by James Stone
‘I fear he has no intention of strengthening the city—he wants to break it,’ Siedous groaned. ‘If what he says is true about the Mansel, then something must be done. But not like this. Not with Magmaya. If they see it as an invasion, she’ll die.’
He’d considered over the last few days volunteering himself, but he was too old and not even that would allow Magmaya to be freed from duty. He was a low-born, truly—Kharon wouldn’t want him as the city’s representative.
‘My lord.’ Nurcia frowned. ‘What would you see me do?’
‘The chancellor will soon ask you make ready his men. This march to Mansel will likely begin in a couple of days.’ Siedous paused. ‘I’ll prepare Magmaya ahead of time, but you must delay his orders for as long as possible, understood? He trusts you the most out of anyone on his council, but I will do what I can.’
‘Of course, my lord,’ Nurcia said. ‘I’ll be on my way.’
‘I’m grateful, Nurcia.’ He nodded, and she scampered down the corridor, her dress seemingly floating above the floor below.
Magmaya, he thought, dammit! He should’ve taught her to run away.
~ ~ ~
The bitter swelling of honey carried through the sculleries and tickled her nose like an insect landing on a petal. There was a wantonness in the wine she poured down her throat, but she let it bubble there and poison her all the same. Magmaya knew soon it would reach her head, and she wouldn’t be herself for a little while; she didn’t even like the taste, but it was sweeter than any silk tea the maids tried to make her. Besides, from time to time it would let her recreate that happiness she had felt a thousand winters ago and the warmth that had come with it—but it was never the same. Her body felt so damn old. Moments became memories before they even passed.
Magmaya laughed as the wine trickled down her chin and stained her shirt, sullying her blouse with the colours of the forest she’d ran from. She laughed harder and harder—and choked. It was even more so droller now—the corpse, the blood—the empty eyes.
It had all happened in a moment’s notice, and Siedous was there too, somewhere. She remembered the warmth of his chest against hers as she’d ran to him. When she’d been younger, she might have dreamt of kissing him—but he was over double her age and his breath smelt like salt.
She took another mouthful of wine and choked again as she laughed, spitting it across the floor. Magmaya heard someone enter the room and raised the nigh-empty bottle into the air, wailing, ‘Tonight we drink!’ She sniggered, ‘Tomorrow, we go to war!’
‘Mistress?’ The voice was shocked to see her, but Magmaya wasn’t confused. It’s only me. ‘Let me return you to the chancellor, my lady.’
The voice tried to pry the bottle from her hands, but Magmaya held it to her chest like a mother did a babe and began to nuzzle the rim. Pearly white lights began shining down, and for a moment, the world made a little less sense. Why wouldn’t she want to catch those moonbeams in her sinful hands?
But before Magmaya knew it, the scullery had disappeared from beneath her, and there was a crash. The bottle was trailing behind her; glassy shards scattered about in a spring of scarlet. She wanted to cry for it and scrape for the remains, but her lungs felt like they were about to collapse, and her nails could’ve never jeered deep enough to dig her back.
The lights are roaring multi-coloured now! She tried to grab them, but they just trickled between her fingers, and she felt herself be dragged away. Her stomach was groaning, and her mouth had gone dry—if only she could get back to the cellar…
Doors and nameless faces stared in wonder as she passed, and Magmaya couldn’t help but smile. Thank you, she tried to say and bow but tasted bile instead. Corridors turned and twisted and before long, hands became cold and brittle until, at last, she recognised their owner.
The same hands tore away from her and left red cuts up her arm. And then a limb twisted up above. Before hammering across her face.
Magmaya cried and stumbled; her cheek began to burn as it always did when she was around Kharon. The boardroom seemed to appear around them at last, but what she saw at his hip was much more interesting—Moonbeam—the sword of Orianne and symbol of their home. They were readying themselves for war then.
‘You stupid wench!’ the chancellor stuttered. ‘Pathetic girl. Had I found you myself, I would have struck you harder!’
Magmaya watched Kharon’s eyes glimmer as they glowed in the candles overhead. She stayed quiet, but she was afraid that whatever she did, he would lash out at her again—when he spoke, he was like a tempest thrashing a feeble village off the shore.
‘You’re pathetic,’ he spat. ‘What do you expect me to say when I’m told my heir is caught drinking in the common kitchens?’
‘I don’t know,’ she stuttered. But you could tell them I’m more than a reminder of you not knowing where to stick your cock, Magmaya thought. ‘If I knew you were sending me out there—I, I would have never told you I found my half-brother’s corpse! This isn’t just your kingdom.’
‘I have no kingdom,’ Kharon groaned.
Magmaya reeled, holding her cheek. Leave the palace and tell me that again, she thought and felt a wave of tantalising nothingness reach her head.
There was a deep and unbroken silence as the wind screamed, and one of the candles flickered out.
‘I’ve a request for you,’ he said at last. ‘If it’s not too much of a burden.’
‘And what could that possibly be?’
‘Shalleous is leading the troops tomorrow.’ Kharon’s breath was heavy, and it reeked of wine and onions. ‘I don’t want you to be among the ranks. Instead, you will be his banner girl.’
‘I beg your fucking pardon.’ Magmaya cocked her head, and suddenly, the layers of numbness she’d built up in the morning fell away. She was feeling again, and the heat from where he’d struck her was burning red.
‘If, damn me, you’re to represent my city, then I won’t have you lost in a crowd of guardsmen.’ His words were cold, like the man he had perhaps once been. ‘One day you may be the last of my legacy, now start acting like it.’
Something of a melancholy tackled Magmaya, and she stumbled to the centre of the room. The fine, wooden table trailed through her fingers, and she almost tripped over the leg. From afar, the wind curved around the spires, calling and howling.
After some quiet deliberation, she turned back to the chancellor and mumbled, ‘There are easier ways to kill me.’
With a shudder, Magmaya left the room and let the poison take her. It wasn’t long until she reached the stairs and then the door and finally found herself in the forest again. At least there, she could watch the snow fall and bless her with the knowledge the trees would never sing if she wasn’t to arrive home.
Two
She woke from a dream about a temple. It was a temple of blood and stone, ivory and brass. It was like she’d lived there in a past life—a realer life than this one. And all around her, there had been fire, clouding her thought, though it was the kind of place she forgot about once she came around.
And when she did, it was to the snapping of greased iron sweeping over the hillside as if it never had before. The air reeked of sweat and rain where the winter had lashed the muddied ground apart like the whipping of an outlaw’s back. And across it, the guardsmen stood about in wolf-skin and metal plate, wilting roses carved in their chests; each of them insisted on sporting thorny antlers that pricked the clouds and wearing extravagant feathers like some aloof birds.
But all Magmaya could fathom was that it was freezing. Speckles of sunlight were beginning to beat the snow away from the palace grounds, but the ice seemed incessant on eating at her. She had started longing for the warm morning before in the armoury where she’d clipped the cuirass onto her chest, all while her servant had scurried around, tending to her every need. She longed to be there again, to be rolling her shoulders back and feeling the cool metal burn through her clothes.
But now, she just stood quietly in the corner of the grounds, though even that didn’t stop the women occasionally looking to her in scorn, while the men tried to make out the curves of her breasts beneath the shimmer of her armour. She’d learnt to close her eyes each time and let the steel encase her. If they thought she was a dazzling white swan, then she would do her very best to muddy herself in the rain.
The tides of guardsmen began to shift as someone trudged through the snow clumps, taller than the rest. His armour shimmered brighter, and his long brown locks were slicked back above the dark stubble that crowded those wrinkles she’d known so well. Shalleous Vorr locked eyes with his niece and allowed himself a swift grin.
‘Magmaya Vorr.’ He looked down at her fake sword. ‘Perhaps your father doesn’t underestimate you after all.’
‘I don’t think he wants me to actually hit anything with it,’ she murmured. ‘I’m only here to look pretty or die trying.’ She laughed feebly. She had a habit of doing that when she was nervous, but it often did her more harm than good.
‘Why not both?’ Shalleous let out a roar of laughter, and the murmurings about the grounds fell silent. Her uncle’s mere presence seemed to uplift them, though; he exuded raw enthusiasm, even in the face of the cold. ‘Are you afraid, dear girl?’
‘No,’ she lied, keeping her teeth clenched. ‘Kharon says fear is for men.’
‘The chancellor has many such sentiments,’ he remarked. ‘Once on a drunk summer’s evening, when seventeen were slaughtered in the square, he looked to me with a smile and said, Drink until it is over.’
‘And he hasn’t stopped since.’ Magmaya grinned.
‘Even so, that is not my favourite of his,’ Shalleous began, laughing. ‘When my son was born, the chancellor told me how he’d dreamt that the moon became the sun at day. And then, the next morning, a star had fallen from the sky. Except it was no star, no; it was something of clockwork. He described the thing in wonder as if he had seen it himself, but whe—’
There was a stammer of sodden footsteps, and the chattering was cut off as Kharon strode towards them, a trailing gown of white following his every step. The harsh light didn’t feed his features well; he looked an age older with every passing second. But he nodded to his troops as if he were a king, and so they hid away to let him pass.
‘My lord.’ Her uncle bowed.
He looked to the pair with a venomous smile (only made more so by his crooked beard) and shouted through the downpour, ‘If I hear you turn tails, they’ll be no place for you at Orianne.’
How inspiring, Magmaya grumbled.
The chancellor turned away to the guardsmen and cleared his throat, basking in their adoration like he was a saint among disciples. And when he spoke, he chose his words precisely and vindictively so that when he was done, perhaps in the eyes of a few, a saint he would become.
And Magmaya could only watch, blinking steadily as spit caught her cheek. She drowned out the words in her mind—they were all the same: pleas from a man who wouldn’t dare leave his wooden seat. She just wished Siedous was around, but he was far too old and weary to come. The lines in her uncle’s face were beginning to show too, though—he wasn’t much younger. Maybe the rain would see to that.
After a few minutes more of droning on and rites and prayers from a number of priests, the battalion erupted into wails of adoration; all around her, there were fists held out to the chancellor’s cloak. The applause illuminated the blackness of the morning long enough for Magmaya to sink into the shadows.
There was a heavy muttering as Kharon waded back through the crowd, ignoring his daughter and almost throwing himself at Shalleous. His brother embraced him, and the pair stood high with something almost primal about them.
‘Before we go, my lord—’ Shalleous began.
‘You were my first choice,’ Kharon cut him off, voice muffled as rain caught his lip. ‘I wouldn’t be without my brother.’
‘Of course, my chancellor.’ Shalleous nodded, and Magmaya watched on. Her father was facing away, but she knew he was watching her, even as guardsmen flooded between them. ‘Though I must let you know I’ve decided to head for the Sultide first,’ her uncle said. ‘We’ll be able to better afford strength if we camp out there for the night.’
‘I care not how this is done, only that it is.’ Kharon smiled, patting his brother’s shoulder. He looked around, and his smile dropped. Magmaya ducked. ‘Look at you all in your furs. A pack of wolves,’ Kharon remarked. ‘Some things never change. That’s what mother used to call you, wasn’t it? A wolf?’ There was a hint of warmth in his voice for what seemed the first time in a hundred years.
‘And you were the Bear.’ Shalleous blushed. ‘Though I’d hoped my little name had been forgotten…’
‘There’s nothing disrespectful in a title,’ Kharon remarked and began ambling about the puddles, watching the streaks of rain cut across the valley.
‘I do hope your daughter gets one after this fiasco is finished,’ Shalleous said. ‘She’s grown strong.’
‘It’s an exhibition,’ Magmaya heard her father say and shrunk down again.
‘No, it is not,’ he asserted. ‘Kharon, today is the day we challenge a fortress! Scarcely any of us have seen Mansel territory with our own eyes but if it’s anything like in the stories—’
‘Nonsense,’ Kharon barked. ‘Magmaya Vorr is the heir to Orianne. She must advocate for the city. You and I did all those years ago. She’s no different. Besides, the Mansel have suffered a harsh winter; they’re in no place to retaliate. Her sword isn’t southern steel, either. She couldn’t stick herself if she tried. She will grow bored if anything.’
Gods, I hope so, she thought. I’d rather be bored than flayed.
‘She better be—for your sake.’ Shalleous raised an eyebrow. ‘I’ll be going.’
Her uncle disappeared down the hillside, and she watched as the chancellor turned away, confronted the shadows and called for her curtly.
‘I’m here.’ She crawled out from between a pair of guardsmen and wiped hair from her eyes.
‘It almost slipped my mind, but Rache wanted to see you again before you left,’ Kharon muttered. ‘See to it.’
‘This armour’s bloody heavy.’ Magmaya gestured to herself. ‘It’ll take me a week to get back to the palace.’
‘Make it a short week,’ he said, and so she did.
Miniature infernos flickered off Magmaya’s cheeks when she arrived, but she couldn’t help feeling like an intruder. They were mere façades of the children they had once known themselves to be, chasing one another around the courtyards. To Rache, she might have been some wise woman—the valiant defender of Orianne and its name. But now that she was dressed for the part, she wasn’t valiant at all.
Magmaya ambled over to him, ran her palm across a pile of leaves he had made a habit of collecting, and perched on the end of his bed. ‘Rache,’ she called for him, and the room came to life; the crackling of the fires above began warming her skin with a pearly caress.
The boy stirred, wiped his forehead of sweat and looked to her with a glance that she might have once mistaken for disregard.
‘We already said goodbye.’ She smiled. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘I want you to read me a new story.’
She pursed her lips together, half-annoyed, half-joyous. ‘I thought you preferred uncle’s? Or did his just scare you off? Oh gods, he hasn’t been telling you about the moth again, has he?’
‘No, no,’ he whispered. Rache thought for a moment, before he heaved her a book from the many resting on his bedside. ‘Look at this one.’
Magmaya leaned over and took it in her arms. She ran her fingers over the brown-leather cover and flicke
d it open. The heavy scent of raw musk rose up like a rich perfume.
‘What’s it called?’ Magmaya asked.
‘The Emperor’s Bride,’ Rache stifled the words. ‘Did father send you?’
‘Yes. Did you ask him to?’
Rache nodded. ‘I didn’t want you to leave.’
‘Are you worried for me?’
‘How can’t I be?’ Rache said, and Magmaya couldn’t help but grin, prying the pages apart.
‘The mountains crossed my path like daggers from the earth,’ she began, ‘but I walked to the harbour instead. I was full enough from my luncheon, and I didn’t need any royal feast. Besides, the boats were warmer than the inns at that time of year.’ Magmaya turned the page. ‘My day changed the moment I met a fair lady on the road to the shore. She was eight and ten and covered in green perfumes and wore a dress sewn like honey—’
‘Oh, that reminds me,’ Rache cut in. ‘I heard some man about the halls earlier. He said he would rather you be sewing than doing all of this.’
As would I, Magmaya realised and finished the page before forcing herself to stand. She pressed the book back into his arms and bent over to kiss him on the forehead.
‘How long will you be gone?’
‘Long enough,’ she said.
Rache looked up at her and his eyes filled with a pining that seemed every bit as unbearable as going out into the cold again. She’d been visiting less and less after she’d found Albany dead—it was hard to talk about things anymore. The conversation always led back to their false brother.
‘Don’t leave,’ he said at last.
‘Rache—’
‘Don’t leave!’
‘I have to go,’ she crooned. Would he always make things so hard?
‘Don’t—!’ he persisted, but before long, she was out the door and listening to him shout at the walls.
‘Mistress…’ a shrill voice called as she left, and she turned to find Nurcia, standing in the dim light of the hall.
‘My lady,’ Magmaya replied quietly. She’d never been so comfortable around the chancellor’s advisor after she’d once thought it had been her who’d mothered Albany. Then again, finding out it was some southern woman wasn’t much better. She did spend an awful lot of her time in private, though.