by Matthew Ward
Words grew elusive, so he fell back on convention. “How are you?”
Altiris offered a mirthless smile and winced as the motion tugged at a bruised cheek. The Drazina had been less than gentle. “You tell me.”
“Commander Hollov is calling for the highest penalty.” Serenes had found Grandmaster Sarisov’s body beneath the ruin of the second barricade. Some acclaimed him a hero. Josiri’s own thoughts were less charitable. “Viktor’s furious.”
Altiris pursed his lips, no longer staring at Josiri, but beyond him. “And Sidara?”
“She’ll be fine.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Josiri sighed. “Perhaps you should talk to her. It’s house arrest. You’d still be in the house.”
“I’m the last person she wants to see right now.”
Josiri hadn’t spoken to Sidara himself – dealing with the riot’s aftermath had swallowed the rest of his day, and would likely occupy those to come – but the brew of betrayal and frustration Anastacia had recounted was one Josiri found all too credible, and familiar besides. Worse than the fact that Altiris had laid hands upon Sidara were the events he’d brought about. Sidara’s first real action away from the Panopticon, and she’d failed. Viktor had been the first at her side once she’d recovered. Josiri hadn’t heard what words had passed between them, but knew all too well that Viktor’s disappointment was a difficult burden.
“If I’ve learned anything, it’s that wounds only fester in silence.”
Altiris grimaced. “I wouldn’t know what to say.”
“Lead with ‘sorry’.” Josiri perched on the end of the bed. “The army marches tomorrow, and Sidara with it. Don’t leave things bitter between you. Don’t repeat my mistakes.”
The lad’s eyes snapped into focus. “I don’t follow.”
Josiri hesitated, overcome too late by strange regret at sharing even that much. “My sister Calenne. Our last conversation – our last real conversation – was a quarrel. I said many things I shouldn’t, and never had the chance to take them back. Nor did I have opportunity to apologise for years of lies. In the end, my lies killed her. I’d give anything to tell her I’m sorry.”
Altiris set his shoulders. “That’s just it… I’m not sure I am sorry. I wish there’d been another way, of course I do. But she’d have drowned all those people. I can’t apologise for stopping that.” He stared down at the floor. “Even it if costs me everything.”
He spoke with unassuming determination Josiri wished he’d possessed at so tender an age. The early years of his own adulthood had been paralysed by resentment and fear. In a just world, Altiris would have been lauded for his actions. But for all Josiri had laboured to make it otherwise, Tressian justice was far from perfect. Or life too complicated.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t proud. “I know.”
A wan smile chased across Altiris’ face, smothered by brooding contemplation. “What about Kasvin?”
“Priests bound her with silver. The Drazina took her away.” And she wasn’t alone. Cells and barracks across the city were rammed with rioters awaiting judgement. A problem for the morning. “She’ll answer for what she did.”
“What is she?”
“Archimandrite Jezek insists she’s a rusalka: a demon birthed from the Black River to corrupt wayward souls. Ana says much the same thing, only with more approval. I think they’re cousins, after a fashion.”
More childhood tales, woken from myth to reality. How strange life had become.
“You’ve spoken to her?”
“Ana says I probably shouldn’t.” Josiri frowned. “Why?”
“I don’t think she’s evil. She truly wanted to help people.”
Josiri scowled. “Then she chose a poor way to go about it. Hundreds are dead. More will die of their wounds before the week’s out. And the rest? Hollov’s calling for a new wave of curfews, and greater leeway in enforcement. Kasvin’s only made things worse.”
He tailed off, lost in echoes of the past. Kasvin had provoked the city to unrest on a far grander scale than he’d managed in the Southshires, but if the intent was the same, could he truly judge her?
“It would have been thousands dead had she not let me go,” said Altiris, his eyes on Josiri once more. “You only captured her because she helped me when the Drazina wouldn’t listen.”
You only captured her. Not we. “I see.”
“Why didn’t they take me too?” Altiris asked. “I’m surprised.”
“I couldn’t let them. Improper arrest warrant, you see. As head of the constabulary, I could hardly allow that.”
Altiris frowned. “Improper?”
“Indeed. The warrant bearing Viktor’s signature was made out for one Altiris Czaron. It had no claim on Altiris Trelan, you see.”
The penny dropped, presaged by Altiris’ disbelieving expression. “You lied?”
Josiri shrugged. “Not exactly. Pre-empted, perhaps.”
Disbelief turned to suspicion. “In what way?”
“Only in that I led Commander Hollov to believe I’d already adopted you into the family, whereas technically I hadn’t until just now.”
“I…” Altiris shook his head and blinked furiously. “Say that again?”
Josiri grinned, glad to have reason. “I hope it doesn’t offend.”
“No… No, of course not. Even if it is just a ruse.”
Josiri stood and looped his hands behind. “It isn’t. You’re a Trelan now, if you wish it.”
Altiris shook his head as if dispelling a dream. “But why? I don’t understand.”
As if that had a sole, simple answer. “Because when I look back on these last few years, I find that they’ve flown past, leaving little trace of the things I’ve said or the deeds I intended. I’ve put this off for so long, not wanting to burden you. I want to make it right, before another five, ten, fifty years fly past, and the chance is lost for ever.”
“I… I’ve not earned this honour.”
Josiri shook his head. “Calenne always said the Trelan name was cursed. I’ve thought it often enough myself, but it’s not true. The ‘curse’ is the consequence of striving to do what’s right, regardless of the cost to ourselves. You saved hundreds from the river tonight.” He cocked his head. “Tell me again how you’ve not earned this.”
Altiris frowned. “They’ll reissue the warrant. All that’s different is that whatever happens to me tarnishes the Trelan name.”
“It will survive a little tarnish.” Crossing to the armchair, Josiri laid a hand on his shoulder. “Years ago, I did something eerily similar to what you did today, though you’ll find no record in the official history – Malachi scrubbed it away. Melanna Saranal and her father didn’t flee the field at Davenwood. They were captured… I freed them.”
“Truly?”
Josiri nodded. “Viktor made me an Akadra to protect me from the consequences. I’m hoping he recognises the irony. Reissuing the warrant will take time. Time in which Viktor’s temper will cool.”
Little by little, Altiris’ expression regained a measure of steadiness. “You think he’ll listen?”
This was no time for lies, however well intentioned. “I hope so.”
Altiris rose and withdrew to the empty hearth. “You’ll forgive me, Lord Trelan—”
“Josiri.” He offered the correction politely, but firmly.
“Lord Trelan… I’m not so sure the Lord Protector who exists in your head is a match to the one running the Republic.”
Josiri bristled at the words, but supposed them fair enough. Viktor was seldom lovable from a distance. Even up close, he made it challenging. Altiris had seen too little of him at either span. “It might be he’ll surprise you.”
“Maybe. But Kasvin insisted Lord Droshna was at the heart of everything wrong in the Republic. Every time, I rejected her claims. But today Lord Droshna won Kasvin’s argument for her.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Look around.” Anger
quickened beneath Altiris’ words. “Is this the Republic you thought you were building? The Drazina? Checkpoints? The identification papers that were a blight on a southwealder’s life now borne by everyone? We ate like kings of old at Midwintertide, and a dozen streets away folk had nothing!”
“It’s not that simple!” snapped Josiri, temper rising at the ingratitude.
Altiris flinched, but held his ground. “I think it might be. Or as close as makes no mind.”
Josiri gritted his teeth. “So now I’m wicked, or a fool? Is this how you speak to me, after everything I’ve just told you?”
To his surprise, Altiris showed no sign of backing down, but met his stare head on. “I’m honoured to be your son. You’ve been a father to me almost from the day we met. But if I can’t speak to you honestly – especially now – then what’s the point?”
Josiri bunched fists at his sides and breathed deep. Even now, he couldn’t think why he’d taken offence. Altiris had said nothing untrue. Worse, Josiri had wondered at the greater part of it himself – why else parley with Melanna Saranal behind Viktor’s back? Was this the price of passing years? To become so trapped by position and status that rejection became reflex?
Anger faded, leaving behind the hollow sense of foolishness anger so often does. “You see? Already you’re speaking like a Trelan.” He smoothed a hand across his brow. “But you need to stay at Stonecrest until we get this all worked out.”
Altiris nodded, expression stiff. “Yes, lord.”
Josiri let the formal address slide. Change took time. “Shall I tell Sidara you’d like to see her?”
He grimaced. “I’ll think on the matter.”
Again Josiri admitted defeat, though less readily. He resolved to speak to Sidara himself, for all the good that would do. The lass was stubborn. Another Trelan in the making. “Do so. Now is not for ever. It will pass, if we let it.”
Altiris opened his mouth as if to say something, and closed it without a word.
Taking it as the closest he’d get to winning the argument, Josiri departed.
Viktor didn’t relish setting foot in the Vaults. Too many memories. None of them good. Though the provosts were long gone, the scars they’d inflicted remained – not least in his flesh.
The presence of silver, too, was a trial. His shadow hissed and spat with every step. Artisans had worked the blessed metal into architrave and sill, fashioning flowing patterns that danced whenever light touched them. Beautiful, certainly, but they made every thought a chore, and every threshold a test of courage.
After Govanna Field, where the Raven’s revenants had battled Fellhallow’s forest demons, Viktor had suspected he’d need a jail capable of caging the divine. That was worth a little discomfort. And it wasn’t as though the cells went otherwise to waste. Though it pained him greatly, Tressia remained as lawless in nature, if not degree, as before his ascension to the Lord Protector’s duties. The cells were seldom empty. With the riots at Silverway Dock done with, the upper levels were full to bursting.
But one chamber remained isolated from the rest. The same, deep oubliette into which he’d once been cast, where the crash of waves and the shriek of gulls carried through the bars. The door had been replaced since Viktor’s time, for the old had been torn from its hinges by one of Elzar’s kraikons. Another debt owed to the old man. Another reason to ensure his sacrifice wasn’t wasted.
Two Drazina guarded the door. Each wore a silver sunburst necklace against the skin. Archimandrite Jezek had insisted the shape of the metal was as important in thwarting a rusalka’s wiles as the metal itself. Unable to ward himself with silver, Viktor had no choice but to trust in his shadow.
Ignoring the Drazina’s salutes, he slid back the door’s narrow inspection hatch. The prisoner remained a crumpled heap of torn skirts, chin against her chest. Silver shackles shone bright in the puddled moonlight.
He snapped the hatch back into place. “Leave us.”
“My lord.”
The Drazina withdrew. When they were lost to sight, Viktor unbolted the door and stepped inside. So close, there was no mistaking the otherness of her. It wasn’t simply a matter of sight or scent: the pallid flesh, puckered and smeared with black blood where quarrels had struck home; the bitter, musty smell of clogged waterways. When his shadow examined her, he saw almost nothing at all, just a black, glimmerless tangle of river weed, wearing humanity as skin. Predatory, even in pain.
“I know you’re awake,” he rumbled.
Kasvin raised her head. Filth-fouled blonde hair snaked across her shoulders. Blue-green eyes, dim beneath the influence of silver, glared.
“So the high and mighty Lord Droshna faces me at last?”
Her voice was barely a whisper, and feeble. The wounds she’d taken on the dockside should have killed her thrice over. Viktor knew better than to trust appearances.
“I’ve greater concerns than the justifications of an insurrectionist.”
“And yet you’re here.”
“Perhaps I was curious about the kind of creature who’d lead honest folk to a worthless death.”
Kasvin laughed under her breath. “So much like your father.”
The barb shouldn’t have hurt. Wouldn’t have, had Viktor’s patience not already been stretched by his shadow’s discomfort.
“You know nothing of my father!” The bellow echoed about the chamber. “My men found the remains in the warehouse. A poppet woven of river weed, entwined with glamour. A deception.”
“No. It was him. Enough of him, at least. His pride. His arrogance. Even some of his memories. Everything I could salvage from the river.” She let her head rest against the wall, a thin hiss passing her lips as silver manacles shifted. “He was proud of you at the end. After all, when the city raised its voice in defiance, you acted exactly as he would have, didn’t you?”
“You know even less about me than you do my father,” he replied coldly.
She leered, youthful guise replaced by something cold and cruel. “You and I, we’re cousins in damnation. The tainted waters of the Black River pulse through my veins as the Dark does yours. Our very existence twists the world. Only I fight for those who have no one else.”
“All my life, I have done only that.” Stepping closer, he let a little of his shadow free – allowed it to enfold her. “I’m here to offer common cause. I’ve no choice but to lead the Republic into war. If you truly care for its people, you’ll aid me.”
He let his shadow coil tighter, closer, nudging Kasvin’s thoughts in the direction that would serve best. He felt no guilt, not after all she’d done. If redemption required coercion, then so be it.
Her eyelids drooped, then closed.
Split lips twisted into a mocking smile.
“Do you really think that would work?” she said. “But thank you.”
Growling, Viktor withdrew his shadow. It crept into his soul with faltering step, abasing itself for the failure. “For what?”
“For proving your nature beyond doubt.” She jabbed a cracked nail at the ceiling. “Up there, they don’t see you, not like I can. One day soon, you’re going to break apart and the mask will slip. What you hope to be smothered by what you are.”
“I’m a man.”
“Are you?” There was no triumph in Kasvin’s voice. Only weariness. “Do you believe that, or just think you should? I hear the voices of your victims. Those you’ve already slain, and those yet to come. Kill me. Send me back to the river. Another will come for you.”
Regret bitter in his heart, Viktor stepped away. Perhaps employing his shadow had been a mistake. Perhaps, had he more time, he could have coaxed her onto a righteous path. Kasvin could have saved more lives than she’d waylaid. But he’d no such luxury. War called him away. Leaving her at his back – shackled or otherwise – smacked of folly. Given chance, she’d twist Josiri inside out.
With heavy heart, Viktor closed his eyes and looked on her only through his shadow. The deed was easier with the inn
ocence of youth stripped away. Easier to kill the monster beneath those beautiful blue-green eyes. “Let them try.”
Kasvin didn’t struggle as shadow embraced her. Didn’t cry out. Indeed, Viktor could have sworn she smiled in that last moment before her blood turned to ice.
Voices faded from the passageway. The sound of boots on the stairs soon after confirming that Jaridav’s watch had ended, and Brass’ had begun. Altiris let another hour while away, and wits to wander. Pulling coat and bundled haversack from beneath the bed, he opened the drapes.
The ailing moon watched over empty gardens three storeys below. Slowly, nerves jangling at the slightest creak, he eased open the window.
Warm air rushed into the cold night. Skin rose to gooseflesh. Between drainpipes and ivy, the climb would be simple enough. And he’d have to make the climb. For all of Lord Trelan’s cleverness – Altiris couldn’t yet imagine calling him Josiri, even in the privacy of his own head – there was no guarantee of escaping jail, or even the noose. Mutiny seldom invited leniency. Lord Trelan would fight for him, of course. But was there really any hope?
Especially if Kasvin were correct about Lord Droshna.
It was the simplest arithmetic. If Kasvin were wrong, then fleeing into the night would have few lasting repercussions. Were she right, then obeying Lord Trelan’s wishes would, at best, cause all manner of distractions in a household that could little afford them. At worst, it would subject Lord Trelan to accusations of shielding a traitor.
And yet something held Altiris back. Urged him to close the window and wait to see what came with the morning. Stonecrest was home. Indeed, it was the only real home he’d known. Leave it now, and he might never return. Czaron or Trelan, he’d be a fugitive.
No. It was Sidara that held him back. The longing to see her, to explain… and to apologise most of all. What if she never returned from the east, or did so to find him hanged? Maybe Lord Trelan was right. Words left unsaid were the hardest burden.