by Nhys Glover
Calun hugged me to him tightly as soon as I jumped down off Spot. The tiny woman then took over and wrapped her arms around me. Her growing babe was an obvious lump between us.
“Goddess be praised! I am so glad to see you back here in one piece. When those fiends managed to gain entry into the palace and carry you away I was beyond words. It can’t happen again. There are guards patrolling every corridor day and night now.”
It was hard to credit that I had once thought this wonderful woman was like her depraved twin. They were as different as two people could be. And I had spent the last two and a half turns proving my love and loyalty to her after my betrayal.
“They use a pool to move from place to place. They can bypass all the guards that way.” I told her, not wishing to upset her further, but needing her to know that nowhere was truly safe from those monsters.
“A pool?” Airsha said, her pale lashes fluttering in confusion.
Landor had helped Shardra down and was leading her forward. Airsha looked in their direction and her expression shifted to compassion in an instant.
“Gods balls, who’s this? Was she a captive of those monsters?”
Shardra must have known who Airsha was because she tried to dip a bow. Only Landor’s strong arm kept her upright.
“No, this is our seer, Lady Shardra,” Laric answered. “The one Moyna told us about. She was the one that led us to Flame and Laric. Just in time.”
“Oh, thank you! I am forever in your debt,” the Goddess Incarnate said, taking up one of Shardra’s filthy hands. “Come, let us get you to our home. I keep wanting to say to the palace, but that is no longer appropriate.”
Airsha took up a position on Shardra other side, taking some of her weight onto herself. Calun tried to replace her, but she would have none of it. When Airsha set her mind to something there was little anyone else could do, even one of her husbands.
Shardra kept looking from Landor to Airsha and back again, as if hardly believing what was happening to her.
‘We’ve been going crazy worrying about you. Had I known your three were going to mount a rescue, rather than just get information from a seer, I would have gone with them,’ Calun said to me in my mind as he pulled me in close to his side for the walk back to the township not far away.
“We were just lucky Shardra was so close, and she knew exactly where we were and what was happening. She’s going to be really useful to us. The Goddess has given us yet another powerful tool.”
‘Is she... well enough? She looks as near death as anyone I’ve ever seen since Rama.’
“I don’t think she’s that bad. She had plenty of food and water available, from what we could tell. I just don’t think she made the most of them. I think her visions distract her from such physical necessities. I’m hoping that with a little food she’ll pick up. And maybe Landor can heal anything else that’s physically wrong with her.”
We had reached the cobbled streets of the township now and a litter carried by six guards stood awaiting us there. I had never seen Airsha use such a conveyance before. They were much more common among the nobility of the old world order, but maybe the Airluds were insisting Airsha limit her exercise because of her pregnancy?
No, that couldn’t be right. She was teaching us recruits hand-to-hand and sword fighting skills when she was almost ready to drop with the twins. No one was ever going to wrap the Goddess Incarnate in cotton wool for her own good.
Landor helped Shardra up into the litter and then stepped aside so Calun could hand Airsha in after her. The rest of us walked alongside the litter as it moved quickly through the crowded streets. People everywhere stepped out of our path, while at the same time craning their necks to get a better view of the Goddess Incarnate.
Even after two suns, the popularity she’d garnered during the rebellion hadn’t waned. Every time she left the old palace people gathered, no matter the time of day. Normally, Airsha would acknowledge the Goddess’ people, but today she was too preoccupied with her filthy companion.
What the people would think of someone like Shardra riding in a litter with the Chosen One was anyone’s guess. Likely it would only improve Airsha’s reputation for caring for the common folk. Little did they know that Shardra was hardly common.
“How did you get Airsha to use that thing?” I asked Calun, who was still walking at my side, his arm slung around my shoulder, as if he feared I might be stolen away by more priests at any moment.
It still sometimes felt odd to have a brother, especially one who was as loving as Calun. I thanked the Goddess for our wayward father’s urge to spread his seed far and wide among the many whores of the kinglunds. Even if, along with our magic, he’d gifted us both with his red hair and freckle-prone skin.
‘She just said she was coming down here to meet you and called up the litter. We all thought there was something wrong with her. I mean really wrong with her. Like the baby was causing her pain or something. She never rides when she can walk. But I suppose her Knowing told her the litter would be needed. Or maybe she thought it would be for you.’
I gave a little laugh. “Me? In one of those things? Not likely. But I do love the way she just always knows what’s needed. Shardra couldn’t have made it up to the palace on her own, and it would have shamed her to be carried through the streets.”
‘Aye, Airsha is a constant wonder. The Goddess did well when she made Airsha her Chosen One.’
“You’re prejudiced because she’s your wife,” I teased with a smirk.
‘Probably. I imagine these men of yours think the same of you.’
I was immediately reminded of Prior’s compliment before we mounted up this morning. He’d said the Goddess had chosen well when she’d selected me for this task. But it had been delivered with no true feeling. So, to my mind, it didn’t count.
If I had expected to be tasked with cleaning our seer up, or seeing to her needs in any other way, I was disappointed. Happily so. Airsha had a bevy of tittering females surrounding Shardra and herself as soon as we entered the old palace, and they all disappeared together for places unknown.
I joined my brother and my men in the apartment, ready to catch up on the news at this end, though I had been informed of most of it the evening before by the most recent airling messenger.
Darkin had the airling troopers running a messenger relay from the front to the Command Post here at the palace. Every time there was news, one of those riders would take to the skies. Technically, the Airluds had no position in the ranks of the army any more. But as the husbands of the Goddess Incarnate and the leaders of the once powerful Airling army they had informal power. So they may not be directing the action at the front, but they were back here. Or Rama and Darkin were. The younger brothers had no interest in war. They’d fight when it was required of them, but otherwise they left it to those more invested in such battle strategies.
Landor discretely disappeared as soon as we entered the apartments, probably to bathe and change his clothes. The rest of us gathered around the display of food set out on the trestle tables and started piling up our plates. It felt like forever since I’d had good food like this, though it had only been a day and a half. Time was an odd thing, the way it could expand and contract as it did.
Jaron had appeared as soon as we entered the royal apartments. Now he made much of giving me the last honey pastry on the tray. His too-handsome, joker demeanour slipped only slightly as he offered it up and said, “Glad to have you back safe, fire-haired warrior-woman.”
I groaned. “I’m going to kill Landor for describing me like that. I’ll never hear the end of it now. It’s bad enough being called Flame.” But I took the proffered pastry and the sentiment behind it. I was loved and worried over. That was what Jaron had been saying in his annoying way.
By the time my stomach was rounded out to make me look as pregnant as Airsha, and I was dozing on a cushion with my head in Zem’s lap, Darkin and Rama had arrived, looking for Airsha. They seemed anyth
ing but happy.
“What?” Jaron demanded, jumping to his feet as if he was needed.
Darkin shook his head and gestured for him to sit again. “Sorry, we probably look as if the place is under attack by an army of Devourers. It’s not. We’ve just received troubling news from the front, and we need to alert Airsha to it personally.”
“What?” Jaron repeated, even as he did his brother’s bidding and sat again.
“A massacre. One of the squads was attacked as they entered a Cliffling village and the retaliation got out of hand. Our men killed every last person in the village—every man, woman and childling.”
The news had us all horrified, if not overly surprised by the news. It was always going to be a possibility. This kind of heavy-handed approach had to end in disaster. Yet the urgency so many felt about recapturing the Godling had pushed the plan through. And the fact was, the slower more subtle infiltration of the camps hadn’t been working.
If only the Godling didn’t have such a terrible agenda, his recapture could have taken its time. But the longer he evaded capture the more chance he had of letting The Jayger free. That it hadn’t happened already was what surprised me.
So Airsha had reluctantly given her approval to this plan because she knew time was running out. But it was never going to be a bloodless win, if a win at all. We’d all known that.
“How many are we talking about?” Jaron asked what we were all thinking. Massacre sounded like a lot, but most Cliffling encampments were small affairs of twenty to thirty adults. The terrain just didn’t allow for many bigger groupings.
“Sixty adults and gods knows how many childlings,” Rama snarled out.
The look of haunted distress in his bright blue eyes surprised me. I would have thought he, at least, would be accepting of any losses the Clifflings sustained. After all, every villager had joined in to watch the entertainment when he was being tortured.
“Airsha is going to be furious,” Zem commented, stating the obvious.
“Where is she?” Darkin asked, looking around the room as if expecting his wife to suddenly pop up and say ‘boo!’
“Helping clean up our seer, who has spent too long alone on a mountainside,” Prior said flatly, though his nostrils flared in the way I was coming to recognise as the sign he was controlling his emotions.
“The bath house then?” Darkin clarified.
We all shrugged and looked at him blankly. It was our assumption, but we couldn’t be sure.
The two eldest Airluds turned and hurried from the room, leaving the rest of us to deal with our feelings over the atrocity.
“The trouble is the Clifflings have been the cause of too much pain and loss for too many years. Reprisals were always going to get dirty,” Prior said.
I’d sat up some time during the Airluds’ revelations. Now I turned to Zem. He had lost his whole family to the Clifflings. If anyone should feel reprisals were warranted it was him. But Zem seemed even more troubled than the rest of us. His reaction was as much a mystery to me as Rama’s had been. It made no sense.
“You must understand what happened,” I said, hoping for clarity. His mind was closed to me, and had been, I realised, from the moment the Airluds had given us the news.
“Understand?” he spat at me in fury. “Understand the violence of men? Why must I be the one to understand? Just because I saw it firsthand when my brothers and sisters were cut down in front of me? Just because I’ve seen the evil that overtakes a man’s soul when he does such things? Do I understand? No! I will never understand! And I will never condone the murder of children for any reason.”
My mouth must have fallen open, because I closed it with a snap. I had wanted to understand, and instead I’d unlocked a terrible door inside my beloved’s mind. I had hurt him with my question.
“It is a terrible tragedy,” Landor said softly, coming into the room, freshly washed and clothed.
He moved to stand behind Zem so he could place a soothing hand on his shoulder. “There will be many who will carry this crime on their conscience. But you are not one of them, my friend. You would never have committed such a crime.”
Zem gazed up at the white man behind him, looking for absolution.
Absolution? Why?
Because, by my question I had implied that he would have been a party to this horrendous thing? Fresh pain dug into my heart. Why couldn’t I think before I spoke? How long would it take me to learn that much-needed lesson?
Laric pressed against my back and his soft voice whispered in my ear. “This is not your doing. It is the event that has brought up his pain, not you. It’s not always about you, little Flame.”
He was having a gentle dig at me, and maybe I deserved it. But it was my question that unleashed Zem’s reaction. My insensitivity.
“Not insensitive. An understandable conclusion to come to. Most people would think he could understand a man’s need for revenge getting out of hand. I know I did.”
“Stop reading my mind!” I snarled under my breath. I needed to learn how to block my thoughts. I hated the vulnerability I felt at having my mind invaded this way.
Laric kissed the bare skin at the juncture between my shoulder and neck. “How else are we to understand you, my love? Sometimes your words and actions are incomprehensible to mere males like me.”
He was intentionally niggling me to get me angry at him, rather than at myself. I acknowledged his effort. But it failed. My fury at myself grew.
I jumped to my feet and ran from the room, needing to get my loathsome self away from everyone before I opened my mouth and hurt someone else.
Part of me knew I was being childish. Part of me knew that Laric was right. This wasn’t about me. Zem’s memories had been unleashed by the massacre, and that wasn’t on me. But I had been the one to imply he condoned the tragedy. It hadn’t been my intention, but that was how he took it.
All because I wanted to understand why Rama and Zem took the massacre so much harder than the rest of us, when it should have been the reverse. Nobody should be glad about the massacre, but some had the right to feel... justified? I didn’t know. How could I know? My parents and siblings hadn’t been massacred in front of me. I couldn’t know what that felt like. I might empathise, but I couldn’t know.
By the time I came back to myself, I found I was standing in an unknown and little used part of the old palace. The hall had ended and the last of the lit torches along the walls was some way behind me. It was very dark. The doors on either side of the hall were locked. I had nowhere to go. It would be the perfect time for the Devourers to come for me. I was alone and boxed in. Helpless.
Maybe a part of me had known what I was doing. Maybe a part of me wanted them to take me. To torture me, so I didn’t have to do it to myself.
While I was trying to work out what to do, where to go, a dark figure emerged from the shadows behind me. There was an instant of terror, as I imagined it was the Devourers, then I recognised the broad muscular body and the tight beaded braids tied neatly back from the handsome, dark face.
“Go away, Prior. I left because I wanted to be alone. If I wanted company, I would have asked for it!” I snarled, finding someone I could at last vent my fury on. I couldn’t hurt him. He didn’t feel anything for me or anyone else. Maybe I should have directed my question to him, not Zem. Maybe I should have asked him if he understood how such a thing could happen? But then, wasn’t he the one to say reprisals were bound to get dirty? He did understand.
“No, I don’t understand how a man could cut down a child. But I understand how someone might burn one up by accident,” he told me flatly.
My mouth dropped open and I slammed it shut as I tried to process what he was saying. He killed a child with his fire? By accident? How could you accidently set a child on fire? I understood how it might happen with lovers, but a child didn’t arouse passions like that. Well, not in normal men. I knew from personal experience there were some men who did have their passions aroused by
children. But Prior wasn’t one of those, I knew.
“No it wasn’t like you are imagining. Thank you for at least considering me normal in that respect.”
“How?” I croaked out from my emotion-strangled throat.
“I worked for the Godling, remember? When I was given a target to assassinate I would sometimes set fire to their room while they were sleeping. Fires are a common and unfortunate source of accidental death in the home, you know. It was easy enough, even if a place was guarded and warded against entry. As long as I had line of sight through a window, I could spread a fire. If I couldn’t look in a window, I might sometimes follow a man or woman around until they came close to an open flame. Then I would send the flame shooting up to claim the target’s clothing, too fast for it to be put out in time to save them. It’s not a pleasant way to die.” He paused to draw in several deep breaths. I imagined he had been holding his breath the whole time he spoke.
“One big man with a flapping coat of fine velvet was walking through the marketplace one day. It was a pleasurable activity for him, I’d discovered over the days I’d been watching him. Mixing with the unwashed, so he could primp and preen at his own good fortune...” He pulled a face of disgust at the man’s antics.
“A small brazier, over which sticks of meat were cooking, was nearby. As he passed it, I sent the flames out to flick up and claim that fine coat. He flapped like a fat henling and screeched like one too. I would have been amused if I wasn’t sickened by what I was forced to do.
“He grabbed onto a nearby childling, a cut-purse I imagine, given the state of him and his proximity. And the flames took the lad too. Much faster than him because his flaming coat surrounded the boy. I was too far away to stop it.
“Once flames are released I cannot control them. And it was essential I stay well away from any inferno I ignited, so it couldn’t come back on me or the Godling. All I could do, therefore, was watch that small boy desperately trying to escape the flames I had started, praying desperately that someone would put him out in time. They didn’t. My nightmares contain him as often as they do... others.”