by Matthew Ward
“I can’t!”
“You must!”
Sidara gritted her teeth and sank to one knee. The light flickered, shadow rushing into the gaps. Traceries of light and dark raced across the outer skin as the clay fired from within. Constans shied away, a hand thrown up to ward off the heat. Viktor felt it prick his skin, but between shadow’s embrace and the elation of success, he paid it no heed.
The clay bodies exploded in a hollow, searing rush.
The shockwave threw Viktor gasping to his knees. Pottery shards tugged at his skin and pattered off his armour. Constans shrieked and flung himself behind the doorway’s remnant as clay fragments pinged off stone. Sidara fell to hands and knees in the ash, chest heaving. Tzila remained unmoving, untouched as light and shadow danced about her.
“I told you…” breathed Sidara. “I told you they didn’t want to.”
Frustration welling, Viktor stumbled upright and stared at the ruin of the three broken figures. No! Not when he was so close! “You’re mistaken. We try again. I know it’s hard, but—”
Sidara staggered to her feet, her shadow-self stuttering. “No, Viktor. This is wrong. Can’t you feel it?”
“And what of the Republic?” he asked, beseeching in word and tone. “What of those who look for us to protect them from those who’d see the shadowthorns conquer all? To defend them against the demons of Fellhallow? Would you have the living hold the line when the dead might serve in their place? The dead have nothing to lose!”
Shadow bled from Sidara’s eyes, replaced by gold. “The light tells me otherwise.”
“It’s wrong.”
“Are you so sure? How can we know? We’ll find another way. But I can’t do this.” Swallowing, she met his gaze. “I won’t do it.”
Even now, Viktor caught glimpses of the apparition at Sidara’s back. He’d thought her a manifestation of magic, as the phoenix she’d conjured into being at Argatha Bridge. But what if she were something more? Something holding Sidara back. What if she wasn’t, and he heard Sidara’s voice alone?
In that suffocating moment of failure, Viktor realised it didn’t matter.
“You will.”
Bringing together his hands, Viktor locked his shadow tight about Sidara. The piece of himself he’d lent her roused at his call, smothering her cries, smothering the light. It fought back, searing and screaming as he forced it back into her soul. Viktor shook before it, the pain worse than any war wound, worse even than the fires Anastacia had sent through his flesh.
But with failure the only alternative, he did what he’d always done best: he endured.
The apparition dissipated to nothing as the light faded. Gold faded from Sidara’s eyes, overcome by the shadow burrowing beneath her skin and across her soul. Viktor caged the light as deep as he dared, close enough to call upon, but distant enough that it wouldn’t rule her judgement.
Her struggles ceased, the fuel of defiance snuffed out. Viktor felt a piece of Sidara’s soul calling to him, welcoming him as Apara’s had done at Tarvallion. He gladly acceded, smoothing away objection and reluctance as he had his Drazinas’ fear until only purpose remained.
When Viktor at last drew back his shadow, he beheld Sidara and saw only reflection. Her eyes were wholly black, their sockets dark with spidery veins – the shadow he’d lent no longer mantled, but threaded through her soul. This was Sidara as she should have been, spared doubt and uncertainty. Viktor had set her free from the light’s treacherous whispers and others’ compromises.
Sidara breathed deep of the mists, her abyssal eyes wide in wonder, as though perceiving the world for the first time. Her stillness rippled through their shared bond, reluctance gone and her legacy of light now at the command of the shadow from which it had once sprung.
For all the joy the sight occasioned, Viktor felt a part of him die inside. A small, ailing fragment too weary to endure. He didn’t mourn it. He knew he’d not miss it.
“We try again.”
Sidara nodded. “Yes, Uncle.”
Awareness came gradually. A sound. A flash of memory. A flicker of movement. All of it distant. All of it shrouded in greenish-white. The process slow and frustrating; agonising, and yet somehow soothing.
The more she focused on those fleeting sensations, the stronger they became.
A name teetered on the edge of thought. Her name?
She seized it tight; held it closely, jealously. To hold something, she needed hands, so she wove them from the mists, never once questioning what hands were, or how she knew of them. A body followed, for the thought of hands alone was absurd, if not macabre.
As the last strand of the body wove to completion, taking the name into herself seemed the thing to do, so she did precisely that. Thus Calenne Trelan’s soul took root, and stood shivering in Otherworld’s mists.
“Queen’s Ashes,” she muttered, turning her spectral hands over and over as though they held the answer. “What just happened to me?”
The mists screamed with swirling etravia, drawn into the skies like hurricane-strewn clouds. The flames of Revekah’s pyre – no longer green, but uttermost black – leapt into vortex, embers scattering across the colourless gardens. The Raven stood before the pyre, one hand jammed on his hat as his coat tails fluttered and snapped in the winds.
He turned as Calenne forged towards him through the winds, his brow creasing in surprise. “You’re supposed to be gone for good.”
She stifled a jolt of horror. The Raven had truly meant to be rid of her? What did that even mean? Why hadn’t it worked? “What’s happening?”
“He’s stealing from me! Again! And he’s using her to do it!”
He could only mean Viktor. And if Viktor was again seeking the souls of the dead…? Calenne shuddered. After all she’d experienced since Viktor had brought her out of Otherworld, the prospect offered no solace, only foreboding. Yes, he’d striven to free her from the Raven – against her wishes – but even that had been selfish more than selfless. “So stop him.”
“I can’t!”
“I thought you were the Keeper of the Dead!”
The Raven glared in impotent frustration. Calenne felt herself unravelling again, even before the angry wave of his hand.
The souls fought as they had before, but with Sidara now freed of her doubts, resistance was for nought. Shadow tight about his prizes, Viktor wedded them to the clay. He loosed the shackles about Sidara’s light, permitting just enough to spill free so that the lifeless might live. Still the light fought him, twisting this way and that in his grasp, Sidara looking raptly on as he fought to contain rebelliousness.
Clay seared to rigidity. Limbs roused to motion. One by one, the reborn clambered to their feet, their androgynous shells smoothed by the heart of their creation, their eyes burning dark within expressionless faces.
“It’s done!” Overcome with relief, Viktor turned to Sidara. “It worked!”
She offered modest incline of the head. Calm. Respectful. No trace of her earlier conflict. “Was there ever any doubt?”
Elated, Viktor set his gaze on his creations once more. “My name is Viktor Droshna, Lord Protector of the Tressian Republic. I rescued you from the mists so that together we might save our people. I regret the rudeness of your awakening, but time is short, and my need great.”
They regarded him in silence, no word of objection or agreement voiced.
He looked closer at clay that should have been smooth, and was not. Shadow oozed beneath a crust of grey stone, islets on a dark and viscous river. Not just at the joints, but everywhere – even around the eyes, where the cracks imitated the spiderwork veins about Sidara’s own.
Cold wormed its way into Viktor’s heart. Tzila had been thus when first reborn, her clay skin solidifying over the course of days. Calenne had been whole from the first. Tzila had been silent. Calenne, while incapable of reason, had keened like a lost soul.
Suspicion became certainty as Viktor performed deeper examination. He studied each Ocranza in turn, see
king a glimmer of Sidara’s light. He found only shadow, gumming together fragments of sundered souls. Disbelief became despair, became fury. In restraining the light, he’d foolishly unmade his own intent. With triumph in his grasp, he’d erred and could lay the failure at no other door. His dream of soldiers reborn to a righteous war was dust. He’d sought to restore the dead, and through them the Republic. But his newborn Ocranza would never earn new life, for they’d no identity, no yearning, no purpose.
Could he overcome the issue? Perhaps in time he might learn how to seek the proper balance of light and Dark, but time was the one resource he could little afford. Even now, the shadowthorns were drawing up their plans to invade a weakened Republic, and there was no one fit to stand in their path save he.
Breath hot in his throat, Viktor urged himself to stillness.
He’d purpose enough for ten thousand souls, and perfection was seldom a soldier’s lot.
“You will follow me into battle.” He made no question of the words. How could they not? What life they possessed sprang from him. They were of the Dark, as he was of the Dark – as Calenne Akadra had once been of the Dark. As Sidara was now of the Dark. They were one. And they were only the beginning. “The Republic will be saved from itself.”
As the Ocranza knelt in homage, Viktor turned to Sidara. “We need more clay. Hands to shape it. Weapons with which to fight.”
She offered a smile, her reflected pride at what they’d done rippling through the Dark. “The expedition should have returned from Cragwatch by now. If not, I’ll go myself.”
Offering salute, Sidara picked her way through the ashen lychfield to what had once been the street. Left alone with Tzila and her unmoving siblings, Viktor examined his prospects, and allowed that they were better than he’d first believed. A soldier he remained, and soldiers understood the unattainability of perfection. There were souls enough in Eskavord to remake the Republic’s fortunes. That was all that mattered. The dead were dead. He owed them nothing.
A whisper of movement drew his attention to the church’s ruined doorway. Constans – about whom Viktor had completely forgotten – gaped at the kneeling Ocranza.
He recovered himself as Viktor approached. “What did you do to my sister?”
His expression gave nothing away, as was so often the case.
“You wanted her to be family,” rumbled Viktor. “Now she’s closer than ever. So will you be, in time.”
Constans’ cheek twitched, the flare of jealousy banished almost as soon as seen. “Yes, Father.”
Tzadas, 18th Day of Dawntithe
Faith is better placed in friends than distant gods.
from the diaries of Malachi Reveque
Sixty-One
The day was to be a good day, for it brought freedom.
Not that Cardivan Tirane had suffered any great physical burden since his imprisonment. Melanna Saranal, Empress in nothing but name, had held true to her promise. Save for the barred windows and the bricked-up doors – the one leading into the palace proper being the one exception, and guarded day and night – the quarters she’d provided would have been generous to a guest, let alone a hated rival.
Yet confinement remained confinement. And for all her virtues – and Cardivan reluctantly admitted that his captor possessed one or two – Melanna lacked the deviousness of mind to fully appreciate his reach. Coin and reputation travelled far. Cardivan had taught her that lesson once before. Today, another began.
A polite knock sounded. Cardivan allowed himself a small smile and departed the gilded bedchamber. The outer door was already closing, a glint of gold and white silk in the corridor serving as reminder that his was a guard drawn not only from the Immortals, but also the incorruptible lunassera of Mooncourt Temple.
Gazindar laid the tray upon the table and offered a low and respectful bow. In a palace of upstarts, the servant at least knew his place. “Good day, savir.”
“And to you.” Cardivan examined the tray’s contents. Fennel tea. Bread. A generous portion of jakiri, the succulent aroma of spiced meat tantalising even at a distance. “I commend your efforts. This must have taken time to prepare.”
Gazindar shook his head. “It’s simply a matter of approaching the proper people.”
Cardivan stifled a sigh. But for all its artless staging the message was clear: preparations were complete. He plucked a sliver of jakiri from its plate. The meat dissolved on his tongue, leaving tantalising aftertaste of garlic and bergamot.
“That might prove expensive,” he said.
“No more than you might expect,” Gazindar replied.
Cardivan grunted, though coin was hardly his first concern. His surviving agents in the city had paid Gazindar a prince’s ransom in exchange for treachery. Another such sum had lured rescuers to Tregard. Not that it mattered. Only freedom mattered. “And I can expect my evening meal at the usual time?”
Gazindar twitched a brief smile. No actor, indeed. “A little delayed, savir. There may be some small commotion towards the approach of dusk.”
Cardivan nodded. “My thanks.”
Gazindar bowed and departed, leaving Cardivan to contemplate a repast for which he’d no longer any appetite. Momentous times made food seem so trivial.
Crossing to the barred window, he stared out across the city. The view was everything Melanna had promised, taking in a span of Emperor’s Walk and the marketplace beyond. It would be the work of long months to rebuild what he’d lost. He’d a treacherous niece to cast down and a son to avenge, an army to rebuild, alliances to shore up. But white beard belied vital heart. He had those years and more. And it all began with an open door at dusk, a rush of blades and fast horses. Many would die for his freedom, but their families would be compensated. Generosity lay at the heart of loyalty.
As Cardivan took a sip of tea, he caught a wisp of a new scent. The sweet fragrance of rot, laced with unfamiliar perfume. Nose wrinkling, he set the cup aside. The fragrance grew stronger, cloying. It fuzzed the senses, lent distance to frescoed walls and the glint of sunlight in the streets beyond barred glass.
Cardivan squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. The world snapped back into focus, but the scent remained.
A crackling, rustling scrape sounded from the bedchamber.
Cardivan spun about to see vines writhing across the threshold. An impossible wind tumbled desiccated leaves across the polished floor. Briars coiled through gentle mist to wend about table leg and chair. A hunched, gangling shape gathered at the inner doorway, framed by tattered robes the colour of decay. Green flame leapt in the eyeholes of a wooden mask, featureless but for a single, jagged scar.
Cardivan scrambled away, his horrified cry rasping to nothing in a mouth suddenly dry.
{{Greetings, my king,}} buzzed Jack.
Sevaka arrived at Silvane House to find its door open. It always was, though she could never decide whether some magic made it thus, or because Apara always saw her approach and left it ajar. Even at that hour, with the morning sun lending warmth to winter days, firestone lanterns blazed in every room, holding at bay shadows, and the memories they provoked.
She found Apara overlooking the overgrown gardens. Clad again in Hadari silks, she contrived to look more dignified than Sevaka managed even on her best days. Until you looked in her eyes. No matter how bright the sun, no matter how many lanterns Apara lit, some shadows couldn’t be banished.
But her embrace was warm enough. For all that Apara was a stranger, Sevaka’s heart again filled with gratitude that she might not for ever be so.
“How are you?”
Her gaze on the gardens, Apara offered a wan smile. “Would you believe, I don’t know?” Her voice was little more than a whisper. “For six years, I had a home. A place in the world where no one could touch me. Now? I don’t know that I fit anywhere. You?”
“I’ve been with Josiri.”
Apara grimaced. “How is he?”
Sevaka sighed, haunted anew by a feelin
g of uselessness. “How do you think? He’s lost more these past few days than I have in a lifetime. First Calenne, and now Anastacia.” Flesh or clay, Anastacia had been more vibrant, more alive than anyone Sevaka had ever met. Acknowledging she was gone left a hole in her heart a mile wide. “I couldn’t tell you how he can even get out of bed, but he does. Even insisted attending Council this morning. I don’t know what was worse, watching him try to string words together, or how the others treated him. Even when he managed to get a sentence out, someone would say something soothing and press on as if he’d said nothing at all. They’re trying to be kind, but you can see he makes them uncomfortable.”
“They should be uncomfortable,” said Apara. “They executed his sister.”
Sevaka fought back a rush of guilt. That she’d been part of that decision, however coerced, would stay with her for ever. “They could have set him on that pyre alongside, had they wanted. Warning the Empress was treason.”
“It was the right thing to do.”
For the first time, Apara’s words carried weight. Even a hint of their mother’s fire. The day grew warmer for it.
“I know. But when did that ever matter?” Sevaka took a deep breath, not wanting to sour the moment further, but knowing she must. “We’ve had a herald from Ardva. Governor Keldrov reports that Viktor has occupied Eskavord’s ruins.”
“Good,” said Apara, her eyes still on the garden. “Then he’s a long way off.”
“She also claims he’s raising a new army within the mists. Warriors fashioned from clay and seething with shadow. Already a thousand strong, and growing with every moment.”
“And the Council doesn’t believe her?”
“The Council believes, all right. But they refuse to act.” She flung up her hands in frustration. “They’re clinging to the hope that this will pass by, though they have to know it won’t. And it’s the Southshires. Some prejudices die hard. Why send the folk of the north to perish defending southwealders? Oh, they might approve action once Viktor crosses the Tevar Flood, but by then it’ll be too late.”