by Matthew Ward
From her position beside a stack of hogsheads, Calenne offered a hollow, bitter laugh. Her wounds seemed less than they had at the Waycross Theatre, the light dimmer. He’d seen Anastacia heal in similar fashion, the living clay remoulding itself over time. For all Calenne’s claim that they were different, she and the Anastacia of recent memory were very much the same.
Zarn shook his head. “Remarkable. Simply remarkable. A soul stolen intact from the Raven and freed to walk the world. One might even call it a miracle.”
Altiris glanced at Constans, a glowering, stationary presence by the stairs. He’d questioned the wisdom of bringing the boy to Woldensend, but had in the end decided it worth the risk – not that he’d any means to keep Constans away, in any case.
The boy had listened strait-laced as Zarn had laid out the case against his adoptive father, offering little response save the occasional reluctant nod. Constans reserved his glower not for Zarn, whom he seemed to have taken to well enough, but Hawkin – and she returned it readily. She sat on a bench beneath a rack of rusted weapons, right arm and ankle bound tight and a crutch close to hand. Constans’ smile on thus seeing the woman who’d betrayed his family and once held him at dagger-point had been brief, but wicked.
And Zarn had certainly made a damning case, the dim lantern light of the cellar adding to the feel of conspiracy. Forbidden books. The secrets that swirled about Tzila. Confirmation from an informant in the Drazina that Kasvin was indeed dead, and that Lord Droshna had been the last to see her alive… and Calenne’s testimony above all.
Calenne had spoken reluctantly at first, haltingly confirming Altiris’ suspicions of her being a prisoner in all but name. Then Zarn had repeated his accusation that Josiri’s decisions were not wholly his own. His words coaxed forth a flood, Calenne’s reluctance gone: the Lord Protector’s erratic nature, his encouragement of the dockside uprising – even that he’d murdered his own father, years before. No one had paid more rapt attention than Constans, who far from defending his adopted father seemed determined to plumb the depths of his deeds.
“You wanted proof against Viktor,” said Constans. “You have it. What happens now?”
Zarn turned to stare through the open drapes into the grey dawn. “I need to speak with a few acquaintances. Droshna may have dissolved the Council, but influence remains.”
[[And Josiri? I want to see him.]]
“In time, I promise,” Zarn replied smoothly. “I’ll request a meeting as soon as we’re done here. It’s my hope he’ll be receptive.”
[[What if he isn’t?]]
“He’s starting to see some of the truth for himself. I’m relying on you to convince him the rest of the way.” Zarn beckoned to Altiris. “How were the streets? Quiet?”
“Not a single Drazina in sight. The checkpoints are unmanned.”
Zarn nodded. “Josiri is a good man, given room and time to think. It’s why Malachi wanted him to be First Councillor. We were to make it law, the day he died.”
“I didn’t know.”
“No one does. No one else survived. It’s my hope yet to tell him. But before that comes, we must set him free.” His voice faded, his manner becoming distant. “Just a little longer. Then I can…”
The words petered to nothing, his eyes fixed on the floor. Then he could… what? Share his secret with Lord Trelan? Rest? Die? Having glimpsed beneath Zarn’s mask, Altiris couldn’t be certain. Was Kasvin calling him from the mists? Could he ever be free of her, even in death? Calenne’s presence challenged mortality in so many ways, and Altiris cared for none of them.
Hawkin stirred. “Then we can all go back to our lives. Maybe even make amends for mistakes made.” Cold expression thawed, a muscle twitching in her cheek as she stared at Constans. “I know you and me have unfinished business, my bonny. A proper little blade you’ve become. It suits you.”
His hand drifted to a scabbarded dagger’s hilt, then checked as Altiris drew closer. A scowl, a sharp nod, and the hand receded. Hawkin lapsed into silence.
Altiris gripped Constans’ shoulder and lowered his mouth to the lad’s ear. “Good man.”
Zarn shook his head, back in the living world once more. “Lady Trelan, I must ask that you remain here.” He gestured towards the iron-barred door of the old liquor cellar, hived off from the main chamber by thick stone walls. “Indeed, I’m afraid I must insist. Josiri has reason enough to distrust me already, without me promising his long-dead sister and offering only an empty house.”
[[Am I to trade one cage for another?]] she said icily.
“What if one of us stayed with you?” said Constans. “It’ll only be for what, a few hours?”
“If that,” said Zarn. “I expect matters to move very swiftly.”
“Then I volunteer.” Constans offered Calenne a low bow. “After all, she’s practically my adoptive mother.”
[[Thanks. That somehow makes me feel even older than being an aunt.]]
“You’re dead,” said Hawkin sourly. “That makes you older than everyone.”
“It seems the least I can do,” Constans insisted. “My father – my real father – would approve, I’m sure.”
Altiris, who couldn’t recall the last occasion on which Constans had willingly mentioned Malachi Reveque thus, grunted his surprise. “You’ve duties. What if you’re missed? The last thing we need is vengeful Drazina scouring the streets – especially if Tzila gets involved. It had better be me. No one who’s not in this room will miss me.”
“And not even all of them,” said Hawkin.
Constans scowled, but nodded. “Even a fool may speak truth when fortune fills his sails.”
[[Is that a yes?]]
Altiris hung his head, despairing of Constans’ fondness for what he thought poetry. “It’s a yes.” He gestured towards the makeshift cell. “Shall we?”
After brief hesitation, Calenne hitched up her ruined skirts and passed through the iron door.
Altiris followed. Zarn eased the door shut, slipped the bolts and snapped the padlock into place. The key vanished into the pocket of his tailored jacket. “Try not to upset her.”
Altiris glanced at Calenne, who’d perched on an upturned barrel, eyes downcast and thoughts a mystery. “Don’t be long.”
Zarn offered a wry smile and withdrew, leaving Altiris to stare at Constans through the bars. “Thank you for today, Constans. Your sister would be proud.”
“I don’t need my sister’s approval.” Constans stared down as his feet, brow creasing and his voice lowered almost to a whisper. “And for what it’s worth, I really am sorry.”
“About what?”
“I knew if I stuck with you long enough, I’d find Hawkin. You keep bad company.”
Too late, the pieces clicked into place. “Constans! No!”
Altiris lunged through the bars. Constans pulled away, the tails of his coat slipping through his fingers.
Zarn turned. “Raven’s Eyes! What—?”
His challenge ended in a sodden, gasping huff, Constans’ dagger rammed up under his ribcage. Eyes wide, he grabbed at the lad’s shoulder, lips fumbling for words but without breath to drive them. Constans twisted the dagger free and let him fall.
Altiris heaved at the bars. The door rattled, but didn’t move. “Hawkin! Get out of here!”
Hawkin lurched upright. Crutch braced against broken tile, she staggered towards the stairs.
In one smooth motion, Constans reversed the bloody dagger and let fly. Hawkin cried out and collapsed in a heap by the doorway, the blade buried to the hilt in the back of what had been her good leg. Still, she crawled on.
Altiris threw a frantic look at Calenne. “Help me!”
Porcelain hands clamped about iron. [[Together.]]
Still the door didn’t move. Anastacia would have ripped it clean away, back in the day. Calenne wasn’t as similar to her ersatz sister-in-law as she appeared.
Blood pooling beneath him, Zarn rolled onto his side, a breathy gurgle in his t
hroat that might have been Kasvin’s name, or might have been nothing at all. His eyes lost their lustre and he lay still.
Constans bore down on Hawkin.
“Constans!” shouted Altiris. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes I do.” Constans’ eyes stayed on Hawkin as she dragged herself onto the lowermost step. “I trusted her. My parents trusted her, and she betrayed us all. The blade rights deeds gone wrong, dear Devn.”
He drew a second dagger from concealment from beneath his cloak.
[[And what do you deserve?]] asked Calenne. [[What do you want?]]
Constans froze, eyes darting between Hawkin and the point of the dagger in his hand. “I want to prove myself worthy of the gift Viktor gave me. To be strong. Not weak as Josiri is weak. As Malachi was weak.”
“Your magic,” Altiris murmured, the truth obvious in hindsight. “It’s not yours at all, but a piece of Droshna’s shadow.”
Constans rounded, teeth bared and eyes furious. “It’s mine! He gave it to me!”
Hawkin reached the third step, a bloody trail behind.
Calenne gave a hollow sigh. [[Viktor’s gifts come with a price. Don’t you see that? Look at me! Do you think he did this for me, or for him?]]
“At least I’m grateful.”
Spinning on his heel, Constans bore down on Hawkin.
“I thought we were friends!” shouted Altiris.
“We are. That’s why you’re still alive.”
Winding fingers through her hair, Constans knelt across Hawkin’s back. “You remember holding a dagger to my throat, Hawkin? I begged you to let me go. I wept. Viktor said I should put it behind me, so I shall. Will you beg? Will you weep?”
Hawkin gasped as he yanked back her head. “Called it right before, my bonny. Proper blade you’ve become. More vranakin than vranakin.” She raised her voice, the blade now at her throat. “Guess you were right, Altiris. There’s no outrunning the past.”
She died without a scream. Just the rasp of steel on sinew, and the red flood of a ripper’s grin.
Constans rose, limbs trembling and his dark coat sheeted black. Then, with a hooded glance at the cage, he fled the Merrow’s Lair.
Forty-Nine
Armoured against the coming day by a walk about Stonecrest’s grounds, Josiri was halfway between an abandoned breakfast and the vast pile of paperwork waiting in his study – one swollen by recent necessity of taking copious notes during any meeting – when the doorbell chimed. Kurkas’ absence making it apparent he wasn’t in ready earshot, Josiri trudged to answer.
Halfway there, it struck him how empty the house felt. Not just with Altiris and Sidara gone to divergent – if equally reckless – fates. He’d barely glimpsed a hearthguard all morning. Coming to a halt as the doorbell chimed anew, he told himself it was nothing, and hauled back the door.
“I’m sorry, Josiri. I didn’t know where else to come.”
Sevaka was a dark, unsteady shape against dawn’s light, her hair in disarray and the sour stench of travel thick on the air. Behind and below her stood a horse, its reins lashed about a bollard at the foot of the entrance stairs. And slumped in her arms, eyes distant and face pale…
“Apara?” He forced back a rush of concern. “Here. Let me help you.”
Soon, they had Apara stretched out on a drawing room sofa. Through it all, she barely acknowledged Josiri’s existence. Indeed, she seemed unaware of everything.
Tugging on the servant’s pull-call, Josiri glanced from one sister to the other. “What is this, Sevaka? What happened to her?”
Sevaka crossed to the dresser and poured a generous measure of brandy. She spluttered as much onto her sleeves and the polished countertop as she swallowed, but it returned colour to her cheeks – even if it couldn’t touch the dark circles beneath her eyes.
“It’s Viktor,” she stuttered. “He—”
Sevaka twisted away as a maid entered the room. She halted, eyes wide and mouth agape at the ragged, lifeless bundle on the sofa.
Josiri took a long step between them, hands ushering the maid to calm. “It’s all right, Ellyren.” She nodded, lips pursed. “I need a physician fetching from Saint Selna’s, Ana woken, the horse on the drive stabling… oh, and find Kurkas. Get as much help as you need, do you understand?”
Ellyren gave hurried curtsey and withdrew.
“What’s happened to Viktor?” said Josiri.
“It’s not what’s happened,” Sevaka snapped. “It’s what he’s done.”
No obvious injuries, but again that mattered little where an eternal was concerned. Josiri knelt beside the sofa and took Apara’s hand. Cold, for all that mattered. But eternal flesh was cold.
“He knows,” she murmured, no more cognisant of his presence than before. “He knows. He knows.”
“She brought proof that Rosa’s alive,” said Sevaka. “The next time I saw her, Viktor had her hanging like a piece of meat. He’d picked her mind apart, just like he did Rosa after Darkmere.”
Josiri’s thoughts, already treading dark paths, delved further from the light. “What do you mean?”
“Before Rosa left, she told me why they’d become estranged. She said he’d taken her memories, or at least sealed them so far away she couldn’t reach them.”
“He’d never do such a thing!” The rejection was instinct, and rang false even as Josiri uttered the words. There was little Viktor wouldn’t do out of need. There’d been ample proof in recent days. “Not without reason,” he added softly.
“We’re talking of Rosa,” snapped Sevaka. “What reason could he have? She told me it was like her thoughts were bounded by black fog. That the more she reached for them—”
“The more distant they became.”
Cold nausea arose in Josiri’s gut and crept outward, sucking the breath from his lungs and turning thoughts to molasses. He fumbled at a table to steady himself, almost dashing a vase to the floor.
“Yes… that’s right,” said Sevaka. “How did you know?”
A part of him didn’t want to say, because saying made it real. Ever since Anastacia had forced him to realise his memory was failing, he’d hoped – prayed – she was wrong. That there was some other explanation. But not this. “Because it’s been happening to me, too.”
Impossibly, Sevaka’s face fell further.
“He knows,” breathed Apara, the words frantic, pained. “He knows.”
Josiri swallowed hard and closed his eyes. It didn’t help. “Why does she keep saying that?”
“There’s been an uprising in Tregard. The Empress won, but the city’s vulnerable.” Sevaka gazed mournfully at Apara. “Viktor tore the knowledge from Apara’s mind. He means to take the city.”
“He doesn’t have the soldiers.” Easier to dwell on that than the rest. “Not to seize Tregard and reclaim the Eastshires.”
“The Empress has already freed the Eastshires.”
So easy to see how events had unfolded. With her throne secure, Melanna Saranal had proven herself capable of more than empty promises. And Viktor…? Josiri swallowed a rush of bile. Viktor saw only an enemy to be humbled, repaid for the dead of years past. Yet even before the prospect of renewed, pointless war, the personal betrayal was a hot knife in Josiri’s heart. How many pieces of him had Viktor scattered to the winds to ensure his cooperation? His blindness? How many of his actions in recent days – even recent years – had truly been his own?
Brotherhood. Friendship. Had any of it been true? Or had he only ever been a means to an end?
Had Altiris been right?
It took him a moment to recognise the low, guttural moan as his own. In striving to control it, he succeeded only in setting free the wrath rising behind. A wild sweep of his hand sent the vase crashing against the wall.
“A little early for a party, isn’t it?” Anastacia stood in the doorway, immaculately gowned and mocking smile in place despite her evident hangover. She backed away as Josiri rounded on her. “What is this?”
“I’ve told you before, I don’t have a healer’s touch.”
“Please,” said Sevaka, her eyes bright with tears.
Gathering her skirts, Anastacia knelt beside the sofa, one hand about Apara’s and another pressed flat against her brow. Fitful daylight skittered across her fingertips, gone as soon as seen.
Striving for semblance of composure, Josiri turned his attention to Sevaka. “How did you get here?”
“Zephan Tanor refused any part of this. After Viktor marched, his knights helped me free her from the Drazina. We’re all fugitives now.” Her lip twitched. “There were deaths.”
Breathing deep, Josiri sought something – some anchor – to stop himself being swept away. His gaze settled on Anastacia. Her attention fully on Apara, she offered no word, nor even a sign she’d seen. His world steadied nonetheless.
He laid a hand on Sevaka’s arm. “You were right to come.”
She nodded distantly. “How did you know her, Josiri? It took me a moment to recognise her, but you knew Apara at once. Why is that?”
There was no accusation in Sevaka’s tone, but guilt spurred forth all the same. Viktor wasn’t the only one with secrets, but now wasn’t the time to confess to his meetings with Melanna Saranal.
Anastacia came to his rescue. “Her mind is broken.” Solemn tone lay at odds with a face seldom other than impish. “But it’s healing. Were she ephemeral, she’d already be dead.”
The door opened. Sergeant Brass, eyebrow twitching in suspicion, gathered himself to something resembling attention. “You wanted me, lord?”
“I wanted Captain Kurkas.” The old title returned as habit.
“Not here, sir. Half the guard’s gone too.”
“Vladama had an errand.” Anastacia shrugged. “I don’t know what.”