by Matthew Ward
“True. I have performed terrible deeds, and will yet do more, if called to. All I have done, I have done for the Republic, for she needs a mother far more than you ever did. She lacks your strength.” She set Apara’s unresisting claws to her own throat. “But if you cannot forgive me, then at least grant me a quick death.”
Apara tried to pull away. Lady Kiradin held her close. “You’d have me kill you?”
Wasn’t that what she’d determined to do the moment Sevaka’s body had slipped away? She couldn’t recall. Emotion had swamped motive.
Lady Kiradin’s eyes brightened with tears. “If that’s what you want. If that’s what it takes to settle things. I promise you, I shall feel nothing.”
Overcome by conflicting emotion, Apara sank to her knees. “I don’t know what I want.”
“Hush, child. I know.”
Lady Kiradin . . . no, her mother . . . crouched at her side and drew her into an embrace. Part of Apara screamed at her to pull away, to run from Freemont and never return. But the greater part came home.
“You have done a hard thing tonight,” her mother whispered, breath warm on her ear. “The hardest. I am prouder than you can ever know. If your sister had been half the woman you are, it would never have been necessary. But you are my firstborn. You are the best of me. Your sister . . . she is dead?”
Apara flinched. “I can’t be sure. Someone came. A knight of Essamere. The one who took my cousin’s hand, I suspect.”
Her mother sucked in a sharp breath. “A woman?”
“Yes.”
A sigh. “I see. Then we had best prepare for her arrival.”
Lilyana pressed the glowing flat of the dagger home. Sevaka’s lips parted, drowning the sizzle of burning flesh with a breathy wail.
“I said hold her down!” snapped Lilyana.
Josiri put his full weight on Sevaka’s shoulders and wondered how a woman so far gone into the mists could possess such desperate strength. At the far end of the blood-slicked table, Braxov tightened his grip on her ankles. The steward was nearly as pale as the patient, and little wonder. Sevaka’s belly was a torn, gory ruin. It didn’t matter how much Lilyana staunched or cauterised, there was always more.
Lilyana stifled a shriek of frustration and flung the dagger across the kitchen. It clattered off a wall and settled beside the hearth.
“It’s not working!” Head hung low, she planted her hands on the table. “Must have been a serrated blade. She’s all but torn apart. I can’t stop the bleeding.”
Josiri stared down at Sevaka. Her chest pulsed in arrhythmic, shallow breaths. Her eyelids twitched. Lilyana was right. He’d seen it before, in the stockade after Zanya. The Raven was calling her. Didn’t seem fair. She was barely older than Calenne. Had life worked out differently, the two would have been sisters.
Calenne. Had the Raven already taken her? His throat tightened with the sudden, irrational belief that to lose one was to lose both.
“Keep trying,” he said.
Lilyana wiped her brow, leaving behind a bloody smear. “I tell you, it’s no good. We can only ease her passage. Braxov, fetch the moonglove extract. I know you keep it for the horses.”
Josiri glared at her. “We don’t give up until she’s gone.”
“It’s cruel.”
“It’s life.” He shot a glance at Malachi but found hollow eyes and no support. Northwealders. Always the easy way out. “You don’t give up until it makes you.”
Lilyana’s fingers closed around Sevaka’s. “Braxov, please do as I ask.”
Josiri met the steward’s gaze. What if he demanded the steward refuse? Would loyalty-in-exile carry him that far? Had he any right to invite consequences on Braxov out of some weary, farcical notion that Calenne and Sevaka’s fates were entwined?
“I can help,” said a small voice.
“Sidara?” Malachi hurried to the door. His hands closed about his daughter’s shoulders and turned her about. “You shouldn’t be here.”
What a sight they must have seemed. A dying woman on the table. Lilyana bloody to the elbows, cowing three grown men with quiet fury. And yet Sidara didn’t blanch. She stood there in her nightdress, granite as the hearth.
“I can help her.” Certainty waxed in her tone. “I helped Father.”
Malachi shook his head. “This isn’t the same.”
Lilyana’s shoulders shook. “Sidara Reveque, you will go to your room, and you will do so this instant, do you understand me?”
To Josiri’s surprise, the girl ignored her parents and stared directly at him.
“Let her try,” he said.
Lilyana rounded on him. “Don’t encourage her fancies. She’s just a girl.”
So Lilyana knew after all? Or at least suspected. “And what if they’re not fancies?”
“What are you both talking about?” demanded Malachi.
Josiri kept his eyes on Lilyana. On the expressionless face that nevertheless spoke volumes. She knew. “Your daughter is blessed with light, Malachi.”
He blinked. “What? No . . .”
“Let her try.”
Malachi blinked as a man waking from a dream . . . but he let go of Sidara’s shoulders.
Lilyana strode to intercept her. Josiri blocked her path. “You’re a devout woman, Lilyana. I know that. What would Lumestra have you do?”
The look she gave him was filled with ice. But after a moment, she stepped aside.
Josiri beckoned to Sidara. “Are you sure?”
She gave a small nod.
“Then do what you can.”
Hesitantly, but with growing confidence, Sidara reached across the table. Her face flickered with revulsion as her hand touched Sevaka’s ravaged flesh. She closed her eyes.
At first, nothing happened. Then the first crack of light shone beneath Sidara’s fingers. It hissed where it touched blood, then blazed into a gold-tinged white so bright that Josiri had to shield his eyes. He raised his hand too slowly. In the moment before flinching away, he could have sworn he saw winged silhouettes among the brilliance. Then he closed his eyes, and they were gone – or perhaps had never existed at all.
The light strobed and ebbed. Sidara cried out. Half-blind, Josiri caught her thin, shivering body as it fell.
“Are you all right?”
She blinked and stared at her outspread fingers. The hand was still bloody, but what remained was dry and friable. “I’m tired, and a little cold.”
He smiled. “I’m sure you are.”
She pushed upwards and away, her shoulders atremble.
“Sidara!” Lilyana knelt beside her daughter. Careless of her bloody hands, she held the girl tight and peered intently into one eye and then the other. “Are you hurt? Tell me.”
“I’m fine, Mother.”
“Don’t take that tone with me.”
Josiri disentangled himself from broiling domesticity and turned his attention to Sevaka. She remained dead to the world, and paler than any living body had any right to be. But her breathing was deep and steady, and her wounds . . . What had been red, seeping flesh was crusted shut by dried, clotted blood.
“Raven’s Eyes,” breathed Malachi. “She did it.”
“Where is she?” Rosa slammed the hearthguard against the wall. “Tell me, or I’ll break every bone in your body!”
The man scrabbled at her gauntleted fist, eyes wide with terror. Well-trained and well-paid though the hearthguard of the nobility might have been, they were nothing to a knight of Essamere – a fact that the trail of bodies from the listing gate had surely rammed home. Rosa knew she’d not so much crossed a line as bolted madly past it. She didn’t care.
“Tell me!”
Another slam – hard enough to shiver Rosa’s own elbow, let alone the captive’s spine.
A pained gasp burst from his lips. “The rose garden. She’s in the . . .”
Rosa planted a fist in his face and let him drop. The rose garden? She knew Ebigail to be an early riser, but it was ye
t some hours to dawn. Respectable folk were in their beds. Then again, Ebigail Kiradin only pretended at respectability, didn’t she?
Sword held ready, she followed the gravel drive to the rear of the house, the pain of injuries already fading as the wounds closed. Truth hardened into unassailable creed. Elzar had been right – an eternal’s existence didn’t make her a monster. Rather, it gave her the means to punish monsters. What other fate fitted a woman who’d sought the deaths of her children? Who’d so cleanly manipulated Rosa into turning on Viktor?
Rosa’s skin prickled as she approached the garden. She’d downed what, a dozen hearthguards? There should have been twice as many on duty, given the recent string of deaths and assaults. But then . . . Ebigail was behind those, wasn’t she? What need had she of increased protection, when hers was the only life not in danger. Raven’s Eyes! Why hadn’t she seen it before?
At last, she reached the terrace. The thick, sweet fragrance belonged to secret assignations and whispered intimacies. Perhaps that was fitting. After all, there was nothing so intimate as betrayal . . . or the murder that would wipe the slate clean. There was no proof. No leverage. There was only the sword and the will to use it.
Rosa ignored the distant barking and picked her way through the maze of trellises. At last, there she was, stood at the centre of the terrace. A spider in a web of thorns.
“Hello, Roslava. You’ve come to kill me, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
A gentle tilt of the head. An eyebrow arched, barely visible in the soft glow of the firestone lantern. “And for which crime have you come? For making you see a fool in the mirror? For the fate of my feckless daughter? Or have you come to avenge the death of a man who was never capable of loving you?”
The barbs ripped at Rosa’s heart. “Does it matter?”
Ebigail sat down on a bench. Skirts shifted as she hooked one knee over the other. “Not to me. They’re all pathetic. You’re a soldier. Soldiers serve the Republic, and you have served well. A shame it must end like this. I’d such hopes for you.”
“I’m glad to disappoint.”
Ebigail laughed. “So many are. Am I permitted to plead for my life? To convince you that what I did was necessary for the Republic’s survival?”
Rosa strode closer. Strange how knowledge altered perception. No longer did Ebigail Kiradin resemble the ideal of Tressian matronhood, but a withered, embittered old witch cackling at the world.
“No, but you may choose between the sword and a broken neck.”
Ebigail folded her hands in her lap. “I can’t say either of those appeal.”
Something hissed out of the gloom and thunked into Rosa’s chest.
Croaking for breath, she closed a hand about the crossbow bolt and ripped it free. Bright spots of pain burst behind her eyes. They passed as all pain had passed since Kas’ murder. Ebigail had underestimated her. A rare lapse, no doubt.
“Did you . . .” She broke off and coughed. A stream of black spittle evaporated into the air. “Did you really think that would stop me?”
“That one?” Ebigail shrugged. “No. I’m sure the rest will.”
The trellis came alive in a storm of petals and dancing leaves. A dozen shots slammed home into Rosa’s body. The night blazed red and black.
Hands twitching, she fell to her knees. Gasping for breath that wouldn’t come, she grasped at one of the bolts. Shuddering fingers refused to close. Hearthguard filed from concealment behind the trellis.
“That how you wanted it, my lady?” asked a grizzled fellow with a captain’s star on his shoulder.
“Exactly right, Captain Farran,” Ebigail replied.
Recalcitrant fingers closed. This time, Rosa screamed as the bolt ripped free. Eleven to go.
Ebigail rounded on her, lips pursed in polite interest. “I imagine that hurts a great deal. I knew there had to be more to you than there seemed. A lucky woman might survive one kernclaw’s assault, but two?” She snapped her fingers. “There’s luck, and then there’s . . . something else.”
A patch of shadow shifted in a world rapidly losing its colour. No. Not shadow. A woman in a feathered cloak. A kernclaw. Keening pain, Rosa wrenched another bolt free.
Metal glinted in the lamplight as the kernclaw handed Ebigail an ornate sword. A Hadari sword.
“Josiri Trelan presented this to the Council as a trophy of his victory. The shadowthorns have such a way with metalwork. Gaudy, yes, but not beyond redemption. Take this, for example. A silvered blade. If you’re what I think, it’ll take the fight all the way out of you.”
She took the sword in a two-handed grip, blade down. Rosa tore another bolt free. Was it her imagination, or was the kernclaw looking away? Not a good sign.
“You . . . you send me to the mists and . . . and . . .” Rosa’s chest shuddered, rendering the words more croak than speech. “I’ll come . . . back.”
Ebigail tutted. “Oh, don’t be so dramatic. You’re still of use to me, Roslava. This is just to keep you quiet.”
The sword plunged into Rosa’s shoulder. Her flesh turned to fire and swept her into blackness.
Fifty-Five
Sitting in the overgrown gardens beneath Branghall’s terrace, Kurkas could almost believe recent troubles were but figments of his imagination. It was only when he stared beyond the wall, to where the moon faded and darkness became suffocating and oppressive, that truth returned. He could almost feel Malatriant, the Dark gathered as a shroud about her.
He tipped the goblet to his lips. Empty.
“Here.”
At the other end of the stone bench, Halvor tilted a half-empty bottle for a refill. Her hand shook as she poured, as much wine trickling down the cracks between paving slabs as finding its way into Kurkas’ goblet. She’d deteriorated so much as evening had worn away. Tried to hide it, of course. But the weakness stood revealed in the tightness of her features.
Kurkas could only guess what it cost her to keep Malatriant at bay. But what could he say? She knew that he knew. Words would only get in the way.
“Expensive way to water the weeds,” he said instead.
“Josiri,” Halvor said loftily, “can send me the bill.”
He laughed and stared at the empty bottles lining the bench. Faded ink on the tags proclaimed them a good fifty years older than Kurkas himself. Halvor could have laboured a lifetime and not replaced even one.
Kurkas took a mouthful. It wasn’t unpleasant, but he couldn’t see what the fuss was about. Maybe wine was another of those things the nobility only pretended to enjoy. Like honour, responsibility. All that good stuff.
“Don’t make me do this, Halvor.”
“There’s no other way.”
“Of course there’s another bloody way,” he snapped. “We’ve ammunition enough.”
“And how’s that better? Pain’s still pain. How many will die?”
“As many as it takes.”
She drained her goblet and set it down. “It won’t work. It has to be something that lasts, that deepens. Something that can’t be outrun or suppressed. It has to hurt, and it has to keep hurting.”
“Then I’ll lead a charge out the main gate. Take fire with me. Set ’em all burning.” Kurkas hated the petulance in his voice. He felt like a child.
Halvor gave a wheezing chuckle. “Didn’t you say this lot couldn’t fight their way out of an orphanage?”
“Is there an orphanage in Eskavord?”
“No.” She abandoned her goblet and swigged from the bottle. “It burned down.”
“You can come with, if it makes you feel any better. Just try not to show the rest of us up.”
Dry lips cracked a wry smile. “Look at me. I can barely stand.”
“You can still kick my arse.”
“No.”
“Prove it.”
“Stop, Kurkas. Just . . . stop.”
He stopped.
Halvor let the bottle drop. “Anastacia set a light burning in my soul, but it’s
fading, and she’s getting stronger. When she takes me again, I don’t know that I’ll want to come back.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“You don’t know what it’s like to be a stranger in your own skin. It’s suffocating, but there’s also peace.” She took another swig. “Never had much peace. But I’ve lived free. If I get to choose, I’ll die free too.”
He nodded. “Didn’t have much use for Lumestra back in Dregmeet. Sun doesn’t shine much down there. But the Raven? Give him a coin, give him a feather, and he’d hear you, so my old man said. Death as a friend. Your last friend.”
“Or a final bastion, when all other walls have fallen.”
“I like that.”
Halvor raised her bottle. Kurkas chinked his goblet against its neck.
She took another mouthful and hurled the bottle into the hedge. “You know the worst part? Even now, I don’t know if what we fought for was what we thought we were fighting for. What if Malatriant was pushing us all along?”
Kurkas hesitated. “Reckon you give her too much credit. Way the Council treated you? I couldn’t have taken it. Might be I’d make different choices myself, given time over.”
“Vladama Kurkas, the wolf’s-head. Hard to picture.”
“Maybe in the next life, after Third Dawn.”
“There’ll be war after Third Dawn? You reckon Lumestra will allow it?”
“If Anastacia’s right, there is no Lumestra, not any more. But there’ll always be people, so I reckon there’ll always be war.”
“If Lumestra is dead, maybe there’ll be no Third Dawn.”
“Then look for me on that last bastion. We’ll hold it together.”
The undergrowth rustled. Brask stood on the weed-choked path, the brooding silhouette of Branghall’s tower blotting out the stars. No longer the proud lieutenant of the afternoon, she had the furtive, skittish manner of an animal tempted to flight. Kurkas wished he’d the freedom to let his own fear show. But that wasn’t his privilege, was it? Not until someone else took over this mess.
“It’s time,” said Brask. “Anastacia says she’s ready.”
Anastacia. Not “the prisoner”. Not “the demon”. Fear taught respect.