by Ari Marmell
That left only one. Shins cried openly, now, reaching out for him no matter how futile she knew the gesture to be. He reached out, too, his fingers passing through her own. He straightened, then, tugging the hem of a nigh invisible vest, smoothing out the unseen wrinkles. The rapier he drew was familiar, oh so familiar; Shins had carried it—or the “real” version of it—for a very long time.
Then he, too, was gone—as was the last of Lisette's power, the Prince of Orphan's Tears wrenched from her body and soul by the man who, however briefly, had replaced the parents Widdershins had lost.
Lightning flashed. Thunder roared. And Shins, after wiping her eyes clear once more, bent down to retrieve her fallen weapon. Her steps slow but steady, she followed in the path of the now departed ghosts, until she stood beside the only other soul, living or dead, who had also been left behind.
Whatever the fae had done to Lisette, however they had wound themselves through her, it had reduced her to something that couldn't last on its own. Her skin hung in folds around her bones, like newly emptied burlap sacks. Hair fell from her head in clumps; nails slid from her fingertips, leaving glistening trails behind. With every breath she gurgled and choked, struggling to breathe through the inky sludge that, only now, had begun to melt away in the rain.
Her eyes, though yellowed and sunken, had reappeared in their sockets, glaring up at Shins. And in them, still, the young woman saw absolutely nothing but hate.
When Lisette spoke, it was with such a crumpled-paper rasp as to be nigh incomprehensible. “It's not…fair…”
Shins could only shrug. “I don't think it was ever meant to be.”
The single thrust of her rapier was an act of pity as much as anger. Then, leaving the blade in the corpse, Widdershins stumbled to the nearest stoop and sat down, hard. There she stayed, curled tight around the gaping hollow in her soul, and wept until long after the rain had finally, finally stopped.
“Is that safe?” Igraine asked doubtfully as she strode across a rooftop still speckled with puddles and scattered leaves left behind by the storm.
At least most of the dried bird guano had been scoured away.
“Not really.” Shins watched her approach or rather watched her legs and hips approach. She didn't have much of a view of the rest of the priestess, given that she was currently balanced in a precarious handstand at the building's edge. “I can still do it, though. Surprisingly easy, actually. Not sure what to make of that.”
“A really big, goopy mess, if you're not careful.”
Widdershins chuckled softly (secretly pleased that she could laugh, a little) and allowed herself to slowly topple. One foot kicked out, toes striking rooftop, and she rolled herself upright.
Her head swam, just a bit. She tried to ignore it. It had never done that, before she was…alone.
“Pretty sure it's safer than where you've been, yes?” She knelt sideways, one knee tucked in tight, letting the other leg stretch. “How's it going?”
Igraine's answer began with a very unpriestly snort. “Same as yesterday: It isn't. Far as we can tell, there's not a single member of the Luchene bloodline left. The duchess hadn't returned power to the Houses before she died, so nobody's entirely sure who should be in charge.”
“It'll all go back to status quo. I mean, the Houses'll be doing better working together than scrabbling for power that nobody had a week ago.”
“Oh, sure. They just need to trudge through a bit more ambition and pride before they'll admit it.” She drew breath to say more, but Widdershins beat her to it.
Mostly because she wasn't yet ready to tackle what she suspected Igraine's next topic of choice would be.
“How's the Guild?”
The priestess blinked, then glanced around the roof. Perhaps realizing she'd find no clean place to sit, she leaned against the chimney with a faint grumble. “It's going to take some getting used to the new order. The Finders have to learn to be a little more subtle. The priesthood of the Shrouded God is going to be a separate organization now, albeit with shared leadership, so the Guild won't have that protection any longer.”
“I'm sure the new Shrouded Lord is just thrilled at the extra bureaucracy,” Shins snickered.
“Lady,” Igraine corrected.
“What?”
“The new leader of the Finders’ Guild and the priesthood. The Shrouded Lady. Our first one, actually.”
“Is that so?” Shins shifted sides, stretching the other leg. “I wonder who she might be,” she said, without any question in her voice at all.
Igraine shrugged, but Shins was quite certain she spotted a glint in the priestess's eyes. “I'm sure I couldn't tell you.”
“No, of course not.” A sudden doubt clouded her face. “Renard?”
“Didn't want the post back, not that we'd have let him take it. Actually, he's debating whether he wants to remain in the Guild. I was actually hoping you might speak to him.”
“Oh.” Shins pondered a moment. “Sure, I guess.”
“And maybe about a few other things, while you're at it.” Then, at Shins's bewildered look, Igraine couldn't quite keep from grinning. “You're really blind sometimes, Widdershins.”
“So I'm told,” the thief replied, still absolutely clueless as to what that was all about.
Igraine tactfully changed topics. “What are you going to do?”
“Short term? Try to find Evrard. Or at least learn if he's still alive.”
“Still no word, then?”
“Nope. Just the mess at his suite. Blood and broken furniture, but no bodies. Not my favorite guy, but he helped. I figure I owe him that much. After that, help Robin and Faustine rebuild the Witch.
“But long term? I honestly don't know.”
“If they need a place to stay,” Igraine began, “or if you do…well, with so many Finders in gaol, there are a few empty safe houses. I could—”
“Thank you. Really. But no, we've got a temporary place.”
Igraine nodded, coughed at a puff of ambient cinders from the chimney—and then her whole face fell. “You didn't!”
“Why not? I mean, he's already paid for the place through summer. Until then, or if he turns up alive before then…. It's a really nice place. Or will be, once we get the blood cleaned up.”
Shins decided she'd stretched enough—and not because her thigh was starting to ache, dogs grommet!—and stood. She took the opportunity to brace herself, emotionally and even physically, in the process.
“None of this is why you came looking for me, though,” she said.
Igraine's expression was answer enough.
“Church stuff, then,” Shins said. “Sicard?”
“Driving himself crazy, trying to keep the rest of the city's clergy calm. Nobody knows if he had the right to do any of what he did. And that's just locally. Once word reaches Lourveaux, we're probably looking at years of conferences, investigations, political wrangling…
“But none of it matters. It's all just face-saving. All of us felt it when the Pact accepted Olgun.” Shins struggled not to wince at Igraine's use of the name. “At the end of the day, if the gods accept what Sicard did, the Church'll have to. To avoid open schism if nothing else.”
“I'm glad.” Part of Widdershins even meant it. The rest of her wished Igraine would go away so she could cry again. “He deserves their acceptance. He—”
“But that's still not why I'm here.”
Shins's brow furrowed.
“The story of Olgun is spreading through Davillon. And with it, the story of Adrienne Satti. Between that, and the fact that half the city's priests woke up from dreams declaring your innocence…well, you'll have some legal hurdles to jump, and there may be a few aristocrats here and there who'll never accept it. But Adrienne can have her life back, if she wants it.”
Widdershins didn't consciously decide to sit, didn't even remember sitting. One minute, she was standing a few paces from the priestess, the next her backside was in a cold puddle, her legs sprawled out before h
er.
“I don't…this…I never…”
“There's not much of the Delacroix estate remaining, but what's left has been put aside. We got enough of the Houses to agree on that much, though there may have been some legal threats made. You won't be anywhere near rich, but you won't go wanting for a good few years. When you decide, it'll be waiting.”
“Is it me, or does it feel like this building's foundation might be made of old fruit?” Shins asked weakly.
The priestess's smile was genuine but brief. “That's still not the full reason I'm here.”
“I'm pretty sure I'm not secretly a lost princess, and that everyone I think is dead…” She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, just for a moment, at the thought of the ghostly figures who'd saved her. “…really is dead. So I'm not sure what else you've got to surprise me with.”
Igraine carefully crouched, so they were again on a level. “Your situation with Olgun was unique. So was his entry into the Pact. To judge by the omens and signs, he made a few—bargains.
“This can only happen once, Widdershins.”
“I don't understand.” Shins felt something turn over in her gut. “What can only happen—?”
The priestess's eyes rolled back in her head. She began to topple, just as swiftly caught herself. Gracefully she stood, beckoning Shins to do the same.
“Hello, Adrienne.”
It came from Igraine. Her chest rose and fell, her mouth moved with the words. But this voice was deep, sonorous, and gently brushed with an accent Shins had never heard.
Never heard, but knew all the same.
“Olgun…?”
Igraine—Olgun—smiled to shame the sun. “We both know that I can hear you when you speak so softly, but there is no reason to—oof!”
Shins slammed into him, arms wrapped desperately tight around him, and sobbed into his chest.
Only when she felt fingers running so very softly through her hair did she begin to calm—and only when she heard the soft but resonant sounds of a god softly weeping with her did she pull herself together and take a step back.
“I have to confess,” she said, sniffling and quickly wiping a hand across her nose, “this is really not how I pictured you.”
His laughter seemed too large for reality, felt as though it couldn't possibly be coming from Igraine's slender form. Finally, when he'd calmed, “It is a new outfit I am trying on.”
Her turn, then, to laugh; no mere chuckle, as before, but real laughter. She felt a hundred times lighter. “Gods, there's so much I want to talk to you about. So much…”
She petered out as Olgun's expression sobered. He didn't need to say anything; she knew.
“How long do we have?” she asked with a quiet hitch.
“I am sorry, Adrienne. Only a few minutes. It would require longer than that for me to explain why, so let us say only that it is to do with the natural laws of divinity, along with a desire not to cause any harm to Igraine.”
“Then why?” She knew it was a childish, bitter question, unworthy of either of them, yet she couldn't help but ask it. “Why even come back? What's the point?”
“To see you,” he said kindly. “And because you saved me. So many times, in so many ways. I could not go without saying good-bye.”
The rooftop grew blurry again as Shins struggled, and failed, to keep from tearing up yet again. “I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry.”
“No.” This time it was he who stepped up to her, he who embraced her. “You do not need to apologize to me. Not ever. I do not believe a god has ever owed so much to any one mortal. We are all grateful for it, the whole of the Pact. Although none other so much as I.”
“Even Cevora?” she sniffled, trying to smile.
“Even he. A savage and ambitious god, yes, but his Acolyte went much too far in his madness. Cevora would never deign to offer apologies to a mortal, but I believe he truly regrets.”
A nod, another sniffle.
“I have to depart soon, Adrienne.”
“No!” Again she clutched at him, hard, even as she struggled to calm herself. “I mean, I know you do, I…Olgun, please. Please stay.”
“I cannot. Oh, dear one, I truly cannot.”
It came out a whisper, nothing more. “I don't want to be alone.”
The god in mortal flesh stepped back, so he might look at her, and she at him, even as he kept a tight hold on her shoulders. “You will never be alone. Not ever.
“You have spoken to Igraine, to Ancel, to William. You know that our priests have a connection with us. They are favored by chance. They receive word through signs and omens. And we speak to them in dreams.”
“I'm not a priest!” she squealed.
The god laughed once more. “Amusing as it would be to see you try, no, you are not. But I can grant you as much. You are strong, fast, already, if less than you were. After our years together, I think you always will be. And I shall always watch over you, as though you were my highest priest. I will grant you what luck I can, and I will visit, on occasion, in your dreams.”
Better than nothing, perhaps, but it wasn't enough, not nearly. “It won't ever be the same, though, will it?”
His fingers tightened on her shoulders. “Nothing ever is.”
Olgun's—Igraine's—eyelids trembled. “It is time,” he said.
“I know. Olgun, thank you.”
“No. Thank you. And Adrienne…I love you, too.”
Shins stared into what she knew to be Igraine's eyes. Olgun was gone.
The priestess said not a word, only offered Widdershins a brief hug of her own before turning away and disappearing back across the rooftop.
Widdershins turned, too, striding up to the very edge. From there she could see Davillon, bustling along as though it were just another day. The sky remained choked with clouds, but it felt as though there would be no more rain, for a time.
“It'd be nice to be dry for more than a few hours at a time, wouldn't it?”
The lack of response surprised her for only an instant, and she couldn't quite repress a smile, wondering if she'd ever break the habit of talking to herself.
“Maybe Widdershins and Adrienne can exchange a few words,” she muttered.
Widdershins. Adrienne. She had more than her life still ahead of her; she had two to choose from.
She had the Flippant Witch to rebuild. Whether she would stay with it after that, or return to the Guild, or both, or neither, she couldn't say. But the choice would be hers.
She had Robin, Renard, Faustine, and others. People who loved her and whom she truly loved—and if it was not always in the precise way they might wish she loved them, she knew they would still be there. Her family.
She had a god watching out for her, to the best of his ability. For her, more than any other man, woman, or child. Because he loved her, too.
And that was a lot. It wasn't enough, not yet.
But it would be.
Some of you hate me right now.
It's okay to admit it. Not only do I understand, but I kind of hate me right now, too.
I always struggle with good-bye-type endings. They make me sad, even the ones that aren't written to be; the closer I've felt to the characters, the sadder. So you can imagine how upset I was writing these last couple of chapters.
What you may not realize is that Widdershins has been more a part of me—my creative process, stories, plans, my imagination—than any other character. Technically, I created Corvis Rebaine (The Conqueror's Shadow) earlier, but only by a year or so. And Shins has, at the time I'm writing this, more word count devoted to her than Corvis does.
The first draft of the book that would eventually become Thief's Covenant was written way back around the summer and fall of 2000. It's been massively rewritten since then, multiple times, but throughout all of that, Shins herself didn't change much.
Yeah. A long time. She feels real to me, and that means her losses do, too.
So, as I'm sure some of you are asking, w
hy do it?
Truth is, I almost didn't. The planning stages, outlining stages, writing stages; during each, there was at least one point where I nearly chickened out. If I'd been writing this book just for me, tailoring it to my own enjoyment, I probably would have. This is the first time what I've wanted emotionally, and what I've wanted creatively, have differed to such an extent.
In the end, though, I'm not writing this just for me. I'm not even writing it just for my audience, though you guys are one of my greatest motivators.
I'm writing it because I have things I want to say and stories I want to tell. And this? This is what was right for the story and the characters.
It was dramatically appropriate. Ending it this way made Widdershins's tale far more powerful and compelling than it otherwise would have been.
It was creatively appropriate. After four books, I felt like I was on the verge of starting to repeat myself. Nothing's more disappointing than a good character or series that hangs around too long, becomes a shadow of what it once was. I'd much rather I—and Shins—take a bow before that happens.
And it was thematically appropriate. You see, it was time for Shins to grow up.
I didn't intend to make the series a metaphor about growing up. Heck, when I wrote the first book, I didn't even intend it to be a series; I hadn't decided if I even wanted to write a sequel or not. It became very clear to me, however, as I was writing False Covenant and planning Lost Covenant and Covenant's End, that that's exactly what it had become. It was, my own intentions notwithstanding, a series about Shins maturing and learning to stand on her own.
Parents, whether they want to or not, have to eventually let their children go. Children, whether they like it or not, have to eventually stop relying on their parents. Oh, the family's still going to be there—special occasions, emergencies—but no longer a part of everyday life. No longer something to lean on.
Like Olgun and Shins.
So that's where I found myself. I've known since book two how book four had to end. I'm not one of those authors whose characters speak to them or anything like that. But in this case, the story really did demand to go only one way, and it would have felt dishonest of me—as a storyteller, as an entertainer, as an author—to do otherwise.