by Matthew Ward
“Dastarov has my letter?”
“He does. And the swiftest steed in the stables.”
Kurkas grunted. “Raven only knows what Lord Akadra’ll think of all this.”
“That’s not our worry,” said Halvor. “Our job is to make sure he gets it.”
The soldier’s life. You did your part and hoped others did theirs. Pivoting sideways to compensate for his battered leg, he lurched upright and held out his hand. “Coming, Captain Halvor? We can’t start without you.”
She gave a taut nod. Her fingers closed about his.
“Captain Halvor?” Brask’s hesitant words stuttered over her lips. “I wanted to thank you.”
“I’m not doing this for you,” Halvor replied, her tone less acid than the words. “You’re just along for the ride.”
They made for a strange pair hobbling up towards the terrace, Kurkas leaning on her for balance, and she on him out of faltering strength. Brask followed at a respectful distance. Soldiers glanced away as they approached, but furtive eyes always returned. Likely they couldn’t believe what was to come. A special kind of madness, borne out of cruel times.
At last, they crossed inside the ring of lanterns, and the wall of restless king’s blue uniforms. All of them facing outwards.
“Still time to change your mind, Halvor.”
She snorted tiredly. “And waste all their hard work? Look how pretty they’ve made it.”
The pyre was decidedly not pretty. It had been thrown together from fallen boughs, spare lumber and broken furniture, then packed with twigs and leaves gathered from the grounds. And planted at the centre, a beam salvaged from the wreckage of the manor’s tower.
“Then we’ll wait,” said Kurkas. “I’ll have them pull it apart and build it up again. Lumestra knows the bloody thing looks like it’ll come down with a gust of wind.”
Halvor shook her head. “No. She’ll be back before then, and I’ll be gone.”
“So what? We chained her up before. This’ll work no matter who’s holding the reins.”
“So it won’t be my choice any longer. It’ll be something done to me. And I want it to be my choice, Kurkas. I want to know I hurt her.”
He winced away his selfishness and gazed into the flickering brazier beside the pyre. Better to send an enemy to the flames than a friend, but it wasn’t his choice. However deep Malatriant had her talons into Eskavord, it wouldn’t stop there. Might be it couldn’t be stopped at all, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t try.
“Brask? You heard her.”
The lieutenant helped Halvor onto the pyre. Another necessity, this one borne of Kurkas’ status as a one-armed and practically one-legged man. He watched as the lieutenant drew Halvor’s wrists behind the makeshift stake and set the shackles in place. Could he have done the same, had he been called to it?
He hoped never to find out.
Too soon, Brask withdrew, and strode from the ring of lanterns.
“You ready, Halvor?” asked Kurkas.
“You don’t have to stay.”
“Bugger that. With you to the end.”
So saying, he pulled a brand from the brazier. It felt heavier than it should, but he knew the weakness wasn’t in his arm, but in his heart.
“For the Phoenix, Captain Halvor.”
Her lips broke into a broad grin. For a moment she was again the defiant woman who’d fought so hard to kill him, and striven with equal fervour to save his life. What was that Thrakkian saying? Enemies made the finest friends.
“For the Phoenix, Captain Kurkas.”
Swallowing the lump in his throat, Kurkas thrust the brand into the pyre.
“Father!”
Melanna sat bolt upright, heart hammering at her ribs. The distant scream fell away into the murk of scattered dream, revealed not as her father’s – not even belonging to a single voice – but a chorus of strangers, howling in agony.
Shadows receded, revealing the castellan’s quarters at Voldmarr Watch, Melanna’s home while the dispirited remnants of her father’s army gathered for a humiliating march home.
Melanna’s pulse steadied, her death-grip on the blankets relaxing alongside. The nightmare had seemed so real, though she recalled nothing of it save the scream. It wouldn’t hurt to check in on her father. Wounds turned sour, and the conditions in the Tressian stockade . . .
Aware that she was conjuring bleak fates from nothing, Melanna threw aside her blankets and pulled on her robes. The rampart beyond the chamber door carried the cold breath of the mountains, parting the last skeins of sleep. It was also quieter than it should have been, lacking the small sounds of the crowded courtyard.
The empty courtyard.
Melanna stared over the inner rampart into a space that should have been filled with men, wagons and horses. But there were no tents. No campfires. Fingers scratched on rough stone as Melanna steadied herself against the wall. Even her guards were gone – Sera and the two lunassera who had stood as sentries since her arrival. All gone.
She was alone.
Shifting wind drew Melanna’s eye westward. Past Kreska, past the humiliating fields of Davenwood, to where Eskavord should have lain defiant beneath the stars. There was only darkness.
“You see the price of arrogance.” Ashana propped her elbows on the outer rampart. The slit sleeves of her dress hung like verdant pennants against the wall.
Melanna’s panic receded as she at last noted the mists curling across the hillside. “My arrogance?”
“In part. You awoke desperation in another. In that desperation he roused something better left sleeping.”
Melanna’s blood ran cold. “Malatriant.”
Ashana nodded. “Or as near as doesn’t matter.”
“You’re talking about the Sceadotha! How can it not matter?”
“Maybe it is Malatriant. Maybe it’s the power she wielded, which only believes itself her. Our fears shape the Dark as much as the Dark shapes our fears. That’s why it so often chooses a trusted face. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it. The truth makes little difference.”
Melanna found herself struggling to follow Ashana’s words. But other details sang out. “Akadra. The man-of-shadow. He awoke this.”
“He did a terrible, foolish thing for the very best of reasons. You pushed him to it, you and your thirst for battle.” She sighed. “But something would have cracked, even without you. She’s been twisting souls for years. Making proud folk stubborn, and petty folk cruel. That was always her gift.”
Melanna closed her eyes, lost in the tales of a blazing hearth. The soft pearlescent notes of her mother’s harp-strings. “She conquered the old Tressian kingdom and brought order out of anarchy. But only for a time.”
“Order is never absolute,” said Ashana. “Change is the paradox of perfection that keeps worlds turning and hearts beating. Unity unmakes itself. Malatriant couldn’t accept that. As her realm fell away, she reached into the Dark. She forged her peace – the peace of silence, where hers was the only voice. One by one, Tressia’s neighbours fell. Until all were one in the Dark.”
Melanna frowned. Somehow, the goddess made a hopeless tale bleaker still. The warmth of the fireside receded, until only the chill wind remained. “And then you intervened.”
“Not me. My predecessor and her siblings. They chose champions and granted them magic. The first and last thing they ever agreed on, I don’t doubt. Those champions cast down the walls of Darkmere and ended Malatriant’s rule. Your empire arose from those ashes, and the Tressians . . . ? What they didn’t forget, they warped their histories to conceal.” Ashana sighed. “And now they long for a past that never truly was. It’s all very familiar. No wonder I feel at home.”
Melanna opened her eyes. The mists were thicker than before, clawing at the fortress walls like besiegers. In the distance, darkness shimmered beneath the stars.
“So the legends are true. The Sceadotha met her end in the Southshires.”
“There’s no end in the Dark
. It was here before light was light. Everything that exists is built upon its bones. One day it will reclaim what was lost, and silence will reign.”
Melanna shuddered. “That sounds like a prophecy.”
“Then perhaps I’m finally getting the hang of being a goddess.” Ashana hunched lower over the rampart. Dirty blonde hair framed her face. She made a disgusted noise. “I’m not sure that’s a good thing.”
“So all this . . . It was meant to be?”
The goddess snorted with laughter. “Where did you get that idea?”
“You just said it was prophecy.”
“I agreed it sounded like a prophecy – and that, Melanna, is a word by which we justify our deeds, or excuse their lack. Just because something’s inevitable, doesn’t mean it can’t wait. Otherwise, why get out of bed? Why do anything at all?”
The fortress walls faded behind mist. There was only the rampart, and the goddess. “So you’ll stop this?”
“I can’t. I’m bound by divine law. Not much to be gained staving off Malatriant if my step-siblings fall to brawling over protocol. That too can be held off for another day.”
“You . . . your predecessor . . . involved herself.”
“No. Her champion did.” Ashana straightened and struck a thoughtful expression that was entirely too guileless. “Now where would I get one of those?”
Melanna staggered back a step. “Me?”
“You are Ashanal, aren’t you? Names are like clothes. Steal them, and you should be ready to play the part.”
The mist rolled in.
After what seemed for ever, the screams died away. The stillness of night rushed back, broken only by the roar and crackle of the pyre. Kurkas, his eye stinging from the smoke and his skin raw in the backwash of the flames, watched until the shape at the pyre’s heart collapsed into the flames. Only then did he turn away, and cuffed tears from filthy cheeks.
Brask approached from beyond the ring of lanterns and threw a salute. “Dastarov’s away.”
There should have been satisfaction in that. Joy, even. Both seemed too distant to acknowledge, much less embrace.
“Sir?” Brask edged closer, more hesitant this time. “Did you hear me? It worked.”
Kurkas took a deep breath, bitter smoke swirling into his lungs. “Put it out. Put it all out. Then you bury whatever’s left, and you bury it so deep that nothing can touch her until the light of Third Dawn. You understand me?”
“Of course, sir. Whatever you want. Where will you be?”
“Drunk. You can wake me in the morning.” He stared back at the pyre, and hoped it had all been worth it. “Assuming there is one.”
Maladas, 12th day of Radiance
Where light rises, ambition follows.
from the sermons of Konor Belenzo
Fifty-Six
Time had lost meaning for Viktor. There were only the hours where Hargo was present, and those blessed, fleeting moments when he was not. This was one such moment, to be treasured as long as it lasted. Shoulders screamed with every sway about his shackled wrists. Dull red fire blazed the length of his body. Breath rasped across a parched tongue. Even the tiniest motion sent hot shards flashing through wounds barely closed.
But Viktor knew his downfall would not come from mere pain, however cunningly wrought. No. The deeper Hargo’s silver burrowed, the closer Viktor’s shadow wormed its way to the surface.
If it emerged, there’d be no more questions. Only the fire.
All he’d striven for would come to nothing. He’d never see Calenne, unless chance brought them together in the mists.
The thought quickened fresh defiance, as it always did. But not enough. Viktor Akadra, who seldom admitted limits, now finally accepted their closeness.
A muffled scream jolted Viktor from his thoughts. A fellow prisoner?
Another scream quavered through the darkness. A woman’s, this time accompanied by the clatter and scrape of collapsing stone.
The cell door smashed inward. Light rushed in. A robed body collapsed against the opposite wall. Hargo. A battered bronze leg glinted dully in the corridor beyond. A metal hand reached through the doorway and brushed aside the splintered remains.
Elzar shuffled into the cell, his movements incongruously furtive for one who’d caused such commotion. Blood drained from his weathered face.
“Viktor? What have they done to you?” His throat bobbed. “Forgive an old man for taking so long to find his courage.”
He clicked his fingers. The wall collapsed in a shower of dust, torn apart by the implacable strength of the kraikon hunched in the corridor beyond. Golden light crackling beneath its misshapen helm, reaching towards Viktor.
“No!” One hand locked about his control amulet, Hargo lurched into a sitting position. The kraikon ignored him. “Why won’t it stop?”
Elzar’s lip twitched. Fingertips brushed his own amulet. “I’d be a dull fellow without a surprise or two. Edvard operates under a different enchantment to his brothers. Mine is the only will he obeys.”
With surprising gentleness, Edvard unhooked Viktor’s shackles from the ceiling and lowered him to the floor. Viktor clung to the construct as the world steadied.
“He’s corrupted you!” Hargo spat. “You’re as damned as he!”
“Perhaps,” murmured Elzar. “Can you walk, Viktor?”
“Yes.” The word crackled across dry lips. “You shouldn’t have come.”
He snorted. “Ingratitude.”
Hargo’s cheeks bloomed almost to the colour of his gushing head wound. “You will burn together!”
Viktor’s shadow howled. Every moment, every harm, every slice of flesh echoed back. He bore down on Hargo.
“Viktor!” Elzar glanced at the remains of the door. “We have to go!”
“This won’t take long.” Viktor knelt beside Hargo. Even now, the man showed no fear, only righteous indignation. A fanatic. How much blood had he spilled? “I warned you what would happen once I was free, did I not?”
“Do as you will, witch! It changes nothing!”
“On this, at least, we agree.”
Wrists still shackled, Viktor grasped the provost by his jaw and by the base of his skull. The muffled scream matched the widening of his eyes. A sharp wrench. A greasy crack of shifting bone.
Viktor rose on aching legs. “Now we can go.”
They left the house before the sun was fully in the sky: four hearthguards and two weary councilmen hastening through crowded morning streets. Malachi’s eyes itched with lack of sleep. He’d tried to rest, but worries had crowded out the darkness.
Sevaka. Sidara. Rosa. Rosa most of all. At least Sidara seemed unharmed, and Sevaka Kiradin now had a chance, if a slender one. Both were in bed, the one watched over by an anxious mother, and the other by a maid. But Rosa? It was too easy to fear the worst.
He stifled a yawn and tripped on the cobbles.
Josiri grabbed him by the shoulder. “Easy there.”
Malachi shook his head. Josiri had slept no longer than him. “I still don’t know how you’re functioning better than me.”
“Years of a double life. You learn to take sleep when you can, and cope when you can’t. I still say you should have sent a herald.”
Malachi bristled. “Ebigail will want details. Better she has them from us.”
Josiri’s eyes narrowed. “And that’s your only reason?”
“I . . . No. Sevaka’s plight is sure to set her off-balance. She might even feel she owes us.”
The curl of Josiri’s lip made Malachi’s skin crawl. “I hate this city.”
“It’s how things are done, Josiri. A favour for a favour, on and on and on, into eternity. I don’t like it, but we have to play every advantage. There’s too much at stake. For Viktor. For you. Even for the Southshires.”
Josiri walked in silence for a few steps. “Which is why however today plays out, I need to leave.”
“What?” The word croaked from a dry mouth. “If you go h
ome, there’s no telling what Makrov will do. Your status as an Akadra won’t protect you away from the city.”
“I thought I could wait this out, but I can’t. I have to know what’s become of Calenne. Last night brought that home to me.”
Now it was Malachi’s turn to walk in silence through the swirling crowds and the silent, watchful kraikon. How could he convince Josiri to stay? Indeed, did he have any right to, or was he clinging to a rare like-mind as old friends were stripped away? Kasamor. Viktor. Rosa. All gone.
As he walked, he became aware of a new sound rising behind those of the streets. Voices – no few of them – caught in a rumble of opposing conversation. Then buccinas, rising crisply above. A parade? He recalled nothing being brought to his notice, but Viktor had won a great victory. Patriotism birthed strange spontaneity.
“I can offer little help if we can’t persuade the Council to offering its blessing,” he said at last.
“I know. A horse, provisions and a sword. That’s all I ask.”
Fresh gloom settled on Malachi’s heart. It was hopeless. Josiri was riding south into death. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“Hope is a poor coin. I’ll rely on it only when all else fails.” He growled. “Raven’s Eyes! How much further is it? We should have taken your carriage.”
Malachi forced a smile. “Spoken like a man never deadlocked on market day. It doesn’t take much to bring Tressia to a standstill.”
He bent his meandering thoughts on the hours to come. Council first. Then, if a stop at the Essamere chapterhouse didn’t turn up news of Rosa, he’d head to the constabulary barracks and have Captain Horden get word out.
“She can look after herself,” he muttered. “She can.”
The road widened out into the plaza. A very full plaza. A crowd thousands strong had gathered beneath the steps of the palace. A dozen kraikons stood at the boundary fence; as many again lurked in the confluence of nearby streets. Something about the sight niggled at Malachi’s thoughts, but there was so much wrong with that gathering.
Two companies of the 7th barred the palace steps, swords out and shields levelled. Behind them, Ebigail Kiradin stood before the great iron-studded doors, a knot of Freemont hearthguard at her side. She stood rigid and unmoving, her ice-white dress billowing in the grasp of the same northerly wind that carried her words clear across the plaza.