by David Estes
What am I going to do exactly? Rhea wondered to herself. Her reflection caught her eye. As she looked at herself—the perfect shape of her chin, the periwinkle color of her eyes, the golden gloss of her hair; all the features she had once coveted, now dwarfed by the ragged scars—she felt a chill run through her, though it was not cold. I’m going to be their eldest sister. That’s all.
There was another knock. The twins are here already? She would have to compliment the servant woman on her efficiency. “Please come in,” she said.
Instead, it was Ennis who popped his head in.
Rhea said, “Get out.”
“I am here on official business, I swear it,” Ennis said.
“What business?”
Ennis took it as an invitation to enter and close the door, though it was not. “Rhea, can I speak with you?”
“Bern Gentry, right?” Rhea said. “You will address me as Your Highness or I shall see you rot in the dungeons.” Her heart broke just a little when Ennis flinched at her tone. It couldn’t be helped. Coddling him could only lead to a disaster for them both.
Ennis stuck his bearded chin out. “Very well, Your Highness. There is someone here to see you. A man named Darkspell, do you know the name?”
“Yes,” Rhea breathed. The streams had been full of news of the monsters Lord Griswold had unleashed at Castle Hill. Though they’d eventually been defeated by a much larger force led by Rhea’s cousin, Annise Gäric, the monsters had killed hundreds of soldiers. It was rumored to be the royal potionmaster, Darkspell, who had brewed the concoction that created the monsters from average men. Her heart pounded. “I know of him.”
“May I speak freely?” Ennis asked.
“If you must,” Rhea replied tiredly, still processing the news. What could Darkspell possibly expect by showing up on the enemy’s doorstep? There was only one answer.
“Turn him away without speaking to him,” Ennis said, taking a step forward. “Or have him imprisoned. This man is dangerous.”
“Like the Summoner?”
“Yes, exactly, he will only bring about destruct—”
“I think you mean victory. If not for the Summoner, who you advised me to ignore, we would already be destroyed and the northerners would be swarming across our kingdom like cockroaches. Now leave me, and don’t return.”
“Your Highness, please—”
“Go!”
Ennis shut his mouth, turned, and left. Rhea stood, smoothed out the wrinkles in her dress, and prepared herself for court. She would listen to what the talented potionmaster had to say. He was another weapon at her disposal, and she wouldn’t waste him.
For a moment, the hole in her chest was filled once more.
Her hands stroked her belly, and then she slipped from the room.
Darkspell looked exactly as Rhea expected him to, a fact that pleased her greatly. He was a hunched, wizened man with feet that turned inward as he walked. He wore a navy robe that covered all but his feet and hands. His hair was a ring of black surrounding a bald, spotted head. As he approached, he looked up at her on the throne, one of his eyes falling open more than the other, which was locked in a permanent squint.
If I passed him on the street, I would think him a beggar, Rhea thought.
He stopped before her, continuing to meet her stare. “I am Darkspell,” he said.
She didn’t bother to reprimand him for his lack of formalities. There was no point—until this moment, he had served the kings of the north.
“How do I know you are who you claim?” Rhea asked. It was a necessary question, though she already believed he was who he said he was.
“A demonstration might be of help,” he said. As he began to reach inside his robe, the Fury stepped forward, her hand on the hilt of her blade. Bandages were stuck to her damaged face, lines of blood weeping through. The other two new Furies were conducting other furia business throughout Knight’s End, but Rhea always required at least one to be present in court.
“It’s fine,” Rhea said. “Be on your guard, but allow him his demonstration.” The Fury nodded and took a step back. Her hand, however, remained on her weapon, at the ready.
Darkspell extracted a small vial of amber liquid from a hidden pocket, pulled out the cork stopper, and sniffed. “Yes,” he said. “This will do.”
“What is it?” Rhea asked, curious. Was she about to see a monster created from a human?
“You shall see. May I use one of your guardsmen as a volunteer?”
Rhea knew she could easily request he perform his demonstration on a servant, but she wanted to see what it would do to a true soldier. “Will it harm him?”
“Not exactly,” he said. “He will not die.”
Not the most comforting thought. She scanned her line of guardsmen, all of whom stared straight ahead, ignoring her gaze. All except one of them. “Bern Gentry,” she said. “Come forward.” Sometimes even those we love need to be punished.
Ennis’s jaw twitched as he moved out of line, approaching the potionmaster, but he didn’t protest. “Your Highness,” he said. “How may I serve?”
“Drink the elixir,” she said.
“Just a drop will do,” Darkspell said. “Stick out your tongue.”
Ennis’s eyes never left Rhea’s as he obeyed. She hoped everyone else was so focused on the demonstration that they didn’t notice his insolence.
Darkspell tipped the vial forward and a single drop oozed out, splashing onto Ennis’s tongue. A spout of steam wafted up and he sucked in his breath. “It burns,” he said.
“Yes,” Darkspell said, sounding pleased.
“How long will it take to work—”
Ennis’s eyes rolled back, his body shuddered, and he collapsed in a heap on the floor, hitting his head. Luckily he was wearing a helmet. As Rhea watched, fascinated, his joints locked up and his limbs stuck out as straight as wooden planks. His eyes rolled forward, unblinking, unmoving, staring at nothing. His jaw looked frozen, jutting out like a rock from a shoreline.
A shiver of fear rippled through Rhea. He looked…dead. “He’s not…”
“No,” Darkspell confirmed, guessing the end of her question. “This potion is called Paralyze. Useful in a pinch, particularly for disobedient servants or prisoners.”
“How long will the effect last?”
“A day perhaps. Maybe less given the size of our subject.”
“And if you’d given him more?”
“Two drops would’ve put him down for a fortnight,” he said. “Three drops and the effect is permanent.”
Wrath, Rhea thought. If the old man’s hand had flinched, Ennis might be paralyzed for life. But it hadn’t, the aging potionmaster’s hand as steady as that of a man half his years.
“I hear you can create monsters,” Rhea said, getting right to the point.
“Sadly, I cannot,” Darkspell said, sounding like a man in mourning. “I’ve used up the raw materials and obtaining more would require a trip north, one with no guarantee of success.”
Disappointment flooded through Rhea, followed swiftly by anger. “Then why have you wasted my time?” she snapped.
“I might be able to offer you another potion, one that could help you win the war with the east.”
Rhea tamped down the flash of excitement she felt. “Why should I trust you? You’ve abandoned your loyalties to the north.”
The man smiled, and Rhea noticed he was missing several teeth. “Queen Rhea Loren, I have no loyalties. All I wish is to be provided the resources to create new potions. If that helps you reach your goals, so be it.”
Good enough for me, Rhea thought. “What potion do you offer?”
“A plague of sorts,” he said cryptically.
Rhea frowned. It wasn’t what she’d expected him to say. “The south already has a plague, and it’s brought them nothing but misery. Plagues are unpredictable and hard to control.”
“Not this one.”
“How can you be so certain?”
/> “Because it will only kill Orians.”
Rhea licked her lips. Yes, she thought. This is just what I’ve been waiting for. “What do you need to get started?”
“I have a sample I’ve been developing. It should be finished soon. Then I will need an Orian to test it on.”
Rhea immediately thought of Gwendolyn Storm, the fatemarked Orian warrior in the dungeons. “I think I can arrange that,” she said, her lips curling wickedly.
Eleven
The Western Kingdom, Knight’s End
Gareth Ironclad
He finally had a way out that didn’t involve suicide.
Then why am I so reluctant to take it? Gareth wondered. He knew the answer, though it was a blow to his pride to admit it: Because I’m a damn coward.
It was true—he was scared to face his brother, scared to face his people. He was, after all, a failed Shield. He’d failed his other brother, Guy, who’d been killed on his watch. But now, things had changed. Ennis Loren—who was decidedly not dead, like everyone thought—had offered him a chance to redeem himself. If he helped Gareth escape, maybe he could still protect the east, be the Shield he was born to be.
In the end, he’d consented to Ennis’s proposition, on only one condition: Ennis had to help Gwendolyn Storm escape, too.
At first Ennis had balked—“What you ask is impossible!”—but when pressed, he’d relented. They would all flee the west together.
Only one problem: Ennis had disappeared since their conversation. Different guards kept appearing in his tower cell, changing shifts. Come on come on come on…where are you?
Gareth sat still, staring at the wall, willing Ennis to return. If the brightening light around the edge of his boarded-up window was any indication, dawn was fast approaching. Soon he would be hauled from this room and forced to travel east, where he would be ransomed for Beorn Stonesledge. It would be a mighty blow to his people, indeed, to lose their last skinmarked, their mightiest warrior to boot.
I will take my own life before I will allow that to happen, Gareth pledged.
The moment the thought took hold in his mind, the door opened and Rhea appeared. She wore a long white dress with sleeves to her wrists, and a smug expression.
“Where’s my usual guardsman?” Gareth asked without greeting. “Bern Gentry.”
Rhea blinked. “He’s presently indisposed, not that it’s any of your concern. Why do you ask?”
Gareth chewed his lip. What was that supposed to mean—indisposed? “He’s not as ugly as the rest of the lot,” Gareth said. “I was hoping he would accompany us to the east.”
There was something behind Rhea’s expression—curiosity perhaps—but she cloaked it well. “Us? You are going east. I am the queen, my place is here with my people, ruling, preparing.”
Gareth was surprised, though perhaps he shouldn’t have been. “Preparing for what?”
“For war, of course. Now I bid you Wrathspeed. When next we meet, may it be with your head on a spike.” With that lovely farewell, she spun on her heel and departed. Three furia replaced her, marching in, their red cloaks swirling about them. One was clearly the leader, probably a member of the Three, standing in the center. Her face was scarred, recently it appeared, with a ragged W, similar to Rhea’s.
“I see your master has branded you,” Gareth said.
“Don’t. Speak,” the Fury said.
“Sorry, it’s a habit of mine I’ve never been able to break.”
The Fury glared at him, but he didn’t look away. He knew she was all threats and no follow through, if only because he was too valuable to be harmed. “Take him,” she said.
Her two furia—cold-faced girls who’d seen no more than twenty name days—each grabbed one of his elbows and roughly dragged him to the door.
He considered his options, which were few. Throw myself down the steps and hope I suffer a mortal head injury? Wait until I’m outside and then “accidentally” get kicked in the face by a horse? He searched his captors for weapons, but didn’t see any, unless they were well hidden.
He chose another option: bide his time. A chance would come later, of that he was certain. And anyway, perhaps Ennis—he’s currently indisposed—had a plan to rescue him in transit. For all he knew, Rhea’s cousin had already freed Gwendolyn and was now plotting to attack his guards as they rode east.
So he did nothing. Nothing at all.
Three days later
I should have thrown myself down the steps when I had the chance, Gareth thought. He was tied to a horse, which was galloping at full tilt along the bumpy Western Road. A dozen furia surrounded him, each riding at the same pace, almost like a flock of birds in formation. They’d been riding like this for three days solid, the distance falling away in chunks beneath their horses’ hooves. They stopped only to sleep and eat, and Gareth was never without at least six sets of eyes on him. When they halted, they stopped not in the rest villages along the road, but off to the side, hidden behind thick copses of vegetation or trees. Gareth had tried japes, insults and kindness, but none of the furia had spoken to him—they were too well-trained. Or they’ve had their tongues cut out, he thought. It was clearly one or the other.
He’d given up speaking after the second day.
He wasn’t in denial, not anymore: Ennis wouldn’t save him. Something had happened to him, that much was certain. Whatever plans he’d had, they’d failed.
I am on my own, Gareth thought.
He tried to calculate the distance in his head. Though he, Roan, and Gwen hadn’t traveled the entirety of the Western Road, they’d traversed a good portion of it, probably more than half. It had taken them three days, but they’d been on foot and in no particular hurry. And he was almost certain he’d seen the lights of Restor—the largest village along the way—as they rode through the night on day two. Which meant…
A day, maybe two, before they reached the Bridge of Triumph.
“I’m thirsty,” Roan said.
No one looked at him; no one spoke. It was as if he didn’t exist.
“I have to piss.”
Same response; or, rather, lack of response.
“I just pissed my britches.”
At this point, he was mostly speaking for his own amusement.
“Have you ever heard the story of the furia who wore only green dresses?” he asked. Wait, was that a flinch on one of their faces? “Aye, she was shunned by the rest of her sisters for days and days and days, until eventually they killed her for disobeying their laws.”
“What is the point of this story, prisoner?” the Fury said.
“She speaks!” Gareth said. “The point is that the woman they killed was wearing a red dress, while the others wore green. They were colorblind! Have you ever considered you might be colorblind?”
It was a stupid story, Roan knew, but on the spot it was the best he could come up with. And, apparently, it had worked, unsealing the Fury’s lips at long last. “It’s not the color of our garb, nor our hair, that matters,” she said. “It is our uniformity, our solidity. None of us is above another. We stand together. We fight together. We serve Wrath together.”
“Is that why only you bear a scar on your face?”
“As one of the Three, I am held to a higher standard.”
“By whom? Wrath or Rhea?”
“Do not address the queen as a familiar.”
“Rhea is a spoiled child angry at the world. Rhea is the one commanding, not Wrath.”
“A righteous queen is the mouthpiece of Wrath.”
Orion, this woman is frustrating. “You’re lying to yourself. Queen Rhea Loren, First of Her Name, wants nothing but power. In her mind, she’s already more powerful than your deity. And you know it.”
After that, the Fury went silent. The drumbeat of hooves provided the only sound.
Hyro Lake was a dark pool of spilled ink under the cloudless night sky. Millions of stars were reflected in its surface, almost like fireflies captured in a glass jar. The
lights of Portage, the eastern village nestled against the banks of the lake, twinkled in the distance. Somewhere to the north, Gareth could make out the flickering orange and red of a great fire. What is that? he wondered. Has the entire world been cast aflame?
He didn’t have time to consider the anomaly, however, as they were approaching the Bridge of Triumph.
The bridge spanning the lake had been built in the year 400, when western forces drove the easterners back across the water, prematurely declaring victory in what would become the first year of the Hundred Years War. In honor of this “victory,” the western king at the time, Fenrys Loren, had the Bridge of Triumph built to ensure he could maintain control of the east. The counterattack had been swift, as the held-back legions of eastern warriors, which included thousands of armored Orian soldiers, shattered the western forces, pushing them back across the bridge and into a full retreat. Rather than extending their line into western territory, however, the Ironclad-led army pulled back, destroying the bridge.
The bridge had remained shattered for over a hundred years. Until now. Five years ago, Gareth’s father, King Oren Ironclad, had ordered the bridge to be rebuilt. Like the ill-will harbored against the north, he had long wanted revenge against the westerners for their mistreatment of Orians. The bridge would provide an easy means for a full-scale assault in which he hoped to end the East-West War once and for all.
Last Gareth had seen the bridge—about a year ago—it had been half-completed, though progress was slow due to daily attacks by western archers.
Now, Gareth marveled at the solid walled bridge that spanned the lake. Its stone walls and columns were plated with iron sheets, transported one at a time from Ironwood, where skilled Orians channeled the natural ore deposits provided by their ancient forest. His brother, Grian, who now stood as the King of the East, had been responsible for the project. Perhaps he will be a great king, Gareth thought. If he can achieve something like this, perhaps he will one day lead us to victory.
Perhaps this is why I failed to save Guy. If Grian was meant to be king…