by Matthew Ward
She lacked words to frame the experience. There was only a lingering sensation of acceptance, swaddled in green-white mist. A feeling of stillness. A sense of more lost in transition than gained.
A low moan easing from clay lips that did not feel, Calenne Trelan rested head and hands not hers against the boarded window, and wished herself gone back into mist.
Turning about, she stared into a candleflame’s soothing flicker and felt something stir deep within. A memory, or perhaps a dream dissipated in the moment of waking. She could almost see—
“I sought to prevent this.”
Calenne spun, the motion unsteady with the weight of clay limbs both too heavy and too light. [[Who is that?]]
Her voice awoke fresh pang. Hollow, as her thoughts were hollow. Worse was the glimpse caught in the free-standing mirror. The silk dress was finer than any she’d owned in life, trimmed with lace and shaped by artful corsetry. The body beneath was pale as death, the polished clay face blank, expressionless – the mask of a mummer playing the role of Kismet. Fingers traced the scuff marks at the temple where, keening, she’d striven to drag it free. The wig, at least, was like enough to what her hair had once been – dark as moonless night, and braided close. Taken as a whole, it was all much less beautiful than the doll made for Anastacia. So much plainer and cruder.
An intruder’s presence was nothing. An intruder at least meant company.
What more could he do to her than had already been done?
Shadow stirred beyond the candlelight, beyond the sofa, the tables and the stack of books provided for a glimpse of comfort in the bare brick room with barricaded windows and a locked door. An unsteady goateed presence in frock coat and battered hat bled away into a veiled, elderly woman in Hadari mourning silks. These two facets shared only the ruin where the right-hand side of their faces should have been. The darkness of a starry sky swirled beyond, a hole punched clean through the world. A glimpse of something vast, hidden behind a figment of flesh that shifted between vying aspects.
The memory of breath caught in Calenne’s throat. [[Stay away from me!]]
Yet she felt a bond. A tether. Even a yearning. The echo of kindness offered and received in a mist-laden world.
To her surprise, the Raven halted. A hand rose to forestall panic, and might have done so had not the fingers bled wisps of vaporous starfield. “You need not fear me.”
[[I’m not afraid of you.]]
The Raven shrugged. “I’m not your enemy in this.” He chanced a step into the candlelight. “You know how you came to be as you are?”
Calenne hesitated. [[Viktor saved me.]]
“He stole you. Out of selfishness, I might add.”
[[He loves me.]]
That much she believed, however contorted her feelings about his recent deeds. About tearing her from contentment into a world robbed of sensation. Ungrateful though she felt, Calenne couldn’t say with certainty she was glad of it. Was a life lived unfeeling and other any kind of life at all? What of future and family? What of being shunned for a freak? Did Viktor’s love grant him the right to act as he’d done?
The Raven’s fluctuating image stabilised as the old woman, the deep, gravelly voice yielding to something drier. “Does he?” The woman shuddered away, and the man returned. “I think it’s not Calenne Trelan he mourned all these years, but Viktor Droshna’s pride.”
[[Viktor Akadra.]]
The Raven’s form shifted. She shook her head. “Not any longer. Did he not say? The Hadari named him for the Dark at his command, and he wears their curse proudly as mantle. They fought a war out of fear of what he might become, and in their terror midwifed that very fate.” He scowled. “Ephemerals.”
[[He loves me. He does.]] She clung to that certainty in a life otherwise washed away.
“He styles himself a man who cannot lose,” he replied, “and yet he lost you. That loss drives him far more than affection. And look at you. Do you suppose you any longer set his pulse aflame?”
Calenne fought the urge to glance at the mirror. Fought, and lost. The stranger with the doll’s aspect stared back. Of course there was nothing of desire in the form. But then their brief, strange courtship – if it could even be called that – had been chaste, a bond born of shared souls more than desire. Or did she simply tell herself that to justify the void where her own desire should have lain?
[[Did Josiri still love his demon?]]
Josiri. Had he survived the aftermath of Davenwood? Had Anastacia? Calenne had the feeling she’d once known, and many other things besides. Snatches of ephemeral life, glimpsed through Otherworld’s veil.
The Raven closed, skirts swishing about her feet. “You shouldn’t resent a few missing memories. Worse than that gets left in the mists.” She sighed. “Yes, your brother’s love for my niece endures. But Josiri and Viktor are very different men.”
[[Viktor is a better man.]]
The Raven shrugged. “I’m sure you know best.”
[[I know better than to listen to the Raven.]]
He closed the distance in an eyeblink, palm against the spot where her breastbone should have been, the swirling starfield bleeding like smoke across her dress. Calenne felt no sensation, of course. Just pressure. An itch one couldn’t scratch. She’d have wept, had she means to do so.
The Raven leaned close, her lips level with Calenne’s cheek. “The feeling. Here. The one you can’t describe. The loss you can’t shape. You’re pining for my realm. You belong to me. Your soul knows it, even if your mind rebels. Still, I suppose we should both be grateful. The last time he tried this, the poor soul was torn in twain. Half to my keeping, and half to his.”
Calenne pulled away. The ache of loss ebbed, but did not abate. [[So you claim to love me more?]] She lent anger to the words. [[You’re Keeper of the Dead. This is the concern of a landlord for his holdings, or the gamekeeper for a poacher’s venison.]]
The Raven pursued, the remnant of his face contorted to fury. Candles scattered before him, spilling wax across the wooden floor. Calenne retreated until her back pressed up against the boarded window, his face an inch from hers.
“You are a mote among millions. A grain of sand upon the shores of a dozen worlds. I’m a keeper. A guardian. A caretaker. Even a curator. What love I have is the very driest form of affection. And even so, that love is greater than Viktor Droshna’s. However he once beheld you, you’re now nothing more than a mirror to his success and his failure.”
The Raven winced beneath her veil and stepped back, shoulders hunched and head low.
[[You’re wrong,]] Calenne’s words quickened, confidence and defiance building. For the first time since waking to a world of unfeeling clay, she started to feel like herself. [[It’s your own pride that’s hurting. You say Viktor stole me? Perhaps he did. And I’m guessing you resent the theft of even a single “mote”. Viktor hurt you. If I serve as a mirror to anyone’s failure, it’s yours!]]
The Raven straightened, humours again aligned to hauteur. “Perhaps there’s some truth there. Certainly, I wish him harm for his deeds, and those he will yet attempt. But you should consider that Viktor Akadra is no longer the man you remember – if indeed he ever was.”
[[Get out.]] Calenne hurled a book from the table. It fell far short of the Raven and skidded across the floor. Apparently Anastacia had her greatly bested in strength, as well as beauty. [[Leave me alone!]]
“As you wish.” The Raven cocked his head, a sad smile twisting his goatee. “But you might ask your dear Viktor about his sudden fondness for candles, when firestone lanterns may yet be the only magic the Republic possesses.”
She turned about and was gone, leaving Calenne feeling both more and less like herself.
Viktor turned the key and hesitated, his fingers at the door handle. What would he find within the sanctum? He’d departed the tower before dawn, drawn away by Elzar’s funeral, leaving behind a woman whose welling black eyes – he hoped – held the first sign of sanity.
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nbsp; His heart had urged him to remain and ease Calenne’s distress, as he had most waking hours in the days prior. But doing so would have betrayed Elzar’s sacrifice. And it had been sacrifice. For all the clutter in his life, the high proctor had always perceived the world clearly, his certainty a rock to the last. His passing left a void impossible to fill. It could only be honoured. Observance held the sorrow at bay. Sorrow, and the speck of guilt that could not be dispelled, only ignored.
But hope more than sorrow gave Viktor pause. Hope that Calenne would at last recognise him. Accept him. That she was indeed what she seemed, and not some Dark-born demon. This last he feared more than any Hadari blade or lost cause.
Viktor gripped the handle. The door eased inwards into candlelight.
“Calenne?” He spoke softly, habit urging him to clandestine behaviour even though there was no other in the clocktower, Tzila aside, and his secrets were safe with her. “Calenne, can you hear me?”
[[Yes, Viktor. I’m here.]]
His heart leapt. Better than hearing Calenne speak in coherent, measured tones was the sight of her sitting on the high-backed sofa, legs tucked demurely beneath. The morning after her return, she’d scrabbled at the door, howling like a caged beast. Even yesterday, she’d huddled in the corner, head buried in her elbows. She was even reading – at least, she’d a book spread open across her knees. One of several volumes purchased based on imperfect memory of those she’d possessed at vanished Branghall.
“May I enter?”
She glanced up from the book. [[You’re already here.]]
He still wasn’t accustomed to the voice. She sounded like Calenne, but not completely. As if a piece were missing. Viktor told himself it was the clay that made it thus, and wasn’t an indication of a greater lack – or one accidentally filled with the Dark. He’d made that mistake before, and chanced disaster. But even though a fraction amiss in character, her tone offered hope. Confidence. Certainty. Maybe even fondness.
He set the door to and edged into candlelight, searching the expressionless face for warning of relapse. “What are you reading?”
[[The Turn of Winter. I never finished it. I thought it might make me feel… That I’d feel…]] Voice crowding with emotion, she closed the book and stared at the cover. [[I’m sorry. After all you’ve done – after everything it’s cost you – I know it’s selfish to behave so. I have not been a decorous guest.]]
“You’ve suffered an ordeal.” Heart brimming, Viktor knelt before the sofa and cradled her hands. “I’d have paid any price to have you returned. I’ve longed to hear you speak.”
She shook her head. [[Even if my voice is no longer my own?]]
“Even then.”
[[And what of affection? Of love?]]
“It is my hope it endures.” He spoke slowly, choosing his words with utmost care. “I will do all I must to reforge it. But I place no expectation on you. My world is brighter for you walking in it, even if we must do so apart.”
[[Prettily said. Has the Black Knight been reading poetry?]]
For all the mirth in Calenne’s voice – for all the softening in posture – Viktor sensed his answer hadn’t been the one sought. That he’d perhaps even misread the question. “Would that I had the time. Duty is a heavy burden.”
[[Wasn’t it always?]]
“It grows ever weightier.” Viktor realised he was staring at the patch of floor where Elzar had breathed his last. He tore his attention back to Calenne. “When we spoke in Otherworld, you gave the impression you’d beheld something of the mortal world. What do you recall?”
Pulling her hands free, she set fingers against her temples as one massaging away a headache. Recognising the pointlessness of the motion, she let them fall to her lap.
[[I remember the wind in my hair at Davenwood. The glory of the charge and the joy of finally being someone I liked. Maybe even someone you could respect. Then a sword, white with flame. My horse bolted. I fell into Skazit Maze. And she… she was waiting for me.]]
“Malatriant.”
Porcelain hands clenched and unclenched, dark leather creaking at the joints. [[I tried to fight her…]] She met his gaze, black eyes swirling. [[It would be better if you assume I know nothing thereafter.]]
He clasped her hands anew. How much to tell her? Seven long years had passed since Davenwood, filled with people Calenne had never met and deeds that would matter little. Start with the simple things. The folk she’d known and loved, Josiri most of all.
Viktor rose and pulled up a wooden chair. Sitting opposite, he launched into a fractured retelling – one he feared was less coherent even than it sounded. The aftermath of Davenwood and Malatriant’s rise. The ascension of Kai Saran to the Imperial throne and the Avitra Briganda that had heralded his own elevation as Tressia’s Lord Protector. He spoke of Josiri and Anastacia, of Revekah Halvor, Vladama Kurkas and Armund af Garna, and other comrades who’d marched beneath Davenwood’s phoenix banner. Of the challenges ahead, and his determination to recover the lost Eastshires. Of his hopes that porcelain might in coming years soften to flesh.
But even amid the telling, he kept details shrouded. He said nothing of his hope that Calenne might take up arms and fight for their countrymen. That commitment, Viktor judged, would come in its own time and was not his to force. Likewise, he drew a veil over deeds to which he’d pressed his shadow out of need, recognising them as mired in complication – one or two acts, in particular, for which he still felt keen regret… necessary though they’d been.
Shafts of daylight from the boarded windows glowed red with evening’s fire, and surrendered to darkness. Hunger, thirst, and even the brooding business of war grew distant, lost in the rising joy of shared company sought so long.
And it was Calenne. As candles burned low and the chamber’s shadows lengthened, he set his own free to test every facet of her being. It was her. The true Calenne he’d sought in Otherworld, and not some doppelganger conjured from the Dark. More than that, he found no trace of the Dark about her. No weave of shadow and spite to patch a soul yet part in the Raven’s jealous grasp. The discovery, so long in arriving, left him breathless to the brink of tears and quite unable to speak.
She mocked him for his silence, marvelling at the Black Knight’s speechlessness. But it was not without kindliness. When she enquired what had struck him so, Viktor found no words to serve justice by the tangled emotion, and instead spoke of Elzar’s last moments. Grief walled away spilled free. Despairing the weakness, he pinched shut his eyes to force it back. He opened them at the pressure of a small porcelain hand upon his shoulder.
Silence reigned, no words exchanged and none sought. A long, cherished moment plucked from the world’s travails, and one ended all too soon when Calenne retook her place upon the sofa.
[[Josiri at the Republic’s heart,]] she said at last. [[What would our mother say, I wonder?]]
Our mother. That alone marked her different from the Calenne of yesteryear, who’d vehemently declaimed familial bond. Wisdom, it seemed, was not the sole province of the living.
“He is my rock,” said Viktor. “He has saved me from myself so many times.”
[[No doubt being insufferable all the while?]]
“At times, but no more than deserved. Where others would back down, he stands firm. He’s fearless. As all Trelans are fearless.”
[[You mean stubborn.]]
“I do. But the Republic could use a little defiance in this hour.”
[[Then war is inevitable?]] Calenne spoke flatly.
Standing, Viktor faced the corner where armour and sword hung. “I wish it wasn’t. But the road ahead is choking in blood and darkness. I see a way through. At least, I pray I do. Folk have given me their trust, and already I’m straining it to the limit. I will deliver on my promises. I must. Otherwise everything I’ve done will be for nothing.”
[[Simpler to be a monster with a sword?]]
“Would you believe I miss those days?” He shrugged, though felt little of
that nonchalance. “I never sought peace, nor simplicity, but now they’re all I crave. It’s my dream that we might perhaps seek them together, but I know that’s a conversation for the future. Whatever happens next, my world is brighter with you returned to it. I’m glad to have someone I can truly talk to.”
[[You have Josiri.]] She rose in a swish of skirts. [[I’d like to see him.]]
The request he’d dreaded. “Not yet.”
She tilted her head in suspicion. Under other circumstances, it would have cheered Viktor to see how swiftly she adopted mannerisms to compensate for an expressionless face. [[What aren’t you telling me?]]
He grimaced, but acknowledged the moment no occasion for half-truths. “That dream I spoke of. Some years ago, I lived it for a time. A quiet life on the Thrakkian border with a woman I loved more dearly than life.”
[[I see.]] Was that jealousy in her tone, or his hope of finding it? [[Who was she?]]
Viktor breathed deep. “After you… After Eskavord, something inside me broke. In my grief, I allowed the Dark to soothe my hurt. From it, I wove a woman I thought was you. Only when the malice of the Dark asserted itself was the lie revealed. I unravelled her once I learned what I’d done, but her memory lingers.”
Calenne went utterly still. Viktor somehow managed to avoid babbling through the silence. Justification would only make matters worse.
[[And Josiri knows of this… creature?]] she asked at last.
“I fear that if he learns of someone calling herself ‘Calenne Trelan’ he’ll react badly.”
She shook her head. [[Oh, Viktor. I swear I don’t know whether to thump you, or embrace you.]]
“Whatever you think is right. But I must ask you to remain in this room for the present.”
[[I grew to womanhood in a cage, Viktor. I find the prospect no more appealing now.]]
“It won’t be for ever. A week, perhaps two. Explanations will go easier once the Eastshires are settled. In the meantime, our people can’t afford me to be distracted. Tzila will stand watch when I cannot. You’ll have everything you need.”