by Matthew Ward
Apara offered no reply. The words were not meant for her. And she was glad beyond expression.
“I know,” croaked Nikros.
He swung upright, boots hanging over the side of the bed. His good arm cradled the bandaged one. There was no trace of his customary Raven-may-care swagger. Apara knew it wasn’t pain that held it at bay. They’d never been close, he and she – distant as cousins could be, at times – but in that moment she pitied him.
“I know,” he repeated, his eyes furtive and desperate. “I’ll make amends. Anything the Parliament demands.”
“What is our first law?” asked one voice.
Nikros’ eyes went wide. A sob escaped his lips. “No! I beg you!”
“What is our first law?” asked another.
“That . . .” His breathing slowed. “That the light creates us; it does not reveal our purpose.”
“Then why does the city hum with rumour?” asked one.
“Why do we hear whispers of a kernclaw’s public failure?” asked another.
“It wasn’t my fault! I tore her throat out. She should . . . She shouldn’t have been there! She should . . . she should have died at Tevar Flood.”
A sharp, breathy intake echoed around the room. The shadows pulsed. Green eyes met in silent communion. The name wasn’t lost on Apara. Tevar Flood. Where the lady’s son had perished. The son alone, as it now transpired.
“Then you are twice the failure.”
The last resistance bled from Nikros’ face. Resistance fed upon hope, and there was none in that filthy cellar. Everyone knew the Crowmarket existed, of course. The first law was ritual more than truth. But knowledge was one thing; proof another. Nikros’ blunder had left at least four witnesses.
Apara knew what was coming. She backed away. Her heel caught on the stair.
Green eyes blazed in her direction. “Cousin. Stay.”
She froze, heart in her throat.
One shadow broke from the others and approached the rear wall. Gloved fingers brushed filthy brick. A high archway took shape, hissing white-green vapour rushed to fill the bounds within.
The remaining elder cousins seized Nikros by the arms.
“No,” he moaned. “Please . . .”
They dragged him away towards the luminous arch. He reached out with his good hand.
“Apara! Please.”
She watched, rooted to the spot, unable to make a sound.
“Do not beg,” said one.
“Your bargain has come due,” said another.
“You belong to the mists,” said the third.
The elder cousin by the arch finished his labour. Brickwork fell away. Mist trickled across the floor. It curled about Apara’s ankles and billowed upwards to her knees.
Beyond the arch, dark walls mirrored the cellar. The distant chamber lay bare save for broken statues of black stone, and a lone, ornate tomb where the bed should have sat. Behind the tumbled ruin of stairs and a collapsed wall, buildings towered away into the mist. Otherworld was for ever an echo of the living realm, or so the priests preached. Apara had hoped never to see it with waking eyes.
Beside the tomb, his back propped against stone, stood a tall, thin man in a beaked and black-feathered domino mask. A neatly trimmed beard showed beneath the mask. Pale skin at the neck and cuffs of his severe black suit.
Apara’s throat tightened. She wanted to run, but to do so was to make matters worse. So she bowed her head, closed her eyes and begged not to be noticed.
“Well?” The Raven sounded impatient and amused all at once. A father disappointed in his children’s inevitable flaws. “What have you brought me?”
“A failure,” said one.
“He is kin no longer,” said another. “You may take from him all that he owes.”
Nikros sobbed. Apara glanced up. He lay sprawled in the mist beyond the gate, bloody stump clutched to his chest.
The Raven squatted and shook his head in lament. “Pray, don’t bawl so. I’m not the one who brought you here, am I?” He offered a languid sigh. “No one ever wants to pay the price.”
It seemed to Apara that his eyes were not on Nikros in that moment, but the three elder cousins. They shrank away from the arch, heads bowed.
The Raven rose. Nikros stood with him. His sobbing fell silent. His motions were stiff as a man transfixed. He turned, offered one last, lingering glance through the arch. Then he was gone, lost in a storm of ebony feathers that bled through the mist like smoke.
Apara clapped a hand to her mouth, too slow to smother a horrified gasp.
The Raven’s expressionless gaze met hers. “She is his replacement?”
“Yes,” said one.
“She is a faithful cousin,” said another. “She will not disappoint.”
The Raven sighed again. “They all say that.”
He stepped through the arch. Though he was but one shadow among many, his presence filled the cellar. Even the air tasted different, like dust undisturbed for ten thousand turnings of the world. Apara fought for breath that wouldn’t come.
“Please,” she gasped. “I’m a thief, not a ripper. I steal . . .”
The words died on her tongue as the Raven took her nerveless hand and pressed it to his lips.
“I understand.” He spoke with cold charm, and a hint of . . . regret? “But your cousins wish you to be both. Family are nothing but trouble. Even when they’re not really family at all.”
The firestone lantern flickered and went out.
Ellren stared up at the double doors, too lost in apprehension to appreciate the swirling thorns and vibrant roses depicted on its panels. Every servant in Silvane House knew you didn’t disturb Lord Tarev in his chamber. Maids had been cast out for less.
Though a city-girl by birth, Ellren’s parents were southwealders, and she’d borne the rose-brand since her fifth year. If she trespassed she’d end in Dregmeet, her papers burned.
But lots had been drawn, and she’d lost.
With trembling hand, Ellren knocked on the door. “Lord Tarev?”
She braced for the bellow; the rush of footsteps and the stinging flat of his lordship’s hand. None of those things came. Silence, broken by birdsong from the gardens, was the only reply.
“Your lordship?”
She took a deep breath, turned the handle, and stepped inside.
The chamber lay thick beneath ruddy gloom, the light of the morning given hue by the heavy crimson curtains. Scents lay heavy on the still air. Ash, liquor and something else, thick and rich beneath.
The four-poster bed hadn’t been slept in. Indeed, Ellren could have believed herself the only person to have trod the carpet since the previous morning, but for the empty brandy bottle lying sidelong on the dresser. That, and the previous night’s ashes in the grate.
“Lord Tarev?” she whispered, as afraid of going unnoticed as she was of discovery. You heard stories about the nobility. Well, not Lord Tarev, who’d by all accounts led a strictured life even before his wife’s death at Zanya. But it was never too late for new interests to take root.
“Lord Tarev? It’s Ellren.” She skirted the bed and stepped through the door to the adjoining study. “Master Gosrig was wondering . . .”
She shuddered to a halt, fist jammed in her mouth to stifle a scream.
Lord Tarev lay slumped across his desk. His sleeves were rolled to the elbow, his wrists bloody and his eyes staring sightlessly towards the door. A thin-stemmed glass lay on the desk. Blood pooled around it and across the trifold portrait clasped between pale fingers.
Ellren sucked in a breath. A mistake. The sour, coppery smell of cooled blood – all but undetectable in the bedroom, but suffocating here – struck the back of her throat. She clutched at the wall for support, fighting a rebellious gorge.
“Master Gosrig! Master Gosrig! Come quickly!”
Even as she shouted, she wasn’t sure why she bothered. Lord Tarev had no need of haste. Not any longer.
Malachi found Rosa
in gardens grey and troubled as his mood. A pebble left her hand, shot across the river’s rushing waters and cracked against the sheer cliff of the opposing bank. Beyond, the crumbling arches of Strazyn Abbey loomed large – another reminder that all things passed, in time.
“Don’t let Lily catch you. Constans doesn’t need the encouragement.” He tried to muster a chuckle, but it wouldn’t come. “How are you?”
Rosa turned from the waters and smoothed the folds of her surcoat. “Better than I should be.”
Malachi winced. Between panic and darkness, he recalled only a little of the kernclaw’s attack. But the image of Rosa lying motionless on the floor, her nightgown shredded and her throat torn out? The stuff of nightmares to come. More than ever, he struggled to comprehend what his friend was going through.
“What about you?” she asked.
He touched a hand to his bruised cheek. “I’ll live. It’s done nothing for my looks, and less for my mood . . . but there was no saving at least one of those.” He paused. Words seemed so inadequate at times like these. “I owe you my life . . . my family’s lives.”
The smile wasn’t much, just a small crook of the lips. “You owe me nothing. In a way, I’m grateful to the kernclaw. I’ve been directionless since Kas died. I’d forgotten my purpose. My duty. He gave that back to me.”
Malachi laughed, though its tug at bruised ribs made him wince. “Next time, perhaps don’t involve me in your quest for enlightenment?”
Now there was nothing half-hearted about Rosa’s smile, nor her soft laughter. “And Lilyana? The children?”
“Lily has a bump on the back of her head the size of an egg. Constans slept through the whole thing.” Malachi shook his head in wonder. “Sidara . . . Sidara declared this morning that she wants to go to the chapterhouse as soon as she’s of age. You made quite an impression.”
“Lilyana can’t be pleased.”
“She isn’t, but she’s keeping her distaste hidden.” He twisted away to hide a blush of pleasure. “Wouldn’t let the physicians touch my wounds either. Insisted that she and Sidara do everything, and they did their work well. I think my daughter has a talent for this. I’ve no other cause to feel as hale as I do.”
Rosa offered a wry smile. “So you’re well enough to spar?”
“I’m never that well. And Lily would not approve.”
“I think perhaps that she loves you, however little you notice it at times.”
“I’ve not done well by them of late. By anyone. Last night brought that home to me, quite literally so.”
Rosa grunted. “They do say we are only truly ourselves in moments of crisis. It’s why old soldiers can’t put down the sword. It means setting down a piece of themselves alongside.”
“And you? What did you learn of yourself?”
She flexed her fingers, holding them in a fist before spreading them wide as Lumestra’s rays. “That I’m still Roslava Orova, Knight of Essamere and Reaper of the Ravonn – though Lumestra knows I hate that nickname. Elzar was right. This is a gift. I’m stronger than I used to be, Malachi. Faster, too. And that’s to say nothing of . . .” Her voice snagged on the next word. “. . . of the rest. I can put that to use.”
Malachi frowned, his mood soured by wariness. “You must be careful. If others learn how you are . . . The church’s provosts won’t care for what you’ve done, only what you are.”
“You worry too much, old friend.”
Just as she worried too little. Malachi decided not to spoil the moment with argument.
“Tell me,” Rosa went on. “What did the kernclaw mean about you interfering in Crowmarket business?”
He cursed. He’d hoped she’d not caught that. But he couldn’t lie to her. Not after all she’d done last night. And she was better placed to survive any consequences than he.
“Someone’s stealing kraikons from the foundry – melting them down for their metal. Late yesterday, I ordered the constabulary to make a sweep of the dockside. I didn’t expect they’d find anything, but reckoned it’d at least make the Crowmarket more circumspect.”
She gave a slow, thoughtful nod. “And this was their response?”
“What else could it be?”
Rosa turned away without speaking.
“Rosa? What is it?”
“Nothing. Or at least nothing I can prove.” She sighed. “I don’t even know that I believe it myself. You don’t need my confusion muddying your own concerns.”
So her dour mood wasn’t about last night, or not entirely. “Tell me. I can help.”
“As you helped last night?” She straightened, a scowl haunting her features. “Sorry. That wasn’t fair. If I find proof, I’ll speak of it.”
Malachi frowned, but Rosa hadn’t put enough of her riddle on display for him to unpick. “I don’t understand.”
“Good.” She faced him, her eyes hard. “I have to go. Promise me you’ll stay safe.”
“I’ll be nothing but. Lily has borrowed hearthguards from half the family. The estate will be thick with uniforms until her worries fade. I am to go nowhere without at least four blades at my side.”
“Except here, with me.”
“Lily believes you’re worth a good sight more than four blades.” He laid a hand on her shoulder. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t worry for you. Whatever it is you intend, stay safe. And remember that I’m here, should you need me. Or rather, I’ll be at council.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“The vranakin are bold, but they’ll not trouble me in broad daylight, and certainly not while in session at the palace. Though I’ve often wished they would.”
“That’s not funny, Malachi.”
“No, I suppose not.” He sighed. “In any case, I’ve work to do. I’d no chance to tell you last night, but Ebigail’s sunk us even deeper into the mire. She’s forced through a decree to round up any poor southwealder bastard who accepts Viktor’s offer of clemency. She says it’s only so that their innocence can be proven at trial . . .”
“But you don’t believe her?”
He recalled the glee on Ebigail’s face when she’d aired the proposal. “Not when she’s sent Makrov and a whole regiment south to ensure their ‘cooperation’.”
“I thought there weren’t any troops to spare?”
“Ebigail can always find soldiers when it suits her.” He scratched at his scalp, glad the sudden itch had manifested away from the bruises. “I thought Viktor had won his father over, but the vote was the same old battle lines. I have to find a way to undo it, though I don’t know how.”
“I can talk to Ebigail, if you’d like?” said Rosa.
What could Rosa achieve that he could not? All she’d earn was enemies she didn’t deserve. “No. I can unpick this. Viktor found a way to change his father’s mind. So can I.”
“Yes. How did he do that? You never said.”
“I never said because I don’t know. It’s Viktor. You know how he is. I think he likes to cultivate an air of mystery.”
Rosa grunted noncommittally, a shadow flickering across her face. Malachi took it for concern and offered a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
Her lip twitched, but the darkness remained. “Let’s hope so.”
“He’s what?” demanded Ebigail.
Somehow – and Malachi didn’t know how – Captain Horden kept his composure. “Dead, lady. Maid found him this morning. Embraced the Raven, by the look. Gaping wrists, skinful of brandy and surrounded by the painted smile of wife and daughters. Worse ways to go.”
Hadon Akadra drummed his fingers on the meeting table. “You speak of a member of this Council. Show some respect!”
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”
Malachi tore his gaze from the Council chamber’s grandiose map. Somehow it had been easier to focus on that than Horden. He’d not miss Tarev, but nor could he bring himself to revel in the man’s death. And then there was the timing of it all – a coinciden
ce to which every flash of pain in his ribs drew closer attention.
“You’re certain he took his own life?”
“Nothing’s certain, my lord, but if the maid knows more than she’s telling, she’ll talk.”
Hadon scowled. “I thought you said he embraced the Raven.”
“The maid’s a southwealder,” said Horden. “Can’t be too careful.”
“Ah.”
Abitha Marest rapped her walking stick on the table. “She’s to be well-treated unless you have proof of foul play. Do you understand me, captain?”
“Of course, lady. Everyone gets fair treatment in my cells . . .” He shot a sidelong glance at Malachi. “. . . unless the Council requests otherwise.”
Malachi couldn’t find the energy to offer rebuke. Truth was, he and Ebigail both had twisted justice to get Rosa out of Horden’s jail. Now Tarev was dead. And on the day following his last surviving daughter’s funeral, no less. Even Horden’s limited intellect could piece that one together.
Ebigail sank into her chair. Malachi could swear she’d gained more white hairs among the grey since Horden had knocked on the door. “Thank you, captain. Keep us informed. I’ll offer our condolences to the grandson. We’ll make a formal announcement later today.”
“Yes, lady.”
Horden withdrew. The heavy doors slammed behind him.
“A black day for our Republic,” said Ebigail. “One councillor dead at his own hand, and another assaulted in his home.”
Hadon grunted. “The latter, at least, we can do something about. The Crowmarket must be humbled. Only a fool would think it possible to be rid of them entirely, but they’ve become too bold.”
“And with good reason,” said Abitha. “Half the constabulary line their pockets with bribes. The other half are terrified.”
“Then we won’t use the constabulary,” said Malachi, “but our own hearthguards. Inspect every wagon and merchantman entering the city. Roust not just the docks, but the Dregmeet slums.”
Hadon laughed. “You’re a new man this morning. A blow or two to the head might have done you some good. Tell you what, I’ll see to it myself. I can’t spare more than a hundred – Viktor’s taken half of my lot off on his foolish crusade. But if we can round up another four or five, I promise you I’ll drive the vranakin back underground within the week.”