by Helen Lowe
They had not liked it, but they had tried to fit in with life in the storm-bound lodges. Slowly, Rowan had come to like them, but she remained wary of both the Earl and his Honor Captain, Asantir, with her keen, dark face. They were the most courteous of the Derai, the most patient with the restricted life when the storms blew, but also the hardest to get to know. As though, Rowan had thought, they used courtesy like a shield, a polished convex barrier that reflected only what they wanted you to see. And she had not needed her great-uncle to look into his shaman’s smoke to know that of all their strange guests, the Earl and Asantir were the most dangerous.
The shaman had nodded when she confided this thought to him. “Of course. And like all good weapons they will cut deep, even if you are only careless around them, or unwary.”
Rowan had not told him that she also found their dark, alien allure fascinating. The Earl of Night himself was beautiful, like an icon of the Old Empire etched into narwhal ivory, although she did not think he knew that. She still remembered the first time she had realized that she loved him. It had been one of those bright-as-diamond days between blizzards, with the sky pale blue crystal and the snow stretching away forever, white and gleaming. She had been out hunting and come upon him some distance from the camp, a solitary figure in the circling world of white and blue, staring at something far up in the sky. Rowan had stopped, following his gaze, and seen the hovering speck that was a snow falcon, riding the currents of the air.
The Earl had watched it for a long time and when at last he turned his head, he had looked straight into her eyes and smiled, an expression as rare as winter sunshine in the grimness of his face. “It is Winter itself that hawk,” he had said, “the brightness and the wildness and the freedom of it. I could watch it forever.”
It had happened that quickly. Between one moment and the next, between the silence and the spoken word, she was in love and recognized that he loved her in return. Yet for all its strength and intensity, the wonder and the joy, Rowan had assumed in her heart that theirs was a winter love: light and warmth for the months of snow and dark that would dissipate with the returning spring. But when spring finally came and the Derai prepared to depart, the Earl had asked her to go with him.
They had walked together in woods that were faintly misted with green, the first shy flowers peeping above the snowdrifts. He had stood, bare headed beneath the birch buds, dragging his leather gloves through his hands, and asked her to leave her home and her kin and her beloved Winter Country. He had not spared her the truth of what a Derai keep was, or the Wall and the surrounding Gray Lands in all their grimness, but he had still asked that she come and live with him there.
And she—she had stood in the midst of her own world and looked up into the infinite layers of the sky and wondered if she could bear to leave, or bear to forgo his love, one or the other.
Her great-uncle had summoned her to his shaman’s lodge with its smoky, herb-scented interior. “Winter brought them, daughter of the Birch Moon,” he had told her, “and that is a matter of destiny, both theirs and yours. We have left it late, but it is time that we knew these Derai rather better than we do. So you must ride with them now and cleave to their stranger lord and learn their ways.” He had paused, throwing a bunch of herbs on the fire so that their pungency filled the lodge and stung the back of Rowan’s nose, before speaking again. “Your Tasarion, this Earl of Night—the smoke tells me that he is the key to the unlocking of doors that have long remained closed to us. It is a great matter, although I cannot see what the end of it will be, for good or ill.”
The shaman’s eyes had glazed as he stared into the curling smoke, his voice taking on a singsong quality. “He is not the one foretold, long sought through both smoke and stars, but he will bring you to that one. And when you walk amongst the Derai, Winter will walk with you; when the time comes, Winter will answer your call.”
“But how,” she had asked him, “will I know when Winter should be called?”
“When the time comes,” he had replied, “you will know.”
“When the time comes, you will know,” Rowan Birchmoon repeated now, wakeful in the darkness. The world turned, the circle revolved—and she, who had come only reluctantly to the Derai Wall, despite her love, would now leave with equal reluctance. Given everything that had happened, she could never ride lightly away, leaving Tasarion alone in this deadly place. “He will have to bid me go,” she said to the night and the storm, “and I can see, as clearly as anyone, that the time when that happens may be coming soon. Yet despite everything, I will stay if I can.”
Despite everything. The words had a curious finality to them and she shivered a little beneath the warm covers. She had met the heralds before their expedition into the Old Keep, on her way to the kennels that adjoined the stable yard. The heralds must have been to check on their horses, for Rowan had met them walking up the yard stair as she was walking down. She had paused to let them pass and the heralds had stopped as well; the man’s dark gaze had bored into hers and his voice, too, was dark, like wild honey. “What are you doing here, Woman of Winter? The Derai Wall is no place for you.”
She had looked back at him, cool as her own Winter skies. “What is that to you, Herald? The affairs of Winter are no business of the Guild.”
“I speak what I see,” he replied simply. His dark gaze had fixed on the middle distance and his voice, even if it lacked the singsong note, had reminded her of a shaman’s, looking into the smoke. “I do not see clearly, except that this place will bring no good to you, a woman of Winter. You had best return to your own country, while you still can.”
Rowan had shivered then and she shivered again now, for only a fool argued when a shaman spoke in that voice. But what, after all, had the herald said that she had not known since first seeing the gray, stunted lands that surrounded the Wall? She stayed because she loved Tasarion, the Earl of Night, and because of the purpose her great-uncle had laid on her: that was all.
Rowan Birchmoon sighed and touched Tasarion’s face gently, but he did not stir. He will do what he must, as he always has, she thought, tracing the outline of his mouth with her fingertip. Or will try to. And I, what will I do?
She turned away, aware of her own weariness. “Sleep,” she murmured. “If the storm allows. Then see what tomorrow brings.”
But it was not until the dawn trumpet, faint with distance, rang out from the main gate, that her eyelids closed.
17
Eye of the Storm
Malian rested one forefinger on the table that was one of the greatest treasures of the Red and White Suite, in the Earl’s quarter of the New Keep. A map of the Wall and all the known lands of Haarth had been etched into the wood and inlaid with precious metals to show the salient details of each country. A sinuous vein of gold marked the River, the mighty Ijir with its two great tributaries and multitude of prosperous city states, all built on the back of the river trade. Each city was picked out in a minute precision of turrets or minarets or spires, depending on its character, and in whatever heraldic colors had belonged to it when the table was made.
Malian’s dark, slender brows were drawn together, the set of her young mouth thoughtful as she spun the table surface slowly round, so that the Wall and surrounding Gray Lands gave way to the Barren Hills, then to the River and all the countries to the south. A line of pewter marked the thousand leagues of road that ran from Ij to fabled Ishnapur and beyond that again was the vast and unknown desert, a sea of dunes wrought in jasper, topaz, and bronze.
It was all so vast. Even the Winter Country, which was considered close, was a very long way from the Keep of Winds, with both the Wall mountains and league on league of Gray Lands in between.
Malian sighed deeply and let the tabletop grow still under her hand. The Red and White Suite was richly furnished and strewn with entertainments for her amusement but—however well gilded—she was aware that it was a cage. “Confined,” she muttered, “until my father decides what to do
with me.”
It was hard, now, to believe in the events of the Old Keep, even though her flight into darkness had occurred only a week before. Kalan had been sent back to the Temple quarter, of course, and the heralds, too, were gone. There had been a formal farewell for them in the antechamber of this very suite, just three days ago. The Earl and most of his council had been present and her father had named the heralds as guest friends of Night once again, giving them the kiss of peace. But Malian had seen the councilors’ stiffness and how most of them avoided looking directly at the heralds—or at her. Asantir and Sarus had been right, it seemed; word of events in the Old Keep had gotten out quickly enough.
At the time, she had been gray with fatigue still, unable to care enough to react to the councilors’ aversion. The whole ceremony of farewell had seemed more than a little unreal and the heralds’ good-bye to her had been a reflection of her father’s words: formal, graceful, and meaningless. She had stared into their impassive faces and wondered if Tarathan of Ar had really come walking to meet her through Yorindesarinen’s fire, or whether she had imagined it all.
The first few days after the return from the Old Keep she had slept the dreamless sleep of exhaustion, waking at rare intervals to the howling shriek of a Wall storm and a succession of watchers by her fireside. They had tried to keep the slaughter of her household from her, but she had fretted and tossed every time she woke, calling repeatedly for Doria. In the end, it was Haimyr who had told her of the deaths and held her while she wept. Afterward, he had played the plaintive lullabies of his own land until she sank back into sleep, but Malian had not seen him since then and even Nhairin only paid fleeting visits.
Perhaps, Malian thought now, the tales told about me have grown so wild that even my friends are afraid that I’ll turn into some kind of darkspawn before their eyes. “Or perhaps,” she added out loud, “the simple truth is enough to keep everyone away.” She stared at the red and white doors of the suite. “Or my father’s guards are turning them back.”
Left to her own devices, there was little to do except mull over the current situation. Even her father had only been to see her twice; he was always stern and remote, but he, too, had seemed reluctant to meet her gaze directly. For the moment, Malian guessed, she was less his daughter, more an awkward problem that the Earl of Night needed to resolve.
She sighed again and turned away from the table to pace up and down the luxurious room, knowing that in the end he would send her away. Since the Betrayal, only one member of the Blood had been permitted to reside in a keep’s Temple quarter at any one time. The Oath did not require it, but the custom had evolved as successive generations of Derai Earls had brooded over the rights and powers that might still accrue to priests of the Blood. From brooding, they had grown to fear any concentration of the Blood in their home temples and the custom of exile had become an unwritten law.
Malian knew that her father could order Sister Korriya away instead, but she did not think he would. He would be reluctant to banish a senior and established priestess at the current time—and even more reluctant, she suspected, to have the former Heir residing in the home Temple. The old powers had not manifested in the Earl’s direct line since Aikanor’s day, but Malian knew that her father would be thinking of Aikanor’s legacy now. Inevitably, his reflections would convince him she was the one who must be exiled. Her power, after all, far outstripped Sister Korriya’s, and presented a greater threat to the established order.
The latter thought was barely more than a riffle across the surface of her mind, yet once registered it could not be dismissed. But could she really be likened to the cursed Aikanor? Once again, Malian recalled the absence of those she had thought her friends, even Asantir—then checked both her thoughts and her pacing as she remembered the Old Keep. No, she could not believe that Asantir feared her, would not believe it.
Malian took another step then paused again, facing the red and white tapestry that covered one wall of the room. A white deer fled across a red field, a pack of milk-white hounds and a band of hunters in pursuit. The expression in the deer’s eyes was haunted, desperate; the hounds were fierce and intent on their prey. The hunters, by contrast, were laughing, their hair lifting in an unseen breeze, their eyes bright with joy.
So much detail in one tapestry, thought Malian, really noticing it for the first time, although she must have walked past it a hundred times, at least, this past half week. She looked at the horned deer again and pulled a face, because she, too, felt trapped, beset, with nowhere to run and no friend to turn to.
Despite the oaths sworn to me in the old High Hall, she thought a little sourly. But perhaps everything that happened in the Old Keep meant nothing—or I dreamed it all.
If Night falls, all fall. The old saying whispered in Malian’s head as she turned back to the table, because Night was vulnerable, shockingly so, with only three of the Blood left and one of that three already bound into the Temple quarter. She stared down at the path of the Ijir, gleaming in gold, but did not see it. If Night falls, all fall. “Is that why the Swarm struck at me?” she whispered. “What if it wasn’t because I’m the Chosen of Mhaelanar at all, or not just because of that? What if the Darkswarm saw the opportunity to trigger the ancient doom by striking at the remaining Blood, leaving Night and the whole Derai Alliance exposed?” A stratagem that must count as partially successful, she supposed, if she were to be exiled and shut away for the rest of her life.
Slowly, Malian’s head came up. She would not let that happen, could not, if everything that Yorindesarinen had told her was true. And even if it wasn’t, if she really had dreamed it all—Here Malian shook her head. She hadn’t dreamed it, but she had let this suite cage her mind as well as her body, so that she thought only as her father did, in terms of Oath and law and duty.
“And look at where that’s got us.” Malian frowned. “There must be another way, a way around the Oath that will save Night without sacrificing my honor.”
Yorindesarinen herself had said that she must leave the Wall and surely the greatest hero of the Derai would not counsel a path that led to dishonor? Automatically, Malian’s hand circled the silver ring on her upper arm, hidden beneath her sleeve. What if she escaped, rather than passively waiting to be sent away? But where could she possibly go?
She wondered what Kalan would say if he were here. She had tried several times to reach him with her mind, but without success. Now she wondered whether the distance from the Earl’s quarter to the Temple precinct was just too great, or if they needed an intermediary, the heralds or Hylcarian, to make the mindspeech work?
Malian paced slowly back to the fire and sank into a wide armchair, her chin propped on her hands. She needed someone to talk to that she could trust, not just with her thoughts about the future but also with everything that she had discovered in the Old Keep: the Golden Fire; Yorindesarinen; and not least, Kalan’s suggestion that there were Derai renegades amongst the Swarm—that there had been since the beginning. Even the eldritch sorcerer, she reflected uncomfortably, had looked Derai, despite his emaciation. Malian wondered what she would have seen if she had looked beneath the closed visors of the dead. Would the faces have been recognizable as Derai, or deformed by their long association with Darkswarm evil? Would there have been faces there at all?
Malian thrust out of the chair to pace again, tense and uneasy. She had hoped to discuss some of her Old Keep experiences with Nhairin, but the steward had been terse and distracted, almost distant, on her brief visits. And why were Haimyr and Asantir keeping away? Malian stopped, chewing at her lip and staring into the heart of the fire—and realized that for the first time in the three days she had been fully awake, she could hear the crackle of the flames. The storm’s roar had died away.
“It must be the eye,” Malian murmured, knowing that three days was too soon for a Wall storm to blow itself out; the calm could not last. The raging winds would be on them again before the swirling mass of Wall debris that surrou
nded the keep could settle. Malian shuddered, thinking of Doria’s tales of Darkswarm demons that rode shrieking on those winds. She still didn’t entirely believe her nurse’s stories, but after everything that had happened since the attack she was no longer prepared to dismiss any possibility out of hand.
There was a bustle beyond the doors, loud in the unexpected quiet. Malian listened intently, then let her breath out on a half laugh as she heard the tinkle of golden bells. The door was flung wide and Haimyr stood on the threshold, his hands on his hips and his head held high, a glint in his golden eyes.
Making his entrance, Malian thought, amused—and her heart rose.
Haimyr waited, simply looking at her, while a guard leaned in and closed the door behind him. Then the minstrel took a step forward and opened his arms wide, and slowly, wearily, Malian walked into their golden circle. “Oh, Haimyr,” she said, and that was all.
“Did you think I had forsaken you, my Malian?” She could hear the steady rhythm of his heart, the familiar lilt in his voice. “Alas, your father in his infinite wisdom ordered a full honor escort to accompany the heralds to the border—in recognition of their service to Night, he said. I was one of those he asked to ride with them, and Asantir herself commanded the guard.”
Malian stepped back. “That was honor indeed,” she said, puzzled, “even for those who have done great service to the House of Night. And out of character for my father.”