Isadora

by Charlotte McConaghy

  ‘The night you and I met, we sought each other’s deaths,’ Isadora reminded me, her voice low. My eyes fell to her lips; they hardly moved when she spoke and as such she pronounced her words strangely. I hadn’t noticed until now, but it suddenly seemed like a clue to all her secrets, the treasure trove of them in her center.

  ‘Nothing has changed,’ she went on. ‘The second you and I break our bond, this stalemate is over, fated or no.’ She stopped. She always seemed surprised when words came from her mouth, as if she sometimes forgot she had the ability to speak at all. My eyes went to the rise and fall of her chest. I could feel her heart thundering and I wanted to get at it, wanted to hold it in my hands.

  ‘Is that what frightens you so?’ she asked, even more softly. ‘That I’ll kill you?’

  I leaned in close, could feel her breath against my lips, the heat of her skin on mine. It was intoxication, it was a shot of adrenalin to my heart. I murmured, ‘You could try.’

  Cold laughter fled her lips. But her disbelief didn’t bother me, because I could see behind it to the doubt in her eyes.

  I left her in the bathroom – this tiny bathroom where everything seemed to pass between us – knowing with painful certainty that she was wrong. I didn’t fear for my life when our bond ended. I simply didn’t want it to end. Every version of me wanted Isadora, all of her, to be mine until the day we both died. And the only way to ensure that was to do the impossible: I had to make her want the same thing before she realised that Finn could break our bond even without her husband’s presence.

  Ava

  ‘What in gods names is going on?’ Finn asked in the absence of Falco and Isadora. No one had an answer.

  Until Glynn said, awkwardly, ‘I saw them holding hands the other night.’

  ‘What?’ Jonah exclaimed.

  ‘Holding hands?’ Finn repeated, confused.

  Glynn nodded. ‘They’d been out all night. And they were acting strangely. They didn’t look at me, but passed like phantoms in the night.’

  ‘But … but they hate each other!’ Jonah protested. Poor kid.

  I left my mouth shut. I’d assumed Falco had begun some sort of affair with Isadora, but after that display I was no longer so sure. There was something different in my cousin. Something he could not be careless with.

  ‘There’s an explanation to this,’ Jonah snapped. ‘She hates him.’

  Wisely, no one replied.

  ‘I’m going to find out,’ Finn announced, following the arguing pair.

  ‘It’s none of your business,’ I called after her.

  ‘Never stopped me before.’

  It was Penn who caught my attention; I turned in time to see the amused smile at his lips. I was fairly sure I liked him better than the rest of them combined.

  Isadora

  When I finally felt calm enough to emerge from the bathroom I was met with the sight of Falco and Finn sitting together in his room. I froze long enough to see it all – the closeness of their bodies, the way their heads were turned in together, the soft urgency of their voices, the touch she so easily bestowed upon his hands.

  I thought I might vomit.

  Had Finn not been in love with Thorne the last time I saw her? Had she not been giddy with it? Six months had passed – perhaps during that time she had changed her mind and fallen for the Emperor instead. I hadn’t thought her so fickle, but I could certainly feel something in Falco, a stirring as he sat so close with her.

  I wanted to tear my own skin off to reach this vile thing in my center. I wanted to claw it out, strip it from me. It had to stop. He looked up, straight at me. He could feel it, I realised. He knew, and he said quickly, ‘Finn and Thorne are bonded.’

  And there was no smugness, no satisfaction or victory. There was nothing but understanding, and it hit me like a tidal wave.

  My humiliation was a brand as I left the house, lifting the hood of my cloak. I wouldn’t go back again. Because how dare he be a better man than any knew? How dare he be good? How would I ever manage to hate him if he was good?

  When I reached my little cliff house I paced its wooden floors and I draped the lake upon me because I had to find perspective on all of this. I had to clarify my priorities.

  My concern was and would always be the forgotten souls in the forest of my escape. My people – those loyal to the Sparrow, who had spent their entire lives being abused or ignored. It was for them that I would end the power of the warders, for them that I would at least try.

  But what had always been most important? I knew the answer well, though it shamed me to name it even to myself. It was vengeance. For the cage, for the brutality of the world, for the simple fact that some were born without fortune of any kind while others wasted the abundance they lucked upon. So I made a vow with myself, because it was the only way I would get through this. I’d continue with my plan to assassinate the Mad Ones and help free the Kayan citizens. But the next time I saw Falco of Sancia would be the day I killed him, regardless of what I had already achieved, regardless of whether or not it would also kill me.

  Chapter Nine

  Thorne

  We travelled without rest for days, stopping only to take a short detour through the Misty Valley because it was a rite of passage for youths to visit the ancient tombs. Ambrose, Rose and I took the girls down into the valley of limestone, to where slabs of rock had been mounted atop each other to signal the burial of someone beloved. Erik trailed behind, always on the watch for threats so I could relax. Over the rock was a fine sheen of frost or, in some spots, ice, so we moved slowly and with careful tread.

  ‘This tomb is thousands of years old,’ Ambrose told his daughters as we reached the largest in the valley. ‘It’s older than any other building or structure still standing today.’

  ‘Who did it belong to?’ Sadie asked.

  ‘We don’t know – the words engraved here have long since been eroded by the weather. But we know it was a burial tomb because of its shape, and we know how far it dates back because it has been marked on maps that span as long as we’ve recorded our history.’

  I could really feel it, standing here in the Misty Valley – the incredible lightness and heaviness of the turning of the world.

  ‘One day when your mother and I are gone, Thorne will be King of Pirenti. If, gods forbid, something happens to him and he has not yet an heir, one or both of you will rule this nation.’

  Ella and Sadie nodded earnestly – they knew this well, and already took it very seriously.

  ‘My da brought my brother and I here when we were boys, and he said that one of us would rule and the other would not, but that it would be equally important for both of us to understand the Valley.’

  I felt a pang, thinking of Da and Ambrose here as little boys, with Ambrose’s father Rourke, the man they’d both idolised and adored. I thought, too, of the day Ambrose had brought me here as a young boy, and how awed I’d been. Now, to his daughters, Ambrose spoke the same words his father had told him, and which he had gone on to tell me. I hoped, as I listened a second time, that I would get to say them to children of my own.

  ‘Run your fingers over this stone and think about the interminable, immeasurable nature of time,’ Ambrose told Ella and Sadie. ‘I want you to consider this earth, this land, and our place here on it – and to think about both the impermanence of humankind and the lasting effect we have on the world. Our duty will always be to respect and protect the land, to understand our lives here as short, but meaningful, to respect our ancestors and to know that we can have a powerful effect on the things around us. Consider, too, whether you believe it falls to us, as leaders, to understand these things a little more than most – do you believe the burden of time sits a little heavier upon us? Or do you believe all humans are the same in the face of eternity?’ He looked at both of his daughters and they stared back, unblinking. ‘Either way, there’s history in these rocks, in this valley. Connect with it and the immeasurability of time will become less f
rightening, I promise.’

  We left the twins to spend time pondering and exploring the tomb. We walked a short distance away, staying close enough that we could still see them in the fog. A light drizzle fell on our faces, freezing cold and sharp like pins.

  ‘I met your father Rourke once, Majesty,’ Erik told Ambrose as the four of us huddled close, breathing warmth onto our cold hands.

  ‘Truly?’ Ambrose asked, surprised.

  ‘Aye. When I was a lad, he spent some time on our winding stretch of coast and stayed in our twisty old castle.’

  I smiled a little, both at what he was saying and at the rhythmic way he said it. In the short time I’d known him it had become clear that Erik had a calming effect on those around him, and I liked him very much.

  ‘The ocean there is rough and full of glaciers and impossible to swim. The cliffs are steep and deadly. But Rourke spoke of boats, and of rowing out into that rough sea that he might seek and search and find distant shores. He spoke of not wanting to waste the life he had been given, to take it full and devour it, and he spoke of carrying his wee son with him as he did all of this. He was, in my opinion, Majesty, a great man. A true one.’

  I watched Ambrose swallow. After a few long moments he cleared his throat and said, ‘Thank you, Erik.’

  I thought again of what Ambrose was going through. The terrible ache of questioning himself and the life he led. The dilemma of feeling one thing and needing to be another.

  A very distant rumbling began in the earth, starting as next to nothing and then growing so that I could feel it in the soles of my feet, through my boots and inching up into all of my muscles. ‘Here we go!’ I announced with a grin.

  Ambrose gave an excited whoop and bolted over to his daughters. ‘They’re coming – quickly!’

  I swept my mother into my arms and carried her, laughing, deeper into the valley floor. Popping her down in front of me, I held her shoulders and chuckled with her as Ella and Sadie scrambled raucously to the front of the group. We stood in single file behind them.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to stand first in case?’ Erik asked.

  ‘No, my friend,’ Ambrose grinned. ‘This is a rite of passage even more important than the tomb!’

  Adrenalin throbbed through my veins as with every second the rumbling vibrations grew. The first time I’d done this, at ten, I’d been petrified and ready to wet myself. Ambrose had laughed uproariously then, too. The excited girls were far braver than I.

  ‘Don’t move,’ I warned Ma. Behind me I could hear Erik fiddling with his axe. ‘You won’t need that,’ I told him. And then to Howl, at my feet, ‘Stay very still, boy.’ Howl looked up at me, motionless.

  And then they were upon us. A herd of wild horses, thundering through the valley and emerging out of the grey fog; they were ghostly, eerie, almost spectral and utterly beautiful. Their powerful, fast gallop angled straight at us. Sadie squealed and Ambrose roared with elation, and then the horses split down the middle and flowed around us with incredible grace. A great whoosh pushed against us from both sides, the sound of their hooves drowning everything else in the world. They were so close I could have touched them. White and black and all shades of grey flashed past me, their scents washing through my nose and making me heady.

  And just like that they were gone again, thundering into the mist as quickly as they had come. The earth slowly stopped trembling, the frost resettled and the fog closed like a curtain around us. We exploded into cheers and laughter, falling against each other in sheer excitement. Howl barked with glee, having instinctively known not to spook the horses. Ella and Sadie were rapt and flushed. The courage it took a child to face down the approaching herd was legendary – boys had to do it as they neared manhood, and if they ran instead of remaining still they were ridiculed for years. I’d never been so proud, watching my cousins chatter hysterically in its wake.

  We climbed our way out of the valley and regrouped, pushing on towards Vjort. I watched Ma fuss over Ella who refused to don her cloak, claiming to be hot. Sadie, by contrast, couldn’t cease her teeth chattering, and was shooed back inside the carriage.

  ‘Some blood runs colder than others,’ Erik commented blithely.

  Rose frowned, watching Ella ride her pony forwards to flank her father. The girl’s long dark hair trailed behind her just as the pony’s tail did, before both were swallowed up by the fog.

  My eyes caught on a flash of orange. The warder girl’s hair, where she slept over the saddle of Fain’s horse. We had to keep putting her to sleep, for fear she’d wake and use her magic to harm us, but the longer she slept the worse it would be for her health. I couldn’t help feeling concerned.

  ‘Is there something you can give her for nourishment?’ I asked Ma.

  ‘I have a sedative that would addle her magic when she woke, but might let her take food and water.’

  ‘You’d risk your own safety for her?’ Erik asked, looking between Ma and I.

  I shrugged. Ambrose wanted her alive, so she was alive. No need to torture the poor creature.

  We stopped to water the horses late in the afternoon. Ma had the drink made up, and Erik insisted on being the one to rouse the warder and feed it to her. Ambrose and I moved in close, blocking her view of anything else. Erik’s large, tattooed hands were surprisingly gentle as he tilted her chin up. She moaned as she woke, and before she’d had a chance to open her eyes Erik was trickling the draught into her mouth and running his fingers over her throat as he would to a dog. The girl drank, then coughed and lurched upright on the cold road.

  ‘Easy, lass,’ Erik coaxed softly.

  Her eyelids flew open and her gaze found me. I watched the irises shift to a brilliant sky blue, a glorious shade beneath her pale orange hair and eyelashes. They were unearthly in the fog, and too bright. I scented her magic once more, and her ferocity, but the drink was already taking effect. Her pupils dilated and her mouth went a little slack.

  ‘Let me go, pigs,’ she tried. And then, ‘Where are my friends? Where’s Ben?’

  ‘Dead,’ a soldier muttered from nearby.

  A moan left her and with a mighty effort she lifted her hand to send some sort of power at us. Nothing happened.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Ambrose asked her.

  ‘Curse you.’

  Erik took the girl’s throat in his hand and squeezed gently. ‘Answer His Majesty.’

  ‘Don’t hurt her!’ We all looked to see Ella and Sadie watching worriedly. ‘Don’t hurt her,’ Sadie repeated.

  Erik dropped his hand quickly.

  ‘Get back in the carriage,’ Ambrose ordered his daughters. ‘This isn’t for you to see.’ Softening, he added, ‘She won’t be harmed.’

  Rose shepherded the girls away.

  ‘Forgive me,’ Erik said, retreating.

  Ambrose called for the group to get moving once more. On a whim, I lifted the warder girl onto the carriage seat and sat beside her, taking the reins to drive. She sagged against the wood, not quite sleeping, not quite awake. I flicked the reins and we clattered forward, flanked by the soldiers on their mounts.

  ‘You alright?’ I asked her.

  ‘Feels quite nice actually.’ She sighed.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Maisy.’

  ‘I’m Thorne.’

  ‘Know who you are … prince. You’re the liar.’

  ‘Take some bread,’ I bid her, finding some in one of the packs and passing it over.

  ‘The second this poison wears off, I’m going to kill you,’ she said clearly. ‘For Ben.’

  I breathed out, watching the road ahead. In the end I just said, ‘Alright.’ Because she had as much right as any to want to avenge the person she loved. We entered Vjort after nightfall. Snow was falling, as was usual in this walled, stone city. Maisy was asleep again, but Ella and Sadie were wide awake at the sight of the army barracks. We rode straight for the castle on the other side of town, passing the square in which I had execut
ed my first soldiers for attacking Isadora, Jonah and Penn. I shivered as we rode by, but not from cold. We passed by the tiny temple where Finn and I were married, and I missed her with such acuteness that it felt there was something seriously wrong inside my body. I had promised to show Ma the temple, and to redo the ceremony with our families present, but I was starting to think this was not the kind of place in which we should marry twice.

  I could scent Ambrose’s urgency from the back of the group and knew he was desperate to put a stop to Jarl Sigurd’s crimes. What struck me as we entered the castle was how very relieved the staff were to greet us. I shared a concerned look with Ambrose as one of the women burst into tears and insisted on bowing four times. Things here were obviously worse than we’d imagined. Apparently Sigurd had had himself moved into the royal chambers, even though tradition dictated they were always left empty for Royal visits. The housekeeper was mortified to convey this bit of information.

  ‘No bother,’ Ambrose assured him. ‘We’ll take any rooms you have ready and warmed.’

  Once Ella and Sadie were settled into their beds, with Rose reading them a story to calm them, Ambrose, Erik and I gathered in the castle war-room. The first thing Ambrose did was search through desks and drawers, looking for any proof of Sigurd’s actions. According to the housekeeper he went out most nights to enjoy himself at the largest tavern – Iceheart’s – and wouldn’t be home until close to dawn.

  When Ambrose didn’t find anything, he asked Erik to write down the names of the men in league with Sigurd – those helping him with the trade, those supporting it or funding it. Erik explained that he could not read or write, so he spoke the names and I took them down for him. It seemed there was a group of about six high-ranking soldiers who helped run the human trafficking trade for Sigurd.

  ‘Find him and report back,’ Ambrose told the hirðmenn. ‘Tell him the truth – that we intercepted you, so you weren’t able to complete your task. Say nothing of what we know – I want him ignorant of why we’re here, and I want him to think you’re still loyal to him.’