by Matthew Ward
Calenne lay there for what seemed for ever and yet no time at all, striving to rouse memories. Fragments of light and shadow from a life lived long ago. She abandoned them reluctantly, feeling diminished for the loss, and at last emerged from beneath the covers to start the day.
Elda was busy at the kitchen hearth. “Sleep well?”
“Like a serathi on a cloud.”
She snorted. “Well, I wouldn’t know about that.”
Calenne stifled a smile and sat at the table. Her foster-mother’s iconoclasm had changed little with the years. The past had left its mark in other ways. Black hair had faded to grey. Furrows of merriment and disappointment ran deeper than ever, her eyes haunted by private resentment. It had shocked Calenne to see her thus the previous night, but now Elda’s appearance seemed natural. Time had changed them both, and not necessarily for the better. Yesterday’s welcome had been ready enough, but Calenne couldn’t help but wonder if it had been offered from duty, rather than affection.
Elda drew away from the hearth and slid a brimming bowl of oatmeal before her. “I’m sure you’re hungry.”
“Always.”
A steaming mug of bark tea joined the bowl. Movement in the street outside caught Calenne’s eye. A gold-robed proctor, sun-stave tapping the cobbles and two simarka trotting obediently at her heels. Calenne suppressed a shudder. She’d seldom seen the constructs up close, but distance did nothing to quell her fear of the beasts – a fear she’d never quite been able to explain. She supposed prey never could explain such fear. It was just there.
“Thank you for letting me stay,” she said.
Elda pulled up a chair. “This is still your home. And you’re still my daughter . . . even if you’re a deal taller than last I saw you. Fifteen years. But see how you’ve grown with it.”
The words warmed Calenne’s heart. But they also awoke an old, lingering resentment. “It didn’t happen all at once. You never visited. I’d have been overjoyed to see you. I needed to see you. But you never came.”
Elda scowled, and stared down into her tea with dark and distrustful eyes. “Those first years after Katya died . . . You probably don’t remember, but folk didn’t come and go in Branghall as they have of late. And me? I kept expecting to end on a deportation scow, but I guess a good apothecary’s hard to find.”
She nudged the mug back and forth across the table top, turning the handle this way and that. Unwilling to interrupt, Calenne let her eyes drift across the nigh-endless collection of jars, pots, vials and urns that crowded the kitchen shelves. She’d vague recollections of memorising them all when a young girl, determined to learn everything Elda could teach. Now the memories were as dry and dusty as those abandoned aspirations.
“And then afterwards,” said Elda at last, “when the Council’s lackeys loosened up a bit . . . ? Well, I decided a clean break might be best for us both.”
Best for Elda, in other words. “I sent you an invitation to my wedding. You never replied.”
“Half of Eskavord had invitations. And near as I can tell, you’re not married.”
“No.” Even the idea of it seemed a lifetime ago. “He died.”
Elda stared at her, then reached across the table and took her hand. “My dear child. I’d no idea. What must you think of me?”
Calenne smiled, more for Elda’s sake than her own. “It doesn’t matter. Lumestra punished me for selfishness, and Kasamor paid the price. I have to live with that.”
Elda raised an eyebrow. “And if Lumestra’s in no position to judge you? If there’s nothing waiting for us but the mists, and the Dark?”
“I still have to live with it, don’t I?” Calenne broke off, recognising she’d spoken more archly than she’d intended. “I’m starting to wonder if that’s all life is – living with your mistakes.”
“Ever the earnest child. I can still see you as you were when your mother took you away. Such concern in your eyes.”
Calenne remembered so little of that night. She certainly didn’t recall feeling sympathy for others. Only for herself – a state in which she’d lived ever since.
Wiry fingers gripped hers tighter. “It will pass. That’s why we seek triumphs – to balance our failures. Just as seeing the woman you’ve become eases my regret at staying away.”
Calenne blinked away sudden tears. She opened her mouth to speak, but the words turned dry on her tongue. “I—”
A triplet of booming thuds shuddered the front door. A pause, enough to take a breath, and the unseen fist hammered again.
Elda offered a wry smile and clambered upright. “Another customer, no doubt. Some northwealder sergeant with a sore head from last night.”
She made her way from the kitchen, leaving Calenne alone with her thoughts. How strange to have spent her adult life wanting nothing more than to escape the town, and to now be so at ease. A little freedom went a long way.
When Elda returned to the kitchen, it was not with an ailing soldier in tow, but Lord Akadra. His head struck the uneven doorframe a glancing blow. He scowled at the offending timber and rubbed his brow.
“This one wants to speak with you,” said Elda coldly. “I’ll be in the garden.”
She retreated from sight, shoulders back and stride stiff. A door slammed soon after.
“I’ve had warmer welcomes,” said Akadra. “On the other hand: no slops bucket.”
“Elda was one of Katya’s oldest friends,” said Calenne. “You can’t blame her for hating you. And that cloak makes you look like a hangman going door to door to drum up business.”
“May I sit?”
She hesitated, enjoying the moment of power. “Why are you here, Lord Akadra?”
“Viktor.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Titles are for commoners. You’re a Trelan, a family of the first rank.”
Calenne narrowed her eyes and sighed. “Very well, Viktor. You may sit.”
He inclined his head. “Thank you, Miss Trelan.”
“No.”
Akadra – no, Viktor – halted halfway to his seat and frowned in puzzlement.
“If the Black Knight of my nightmares is to be Viktor, then I will be nothing other than Calenne.”
“Of course.”
The ghost of a smile touched Viktor’s lips. The chair creaked as it took his weight.
Why had she insisted he address her thus? A point of pride? Or so she need not hear her hated surname? But the man before her shared so little with the Black Knight of her dreams that she couldn’t discount the possibility that she wanted to be thought his equal.
“I didn’t know,” said Viktor. “About your dreams, I mean.”
Calenne shrugged, already regretting revealing that part of herself. “A man drives a child from her home, he should expect to be thought a monster.”
“And you think me a monster now?”
“I don’t know. I think you have it within you to be a monster, if you wish.”
He laughed, though the mirth didn’t reach his eyes. “As do we all. Lumestra may have brought light to the world, but she didn’t drive the Dark from our souls. It’s there, waiting for when we need it, or when we’re too weak to resist.”
“Elda would tell you that the Dark is all we share.”
“So she’s not a believer?”
“No.” Calenne blanched. Why had she told him that? If Makrov found out . . . “I mean, she’s not . . .”
“I know what you meant. Or I would have done, if I’d heard. But I didn’t.”
“Thank you.” The tension in her chest eased.
He shrugged. “In any case, it’s not as though I could easily inform the archimandrite of her lapse. Captain Kurkas tells me he rode north in a fearful hurry yesterday. He might be halfway to Tressia by now.”
“Good,” Calenne said feelingly.
“Perhaps. He can make mischief for us in the north.” He shrugged. “My actions here have left him displeased.”
“Didn’t I ask why you’d
come here? Don’t you have a war to fight?”
“The war is why I’m here.” Discomfort flickered across his face. “I need your help. I need your advice.”
So that was the way of things? “Josiri.”
“Yes.”
“Well, I didn’t think you’d come to ask about the best way to repel the Hadari.”
Another slim smile. “No. Governor Yanda has the initial phases in hand. At this point it’s more an exercise in prayer than practice. Trelszon has fallen, and if Prince Saran isn’t foolish enough to lay siege to Kreska, he’ll be here in a matter of days.”
“Can you not hold them at Charren Gorge? Oh, don’t look at me like that. There are plenty of maps at Branghall.”
Viktor inclined his head in unspoken apology. “We could, had we the numbers. Which is why I need Josiri to rally the Southshires to war.”
Calenne glanced out the window where Elda busied herself with hanging baskets. Or at least gave that appearance. She probably heard every word.
“Survival often provides all the motivation folk need to fight.”
“If it does here, they give no sign of rising to the challenge,” said Viktor. “I suspect more would fight alongside the Hadari than against them.”
He spoke matter-of-factly, without even the dour distaste of a man discussing inclement weather. It was worse, Calenne decided, to hear doom laid out in such plain-spoken terms, without the adornment of anger or fear.
“I wish I knew what to tell you about him,” she said. “It seems to me of late that I don’t know Josiri half as well as I thought.”
“There must be something.”
“I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I’ve changed Josiri’s mind.” She shrugged. “He’s stubborn, he’s proud, and he has no reason to trust anything you say.”
“I regret that more than you can imagine, but pride is a poor coin of exchange when lives are at stake, whether it be Josiri’s, or mine.”
His fervency burned like smouldering flame. Calenne thought it strange that the fate of her people could matter so much to Viktor, and not to herself.
“Why is this so important to you?”
“Duty is not handed down from on high, Calenne. It comes from within.”
She didn’t believe him. “As simple as that?”
“As simple as that.”
She definitely didn’t believe him. But what did it cost her to help?
“Speak to the demon,” she said. “Though it pains me to say so, she knows Josiri better than I and cares for him far more. If anyone can give you the keys to his trust, it is she.”
Viktor rose. “Then I’ll take my leave. Thank you for your insight.”
She nodded silently, only now considering whether she’d spoken of more than she should.
He waited a moment longer, and then departed in a swirling of black velvet. Calenne was wondering whether or not she should have gone with him when Elda returned.
“That one’s confused.” The old woman set her back to the chimney and folded her arms. “Caught between what he is, and what he wants to be.”
Between the monster and the man, Calenne supposed. “You heard?”
“Most of it. Do you believe him?”
Calenne decided to spare herself Elda’s scorn. “Would it be so bad if the Empire conquered the Southshires?”
Elda grunted. “Katya insisted the shadowthorns lack for souls. That’s why they fight so fearlessly, because they’ve nothing to lose to the Raven.”
Calenne had heard Branghall’s servants repeat the claim over the years. “Is it true?”
“’Course not. It’s an excuse to keep hate burning. Otherwise we might just realise that we’re more alike than not. We’re all one. Just specks of Dark waiting for release . . .”
“By Lumestra?” Calenne asked slyly.
“You know better than that.” Elda scowled, though not unkindly. “Lumestra, Ashana – the rest of that sorry bunch. What they took from us matters more than what they gave. Tied us to the soil and set us at each other’s throats. We were meant for more than this, Calenne. Katya never saw the truth of that. I do hope fifteen years at Branghall hasn’t blinded you to it.”
There was so much resentment in Elda’s dark eyes. So much loss. Tangible almost to the point of physicality. Part of Calenne felt drawn to it, kin as it was to her own disappointments. But the rest of her sensed the danger of wallowing in a past that couldn’t be changed.
“So it doesn’t matter if we’re conquered?”
“In the end, nothing matters. The Dark takes all.” Elda chuckled to herself. “And won’t that be a day full of sorry faces?”
Calenne scowled. She’d heard variants of that fatalistic declaration when a girl. Somehow, it had all seemed more comforting then. Now she just felt small. Insignificant. “You’re a fine help.”
“You want help, see a priest. If you want truth? You know where I am.”
Viktor wasn’t surprised to learn Josiri had departed Branghall. But nor did he expect that the departure marked any great change of heart. It was every bit as likely that the erstwhile duke had fled, never to be seen again. Time would tell. A little time out in the world might shake loose his sense of duty. If not? Well, another way would be sought.
But one corner of his heart was quieter than the day before. Malachi’s herald had at last found him. The letter confirmed Kasamor’s death, but also Rosa’s survival. Viktor felt a shadow of guilt for taking more solace than grief from the letter. Better to be thankful for the living than mournful of the dead.
He entered the great hall unannounced. Anastacia stood at the eastern window, one hand pressed against the glass. Little more than drifting mist from the waist down, she stared out across the grounds. Her shoulders slumped like those of a puppet resting on its strings – a portrait of loss and longing so perfect and private that Viktor felt guilty for standing witness.
Suppressing a new frisson of wariness – kin to that he’d felt on their first meeting, and the stronger for it having been proved correct – he cleared his throat.
Anastacia’s fingers slipped from the window. Her entire being ravelled back together like cotton about a spindle. The skirts of a panelled ivory dress flowed into place.
“Josiri’s not here, so you can leave me in peace.” The tone belied the words, and pleaded for him to stay.
“I’d hoped to speak with you.”
“I’m told it’s healthy to have aspirations.”
“Then I’ll live for ever, for I aspire to so many things.”
She gave a wintery laugh. “You may not find immortality to your liking.”
“A chance worth taking. Or so I’m told.” Viktor looped his hands behind his back and strode closer. “I confess I know almost nothing about you.”
“I’m sure the archimandrite could weary your ears with details.”
“Just as I’m sure none of them would be true.”
She shrugged. “I imagine so. Dear Arzro’s predecessor was twice the man he is.”
“Emil Karkosa? I remember him well.” Still some paces away, Viktor took a seat. His eyes lingered on the cluster of empty wine bottles. “Every Lumendas without fail I’d sit in a pew no further from the pulpit than I sit from you now, and I’d listen to Karkosa preach. He’d a faith to shatter mountains in those days. But he was charitable with it. Not something one could say of Makrov.”
Of course, Viktor had stopped going to church after his shadow’s awakening and his mother’s death – and for two very different reasons. But the rest of the tale was true enough.
“This is fascinating,” said Anastacia. “But on balance, I prefer the prospect of loneliness to hearing about your blissful childhood.”
Viktor ignored her. “I’m wondering what it was that you did to see yourself confined – and here of all places. And whether it had anything to do with why Karkosa spent his final years as a recluse. Even sealed himself off from his family. I’m told he’d been d
ead a fortnight before anyone knew. Not that anyone cared by then.” He shrugged. “Too much faith can be embarrassing.”
She spread her hands and dipped a curtsey. “You have me, tied and true. I slipped into his bed one night while his wife was away. No complaints at the time, of course, but he couldn’t leave me alone. Followed me everywhere.” She rolled her eyes. “The promises he made. The entreaties. This was my punishment for refusal.”
Her halo flickered as she spoke, the golden-white tinged with red.
“If you want to shock me, you’ll have to try harder.” Viktor leaned forward. “Or you could accept that I see you as plainly as I know you see me, and you could tell me the truth.”
Anastacia’s eyes hardened. “Why should I?”
“Because Josiri’s not coming back . . .” Viktor didn’t believe that. Though he could not claim to have ever been in love himself, he wasn’t blind to it in others. Josiri would return if only because Anastacia remained. But at that moment, only Anastacia’s beliefs mattered. “. . . and you’ve no one left to tell. Because who would believe me if I told anyone else? And because I won’t help you cast free of these stones if I’m not certain you deserve that favour.”
Her stare melted, allowing a glimpse behind the bitterness. “I told Karkosa his beloved goddess was dead.”
Viktor was surprised how little the declaration stirred him. Was she still trying to shock him? Neither her gaze nor her halo twitched. If it was a lie, it was one carefully told. “And how would you know this?”
“Because there was a war, sister against sister. My angelic siblings quarrelled, with my mother and her legacy as the prize. I alone took no side. For my hesitation, I was hurled from the heavens. I heard my mother’s death-scream as I fell.”
“You’d have me believe you’re a serathi?”
“I don’t care what you believe.” She extended a hand. Her fingertips blurred, drifting away into golden-white vapour. “I’m what’s left of a ser-athi. The part that crawled onto the dockside in Tressia. Karkosa’s proctors found me. At first, they worshipped me. I liked that. Then he begged me to tell him all I knew of his goddess. When I refused, he became more . . . persuasive. He set his provosts loose. They . . . did not worship me.”