by Matthew Ward
The weight on his chest shifted. A wet, tearing rasp choked away a distant scream. Warm red rain spattered Viktor’s face.
Gasping for breath, he opened his eyes. Ebigail and the kernclaw stood locked in a motionless embrace, the daughter with her arm tight about her mother’s back, and the mother with her face buried in the daughter’s shoulder. A touching tableau, but for the sword buried deep in Ebigail’s belly.
His shadow finally a distant ache, Viktor sensed a cold, umbral tether binding him to the kernclaw – to the scrap of himself he thought lost in her escape from the foundry. He stumbled to his feet. As he rose, the unseen bond ebbed. The kernclaw jerked – a woman awakening from nightmare into something far worse. Ebigail and sword slipped free into the spreading stain.
“No!” Her voice racked with mewling, stuttering sobs, the kernclaw backed away. She raised a bloody hand to her face. Eyes widened in horror. “What have you done to me? What did you make me do?”
On another day, Viktor might have felt sympathy for the woman, or even disgust at his own unwitting actions. But not this day.
Lost in grief, the kernclaw never saw the blow that struck her clean into unconsciousness.
Sixty-Two
Outriders preceded the convoy, shields slung and banners furled. A column of Immortals marched at the heart, a blaze of gold around a wagon draped in green silk – the wagon in which Melanna’s father rested as his wounded body healed.
She should have been with him. It was a daughter’s duty to be close at hand if the worst befell. But her thoughts lay not to the east, where her father’s procession squeaked and rumbled along the uneven road, but to the west whence a cold wind plucked at her hair.
“It’s time, Ashanal,” said Sera. “The lunassera march with the next convoy. If you do not leave with your father, you should do so with us.”
Melanna stared away into the west. The horizon lay hidden beneath brooding cloud, as if the sky itself wrestled with matters weighty beyond her comprehension. The darkness of the dream lay hidden within, if it existed at all.
“What if I choose to stay?” she asked.
“That would be unwise.” Sera’s careful reply gave a hint to the expression hidden beneath her mask. “The eastern road lies thick with opportunity.”
“The goddess commands . . .” Melanna cut herself off. If she’d learned only one thing since coming to the Southshires, it was not to overplay Ashana’s intent. “The goddess implied I should stay. The Dark has arisen in the west. It wears the shape and intent of the Sceadotha.”
The lunassera, normally so fluid and graceful in motion, went still as a rabbit in a wolf’s gaze. “Are you certain you understood her? You will be empress one day. Is it wise to risk your life on girlish fancy?”
It wasn’t so much the words that brought Melanna up short, as the tone. The same tone she’d faced all her life, when she’d pleaded for lessons in archery and swordplay. When she’d insisted on riding astride a steed, rather than side-saddle. The tone that spoke to arguments exhausted, and her own patience close behind.
She set her back to Sera, determined that the other woman not see her anger. In the courtyard below, a handful of Immortals, stripped to the waist, laboured to make a cairn of abandoned weapons. Seen from above, as she viewed it now, steel and spear-staff blossomed outward like the petals of a flower. A traditional offering to the victor, granted in defeat. That it was raised beside the defenders’ graves – dug just as willingly by Melanna’s countrymen – only added to the poignancy.
It was strange, thought Melanna, how something so horrific as a sword could become part of something so beautiful. But that was the contradiction of war, and the contradiction of warriors. No order had been given for the cairn’s construction. The men simply knew to salute their opponents even while they mourned their own loss.
Glory in victory, fortitude in defeat, and honour always.
“Do you think I’m prone to delusion, Sera?” Melanna said.
“I would not have put it so, Ashanal.”
Again, that tone. “How would you put it?”
“I fear that your heart is sick with failure. That you are impatient for new battles. I fear that it is not the goddess you hear, but your own pride. Have you spoken of this with your father?”
Melanna pinched her eyes shut and gave an angry shake of the head. “He wouldn’t understand.”
“Or do you fear he’d understand too well? This defeat rests as poorly with him as it does with you.” She drifted closer, head dipping respectfully. Close enough that the heady scent of sanctum-incense danced on the breeze between them. “The lunassera will fight for you, Ashanal. We will die for you in need, as so many of our sisters already have. But as I stand with you now, I cannot be certain that need is upon us.”
“The goddess believes it is,” snapped Melanna. “She stood with me on these stones and spoke of my responsibilities.”
Or the responsibilities of the Ashanal. A name she’d stolen. But even now, Melanna couldn’t spur herself to that confession. The shame went too deep.
Sera spread her arms wide. “Then where is her sign? Where is the fire and the moonlight?”
Melanna had no answer. Certainly Ashana had granted her no weapon and no magic. Perhaps because she had no more to lend. Or perhaps Sera was correct. Perhaps she had imagined it all. Perhaps the dream had merely been a dream – a reflection of sundered pride.
No. She couldn’t think that way. If she was to amount to anything at all – if she was to become an empress fit to guide her people – she had to have faith in herself. She’d lived for years knowing that to be true. Why was it so hard now? Why was her chest so tight she could barely breathe?
That answer, at least, was obvious. Sera had believed in her, and now she did not.
“Why are you so against this, Sera? Are you afraid?”
“If the Dark has returned, we should all be afraid, Ashanal.”
“Then we fight to take away the fear, as is our way.”
“And if you fall, the lunassera will be returned to their cages. We will be healers, priests and courtesans once again, for there will be no banner to which we can rally.”
Melanna caught her breath. It was fear, and it was pride, but neither of them hers. She’d given the lunassera freedom, and her death threatened to return their shackles.
“What if I head west,” she asked, “and seek the truth of my dream?”
“I beg you not to.” Sera reached out as if to take her hands but thought better of it and withdrew. “Come home to Tregard. If the Dark reaches out for the Empire, confront it from a position of strength.”
“And how many will die in the meantime?” Melanna shouted, her hand flung westward.
“Does it matter? They’re Tressians.”
Melanna scowled. The obvious answer. The easy answer. Had her Tressian opponents lived by such precepts, her father would have died in the stockade. She’d be dead, or else a trophy.
The sun emerged from behind cloud as the last offering was set in place in the courtyard below. Polished steel blazed like fire, and Melanna realised that the Immortals hadn’t crafted a flower, but a sun – a sun with a halo of stylised rays. An acknowledgement that radiant Lumestra had prevailed over her argent sister.
The soldiery had made their tribute, but what of the empress to be?
I owe you for this, Josiri Trelan, she’d said. The house of Saran owes you. Josiri had gone north under guard, at least so Haldrane had reported. Melanna didn’t pretend to understand the politics, but only a child would believe the mercy he’d shown her had not worsened his situation. Who now fought for the land he’d saved? Who’d hold the Dark at bay?
The pressure about her chest dissipated, dispelled by the peace of revelation. In the end, it didn’t matter if she’d imagined Ashana’s command. If she did nothing, she betrayed Josiri’s kindness and thus the only thing that brought beauty out of war.
Glory in victory, fortitude in defeat, and honou
r always.
Always.
“I will go west, Sera,” Melanna said. “I will see for myself the truth of my dreams. I make no claim on you, or on your sisters, but if you wish to stop me, you’ll have to drag me away in chains.”
Eyelids fluttered closed beneath the mask. Hands pressed together, palm to palm and fingertip to fingertip. “Then I pray Ashana keep you safe.”
“Pray for us all, Sera. For if I’m right, we’re not yet done with sorrow.”
Tzadas, 13th day of Radiance
Concord decays, riven by selfishness or the mere mundanity of boredom. It is in the nature of ephemeral labours to fall apart, and our duty to gather the pieces and forge them anew.
from the sermons of Konor Belenzo
Sixty-Three
Surprises, Viktor’s mother had once told him, are to be cherished as gifts from Lumestra. For Alika Akadra, relegated to the custodianship of Swanholt at her husband’s insistence, even small changes in routine were welcome. Viktor preferred predictability to surprise. Surprises got folk killed.
He breathed deep and steepled his fingers. “I’m honoured to have the Council’s confidence, but I must decline.”
Malachi, Josiri and Viktor’s own father shared curiously alike expressions. The parted lips. The furrowed brows. Men suffering through an unexpected veer in the road.
Predictably, Malachi recovered first. He rose and set his back to the Council chamber’s great gilded map. A clever bit of presentation, lending the Republic’s weight to his words.
“Please reconsider,” said Malachi. “The Republic needs better leadership. The position of First Councillor will provide that leadership while keeping the foundation of our Republic intact.”
“I don’t disagree,” said Viktor. “It’s your choice of candidate with which I take issue.”
His father stirred. “You’re the unanimous choice, Viktor. Have a little civility. Accept.”
“Then perhaps the Council will have the civility to explain. As has been pointed out several times in this very chamber, I’ve little experience of politics. And now you’d have me govern our nation?”
“Lead,” said Malachi, “not govern. Both councils will remain, but you’ll have authority over both.”
“None of which answers why it should be me.”
“It’s simple,” said Josiri. “You’re the only one we all trust.”
He leaned forward in his chair. Viktor knew the Southshires were calling him home. He too felt the pull. Calenne had been his touchstone throughout his torture. In victory, comfort had turned to unease, and unease to guilt. He had to know what had become of her.
“Even you?”
“Even me.”
How far they’d come. If only it hadn’t cost so much. “I must still refuse.”
His father scowled. “I raised you better than to turn your back on duty.”
In fact, Hadon Akadra had barely raised his son at all, but Viktor elected against saying as much. “Duty aside, how do you suppose the Grand Council will react to the Republic being handed over to a witch?”
“Those accusations are done with,” said Malachi. “Between Ebigail’s actions and Rosa withdrawing her charges, there’s no longer any case to answer. This council has already acknowledged Provost Hargo as one of Ebigail’s conspirators . . .”
“And was he?” interrupted Viktor.
His father gave a bark of laughter. “It hardly matters.”
“. . . and High Proctor Ilnarov has been granted our full support for retrieving you from the provosts’ vaults,” Malachi continued. “There’s nothing left to offend the Grand Council’s sensibilities.”
“Except for the truth,” said Viktor. “The fact remains that I am a witch. Were I to accept, and that knowledge became public . . . ?”
Viktor’s father thumped the table, setting decanter and glasses rattling. “The Republic needs leadership.”
“That it does,” said Viktor. Could they not see the disaster they invited? But that was the nature of compromise, was it not? Malachi and Josiri were likely honest in their dealings, but his father . . . ? No. To Hadon Akadra, his own son was merely the least worst option – one through which he hoped to levy influence. “I propose the position of First Councillor be given to Malachi.”
Again, the silence. The curious similarity of expression.
Viktor pressed on. “Malachi has the experience, the ability and the courage the position requires. If the Republic is to move forward, it requires a quieter form of strength than mine. It needs someone whose first instinct is to talk, not fight.”
Josiri nodded. “Viktor’s right. We need look no further for the proof than yesterday. While Viktor and I battered Ebigail to little avail, Malachi found a solution.”
Lips pinched, Malachi grasped the back of his chair and said nothing. There were secrets there, Viktor felt sure, but who was he to judge? A conversation for a calmer time.
“It occurs to me,” Viktor’s father said stiffly, “that this entire conversation may be premature.”
Josiri narrowed his eyes. “What are you proposing?”
“Only that we hold off on the elevation of a First Councillor until such time as empty chairs about this table are filled. That we prevail upon the Tarev and Marest families to embrace their responsibilities. As to the others? We can open the remaining seats to application from the Grand Council. They have, after all, been empty too long.”
Viktor sighed inwardly. “You wouldn’t be seeking to weight the balance in your favour, Father? If you consider yourself a candidate for First Councillor, you should say as much.”
He bristled. “I’ve more experience than any of you. If you refuse the honour, then I see no reason why I shouldn’t embrace it.”
“Save for your closeness with Ebigail Kiradin, of course,” Viktor replied with a studiously blank expression. “Half Tressia knows of it, and are probably wondering why you’re still free.”
“As Rother and Mannor are still free?” The first puce of outrage touched his father’s bearded cheeks. “They committed armed revolt, and you suggest I should be censured for mere association?”
“Rother and Mannor acted under duress.” Josiri drummed his fingers on the table top. “When freed of it, they made amends. Where were you, Hadon?”
“Where was I?” The reply came low and dangerous. “I shed my blood for this Republic long before you were born. Before even your wretched mother entertained her first treasonous thought . . .”
“Enough! Please!” Malachi silenced the diatribe mid-flow. “The position of First Councillor has little merit if it causes further division, and so I must remove myself from candidature.”
He reclaimed his seat – not with the dejection that he would have done but a few weeks prior, but with careful dignity. First Councillor or no, Malachi had found his heart, and his strength.
“Clearly this topic requires more . . . discussion . . . than I thought,” Malachi went on. “I suggest we adjourn until tomorrow. The clerks assure me that the documentation regarding the Southshires will be ready by then. You’ll be free to leave us, Josiri. I assume you’ll accompany him, Viktor?”
Viktor nodded. “Indeed.”
Which meant leaving his father and Malachi at loggerheads for however long he was away. Days? Weeks? However long it took to find Calenne. To find her – and if necessary to mourn her.
Malachi nodded. “Then if we’ve nothing more to discuss, perhaps you’ll excuse me.”
Malachi stared across the sunlit gardens. At least his house remained an island of familiar calm. Could he convince Viktor to change his mind? Quite possibly not. Opportunity lost through poor timing. Such was the way of the Republic. Still, one defeat was but a slender catastrophe under the circumstances. For the first time, he’d matched Ebigail’s dance, and bested her. A shame he wasn’t sure whether to be proud or horrified.
“It didn’t go well?”
Lily slipped her hands about Malachi’s waist and rest
ed her head on his back. He shut his eyes, blotting out the sun in favour of her embrace.
“Am I so easily read?” he asked.
“There’s a gargoyle on my father’s stables that looks exactly as you do at this moment.”
“So he’s a handsome fellow?”
“If one lusts after enormous teeth and a scowl fit to curdle milk.”
“Viktor refused the position.”
The weight vanished from his back. The hands remained. “And you’re angry with him.”
“Yes . . . No . . .” He sighed. “I can’t be. I turned it down too.”
He braced himself for the inevitable criticism. To his surprise, none came. Things really had changed between them. Slipping free of Lily’s hands, he turned around. He brushed his hand against her veil, careful to avoid the torn cheek beneath.
“You don’t have to wear that around me.”
Pale lips twitched a sad smile beneath black gossamer. “It’s not for your benefit. I just . . . want a little distance from the world.”
“You look like a serene.”
Sorrow turned wry. “Serenity is not my foremost trait at this hour.”
“I wish you’d let Sidara help you,” he said. “She brought Sevaka halfway out of the mists. I’m sure she could do something.”
“I don’t want her to.” Lily’s fingers closed about his wrist and pulled his hand away. “We’ve been too complacent, you and I. The scars will serve a reminder. Did Viktor truly kill Ebigail?”
“He says not. He says the kernclaw turned on her at the end.”
“Do you believe him?”
A harder question. Viktor would face no sanction either way. At worst, he’d saved the hangman’s fee. And yet Malachi still felt as though his friend hadn’t been entirely truthful. Then again, evasion was the order of the day.
Ebigail Kiradin was dead, her mortal remains sealed up in the family vault without ceremony, and without prayer. She’d face Lumestra come Third Dawn, and Malachi had no doubt that meeting would end poorly.