by JA Andrews
“But not as hopelessly as we’d thought,” Gerone pointed out. Despite his words, he looked at Sini with an equally worried face.
“This is good to know,” the Shield said, his own face more thoughtful than worried. “Excellent work, Sini.”
Sini looked away from Gerone and Mikal, knowing they’d disagree with her next idea. She addressed the Shield and Alaric instead. “I think I should go south with the soldiers.”
“Absolutely not,” Mikal said.
“No,” Gerone agreed.
“If the black sword works like I think it does, then I’m the only one who could get enough vitalle into it to destroy it. It kills one person at a time. I don’t think it’s made to draw in huge amounts at once.”
“You can’t know that,” Mikal objected. “You know nothing about this sword.”
“True, but I know a lot about other things made to hold magic. On the Sweep I dealt with plenty of burning stones. And there were metal objects too: shields, knives, even a hammer. Making an object hold energy is difficult. It doesn’t want anything to do with life. Making it give off energy is easier, because it follows the nature of the object to push out the vitalle.
“But to make an object draw energy in…” She glanced at Alaric. He’d made such a stone to save Evangeline. “That is challenging and has many limitations.”
Alaric’s face was dark at the memory, but he nodded. “The absorption process was very structured.”
Gerone and Mikal seemed to be the only two who were really troubled by the idea of harnessing vitalle in inanimate objects. The Shield watched closely, without any sort of judgement. Alaric had spent the last several years trying to convince them there was nothing intrinsically bad in the storage of energy, but he’d only had moderate luck.
“That sword draws in the energy of the people it touches. But we all know it doesn’t require taking much energy from a person before they die. The sword will only draw in so much at a time. Chesavia said the sword rarely killed—it needs breaks before it could draw in energy again. I think it’s not made to take in more energy than one person can provide. If I can get near it, I can pour much more into it than it would get from one person, and I can destroy it.”
“Assuming it’s sunny,” Mikal said.
She glanced at him. “It doesn’t have to be sunny. There is always sunfire, even on the cloudiest days. It just needs to be daytime. And I was under the impression soldiers planned their battles for daylight hours.”
The other Keepers were quiet.
“We don’t know Lukas will still attack,” Gerone said. “The dragon was gravely injured. I’m not sure it will even have the strength to fly him out of Queensland to his armies.”
“He will, and it will be soon,” the Shield said quietly, “before Queensland can consolidate her troops in the south. Or he’s a fool.”
“Sini should not go with the army,” Rett said decidedly.
“No, she shouldn’t. This is a terrible idea.” Mikal said. “Set every archer we have to shoot Lukas from a distance and our problem will be solved. That’s how Naj died.”
“Lukas isn’t stupid enough to leave that angle open,” Sini said.
“I agree,” Will said.
The Shield’s expression had turned sorrowful. “When I sensed change in your future, Sini, this isn’t what I was expecting.” He considered her for a moment. “The Shield from Chesavia’s days wrote, after her death, that she’d had so much power he’d never expected her to live into old age. That she willingly offered too much of herself too often. I would like a different path for you, Sini.”
“I can’t sit by, safe in Queenstown, while Lukas kills people. Not if I’m the only one who can stop him.”
“We don’t know that’s true,” Mikal insisted.
She turned to him. “I know it’s true.”
Mikal’s eyes narrowed, but Gerone next to him laughed and patted the other old man on the shoulder. “It’s too late. She’s found herself now. You’re not going to sway her. Stop arguing about everything.
“I’m not—” Mikal began irritably.
“We’ll get the Shield, Gerone, and Mikal settled at the palace,” Will interrupted. “And then we’ll head south.”
Alaric nodded and the Shield sighed but didn’t object.
Sini opened her mouth to thank Will, but shouts from the rubble interrupted her.
“We’ve found the twins!” Douglon called out, and Sini flinched.
Rett, Will, and Alaric rose to help, but she stayed seated. A finger of guilt dragged across her chest. She should go help, but she didn’t even want to look.
Gerone put his hand on her shoulder. “Just rest for a bit, my dear. The others are more than able to take care of this. Tell us of your adventures while we wait.”
“Yes, the last fortnight has changed you,” Mikal said.
Sini’s shoulders sank.
Gerone shot Mikal a frown and patted her back. “Obviously in good ways.”
“Of course that’s obvious,” Mikal said. “Anyone who knows Sini knows she’s strong enough to use these sorts of things for the better. Why do you always feel the need to explain these things?”
Gerone let out a huff somewhere between amusement and exasperation. “Tell us everything that’s happened, my dear.”
“And start at the beginning,” Mikal said. “No jumping around and confusing us.”
They stayed in the valley that night. The twins’ bodies were buried next to each other in the glade at the north end of the valley next to the dozens of other Keepers’ tombstones. The leaves around the clearing glowed with golden light in the gathering evening.
Sini’s emotions were thin. There was grief, certainly, but not with the strength she’d expected. Mostly she just felt an empty sort of ache.
The library was warm and dry, and the entire group slept on the floor on the lowest level. Gerone and Mikal created a wind with enough force to clean the dust off the library roof, and the stars glimmered brightly through the glass.
Early the next morning, when the first hint of brightness lightened the sky, Sini took some day-old bread out of her pack and walked out to the twins’ grave. The morning was chilly, and she looked at the fresh earth for a long moment before she squeezed in to sit between the tombstones.
“Good morning.” Her words were hesitant at first. She closed her eyes, imagining their room in the tower. “I brought breakfast.” She broke it into thirds and placed a piece on each grave. “It’s old, but I can’t imagine that bothers you anymore. And I can stomach it if it means one last breakfast together.” She leaned her head against one of the tombstones. “I don’t know what you two found to like about court. The place is awful, and even the people you do like get stiff and awkward there.”
She let the details of the last few weeks pour out. Not just where she’d gone and what she’d seen, but the people. Madeleine’s arrogance, the Duke of Greentree’s oppressive presence, Pest’s betrayal, the Baron twins, the baby elves, the dwarves. The more she talked the lonelier it all sounded.
“Roan is…sometimes he feels like a friend. But as soon as he’s at court, he’s this annoying, distant, nothing. It’s like he just shuts off.” She chewed the last bite of dry bread. “It’s irritating.”
Neither the gravestones nor the graves nor the trees around the glade gave any answer, but she heard what the twins would say anyway.
“I know he’s not happy there either,” she answered, “but Alaric’s busy and Will has Sora and…” She sighed. “I guess I just miss having someone I could rely on to be…available.” The stones were cold where she leaned against them. “I thought I’d been healing you two over the past four years, but it just now occurs to me how much you healed me simply by listening. Before you, I don’t think I knew I had a voice that wanted to speak.” Her throat tightened. “I wish you were coming to court. I can’t find my voice there. Alaric can talk and they hear him. Even Will manages to make himself heard. But I can’t…I
couldn’t even get Lukas to listen to me. He just talked through me.” She stopped. “Maybe he doesn’t know me any more than I know him.”
Two waves rolled through her from the direction of the Stronghold, or what remained of it. A pause, then two more waves.
Come.
She blew out a long breath and brushed the crumbs off her hands before she stood. “Rett’s calling.” She faced their graves. “Thank you for the shields yesterday. It’s the only way any of us stayed strong enough to survive.” The sun was hours from being high enough to shine directly in the valley, but the leaves around the glade caught the indirect morning light and shimmered with gold. This place was peaceful and beautiful. The edges of the hollow ache that had grown inside her since she’d watched the tower fall softened. “Thank you for…everything.”
The entire group left the Stronghold an hour past dawn, in what all the Keepers agreed was the first time the valley had ever been emptied. Rett had salvaged four saddles from the corner of the ruined stable and collected horses from where they’d bolted. Mikal, Gerone, and the Shield could ride to where the guards waited at the edge of the forest. Hopefully the carriage from Queenstown had caught up by now. Mikal had objected that someone should stay in the valley and begin the long process of reconstruction, but the Shield had shaken his head and shut the library door.
Sini ate some cheese Gerone passed out without tasting it as they filed into the tunnel and left the Stronghold. After yesterday, the peacefulness felt unreal. The forest let them leave without any sounds other than bird chirping. The runes on the trees stayed dormant, the only faces in the trees belonged to squirrels.
In response to Douglon’s grumbling about how horrible the ghosts had been, Mikal launched into a history lesson on the formation of the Stronghold. “These ghosts are a holdover from the time when the common folk believed in supernatural forces and would have been terrified by the mere sight of the apparitions.”
“Superstition has nothing to do with it,” Gerone disagreed. “The Keepers were smart enough to know that if you control the emotions, you control the man. And nothing makes someone want to run away more than fear. These ghosts are a perfectly painless defense along the path. And have always been effective.”
“Hardly painless,” Douglon muttered as the two old men continued to debate.
Alaric led them out of the forest into the bright, clear morning. They turned south toward where they’d left the guards. They hadn’t gone far when a soldier galloped toward them.
“Armies of Coastal Baylon and Napon approach the southern border!” he shouted.
Sini’s heart clenched. So soon?
“There have been skirmishes, and the queen expects a full attack within days. As many of us as can go are ordered south immediately.”
They followed him back to the other guards at a gallop. The entire escort stood ready to leave. The Shield, Mikal, and Gerone were quickly settled into the carriage and sent back to Queenstown with half the guard. There was some discussion about Rett joining them, but the man adamantly refused to go back to the palace if Sini was heading south.
Douglon toyed with the idea of heading west as well, seeing if he could find the dwarves and hurry them along. But he’d lose two days getting to Duncave, and if they had done as he’d commanded, they would have started marching south already. Assuming messengers were going between Queenstown and Duncave, the dwarves should already be heading south.
He’d hesitated to bring Avina near the battle, but she hissed at him so viciously at the thought of going back to the Elder Grove he dropped the idea.
“The last report we have says the battle will happen in southern Marshwell,” the captain of the six remaining guards reported to Alaric, “across the river from Rillborne Hold.”
“Good,” Alaric said. “That’s where we expected it. At least our troops are headed in the right direction.”
“It’ll take a full two days to ride there, if we push,” the captain said. “We should ride to Brenlen instead and hire a boat.”
Alaric nodded. “The Tellryn River will take us within a few hours’ ride of the hold. If we continue through the night we can be there by tomorrow morning.”
The captain nodded, then paused, a worried look on his face. “I have heard reports that the queen intends to go south herself.”
Alaric’s face darkened. “Then we need to hurry all the more.”
Sini had traveled to Brenlen twice a year with Mikal, but in their wagon the trip took half a day. At the pace the soldiers set, they reached Brenlen barely past midmorning. A wide lumber barge was headed south, and there was just enough room for their horses, a quickly-purchased bundle of hay, and the rest of the group. As long as no one was particularly interested in sleeping, anywhere comfortable.
The boat was wide and low, the center of its deck filled with stacked pine logs that still smelled of sap. A low railing ran along the front, back, and port side, while the starboard was left open for rolling the logs on and off.
Sora and Roan set up a little camp along the back end of the barge with the guards. Avina scampered along the railing, while Douglon followed after her, calling for her to be careful, reminding her she couldn’t swim and that he wasn’t interested in jumping in after her. Will, Alaric, and Rett stood at the front, facing downstream in their black robes. Sini considered joining them but climbed over the lumber to the empty side of the boat and leaned on the railing instead. The sunfire reflected off the water in bursts of warmth, but it couldn’t brighten the somberness of her mood.
Once the barge started moving, Roan came up beside her. He didn’t speak for a few moments. Finally he brushed a pine needle off the rail. “Lukas is different than I imagined him.”
She glanced at him.
He smiled self-consciously. “Somehow with all this talk of what a threat he is, I’d pictured some hulking brute of a man. Some huge warrior with long hair.” He grinned. “He’s skinny.”
A smile spread across Sini’s face, and the motion felt unexpected and rusty. “He’s skinny and has a bad limp from an old injury that won’t heal. It’s not his muscles everyone’s been nervous about all this time.”
“He must have been…” Roan paused. “Was he different when you first met him? He must have been, for you to love him as much as you do.”
“It feels like he was.” The garnet in Sini’s ring caught the sunlight and she shifted it slightly to watch the stone glitter. “I think I always knew he was capable of hating people, but he protected me for years on the Sweep. He taught me the magic he knew, he taught me to read…he taught me how to survive among the Roven. And he shielded me from the worst of it all. When I couldn’t get my magic to work right, he claimed he’d caused the problems and took the punishments.” She risked a glance at Roan. His face was darker than she’d expected, and she realized it was at the idea of the punishments, not Lukas. “No one in my life had ever protected me from anything, and it saved me during those first years.”
Rett stood with Will at the front of the boat, gripping the rail. She felt a slight guilt that she hadn’t even talked much to Rett since yesterday. But Will’s voice floated back infused with enthusiasm, and he gestured to something in the water. She caught sight of a wide smile on Rett’s face and thanked Will silently for helping.
“Lukas and Rett were my family, and they were both kind to me. But if I’m honest, I knew Lukas had the ability to do all these things. Even on the Sweep he never cared if he hurt those he considered enemies.” She paused.
“Maybe the real difference between him and me is that he had no one to protect him when he was brought to the Sweep. Lukas could never let down his guard, never be safe.” The idea rang true. “No one ever protected him,” she said slowly.
“If someone had been there to take care of him, someone more aware than Rett, maybe Lukas would have ended up different. Maybe he wouldn’t feel the need to fight everything. By the time Will met him, he was perfectly willing to hurt his enemies. But
somehow I convinced myself that his attacks on the Roven and on Killien and Will were…I don’t know what. An anomaly. A moment of weakness brought on by his constant attempts to keep us safe, and the fear that he was losing everything.”
She watched the water ripple along the side of the boat. “I think I believed he wasn’t a threat to other people just because he wasn’t a threat to me.”
Roan was quiet for a moment. “It’s hard to think poorly of your family.” He shifted. “When you get the chance to think better of them, it’s…nice.”
Sini glanced at him.
“Ever since my father arranged my marriage to Madeleine, I’ve been trying to figure out why.”
Sini laughed. “Having his son become lord consort isn’t enough?”
“That’s such a long-term goal for him. Most of his plans result in more immediate gratification. And they almost always come at the expense of someone else. As far as I can tell, this arrangement hurt no one.”
“One immediate result is how influential he is in court now.”
“But his importance is secondary to mine.” He frowned and stared into the water, unseeing. “He doesn’t like being second to anyone.” He shot a self-conscious glance at Sini. “Despite the fact that I keep wondering why he did it, I can’t help being just a little proud that he’s orchestrated something that’s not utterly self-serving and damaging to others.”
He stood silent for a few minutes. “I’m sorry about your friends, the men in the tower. Will told me you were close to them.”
Her chest tightened but she told him of their book and the breakfasts they’d had and how safe their room had always felt.
“You make me wish there’d been twins living in a tower at my home.”
She gave him a small smile. “Every home should have a pair.” She glanced up the river. “It feels strange to have all the Keepers leaving the Stronghold.”
“Being at court puts them near people who would use them. I’m not sure how I feel about them being around people like my father.”