by Matthew Ward
“And I seldom feel much like a goddess.” A simple shrug dispelled the aura of majesty. “And I certainly never used to be, so we may consider ourselves equals, may we not?”
Melanna supposed selective equality was ever the purview of the superior. “Will you save her?”
“Why does it matter?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do.” She hesitated, but only the truth would serve. “If I hadn’t been afraid, I would have reached her sooner. I feel responsible.”
Ashana smiled. “Does it ever occur to you that you’re trying too hard?”
“I know no other way godd . . . lady.”
The goddess cocked her head in exasperation. “What if I save this woman, and her survival prevents your father from reclaiming his throne, and thus you from inheriting it after his passing? Would you still plead for her life?”
Melanna looked from Ashana to the dying woman. “Are you telling me she will, lady?”
“I’m asking if that changes your request.”
A test? Or was the question as straightforward as it appeared? Was this one stranger worth the Imperial throne? It no longer mattered. Melanna had taken the decision to save the woman the moment she’d risked the mists. Otherwise, what use was honour?
“No,” she said at last, and hoped it was true. “My request stands.”
The goddess shook her head. “You’ll make a poor empress, but a good woman.”
A cloud passed overhead. Ashana faded into darkness, only to return brighter than before.
“And what do you think, old friend? I know you’re watching.”
“You are sworn not to interfere.”
A tall, antlered shadow gathered on the far side of the dell – a man’s silhouette, given form by cloak and heavy mantle. Green eyes shone beneath a shadowed helm. The newcomer’s darkness was not the blackness of death, but of angry storm clouds. It provoked no fear – only respect, and the prospect of fear if that respect went unhonoured.
“My siblings interfere,” said Ashana. “Or do you think I can’t smell the stink of Otherworld in this place? Dark days are returning, and I promised to keep the light shining.”
“Lending magic is not the same as interference,” he rumbled. “But if it is to be war, I will fight it gladly. Will you?”
Ashana folded her arms and scowled. “No. I suppose not. I’m not ready for what that will cost.” Her expression brightened. “But I don’t have to be, do I? After all, lending magic is not the same as interfering.”
The antlered helm dipped in a nod. “And what of the girl?”
Ashana’s gaze fell on Melanna for the first time since the newcomer’s arrival. “She’s ready.”
Melanna opened her mouth, but her voice deserted her. More than her voice. The world had grown muffled, as by fog, or by sleep.
“She has heard more than she should,” said the Huntsman.
“It doesn’t matter. After all, it’s only a dream, is it not? It will pass.” Ashana enfolded Melanna in a translucent embrace. “I will help you mend this woman’s harms, but you must afterward leave her to whatever fate brings. Your destiny is with your own kind, Melanna Saranal.”
A cloud plunged the dell into darkness.
Melanna started awake beside the fire, and stared down at hands that shone silver in the moonlight.
The evening sun had faded almost to black. The dance had slowed alongside. The music had all but fallen silent. Only the double thump of the drum remained, slowed to a steady, remorseless dirge.
And still Rosa danced. Her russet dress was ragged and torn. Her muscles ached and her feet bled. But she clung to her partner through the moribund steps, and wondered where the day had gone.
The drum stopped. Her partner stepped back and offered a respectful bow. A pathway of mist stretched beneath withered trees to where the manor had once stood. He gestured towards the mist and beckoned to Rosa.
Tired beyond words, she reached for his hand one last time . . .
Silver light blazed to burn away the mists. Rosa’s partner vanished in a flurry of black wings. His mask shattered as it hit the ground.
The drumbeat returned as a peal of thunder across the heavens.
Rosa lurched upright beside a crackling fire that offered no warmth.
Her head spun. Her stomach heaved. And everything – everything – hurt.
Another spasm. She fell forward onto her knees. Trembling fingers traced the extent of dressing and bandage. Memories crashed back. The kernclaw. She’d felt his talons across her chest. In her spine. And then he’d turned away.
She should be dead. But he’d turned away. Left her to focus on . . .
Rosa stared bleary-eyed across the fire, at the low cairn beyond.
She stumbled twice in her hurry. On the third time, she fell completely. She reached the stacked stones on hands and knees. With grief-given strength, she tore them aside. Too soon, the sight she’d dreaded lay exposed beneath the boughs.
Overcome with fury colder than any she’d ever known, Rosa cradled Kasamor Kiradin’s lifeless head in her hands, and screamed at the dawn until her voiced cracked apart.
Lumendas, 1st day of Radiance
Ascension
The Tyrant Queen’s reign is done, but vigilance remains.
For just as the shadows are strongest on the brightest of days, we are never more imperilled than when we think ourselves safe.
from the sermons of Konor Belenzo
Eleven
They came from the north, black surcoats filthy with the dirt of the road. Near two hundred men and women marching in triple column. Horse-drawn wagons creaked and squealed behind. Revekah’s heart ached at the cadence of the marching song. The Duke of Kerval. A tune from a life long in the past, before the raising of the phoenix banner.
“Raven’s eyes.” Tarn craned his neck to see over the wooded crest. “Who are this lot?”
Revekah flashed an angry glance and shoved him back down. “You want to find out the hard way? Looks like Makrov finally sent for reinforcements. Spineless worm.”
But no, that didn’t feel right. Two days since Josiri had burned his mother’s portrait. One day of ill-feeling and violence flaring like summer flash-fires. Another of aftermath, with towns and villages under curfew.
Revekah despaired of Josiri’s disrespectful act, but recognised that this was no consequence of that deed. There hadn’t been time for a summons, much less for a company of Tressian soldiers to have swift-marched the long roads through Tevar Flood.
Then there was the livery. A silver swan on black. Banners not seen in the Southshires in fifteen years. And at the column’s head, two men not easily forgotten. The first, a giant with a wicked scar on his cheek and a fennlander’s claymore across his back. The second man, older by a few years, lacked for a right eye, and most of his left arm. Revekah remembered the day he’d lost them. After all, she’d taken both.
Viktor Akadra and Vladama Kurkas. The first the champion of the Tressian Council. The other the dishevelled captain of the Akadra hearthguard.
No, she decided, this wasn’t retaliation. This was something else.
A new verse issued up from the road. The one in which the eponymous duke offered up his son to trickster Jack in exchange for an army of forest demons.
“Your hearth and home I will preserve, for an offering of kin.”
Revekah breathed the words in time with the soldiers. Funny. The last time she’d sung that song, she’d not understood how anyone – even a body so desperate as the embattled Duke of Kerval – could risk everything by courting so unreliable a presence as the Lord of Fellhallow. But that reserve belonged to a younger woman. The woman she was now would have embraced mischievous Jack, merciless Tzal – maybe even cursed Malatriant, Raven take her eyes – if it brought freedom.
“Who are they?” Tarn hissed, careful this time not to expose himself above the crest.
She regarded him in silence. Like so many wolf’s-heads, Tarn was young. To
o young to remember Zanya, or the sacrifices of the past.
“Old ghosts.” Her eyes returned to the column of soldiers.
She hoped Josiri knew what he was doing.
Josiri returned to the balcony before noon. The ashes of the portrait were long gone from the terrace, swept away at Makrov’s order. His last such order before riding hard for the safety of Cragwatch. Beyond sullen Eskavord, ravens soared about fresh corpses on Gallows Hill. As much the price of insurrection as the kraikons standing silent in the streets, enforcing curfew.
Some Ascension this would be.
“Did I do right?” he asked softly.
Anastacia perched upon the balustrade. She once again wore the formal garb of a Trelan seneschal. Vapour curled from the toes of her boots as they swung back and forth. She took a last bite from her apple and tossed it away down the gardens.
“The time for that question is long behind. Now there is only what you do next.”
“Calenne hasn’t spoken to me since. She thinks I’ve sabotaged her wedding.”
“So the gallant Lord Kiradin hasn’t yet arrived?” Her tone was as dismissive as her words. “I suspect he’s preparing a dashing entrance. And it wouldn’t hurt Calenne to think of someone else for a change.”
Josiri frowned away criticism aimed at himself as much as his sister. “As you said, I can’t change the past. Now there’s only what comes next.”
Anastacia folded her arms. Her lip curled in thought. “Then why do you fret so?”
“Because every time I look to the future, all I see is the fire.”
“Maybe that’s how it should be. Maybe you are the Phoenix your mother sought to be.” A rare moment of solemnity slipped across her face. She drew nearer, smoky eyes brimming. Her fingers entwined his, cool to the touch. “I have laid bare your soul, Josiri. You have it within you to be a great man, if you’ll but let yourself.”
“Or a great fool.”
“That’s for history to judge. History is enshrined by the triumphant. So bring triumph. For your people, and for yourself.”
“And if it’s not that easy?”
“Then prove yourself worthy of my affection, and of your mother’s trust.”
Bells rang out across Eskavord. The long-awaited end of curfew had arrived. The noonday meeting with Governor Yanda was nigh.
Anastacia’s solemnity gave way to amusement. “But if you’re to spend hours staring blankly at the hangman’s labours, I shall bid you good morning. Someone needs to make sure the Ascension feast is prepared. If Calenne’s angry now, how unbearable will she be if there’s not a scrap of food prepared for her new husband?”
She kissed him on the cheek and stepped away, fingers slipping from his.
“Have I ever told you how much I rely on you?” he asked.
Anastacia cracked a grin. “Never enough.”
“I’d tell you more, if you let me. I’d tell you I lo . . .”
“No.” She cut him off. “We don’t use that word, remember? One way or another, the day is coming when you will leave these stones behind, and me alongside. Let’s not make that parting harder.”
“You think I’m so shallow?”
“I think that a duke who takes a demon for his bride is one who receives a poor end to his story.”
“You’re not a demon.”
“So you keep telling me. But it’s not your belief that sets the pyre alight.”
As if to reinforce the point, her seneschal’s garb rippled. It peeled outward like a blossoming rose. The petals drifted away into scattering smoke, revealing a close-fitting azure gown beneath. It glittered in the sunshine, its beauty a stark contrast to the scowl marring her expression.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, you have guests and I have duties. We can’t serve unpalatable food, and there are so many dishes that need tasting.”
And no doubt fruits to be “checked” for proper sweetness and wines to be sampled, lest they’d gone sour. Josiri fought the urge to apologise. In their peculiar world, “sorry” was seldom more welcome than “love”. The passage of time would ease the wound.
“Thank you. Please tell Governor Yanda I’ll see her out here.”
The clouds broke. Anastacia offered the glimmer of a smile. “Of course, your grace.”
She went inside, leaving Josiri alone with his thoughts, chief among them being the resentment he felt at the coming parting. But Anastacia was right. The first of many sacrifices, no doubt, but this one cut deep. She was bound to Branghall’s stones, and his destiny – good or ill – lay beyond. He could leave whenever he wished, if Anastacia opened the hallowgate for him.
The last of the chimes faded into echo. Little by little, life returned to Eskavord’s streets. Hesitant townsfolk emerged in ones and twos, wary lest looming kraikons drag them away. Blue uniforms gathered in the main thoroughfares. Flesh and blood guards to replace those of metal and seething magic. Normality – or as close to it as Eskavord had – was returning.
The balcony door creaked open. “Your grace?”
Governor Yanda stood in the doorway, ward-brooch sparkling on her uniform breast, and her expression fixed in a mask of wary politeness. Two soldiers lingered close by – a rare escort, and another reminder of recent troubles.
“Governor.” Josiri let bitterness bloom. “Are you proud of what your soldiers have done?”
She joined him on the balcony. “We’ve suffered losses of our own. A few deaths. Most were defending themselves. For those that weren’t, I tender my apologies.” She took a deep breath. “I can’t imagine what you were thinking.”
“I did what the archimandrite demanded.”
“True, but I can’t help but wonder about the detail.”
Josiri frowned to conceal alarm. Yanda wasn’t a fool. She wouldn’t have lasted in her position otherwise. How much did she know? Or guess? He’d been careful in conspiracy, but there was no accounting for stolen glances, or misspoken words.
“Governor, I’m trying to be polite, but there are limits. It’s one thing for Makrov to insist on pettiness. It’s quite another for him to blame me for the consequences.”
“Leave us.”
The guards straightened at Yanda’s order and retreated inside. A little of the stiffness slipped from Yanda’s shoulders. Scabbard tapping against her thigh, she leaned on the balustrade and stared out across Eskavord.
“I knew your mother,” she said. “Did I ever tell you?”
Josiri relaxed, but only a little. Yanda’s tone warned that the conversation’s end lay far distant from where it had begun. Still, he was curious.
“Not so I recall.”
“I’d have been about your sister’s age. Fresh from the Sartorov chap-terhouse. A squire eager for the front lines. One so very resentful of playing at honour guard for a privy councillor.”
“My mother?”
She nodded. “Used to walk around the city. Nobody of standing walks anywhere, but she did. And so did I.”
“She was the same here.”
“You shouldn’t force folk to look up to you,” Yanda quoted. “Only I was full of the arrogance of youth, and I wanted folk to look up to me. I’d earned it. I wanted folk to see me as something better than them. But I couldn’t. Not around your mother. Second day she was in Tressia, a hospital ship came in from Northwatch, thick with wounded. There weren’t enough orderlies to get them ashore to the sick-houses, so she rolled up her sleeves and pitched in. Dragged me along, too.”
“I had days like that.” Josiri wondered more than ever where the conversation was leading. “Chasing down lost livestock. Carting food up into the hills for old Ezrack when the snows came in.”
Yanda grunted. “Sounds right. I hated her. Thought she was mad. Then I saw her unpick a dockers’ dispute where Lady Isidor and Lord Akadra spent two months without any progress. Took her an afternoon.”
Josiri stifled a twitch at the mention of the hated name. “She’d a knack for that.”
“It was mo
re than that. The guildsmen trusted her. They’d seen her suffering the press of crowds instead of parting them with a carriage. They’d heard about the hospital ship . . . and the rumours she’d stopped her arrogant honour guard handing out a beating to a pair of keelies.”
“You?”
Yanda shrugged. “It’s a lucky woman who’s proud of all her yesterdays. Tried picking my pocket, didn’t they? Point is, the guildsmen saw her more as one of their own than one of the Council. After she left, I swapped the Sartorov wolf for the hawk of the regular army.”
Josiri started in surprise. A commission in one of the Republic’s knightly chapters was not readily thrown aside. Whether you fought alongside your fellows or took up secondment to an officer’s command in the regular army, it promised status and advancement enough to satisfy the hungriest ambition. He’d dreamed of it himself, before the War of Secession changed everything. He still recalled the recruiting poster. The crude sketch of the ‘shadowthorn’ emperor with his roots burrowing across the border and deep into the Republic. The call to arms for all true sons and daughters.
The Prydonis chapterhouse – that had been the dream. The gilt-edged armour and the blood-red plume. Fighting as one blade alongside an entire chapter of knights. Or leading common soldiery from beneath fluttering regimental colours as a captain. Then had come Zanya, when the blood-red plumes of Prydonis had been foremost among the Southshires’ betrayers. That killed the dream, sure as stone.
“That can’t have been easy.”
“It wasn’t, but I thought I’d do more good there. Arrogance of a different sort, I guess.” She paused. “Broke my heart when your mother raised that phoenix banner. Felt like personal betrayal. I couldn’t square it with the woman who’d worked so hard to bring people together.”
And there it was. The arrogance so typical of the northwealders. Admiration offered, so long as you laboured towards their chosen ends.
“It’s easy to preach unity when your hardest decision concerns the heraldry you wear.” Josiri took a deep breath to ward off rising temper. “If you’d learned anything from my mother, you’d have stood beside her.”