by Matthew Ward
“I actually don’t care,” he said at last. “Ebigail is dead. I’m concerned about the living. Sidara, for one. What she did for Sevaka – for you – I’ve never heard of even a proctor wielding so much light. The church will want her for the foundry.”
“No. My daughter will not toil away in darkness.”
“It’s the law,” he said.
“Then change it.”
“It isn’t that easy.”
“It would be if you were First Councillor.”
How easy to see in hindsight the road along which she’d led him. Not for the first time, Malachi wished their positions reversed. “I can’t do it. Please don’t ask me again.”
Lily tilted her head. Eyes narrowed to slits beneath the veil. “They’ll take her away. They’ll take our brilliant, radiant daughter and drown her in grime. Is that what you want?”
“Of course it isn’t, but . . .” He swallowed back a rising sense of frustration. “If you’d told me she was gifted, I’d have had time to address this in council.”
“If you’d been home more, you’d have seen for yourself.” She drew up, face wrinkling in distaste. “There’s much we both could have done, but didn’t. And now our options are limited.”
“I know.”
Malachi embraced his wife, as much to hide his torment as in reconciliation. Lily was right. As First Councillor, he could protect Sidara from hidebound tradition. But what Lily wanted was impossible. And the worst of it was, he daren’t tell her why.
“I’ll talk to Viktor,” he said. “He’ll change his mind, and I’m sure he’d want to help. After all . . .” He bit his tongue, remembering just soon enough that Lily wasn’t privy to Viktor’s secret.
“Perhaps I’d have more success,” she said. “Sometimes it’s easier to refuse a friend than a stranger.”
“We’ll see. At least Constans isn’t a problem.” He drew back from the embrace. “Unless you’re hiding something from me on that score.”
“No. Constans is Constans. He, at least, can be a child a little longer.” Lily lifted her veil and kissed him on the cheek. “Speak to Viktor.”
“I will.”
A vision in black silk, she retreated across the terrace and vanished inside. Malachi tried to remember the last time he’d changed Viktor’s mind. Still, there had to be a first time, and given the consequences of failure both for the Republic and for his daughter . . .
He took a deep breath and held it until his lungs burned. Mist gathered about his feet, cold in the noonday sun.
He froze.
“Your wife is correct.”
Malachi spun around. There, in the shadow cast by the swaying boughs of the silver birch, the hazy outline of an elder cousin. There was no one else in sight. Fear gave way to anger, and he bore down on the vranakin.
“This was not the agreement,” he hissed. “My home is off limits.”
Green eyes gleamed beneath the grey hood. “The Parliament of Crows wish you to accept the position of First Councillor.”
Which was precisely why Malachi had refused. “They’ll survive their disappointment.”
“True.” The elder cousin crossed to the balustrade, her form becoming ever more indistinct in the sunlight. “Disappointment passes. Much like life.”
Bright laughter rang out across the grounds below as Constans ran past, a dark blur against the grass. Ada ran behind. The tutor had her skirts gathered in one hand and the other extended in fruitless beckoning.
“My family, like my home, is off limits,” Malachi bit out. “I promised a sympathetic ear on the Council and an easing of patrols around Dregmeet. That’s all.”
“Indeed. And a First Councillor’s ear is worth far more, wouldn’t you agree? A bargain was struck. Straying from its terms will have . . . consequences.” The elder cousin reached up and snapped a branch from the tree. “By all means, think on the matter. Consider your priorities.”
“It can’t be done. Hadon will never support me.”
“Then perhaps we should help you with that.”
Malachi stared down at his feet. He’d always known he’d regret his bargain with the Crowmarket, but for that regret to blossom in less than a day . . .
“Go! Leave me in peace!”
He glanced up to find himself more alone than ever.
The gloom of the foundry matched Viktor’s mood to perfection. Better reflection in welcoming darkness than out in the glare of sunlight. Better Elzar’s company than Josiri’s, or even Malachi’s at that moment. Elzar placed no expectation on him.
“Life used to be simple,” he said. “Now the journey grows harder with every step.”
“Life’s never simple.” Elzar perched on his desk and folded his arms. “Just looks that way when you glance behind. In five years you’ll stare back at this moment and curse your younger self’s easy life.”
Viktor turned from the soot-smeared window and took a deep breath. Even the air wasn’t right. Gone was the thick, suffocating rush that flooded lungs and set the skin prickling. With its furnaces cold and silent, the foundry felt like a tomb.
“Perhaps you’re right. The church conclave has given you no trouble?”
“A few suspicious glances, but the backing of the Council has dealt with the rest. The archimandrite will have a word or two to say upon his return, but . . .”
“Makrov will have his own troubles by then.” The thought alleviated a little of Viktor’s dourness. “He has them now, though he doesn’t realise.”
“Planning to put him in his place, are you?” Elzar nodded. “Then I doubt I’ve reason to worry.”
Viktor had known him too long not to recognise the note of reserve. Truth was, the surviving provosts wouldn’t forget. One false step, one whiff of questionable behaviour, and they’d have Elzar in their clutches – all in the name of vigilance, as far as anyone else was concerned.
“You shouldn’t have become involved,” said Viktor.
Elzar sniffed. “And if I hadn’t? Lilyana would still have fled here, which means Ebigail would still have sent her thugs. You might at least thank me for my trouble.”
“I thought I had.”
He grinned. “Wouldn’t hurt to do it again. You know what my memory’s like.”
Viktor offered a low bow. “Then, thank you High Proctor Ilnarov, for saving my life. And my apologies for putting you behind schedule.”
Elzar gave a dismissive wave. “This place will be up and running again by the end of the week, though I don’t know how I’ll manage it without Tailinn.”
Tailinn. Ebigail’s tame proctor. The passage of time had done little to dull the memory of her death. The first time he’d used his shadow to kill. The memory felt better than it should. “I’d say you’ll manage.”
“True enough. What about you? What will it take to scour the misery off your face?”
“A miracle.”
“Then I’ll get accustomed to that grimace. Miracles are in short supply . . . Unless we make them ourselves.”
“And how do I do that? Malachi wants me to solve everyone’s problems.” He plucked a scrap of cloth from Elzar’s desk and turned it over in his hands. King’s blue. Like the ribbon Calenne had given him the last time they’d spoken. A lifetime ago. “I’m a soldier, not a politician. Worse, I’ve been overconfident. Arrogant. It nearly cost me everything just yesterday . . . It may already have cost others more.”
“I see.” Elzar raised a bushy eyebrow. “What’s her name?”
There was no arguing with that stare. Viktor took another deep breath of the stale air. “Calenne. She rescued me from a mistake. Steadied me when everyone else begged me to fail. And in the end, she took up an unfamiliar sword and fought in a cause she hated, all because I asked her to do so. I have to know what’s become of her.”
“Then find her.”
Viktor set the scrap of cloth aside. “And if I do, my father will drag the Republic back into the mire. He’ll twist Malachi’s intent into his ow
n ascension. He’ll not be as bad as Ebigail, but nothing will improve.”
“So what?”
Viktor blinked his surprise. “I don’t follow.”
“How long have we known each other?”
“Too long.”
“Heh. And in all that time, I’ve never known you put desire before duty. Perhaps it’s time you started. Put aside the soldier’s burden for a time. Lumestra knows you’ve earned it.”
Elzar’s advice, the reverse of what Viktor had so recently given Josiri, coaxed forth a dry smile. “And what if my father makes trouble?”
“What if he doesn’t? And what manner of leader can Malachi be if he’s nothing without your support? What manner of support can you offer if your body’s here but your mind’s away to the south, turning over every rock and stone in search of this Calenne? I think the Republic will manage without you for a time.”
Ordinarily, Viktor would have agreed. Though the Privy Council had always divided along roughly similar lines, that same division – the possibility of shifting allegiances – had stopped anyone, even Ebigail, having things her own way. Only now the numbers had thinned almost to nothing was lasting change possible. They’d thin further the next day when Josiri headed south. And if the architect of that change was Hadon Akadra and not Malachi Reveque . . .
Viktor turned again to the filthy window, to the tangle of streets that led away to Dregmeet and the harbourside. Tressia had never felt more fragile.
Elzar had counselled him to put desire before duty – to stop being a soldier for a time. But that wasn’t the solution, was it? The soldier saw the situation plainly. His father was a clear threat to the Republic – whether he intended it so or not – while Calenne offered no certainties, only questions that might never be answered.
Viewed from that angle there was only one solution, though even the soldier in him was loathe to embrace it. But love, especially of a distant and uncertain kind, was as nothing compared to duty. Sometimes one had to be sacrificed for the other.
It had cost Apara most of the morning and a good deal of the skin on her wrists to get free of the manacles, but get free she had. Most of that she owed to a perfunctory search that had divested her of talons and daggers but had somehow missed the cotter pins stitched into the hem of her tunic.
Not that she’d gotten a deal further once the shackles were off, not with the cellar door barred and bolted. She’d been over every inch of the filthy stone, searching for a way into the mists of Otherworld. She’d found nothing. But freedom was like death – it often came sliver by sliver.
At times, she wept. At others, her eyes grew so dry they stung. Each time she closed them, the afterimage of her mother’s face loomed, the eyes alive with horrified accusation.
She’d killed her.
She’d not meant to, would never have believed herself capable of doing so. But then had come that cold, suffocating presence in her mind, like fog rolling in off the sea. And for one, brief moment, unanswerable desire had swallowed everything. The sword had come alive in her hand, and . . .
Nausea crowded Apara’s thoughts. She wasn’t a fool. She knew her mother deserved death. But to be the one who’d dealt the blow? Even if she’d been helpless to do aught else?
The scuff of heavy boots dragged her back to the dingy present. Her captor was returning.
Swallowing back the last of her nausea, Apara took the shackles between her hands, and stood to one side of the door. Metal scraped as bolts were withdrawn. Hinges creaked.
A spill of grey light cast a long shadow into the room.
One step. Two. Apara sprang.
The world slipped sideways. Black fog swallowed her thoughts.
When it receded, she was on her knees, trembling like a woman lost three days in a blizzard. She tried to rise. Part of her – the part still embroiled in the black fog – didn’t want to. Its contentment only quickened her nausea.
“You should have known that wouldn’t work.”
The gloom took familiar shape. Akadra. The part of Apara caught in darkness sang to see him. The rest trembled with fear.
“What’s your name, kernclaw?”
She fished around for a lie. Lucialle Trast. The cousin who ran the lower docks. That would do. Lucialle was a selfish spirit.
“Apara Rann,” she replied. The air was cold. Why was the air so cold?
It was only then she realised she’d given him her real name. The fogbound part of her laughed for joy. The rest screamed.
“And Ebigail Kiradin was your mother?”
“She said she was.” Again, the answer came without the decency of consent.
Akadra grunted. “You’re better off an orphan.”
“How . . . How are you doing this to me?”
Akadra crouched before her, his handsome, scarred face demonic in the long shadows. “Did you kill Kasamor?”
“I . . . I took the commission.” Apara swallowed, desperately trying to assert control over her wayward voice. “I didn’t kill him. I didn’t know he was my brother!”
She screamed those final words – the only ones she’d chosen.
Akadra ran a thoughtful hand across his chin and rose to his feet. “I offered your mother atonement. With her passing, I offer you the same. Do you take it?”
The black fog retreated. Breathing became easier. Thinking became easier. “Why should I?”
“To earn back your life. By rights, you should go to the gallows or the pyre. And from there, to the Raven’s keeping. I understand he’s most jealous of the souls bartered to his care.”
Apara closed her eyes, remembering Nikros’ last moments. Lost in a storm of black feathers. She hadn’t chosen the kernclaw’s path any more than she’d chosen to kill her mother. Seemed she hadn’t chosen much of late. Was she truly being offered a choice now? Or would the black fog coax her to whatever answer Akadra desired?
“What . . . what must I do?”
The river gushed away into the gloom, its inky surface ungleaming in the glow of the firestone lantern. The flickering stalactite-cast shadows gave the sense of breathless spirits watching and waiting wherever the light faded.
Like the shambles of Dregmeet and the hollow halls of Strazyn Abbey, Coventaj cavern was a shunned place. Unlike them, it was avoided even by the vranakin. It hadn’t always been so – at least, not judging by the lissom, nymph-like statues, whose stone glowed white in the lantern’s backwash. The remnant of an earlier age, remembered only in rumours of Tressia’s third, forgotten river. So legend told, its headwaters sprung from a land of giants, and vanished into Otherworld without ever reaching the sea.
Viktor had never been one for legends, and remained so at that moment. He cared only for privacy, and Coventaj offered that more than any other place within the city’s bounds.
The air changed, the cold caress of anticipation fading into crackling, searing chill. Mist curled across the mottled stone to weave a blurred, inconstant doorway, offering sight of Coventaj’s mirror beyond the mists. Viktor glimpsed a spectral host paying homage at an altar, a chalice brandished high, and then two figures filled the entranceway.
“He’s yours, as promised.”
Apara kneed her captive in the small of his back. Blinded by the hood tied over his head, he fell awkwardly against a stalagmite.
“I’ll have your head for this, gutter-scum!” the hooded man rasped.
Viktor allowed himself a moment of sympathy, even admiration. Courage should always be acknowledged, even when bluster more than valour.
“Were you seen?”
Apara’s lips tightened. “Please. The mists swirl thick about Swanholt. A child could have brought him.”
The prisoner stiffened. “Viktor? Viktor, is that you?”
Apara struck him behind the ear. He grunted and fell to his knees.
“I did what you asked.” She stared down at her feet, the picture of obedience. “Is my debt repaid?”
Such desperate yearning. Viktor supposed that
was always the way with predators, once teeth were at their throat.
“You’ve made a good start,” he said. “I’ll call for you again.”
Hope gleamed in her eyes. “How will you find me?”
He focused his thoughts on the tether that bound them and tugged. Not much. Not enough to cloud her will. Just enough to remind her of its existence. “I’ll find you.”
Apara shrank away at the words. But then her manner shifted. The cold, frightened shape at the back of Viktor’s mind grew warmer. “Then I want his rings.”
“You’re in no position to make demands.”
“The Parliament have marked him, and I want the bounty.” She looked up, fresh resolve in her grey eyes. “I’m more useful to you if I have their confidence.”
So his father had roused vranakin ire? He could leave the Crowmarket to its business, and that would be the end of the matter. No one need know. Except . . . He’d know. The memory of that weakness would stay with him far longer than the guilt.
“Take them and go.”
Apara crouched beside the prisoner. He fought, but he fought blind and groggy, and a second blow to the head stilled his last resistance. Hands gleaming with silver and gold, Apara retreated into Otherworld. Mist flooded the doorway and boiled to nothing, leaving the men alone.
Viktor unbound the captive’s hood and tore it free. Bleary eyes stared up from a haggard face.
“Viktor?” gasped Hadon Akadra. “So it is you. What is this?”
“This, Father, is our last conversation.”
His father staggered upright. Desperate eyes flickered about the shadows. “Where in Lumestra’s name are we?”
“Coventaj, where men once sought absolution for their sins.”
Eyes widened. “This place is forbidden.”
“Mother told me stories of how they’d bathe in the waters, lured by siren song. Those whom the spirits found worthy were permitted to leave. All others, they dragged beneath the surface, never to be seen again.” Viktor lowered himself onto a slab of rock. “Tell me. How do you suppose you’d fare?”
His father scowled. “Your mother filled your head with a lot of nonsense. It’s little wonder you turned out as you did.”