‘Yes, I’m a demon,’ I snarled, lips near his ear. ‘A witch, a monster. Anything at all that you can think of to call me, I will be. But if you ever name me warder again, I will drain you of every last drop of blood.’
There was an astonished silence.
The berserker didn’t move. I watched the handless man.
Who laughed. ‘How about instead of calling you any of those things, I just call you by your name? Greetings, Isadora.’
‘Have I leave to kill her?’ the man between my legs asked.
The handless one laughed all the more. ‘If you think you can, be my guest.’
My knife bit into his neck.
‘Easy. I was kidding,’ the handless man assured me with a smile. His eyes were impossibly blue. ‘Climb down from poor Goran and let’s talk.’
I could feel Goran bristling beneath me as I swung down and landed in a puff of dust. I sheathed my blade, keeping my unguarded back to him in what I hoped he would take as an insult. Then I stepped forwards to face the King of Pirenti.
‘Ambrose,’ he confirmed. ‘I would shake your hand, but alas …’ The smile he gave then astonished me, and I couldn’t help glancing at the stumps. He would not remain King of Pirenti long, in this state. ‘Thorne and Finn have told me much about you, Isadora. Where have you come from? Last I heard you were trapped in Sancia.’
I shook my head, no idea where to start. Now that I was here, and had them all staring at me with varying degrees of fury and curiosity, my words dried up. This mutilated king was watching me with such kindness that it unnerved me, scattered my thoughts.
Just then a small group of people arrived at the edge of the fireside, carrying huge buckets of water over their shoulders. One of them was Ava, another Thorne.
The prince stopped dead, staring at me. He looked sick – much thinner than I remembered him, much older, much wearier. But he smiled, slow and wide, and the boy I knew shone from his pale eyes. Lowering the buckets to the ground, Thorne said, ‘Come here, snowflake.’
And I felt myself moving to him, was wrapped up in his tight embrace, lifted from my feet and hugged for a long time. ‘I’ve really missed you, my dear friend,’ he said. The best I could do was a nod, struck by how much I’d missed him too. His quiet, steady gentility made me calm. And not the forced false calm of the lake, but a true peace.
I explained – awkwardly stumbling over my words – all I could about the nearby army of the Sparrow, Falco’s presence, the prisoners from the warder prison, the fire, our journey to the marshes and our plan to attack the warders. Then I looked at Ava, feeling guilty for not having led with: ‘Your children are safe.’
She gave a gasp, a sound sucked from her lungs, and then she was up and sprinting – sprinting – to a red-and-white pegasis, leaping onto its back and galloping into the darkness. The whole thing had taken about five seconds, and I blinked.
A few soldiers stood to follow her, but Ambrose told them to let her go – they’d all follow first thing in the morning. He too was grinning ear to ear and had to wipe his moist eyes with his shoulder. Thorne placed a meaty hand on his uncle’s back, and they shared a quiet moment of relief.
‘My mother?’ Thorne asked me, and I nodded.
He clapped Ambrose even harder.
‘I knew they were fine,’ Ambrose said. ‘I could feel it.’
‘What of the people from the city? Did Ava get them out?’ I asked.
‘She did. Osric and Finn are with them.’
‘They’d better not have been found by the warders since then,’ Thorne muttered.
‘I don’t know what kind of power could vanquish the indomitable Finn of Limontae,’ Ambrose said wryly. ‘Now, to this Sparrow. You said Falco has allied with him? And he’s willing to accept our alliance?’
I nodded.
‘Is he trustworthy?’
I opened my mouth, closed it and then nodded again. I wasn’t sure how to explain, how to reveal it without sounding idiotic.
Once we’d exchanged information I looked again at Thorne, worried. ‘Would you walk with me a moment?’
He nodded, and we made our way through the grassy hills, both watching the moon above. He was very unwell, with a constant stream of sweat running down his temples.
I cleared my throat. ‘Are you alright, Thorne?’
He smiled sideways at me, reaching to squeeze my hand once and then letting it go.
I heard new footsteps and with a sinking heart I turned my head to see Quillane and Radha walking nearby. They did not look at or speak to me, but they were there, an eternal reminder.
‘You’ve killed people, haven’t you?’ I asked Thorne abruptly.
He nodded.
‘Do they haunt you?’
‘No,’ Thorne said, ‘but my father does.’
Startled, I looked at him in the dark. His eyes flashed in the light of the almost full moon.
‘Or,’ he amended, ‘he did. Until I banished him.’
I swallowed, searching for the words. ‘You regret that?’
‘Every second of every day.’
‘Why?’
‘I miss him,’ Thorne replied.
I breathed out, considering that. ‘Then you are not … haunted. Not by your own monstrosities.’
‘I used to carry a lot of shame, Iz,’ he said. ‘Then I accepted the part of me I’d been frightened of. I welcomed my beast, and now we’re one.’ Thorne cleared his throat. ‘There’s … a bigger darkness than that, one that lies beneath our feet, an easy thing to slip into. It’s not something we can escape if we have been born walking atop it, as all kings of Pirenti are, and as I think you have been.’
The words made me cold inside.
It was no wonder Falco hated me – who wanted to be bound to a woman who walked over a gaping, sucking darkness? One that made her kill the things he loved?
Swallowing, I said, ‘Falco isn’t well. He will need you.’
‘He has me.’
We walked in silence a while, cresting a hill and pausing at its apex. Quillane and Radha started humming a soft song, and it moved its way into my blood, into my heart, reconciling me to the bleak truth that I would never be rid of them, not for all the days I lived.
Some part of me started making plans.
‘I didn’t even meet my da,’ Thorne said abruptly. ‘I have no idea who he is, and yet I imagine him talking to me as though I know him. How ridiculous is that?’ He gave a choked kind of laugh, and then looked straight into my eyes. ‘I think I’ve gone mad, Iz.’
I glanced up to see stars fall from the sky, every one of them a glittering arc through the infinite abyss. I knew the feeling.
Falco
I had sobered up a tad by the time dawn approached. I didn’t sleep – I hadn’t been able to since Radha, not for more than a few minutes here and there. Lurching to my feet, I tripped my way through the chilly predawn grey, fog draped heavily over the sleeping campers and dousing the last embers of the fires. I was in search of more drink.
I came across a canteen, but found it filled with water, and begrudgingly swallowed some before throwing it down and continuing my mission. My feet led me near to where Roselyn was curled between Ella and Sadie. I couldn’t help but pause, looking at them and feeling a woozy pang in my chest, where my heart used to be.
Memories of some version of me reached for them, but the mask I now wore had eclipsed any other Falco – this one had no more love. This one was a useless waste of a person who wanted nothing but to be numb to the world. So I moved on, refusing to look back at the sleeping girls, once two of my favourite people in the world.
I had not gone far when I heard hoofbeats. Someone was approaching through the fog. I stopped, still too drunk to fully comprehend the potential danger. I was sure the Sparrow would make quick work of whoever dared to draw near, the blades on her body already covered in thick layers of blood. In a move my mother would have been mortified by, I spat on the ground, but the bitter taste remained
in my mouth.
And then I recognised the figure dismounting to dash through the sleepers, peering down at them, searching. ‘Ava!’ I called before I could stop myself.
I pointed to her daughters and watched her scared, twisted face crumple into tears, and I watched her walk the last paces to her children, and I watched them wake to fold into her arms and hold her as she wept.
But there was a pegasis standing nearby and when I caught sight of it I decided I didn’t want to watch any more reunions. Instead, I picked up a bottle and walked with it into the mist.
Ava
Getting an account of recent events from two eight year olds was not the wisest idea. I sat on the grass with a daughter hanging off either arm, chattering away as though they might lose the ability to speak at any moment. I couldn’t stop smiling, my heart too big to fit in my chest.
They were working backwards for some odd reason, but as they got to the account of what had happened to them in Vjort, I realised why they hadn’t been so excited to describe that part of the story. A slow horror uncurled in my stomach as they explained how they had escaped through the night, underdressed and carrying the unconscious Erik, how Roselyn had gotten them to safety and hidden with them for two days straight. Their words slowed as they went back further, to the attack in the castle, to hiding in the closet while Rose tried to convince the soldier that she was alone.
They stopped, both of them, something bleak in their eyes and I knew something very bad had happened, and I changed the subject entirely. There was a trembling in my fingers that I couldn’t seem to clench away. My eyes went to where Roselyn and Erik the hirðmenn sat in companionable silence by the morning embers of the fire.
It was a couple of hours before Ambrose arrived with the rest of our soldiers.
I had warned the girls that Da had been hurt, but was well now, and just as strong as he’d ever been. When they saw him they both burst into tears and hugged him, and he did his best to hug them back, kissing the tears from their faces. It was both sweet and painful, a bit much to manage, so I used the moment to go to Rose. She was ensconced in a reunion with her son, so I turned instead to Erik, who had heavy bandaging around one of his wrists.
He bowed low.
‘You, Erik,’ I told him, ‘must never bow to me again.’
He blushed as he straightened, the markings on his face taking on a beautiful look over such a sweet expression.
‘For what you’ve done for my children, I can never repay you. I can’t even come close.’
He shook his head quickly, eyes darting to the red-haired woman nearby. ‘Majesty, it was not me who saved them.’
‘What happened?’ I asked.
Erik met my eyes. His were a very dark brown. ‘My lady … do not ask her. I beg you. Just know that she has courage unlike any I have witnessed, and if you and His Majesty will allow it I mean to pledge my life to protecting her.’
I swallowed, managed only to nod. Then I turned to her, leading her away from where we might be overheard. Roselyn’s eyes were bright from having seen her son, but something in her expression stilled as she saw mine.
‘Rose,’ I whispered. Because I knew what the men of Vjort were like. The vileness of the place bred a deep cruelty in its people. I didn’t understand how one person could be so endlessly strong. ‘How can I possibly …?’ I shook my head. ‘I love you. I thank gods every day you’re in my life. And now I owe you an impossible debt, the greatest anyone can owe another soul. My children. Rose …’
‘You owe me nothing,’ she said. ‘Nothing.’
‘I love you,’ I said again, taking her in an embrace.
‘And I you,’ Roselyn murmured, holding me so tight.
I thought I saw a flicker then, in the corner of my vision. A flicker of dark, silky hair. But I closed my eyes against this trick of the light, tears blurring my vision.
Thorne
After making sure Ma was alright, I went looking for Falco. He was nowhere to be found within the camp, but I followed his scent into the hills. Everything looked the same out here – there was no difference between these particular grassy slopes and the ones Isadora and I had walked last night, except that these were shrouded not in moonlight, but heavy fog.
I found him balancing on a wobbling rock, half-empty bottle in one hand, a sword in the other. ‘What are you doing, brother?’
His head whipped up, his ankle rolled on the rock and he lost his balance, crashing onto the bottle and nearly skewering himself with the blade.
I winced. ‘For pity’s sake, Falco.’
‘So you pity me now too?’ he asked, words slurred. He rolled off the miraculously unbroken bottle, and took a swig.
‘It’s first thing in the morning and you’re already drinking,’ I said. ‘So yes, I do.’
He brandished the sword wildly. ‘But I can use this blade!’ he announced, then cracked up laughing. ‘That means I’m not pitiable, right? It means I’m not the man everyone thought I was! Emperor Feckless knows how to fight with a sword, so he must not be feckless anymore!’ He seemed to find this hysterical, doubled over and clutching his stomach with mirth.
I placed a hand on his shoulder and forced him to sit on the rock, then I perched next to him, grateful to be seated. The pain of my wound was getting worse by the day.
‘What happened, mate?’ I asked him. ‘Isadora said you weren’t well.’
‘You’ve spoken to the ice sculpture, have you?’ He gave a bitter laugh, swigging more. I snatched the bottle from him and held it out of his grasp. ‘Curse you, you big lug.’ Falco rested his head in his hands. ‘Nothing happened. I’m just coming to terms with what I’ve known all along.’
‘Which is what?’
‘The masks only mask the fact that there’s nothing beneath them.’
I shook my head, stood. ‘You’re drunk. Sleep it off and when you’re sober we’ll have a real conversation.’
‘Sleep, he says. But in sleep dreams wait, and in dreams she waits.’
I peered at him. But that was when we heard a shout and a scream, and I ran back to the camp with the smell of blood in my nose.
Chapter Twenty-six
Falco
I was actually less drunk than I’d let Thorne believe. And I was even less drunk when I arrived on his tail to see a berserker holding Greer over the fire, dangling her face-down, close to the flames.
‘Stand down!’ Thorne boomed.
The berserker reluctantly put Greer on her feet – thankfully not in the fire – and she spat at him in rage.
‘We are allies,’ Thorne barked. ‘This is unacceptable.’
The berserker bowed his head to Thorne and I was awed by the young man’s power, though not surprised. Ambrose and Ava arrived, and I could see the Sparrow making her way around behind the altercation. ‘Will you not punish him?’ she asked Thorne.
He frowned. ‘Tensions run high, Izzy. It’s over now – there’s no need.’
Isadora eyed him calmly, her huge red eyes turning very cold. ‘Seems I must punish him for you.’
There were a few laughs of disbelief, a few angry mutters.
‘And who the fuck are you to punish me, little girl?’ the berserker asked her derisively.
Isadora’s gaze moved to him, then traveled over the crowd of onlookers and finally rested on me. She said, clearly, ‘I’m the Sparrow of the South, and these are my lands you stand upon, my army you have asked to join.’ Without further ado, she sliced one of the berserker’s fingers off.
Isadora
There was chaos then. Fights broke out between and within groups. Ambrose was shouting for a cessation of violence. But people were shocked at the revelation of my identity and the sudden violence in the morning, and it didn’t help that the two sides hated each other.
I saw Falco coming for me but I couldn’t face him, so instead I disappeared into the fog.
‘What, you’re running from me now?’ he called, following. ‘You’re a butcher!’
That seemed to stop him. He was breathing quickly. ‘You exacerbated the problem.’
‘Do I look like someone to be respected? Obeyed? Followed?’ I shook my head. ‘I have to make them, or I get a sword in the back.’
‘There are better ways to lead than with fear.’
‘Shall I amuse them, then? Disappoint them? Because we know how well that has worked for you.’ As soon as the words were out I regretted them, imagined snatching them out of the air before they reached his ears. I didn’t want to fight with him, didn’t want to throw barbs back and forth, especially when I didn’t believe the cruel words I spouted.
His expression hardened. ‘This has got to stop,’ he said, and I almost breathed a sigh of relief until I realised he didn’t mean our fighting, he meant something else entirely. ‘I need to tell you something, and when I’m done, we’re done.’
I froze. Could feel my muscles seizing up, turning to bone.
‘Your ma’s name was Iona, your da’s name Steven,’ Falco told me, and my heart thundered. I shook my head. Whatever this was, I didn’t want him to tell me, but he kept speaking and he couldn’t even meet my eyes as he did so. ‘Steven had six brothers, all of whom had natural shields against warder intrusion. The seven of them stole into the Sancian palace and slaughtered the royal family. When I was crowned, my first act was to send the warders Callius and Raziel to find the murderers. What I didn’t know, until the library, was that they were found, almost immediately. Steven and his brothers, along with Iona, were tortured to death for crimes against the throne, treason and the murder of five royals. The warders kept it to themselves as some part of a power play I can only imagine. And then they placed Iona and Steven’s white-haired baby in a cage for the remainder of her life.’
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