by Jaine Fenn
He continued to work fitfully on the serum, kept fresh in its stone jar in the lakewater pool in the launderers’ washroom. He had investigated ways of propagating it in blood, and last week had dosed two of his guards: stalwart Dalent and Naldak, a reformed criminal turned loyal servant. Both had become ill, then recovered, but showed no other change. He was still missing something.
He showed Taklew in and closed the study door behind him. “Is it Ereket?” he asked.
“Has she worsened?”
“She is stable, Holiness. But I have news from the umbral.” Sadakh wondered if the Shenese boy was finally within his grasp, but Taklew’s next words dispelled his hopes. “There is a problem at the camp.”
“What sort of problem?” The umbral “camp” was just a single tent in the caliarch’s forests, but was a vital link in Sadakh’s lines of communication.
“Abandoned, apparently. The next watcher on the rota found it deserted and disturbed when he went to take his place, and reported back to the launderers’ house.” Aside from specific uses, such as when Ereket and Taklew made it their base to go into the skyland, the camp was manned by a string of lone hirelings.
“What did he think happened?”
“He had no idea. Obviously he knows only what he is told, to go wait there for messages or visitors. Shall I investigate?”
“Yes, but take Klimen. Bring back a full report, but don’t stay any longer than you need to.”
Taklew and Klimen managed the journey to the umbral and back in under four days. Such efficient, loyal servants were worth two dozen hired men. It had occurred to Sadakh that the prince’s earlier reference to skykin bodies most likely came from having interrogated, or perhaps just bribed, one of his distant hirelings. They had no idea who their ultimate employer was, but Mekteph could put things together and draw his own conclusions.
His trusted guards reported that the camp had indeed been wrecked. The tent had been slashed, the fire-pit stamped on, and everything of value taken, although given how little of value there had been, robbery was an unlikely motive. There was no blood or other proof weapons had been drawn. Klimen, who had some tracking ability, said he suspected the watcher on duty had run off, possibly at the approach of superior forces. Whose forces was unprovable, but there was only one candidate. Sadakh might be safe while he remained on the priory isle, but the prince was flexing his muscles.
He would need to give more thought to protecting his people, and his work.
The next week, just before the festival of Between, he received the news he had been dreading. His secretary brought the ill tidings, daring to disturb him while he meditated alone. Seeing Viteph’s pale face and sombre expression, Sadakh said, “Is it the caliarch?”
His secretary bowed his head. “I am sorry, but yes. His Majesty joined his ancestors last night, as he slept.”
“Thank you for telling me.”
We knew this day would come.
In his heart, he had. But he was far from ready.
CHAPTER 30
“I’m going to the Between-eve reception.”
Rhia stared at her brother. “The what? Oh, at the palace.” That explained the velvet and brocade. “Are you sure?” Etyan had spent most of the last three days sleeping, eating or playing with the cats. This was the first time he had come into her study since his return.
“Yes. I need to get back into my old life.”
“Right. Yes. If that’s what you want to do…”
“I can’t just sit around in the dark moping, can I?”
It wasn’t that dark in the house, but perhaps to eyes used to skyland glare it might seem so. “It’s good that you want to get out. And I appreciate you telling me where you’re going.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not planning on getting in trouble.” And he was off, with a grin that looked a little forced.
Kerne was looking at her, and she raised an eyebrow to show that he could get back to work. But as he bent over the celestial model she saw how his brow was sheened with sweat. “Are you all right?”
“I’m a little tired.”
Probably something of an understatement considering how hard he was working. “You can go as soon as you’ve fitted that last cog. Have the rest of the day off.” She estimated they were a week to ten days away from getting the model working in its reduced version; she had cannibalised the cogs from the outer Strays to concentrate on fixing the motions of the world and the Maiden.
“Thank you m’lady.”
If their work allowed, she’d give the boy more time off during Between which was, as Etyan had just reminded her, almost upon them.
Growing up, Rhia had loved the “free days” of Between as much as any youngster; the changing weather, the various festivities, the sense of a new and better year coming soon. But once she grew up her affection for it diminished, for two reasons.
Firstly, the whole arrangement offended her sense of symmetry. Ten months of thirty days each made an obvious pattern, but the two floating weeks of Between at the end of each year just didn’t fit; to make it worse, some years it wasn’t two weeks but two weeks and a day. When she’d asked Father why he said it was “to keep the years in line”, which had just prompted more questions.
Between was also the season of politics, when she could not escape the obligations of her position. The purely social receptions, balls, dinners and entertainments were avoidable but some events required her to at least show her face, to see and be seen. A lot of House business was done during Between; she quashed the thought that she would once have got an inside track on such dealings through Alharet.
And there was the Grand Council, of course. That was always trying.
But when Between ended it was the new year, and her real trial would start.
She had done what research she could on the final judge. Marin Tethorn was a lesser master in the apothecaries guild, a fussy and pious man by all accounts; he would be hard to win over spiritually, but hopefully had the intellect to grasp the truth.
If memory served, the reception Etyan was attending went on into the evening; he had promised to behave but might still stay out late, after so long without the social contact he thrived on. But as she was eating supper at her desk Markave’s voice drifted up the stairwell asking if his lordship required anything; Etyan’s reply was inaudible. She resisted the urge to rush out of her study and ask how his visit to the palace had gone.
The next morning she ate in the dining room, hoping he would join her for breakfast. He did, initially loading his plate and tucking in, then giving her a look that said he was waiting for her to challenge him, to tell him off. Which she would not. But she did smile over her cup, and ask, “How was the reception?”
“Awful.” He put his elbows on the table, and parked his chin on his hands; his carefully neutral expression dissolved into dismay.
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.” She’d had concerns at the time, but with so many problems of her own she had lacked the energy to worry on her brother’s behalf. “In what way?”
“Everyone was so horrible. Even people I thought were my friends.”
“Horrible in what way?”
“They acted like I wasn’t there, shutting me out of conversations, or ignoring me when I spoke to them. Then as soon as I gave up and turned away, they giggled.”
“Giggled. What a bunch of children! Not worth worrying about, I’d say.”
“You weren’t there!”
“Sorry: I know how it hurts to be laughed at, I really do.” Or at least she could remember when it had bothered her.
“It wasn’t just giggling. Whispers too.”
“Whispers about what?” She had an unpleasant inkling.
“I didn’t always catch them. Though Warine Escar, when I turned away from him after he looked over my head, he didn’t just mutter, no, he started explaining loudly how some skykin had got into the city and stolen Etyan Harlyn’s old unfashionable clothes and somehow persuaded the palace sta
ff to let him in. And everyone laughed. I mean everyone.”
“They were just being mean, mocking you for your difference because they’re all the same. Shallow idiots, obsessed with how to wear their hair and the latest dance steps and court gossip.” As Etyan himself had been before he left.
“Maybe. But they’re also my friends! Or I thought they were.”
“It’s the first time you’ve been back to court. Just act as though you’re not bothered what they think. They’ll get bored, and then you’ll find out who your real friends are.”
“It’s not that simple, Ree. Some of what they said behind my back… it wasn’t just bitching about my stupid out-of-fashion clothes and my stupid funny-looking skin.”
“Oh. Right.”
“Yes, you know what I mean, don’t you? Talking about what happened two years ago. Calling me… I won’t repeat it.”
She could guess. “I wish your return to court hadn’t gone like that but I’m afraid that given how you left, and given how long you’ve been away, you couldn’t really expect to step straight back into your old life, could you?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I had to try.”
“I understand. So keep trying.”
“I suppose. It’s not like I’ve got anywhere else to go. I thought I’d made a home with her, Ree, just the two of us.”
“I know. I’m sorry it didn’t work out with Dej.” It was never going to, she didn’t add.
“Don’t say her name.”
“All right. As you say, she’s gone now.” Back to her own people presumably, or what was left of them. Wherever the young skykin rebel was, Rhia had no doubt she’d cope; she was a born survivor.
“But she’s still with me, here.” He sat back and thumped his chest. “She always will be.”
Rhia tried not to smile at the melodramatic gesture. “I know it feels like that now, but it won’t always.”
“You don’t know what this feels like!”
“Actually I do. I have been in love, Etyan. I’ve been hurt like you have.”
“What? Oh, that boy when you were fifteen or so, what was his name?”
“Polain.” There had been several months, half a lifetime ago, when saying his name had hurt like Etyan was hurting.
“That wasn’t the same. Turned out he didn’t love you.”
Rhia found her brother’s dismissive tone unexpectedly cutting. “No, but I thought he did. And I would have done anything for him, at the time.” As she had, stupidly: she had secretly burnt her own face to avoid being sent away from her “true love” and married off to a Zekti prince, forcing the prince’s sister to come to Zekt to marry the duke instead. That stupid childish gesture, made in passionate ignorance, had changed the world, and not for the better.
“More fool you.” Then Etyan grimaced, lowered his head and muttered, “Sorry.” Then louder, “I guess I’ll get used to being alone.”
“We’ve got each other, Etyan. That hasn’t changed.”
He managed a half smile. “I suppose not.”
She decided to risk broaching the subject they needed to discuss. There was never going to be a good time, and at least she had his full attention. “And we won’t always be alone. We can’t be, if we want our House to continue.”
“You’re talking about marriage, aren’t you?”
“I am. I have tried to find a husband but… there haven’t been any takers. But you’re the head of the House.”
“I can’t think about that now.”
“We must. If things don’t go well at my trial, and I… House Harlyn might end up, well, just being you.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I have to consider it. Do you want our line to end? We must plan for the worst.”
He lowered his head again. “It’s all the worst, now.”
“Things are bad, yes, but we’ll deal with them. Together.” She hoped his self-absorption was enough to stop him picking up how hollow her words of encouragement sounded.
“Can we talk about this later?”
They did not have much “later” left. But what choice did she have? “All right.”
CHAPTER 31
Dej found herself analysing her body as she strode across the undulating lowlands, looking for signs she hadn’t noticed before. She didn’t feel any, at first.
Etyan’s sister had been desperate for him to produce an heir. Perhaps she’d take his brat off her hands. But Etyan and Rhia and all those complications were half a world away. And they could stay there. She was pleased, in passing, at how little emotion thinking of Etyan stirred in her now. She had extricated herself from him.
Except for this thing he’d left inside her.
Which she would deal with in due course.
This landscape was different again here. Gentle hills rolled and flowed, covered in moss-grass, grazed by assorted herd beasties and with occasional expanses of tree-type growths, the skyland equivalent of forests, forming sometimes-impenetrable thickets. These were a pain, often forcing her to detour east or west. One particular forest turned out not to be solid; lines of delicate violet bush-trees extended out across the grassland in a lacey network, their tops draped in red-gold gossamer threads.
Spotting a thread-shrouded gap she almost darted through it, only alerted by her animus at the last moment. As she veered away something chittered overhead.
While she travelled she gathered burnable stuff from the forest edges to build a nightly fire. This gave welcome warmth and was enough to discourage passing predators, though without her redolent cloak she became a snack for any small biting critters unafraid of fire and able to get through her scaly skin.
As the days passed her belly began to swell and her back and legs to ache, though overall she felt well, energised, as healthy as she ever had, if permanently hungry.
It had become second nature to extend her consciousness into her surroundings, so her first clue she’d reached her destination was the gap in her sensory picture of the landscape. The gap grew, and the sense of it went from an absence to a new type of terrain, slippery and diffuse. The air began to smell odd and the wind, which had been no more than a breeze, sharpened and chilled. By the time she heard the distant swoosh and crash, she’d worked out what this was. She hurried up the next rise.
Ahead of her the land was gone, replaced by a flat plain of blue-green not-land. She stood at the top of a cliff; the ground fell away sharply to a tumble of rocks below. Dej’s eye was caught by the intersection of land and sea; the sea was not flat after all, but an undulating surface, and where the undulations hit the bottom of the cliff they broke up over the rocks in spumes of white foam. She watched, fascinated, finding the name for this effect – waves – from half-forgotten geography lessons. The waves formed and died in inexplicable, mesmerising patterns, some flopping over then draining away at once, others exploding upwards in blinding sprays of white with a hollow crack; some of the spray reached her, in attenuated form, as a sour taste on a damp wind.
She sat on her pack and watched the waves while the day grew old. They were beautiful, primal, as gloriously uncaring as the Sun or the rocks, yet shockingly dramatic. When her stomach rumbled she looked around. The moss-grass here was pale blue-grey and grew close to the rocky ground in extensive patches, speckled with clusters of cream-coloured bells. These looked surprisingly like shadowland flowers, and though they smelled like the soap used in the crèche laundry her animus indicated she could eat them, so she did. They didn’t taste soapy: they tasted of nothing at all, and stuck to her tongue and the roof of her mouth, but they were surprisingly filling. Dej curled up in her blanket on the top of the cliff and went to sleep to the sound of the waves, sated and at peace.
The next day her mood darkened. So, she had reached the edge of the world – or at least as far as she could go. Now what? The pull of the north hadn’t diminished or changed. If something was drawing her, it was out of reach beyond that great mass of water.
She’d gone to a
lot of effort to get this far, so she may as well stay by the sea, at least until the thing inside her got too big to ignore. But she needed shelter and water. Were there caves in the cliffs below? Perhaps, but she couldn’t risk climbing down. No pools or streams here either. From the clifftop, she could see where land met sea – the coast – as a hazy line stretching away to the east; more cliffs that way, at least as high as this one but more barren and forbidding. To the west she could see only water, so presumably the coast was lower there, and curved back. After eating as many of the bell-flowers as she could stomach she set off westwards.
As she’d thought, the coast swept inwards in a wide arc; on the far side, half hidden in haze, she made out more low hills. Between the two hilly areas the land was flat, with glints of standing water. The marshland went down to the edge of the sea and extended as far as she could see inland. If she wanted to carry on in this direction her only choice was to cut back in.
She kept all her senses trained on the marshlands as she made her way down the shallow slope. They were impassable near the sea, a maze of deep pools and treacherous bogs, but as she followed them inland the land began to dry out. Perhaps tomorrow she could risk a crossing.
Around noon the next day she saw taller plants ahead, slender bushes twice her height, with fans of rustling leaves – actual leaves – in shades of lavender and smoky purple. The leaf-fans were the size of two hands together and opened and closed disconcertingly, sometimes when the wind touched them, sometimes for no obvious reason. The bushes were far enough apart to walk between and the ground underneath was firm if damp. The air smelled sweet at first, but after a while walking under the hand-trees the sweetness became cloying, like rotting peaches. Her uneasiness grew the farther she went into the forest. Should she turn back? No, it was too much effort; she’d come this far.
Lethargy settled on her. The rustling of the leaf fans beat out a complex rhythm. Quite fascinating. Mesmeric, even.