Isadora

by Charlotte McConaghy

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Penn said, sitting beside me. I took his hand, unable to lose his touch yet. He let me.

  ‘How can you say that, Penn?’

  ‘Has Izzy ever hurt us?’ he asked his best friend. ‘Or has she saved us, time and again?’

  ‘For what?’ Jonah demanded, eyes shifting lime. ‘What was it all for, if not to use us for her own ends?’

  ‘And so what if she does?’ Penn replied. ‘Has she not earned everything from us that we can give her?’ Though I couldn’t see them in the dark I imagined the freckles on his cheeks and the constellations they made across his skin. In Sancia I had made pictures of his freckles as I fell asleep.

  ‘The Sparrow hates warders,’ Jonah said softly. ‘Everyone knows that. So what of me? And Finn? Do you hate us?’

  I swallowed. What I felt for the twins was very far from hate. I didn’t know how to say that, so I just shook my head. Jonah peered at me, maybe making up his mind.

  There was a thudding sound to my left and looked down to see –

  What?

  A small, naked body curled and shivering on the ground, where an instant before there had been nothing.

  A breath left me: I was dreaming again. At least this time I was aware of it. But was Penn’s hand in mine a dream, or was he really here with me? The girl on the ground was stretching herself, trying to climb to her feet. ‘Leave me alone!’ I begged her, because in dreams words didn’t reveal you, they were swept out and lost in the void. ‘I get it – killing you was a tremendous mistake, and I am paying for it with the destruction of my own life.’ Is that what this ghost wanted to hear? Was this how low I would have to prostrate myself before my dead would let me be?

  I frowned to see Jonah crouch beside the woman. Definitely a dream, then – not a ghost or a hallucination if he could see her too.

  And then Falco appeared a few feet away, skin and lips turning bone white as he stared at the dream woman.

  With a swift flick of his wrist he removed his cloak and swept it around her naked body, helping her to her feet. ‘What …?’ He was lost for words.

  ‘Who is this?’ Jonah asked. ‘She … appeared.’

  ‘Is Quill here?’ Falco asked urgently, his hands shaking on her cloaked shoulders.

  The dream woman didn’t seem to know what was going on. She was slender and short, though nowhere near as slender or short as I, and she had strawberry blond hair and a pointy, pixie nose. These I knew well. I saw them every day.

  ‘I don’t know if she got through,’ was what the woman finally replied. As we stared at her she stretched her arms, wriggling all ten of her fingers with an astonished laugh. ‘My body,’ she whispered.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Jonah asked. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘My name is Radha,’ she told him. And then she looked at me, straight at me, and it didn’t feel like a dream at all as she said, ‘I was murdered.’

  I’d never imagined how I might react to being faced with one of my victims reawakened. I’d never imagined I would turn and bolt into the marshlands, my chest constricting until I could no longer breathe. She was not a ghost or a dream, but a flesh and blood woman who could speak and touch and remember and exist.

  My lungs shuddered as I gasped for breath, pressing into the sodden, smelling stretch of marsh. When I couldn’t run any further, trapped on every side by mud, I swung up into the branches of a mangrove tree and climbed to the very top. Emerging out of the heavy canopy, I was met by a sky filled with thousands upon thousands of stars, and a slice of moon so bright it didn’t look real. The air finally moved inside me and I felt my pulse slow.

  Exhausted, I lay in the crook of a branch and watched the world above, wondering if there were other places out there like this one, or if it was just endless emptiness. Maybe I was altogether wrong and the sky was the roof of the world, as most believed, placed there by the gods to stop us from escaping. I had always felt as though I could stare into and beyond it – the sky didn’t feel like a cage, but the opposite.

  I must have fallen asleep, dreamless, for the moon had moved when I next opened my eyes. The branches were shaking with the weight of someone climbing them and abruptly I was anxious again. I didn’t want anyone to find me, held myself very still. But find me he did.

  Falco poked his head out of the canopy a few meters away and sighed in relief. ‘There you are.’

  Falco

  I sat Radha down beside the fire and made sure my cloak was firmly covering her. I kept peering around for Quillane, hoping she might melt out of the air like her mate. Jonah and Penn had run off to find Finn and ask her what in gods names was going on, so I waited alone with the dead woman.

  She seemed dazed, content to watch the flames and feel their heat on her skin. I had a million questions for her, but held my tongue. One of her eyes looked glassy, maybe blind. I honestly had no idea who this person was, and yet she’d been mated to the woman I’d spent my life with, living within my palace for years.

  I couldn’t hold it in any longer. ‘When did you and Quill bond? Was it before she became Empress? How long were you living in the secret tunnel? What did you do before that? Where did you come from?’

  She smiled. ‘Oh, Falco, you tactless oaf.’

  I couldn’t help returning the smile, surprised. ‘You say that like you know me.’

  ‘I do. Quill spoke of little else.’

  ‘Let me guess. The idiotic Emperor Feckless and his laughable antics.’

  ‘Of course. Was that not what you wanted? Did you not design the world to be a place that spoke of the Emperor of Kaya’s foolishness? Was not there some masterful plan in place in which acting weak made you strong?’

  I didn’t know how to respond.

  ‘Why do you recoil from it now?’ she asked. ‘You were dedicated for so many years, Falco. Loyal to the plan, no matter what.’

  ‘It didn’t work.’ I shrugged. ‘It’s over.’

  ‘It would have worked,’ Radha replied. ‘Don’t we all know it? Isn’t it obvious now how you would have killed the Sparrow that night she came to find you, had fate not chosen a different path for you both?’

  I looked at her, waiting for the point.

  ‘Your enemies are not dead, Majesty,’ Radha said. ‘You are a master of disguise and deception. Use the weapon you put in place so long ago. Use him.’

  There was a prickle along my spine at the very idea, but she wasn’t yet finished.

  ‘I don’t know why I’m here – perhaps it was luck that I happened to be so close to the fold – but I do know that it won’t be indefinite. The veil won’t release me for long. So listen.’ She leant closer, holding my eyes. Hers, I saw, were sea-green, one of them definitely blind. ‘It is cowardice to direct your anger where it does not belong. And you are no coward.’

  I looked away from her and in the following silence listened to the crackle of the fire.

  ‘Now that’s done,’ she added, ‘please, please will you go and fetch me some clothes. Your Majesty.’

  I rose and left her sitting by the fire. Jonah and Penn were already hurrying back with clothes, so I let my feet take me to the tent that had been erected for Finn’s recovery.

  Thorne and Ambrose were standing outside when I arrived. ‘How is she?’

  ‘Not well,’ Thorne answered bluntly.

  ‘Why am I to blame?’

  ‘Because you wouldn’t leave it be,’ my best friend said. ‘Worrying at it and worrying at it, desperate for my father’s secrets. Maybe those secrets are best left dead with him, Falco – did you think of that?’

  I looked into Thorne’s face and reached for his shoulder. ‘I’m sorry. She’ll be alright, brother. We all will.’

  He softened, some of the tension easing. I knew he was shaken by the whole thing.

  ‘Has she explained?’ I asked.

  ‘She says she felt more dead come through,’ Ambrose said. ‘Says she couldn’t stop them, and can feel them now.’

 
‘Where?’

  ‘She’s delirious,’ Thorne said. ‘It isn’t the time to be questioning her.’

  I squeezed his arm. ‘Did you see Isadora?’

  ‘She ran into the marshes.’

  I spun to gaze at the tangle of darkness looming before us. It was incredibly uninviting, and I pondered the possible stupidity of dragging an entire army through it. What was Izzy doing in there?

  With some quick thinking, I made my mind up. After telling Thorne of my plan, I grabbed a pack filled with rations, armed myself with the prison swords and stopped off to farewell my cousins. The little things were sleeping between Ava and Roselyn, and didn’t stir as I ducked to kiss them both. I silently apologised to them for being such an ass, so easily given to vices, so poor at handling grief.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Ava asked, one eye open.

  ‘Your husband will explain.’

  ‘Falco …’

  ‘If I mess it up, Ava, at least you’ll be there to take over.’ I flashed her a grin and then hurried into the dark.

  Tracking Isadora was easy enough. She’d broken branches and left footprints in the mud. When the prints ended I assumed she must have started climbing, and after glimpsing a few out of place boughs I followed her up. She was lying in the branches with a perfect view of the sky, looking at me as I emerged. A dagger was in her hand, but when she recognised me it took to spinning in that lazy way.

  Settling in, I braced myself for what I prayed would not be another argument. A box had been opened, never again to be closed. I wouldn’t let it be closed.

  I said softly, ‘I’ve behaved very badly, and I can blame it on no act or pretense. I wasn’t angry with you about Radha – I was furious with myself for not being strong enough to do it, and for always allowing you to do what was most difficult. I wanted to be braver for you, but when the time came I was a coward. So I took it out on you and on everyone, and I became the worst version of myself. For that I’m ashamed.’

  She listened silently. I couldn’t see her eyes in the dark.

  I drew a breath and forged on. ‘Finn said there will be more of the dead yet to rise. So it’s going to get very complicated in that campsite for a while, and it’s going to slow everything down. I intend to move ahead myself and make a proper surveillance of the wall. I don’t want to rush into this blind. Thorne will bring the others when he can.’

  ‘What if Quillane rises and you’ve left?’

  This was where the courage came into it, I supposed. Though it physically pained me to miss my one chance at seeing the Empress again, I said, ‘I can’t be focused on the dead when I have so many living yet to protect.’

  Isadora considered this, tilting her head. Around and around went the blade, an extension of her thoughts and mood. The moon shone on her pale hair and eyelashes. She was glorious, a creature meant to be looked at under moonlight.

  Swallowing, I tried to quiet my nervous fluttering heart as it beat its wings to escape my chest. ‘I packed rations enough for my bondmate and I.’

  The knife froze. Her fingers stilled. ‘We’re no longer bondmates, Falco.’

  And I replied, ‘Of course we are, Isadora.’

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Ambrose

  I woke with the sun, having fallen asleep while keeping watch outside Finn’s tent and listening to the soft murmurings of a young husband soothing the delirium of his young wife. I woke to find that the fog had settled again, draping us in white. The early morning sounds of arising people reached in from the distance and the smell of stoked campfires wafted pungently.

  And my brother. I woke to find my brother.

  He was sitting beside where I lay, watching me, and he was exactly as I remembered him. Larger than life, draped in fur, the paleness of his eyes an ever-intrusive cold.

  I took one breath, and then began to weep. Because there in him was the understanding I had never once glimpsed in anyone else. There in him was the knowledge of why I had to do all of this without hands.

  I had missed him more acutely than I had ever thought possible. I was never meant to do any of this without him. Thorne nodded, pulling me to him and held me as I cried. ‘Soft as always, little brother,’ he said, and I gave a sob of laughter. In my ear I heard him ask, ‘Where’s my boy, Am?’

  Thorne

  I was returning to Finn’s tent when it happened. I’d left her early, stepping over a sleeping Ambrose to make my way to where Jonah slept. She would need her twin brother.

  We were in the middle of a huge expanse of sleeping or rising people. The fog had cleared a little so I could see a fair distance beneath the heavy white of the sky, and a fair distance worth of people could see me – were watching me – as I made my way through them. Warily or with awe, they stared. I was King of the berserkers. I supposed I was quite a sight to the Kayan soldiers. My mind wasn’t on any of it, but with Finn and how tormented she was by what she’d done. They sapped her, these dead who had crossed. The breach was not weighing easily on her. My thoughts shifted to the move we would need to make as soon as we could get several hundred people up and ready; they moved to the battle that loomed, to the growing pain in my side, to the almost certainly suicidal mission of attacking a host of warders who fought from behind the safety of a wall …

  My mind was a jumble, and so I wasn’t paying attention to the ruckus that had begun working its way closer.

  What wrenched my focus from the jumble was the stench. The unmistakable, thick sweetness of fear that permeated the air. Hundreds of people’s fear, their terror. My beast roared with sudden hunger, with the awareness of danger. I stopped, pressing Jonah behind the safety of my body. I breathed deeply, overwhelmed but searching for the cause. I heard a few shouts, a few alarmed voices, and then I saw it.

  A giant of a man running directly towards me.

  My instinct was to draw my axe, but what followed was a wave of relief. It was Da. He’d returned to me at last, thank gods. But what the Sword was he doing? And … wait. Wait. People were looking at him. They were scared of him – I could smell it.

  All other thoughts vanished because he was bearing down on me and I had a second to think, incredulously, that he must be attacking me, but then he was –

  Holding me.

  Shock unlike any I had ever known hit. He was flesh and blood. He was warm, and breathing, and I could feel his heartbeat against mine and my mind caught up to the sheer force of his physicality for long enough to think, it worked. Finn’s magic had worked and he was really, truly here with me, holding me, a creature no longer dead but alive, impossibly alive.

  ‘Da?’ I whispered, barely daring to believe.

  And he was saying over and over again, ‘My boy. My boy.’

  The Slaughterman of Pirenti. Most feared and loathed man of a nation. My father. Here. Saying, ‘My boy,’ over and over like a prayer, like it was the only thing that mattered or would ever matter.

  I felt my arms come up and around his mighty frame, so tentatively. And like the thawing of a great glacier I felt my heart – this heart that had grown up hating him for all that he’d been and all that he’d failed to be, hating him for leaving me to be feared just as he was, for his legacy that meant I could never be forgiven, and hating him most of all for being absent – I felt this heart fracture like a fine sheen of ice over a winter river, cracks snaking out and out and out until the whole broken surface sank. I was submerged in his scent, my father’s scent, in the magnificent physical presence of him, his size and strength, and more than that. Ambrose spoke often of giants and never once described a giant as being large in size, but in spirit. Even this most fallible of men, this person who had fallen prey to his most monstrous side, even a boy who’d been so easily manipulated by his mother … even such a man, Ambrose called a giant. I had never understood it. Not for a second. Violence, in my mind, had never meant spirit. And yet here he was, holding me like I had always in my most secret heart of hearts wished my father could. Once
upon a time I’d asked my uncle, who raised me, how he could love such a monster. How he could forgive such a monster. And he said that his brother had one quality more than any other, and that I would realise one day how much that quality meant. He had been right – it was my wife, in the end, who taught me how much it meant. Taught me so that now, in the grip of his trembling fingers, I knew how to recognise it, could feel and understand it, could be awed by its power. Here in the grip of a giant I had never met, in the unexpected love of a slaughterman, I felt it: loyalty.

  Roselyn

  I woke with my children by my side and a hirðmenn watching over us. I disentangled myself from Ella and Sadie’s arms and Erik moved so I could sit beside him on the log. His poor wrist needed to be sutured, but I didn’t have my kit, so instead I’d had to bind it very tightly and hope we could find him proper treatment soon.

  ‘Do you ever sleep?’ I asked.

  ‘Would that I didn’t have to.’

  He didn’t look at me, never looked at me. In his averted gaze I felt the shame of what had been done to me. I knew he didn’t mean for me to feel it, but I did.

  ‘Erik,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, my lady?’

  ‘Look at me.’

  He did so with extreme difficulty. A clenched jaw, a clenched fist. ‘Yes, my lady?’

  ‘You’re free.’

  He frowned. ‘How so?’

  ‘You’ve done so much. You’ve saved us. And for anything that came before, you are not responsible. I’m freeing you from this burden, the honourable, kind man that you are.’

  His face twisted in pain. ‘My lady, the three of you are no burden. You are the point. The entire point.’

  I didn’t understand. Searched his black, black eyes.

  And then.

  ‘Roselyn,’ a voice said, and

  I

  dissolved

  into

  dust.

  In that one word a thousand wishes were fulfilled, a million impossibilities. I counted them, tried to count them, could not slow my heart or my tears, could barely manage to stand. But he was there to help me. His hands touching mine, his rough voice in my ears, his smell in my nose.