Cheers woke her; Jiri’s steadiness kept her from pitching herself from the saddle. A long line of soldiers at a double-quick march raced through the tall grasses, churning mud and slush as they drove toward the field of battle. She blinked, starting as she caught hold of the reins. The world seemed to spin for a moment, before settling on the scene in front of her: a sea of soldiers in blue, yelling with coarse voices as they caught sight of the battle standard Essily carried, mounted at her side. Her standard: solid blue, adorned with two centered golden stars.
Over a hundred thousand souls, pivoting from one battle into another. Across the field red and yellow flags arrayed themselves into makeshift formations to meet her charge. That had been the order of the day. Charge. Every unit commander, bound to rush toward where Sarine had promised her immunity from the kaas. All was lost unless they could reach those positions in time.
“Your Majesty, sir, it’s bloody fine to have you with us.”
Her vision blurred and re-formed. A colonel’s entourage, and half a dozen aides, falling into a steady gait beside her. Essily and the rest of Marquand’s elite trailed behind, where they joined the forced march toward the center of the field.
“My compliments, Brigade-Colonel,” she replied. “See to it your people are ready for action. All will be decided here, now. Today.”
MY CHILDREN.
The voice thundered through her skull. She only half heard it through the sounds of men and women preparing for battle around her.
“Yes, sir, Your Majesty,” the colonel replied. “The Seventy-First is ready. We saw action on the eastern flank. We’ll give ’em the Nameless’s own fire here in the west.”
THE MOMENT APPROACHES. READY YOURSELVES, TO BE WEIGHED AND JUDGED.
She made an effort to nod, and keep her place in the saddle. The voice had to be a phantom, some hallucination induced by her wound. She fought to stay centered. Now was no time to lose control. Some paces behind, Marquand was barking orders, divvying up the fullbinders into smaller squads placed to counter any vanguard skirmishers waiting before they could reach the line. Her plan had been simple enough, and she trusted those beneath her to see to the details. Everything hung on the plan’s execution in the next hours. Simple directives and maximum flexibility in achieving tactical goals was the answer, not grand strategy. Her part was all but finished, save for sitting atop Jiri’s back and looking the part.
“Your Majesty,” Essily said when the colonel and his retinue had withdrawn. “You need rest. Please. Let me take you to field command.”
“Not a step backward from the front,” she said. “Even if I collapse. You find a way to hold me in place.”
“Your Majesty …” Essily said.
“Not another word on it. Not where anyone could hear.”
READY YOURSELVES, FOR ASCENSION.
The voice rang like artillery in her ears; or perhaps it was only artillery, Regalle’s guns thundering overhead from behind. She ignored it. All they had to do was hold the line. Her chest had gone numb, and a chill seemed to have risen on the air. Good. Battle was hot, between the flash of powder and the thrill of the fight. Cold weather killed on long days’ marches through snow, but when battle came, winter was a welcome ally.
“Forward!”
The 71st’s colonel had a low, booming voice that knifed through the chaos of battle. Another regiment to their right heard the call and responded in kind, triggering a ripple of soldiers standing from where they’d knelt to fire, following their fellows toward the enemy line.
Smoke and powder stung the air, but she felt none of it. Jiri stood beside her banner, now firmly planted in the field where Sarine and Tigai had drawn their protective line. The soldiers here had pushed well beyond its limits, charging to threaten the enemy positions, as she’d ordered them to do. Every man knew the kaas-mages would affect them; every man knew not to rout, once the effects of their pernicious magic faded.
She was the rock. The stone wall, marking safety. Elsewhere, the 3rd Corps and Wexly’s Gandsmen held along Sarine’s exact line. Here, de Tourvalle’s 2nd Corps pushed forward to bait the enemy into her trap.
Another wave of musket fire met her soldiers as they charged, and this she felt in her gut, as though a dozen of those musket balls had been meant for her. Soldiers in blue fell while the rest retreated, broken and beaten back by the enemy. Every instinct told her their morale would break, that this section of the line was lost. But with kaas on the enemy side, her instincts were wrong. Her men would fall back, recover, and attack again, until the enemy committed enough of their kaas to concentrate on breaking the center.
“D’Arrent? What’s going on here?”
The voice pulled her back from where her soldiers were dying. A distant sound, though it came from immediately beside her. She heard it through a veil of fog. Sarine.
“My lady,” Essily said, moving between Sarine and where she sat atop Jiri’s back. “Her Majesty cannot be disturbed now.”
“What under the Nameless is going on here?” Sarine demanded. “I didn’t set wardings this far west. Those soldiers are being scattered by Yellow.”
Erris turned, though the world seemed to shift slowly, with heavy weight behind her eyes. Sarine was there, though she hadn’t been anywhere near the command lines before, with Lord Tigai beside her.
“I say again,” Essily said, “the Empress cannot be disturbed.”
A moment of silence, or incredulity, and then Sarine spoke. “She has these soldiers fighting in the wrong place. I can ride forward and move the wardings, but—”
“No,” Erris said. The sound almost surprised her, coming from her own lips.
“Your Majesty,” Essily said.
“No,” she repeated. “Leave the … wardings where they are.”
“But the kaas-mages,” Sarine said. “Those soldiers will run. They’ll be killed!”
“Some will,” she said.
“Why? Why would you not give them a chance to fight?”
“We have to show him weakness,” she said. “Tempt him to concentrate, to move. Then we attack. We can … order them to—”
The world blurred, and the ground moved, rushing toward her as though the earth itself had tethered Body.
“Why didn’t you tell me she was wounded?” Sarine demanded. Cold air bit Erris’s skin, exposed as her coat had been torn open, her shirts and undergarments parted to reveal her naked chest.
“No,” Erris said. “Have to stay mounted. Fetch Jiri.”
Sarine placed hands below her breastbone, where the saber had cut deepest. She felt the rush of Body and Life, stronger than she’d ever held a tether on her own. Blood drenched Sarine’s hands and lower arms. So much blood. They should fetch a Life binder; Sarine was in no condition to administer healing, if she herself was covered in so much blood.
Booms and musket fire sounded around her. Familiar sounds. By now Marquand would be leading his fullbinder elite to attack the kaas-mages. Her soldiers would have fallen back to Sarine’s Green, recovered from the Yellow in time to meet the enemy at the height of his hubris. They’d be caught in her trap, and victory would follow. She’d beaten him. Paendurion. She’d finally found the way.
“She’s dying,” Sarine said. “You bloody let her ride around leaking half her blood into her underclothes. Gods damn it. I need her. I need her strength, and you let her bloody kill herself!”
THE RECKONING IS UPON US.
Her hallucination came again, but it faded in with the rest of their arguing. Peace and warmth came for her, finally, after so much numbness and cold. A hundred golden lights shone in the distance—Need vessels, beckoning her to join with them. She felt them like a miniature network of leylines, all emanating from her.
MY CHILDREN. BY YOUR LINES, BE JUDGED. COME TO MY SANCTUM, IF YOU ARE WORTHY.
Loyalty washed over her like a blanket, sheltering her from the cold, and she embraced them, reaching out to trace a pattern that limned every land under her control. New Sa
rresant, the city and the state that bore its name, reaching from the northern colonies all the way to the south, through l’Euillard, Villecours, Lorrine. The Gand colonies, from Devonshire to Covendon. Old Sarresant, now bound to her through alliance, but subject to her military power.
Eyes seemed to be watching her as she traced the lines of loyalty, weighing her against another set, this time drawn from her enemies. Thellan, the old world and the new. The motherland of Gand, its islands across the sea. Sardia in the east, such as remained of its armies. The momentum was hers; she’d won here, today, and broken the strength of three nations. A march to Al Adiz, a blockade around Gand, and she might be well on her way to uniting every people under her throne, or at least enforcing peace through the strength of discipline and valor. The eyes watching her seemed to agree, but with a wistful sadness. She was not a conqueror yet. She would fall short of ascension, in spite of all her victories.
“There might be a way,” Sarine was saying. “The Gods’ Seat—it healed Yuli, when we traveled there. It’s far from certain, but we have to try something.”
Tigai argued something in his strange tongue, and Sarine said something else in reply.
It didn’t matter. Whatever the strange voice wanted, she knew in her heart she’d beaten Paendurion, grown strong enough to keep her people safe. If death came for her, she could meet it with pride. A soldier’s duty. The greatest price, one she’d asked of too many men and women to be afraid to pay it herself.
“We have to try,” Sarine said. “Gather close.”
Blackness enveloped her, and Sarine’s touch radiated a final warmth, before she slipped into darkness.
79
SARINE
The Infinite Plane
Traveling to the Gods’ Seat
This time instinct guided the way.
The blue sparks crackled and surged around her, making columns of familiar energy that seemed to draw her inward, toward the towering column of light. There was more to this place than the light; she was sure of it, now, seeing it without the Veil’s emotions clawing at her thoughts. But she was here for a reason, and felt the burden of two spheres traveling with her as they approached the light.
Erris d’Arrent. A flickering candle. The woman who had declared herself Empress. The woman who had saved New Sarresant. A woman she needed, at her side, as a champion.
Yanjin Tigai, who had insisted he come with her, burning strong where d’Arrent was dim. As strange a man as she’d ever met—but he, too, had power. He, too, she needed to bond, if she meant to stand against the shadow.
Both flew alongside her as they moved. Both strong enough to fight, if she could reach the Seat in time.
Ceiling and floor warped as they drew closer. There was meaning here, shape and purpose in every surging spark. She could see echoes of forms: hillsides covered in snow, cities lit in the night, men and women waking to continue the patterns that shaped their lives. The weight of it fell on her now, of finding a way to defeat her enemy, the one who threatened to distort and bend the beauty implied behind the sparks. And it started with her champions. What little she’d gleaned from the Veil’s journal made that much clear: champions, to be chosen from among those deemed worthy to reach the Seat. And why not more than three, if more had proved themselves? She had Yuli already—and Reyne d’Agarre, little as the thought gave her any comfort—and more would come.
The white cords dangled from the spire, and again instinct plotted the way through. She contorted herself like a dancer, dodging and weaving between them until the central column flooded her vision, and she reached out, brushing formless fingertips against the light.
Air rushed into her lungs, and she stepped forward onto smooth, polished stone.
“Wind spirits,” Tigai said, seeming to catch his breath, doubling over to hold his knees where he stood. “What would have happened, had you struck one of those cords?”
“You could see the way here?” she asked. Neither Yuli nor Lin had said as much, before.
“Of bloody course I could. Whatever that was, it wasn’t bloody natural.”
“How is this possible?” d’Arrent asked, staring at her, pressing gloved hands against the front of her coat. The High Commander—no, the Empress—was standing, though she’d lain a hairsbreadth from dead, back on the battlefield.
“Thank the Gods,” Sarine said. “Last time we came here, it healed Yuli. I’d hoped it would do the same for you.”
D’Arrent unfastened her coat’s buttons, pulling it open to reveal a pristine white shirt underneath, as though it had been freshly tailored and fitted to her form.
“Yuli is here?” Tigai asked.
“Yes,” she said. “And I need both of you to come with me. I did something to bond with her, at the heart of this place. I need to see if we can repeat it.”
Already it was different, being here again. She could sense the energy in the central chamber, as though it had grown stronger since she’d left. It was as though the Veil had been damping her connection to it, keeping her from an affinity that resonated between her and the stone. She could sense Yuli, somewhere in the direction of the living quarters, where a room had been made for her from nothing. She could sense Reyne d’Agarre, in his library. She sensed the shadow creature—the watcher, lingering in the central chamber with …
Two newcomers.
She felt their forms the same way she felt Tigai and Erris; all four were here, but distant, as though they’d been shaded without being sketched, drawn on paper without framing lines to set boundaries for their shapes.
She rounded the hallways toward the central chamber with rising determination. Bonding. That had to be the difference; she’d bonded Yuli herself, and Reyne had been bonded by the Veil. Whoever else was here, they hadn’t been chosen in the same way. More secrets to learn, and never enough time.
The smooth stone hallways gave way to the massive central chamber, still melted to slag from the Veil’s interference in Yuli’s bonding. Ridges and pits decorated the floor and ceiling, leaving the column of light showing through where the stone was melted away. Two men stood around the beam, each gazing up at it. Two men she knew.
“Arak’Jur,” she said. The tribesman, the one she’d traveled with to Ka’Ana’Tyat. The other was clearer in her memory. “Paendurion.”
Her words seemed to startle them both, though Paendurion recovered quickly, rounding on her with an easy confidence.
“Sarine, you’ve returned,” he began, then froze as quickly as he’d turned. “Who is with you?”
“How is it you’ve come to be here?” she asked, but d’Arrent stepped forward, cutting short any reply.
“Paendurion,” d’Arrent said. “This is him.”
A moment of recognition passed between them. “Erris d’Arrent,” Paendurion said. “No. It can’t be. I won. This isn’t possible.”
“I brought them here,” Sarine said. “D’Arrent, and Lord Tigai. But how did—?”
“Liar,” d’Arrent snapped at Paendurion, her voice full of cold rage. “I defeated you. Orstead is mine. Your Sardians are being routed as we speak, and the Thellan lines are advancing into a trap.”
“It never mattered,” Paendurion said. “So long as I held more lands than you at the moment of ascension, I would rise, and here I stand. But you cannot be here.” He looked to Sarine. “She cannot be here.”
“Monster,” d’Arrent snapped, bringing the chamber to a cold silence. “You are responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocents, and I mean to see you face justice for every drop of New Sarresant blood.”
“You fool,” Paendurion said. “I am responsible for the deaths of millions of innocents—thousands of millions. And I will bear the weight of thousands more, if it keeps the world from shadow. You understand nothing. I will not be denied the right of my ascension. I have won. I am to be champion. By the Holy Veil, the mantle is mine again.”
“The Veil is dead,” Sarine said. “But I’ve come to know my place. I b
onded Yuli already. I can bond the rest of you, if you’ll accept—”
“No!” Paendurion roared. “Even you—even the Veil. All of you are blind. The old ways have preserved peace between Life and Death, between Light and Shadow. It is Three. Three against Three, to settle the right of the Soul.”
“I’ll serve in no capacity with that creature,” d’Arrent said. “If he will not submit to arrest, then I will kill him where he stands.”
By now Yuli and Reyne had appeared in the opposite hallway. Yuli’s face brightened, seeing Tigai, where Reyne wore a look equal parts confusion and surprise.
“Lord Tigai,” Yuli said, while Reyne said, “D’Arrent? The High Commander? Sarine … and Paendurion?”
“What did you mean?” Sarine asked Paendurion. “Why only three champions? And what are the old ways?”
“There must be three, and I am the only fit champion of Order,” Paendurion said. “You must see reason. Reyne and this Yuli are bonded already; I must be the third. To do otherwise is to risk ruin.”
Sarine glanced back to d’Arrent, who looked as though she might draw a pistol, or start flinging Entropy at Paendurion, while most of the others stood silently, edging away from the pair. Only Arak’Jur spoke, standing near the light at the center of the room.
“I have won the mantle of the spirits,” the tribesman said. “They named me champion already. Is it not done?”
“An old magic,” Paendurion said. “But each line can only carry its chosen to the Soul. It falls to the Veil to bond them, if they are worthy. And it is always three.”
“Paendurion is right,” Reyne said. “The Codex always speaks of three. Never more. I know some measure of its secrets. If—”
“At best you have an inkling,” Paendurion interrupted. “All of you. We engineered it that way. We suppressed knowledge of ascension. We tore apart the leylines, we sundered every nation and tribe. We blinded the spirits, culling their memories until nothing but husks remained. We drove the kaas mad with Axerian’s riddles. We were the Three. Me, Axerian, Ad-Shi. Now two of us are dead, and I alone know what it means to face the shadow. Power may rest with the Veil—or with Sarine, if she is to be the Veil’s heir. But the knowledge is mine.” He turned to Sarine. “Banish the rest of these pretenders. Bond me, and we will face the Regnant together. Already the Divide crumbles, now that the moment of ascension has arrived. Time is precious. We have weeks, at best, before the enemy’s champions cross into our lands.”
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