by Court Ellyn
A sideward glance told Rhoslyn that her daughter was quick to spot the changes as well. Carah rode beside raven-haired Aisley, the granddaughter of Lord Mithlan. Their girlish chatter ceased as the entourage neared the hill that climbed to the gate. She was the first to see Thorn waiting for them and nudged her horse to a canter. At the gate, she swung out of saddle and embraced her uncle.
“You should have told somebody!” Carah was saying when Rhoslyn caught up. “Look, you have a small army. We could’ve helped.”
‘We,’ indeed. Rhoslyn dreaded the idea of her daughter riding off to battle, but Carah was avedra, and isn’t that what avedrin did? Twenty years ago, Rhoslyn had been no older than Carah when she raised her father’s fleets and sailed into the unknown to make treaties with pirates. But the fighting had always been left to someone else.
Thorn took Rhoslyn’s reins and helped her down from the saddle. “Your Grace,” he said with a sharp bow of the head. How fresh he looked in his clean blue robe and shined boots. He’d even tied back his lion’s mane and put on a host’s open smile. Rhoslyn suspected this was an elaborate mask. And where was Kelyn?
Thorn led the highborns through the gatehouse and into the bailey where they dismounted with groans and sighs. No one came to take their horses. “The keep is yours, my friends,” Thorn said. “Eliad, the dwarves have the barracks. Your highlanders will camp outside each gate.”
“They’ll prefer it that way,” Lord Drenéleth replied and strode back through the gatehouse to inform his people.
“Keep them sober!” Thorn called after him.
With a smile, Rhoslyn watched him take easy command of the influx of displaced people and laid a hand upon his arm. “Thank you,” she whispered. He blinked at her, speechless, and she swallowed an aching lump in her throat. “Is Kelyn inside?”
“He’s primping. You know how he is.”
It felt good to laugh. At least some things remained the same.
Carah was halfway across the bailey already. She stopped to stare at the ruin; Rhoslyn joined her. “Mum, look.”
Nearly all the buildings against the east wall had been torn down or burned. Only the stables and smithy remained, likely because they’d been useful to their enemies. Dwarves pumped the bellows and beat at the anvil. Two black Elaran horses and two grays paced the paddock, excited at the arrival of other horses.
Rhoslyn wrapped an arm around her daughter, gave her a jostle. “Easily replaced. All of it. Let’s find your da.”
Inside the great bronze doors of the keep, Rhoslyn and her guests ducked under a tower of scaffolding. The platforms and ladders reached nearly as high as the arched ceiling. Dwarves scrubbed the walls with brushes. Scented water collected in puddles on the floor. More dwarves with mops sopped it up into wooden pails, chanting a song in their gravelly tongue. Braziers and lanterns provided unsteady light in the Great Corridor. A haze of smoke hung against the ceiling. All the ornate lamps that once lined the walls were missing. Peeking into doorways, Rhoslyn saw that the furniture, too, was scarce and out of place. Here and there a chair had been given a plain board for a leg. The tables as well. What state were the suites in? Were there sheets and towels and soap, the proper number of plates and forks? What kind of accommodations could Ilswythe provide its guests now, and one of them a king?
Rhoslyn’s face heated. She hurried to the main staircase and was starting up when Kelyn appeared on the landing. He halted when he saw them, as if their arrival startled him. His glance passed between his wife and daughter and guests. He tried to speak, to welcome them perhaps, but something in his carefully composed face cracked. He turned abruptly and retreated back the way he’d come.
“Da?”
Rhoslyn stopped Carah from rushing after him. Calmly, the duchess turned to address her guests. “Things are not as we would prefer them, as you can see. Sire, would you be averse to taking the Black Falcon’s suite?”
Arryk grinned at the irony in the offer. “Of course not.”
“I cannot vouch for the condition you’ll find it in. Carah, would you?”
Eyes large as she tried to mask her shock at the state of her home, Carah managed a terse nod. “Yes, this way, sire.”
“The rest of our guest suites are on the lower floors, through that corridor,” Rhoslyn added, noting that Lady Drona stood as stiff as a post. Only her eyes moved, taking in what remained of Ilswythe’s grandeur. On a different day, she might’ve entered these halls as a prisoner, or a conqueror, rather than a guest. “There are plenty of rooms for all. Please help yourselves.”
“I can escort them, Your Grace,” Lord Westport offered. “After all, I’ve been your guest every spring for nearly thirty years.” When had they become friends, she and this merchant-lord who had been so troublesome in his youth, vying for her hand? He hadn’t shown the same spirit or vanity since leaping into Bramoran’s moat without his son beside him. Odd, seeing his head without an ostentatious hat upon it. Rhoslyn saw that his hair was thinning. “I’ll rely on you, Rorin, to acquaint Eliad’s staff as well. We’ll need supper soon.” Perhaps she sounded too rushed to be polite, but as soon as the highborns drifted off, she sped up the stairs ahead of Carah and the White Falcon.
The parlor she shared with Kelyn lay between their sleeping chambers. He leaned on the mantel, unable to look at her. “I’m sorry, I…”
“It’s no matter. Your guests understand. They’re getting settled.” One chair, rather than two, sat before the hearth. Their round breakfast table was gone and a square dice table stood in its place. The wall had been defaced. Though the dwarves must’ve scrubbed until their arms ached, dark residue could still be seen in the plaster. Blood maybe. Symbols and letters she couldn’t hope to comprehend. An acrid odor like lime and lemon tingled in her nose. She tried not to notice anything else. Later, when she had a moment alone, she could assess the damages and cry about them. “Dearest,” she pleaded.
Kelyn’s hand crashed atop the mantel, then rose in a placating gesture. “I’m all right.” His pacing said otherwise. He had always been so confident. Seeing him flustered and volatile was frightening.
“Is there anything…?” Rhoslyn began.
“I don’t know what to do,” he blurted. “I’ve planned a thousand campaigns in my head, but I can’t act on any of them. The only army we have is three hundred dwarves, half of them untried matrons and girls, two hundred untested militiamen from Fiera who will probably resist every order I give, and an unruly band of highlanders who travel with their cows and children.”
“More are coming.”
“So Thorn says.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “You want the truth? I fear we’ve cleaned up this place for nothing. The ogres will come again and again and again, and sooner or later, Rhoz, we’ll be on the run. Fugitives in our own land.”
“No.” The sternness she put into the word carried the effect of a gavel. Kelyn stopped fidgeting and really looked at her. “Have faith in your brother. If he says people are on their way, then it is so. He will advise you in what to do. If that means fighting blind, then you fight blind. But you have to trust him, or we are lost. You have a great advantage in him, War Commander. He won’t abandon you. Nor will we.” She approached the cold hearth, reached a hand toward him. Kelyn paced in the other direction. “Kethlyn will join us soon,” she persisted, “and we’ll fight together. Here within these walls where you were born, where your children grew up, and we will continue to thrive in spite of our enemies and everything they’ve done to us. You hear me? We will thrive. That’s greater vengeance than any gotten with a sword.”
Kelyn sank into the lone armchair, lowered his face into his hands.
Stiff as she was from sitting all day in the saddle, it took some doing to descend to her knees. She took one hand away from his face, then the other. “This doubt does not become you, my lord. It’s not in you to fail your people. Their trust is not placed falsely.”
“But it is. I have failed them, Rhoz. Look around yo
u.”
Her glance did not waver from his face. “There were players on the board that you could not possibly predict. You cannot blame yourself for not taking the unimaginable into account. That’s giving yourself too much credit. Whatever you decide to do, whatever it takes, we stand with you.” She pressed her forehead to his. “We stand with you.”
~~~~
Carah rummaged through her bureau. She didn’t know why she kept moving the hangers back and forth. Only three dresses remained, and looking through them wouldn’t make the others reappear. One of the dresses was her first ball gown, the one made from the silver silk that Uncle Thorn had brought from Avidan Wood when she turned fourteen. She had worn it twice. Granted, her best gowns, slippers, and jewelry were still at Bramoran, but she wagered she’d never see them again either.
Someone rustled through her doorway. She didn’t need to turn to know it was her uncle. Something in the sound of his step, the aura of his presence. “Why would they take my clothes?” she asked, fingering the empty hangers again. The drawers holding her petticoats and stockings, the shelves for her shoes, all were empty.
“If humans made it, it was subject to destruction,” he said softly, as if afraid to disturb the shadows.
“Is that why my silver combs and mirror were spared?” The items lay on the vanity, glistering, like a boast.
“They’re Elaran, aye. Your da wanted to throw them away, too. Tainted, he said, but I convinced him to let you make that decision.”
Carah stared down at the row of bejeweled combs, hands limp at her sides. “I saw men and women murdered. Silly to care about these frivolous things.”
Thorn’s hand caressed her hair, laid heavily on her shoulder. “It is not frivolous to mourn a life gone forever.”
She looked up at him in dismay. “Forever?”
“When things of this magnitude happen, love, there’s no going back to the way things were. We might be able to reclaim something, but it will be colored differently. The veil is gone. We cannot see things the same way again.”
She leaned into him and let the tears fall hot and ragged.
After a while he said, “You were lovely that night.”
She sniffled and tried to discern his meaning.
“Such a lady, dancing with a king.”
Ah. The horror of the massacre caused her to forget about the glorious ball the night before. “You saw?”
“Amazing what you can get away with when no one can see you.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “I was scared to death. What if I’d stepped on his toes?”
“I doubt he would’ve noticed.”
Carah couldn’t argue with that. King Arryk had a penetrating, questioning gaze. Every time she paid him a visit to see to his wound, she got the impression that he was trying to puzzle her out. He was too polite to pry, however. And he was also too polite to voice fault with the Black Falcon’s suite. If the furnishings weren’t to his liking, he had said not a word. Nothing was as it should be, and Carah told him so, but he waved away the apology. “I’ll be more comfortable here than in a wine wagon.” As soon as he was settled, Carah had checked him for fever or discomfort, having worried about how he’d fare on the journey from Drenéleth, but he insisted he felt fine. So she left him to sort out the watch with Captain Moray and Lieutenant Rance.
“You know, you’ve never danced with me, Uncle Thorn. Da says you were very good. Better than he.”
He grunted disagreement.
“When all this is over,” Carah said, “you must come to Assembly. I know you say you hate it, but you can dance with me then.” He winced, making a show of resisting, but Carah raised her chin, too determined to let him refuse. “You know you’d do anything for me, Uncle Thorn.”
That brought a chuckle out of him. “If we ever have Assembly again—”
“When!”
“—I’ll show up. I suppose. If I can wear my linen shirt and riding leathers.”
Carah glanced down at her own stained leathers and wrinkled blouse. “We may both be wearing inappropriate attire, so that’s not an excuse. We have a promise?”
“I promise, yes, you stubborn girl.” His arm hooked her neck in a half-hug, half-headlock, and he dragged her for the door. “Let’s leave these dreary rooms. Come help me in the library.”
“I hate the library.”
“I hate Assembly, so we’re even.”
Sunlight flooded through the windows and the skylight, falling on piles of ash, torn bindings, and unfurled scrolls. Inkwells had been opened and flung about. Black stains dripped down the shelves and splashed the disheveled parchments. Etivva shuffled through the ruin on her wooden foot, clucking her tongue. The shaddra’s shaved head was powdered with road dust. Riding was hard on her these days, so she had traveled in a carriage with Eliad’s mistresses.
“They burned our histories,” she declared in her sharp Harenian accent. “Tallon’s work, the accounts of the Elf War, everything.” The shaddra usually provided a calming presence and a wise word. Carah had seen her tutor this angry only once: when she was eight, Etivva had scolded her for atrocious study habits and forced her to copy some dull text. In revenge, Carah had poured dye into the sacred water Etivva used in her prayer rituals. The shaddra had brought her complaint to Mum and Da with lips stained indigo blue. “They did not bother with the ledger room, I noticed,” Etivva added, resentment flung like darts. “And my shrine! Not a scratch. They think by leaving Ana’s statue alone they avoid her wrath? Hnh! They have earned it. One day they will feel it.”
Carah kicked aside mounds of torn paper and excavated some of her favorite novels. Leafing through them, she discovered that clumps of pages had been ripped out.
“And what is that?” Etivva demanded, pointing at the scarred writing table. Several books, balanced carefully on end, stood in a circle. As the only thing in the room that retained a semblance of order, the arrangement drew attention like a shout.
“A statement,” Thorn said. “Ten books for ten stones. I’ll wager that our enemies planned to tear down these walls and erect their ring of white stones again.” He knocked one book over. The rest fell like tiles.
Etivva took a deep breath, composing herself. “A wonder you had not set your library in order first.”
Thorn stood silent, staring grimly at nothing. “Paper could wait,” he said, and that was all.
Carah carved a path to the window, hoping for a glimpse of Rhian walking the walls, but she saw only dwarves. The sight of the gardens below tore a gasp from her. “Not the tree!” The great andyr had been set alight. Not a single green leaf remained in its branches; its armor of ancient bark was black and crumbling. Around its base, the rose bushes had been uprooted, the fish pond filled with dirt, and pits gouged in the pathways. Rain-packed ash filled them. Campfires, most likely. The wooden trellis of the arbor was gone, broken up and used for firewood, perhaps. Everything ruined. How could there be dances and festivals, or any beauty at all, after this?
“Teach me to fight.”
Behind her, the rustle of paper stopped. “I beg your pardon?” Thorn asked.
Carah whirled to face him. “Teach me to strike with fire and lightning.”
“For revenge?”
“Yes! Every ogre deserves to die for what they’ve done, and my stupid cousin too. Valryk will burn for this.”
“Valryk is nothing. He is being used, and he may burn, but not by your hand. No, Carah, I will not teach you to fight.”
“But look what they’ve done—”
“I have seen what they’ve done! Gardens and books and dresses are nothing compared to the bodies we dragged out of here and carried to the burning yard.”
“But you avenged them.” Enraged tears strained her voice. “You killed the ogres who killed our people.”
“It’s easy for you to think it vengeance. But your father must have a stronghold from which to send his armies.”
“You use my father as an excuse to lie to m
e? You’re no more above petty revenge than I am! You’re afraid of what you are. You’re terrified of actually—”
Thorn’s palm connected with her cheek like a crack of thunder. When the stars cleared, Carah grit her teeth and struck him back.
For a long while neither moved. On the far side of the table, Etivva pressed her knuckles to her teeth, and her eyes clung to the floor.
“You see?” Carah said. “Petty.” Tears rolled into her mouth. “But at least I’m honest about it.” Red fingerprints rose on Thorn’s cheek. He ground his teeth, and Carah waited for more than a slap. Half welcoming it, half dreading it, she raised her chin. “Try it. You won’t strike me again without getting the same in return. I’m not a child anymore. I’m avedra.”
“The elements,” Thorn replied, words clipped. “I will teach you to manipulate the elements, because that is my duty, and my promise to you. But not until I return from Avidanyth. I have more pressing matters than helping you satisfy your bloodlust.” He turned away from her, and Carah took it for dismissal.
Her grandmother’s garden smelled of soot and rotting green things. Carah spent her rage piling the rose bushes into one corner and kicking crushed night-blossom shrubs from the gravel path. In the gardener’s shed she found a shovel and stabbed it into the ground to fill the firepits, but she had never touched a shovel before and finally flung it away in frustration. Sobs squeezed her throat. Her eyes felt feverish from crying. Her fingers stung. She looked down and found them bleeding, bitten by thorns.
She sank onto the rim of the fountain. Of the few things still intact, the fountain was one of them. Even ogres needed fresh water, she supposed. Water jetted from the spouts and tumbled down loudly. Mud and a bird’s carcass had settled in the bottom of the basin. Ashy bits floated, bounced around by the splashing water.
“Car?”