Isadora

by Charlotte McConaghy

  Radha snorted softly.

  I changed the subject, hoping to pull her mind from whatever nightmare she’d endured. ‘Which way are your people?’

  ‘West.’

  I got her a canteen of water from the prison. I could feel things inside me reaching out, pieces of me trying to grab hold of pieces of her. I wanted to tell her things, but I couldn’t think of any – I had nothing to tell, and I could feel nothing from her, just as I always felt nothing from her. She was a cold piece of granite before me, untouchable. She was the snow goddess of the north, and I the sea’s fool.

  There was one thing I could tell her. One thing discovered in the library. What would she become when I shared it? What would we become? Enemies, no doubt. There wasn’t really any other fate, once my terrible culpability was revealed.

  ‘Where will we regroup? Your people and mine?’ I asked.

  ‘I will take my army around the marshlands and wait on the far side. If you don’t come in time, I will attack the city myself.’

  ‘You can’t face the warders in open warfare. They’ll decimate you. Nor can you lay siege to the city – they’d outlast you with ease.’

  ‘I know that,’ she replied.

  ‘Then what’s your plan?’

  Isadora said nothing.

  Frustrated, I stood. ‘How are we to be allies if you won’t tell me your strategy?’

  ‘I will tell you when I know it,’ she answered me, and I saw an abrupt anger kindling behind her eyes.

  I let out a breath. ‘Very well. We regroup beyond the marshlands. We plan our attack together.’

  She said nothing. Didn’t agree or disagree, and I had no idea what she was thinking. I left her, at my wits’ end. Went to gather up the prisoners and get them ready to move.

  Isadora pressed her forehead to the space between Radha’s eyes, nuzzling her and whispering something I couldn’t hear. From my seat on the back of the pegasis, I looked down at Izzy’s snow-hair, pulled into a thick, messy braid, and at the long lines of her pale neck. With a final kiss to Radha, she turned and walked for the trees. She carried a small pack with water and some rations, along with several knives stashed on her person. Her boots were worn, her clothes ratty. She was small like a child heading alone into the forest, graceful as one of the fey creatures of old.

  Brathe and the rest of the group were waiting for me in the other direction, but seeing her like that, without a single word of farewell …

  ‘Isadora!’ I called, panicked.

  She stopped and looked back. The sun was behind me so she had to shield her eyes. Could probably see nothing but my silhouette. She waited, but I could think of no words.

  ‘We will meet again,’ I blurted out. In our dreams. It didn’t sound like a question, but it was.

  Isadora nodded, then vanished into the trees.

  I felt as though I’d had a sword taken to my ribcage, splaying it open for all to see the gruesome mess within. Dazed, I manoeuvred Radha after the rest of the group, already on its way north-east to find Ava and the Sancian citizens. Brathe had waited for me, choosing to walk alongside my pegasis.

  ‘Parting is the wreckage of us all,’ he told me gently.

  I blinked. ‘Pardon?’

  He nodded to where we’d left Izzy.

  ‘We’re not …’ I shook my head, giving up. ‘She bears no real fondness for me.’

  ‘And I thought the fool act was done with.’

  That was just it, wasn’t it? The fool act no longer felt an act. And there was thick, thick dread in my guts. I pulled Radha to a halt.

  ‘Sire?’

  She’d given me nothing, not even a farewell. She’d given me no words or looks or touches, had never shown me but a glimpse into her thoughts or feelings.

  But she had carried me on her back across miles of land, saving my life even when she shouldn’t have been strong enough. She had told me the truth about Quill, even when she didn’t have to, when in fact it would have protected her to stay silent. She did give me things. She gave me acts of courage, and those meant the most. When put like that, what had I ever given her in return?

  I swung down from Radha’s back, my boots landing lightly on the grass. To Brathe I said, ‘Carry on. I will find you.’

  ‘Sire – we need you,’ he argued.

  ‘You’re still my General, Brathe. Act like it.’ With a clap to his shoulder, I left him with my pegasis and I turned back for the forest, pushing myself into a run. Trees whipped past me in a blur.

  ‘Izzy!’ I shouted, unable to spot her. ‘Isadora!’

  Slowing to a halt, I peered around, now thoroughly lost. Shit.

  Something caught my ears, a sudden ziiiip of sound and then a loud thunk right by my head. I looked at the knife quivering in the tree trunk; it had passed so close it took a few strands of my hair with it. Searching the forest around me, I still couldn’t see her.

  ‘Not a wise time to let your guard down, Majesty,’ came her soft voice from above.

  Tilting my head, I spotted her sitting on a high tree branch, red hawk-eyes watching me. ‘What are you doing up there, little Sparrow?’

  ‘Heard you coming from a mile away. Great lumbering idiot.’

  ‘Like to join the lumbering idiot on the ground?’

  She shook her head.

  I breathed out. ‘Very well.’ Here I was again, with words all dried up and a cold wind rushing through my chest cavity.

  ‘What are you doing, Falco?’ she asked more quietly. ‘Turn around and go with your people.’

  I swallowed and said, as calmly as I could, ‘I’m not yet capable of being parted from you. If you’ll have me, I would come with you to find yours.’

  A long, silent moment stretched out. It was madness. My own men and women needed me to guide them. I knew it, and she knew it. But finally, almost imperceptibly, the Sparrow nodded, her eyes shifting green to match the veil of leaves about her head.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Isadora

  I could no longer tell where the dead forest ended and my lands began. All was green and lush with new life.

  ‘Are we near?’ Falco asked.

  ‘Scouts will spot us. You had best not look like that.’

  He frowned, peering down at himself. He was dressed in worn, dirty garb – the same we’d been sent to the cages in. It had been dragged through salt and mud and dust, and ripped to within an inch of its life. ‘Granted, I’m not looking my best, but where am I meant to get a change of clothing from?’

  I couldn’t help it. I smiled. ‘Your clothing isn’t the problem. It’s the rest of you.’

  His frown deepened.

  ‘You look wealthy and noble, Falco. No matter what you wear.’ I gestured to his beautiful face and glorious locks of golden hair. He still moved with the refined, pompous entitlement he was having trouble casting off. ‘They’d kill you on sight.’

  ‘Cut it off then.’ He flicked his lovely hair.

  My eyebrows arched sceptically.

  ‘You think I could care less about hair?’

  Grinning, I drew one of my daggers and set about hacking at the locks. I worked as quickly as I could, cutting close to his scalp, making sure to leave parts uneven and to nick his skull a few times to make him look rougher. When I was done I stepped back.

  ‘What?’

  I shrugged, not knowing what to say. The bloody haircut had made his cheekbones and jaw more severe, and the colour of his eyes now shone with an undeniable glow. They looked haunted in the afternoon light, set under brows that seemed heavier without the halo of silky hair. If anything he was more beautiful, stripped back like this.

  ‘Break my nose,’ he told me.

  I hesitated, then sent a hard palm into the bridge of his nose, making sure to break the bone. Falco yelped, raising a hand to catch the streaming blood. ‘Ow! Iz.’

  ‘You told me to.’

  ‘I thought you’d at least argue first.’

  My lips twitched. ‘It’ll
be crooked forever.’

  ‘Do I look ugly?’

  The smile disappeared. ‘I never said you needed to be ugly.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said quickly. ‘I didn’t mean −’

  ‘Not all are so fortunately born to physical beauty. It’s an illusion and it teaches you to care about the wrong things.’

  Falco looked at me helplessly. ‘It’s not what I meant. Forgive me. My nose really hurts.’

  ‘Is that the first time you’ve been hit?’ I couldn’t remember him taking a single blow in the prison fights.

  He nodded.

  ‘A rite of passage then.’

  ‘How violent,’ he commented.

  I shrugged, didn’t know what to say. Waved at his face. ‘I prefer it. You’re not so pretty.’

  ‘Then feel free to break some more bones!’ he announced wildly. ‘How about my jaw? My eye socket? You could give me a disfiguring scar!’

  I strode ahead to pick up the path. He joked and laughed so easily about disfigurement, about choosing it as though it meant nothing and made no difference, but he had no idea what it truly meant to be born different.

  By nightfall we were surrounded. There was a faint rustle in the trees that meant they wanted me to hear them. I stopped and gestured for Falco to lift the torch higher, casting my hair and skin into the light.

  Out of the darkness emerged six cloaked soldiers. They sank low to the ground before me. The figure at their head rose first and withdrew her hood, revealing a misshapen mouth and nose.

  ‘Greer.’

  She smiled a little, but kept her tone formal. ‘You’ve returned to us.’ Her words, as always, were slurred.

  I nodded and gestured for them to lead us home. Greer fell into step beside me as we walked, while Falco fell a little behind, keeping the torch aloft. ‘Your companion?’ she asked me.

  ‘A servant. He knows who I am.’

  Greer’s eyes widened slightly as she darted a wary glance back at him. Most of my soldiers didn’t even know who I was – they thought the albino girl was the Sparrow’s second.

  The camp wasn’t too far, a place we had come to refer to as Cloth City. It moved constantly, its structures easily erected and disassembled. My people were at least two thousand strong and the sea of canvas huts stretched before us, lit by scattered campfires. Soldiers sat around the fires, enjoying a meal before sleep. In the morning they would be roused early to train or to take up the necessary duties that kept our mobile community running. Food and water had to be constantly dealt with on a large scale, along with the washing of clothes and the maintaining of weaponry. Scouts were constantly prowling the area for signs of attack and battle parties went out each day to protect the people of the three realms I reigned over. If need be they enforced my law, which consisted mostly of the punishment of theft, violence, mistreatment or cruelty. My soldiers also offered free labour to struggling farms or food to those who couldn’t feed their families.

  The system worked, but only because I didn’t have to pay my soldiers. They offered their lives freely to the cause, which was a huge difference between my rule and Falco’s government. In his three realms, it was citizen taxes that paid for the maintaining of peace, security, law and order.

  My tent had been kept for me, waiting for my return. It was simple and small, with a bedroll on the ground just like the rest of my soldiers had. The only difference was a small wooden table, necessary for meetings.

  I bade Greer send for Lade, who arrived quickly to join us. I then sat with my two commanders around the table, while Falco lit the lamps and poured us wine. It was remarkable to watch him don the servant’s cloak; it fitted him astonishingly well. Every detail of the deception was attended to – I seemed to have a stranger in my tent, evident in the respectfully downcast eyes, the abruptly blunt and solid movements of his body, the bowed shoulders, the disappearance of his effeminate delicacy and quick flashing smile. I didn’t have time to continue admiring the disguise though, because Greer and Lade were both waiting for my explanation.

  ‘Thank you for your service in my absence,’ I said, clearing my throat. I hated these moments, in which I was expected to speak. I hadn’t chosen to lead these people, they’d simply begun to follow.

  Lade inclined his head. He had suffered terrible burns as a child in a house fire that took his parents. Half his skull, face, neck and most of his body was puckered and shiny with the scars that even now caused him pain. But no one had strength quite like Lade – no one had the same spirit with which to laugh at his misfortune in loud, obnoxious defiance.

  Greer, in turn, had a sharp intelligence I was grateful for, and a mistrust of every person in this world. She was now watching Falco with that same suspicion, eyes cold. I could not truthfully call either a friend, though they were the people I knew best. We shared little more than politics and strategy and the running of this army. But they respected me, and I them.

  I listened as they outlined the movements of my soldiers over the last eight months, and the workings of the realms. We’d held firm, but had still lost ground to warder intrusion. Their magic was impossible to fight, even with courage and skill. All of Ora and some of Querida had been conceded, which was a substantial blow and left us with half the land we’d had six months ago.

  It occurred to me that if we helped Falco win this war, there would be nothing to stop him turning around and taking back the whole of Kaya. And if I had learnt anything about him in the last weeks, it was how single-minded he could be in the pursuit of what he wanted. I had all but offered him my lands back when I’d pledged to support him, but it wasn’t as easy as just handing over control. There was a great number of people whose welfare needed to be considered. They were better off under my rule, but was a unified Kaya more important?

  ‘I’ve been trapped within the walls of Sancia,’ I informed Greer and Lade. ‘I had the opportunity to kill the Mad Ones, but failed.’

  Lade cursed under his breath. ‘They’ll die very badly, Sparrow – we’ll make sure of it.’

  ‘And to do that our forces will join with those of the northmen, and with the Emperor of Kaya.’

  There was silence at that.

  ‘I have his man,’ I said, gesturing to Falco who stood near the entry. ‘He’s issued a formal offer of alliance and I mean to accept it.’

  Greer was up in a moment, lifting her bow and aiming an arrow directly at Falco’s heart. ‘You brought one of Feckless’ soldiers into our home?’

  ‘He isn’t to be harmed,’ I said flatly, and the tone of my voice was more than enough to force her weapon down. Greer made a hissing sound out of her mangled mouth and paced before Falco, keeping her eyes on him. Saliva slid from the corner of her lips, but she didn’t wipe it away as she normally would, too intent on her enemy.

  Falco lifted his eyes to her. I saw nothing in his expression to indicate he was uncomfortable in her presence. With his short warrior scalp and his crooked nose he looked dangerous and unruly. He also looked underfed and poor, which was probably the only reason Greer had not shot him already.

  I stood and all eyes returned to me. ‘We align, or we die. How long will it take to ready my forces to march east to war?’

  ‘Two days,’ Lade replied, ever eager to fight.

  I nodded to dismiss them. I would not explain my decision further, though I knew it had deeply offended them both. I refused to allow my people to suffer under my hatred any longer. Against the threat of the warders, the rest of Kaya couldn’t afford to be divided.

  Falco relaxed, breathing out. ‘You’re scary when you’re the Sparrow.’

  I thought it an odd thing to say. No matter which disguise he wore, he was still blind to the truth of me: ‘I’m always the Sparrow.’

  Falco

  She slept on her bedroll, and I on the floor near the flap of her tent, like a good little servant. I couldn’t calm my mind for long enough to drift off, but I heard the sound of Isadora’s breathing deepen more quickly than usual. She
was very tired.

  It was thrilling to see her wield her power. Thrilling to see the inside of the Sparrow’s world after so many years imagining it. I hadn’t realised the extent of her army – Cloth City boasted far more soldiers than I had imagined, and I felt grateful, lying here, that she was now on my side in this war.

  Izzy sat up so suddenly I got a fright. ‘You alright?’

  She didn’t reply, but rose from bed, stepped over me and walked straight out of the tent. Confused, I scrambled to follow.

  She wound her way through the dark shapes of sleeping soldiers and the dying embers of campfires. She was wickedly quick, and I had to jog to keep up with her as she reached the edge of Cloth City and melted into the forest.

  ‘Izzy?’

  I caught up to her and glimpsed her vacant eyes – she was sleepwalking. I kept pace with her, unsure if she was controlling it or not, but certain I wanted to see where she was going.

  We walked for at least two hours, plunging deeper and deeper into the forest. There were no paths here and I was amazed at her sure-footedness in the dark. My feet tripped over vines and tree roots and slipped into ditches, caught by sharp thorns of wild blackberry bushes and the gnarled, low hanging branches of oak trees.

  Not long after I’d begun to consider waking her up and ceasing this mad venture, we emerged from the thick trees into a huge clearing.

  In the center of which was her lake.

  I had seen it before, in dreams. I’d felt the cool liquid calm of it in her mind.

  The reality was so strange it felt like I’d stepped into her dream realm. The lake was completely, impossibly still. It was glass. The night held two identical moons, one in the sky and one reflected in the surface of the black water.

  Isadora walked straight into it, so fluid that the water barely moved at her disturbance, seemed instead to swallow her and return to glass. I had watched the reverse of our dream, when she emerged just like that, like she was floating, removing the water like a second skin. Now she had donned it once more, returned to its depths.