the owl of Rhaled flying close behind?” Bleak anger flared at the memory of Melanna Saranal, the woman who’d blighted Rosa’s life for so long. The prospect, however unlikely, of catching her within sword’s reach was never less than grim delight. “But they’re our people too. I’m Essamere, or at least I was. A shield first and a sword second. If I can make a difference, I belong there.”
Sevaka sat in silence for a time, lips pinched in thought. “Perhaps we both do.”
“You don’t mean that.”
She sprang to her feet, cheeks taut with the first flash of anger. “Don’t I?”
“You’re needed here. You know that.”
“And if I say you’re needed here also, is that not enough?”
“By you. By no one else.”
“Is. That. Not. Enough?” Sevaka turned away, the storm of her anger passing as swiftly as it had come. “I’m sorry. I know that’s not fair.”
Rosa’s doubts, never far from the surface, urged her to recant. She’d never been at home on the battlefield of the heart, where victories were fleeting, and so often indistinguishable from defeat. She slid her arms about Sevaka’s waist and held her close.
“It should be enough,” she said. “I’m a fool that it isn’t. I wish I could live a lifetime here with you, and let the world pass by. But I can’t. I’d not be myself, and if I’m not myself, then what are we but a dream?”
“The last time I let you go off without me, you almost died,” murmured Sevaka.
“I might say the same of you.” Except there was no almost about it. Sevaka had been two days cold in the ground before the Raven had breathed her back to life.
“At least you know what became of me after Vrasdavora. A year, and still I know almost nothing of what happened at Darkmere.”
Jumbled, incomplete memories swirled through Rosa’s thoughts. Stifling. Infuriating. “There’s nothing to tell. Nothing I can tell. There are flashes, faces. All else is swallowed by black fog, and the memory of something…” She pulled away, a hand rubbing unbidden at the long-healed scar beneath her shirt. “When I reach out, it pulls further away. It’s all I can do not to scream.”
She broke off, overcome by the sense of a precipice, hungry for the piece of her that had escaped. Skin prickling with cold sweat, she swallowed to soothe a parched mouth and urged her racing heart to slowness. Little by little, it ebbed, terror alongside. She opened her eyes to find Sevaka regarding her with worry.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“It’s not your concern.”
Sevaka snorted. “I won’t even dignify that with a response.” Warm fingers enfolded Rosa’s and gripped them tight. “Zephan was there. Can’t he fill in the gaps?”
She hesitated, but with the truth half in the open, what harm in speaking of the rest? “Not enough. That I was delirious with the arrow’s strike, and stumbled away just as the Hadari launched their second attack.”
“I see.” Sevaka’s lip twisted. “Is that why you won’t speak to Viktor? Because you’re worried you fled? That you failed him? Rosa… You can’t make amends by pursuing a hopeless cause.”
“I won’t speak to Viktor because he’s the reason I can’t remember!” Rosa snapped, the words loose before good sense counselled against.
Sevaka stepped back, frown blossoming. “How can you know that?”
How to explain the lump in her heart? Blazing hot and cold as ice. “I know.”
“What reason could he possibly have for doing such a thing to you?”
“How can I answer that when I can’t remember?” Sh
e scowled, the poor argument already unravelling, contradicted by her own words. “Maybe he merely wanted me to forget. If so, he has everything he sought.”
Sevaka’s eyes widened, disbelief crowding out concern. “Why haven’t you said anything?”
“If you could see your expression you wouldn’t have to ask,” Rosa said bitterly. “My own wife doesn’t believe me. Why should anyone else? I don’t know I believe it myself, some days.”
That wasn’t true, of course. It was simply that most days she tried to convince herself it wasn’t true.
“I know what it sounds like,” she went on, softly. “I owe Viktor my life and my sanity, so how can I think this of him? Maybe I am deluded. Maybe I’m even envious of what he’s achieved. But for him, the Republic would all be Redsigor. But if I’m wrong, I can’t make peace with it, not if I take a chisel to a thousand dreadful statues. If I’m right, I can’t prove it, much less explain why it was done. But what’s happening to the east? That, I can do something about, even if it’s almost nothing.”
“And if I forbid it?” asked Sevaka. “If I summon up constables and have you confined?”
“If you love me at all, you won’t,” said Rosa.
“That’s a cheap card to play.”
Rosa flinched. “Or the very dearest.”
Sevaka threw up her hands. “You almost died, Rosa. I know the scars that leaves better than anyone.”
A shadow passed over her eyes. For a full month after her Raven-sent resurrection, Sevaka had woken screaming in the middle of every night, shying from spirits only she could see, babbling about wounds she no longer bore. She’d been pale as ash the day of her investiture as governor. Those night terrors had been intermittent in the years since, but still there were occasions where Rosa woke from sleep to find Sevaka sitting in the darkness, eyes unseeing and the names of people she’d never met spilling from shuddering lips. Even when the Raven let you go, he left his mark.
Rosa dipped her head, haunted by the reflection of her own heartbreak in Sevaka’s eyes. “I wish there was another way. But I have to do this. I’ve made so many mistakes. I can’t shake this sense that I’m on the verge of making another.”
Sevaka shook her head. “Then go.”
Rosa frowned, as surprised at her tone as her shift in expression. “Pardon me?”
“I’m not blind, Rosa. You’ve tried setting aside the warrior to be a wife of leisure, but it’s not you. It never could be.” Lips danced a thin, sad smile. “If I hold you here, even to help you, I’ll be no more myself than you for staying. Save one life. Save a thousand. Do whatever you must to fill the hole that’s eating you inside out, and do it with my blessing. Just promise me you’ll come home.”
Sevaka’s voice shook as she spoke those last words, but she didn’t flinch from them.
Rosa took her hands and held them close. The temptation arose to gainsay every word she’d uttered, to wish it all away and stand for ever in that moment. “That’s no easy promise to keep.”
“You’ll keep it all the same, or else I will don scabbard and plate as my mourning weeds, and visit such horror on the Hadari that the Raven will weep. If I am to no longer be myself, it is only fair I should choose what I become.” Bright eyes met Rosa’s. “But you should have told me about Viktor.”
Even now, Rosa couldn’t be certain Sevaka believed her. Perhaps it was better she did not. “I know. Forgive me?”
“Upon your return,” Sevaka replied, speaking with a hint of humour for the first time. “Not before.”
One last embrace beneath moonlight, clasped tight enough for its warmth to linger through lonely days to come, and Rosa pulled away.
“Until Death, Rosa.” Sevaka offered the Essamere oath with wavering smile.
Rosa kissed her, hand cradled to her cheek. “Death failed to part us once before. It won’t succeed now.”
Then, before doubts returned renewed, she strode away, leaving behind a promise she doubted she could keep.
Fourteen
“Madda, this is very boring.”
Kaila’s claim was credible enough, for Melanna’s patience chafed just as readily. The never-ending procession of kings, princes, viziers, sons and – Ashana be praised – occasional daughters had begun with the setting of the sun. It would continue at least an hour, until the throne room was full and the feast begun. A ceremony of greeting that made little account for weariness, much less a child’s wandering attention. Such was the price of calling the Golden Court to conclave.
“Boredom is fine training for royal life, essavim.” Aeldran – standing at Kaila’s side a little behind Melanna, but a pace in front of the silver masked and white-robed lunassera handmaidens – laid a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Now stand up straight, and do honour to your mother.”
Melanna gazed out across the throne room, at the impenetrable array of friends and foes gathered beneath the golden likenesses of the divine that towered over all. Highborn mingled with the low – a rainbow of gold-edged silks, shining in the firelight as old acquaintances and perfect strangers laughed, loved, quarrelled and danced. Haldrane’s icularis would already be plying their trade in the smoke-wreathed hall, garbed as servants and bodyguards, sifting secrets from idle conversation, intent from arrogance. The never-ending game played to preserve the throne. One Melanna feared she was losing. Cardivan was plotting, and even the icularis could not hear everything.
At the foot of the dais, beyond the ring of Rhalesh Immortals, the usher’s staff rapped against stone, dragging Melanna’s faltering attention back to the business of the evening. “Prince Sailra Kerem of Abkarn.”
“Empress.” Sailra made a low bow, oiled black hair brushing against a starched collar. He pitched his voice with precision born of practice – quiet enough for seemliness, but loud enough that it carried over the swell of chatter and the musicians’ soft flutes. “It pleases me to reaffirm the fealty of both the House of Kerem, and the great kingdom of Abkarn. My mother regrets not having made the journey, but the years weigh heavily upon her shoulders.”
“My thanks, savir.” Melanna offered a gracious nod. So many words to convey so little of worth. Far from being a great kingdom, Abkarn was a client realm of Demestae – half a dozen clans clinging to cold northern shores. Prince Sailra’s fealty? Words proved nothing, only deeds. As for his ailing mother, her absence arose more from dislike than infirmity. Either that, or the Dotha Abkarn had the unenviable misfortune of having lingered on Otherworld’s threshold for Melanna’s entire reign. “Please, carry my greetings with you upon your return.”
“Majesty.”
Sailra withdrew, replaced almost at once by a prince of neighbouring Drusan. Melanna greeted the newcomer in turn – and the next, and the next – all the while acutely aware of her daughter’s fidgeting.
At last, the line petered to nothing, the first of the evening’s duties complete. Longer conversations were yet to come. Haldrane had forewarned that at least half those gathered beneath moonlight sought audience, whether to petition, to complain or simply out of hope that they might draw notice, and thus patronage.
Melanna rose from the uncomfortable throne and knelt before Kaila. “You have done well this evening, essavim. I’m proud.” The girl straightened, her cheeks colouring with pleasure. “And for that, I offer you a choice. You may stay, and continue to earn my regard by enduring what will be a very dull evening for one so young, or you may retire and Sera will tell you more stories of Ashana.”
Kaila glanced up at Aeldran, as she ever did when presented a choice by her mother. Then she nodded. “Stories.”
“Stories it shall be.” Melanna kissed her on the forehead and stood. “Sera?”
The handmaiden offered a slight bow, white robes whispering. “A pleasure, Ashanal.”
Melanna stilled an involuntary twitch at the honorific. “She is not to enter the inner gardens. Is that understood?”
“Of course.” Sera dipped her head, lips forming a solemn smile b
eneath the silvered half mask. Were Jack truly roused to malice, he’d think twice before challenging the lunassera. The Goddess might have withdrawn from the world, but her handmaidens remained. “Come, my princessa. We will speak of wolves and wisdom, and a love that was not. A fine story for Midwintertide.”
Kaila trailed readily behind as Sera withdrew, the remainder of the lunassera walking at respectful and watchful distance.
Melanna watched them leave the room of false smiles and brilliant silks. Freedom she no longer had. Kaila seemed somehow older than the night before. Illusion, certainly, shaped by her changing place in the world. But altered perception only reminded how little time mother and daughter spent together.
Aeldran turned his back on the crowded hall. “At her age, my grandfather had me attend every meeting of his court. I had to stand still and silent, without relief or food, while his chieftains bickered and guzzled themselves insensible.”
A not uncommon tale, for all that Maggad Andwar had been a most uncommon brute. “And you think I should inflict the same on our daughter?” said Melanna.
He shook his head. “I spoke in envy, not instruction. Let her be young for as long as she can. In any case, the throne will turn her grey long before her time.”
“As it has me?” Melanna had untangled the first grey hair from her brush that very morning. She’d found the sight morbidly transfixing. Strange to hold mortality in the palm of one’s hand.
“You are Empress, Dotha Rhaled. Your beauty will last as long as you live. It is practically law.” Aeldran kept an infuriatingly straight face. “Why, I understand that in Kerna, King Bodra’s grandmother is accounted the vibrant flower of womanhood, and she’s been dead at least six decades.”
“One lifetime is enough,” murmured Melanna. “So long as my mistakes are buried with me.”
His brow knotted, lending prominence to furrows not present at their first meeting. When he spoke, he did so in tones too soft to carry even to the ring of Immortals. “To live is to make mistakes, essavim. To fight is to correct them.”