by Matthew Ward
“You’re missing the point.”
“And that is?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“I spent half my adult life admiring Katya Trelan. And now? Now it takes effort not to see her as a traitor. I have to think – really think – to reconcile the woman I knew with the one who passed into history.” Yanda’s shoulder twitched in a lopsided shrug. “When I do, I can see she strove for something she felt necessary. Maybe I can even respect it. But it doesn’t matter what sets you moving. It’s how you end up that counts. You might want to think about that.”
Away beyond the balcony, a lone rider galloped up the long approach from Eskavord. The overdue Kasamor Kiradin? Josiri hoped so. He was tired of the game his life had become. The sooner Calenne was safely married off, the better for them both. For everyone.
“Are you finished?” he asked. “Because I’ve a busy day. You can tell the archimandrite that you’ve delivered your warnings.”
Yanda offered a card player’s smile. The kind that served equally to conceal a bluff called, and the readying of a winning hand. For the life of him, Josiri couldn’t tell which was in the offing.
“This isn’t Makrov’s message. It’s mine. One last favour to your mother, I guess.” She leaned close. Close enough that he could see the pale, hairline scar that ran from her brow to her greying chestnut fringe. “I can’t imagine the pressures you’re under. But the next time you want to tweak the beast’s tail, have a thought for the people down in the mud.”
A little tension eased from Josiri’s spine. So Yanda didn’t know his secrets. She just thought that he was an arrogant scion of an entitled bloodline. It hurt, but it was better than the alternative.
“And the beast . . . I mean, the archimandrite . . . Is he roused?”
She held his gaze, unblinking. “Damn near. But you needn’t fear. He’ll be here to conduct Calenne’s wedding. Were I you, I’d tread carefully once it’s done.”
“His second exodus?” Josiri grimaced for show. With the Hadari drawing ever nearer, exodus no longer held the same threat.
“He’s spoken of it. But I doubt you’ll live to see it.” She smiled mirthlessly. “When only one Trelan remains, the next humiliation may well be the last Makrov tolerates.”
This time, Josiri had no need to pretend surprise. Somehow, he’d never considered that by removing Calenne from the family he’d be jeopardising himself. Would Makrov have the temerity to do as Yanda suggested? Hard to say, but . . .
Below, the manor gate opened. The rider passed beneath the arch and cantered towards the terrace. It wasn’t Calenne’s errant betrothed, but a travel-stained young woman in a herald’s uniform. Anastacia appeared on the terrace and took a letter from her outstretched hand.
“Something wrong?” asked Yanda.
“I don’t know.”
Fresh unease gnawed at Josiri. Urgent news never came directly to Branghall. It went first to Cragwatch, or to Yanda’s own dwelling in the centre of town. For it to come here . . . The Hadari? Josiri almost said as much. He remembered just in time that he knew nothing of the danger in the east – so far as anyone was aware.
The herald, message delivered, rode away. Moments later, the balcony door creaked, admitting Anastacia to the terrace.
“Governor.”
When neither smile nor curtsey occasioned a response – or even an acknowledgement of her presence – she glided past Yanda and pressed the letter into Josiri’s hand.
The envelope was scuffed from its time in the herald’s saddlebags. Taking little note of the curling, spidery hand, Josiri broke the wax seal and began to read.
The writer had laid their thoughts out in distant, but polite, manner. Hardly a surprise, given the author’s identity, and the subject of the missive. Only direst need could have moved Ebigail Kiradin to correspond with a southwealder. He clung to the mental image of her writing at arm’s length. So much easier than engaging with the letter’s content.
A deep breath helped. Steadied him for an altered fate.
Josiri folded the letter.
“Governor Yanda? Please inform his excellency that his services are no longer needed at Ascension.” Josiri eyed the balcony door, little relishing what would follow. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to inform my sister that her betrothed is dead.”
Twelve
“What do you mean, you’re leaving?”
Drakos Crovan remained as affectedly charming as ever, but only the deaf could have missed the undercurrent in his voice. Not quite a threat, but with threat near enough at hand. Melanna had heard that tone many times before in the Golden Court. Her father often used it in front of subordinates, as Crovan now was. A handful of other wolf’s-heads looked on – the women’s expressions no friendlier than the men’s. And Vorn, watching her with a predator’s dark eyes. That Tressian was more wolf than man.
Or perhaps she only heard the danger because Crovan stood between her and the stairway to Maiden’s Hollow? Because she was alone in the face of Crovan’s outrage, and Vorn’s unfriendly glower?
“I’ve learned everything I need. It’s time for me to rejoin my people.”
“Oh, very convenient,” said Crovan. “After you eat my food, drink my wine . . . have my fellows thin the northwealder patrols at Trelszon? At no small cost in life, I might add. I thought we were allies.”
“And so we remain. But my place is at my father’s side, where I can properly express your friendship.”
Melanna lent a little bite to those last words – a reminder that such expressions were not always positive. She hated doing it. Her father’s vengeance was a useful spur to ailing manners, but harnessing it felt like failure. As if she were still a child hiding behind his robes.
It didn’t help that she was still unsettled by the previous night. She recalled a dream of blood and silver, and the goddess’s soft words urging her home. But like all dreams, the details slipped away the more she sought them.
Crovan nodded, the flush of anger fading from his cheeks. “I see.”
“She’s running,” growled Vorn. “Our comforts not enough for you, princessa? If you’ve trouble sleeping . . . Well, reckon I can help with that.”
Melanna felt her cheeks colour. A ripple of laughter echoed around the root-bound cavern. It died at the chopping motion of Crovan’s hand.
“Enough. She’s made her decision. We’re not brigands.” Crovan’s gaze settled on Vorn. Its displeasure served as stark contrast to his amicable tone. “Please remember that.”
Vorn’s chair clattered as he rose. “And what guarantee do we have that the great Kai Saran will honour our agreement?”
“You have my word,” said Melanna.
“Hah! This is the Southshires, princessa. Word of a noble’s not worth much here. No matter how fine their promises or whose colours they wear.”
A rumble of agreement issued from the onlookers, although Melanna couldn’t rightly be sure which sentiment had roused it. For all the south-wealders’ claims of being different to their overlords in the distant city, fascination with bloodline and heritage bore the same bitter fruit. A uniquely Tressian prejudice, and one which Melanna – who’d lived all her life in the vibrant panoply of a Golden Court whose princes hailed from across the Empire – had never understood.
“You’re testing my patience. The decision is mine. And it’s made.” Crovan’s hand rested on the pommel of his sword. “Now kindly stop embarrassing me.”
Vorn gave a long, slow shake of his head. A deep chuckle spilled from his lips. He turned, whip-swift, and gathered Melanna in a bear hug. Two brisk strides, and her back was against the earthen wall.
“I say she stays. It’ll help her father remember his gratitude.”
“Unhand me!”
Melanna struggled in the wolf’s-head’s grip. But her arms were pinned close, and the nearness of the cavern wall robbed her kicks of force. Her choked-off scream of frustration provoked yet more laughter.
“Vorn! Set her down!
” Crovan’s sword came free of its scabbard. “I won’t ask again.”
The words lent fresh urgency to Melanna’s fug of rage. No! She’d already invoked her father’s wrath in place of her own. She’d not play the part of a helpless maiden. Her heel glanced off the wall, prelude to another momentum-less kick.
Vorn didn’t even blink. His predator’s leer grew crueller, tinged with fresh madness. A trick of the light made his blue eyes swirl with shadow. Melanna’s breath caught in her throat to see it. Then, fear and anger coalescing in a single perfect moment of resolve, she slammed her forehead into Vorn’s nose.
The howl and spray of blood came as one. His grip slackened a heartbeat after. Melanna landed with a thud and steadied herself against the wall. Head swimming drunkenly, she grabbed Vorn’s collar and slammed a foot between his legs. By the time the second howl faded, he was on his knees. She had fingers wound through his hair, and a dagger at his throat.
“You want to know what my word is worth?” Savage joy made the words ragged. She took in each of the cavern’s inhabitants in turn. “I promise that if any one of you ever touches me again, I’ll sever whatever body part commits the offence. And I’ll burn it while you watch. Am I understood?”
She trembled, as much at her own audacity as from excitement. For all her bravado, the wolf’s-heads outnumbered her. One of the women was already on her feet. What price did they place on Vorn’s pride?
Crovan sheathed his sword. “You’re understood. Vorn was out of line. Let him go. I’ll make sure he comprehends the depth of his error.”
The others subsided. All save Vorn, who gazed with resentment from a bloodied face. But the shadow behind his eyes had gone. Perhaps it had never been there. A hallucination conjured in a moment of panic, and one Melanna readily dismissed as such.
“See that you do.”
A tug on Vorn’s hair cast him to hands and knees, where he had the good sense to remain. Stooping, Melanna reclaimed her haversack and sheathed her dagger.
“You have my word.” Crovan offered a mirthless smile. “It’s every bit as good as your own.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Because you will hear from me again. And we’d both prefer that I speak with the voice of a friend.”
It was a good exit line. One to be proud of. And one underpinned by her own strength, not her father’s. Before shaking limbs could belie that purpose, Melanna strode up the worn stone stairs, and out into the afternoon sun.
Calenne stared out across the eastern valley. The breeze plucked at her hair and at her skirts. She wished it would pluck her from the ruined observatory and carry her far away. Nothing else would do so now. Kasamor was dead, her dreams of freedom alongside. A Trelan in a cage of glass, trapped for ever in Katya’s legacy.
She wasn’t proud of thinking thus. She knew it was selfishness of the highest order. But reason couldn’t change the sick emptiness in her stomach. Nor could it make the tears shed for herself a bounty offered up in sorrow for a man she’d far from hated, but had certainly not loved.
Clouds parted, setting the tower awash in brilliant sunshine. Arms outstretched, Calenne edged out along one of the balcony’s beams. The giddiness washed a little of her bleakness away. There was a joy to this, especially with the sun’s warmth tempered by the wind. There was danger, but danger was part of what made you feel alive. And she needed that, now more than ever.
The sun dipped beneath the clouds. Calenne stared down past the inches of aged timber to the terrace far below. Servants scurried in preparation for Ascension. Was this how Lumestra saw the world? A heaving ant’s nest of toil, impenetrable unless you were part of it? Did she even care about those who offered her worship?
Elda – the woman Calenne considered her true mother, for had she not raised her? – had always proclaimed Lumestra ignorant of the ephemeral world. Those who bent knee to her radiance did so like children seeking attention from an uncaring parent. But perhaps on Ascension, of all days, there was hope. Maybe the goddess would grant a boon.
Calenne turned her gaze heavenward and splayed her fingers wide. “Heavenly mother, I stand before you lost, and without purpose . . .”
She tailed off, scrabbling for a prayer long unvoiced. There had been something about a land of Dark. A poet’s entreaty, learned by rote as a child and long forgotten. But perhaps it didn’t matter. If there was any truth to Lumestra’s love, it wasn’t words that sang to her, but one’s heart.
“I want to be free of all this,” Calenne breathed. “Show me a path. Send me a sign that this is not all my life will ever be.”
As if in answer, shafts of sunlight spilled across the valley. Calenne threw back her head and basked in the warmth, her sorrows forgotten in one glorious moment of hope.
“You’d better hope she doesn’t send a gust of wind.”
Anastacia’s caustic remark set Calenne off-balance. Out-flung arms sought equilibrium in dizzying sky. In that moment of mad panic, all she could think of were the many times she’d spoken of flinging herself from the observatory.
Balance returned with shortened breath and racing pulse. With exquisite care, she turned about on the beam, and fixed Anastacia with an unfriendly stare.
“How long have you been there?”
“Does it matter?”
The demon shrugged, her azure gown glittering like sapphire. The newfound sun had coaxed forth a smile so beatific and content that it struck Calenne breathless. It hardly seemed fair that the demon found so much pleasure in something so commonplace, while she had to fight for reprieve in a life that hated her.
“I don’t like being spied on.”
“A peculiar sentiment from someone pleading after a goddess’s aid.”
Calenne scowled to cover embarrassment. It shouldn’t have mattered that Anastacia had witnessed her lapse, but it did. No one liked to be caught out for a hypocrite, especially by someone they disliked. She edged back along the beam and reached the crumbled stones of the tower. That meant being a good deal closer to the demon than she liked, but it was a day for disappointments.
“Did Josiri send you to apologise for him?”
Anastacia gathered her skirts and sat among the stones. “We haven’t spoken since the letter arrived. But I heard the argument. Everyone in Eskavord heard the argument.”
Calenne winced. “He called me selfish . . .” And many other things besides. “Perhaps I am.”
And that was why she avoided Anastacia’s company. Her tongue was always so unguarded around the demon. She wanted to believe it an enchantment, a glamour. But it was nothing more remarkable than loneliness. In a house staffed by the transient and the elderly, she’d no one else in whom to confide. Let alone someone approaching her own age. Or who at least had the appearance of such.
Anastacia shrugged. “I understand your frustration.”
“I killed him. As surely as I stuck a knife in his heart.” Calenne blinked at her own sudden confession.
“Please. You’re being ridiculous.”
“Am I? Everything my family touches withers. Kasamor’s dead because he was coming for me, and I can’t tell if I pity him more than I hate him for it.” She choked back an angry sob. “And you know the worst? I can’t escape the feeling that if I’d at least tried to love him, he’d not have been taken. That his death is my punishment.”
Anastacia’s eyes widened in mirth. “Now that is deliciously self-absorbed.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“I think you’re upset, feeling guilty and used to neither. You see Branghall as a cage, but it’s also a shield. It protects you from life as much as it denies you a place in it.”
“That’s not true!”
“Isn’t it? When was the last time you went hungry? Lacked for shelter or clothing? I know you’ve never known grief, because no one’s ever here long enough for you to grow attached to them.” A sour note crept in. “No wonder you feel as you do. For all the tutors Josiri hired, for all the education you’ve rec
eived, you’ve never really learnt that the sun doesn’t rise for you alone.”
“You know nothing of how I’m feeling!”
Calenne hit her. Didn’t even think about it. Simply balled a fist and slammed into the demon’s smug, self-righteous face.
Anastacia staggered. Only hands braced against the remnant of the outer wall saved her from falling into an undignified heap. She spat a mouthful of whitish-golden blood over the wall. It hissed into vapour in the sunlight. Still sprawled, she transfixed Calenne with an icy gaze.
“As a case in point,” she said, her voice as cold as her eyes. “You’ve never learnt not to start fights you can’t win.”
The stone beneath the demon’s left hand split apart into a handful of rubble. Dust trickled down the tower’s outer wall. A halo of golden light blazed into being about her head.
Calenne’s instincts screamed at her to back away, or to fall to her knees and beg forgiveness. But the message got lost somewhere on the way to her limbs – a rabbit freezing too late after rousing a fox. She’d never seen Anastacia use magic for more than parlour tricks. The mantle of demon never suited her better than at that moment.
“I don’t know how you feel?” Anastacia twisted upright and advanced. “I’m bound to this place, body and soul. And the one person who makes that bearable? One day soon, he’ll leave, and I’ll be alone. I know exactly how you feel, child.”
She was close now, close enough that her halo prickled at Calenne’s skin. Warm as sunshine, and inexpressibly cold. And yet somehow, the demon’s words held more power than her magic.
“Josiri’s found a way to escape?” The very idea awoke contradictory emotion.
Anastacia’s halo faded, the fury in her expression slipping away alongside. Weariness replaced it. Weariness, tinged with surprise.
“Josiri can leave whenever he likes. I thought you’d realised.” She pressed a hand to her lips to stopper a truth already poured away. “You must say nothing. Please.”
With those words, two pillars of Calenne’s existence fell away into wrathful flames. That Branghall wasn’t the cage she’d believed it was bad enough. But that Josiri had said nothing? Indeed, that he’d repeatedly lied to her on the topic when he knew she was so desperate to leave? So much for Trelans sticking together. So much for being able to trust the only family she had left.