In unison, the furies hissed in outrage. “Insolence!” Ellyria snarled as her face contorted in a mix of outrage and fury. “We are the bulwark against the strong, we are nature’s law!”
“Aren’t simple laws the best?” Hamara asked.
“Kick the altar? Pay the price!” Tyria cried.
“A rich man flees across the sea,” Hamara said.
“We are the storm that sinks his ship,” Ellyria concluded.
“The laws of mortals may be bought or corrupted,” Hamara stated.
“But we are implacable in pursuit of the wicked,” Tyria declared.
Miranda could not help it. She burst out laughing, leaning backwards against the chest that blocked the door. “Implacable? You call yourselves implacable? How long has it been, pray, since you last walked the world? How many years since you did anything but visit my brother in his dreams and tempt him to rash anger? You come for me, and for these soldiers? Where were you when the Crimson Rose murdered my mother by stealth in the middle of the night? Where were you when Lover’s Rock was burned? Where were you…where were you when Portia died?”
Miranda bowed her head, sighing with weariness as her silver-white hair fell down around her. “Michael destroyed the Crimson Rose; he broke their power before the walls of Davidheyr and slew the Voice of Corona with his own hand. I killed Prince Antiochus, and all those in league with him to murder Portia and Demodocus. It was Michael again who killed Quirian and put an end to all his wickedness. You scorn mortals’ justice, you cast aspersions upon mortals’ laws, and perhaps you are not wholly wrong to do so; but all that I have ever seen of justice and of law has been of mortal make.” She looked up at the three of them, these preening beasts, these greedy fiends who strutted so proud and talked so bold. “Judge me if you wish, you have the right, but so do many men and women who do not hold such high opinions of themselves as you. Who will judge you for the laxness of your watch these many years past?”
Tyria and Hamara began to hum, a low and mournful sound that spoke of regret. Only Ellyria did not join them, remaining aloof, a proud and haughty look upon her face as her hair blazed so tall it nearly touched the roof, looking as though she would not demean herself as to offer explanation.
“Long years we’ve been imprisoned in the shadow plane,” Hamara whined.
“Cast there by Aurelia, your ancestor,” moaned Tyria.
“Banished.”
“Exiled.”
“Cast out.”
“Forgotten.”
“But we have done what we can,” Ellyria growled, a cruel smile playing across her lips. “We have hunted throughout the spirit realm for dead souls carrying a burden of wickedness. We take those who wander into our domain. We do what can be done to stamp out evil. And now…now we are returned to our rightful place, and thanks to you.”
Miranda felt a chill run down her. “Thanks…to me?” Good god, what fresh horror am I responsible for now? How much more blood will lie upon my hands before the cruelty of these fiends is sated?
“Your sin so great, your victims so numerous, your punishment so negligible,” Ellyria said, drinking up each word and sounding as ecstatic as in the act of love, if the likes of her were capable of feeling love at all.
“It called to us, it cried out for the justice only we can provide,” Tyria said. “So great was your crime that it tore open the veil between this world and the shadow plane, and allowed us to return at last from the domain of dreams and death.”
“Now we will hunt once more,” Ellyria cried out, exultant. “We’ll track all sinners through the mainland wide, wherever throughout the tract of travelled earth their feet my roam.”
“And over and over the seas and island homes of men,” Hamara added.
Miranda snorted. “It sounds like you love the chase as much as you love justice.”
“And why not, when the chase is glorious?” Ellyria demanded. “Who are you, a criminal, to judge the way we dispense justice?”
“Is it truly justice you are doing?” Miranda asked. “Or are you serving your own lust for pain?”
Tyria and Hamara began to hum, with Ellyria’s sound the discordant note between them as she raised the knotted club in her hands.
“Silence!” she cried. “We are the old gods! We walked this world when sun and moon were young! We are not here to bandy winged words with one condemned to perish by our hands. Go now, and know this retribution was well-earned.”
“No!” Octavia cried, her voice high and piercing and so desperately afraid as the window shattered before a gust of air magic so powerful that if not only destroyed the window but a good chunk of the wall as well, sending splinters of wood and shards of masonry flying into the room. Miranda raised her arm to shield herself, as fragments of debris bounced off the peeling flesh of the furies; they treated it as if it were of less import to them than a drop of rain.
Octavia burst in through the hole she had made, her tawny wings spread about her, the moonlight catching her golden hair and making it shine in the darkness, causing a glint off the silver threat she wore around her braid, giving her pale skin an unearthly gleam. As she dove into the room she seemed as otherworldly as the furies themselves, an avatar of love and beauty to set against their hideous undying rage, a spirit of kindness to match the harsh and merciless injustice that animated these three creatures. As she dashed into the room, with bursts of air magic swirling in her hands to plant herself foursquare between Miranda and the furies, she looked a positively splendid sight.
Miranda knew it would not be enough, as it had not been enough to save Portia. And this time there was no Metella here to bring Octavia down peacefully and unharmed.
Why did I have to fall in love with one so brave, and who loves me so dearly in return? What did I ever do to be so fortunate?
“Get away from her,” Octavia commanded, her voice taking on a harsh, commanding timbre that Miranda rarely heard. “I won’t let you hurt Miranda. You won’t even touch a hair upon her.”
Ellyria’s expression seemed torn between anger and mockery. “And who will stay us? Who will hold us at bay? Who speaks so bold before the true old gods? A little aestival, a chirruping bird; fly away, robin, your wings and crimson breast affright us not.”
“Nor does your crimson fire,” Octavia growled.
“Go,” Hamara barked. “Your magic cannot hinder us. In the mortal realm all our powers are restored to us, it would take the mightiest of spirit warriors to match our might now.”
“You should go,” Miranda whispered. “I know it’s terribly romantic of you, diving in here to save me, and with such a dramatic entrance.” She smiled. “But they’re right, there’s really nothing you can do. And, as awful as it seems, as awful as they are, I do deserve this.”
“I don’t care,” Octavia said, so loud she practically screamed it to the world. “I don’t care about that, I don’t care if it’s hopeless; I don’t care about any of it! You are mine and I am yours and I’m not leaving you! Not now and not ever.”
“What if it’s meant to be this way?” Miranda demanded. “What if…the things I did that night, what if there has to be a price paid and this is it? What if they’re right and this really is justice?”
“Do you really believe that?” Octavia said. “Do you really want to let them do to you what they’ve done to all the men here?”
Miranda hesitated, feeling ashamed of herself: ashamed of the fear that coiled and stalked and swirled inside her, ashamed of the fact that her guilt was not stronger than her fear and her desire to live. “No,” she confessed.
“Then don’t say another word,” Octavia murmured. “Just stay behind me and I’ll protect you.”
“You are not our enemy, Octavia Volucris,” Tyria said. “We are no good nor evil things, but righteous in our dealings with all mortal folk. We do not harm innocent lives, so remove yourself from the path of one deserving to be harmed.”
“I don’t believe that Miranda deserves to be
harmed,” Octavia said. “So if you want to harm her, then you’ll have to go through me, innocent or no.”
Tyria and Hamara began to hum in confusion, only Ellyria remained aloof from their song.
“Do you not understand the justice of our cause?” Ellyria demanded. “You, who were conceived of an act most foul and monstrous, do you not see why we must do as we do, and punish those who’ll see no other rebuke from gods or mortal folk?”
“Yes, it was wrong, what my father did to my mother,” Octavia cried. “But Miranda isn’t like that, she isn’t wicked and she’s not a sinner-“
“Who are you to make such judgement?” Tyria said. “Will you speak for all the dead of Eternal Pantheia, for all the widows and for all the orphans and all the brothers and sisters who lost brothers and sisters in that night? Will you wipe away all the tears, cause to vanish all the scars and disappear all the pain and suffering? What arrogance is this?”
“Arrogance is you deciding that Miranda deserves to die because of one mistake,” Octavia yelled. “What about mercy, what about repentance, what about forgiveness?”
“Forgiveness? Mercy?” Ellyria spat the words like they were poison to her. “What are such things but ways that mortals have devised to skip around and over the justice that their acts demand? Whosoever kills his father, whosoever seduces his brother’s wife, whosoever is infamous for his cruelty let him beat his breast with sorrow and he shall be made clean again? No! We are justice, and we will punish all who do wickedness without fear or favour or consideration. Kick the altar, pay the price!”
“Justice?” Octavia asked. “I’ve seen what you’ve done…I think you’re as cruel as any of those you hunt.”
“If we were evil born then ‘twas for evil’s doom!” Ellyria snarled, seeming oblivious to the obvious alarm upon the faces of Tyria and Hamara now. “We are the protectors of the weak and helpless!”
“Look at yourselves, and look at those you killed,” Octavia said. “Then tell me who is really helpless here?”
Hamara and Tyria began to hum to themselves. But Ellyria only shrieked in rage as she raised her flaming sword. “Silence! I am Ellyria, the Fury of Wrath, the strongest and greatest of the old gods, and I will not be talked down to like some plebeian in the streets! I walked this world when it was newly made! I protected all the mortal races when they were too weak to protect themselves!”
“We don’t need your protection,” Octavia shouted. “We protect each other, we forgive, we embrace, and we love. We don’t need three cruel monsters to tell us right from wrong any more.”
Ellyria snarled with rage. “I give you one last chance, Octavia the aestival: depart now, and leave Miranda to darkness and to me. Leave now, or you will not be spared.”
“I’ve done nothing wrong,” Octavia said. “And I won’t leave Miranda to your mercy.”
“Then you will share her fate,” Ellyria howled, and she raised her burning sword to bring it down upon Octavia’s head.
It was blocked halfway through its descent by Hamara’s sword of jagged ice and Tyria’s ancient axe of stone, which interdicted the fiery blade amidst its downward progress and held it fast above Octavia’s head.
Ellyria’s eyes were wide. “Sisters? What are you doing?”
Hamara’s voice was as chill as the ice of her blade. “Would you break our code, sister? Would you abuse our power to strike down an innocent, because you had that power and none were here to witness? Is that not what we have always striven against?”
“It is true then,” Tyria said, her voice mournful. “It is true, as I have feared for many years, watching you rile up the fury of those born with darkness in their souls, cultivating them, enticing them, embracing them so that when they died so full of rage you might hunt their angry spirits through the shadowlands. We love the hunt so much we have forgot the reason for it.”
Ellyria growled in frustration. “We are evil’s bane.”
“But we were not evil made,” Hamara said.
“We are no good nor evil things,” Tyria added. “But righteous always and obedient to our code, or once we were such. But it seems we are no longer.”
Ellyria bared her teeth in a snarl, but as she did so a pathetic sob escaped from her lips. “We will be the laughing stock of all immortals, if we let this sinner escape our grasp.”
“We are and we have always been the hate of mortal folk and of the heavenly gods,” Tyria said.
“What is a little mockery, but a tiny thing to bear alongside the abhorrence that all have always shown to us?” Hamara asked.
Ellyria sobbed again. “Sisters…I only wanted us to be free, to hunt again.”
“And maybe we would,” Tyria said, her voice hushed. “But if we did, we would not be the furies.” She glanced at Octavia, and at Miranda. “It seems that we have sins and crimes of our own that we must contemplate. We’ll trouble you no further.”
“Speak not,” Hamara added. “And do not presume yourself to be forgiven. But we are not fit judges for your crime, and so we’ll go, and give you peace. Embrace it while you may.”
The furies faded away into the darkness, consumed by darkness, subsumed by it, absorbed into its grasping, cold embrace. Ellyria’s sobbing echoed through the room for a moment, and then there was nothing but the silence, and the night.
And Octavia. Always Octavia. Brave Octavia, gentle Octavia, wonderful Octavia. Octavia ever faithful. Octavia, who would never leave her.
“Did you know that would happen?” Miranda asked while she fought to control the trembling in her hands.
Octavia turned to face her. “I didn’t know,” she admitted. “But I hoped.”
“I see,” Miranda murmured. “And if your hope had been in vain?”
“Well…if we can’t be together in this life, then at least we would have been together in the next one,” Octavia made it sound so simple, and so obvious.
Miranda snorted. “Am I really worth that much?”
“That much and more.” Octavia’s tone did not admit of any doubt, or anything less than absolute certainty upon that point.
Miranda looked down at the ground. “Catch me,” she whispered.
“What?” Octavia asked.
Miranda pitched forward, letting her weary legs cease their workings, dropping her ebony staff and letting it hit the floor with a rattle as she plunged forward like an old tree being pulled up root and branch with ropes and gangs of muscular workmen. Forward she fell…straight into Octavia’s arms, so strong and soft, so warm…so safe.
“It’s alright,” Octavia said, rubbing Miranda’s back with one hand. “It’s alright. I’m here. I’ll always be here.”
“Thank you.”
“You saved me more than once,” Octavia said. “Why is it so surprising that I can return the favour? You don’t always have to be the strong one, Miranda. I can stand in front sometimes.”
“I’ll try to remember that,” Miranda murmured. She sighed, a deep sigh of weariness. “What do we do now?”
“Now?” Octavia said. “Now you learn to forgive yourself.”
Miranda smiled. “Not quite what I meant.”
“I know,” Octavia replied. “But the rest…all the rest can wait until morning.”
Miranda allowed Octavia to carry her to bed like a babe in arms, to place her on the palias and swaddle her in the sheets and kiss her, before settling down to keep watch over her until dawn’s light brought safety of a kind.
And so, safe and loved and guarded, Miranda exchanged the darkness of the surrounding night for the deeper darkness of embracing sleep.
And she did not dream.
Romana’s Hour
Before this day is done I will have ascended to the rule of the whole world.
Princess Imperial Romana, first since the founding, Princess that now is, smiled to herself at the combination of arrogance and falsehood present in her most private thoughts.
False, because in all ways save the formal she had already asc
ended to the lofty state of rule over the Divine Empire of All Pelarius, Liandra, Triazica and All the Lands that Lie Between or May Be Found Beyond. It had been two months since her brother Demodocus, second since the founding, had perished at the hands of their other brother Antiochus amidst the blood and treachery of a palace coup, and Antiochus himself had died by the magic of Filia Miranda Callistus, the last Aurelian, amidst the grief and righteous fury of a friend taken before her time. Since that time, the fact that Romana had not yet been enthroned in state mattered little, for as a body could not endure without a head so could a throne not endure without a monarch and so she had been to all intents and purposes Princess Imperial for some two months. In that time she had already disposed of governorships and magistracies to reward her allies, met regularly with the consuls and the privy council, and summoned Lord Belisarius back from Ne’Arin to take up the vacant post of Commander of the Army. It was difficult to think of any way in which she might exercise the power of the throne that she had not already begun to employ.
False and arrogant both because, of course, she was not being enthroned as ruler of the whole world. Aegea the Great, first since the founding, had proclaimed herself to be a universal sovereign, and it had for many years been the aim of her successors to achieve a perfect correspondence between proud boast and grim reality. Yet it had been many years now, centuries in fact, since that ambition had been talked of in more than mocking terms, and almost as long since the reality of the object had crept even inches closer to the boast. The name endured, but even that was rarely used these days, save on the most formal of occasions, replaced by the more prosaic ‘the Empire’. All Pelarius did, indeed, acknowledge the sway and sovereignty of the Purple Throne, from the Lavisspont to the Xarzian Gates, from the south coast to the Inner Sea. But in Liandra, only Prolixia and a small slice of Lavissar did the same, and in Triazica the Empire’s possessions clung to the north coast, menaced by the gold and mercenaries of Qart-Hadasht and mocked by the vast uncharted expanse of southern lands.
Short Swords: Tales from the Divine Empire (The First Sword Chronicles Book 3) Page 7