by Matthew Ward
A strange place to find contentment, but little better company in which to find it. Had the time apart brought them closer, or was it simply the knowledge of foreshortened years urging her to take what comfort she might in what remained? Did it even matter, so long as the heart was settled?
“Your thoughts are distant, essavim.” Aeldran kissed the back of her head and drew away. “Has it anything to do with the boarded-up windows in your chambers?”
Melanna cursed softly, letting darkness hide her scowl. She’d hoped he hadn’t noticed, not with the drapes drawn and distraction aplenty closer to hand. But now wasn’t the time to broach the details of her bargain with Jack, nor the unsettling compulsion awakened in her by sight of the old wood. It would only be trouble, and trouble would wait… if Aeldran had to be told at all.
“Tell me about Incalia Tiranal,” she said instead. Advancing to the balcony’s edge, she scratched idly at her itching wrist, seeking to still the sensation or at least spirit it elsewhere.
A soft grunt warned that the change of topic had not gone unnoticed. “Dotha Silsaria sends a pledge of unyielding friendship.”
She shook her head. “The House of Tirane has never been short of promises. It’s the deeds that bring woe.”
“Perhaps she foresaw your scepticism. Her cousin, Prince Thirava, came by swift horse to Calandil, and was promptly jailed. Apparently he met with an accident shortly thereafter.”
Melanna stared out towards Ravencourt Temple with its black spires and the flickering, ethereal plumes of blue-white ghostfires holding the dead at bay. Thirava. The last piece in a cruel puzzle. Incalia had taken swift steps to secure her throne. Other intent would reveal itself in time. Whether Incalia’s or that of Cardivan’s allies in the Gwyraya Hadar.
“Then I suppose the matter will keep,” she said at last, though her thoughts were less on distant Silsaria, and more on… what? In truth, she couldn’t say. Too much wine.
“I imagine there’s no great hurry.” Even facing away, Melanna heard Aeldran’s smile. “You are well? You seem different.”
The urge to tell all bubbled to the surface, even though it would dispel the illusion of peace. Melanna turned her back on the city. “Good different, or bad different?”
He leaned down to kiss her cheek. “Time will tell.” Straightening, he withdrew to the balcony door. “I thought to look in on our daughter, if you can spare me?”
“Of course. If there’s a Tressian walking the corridors, stay your hand.”
Aeldran frowned. “A Tressian?”
“Lady Orova.”
“That Lady Orova?”
“She saved Kaila.” Knowing it an imperfect explanation, Melanna cast around for another. Tiredness led her astray. “She sleeps poorly.”
“I see.” It was plain Aeldran did not, but he took mercy on her bewilderment. “It seems a great deal has changed, but Kaila’s knack for twisting souls about her little finger has not.”
Offering a small smile, he slipped from the balcony. Melanna again stared out across the city. At the lives and loves spared from the sword by her bargain with Jack. How could it not be worth it? And she’d ten years to make matters right with those she loved. Ten years before Kaila could claim the throne Jack had sworn to preserve.
The itch returned to her inner wrist. Fleeting. Damnable. Impossible to ignore. Without looking, Melanna bit back irritation and scratched harder than before.
Something brushed against her fingertips, feather light and gossamer thin. She gave it a frustrated tug and snatched it away, only for a stab of pain to send her sinking against the balcony. She opened her fingers. A flap of skin fluttered to the balcony floor. Cold settling in the pit of her stomach, Melanna raised her left hand.
There was no blood. No red raw and chafed flesh. Merely a tear in the skin an inch wide and two long, running from base of her palm and across her wrist As she curled her fingers, woven briars flexed where flesh should have lain, their thorns ripping at unblemished skin.
Jack’s mark. A reminder of all she’d promised and of what she’d one day become.
Throat thick with bile, Melanna fell to her knees and wept.
Astridas, 15th Day of Dawntithe
Trust glitters brightest in the darkness.
Ithnajîm proverb
Fifty-Five
Strange, thought Viktor, how history repeated itself. The roadway before King’s Gate, normally so full at that hour, was deserted save for a double line of soldiers, Essamere green to the fore and King’s Blue behind. He glimpsed others on the rampart. More than was usual for simple sentry duty. And to complete the mirror of days long gone, a friend waited on the road, expression unwelcoming. Not Rosa, as it had been after the Battle of Davenwood, but Josiri with a councillor’s soft cloth as his raiment, and a sword buckled at his waist.
Constans’ warnings buzzing about his thoughts, Viktor dismounted. Battle-worn black cloak brushing the roadway, he led his horse the rest of the way.
Josiri strode to meet him. Viktor slowed, using the extra time to read his brother’s manner. Stiff. Unfriendly. Was he truly a pawn in all this? Doubts had formed in long hours on the road. So much of what he’d done could be misinterpreted – Calenne, in particular – especially after he’d found nothing but failure in the east. But whether Josiri or his co-conspirators acknowledged it, their actions laid a road to a civil war the Republic could scarcely afford.
With Josiri a dozen paces away, Viktor halted. “Brother.”
Distaste wrinkled Josiri’s brow. “Don’t call me that.”
So that was how matters lay? “This is not the welcome I expected.”
“You were ordered to bring your army home.”
“If such missives were sent, they passed me on the road.” That much was true, for Viktor had met no heralds on his westward ride.
Josiri’s expression hardened. “So where is the army?”
“As I brought the Empress to battle, Fellhallow roused against us,” Viktor replied bitterly. Two days was not nearly enough to lessen that burden. “We were overrun, lost to slaughter and rout.”
Josiri paled. “What of Sidara? Izack?”
“Sidara lives, and acquitted herself proudly.” Viktor shook his head. “Izack bought our lives with his own. One among thousands.”
Josiri’s shoulders slumped, his eyes downcast to the roadway and his lips pinched tight. “Damn you, Viktor. Why couldn’t you have listened? Or am I to believe those first heralds never found you either?”
“I am Lord Protector of this Republic. None may command me. Not even you… brother.”
Josiri straightened. For the first time, he bore authority as a mantle. A look that might have suited him – that Viktor might have applauded – under other circumstances. “No longer. The Tressian Republic again takes guidance from a council. From many voices, rather than one.”
Viktor bit back an angry retort. “And yours is pre-eminent?”
“For the moment.”
So Constans had been correct. Josiri wasn’t merely part of this, but its instigator? Viktor sought kinship in his brother’s expression, and found nary a flicker. The betrayal hurt more than the deed. Heeding his shifting mood, Viktor’s shadow uncoiled. Breath frosted on the air.
“And if I decide otherwise?” Viktor growled.
Josiri took a half-step back, then rallied, meeting Viktor’s glare head on, the petulance of self-righteousness rising to the fore. “Submit to the Council’s judgement. You’ll have opportunity to make your case.”
His shadow hissed. Soldiers paled as the grey morning fell deeper into gloom. One or two stepped back, eyes wide. Josiri held his ground.
“And what would you have me explain?” asked Viktor.
“You stand accused of treason and witchcraft.”
“Charges of convenience.”
“Not today. And there are others. Complicity in the deaths at Silverway Docks. Murder. Violations of self and soul. Come quietly, Viktor. I argued long and h
ard with the others to offer this choice.”
“Then you stand as my defender, brother?” Perhaps Constans had been wrong, after all.
“As your accuser. For Calenne. For Revekah. For myself.”
The betrayal cut deeper for recent hopes. Not trusting himself to speak, Viktor stared past Josiri to the assembled soldiery. Barely thirty, even counting those upon the walls. Well within his shadow’s gift to overcome, so long as others weren’t hidden close by. Certainly not enough to contain him if he sought to depart. It was almost insulting. Viktor strove to remind himself that he’d come to talk, not brawl. Even in the face of provocation.
“And should I refuse to yield?”
“Then you make truth of my fears.” Josiri stepped closer, his expression carved from stone. He raised a hand. A dozen crossbows presented above the battlements. “And I’ll have no choice at all.”
For all he strove otherwise, Viktor’s temper began to slip. “You think that’ll stop me?”
“I think an innocent man would protest, not threaten.” He stepped closer, until the two were barely a dozen strides apart. “And yes, I do. Silver, Viktor.”
Overcome by bitter laughter, Viktor gestured at the Essamere ranks. “You stand here with traitors at your back and accuse me of the same? You meet me with threats? I thought you knew better than that.”
“Then we’re both of us fools, because I thought better of you. See where it’s got us.”
Typical Josiri. Holier-than-thou arrogance. Seeking equivalence of strife where none existed. “Have your rabble stand down, and I’ll accompany you. This ‘council’ of yours may level its charges.”
“The Council isn’t yet ready to question you. You’ll go to confinement until they are.”
In the end, it was the flaunting of petty authority that did it. It wasn’t enough to question, to accuse. Josiri and his as-yet unnamed conspirators sought humiliation alongside. Before Argatha Bridge, Viktor might have indulged them. Not now. He’d been patient enough.
The roadway drowned in darkness, the cries of blinded soldiers reaching Viktor’s ears before he was aware he’d set it free. Crossbows fell from masterless hands and fell to the roadway from the ramparts. A silver bolt, loosed by the impact, spat away into the murk. Knights sank to their knees.
Only Josiri stood firm, trapped in the eye of the storm while Viktor’s shadow raged about the roadway. Pale, he advanced, sword untouched, as the shadow howled.
“Viktor!”
Closing, Viktor hauled Josiri off his feet and raised him high. “I never thought it’d be you who betrayed me!”
They might have been alone in the darkness, save for the cries of those caught in his shadow. King’s Gate, the city itself – even the fields bordering the road – all felt distant, removed from the world.
“I’m trying to keep my promise,” gasped Josiri. “To stop you if the Dark overtook you.”
Viktor cast him to the roadway. “This isn’t about the Dark! This is about loyalty!”
“Is it?” Slowly, painfully, Josiri rose on one elbow. “Look around, Viktor. Tell me this isn’t about the Dark. Someone recently told me that you’re not responsible for what you’ve become. That your shadow makes you a reflection of our fears. I don’t believe him. I’ve never known you to be anything other than in complete control. Prove me right. For Calenne’s sake, if not your own.”
“You’d threaten your own sister?” Did he even recognise Calenne for what she was, or did paranoia rule him, as Viktor had feared?
“Never. But what do you suppose she’d say to see you now?”
A good question, and one to which Viktor found no ready answer. Josiri’s promise to curtail his actions if the Dark took him, once a comfort, now caged them both. That there was tyranny afoot within the city – within his city – he no longer doubted, but if Josiri spoke true, there was yet hope it could be excised. But not like this. A man who came to the walls in anger could only ever be perceived as a monster.
Inch by inch, Viktor drew back his shadow. Grey morning reclaimed roadway and rampart; the scattered, gasping soldiers who’d thought to prove themselves his superior and had learned the terrible depth of their error.
Viktor unslung his claymore and cast it to the roadway. He held out his hands to be shackled.
The drawing room’s log fire tantalised in a way Calenne couldn’t describe. Sensation was part of it, or rather the memory of the same. Not as powerful as when she’d beheld flames from the clocktower’s window, but unmistakeably there.
Was it pain? She no longer had any point of reference. Pain was long in her past. It was certainly discomfiting, but then wasn’t discomfort as much a part of the mind as the body? Still, she embraced it, and marvelled at the act’s perversity. Was she so broken a soul that only the unwholesome found purchase? Was that why she’d drawn the curtains? Certainly, peace came easier in the darkness. Or perhaps it was because she didn’t want anyone to see her kneeling in the hearth’s soot, staring into fire.
Enough of Stonecrest’s inhabitants regarded her strangely as it was. Not Josiri, of course, with whom she’d spoken as often as his newest, painful duties allowed, and taken rare delight in beholding the man he’d become. Not Altiris, who’d accompanied her on walks about the grounds, not as a guard, but as a solicitous friend, though his thoughts were plainly with his distant lover when they were not with the comatose Kurkas. Not Anastacia, who had been so sympathetic – even kind – that Calenne had for the first time glimpsed the creature her brother loved, rather than the one she’d always loathed. But the others? In too many eyes, she was tainted, declaimed as a demon by expression, if not words. Justice, of a sort, for she’d ever levied that charge against Anastacia. It wasn’t even the clay that provoked their fear, but association with a fallen hero.
The Raven lowered himself into a chair. Calenne spared him barely a glance, and went back to watching the flames.
“I see you’ve exchanged one cage for another.”
[[Shut up.]]
“Very dignified.” Planting a walking cane between his feet, he leaned forward and propped his chin on the handle. “It’s not good to seek truth in flame.”
[[I didn’t ask.]] Calenne sighed and tore her attention from the hearth. The ruin of the Raven’s face looked better, the starscape less ragged where it met torn flesh. And it was his face alone, the goateed society gentleman no longer flickering in and out with the Hadari widow. A sign that he, at least, was on the mend? [[And I’m not a prisoner. I can leave whenever I’d like.]]
“You don’t belong here.”
[[And where do I belong?]]
The Raven tilted his head, expression speaking volumes.
[[Otherworld? I’ve just found my brother again. I’m not going back.]] A fatuous statement, for the Raven collected all in the end. It would be the height of foolishness to consider this anything more than a reprieve. [[Not yet.]]
“Hmm.” He twisted in the chair and stared into the flames. “May I offer some advice?”
[[Do I seriously have a choice?]]
“No.” A thin smile chased across his lips. “The ephemeral world is no place for the dead. Stay, and you put everyone around you at risk.”
Calenne regarded him warily. [[Is that a threat?]] It didn’t sound like one. Indeed, the Raven sounded almost solicitous, his ready charm a far cry from the anger of previous meetings.
He waved a spread palm across his face. “You might notice I’m feeling much more like myself. It has brought a certain… clarity, shall we say. In all the turnings of the Celestial Clock, there has always been a Raven. Always the same Raven, while so many of my siblings take new faces and new forms. I’ve beheld the rise and fall of entire worlds. Dark has yielded to the dawn, then returned with the dusk. I’d be a dull sort if I didn’t learn to recognise patterns in all that.” He shrugged, a weary smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You’ll return to my keeping soon enough. When the time comes, don’t fight it.”
&nbs
p; Not a threat, and not quite an apology. [[I—]]
The door creaked open, a shard of daylight cutting through the gloom.
“Why are you sitting in the dark?” Josiri frowned, his hand still on the door. “Is someone with you?”
Calenne glanced at the Raven’s empty chair. [[Apparently not. Altiris is watching over Captain Kurkas. I think he feels responsible.]]
Josiri nodded, the corner of his mouth twitching.
Gathering ashen skirts, Calenne rose to offer embrace. For all that physical sensation was denied her, she found solace in his closeness. As much memory as the warmth of the flame, but no less reassuring. Especially today. Letting go, she stepped away. [[Is it done?]]
He snorted, his expression weary and troubled. “Done? It’s barely begun. But at least Viktor came quietly enough in the end. He’s in the clocktower, shackled with silver and closely guarded. It seemed the best place to hold him.”
There was a certain symmetry in that. Calenne wasn’t sure how it made her feel. [[Is he hurt?]]
“Only in his pride.”
[[And you?]]
He set the door to and sank into a chair, hand to his brow. “This all feels like some terrible dream. At one moment, I can’t believe it’s possible. At the next I curse myself for not seeing its inevitability. So many warnings, and I missed them all.” He scowled. “And now? Now, I’m as damned as he…”
Those last words seemed to speak to a different burden, though Calenne couldn’t divine what. [[During my time in the clocktower, Viktor spoke highly of you. Often with frustration, but never without fondness. Whatever he’s done, he loves you.]]
“Does he?” Josiri leaned forward, drained. “He’s never listened to me, not in anything that matters. And now I know that when my arguments tired him, he simply… changed my mind for me and crumbled adjoining memories to dust. I don’t think I’ll ever know how many decisions were truly mine. Maybe none of them since the day he brought you back to Branghall. Maybe I’ve been his plaything ever since.”