by Matthew Ward
Anastacia sneered. “Trade a manor for a prison of fired clay? I don’t think I’ll accept.”
But despite her tone, Viktor saw longing in her expression. “It’s not a case of one or the other. You need only wear it . . .”
“Her,” corrected Calenne.
Viktor pressed on, “. . . when you wish. Be yourself in Branghall, leave for a time as her, and then come back to yourself once more. Surely freedom is worth a little discomfort?”
Anastacia’s lip twitched, but she didn’t look away from the mannequin. Its wig was black where her own hair was snow-white. Somehow, its expression was both open and terrifying, and tinged with the merest hint of sorrow.
“Think of it as armour,” Calenne suggested. “You won’t always need it, but you’ll be glad of it when you do.”
Sardonic mirth bubbled up through Viktor’s impatience. “So you’re part of this now?”
“Doesn’t mean you’re any less mad. A change of heart, that’s all. Charity.” She sighed and pushed away from the wall. “I have been living with a demon half my life. What you’re proposing is only a shade more insane.”
“I’m not a demon,” Anastacia bit out. Her form billowed. Fingertips and hair swelled into vapour. She swallowed and reeled herself back in. “And I don’t want to be the last guest at the party.”
Her despair gave Viktor no pleasure. But it propelled her in the necessary direction. Another nudge, and she’d be there. “Nor need you be.”
For the first time since entering the chapel, she reached out. Her fingers traced the gold of the branch-like inlay.
“I confess, it is very beautiful. And warm to the touch. With my mother’s magic.” She frowned. “How is such a thing possible?”
“Its maker was gifted in more ways than one,” said Viktor. “It’s stronger than it appears, and lighter. He put a piece of his soul into the work, I think.”
“Such is the way of all true artists,” Anastacia murmured. “It must have cost you dearly.”
Viktor shared a glance with Calenne. Yorvin had gaped at a final payment far in excess of that promised. Viktor hoped it soothed the old man’s fears of betrayal.
“Nothing I wasn’t prepared to pay.”
Her head snapped up, eyes unfriendly once more. “Why?”
“Because the Southshires need Josiri, and Josiri needs you. And you need freedom.”
“So this is a bribe? My freedom, so long as I serve as herald to your coming?”
“To do with as you wish. I only ask that you try to convince Josiri to good sense.”
“It is a bribe.”
He hesitated but nodded. “Yes.”
To Viktor’s surprise, Anastacia smiled. “Then for the first time, I feel like I understand you. But you do know I can’t accomplish this alone?”
A lump formed in the pit of Viktor’s stomach. “What do you mean?”
“Karkosa’s enchantment. It took the efforts of a dozen proctors, but he bound me tight. It’s like . . . nails through my flesh, pinning me in place. Even testing the bonds is agony. I can feel the . . . the . . .” She glared at Calenne. “The doll calling to me. It’s the same, but different. If I lose myself . . .”
She grimaced. When her expression cleared a little of the old confidence had returned. “I need your help.”
“Viktor . . .” Calenne stepped into the lantern light. “What’s she talking about?”
Viktor stifled a scowl. He should have sent her away. He should never have involved her as much as he had. But hindsight was fool’s gold and rusted steel. If he didn’t tell Calenne, Anastacia would. And then he’d have no control over how she reacted.
Anastacia laughed, though without malice. There was an almost childish joy to it, as one already privy to a secret that would only appal when revealed. “She doesn’t know. How charming. But then, she has led a sheltered life.”
Calenne glared at her, a brace of the demon’s ribald tales surfacing from the pit of memory. “I dread to think what you mean by that. If there’s to be any disrobing – if this is some northwealder’s perversity – I cherish my ignorance. Just because I’ve spent fifteen years locked up in this house doesn’t mean I don’t hear rumour of what goes on among quality folk when the drapes are drawn and passions run amok.”
Viktor held up a soothing hand. “It’s not. Or at least not in the way you suggest . . .”
“And what, pray, does that mean?”
A deep breath before the plunge. “There’s a side of me that you can’t see. Anastacia can. A gift like Yorvin’s, but different. I keep it hidden. I have to.”
He watched her closely, searching for the fear that warned of betrayal. What was he prepared to do if he saw it? He didn’t know. Could he kill her? No doubt. She was a young woman half his age, untempered in battle. Her neck would snap cleanly enough. But at the same time, Viktor suspected he lacked strength of a different sort. And not just because the act would doom his attempt to win Josiri’s support. He’d grown more used to Calenne’s company than he could have believed.
“You’re a witch.” She spoke flatly, without expression.
“I’m a man. One who’s striving to save your brother from foolishness, and your people from conquest. I will do nothing to hurt you. You have my word. But you must tell no one of this, not even Josiri.”
His shadow stirred, woken from its slumbers by his fear. Viktor’s skin prickled with cold as his shadow slunk to join those cast by the lanterns.
Anastacia perched on the edge of the altar, her fingers idly toying with the doll’s hair. For a mercy, she held her tongue. Unfortunately, so did Calenne.
“Calenne . . .” Viktor began.
“I’ll tell no one, not even Josiri.” She shook her head furiously, as if trying to dislodge something from her hair. “Do you believe me so shallow? I’m not swayed by labels, and certainly not those bestowed by the Council, or the church. If I’m to hate you, I’ll do so on my own terms.” She offered a thin smile. “And I said that you had it in you to be a monster.”
Her fingers whitened at the knuckles where they hugged her elbows close. But though her expression was notably less friendly than minutes before, it fell short of the terror with which she’d first beheld him.
Viktor exhaled, and felt a burden slip from his shoulders. “You did indeed.”
Anastacia’s soft applause echoed around the chapel. “Oh, well done. She’s grown more in two days of freedom than fifteen years of captivity. So, are we still doing this?”
“After everything it’s cost to reach this point?” sighed Viktor. “Without doubt.”
She spread her arms and dissipated until she was merely the echo of a woman, wreathed in vapour. A memory of what had been, and what might one day be again.
“Hurry,” she breathed sharply. “I cannot bear this long.”
Viktor swore to himself. He’d wanted more time, to glean from Anastacia what his role would be. And now time was lost, and preparation unthinkable. Only instinct remained.
He closed his eyes and willed his shadow to life. He gasped as it made contact with Anastacia’s being, overwhelmed by the myriad emotions of a naked soul.
Fear. He’d expected fear, but not the gnawing want billowing beneath. His heart ached with the sorrow of it, even though he knew it was but a sliver of what Anastacia felt. And the light at her core . . . it burned him as it did his shadow. Every breath was a struggle. Every stroke of his quickening heart a wearying toil. And yet there was beauty too – a sense of contentment so overwhelming that Viktor lost himself within it.
He awoke on the flagstones, his cheek matted in drool and Calenne’s urgent hand on his shoulder.
“I was right before,” she said archly, if with a note of humour. “It was some northwealder’s perversity.”
Viktor forced himself groggily up onto one elbow. “Anastacia?”
With Calenne’s help, he staggered to his feet. Of Anastacia, there was no sign. The doll lay unmoving on the altar.
<
br /> Failure thickened Viktor’s throat. He grabbed Calenne’s arm. “What did you see? Tell me!”
“Viktor, you’re hurting me!”
He let go, still fighting the nausea of aftermath.
The doll sat bolt upright.
Calenne yelped then pressed a hand to her mouth in embarrassment. The doll grasped at the edge of the altar, porcelain fingers clinking against marble.
The chapel filled with a rasping, breathy sound. Had Viktor not known better, he’d have thought the doll was gasping for air. The head turned and twisted, glancing first one way and then the next. Then Anastacia’s balance failed and she plunged sideways. The lantern at her feet went with her. It shattered, lengthening the shadows.
Viktor caught her at the altar’s edge, but barely. He pitched her upright and swung her legs around.
[[What have you done to me?]] The desperate voice was Anastacia’s, but hollow with loss and confusion. She raised a hand and flexed her fingers. Leather joints creaked and settled. [[I can’t feel anything! I can barely see!]]
Her eyes, at least, remained her own – cold, dark and welling with tears.
Viktor took her hands in his. “It will take you time to adjust. You’ll grow accustomed . . .”
[[No!]] She ripped her hands free and braced them against the altar. Cracks crazed outwards across the marble. [[This body is cold and dead. I reject it!]]
She froze. Calenne started forward, but Viktor waved her back. Anastacia’s tone worried him. They reminded him too much of a young boy, lashing blindly out at the vranakin who’d murdered his mother. There was no telling what she might do.
He lost track of how long they stood there in silence, Anastacia unmoving and Calenne an anxious presence at his shoulder. There was only his ragged pulse. This would pass. Anastacia was his only connection to Josiri. She’d gather herself. She had to.
Anastacia’s head snapped upright with a low, mournful wail. She gazed at him with hatred that the immobile doll’s face should not have found possible.
[[I cannot leave,]] she moaned. [[I cannot return to what I was. You’ve sealed me in a tomb.]]
“No!” Viktor again took her hands, speaking low and urgent. “I can make this right, I swear to you.”
[[Release me!]]
She hurled him aside as if he were a child. His head cracked against a column. The world flashed bright and dark. The floor rushed upwards.
The second lantern shattered on the floor as Anastacia rose from the altar. Darkness flooded in, the moonlight of the chapel windows the only reprieve. Viktor tried to stand, to call on his shadow. Anything. Lost in a world of blurred vision and red thunder, nothing responded as it should. He slumped to hands and knees. Blood trickled down his brow and spattered on stone.
[[I never should have listened! What is there for me now?]]
Porcelain fingers clinked into fists.
A shadow stepped between them. Calenne. “Leave him be.”
Anastacia raised a fist. [[Stand aside.]]
Viktor waved an urgent hand at Calenne. He nearly lost his balance doing so. “Do as she says.”
Calenne hesitated, as one suddenly aware of her own actions. Uncertainty danced across her face, perhaps in regret at an impulse that had placed her between a vengeful demon she hated, and the Black Knight she’d feared for so long. Then her expression hardened, and she folded her arms.
“No.”
“I don’t want her to hurt you,” gasped Viktor.
“She won’t.” The words were hard as the mountains. “Because if she does, my brother will never forgive her.”
[[And what use is Josiri to me any longer, or I to him?]]
“Touch me, and you’ll never find out.”
Anastacia loosed another soul-wrenching wail. Her hand fell to her side. The golden patterns of her face gleamed in the moonlight. Then she vanished into the growing darkness behind Viktor’s eyes. Glass shattered somewhere distant and a cool breeze rushed in.
Viktor felt Calenne’s hands beneath his arms. Her face crowded close, more worried than he’d any right to expect. With her help, he regained his feet. He stared across the chapel to the broken window and churned footprints beyond. Unfamiliar failure thickened his throat. It hurt worse than the blow to his head.
“What have I done?” he breathed.
“Blessed Ashana, I beseech you. Guide your ephemeral daughter.”
Kneeling, Melanna let the intoxicating scent of incense fill her lungs.
No answer came.
“Blessed Ashana, I beseech you. Guide your ephemeral daughter.”
She opened her eyes into the inner sanctum’s gloom. Cracks of moonlight roused the incense-fog to iridescence. All else was darkness, cold and silent. The outer sanctum was but paces away, through six veils of silk and one of cotton. It felt distant as the moon herself.
Melanna closed her eyes once more. Midnight was come and the moon in the sky. If ever there was a time for Ashana to answer, it was now.
“Blessed Ashana, I beseech you. Guide your ephemeral daughter.”
“She will not come.”
Melanna caught her breath upon hearing the deep voice. The familiar voice. She opened her eyes. The antlered knight stood before her. He was mantled in armour of silver scales and folds of dark cloth that glittered with the light of captive stars. Behind, swathed in iridescent fog, skeletal trees reached towards a distant moon. Of the tent, there was no sign. Autumn leaves crackled beneath Melanna’s knees.
“Why won’t she come? Who are you?”
Green eyes blazed like fire beneath the helm. “A poor Huntsman and steward to a goddess. I offer advice. Sometimes, she is pleased to take it.”
Melanna bowed her head. She dared not rise. The goddess’s presence was a comfort; the Huntsman was anything but.
“I wish to speak with the goddess.”
“And I told you, she will not come.” His tone was not unkind, but nor was it friendly.
“Why? She has never forsaken me before.”
“She feels your heart quicken to the tempo of war and wishes no encouragement.”
Bitterness soured Melanna’s throat. “I need no encouragement, only her blessing.”
“She will not give it.”
“She must. War is the way of my people. We count our losses in the tally of our dead, and our victories in the bodies of the foe. If I cannot fight, the Golden Court will never accept me. The rule of Saran will die with my father.”
The Huntsman drew closer. He towered over her, his cloak blotting out the moon. “She knows all this. She believes herself aloof from war. She wishes to remain so.”
Bitterness blossomed into anger. “She was pleased to help my forefathers carve an empire from the anarchy of the Sceadotha’s fall!”
“That was not her.”
“It was Ashana! The legends all agree!”
“Ashana is but a name, and a duty to the heavens. My goddess is not the first to bear it. She will not be the last.”
“That doesn’t make any sense!”
“Does shared title grant shared purpose to all emperors?” Amusement rumbled beneath the words. “Or to all princessas?”
“It’s not the same!” Anger drove Melanna to her feet, then faltered. The Huntsman loomed above her no less than before. If anything, he seemed a vaster presence. She stumbled back. The Huntsman’s shadow travelled with her, his green eyes searing into her soul.
“No, it is not,” said the Huntsman. “And nor should it be. But my mistress wishes to do things differently.”
Something in his tone halted Melanna’s retreat. “But you don’t? You can change her mind.”
He laughed like the roar of an underground river. “My mistress has endured too many lies from men seeking to control her, to adore her or to exploit her. It is the thread that binds her to you. I alone have always been honest, if not always her friend, but our shared past too often deafens her to my advice.” He drew back. “But that doesn’t mean I cannot help
.”
The mists between them cleared. A sword lay upon the leaves. Swirling silver patterns of a waxing and waning moon chased the black leather of its scabbard. Its hilt shone, even in the Huntsman’s shadow.
“Here is Ashana’s blessing, if you would have it,” intoned the Huntsman. “When you draw that sword, no one will doubt your purpose, or your patron.”
Melanna stared down at the blade. She’d never seen a weapon so beautiful. She longed to take it. Instinct warned her against doing so. “Why? Why are you doing this?”
“Because I understand war. Better it be fought by those who desire it.”
“But why me? Why now?”
“Because I had a daughter once. Like you, Hélène’s heart was full of fire, but she never lived long enough to set it loose. This is the thread that binds us, if you will let it. But the choice is yours. So is the glory, and so are the consequences.”
The Huntsman’s longing tone couldn’t hide the warning in his words. Should she walk away, abandon the sword among the leaves? Part of Melanna wanted to – it trembled with memory of the tales of those drawn into divine intrigues. But was this not what she’d wanted? What she’d begged for? How would she live with herself if she walked away?
She stooped. Her hand closed around the scabbard. Darkness fell.
“Savim?”
Melanna awoke, still kneeling, shivering with cold and covered in sweat. She gripped the sword across her chest. The buckles of the scabbard dug into her flesh.
“Savim?” Sera said again. “I heard you cry out. Are you hurt?”
“No.”
The chatter of Melanna’s teeth subsided. Holding the scabbard, she eased back the sword’s hilt until a chink of steel showed. White light filled the sanctum, driving back the darkness, and her doubts.
Sera’s gloved hand flew to her mouth. She stepped back, pressing against the tent-folds for support. Melanna slid the sword home.
“Gather your sisters, Sera. There’s something they must see.”
Endas, 4th day of Radiance
My whole life, I have dwelled on the hour of my death. Would I leave great works undone? My family unprovided for? Would my name live on while my flesh sours in the tomb?