The Lost Daughters

by Leigh Grossman

  I was a much better soldier than husband. I had shown a lot of promise as a young officer. I was a decorated war hero with a gift for tactics and a knack for being in the middle of the action against the Central Alliance. So the Empress chose one of her favorites to marry me. But it was never really a great match. We came to love each other, I thought, through the incomplete memories—and we both loved our daughter, but we didn’t have a lot else to talk about. I was a soldier and she was a channeler. Our work consumed both of our lives. We weren’t home at the same time enough to learn to talk to each other.

  Maddeningly, the pieces surrounding the end of our time together were missing. I remembered telling Nemias that I had asked to transfer to the palace because of how all the killing was affecting me. But I don’t remember actually making the request, or whether Sefa and I talked about it first. Given the problems in our relationship already and my wife’s status as a favorite of the Empress, Sefa may have talked to the Empress about the problems in our marriage. Perhaps when I asked about transferring to the palace, the Empress saw a chance to fix her mistake.

  I wondered how many of that last year’s worth of memories would return. Often, when a soldier received a head injury, the memories close to the incident were lost forever—sometimes days or weeks of memories. It occurred to me that having memories magically blocked and manipulated might have the same effect. Only time would give me the answer.

  Chapter 11

  Sperrin

  I awoke once that night, to the sound of soft singing. I wondered if the chancellor even realized he was singing. As an officer, I had known soldiers who needed to sing in the face of tragedies they had no words for. For the chancellor, who always had the right words, the events of the last day must have been particularly tragic.

  The man had a husky baritone voice, rough-edged but pleasing enough to listen to. Keeping my eyes closed I listened. I was sure the singing would stop at any stirring. From the sound, the chancellor sang from just inside the inner chamber, perhaps standing at the edge of a bier. There wasn’t much room to pace in the tomb.

  Softly as he sung it, the chancellor’s tune sounded familiar. Nothing I had heard recently, but haunting. Finally I placed it: one of the ancient teaching songs from the Book of Gods. As a boy, I’d heard the tune sung at Fireday and New Year’s festivals, in the afternoon ceremonies before the dancers started. I’d known boys who sang in the choir, always struggling to memorize page after page of Old Ananyan verses; they taught from a prose translation in history classes when they touched on the gods, but festival choirs always sang in the original.

  The chancellor knew the Book of Gods by heart? It was hardly light reading, or the sort of thing likely to be helpful in his avocation. Singing ancient festival poetry seemed like an odd hobby for such a ruthlessly driven politician.

  I continued listening with my eyes closed. I could read Old Ananyan passably, but not speak it very well. My vocabulary skewed heavily toward the specialized military vernacular of the Holy Wars, almost a separate language from the lush rhythmic lyricism of the Book of Gods. I strained to hear the words, hoping to at least recognize what part of the book they came from.

  Something sounded off.

  Then I realized it.

  I understood the words.

  I’d never heard them before, but I understood them. They weren’t in Old Ananyan.

  Had the chancellor done his own translation? The complex rhythm scheme was the same, but there were elements unfamiliar to me. Perhaps a part of the text I didn’t know? But the chancellor was singing about Senne, who’d sacrificed herself to be the source of Ananya’s magic. Certainly I knew that part of the book well enough. But the words were unfamiliar, building on the Book of Gods, but going further. Did he write this?

  He sang about Senne’s sacrifice, but mostly the chancellor sang about Kedessen, Senne’s lover, left behind by her choice. I wonder when he wrote this? The chancellor had lost his own wife when his daughter was still young, I knew. Maybe the poem was how he dealt with his loss. Thinking of my own lost wife and daughter, I couldn’t help but sense the loss in the chancellor’s baritone voice more keenly.

  At some point before the song stopped the words lulled me to sleep, so I never knew how long the chancellor stayed awake, singing a lullaby of loss.

  Ketya

  The Westbarrow: Two days after the Loss

  As it turned out, we did leave for the Mountain Road the next morning. The argument between Sperrin and my father never openly resumed. But I could see on their faces that neither of them considered the matter settled.

  My father’s eyes looked sad, but he said little as we ate and packed.

  We emerged from the tomb to a beautiful blue sky. The events of the last two days felt somehow unreal. In the brightness of morning, I could barely see the blue runes on the old soldiers’ barrows. I could feel their presence, though, just as the Snake Slayer’s armor reminded me of its presence with a surge of warmth as we left Captain-general Keir’s barrow.

  The brisk morning air cooled me after the closeness of the barrow, but the day promised heat to come.

  Sperrin led us slowly toward the far end of the massive cemetery, always choosing the rows with the most cover and the tallest barrows. It would be impossible for anyone outside the Westbarrow to see us now, but perhaps he was concerned about enemies within, or in the air. The broken seals on the passageway to the gods served as a constant reminder of our peril.

  “The gate is that way.” My father pointed to our left.

  “I am aware of that,” said Sperrin.

  “The Trade Road runs right by the gate. It can take us to the coast roads. It even connects to the Mountain Road, if you persist in taking us that way.”

  “We aren’t taking the Trade Road.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s watched.”

  “The godlings are gone by now. And why would they be watching a road?”

  Sperrin’s eyes never stopped moving as we walked—scanning the area around us, taking in everything. I wasn’t sure if Sperrin had even heard my father’s words until he responded.

  “The gods are not the only ones to be feared, with no magic to protect us. There will be fey creatures looking for people to ambush. They might not attack us in the daytime, but they would strike while we slept. But I’m most concerned that those Central Alliance ships may have sent infiltrators to look for high-value targets escaping from the city. I don’t know how or why they coordinated with the gods in attacking us, but I have no intention of allowing either of you to become their target.”

  My father seemed about to respond, but then he closed his mouth abruptly. That wasn’t the response he’d been expecting, apparently.

  We continued in silence until the sun blazed high overhead. Sperrin stopped us for lunch in the shadows of a tall barrow topped with stone sculptures, shaded from the early summer heat.

  “Ketya, can you climb up there and tell me what you see?” Sperrin asked once we’d eaten.

  “Is it safe?” I ask him that a lot, I realized.

  “It should be safe for a few minutes, as long as you don’t make much noise. It will be hard to see you in this light unless someone is looking right at that spot.”

  Carefully I worked my way up the barrow and then scaled the tallest of the monuments. From the top, standing on a pair of cupped stone hands and holding onto the crown on the stone woman’s head, I could see all the way back to the riverbank, as well as a broad arc of the Trade Road.

  I climbed down somberly, waiting to say anything until I’d reached the bottom.

  “There’s nothing there,” I said. “No one in the road or on the riverbank. I could see debris where the camp was, but no people. Not even...” I couldn’t bring myself to say bodies, but Sperrin and my father both took my meaning.

  “Some of them will have gotten to safety,” Sperrin said. “Some always do. More than you expect. As for the bodies, many of the fey that attacke
d like to carry them off.”

  He quietly cleaned up the remains of our lunch and made sure our packs were tied securely, as if his words had settled things for me.

  I’m not a soldier, I wanted to say. I’m not used to seeing what you’re used to seeing. I’m not used to all the killing and dying. And from the look in his eyes, I thought Sperrin would know what to say to make me feel better. But I could see the look in my father’s eyes also, and knew how he would look at me if I showed weakness. How he already looks at me, I thought.

  No use in confirming what he probably already thinks of me. If I can’t be useful, I can at least be quiet.

  I shouldered my pack wordlessly. But this time I felt grateful when Sperrin adjusted the straps so they didn’t bite, knowing without asking where they would bind me.

  * * * *

  When we continued, my father walked slightly ahead of us, his head sometimes bobbing from side to side like a visitor taking in scenery. He did not attempt to change our direction again toward the Trade Road, and if he walked less circumspectly than Sperrin had, the big soldier didn’t seem to mind especially.

  I didn’t mind, either. Glad as I was that we’d saved my father, I hated the arguments he started, and knew that sooner or later he would pull me into them.

  I walked more closely to Sperrin than I had dared before, and with my father out of easy hearing distance I finally worked up the nerve to ask him a question.

  “Is it true what my father said...about your daughter?” I asked softly.

  Sperrin seemed to consider the question from all sides before answering.

  “It’s not untrue. It’s misleading, but the essence is there. I lived in Whitmount with my wife and daughter before the Empress required my services at the palace.”

  “You didn’t visit them?”

  He paused. “Until...until two days ago, I didn’t remember that I had a daughter. Or that I’d ever been married. I don’t know if they are still there, or if they remember me.” He paused, then seemed to think he needed to say more. “I would like to see them if it’s possible. But that’s not why we are going to Whitmount.”

  “I understand.” But I wondered if I really did.

  We walked on toward the wall, still hazy in the distance.

  “How old was your daughter?”

  “She was just a little girl last time I saw her. She would be about your age now, I think. Maybe a little younger. Her mother was a channeler, like yours.”

  I wasn’t sure if he realized what that implied. He’s not going to want to hear this, I thought.

  “You know that means she’s probably dead, right?”

  Sperrin nodded, slowly. “I hoped the distance from the capital might save her. And the protections in Whitmount. But I know what it means.”

  “Maybe. They might help, at least a little. Unless she was a very powerful channeler. The stronger her magic, the greater the loss will be. It’s like a big wound.”

  I could still feel the hurt inside, both from losing the magic and from knowing I wasn’t good enough to have died. Every word I said to him just made me feel worse.

  At least Sperrin was nice enough not to point out my obvious lack of gifts.

  “She was a very powerful channeler,” he said. His voice sounded a little sad. “She was one of the Empress’s favorites, I was told when the marriage box came.”

  “You hadn’t met her before?”

  “No. I was too busy fighting to meet very many people who weren’t soldiers. I grew up in the mountains, where there aren’t many people to begin with, and was sent to fight when I was younger than you. I met a lot of soldiers, but I didn’t know many others until I got to the palace. Maybe I knew some through my wife that I...forgot. Even at the palace, I didn’t make many friends who weren’t soldiers.”

  “You didn’t”—I wasn’t sure if I should continue, but his look said it was all right—“You didn’t exactly look the part. I always wondered why you were here. You seemed to try so hard not to fit in, while all the other guards looked sort of the same.”

  Sperrin nodded. “It wasn’t that I wanted to be here,” he said. “It was that I stopped wanting to be somewhere else. But I always did my duty.”

  That sounded cryptic enough that I expected him to elaborate, but he didn’t say anything more. After a while I fell into his rhythm of walking and watching. The far wall gradually grew less hazy as the sun dipped lower toward the horizon.

  * * * *

  “Are we spending the night here?” my father asked. We had reached the wall at last, but only an hour or so of daylight remained. The sun glowed red against the edge of the stone wall.

  Only a few barrows had been built this close to the Westbarrow’s edge, newer ones mostly.

  Sperrin wiped sweat from his brow. “No, we move on.”

  “We could spend another night in shelter.” My father gestured to the nearest barrow. I hadn’t seen any blue runes in almost an hour.

  “I think it would be a bad idea to spend a second night in the same place, Your Lordship. If I didn’t know better, I would say your advice has all been calculated to make us easy to overtake. Since I know that can’t be the case, I believe it’s just a reflection of your lack of time out of doors, or fighting. Perhaps this journey will be a useful experience for you.”

  My father gathered himself for a reply, but Sperrin cut him off. “In the meantime, please leave the guiding and the soldiering to me. I was kind enough to leave the governing to you. Fine job you did keeping the empire safe from gods and invaders.”

  He turned appraisingly to the wall. My father said nothing.

  Sperrin must have prepared that response ahead, I realized. He knew what my father would say. He was even implying that my father was trying to get himself killed, or was at least indifferent to whether he lived or died. I wondered a little at the words: I had seen my father defeat many people with his words, but had never seen him fall into someone else’s ambush. He really isn’t himself.

  We camped in a small clearing a few hundred paces past the wall. A narrow, fast stream ran nearby, and Sperrin refilled our flasks. Once again, he produced a small, neat meal of dried fruits and grains.

  “We’re nowhere near the Trade Road,” Sperrin said. “No point in your running tonight.”

  “I could go back through the barrows,” my father observed.

  “Good luck climbing the wall by yourself without being heard.”

  “Better odds than getting lost and starving in the wild.”

  “No one is lost except you, Your Lordship. We’re going to cut across country for two days on hunting trails, and then pick up the Mountain Road. Nice and easy. We may have to avoid the odd carnivore, but I don’t think we’ll be bothered by godlings or Central Alliance soldiers. Unless they’re very lost.”

  That night, after moonrise, I heard wolves howl for the first time. Having lived in cities my whole life, I’d never encountered wolves except as metaphors in love stories. Now when I listened to them, they seemed unutterably sad.

  Sperrin

  Just west of the Westbarrow: Three days after the Loss

  A part of me wished the chancellor would run again. There was a time for politicians to stop arguing and let the soldiers do their job. I supposed the chancellor and I differed on where that point was.

  It wasn’t that I regretted rescuing the man: No one deserved to die in that palace, especially after so many had already fallen. But I felt like someone who tries to rescue a drowning man, only to be pulled underwater by the poor fool he’s trying to save.

  I didn’t actually have any reason to believe the Trade Road was being watched, either by gods or by soldiers. It was a possibility, though. And the chancellor seemed so determined to put us at risk that I decided to be cautious. Once or twice before, I’d run into officers who were just unlucky. It really did pay to do the opposite of whatever they wanted, no matter how reasonable their arguments seemed. Given the events of the last two days, I had deci
ded to treat the chancellor the same way.

  I would be glad to get us to Whitmount, where the chancellor would become someone else’s problem. Whose problem, I wasn’t sure, but the only way I could keep working with the chancellor was by focusing on a finite end to the assignment.

  Unlike my palace assignment. Although that had, I realized, had a much more finite end than either I or the Empress had expected.

  And after I turned the chancellor and the girl over...then what? I knew the answer of course: I would fight, and fight well. Ananya needed me now, even more than the empire had in all my years of war. I would fall right back into the life I’d given up everything to escape.

  Some things weren’t made to be escaped, apparently.

  And I certainly liked the life I’d escaped from. I hadn’t left it from fear or fatigue.

  I’d asked for my release because I feared I liked the killing too much.

  * * * *

  I woke chilled, in the pinkness of the early morning, just before sunrise. The others slept deeply, huddled in their blankets. Neither of them had rested enough since the horrors of the palace attack; no point in waking them early now.

  I relieved myself behind a tree, stretched out my legs and arms to loosen fighting muscles, then paused by the stream to watch the sun rise.

  It felt good to be alone again, away from the constant bustle and lack of privacy of the castle. Until I remembered my wife and daughter—the memories no more complete than they had been yesterday—I had thought that my privacy was the biggest sacrifice I’d made in coming to the palace.