"Damn you," Irreor growled. "What do you want me to do?"
They smiled and laughed.
So he paced. He clawed and dug at his forearms and chest, wishing the images would vanish, wishing the Prophet would, for once, remain silent. And the inferno in his chest seared ever hotter.
"You'll be expecting them to attack early?" Gar Tsi said.
Irreor whipped around.
The merchant descended the Spire's steps, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and stumbled to a chair. He reached for a metal-lined tankard, then threw it into the corner. "You'd damn well be thinking we could have some drink for the morning. Gah! Be taking yourself a seat."
Irreor froze.
His forearms bled again, his clothes were rumpled from hours of lying on the stone floor, and his eyes must've appeared empty. How pale must his skin have looked? He couldn't hide these things now, however, and the merchant didn't mention it, so he joined the man.
Gar Tsi grunted. "You haven't been sleep—"
"No."
"I haven't been hearing word of Fier. I'm not being sure how many men we can keep devoted—"
"He doesn't matter."
"You were being hot to find him, earlier."
Irreor shrugged, unable to reveal the truth. In his gentahl-induced memories, Fier must've seen what he was—the father of him and his sister, the orchestrator of this island, the man who clung to sanity. He'd ordered a cluster of soldiers to search for Fier, but the man must've fled the city.
The Prophet had warned Irreor not to learn gentahl, but now it was too late.
-Fier deserves his own type of peace.-
Indeed.
"What shape are the men in?" Irreor asked.
"Pernik said the best of them are being optimistic. They saw an army at the base of our walls, but they weren't being impressed. 'Little men with even smaller spears,' he said." Gar Tsi smirked. "I wasn't asking what he meant."
Irreor grunted.
"Think they'll be attacking early?"
"Perhaps." A drop of blood struck the table as Irreor laughed—sarcastic, hopeless. "Perhaps they'll sit on their hill and have a void-forsaken party."
Again, he laughed.
The idea of Abennak's army dancing seemed absurd, but what could he do? Even with the Sverden’s men, the Mad King outnumbered them. Farren's men had fought well yesterday, but they'd lost too many before the Kilnsmen drove Rippon's soldiers away. Those who had died were fodder, the unskilled or uncaring. After several more days, the fodder would fray like leather from a hilt.
Only steel would remain.
"It doesn't matter," Irreor said.
"I've never been knowing you to lose hope."
"Have you ever truly known me?"
The merchant gripped Irreor's wrist. "I know this is being difficult, but—"
"Difficult is chopping a tree to pieces. It's providing for your family or waiting to find a solid day of work." Irreor shook his head. "This is more than difficult. Have you ever watched a butterfly in the sky?"
"Of course I've been watching—"
"It flaps and flutters, but for what reason? So it can drink from a flower? So it can spread its seed to make other little butterflies flap and flutter? It spends its entire life on that quest, but what does it find in the end?"
Gar Tsi hesitated. "I'm not following."
"Death," Irreor said, and he smiled a private smile. "It finds death."
For once, the Prophet remained silent.
Chapter Seventy-Six
Kipra sat beside Villeen on a crimson, cushioned bench, and they watched as Abennak hummed to himself in the predawn hours. He hung a purple banner across the pavilion's entrance, and it lay limp in the breezeless morning. He whacked it with his fingertips, but still it lay motionless. So he puckered his lips and splattered saliva against it, huffing and puffing.
It rippled.
He grinned at Villeen. "We'll have a party tomorrow evening, after the battle, for there isn't a better way to wipe away blood and tears. And, rest assured, there will be many of those when dusk arrives. Come, my little soldiers, slaughter a pig, nibble a hen. We'll dance and sing and tell the stories of our lives."
Kleni, seated at one of the closer campfires, turned to scowl at him. Her minstrel, Lerrin, played a soothing melody, like water at the end of a fall. It stretched far into the camp. Soldiers swayed their heads in tune to the music, though their expressions were buried beneath a dull pallor.
Kipra narrowed her eyes. Parched Ones never felt anything. Their armor was splattered with blood from yesterday, though they'd polished and sharpened their weapons for today's battle.
Abennak hung yet another banner, and Kleni's scowl deepened. She hadn't spoken to either Kipra or Abennak since yesterday. Her attack had been an utter failure.
How glorious that was.
Rippon's soldiers had come within feet of taking the wall, but then the Kilnsmen had arrived. Ark must've spread them out at the start of the battle to be certain his defenses remained solid on all fronts. Kleni, however, had only attacked from the west. She'd failed to target the north, where the wall was lowest, or the east, where the stone was weakest. She'd been forced to retreat.
The Kilnsmen, once consolidated, had thrust ladders from the battlements, hacked and slashed those who neared the top, and cheered louder than any as Rippon's forces retreated.
Ark's archers had peppered their backs with shafts.
The king's voice reached the lower fires, and Kleni tossed her bowl into the flames and stomped to his pavilion. "We're at war! What the fuck are you going to do with a party?"
"Not fuck or fuck." He tilted his head and giggled. "Of course, maybe some of us will. I suppose that's up and up to them."
Kleni stabbed a finger at the city. "Will they wait while we dance and sing and drink? Fool! They'll attack, and we'll be too lost in our cups to respond. They'll storm our lines—"
"Nope and nope. They'll attend."
She groaned. "That's the most foolish idea I've heard since—"
Abennak's insanity fled in that instant. His features smoothed and color returned to his face. He seized her cheeks with one gnarled hand, squeezing until the pressure buried her protest.
She sputtered, but he clenched tighter.
"He's not lost," Villeen whispered. "Not yet."
Abennak yanked Kleni closer, until his eyes were level with hers. "My poor, deluded little general. I've known a woman with more heart than you. She filled my life with wonder."
Kleni's throat spasmed as she attempted to gulp.
"You've murdered my friends and seized my army." He pressed his forehead against hers. "But you do these things with my permission. Mine! Go twist and twirl my assassin. He's no longer needed."
"I never did anything with the assassin—"
"You'll lead the attack tomorrow, in the morning and through the afternoon, but tomorrow night you'll vanish," he said with a hiss. "These moments weren't meant for you."
He shoved her hard enough to snap her face upward, and she remained in that position for a long moment, eyes wide and glassy, cheeks red and white from the released pressure. She lowered her head slowly, regally, and disappeared into the camp.
Chapter Seventy-Seven
"He wants to have a party," the messenger said.
Irreor offered the man a strange look, twitching his head to the side as if he hadn't heard right. The messenger had arrived only thirty minutes ago, and Irreor had kept him waiting in the Council's Chambers while he finished inspecting the defenses. Farren wasn't ready for another attack—the western gate had already begun to splinter—but crews did what they could to repair the damage.
Anger burned within Irreor—directionless, formless, pointless.
Pernik sat at the table with him, along with Gar Tsi and Yaron Kenn. They examined the messenger's mottled hair, muddied clothes, dry and cracked hands, and attempted to withhold their startled expressions.
"He wants to have a what?" Per
nik blurted.
"A party," the messenger said.
-Ah, and what a strange twist we have.-
"What exactly did he say," Irreor said, forcing aside his annoyance at the Prophet.
"Uh, well, first he hopped up and down like a frog. Tried to catch a fly or two. Then he looked at me." The man shuddered. "You don't want to look into his eyes. Can't imagine what it's like."
Irreor slammed his fist into the table, and something nameless and faceless twisted inside him. It demanded anger. It demanded vengeance and fury and pain. "What did he say!"
The messenger licked his lips, threw a quick glance to the other men, then peered back at the ground. He shifted his weight, wrung his hands. "I... ah—"
-Ah, it's so soon. He's come so soon.-
"Be silent!" Irreor screamed, then clamped his mouth shut. He hadn't meant to speak aloud, but the Prophet's voice, the child's vileness—they taunted him. Nothing stopped them, not work or sleep, silence or noise.
"You want him to talk, or be quiet?" Pernik asked gently.
Irreor heaved a breath. The child hammered within his chest, matching his heart's rhythm. With each blow, it pumped anger into his blood. Fury seared. It laughed and cried, but it wouldn't stop.
In a rasping tone, Irreor said, "Speak."
Pernik nodded at the messenger. "Go to it, lad. Tell us what you've got to say."
The man hesitated, and then words spilled from his mouth. "He said, 'Tell the boys the party rises as the sun falls tomorrow, but not before a battle to shatter a shout. We'll have no death on that night. No frowning faces or children crying. No men with blades in their hands and murder in their hearts. On that single night,' he said, 'We'll remember and remember what could've been.'"
The idea seemed absurd, even suicidal. They couldn't march from the city, leave it undefended, and waltz into Abennak's camp. With what, open arms? Wide smiles?
What does he mean, what could've been?
-I don't know.-
"Wait in the hall, man," Pernik told the messenger. "We'll call you after we've readied a reply. I don't expect this to take long."
The messenger fled.
Gar Tsi leaned back in his chair and spread his hands across his stomach. "He must be thinking us fools. I'd not abandon Farren and go for a dance any more than I'd be giving that man my first son. What's being in it for us?"
"I don't know," Yaron Kenn said. "But it feels right."
Gar Tsi shook his head. "You're being as mad as he—"
"This is what we were meant for," Yaron said. "Can't you feel it? It's like butter on corn, or the color of a leaf—it simply is. It was meant to be. He's offering us this choice, but it's not a choice at all."
-Our choices follow us through our lives. They haunt us.-
Irreor clenched his forearms and hung his head low, allowing the other men to speak. He squeezed. Outside these chambers, the city readied for another attack. Beyond the walls, Kipra waited with Abennak. What would the Mad King do with her?
The child's anger slowed, dulled, as if it listened, as if it considered.
Would our third piece want to save Kipra?
-I don't know, but doubtful. When I say it will destroy everything, that's exactly what I mean. Not even memories would remain of us. Beyond that? I've no clue.-
You don't know much these days, do you?
-So it seems. We never anticipated any of this.-
"I'm not knowing about you," Gar Tsi said. "But I've never been liking buttered corn. There's being no reason to consider Abennak's offer. The man is insane. He'd probably be having a party with a goat, if it popped into his mind. No. We'll stay behind our walls and—"
"No," Irreor whispered.
All turned to him.
"I'll go to his camp, and I'll meet with him." Irreor licked the tip of his finger, which tasted of blood and ash and dirt. It was his fault. "I'll fix it."
"You're being certain?"
"He has Kipra."
I'll save her.
Irreor's thought lacked force.
He'd thought it because it was right to do so, just as he'd always wanted to touch her, yet never found the strength. He loved her. The fire in his blood and the yearning to see her face proved it.
The child pounded his chest.
Ah, and that child. It never spoke. It was a silent companion to the Prophet's nattering. Through the hours, it clawed the inside of his chest with invisible nails, demanding freedom.
-To free it would result in an ending.-
An ending to what?
-Everything.-
Irreor swallowed hard at that.
So many times the Prophet had been wrong. Yet sometimes he spoke the truth. Irreor knew it in his bones. If he released the child, even for a moment, for a second, everything would end.
He'd given Kipra all he could—gentleness, love, compassion. Yet in the end, they amounted to very little indeed. When standing on the verge of oblivion, gentleness and love and compassion were but a sigh in the storm.
-The steel is cracked, the butterfly almost dead.-
Irreor tightened the muscles in his gut, squared his jaw. He'd see Kipra again, feel the warm closeness of her skin. Would she let him touch her?
Void take me, please let her think of me fondly.
-Doors and locks can't hold him anymore. Now we've only flesh to contain him. Our minds. And we'll hope it's enough. Maybe he can't free himself.-
"So you'll be playing the fool and get yourself killed to save the woman?" Gar Tsi muttered. "Abennak will slaughter you like a man stepping on a mouse, and then he'll be turning his eye to the city—"
"So be it."
"I forbid it."
Irreor leaned close to his friend. "Would you throw me in chains to stop me? Would you drop me in a dungeon and allow the rats to gnaw at me? No, you wouldn't do any of those things. This city is mine. Its people are mine. Anyone who wishes to join me at the Mad King's camp is welcome to."
Gar Tsi frowned and pulled away. "You're being as insane as he."
Silence.
"It's something we can never be certain of, isn't it?" Irreor said. "Your sanity is another man's madness. And another man's madness, ah, that could be a painting. It could be beautiful. Ugly. We could never know."
-That painting could show us as we truly are, twisted and mangled and harrowed. It would be black, with swirls of red. Orbs of purple happiness, but they'd be so tiny. Insignificant. Orange and yellow and red flames of the child, ah, they'd lift so high. They'd singe the canvas.-
Why?
-Bubble the paint.-
Why!
-Oh, my general, please forgive us. This isn't how we wanted it to happen. He's too close, too strong, and I can't stop him. No, no! The steel is shattered, the butterfly lost.-
"I'm not going," Gar Tsi said, and he crossed his arms. "This is absurd. Pernik, be talking some sense into our young pup."
Pernik glanced between the two men.
The implications of Irreor's decision—taking half the city to frolic with the Mad King, leaving Farren with low defenses—they must've weighed heavily on the old officer. He dropped his gaze.
"You'll stay here," Irreor told him. "After the battle tomorrow, you'll oversee the repairs on the wall and make sure everyone who remains behind is safe. Lead the defenses if this is a trap. And who knows, maybe we won't even survive the day. Maybe there won't even be a party."
"You're certain about this?" Pernik asked, and he waited until Irreor nodded. "Then I'll go. I didn't watch you become a man just to let you run off and have yourself killed. Your father would've flayed the skin from my bones if I did."
"Absurd," Gar Tsi murmured, but he shook his head. "Call in the messenger."
-Bubble and bubble the paint. Kill them all.-
The Prophet's voice grew fainter, a single stroke of charcoal against a whitened wall.
-Forgive us, for I've failed us all.-
Chapter Seventy-Eight
Night had f
allen hours ago.
Dew clung to Wisk's tent, pulling the canvas low. It overlooked the city, and the corpses of their first battle. The rest of the army, those that lived, awaited daylight. They anticipated warmth and the chance to again smash themselves against Farren's walls.
He expelled a breath, almost expecting it to drift like smoke. The outside air was chill; glints of frost shone from the grass. Autumn gripped the island.
But his tent wasn't cold.
Kleni's arm rested on his chest, and her leg curled around his. She breathed, light and soft in the dark, warming the air. Yesterday's failure didn't seem to bother her. She'd even smirked slightly as she ordered the retreat, though she'd hidden the expression from her sister and the king.
"Let them think what they want," she'd said.
Wisk touched the top of her head, feeling the smoothness of her hair. Many whores wrapped themselves around him for coin or protection. Not this woman. She was a special kind of whore, one who enjoyed her work.
"I want you to do something for me," she said.
He chuckled. "One who enjoys her work, but enjoyment is simply a means to an end, isn't it? Ruthlessness should have limits, my dear. You enjoy the sex, but it's for a reason."
"True."
"And my task?"
"Murder."
He shivered at the thought. While this woman was soft, while she moaned and ground against him, wet and slippery against his skin, she nevertheless failed to produce the passion that killing provided.
To him, sex and killing were two different things.
"Your sister?" he asked.
Consideration prowled behind her eyes, like a cat watching its prey. The sisters snapped and scowled at each other, always on the verge of violence. Only the threat of Abennak kept them from each other's throat.
Finally, Kleni shook her head. "No, that would be too easy. She wouldn't react to it the way she needs to, and I want her to know what I've known. I want her to feel the helplessness of watching the man she loves killed."
"She's hardly helpless."
"She will be." She twisted her lips between her fingers, a contemplative and erotic motion. "The eastern gatemen have always been lazy. They've changed beneath Ark, but not much, especially since they're stationed on the far side of the battles."
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