by Jo Spurrier
‘Ardamon,’ Mira snapped with a glare that could have cut glass, and Anoa kicked him under the table.
Sierra whirled to face him, eyes flashing like a storm. ‘What in the hells would you know about it?’
‘Ardamon, shut up,’ Cam said. ‘Sirri, listen to me. There’s nothing those bastards can throw at you that you can’t handle. We’ll put our people to work, we’ll come up with a plan, we’ll strengthen our defences, and when they come, we’ll be ready. We’ll finish this, I promise you. We haven’t come this far to fail now.’
She regarded him with narrowed eyes, and then turned away with a toss of her head.
‘You’re a fool,’ she said, and stalked out, slamming the door behind her.
Chapter 14
Isidro stayed up for a long time that evening, poring over diagrams of the palace. Sierra was right. Their defences were so broken down that it was not only possible they’d already been infiltrated, but likely. If he were in their enemy’s shoes, he’d have moved people into position before Hespero even showed his face. They’d already been compromised, he was willing to bet on it.
Cam had seen that he was thinking of something and had offered to help, but Isidro waved him away. Sometimes he thought better alone. As the others were preparing for bed, he knocked on Delphine’s door to borrow some note-tablets — since the Ricalani habit of communal living was still foreign to her, she had her own pair of rooms adjoining the main chamber — and she made the same offer of help, but didn’t argue when he declined. As she closed the door behind him, he heard Ilya whimpering, and wondered if the little lass was reacting to the tension everyone felt. Sierra hadn’t returned, and Cam had sent a couple of guardsmen to follow her. Isidro had checked on her several times, and each time found her pacing the icy battlements overlooking the city, with ice and lightning clinging to her hair.
He stayed up for several hours after the others had retired, laying out a plan to divide the palace into zones with checkpoints in between, so that only those who had business doing so could approach the royal quarters or other sensitive areas. They’d need some way of detecting enemy mages, too, and he sketched out several ideas for incorporating warding stones into the checkpoints. It was several hours past midnight when he set it all aside and followed the others into the bedchamber.
Even as weary as he was, thirst woke him again after what felt like an hour at most. Rubbing his temples against the beginning of a headache, he felt his way through the still-unfamiliar darkness to the main room. With the firelight to guide him, he found the kettle on a side table against the far wall, resting on an ingot of hot iron. He downed two cups and turned to retrace his steps when he saw Sierra lying on one of the padded benches around the firepit, her shock of black hair spilling over the blanket. He hadn’t heard her return. ‘Sirri?’ he said, keeping his voice soft.
She lifted her head, but there was no welcome in her eyes, and she said nothing.
‘What are you doing out here?’ he asked.
‘Watching the fire,’ she said, settling her head on her arms.
She was learning. That was a politician’s answer, truthful on the face of it but telling him nothing of what he wanted to know.
He stepped down into the firepit. ‘You don’t have to stay out here. The others aren’t angry. Just worried.’
She shrugged. ‘Can’t sleep. Didn’t want to keep them up by tossing all night.’
He knew how she felt. He’d been in that state a time or two himself. But something in her eyes kept him from believing the explanation. Even as guarded and withdrawn as she was, he could see the pain in there, and the fear that she’d tried to bury. ‘Sirri,’ he said, settling down on his heels beside her, ‘are you alright?’
For a moment she just stared at him, lips pursed and frowning, but then she sat up, wrestling with her blankets and the tangled mass of her hair. ‘Issey … there’s something wrong with me, isn’t there?’
The question took him by surprise. ‘What?’
‘Do you think I’m broken? Tell me the truth, by all the Gods, I’m not looking to be placated. The things you said to me that night on the coast … and this evening, the way everyone was watching me … they think I’m mad, don’t they? And back in the west, when I wanted to deal with Akhara once and for all, the way Cam looked at me … I hate it. Cam and Mira both do it. They don’t mean anything by it, but it makes me want to melt away and disappear. Are they right? Am I mad and I just don’t know it?’
With a sigh he settled onto the bench beside her. ‘I’m the last person you should ask.’
‘Who else can I trust to tell me the truth? Look, Cam and Mira are my kin, my oldest friends, but if I asked them they’d fall over themselves to deny it. They wouldn’t even stop to think about it. Who else am I going to ask? Rasten? He still won’t talk to me, but even if he did, he’s so far from whole and sound that he can’t even see the line of madness anymore. Issey, just tell me. Please. Am I broken?’
‘Sirri, what did they do to you in the Greenstone?’
She glared at him, and turned towards the fire. ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she said. ‘Use your imagination. You’ve seen enough of Kell’s ways to make a sound guess.’
‘That’s my point. You don’t come through that without taking damage. It’s …’ he sighed. She’d asked him for honesty, and surely he owed her that much. ‘I think you are, a little. No one could survive what you have and not come out a little bent and broken. But it’s alright, all wounds heal in time. Even if it seems like they’ll never get better.’
She hugged her knees to her chest, still watching the dancing flames. ‘Sometimes I wish I could turn back time. Not back to the Spire, or the Greenstone, but the time after that. Things were so much simpler. I had my task, I knew what to do, and I still … I still had hope that things could go back to the way they were. I longed to come home, but now that I am, it’s not like I expected. Everything’s so complicated. I just … I didn’t expect to feel so lost. We were supposed to be safe when we got here. It was supposed to be over. But now we have more enemies to fight, and I don’t know where they are and I can’t go out and cut them down. It’s like Demon’s Spire over again. We’re trapped, and I don’t know what to do. Something bad is coming, I can feel it. I felt it then, too, but I tried to convince myself that I could turn it aside. Now it’s happening again and I’m just as helpless as I was before.’
Her voice was shaking, and the light from the shifting coals gleamed off the tears on her cheeks. He sought her hand and when he found it her fingers were very cold, despite the hair-fine thread of lightning that flickered across her skin. ‘Sirri,’ he said, ‘it’ll be alright.’
‘Liar. You don’t know that. They’ve had a long time to study us and learn our weaknesses. They wanted us to come back here, and we’ve done exactly as they wished. It’s like being back on the rack, bound and waiting. But they’ll take their time, you wait and see. When they strike, there won’t be a cursed thing we can do about it, and they’ll make sure the first slash goes deep.’
He squeezed her hand. She was tense and rigid, her power running high in a nervous, jittery pulse barely held beneath her skin. ‘Sirri,’ he said, ‘you’re not helpless. You’ll fight them as you always have. It’ll be alright, truly.’
She tossed her head with a hiss of irritation. ‘Don’t treat me like a child,’ she said, pulling her hand away. ‘Go back to your furs. But thank you for telling me the truth.’
He didn’t want to leave her in this state. ‘I’d rather stay, if you’ll let me. I can see you’re hurting, Sirri. I don’t want to leave you to bear it alone.’
She turned to him, lips pressed into a hard line. ‘It’s the only way I can bear it, Isidro. You ought to know that by now.’ Her eyes were cold and suspicious.
He stood with a sigh. ‘Try to get some sleep. You’ll feel better for it.’
She snorted at that, but lay down on the padded bench, thumping a fist into the cushion
and pulling the blanket up around her ears. By the time he found a blanket and cushion of his own, she was settled with arms wrapped around the pillow and dark eyes staring into the dancing flames.
When morning came, short sleep had left Sierra’s head fuzzy, and her stomach was still tied up in knots. She couldn’t bring herself to eat and had only a bowl of tea before slipping away to the town’s main temple. Hunger had had no chance to plague her, anyway — she was too filled with power to notice any lack.
When the priests re-dedicated the temple to the Twin Suns, they’d set up a hospital in the adjoining buildings, and Rhia and the other physicians attended it in shifts. Sierra visited each morning to bestow her touch on the ill and injured and on anyone else who sought her aid.
She’d come to dread this duty, the hours it took and the misery and despair that hung over the place. The power it gave her seemed small consolation — even now, when holding as much power as she could muster was the best defence she had. The priests had set her up in a sheltered alcove warmed by braziers. In a corner, a few young lads and lasses played soothing music, and the smell of incense drifted through the air. It was meant to be comforting, Sierra supposed, though she’d spent too little time in temples to find it so. Ultimately it wasn’t for her, she reminded herself. It was for the supplicants who sought her aid.
There were always dozens, sometimes hundreds. Folk with burns or painful teeth, with gashes, broken bones, or just long-healed wounds that ached in the cold. These were the easy ones. The worst of them were seen in the hospital itself, the dying … somehow they’d spent their strength on holding out to see Ricalan again, and were steadily fading now that they were home. When she made her rounds they grasped her hands eagerly, clinging to her as they murmured thanks. That morning, she didn’t know what to say to them. She found herself utterly unable to murmur her usual soothing reply — instead, she wondered which of these folk would still be alive when the Akharians made their move. One of the faces that had greeted her each morning was absent that day, but Sierra didn’t ask after him. It didn’t seem to make any difference anyway — for each one that escaped further pain, another was admitted to the ranks. It was hopeless, futile.
That morning, Rhia had seen that something was disturbing her. As she’d turned to receive her supplicants, the line already snaking out of the temple gates and into the streets, Rhia had caught her hand and pulled her back. You are helping, she’d said. It means a great deal to them.
Now, hours later, she bowed her head to each person who shuffled past, hands held out ready to grasp her own. Perhaps Cam was right. Perhaps it would be a mistake to flee as her instincts urged. What chance would these folk have without her? And they were not the only ones feeding her power — for every soul that sought her touch, there were ten more who pushed on, unwilling or unable to take hours out of their day to line up for relief.
She was nearly done for today, thankfully, but then the mages in the fort would be waiting for her, ready to take the power she’d gathered and put it to use.
There came a shout from the courtyard, and the slap of running feet. Sierra rose from her padded bench, but one of the guards raised a hand to warn her to stay back, while the other shifted his grip on his spear and strode out to investigate. Moments later, he returned, leading a young lad of about fifteen, all coltish legs and oversized hands.
‘What’s the matter?’ she said.
‘My lady, the watch captain sent me to tell you that Lord Rasten’s been sighted down at the city gates.’
For a moment, she could only blink at him. ‘Rasten?’ she said.
‘Yes, my lady.’
She reached for him, but found nothing, just a blank wall, as always, and muttered a curse. ‘Has the king been told?’
‘Another lad was sent up to the palace. The captain asks that you come at once. He’s worried, my lady.’
Sierra nodded, turning to one of the attending priests. ‘I have to go,’ she said, and let the boy lead her out to the streets, with her guards a pace behind. ‘Did you see him?’ she demanded of the lad.
‘Yes, my lady. He looks like he’s been sleeping in a ditch. When the captain went to speak to him, Lord Rasten just growled at him to stay away.’
In the street they met another small party of guards who formed up around her. ‘He’s on the high road, my lady,’ their leader told her, ‘making a course for the palace. We thought it best to bring you to intercept.’
She ran a hand through her hair and realised she was shaking. Cam had set people to keep a distant watch over Rasten while they were still in Akhara, but in the controlled chaos of their exodus and return to the north he’d managed to slip all scrutiny and vanish into the spring’s melting snow. ‘Has there been any word of him?’ she asked the commander. ‘Anything at all?’
The soldier grimaced. ‘Rumours, my lady, nothing solid. Some folk who escaped the slave-raids have turned outlaw in the hills, and I heard a tale they took him for a man alone and easy pickings. You can imagine how that went for them.’
Word was spreading fast — she couldn’t ever recall seeing so many people in the streets. But her escort cut a wide path through the crowds, and in only a few moments they’d brought her to the high road where it entered the main square with market stalls around the edges and a fountain in the middle.
For a few minutes, she paced back and forth in front of the broken statuary, clenching and unclenching her hands. By the Black Sun, Rasten, what are you doing here? Why now? And why in the Fires Below won’t you talk to me? She kept glancing up towards the fort. How would Cam take to this news? She couldn’t begin to guess.
Then, as soldiers kept the curious away, she saw him trudging along the roadway with his head bowed. He walked with a limp, leaning heavily on a rough-hewn staff. As he drew near, she felt the ache in his back and shoulders, in his ribs and his legs. He hurt all over, bathing her like heat from a fire.
When she saw him, Sierra fell still, and within a few paces he halted too. Head bowed, he stood there for a long moment before at last he looked up and fixed his gaze upon her.
His hair was matted and filthy, his skin pallid, with dark circles under his eyes. In his gaze, Sierra caught a glimpse of the despair and desperation she’d seen in him so often and which she’d hoped he’d left behind.
She started towards him. ‘Rasten,’ she said, her voice low and soft, ‘you look dreadful. What happened?’
He leant against the staff, watching her with hollow eyes. After a moment, he shifted his gaze to the gathered crowd.
‘Don’t worry about them,’ Sierra said. ‘They don’t mean you any harm.’
He shifted his weight. She intuited from the throbbing of his left leg that he’d wrenched the knee and ankle. A scuffle with outlaws could account for it, she supposed, but it was just as likely the land itself had done it to him. Ricalan was a harsh place for someone travelling alone, especially when the warmth of the encroaching spring made the melting ice treacherous and rotten.
‘I … I wanted to go home, Sirri. But I couldn’t … I don’t even know where to look. This is the only home I know. I … I swore I wouldn’t bother you again, but I just … I couldn’t …’
She moved closer, taking slow, careful steps. ‘Hush, it’ll be alright. Come up to the palace, we’ll get you something to eat, get you warmed up. You’ll feel better then.’ She glanced up at the palace again. Cam would be furious. Isidro … she couldn’t guess how he’d react, he was a mystery to her these days. But she’d deal with them. Rasten was her kin, her brother by blood and fire. She couldn’t turn him away. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘give me your hand.’
He held her gaze for so long that Sierra wondered if he’d heard her, but at last he shuffled forward and took her offered touch.
He swayed on his feet as she drained the pain away, and she braced herself for the stinging slap when she broke the contact, when his power tried to snatch back what she’d stolen, but it never came. In silence, he turned tow
ards the fortress and shuffled onwards again. Within a few strides, a renewed ache spread through his wounded leg. Every line of his body spoke of exhaustion, and he reminded her of the freed slaves in the first hours after their chains were struck off: drained and bewildered, their reserves run too low to understand what had befallen them.
As she matched pace beside him, Sierra swallowed hard and reached for Isidro. Issey?
Hmm? He was in the workshops, the rooms Delphine had taken over as the headquarters for Ricalan’s new mages.
Rasten’s here.
She felt him go still. What? Where?
We’re heading up to the palace.
What does he want?
Don’t know. I’m not sure he knows. He’s … well, when you see him for yourself, you’ll understand.
He cut the contact, and Sierra’s stomach flipped within her.
Rasten kept a steady pace up the hill to the gates. As he hobbled through the gatehouse tunnel, he looked over the walls, blackened by fire and melted here and there to a glassy sheen. During the attack, the heat had been so fierce that the edges of the arrow-slits rippled like a block of butter left near the fire.
Once through the tunnel, Rasten struck out for the doors near Kell’s quarters.
Before they were halfway across, Sierra saw Isidro emerge from the main entrance. He caught up near the doors, but Rasten appeared not to notice. He set a path to Kell’s old quarters in silence.
At the foot of the steps, Rasten stopped, letting his staff fall with a clatter, and then stumbled forward to press his hands and forehead against the wall of stone that filled the doorway.
‘It’s gone, Rasten.’
It was Isidro who spoke. At the sound of his voice, Rasten began to tremble. ‘Was … was anything left?’ he said. ‘The city fell. It would have been looted —’
‘No one touched the place,’ Sierra said. ‘We checked. I buried it all, Rasten. There’s nothing left but rock.’