Darkhaven

by A. F. E. Smith

  He looked around for his lost sword, but it was lying almost under the feet of the creature, and he didn’t have any other weapon to hand. He considered running, but he knew he wouldn’t get very far with one leg that could barely hold his weight. So, deliberately, he straightened up and gave the creature a long, slow look, taking in wings and scales and claws and teeth, seeing where it was like a Griffin and where like a Hydra, searching for possible weak spots. It might have butchered Florentyn, but there was always a chance it might not do the same to him – and next time, he’d be forewarned.

  ‘You won’t kill me, Ayla,’ he said, flashing a defiant grin. ‘You wouldn’t dare. Kill again, and you’ll lose all hope of ever being pardoned for your crimes.’

  Then the mighty jaws closed over his shoulder, those vicious teeth piercing his flesh, and the white-hot pain of it sent him hurtling into oblivion.

  THIRTEEN

  He was locked in a metal coffin, trapped between four small walls, and someone was hammering the final nail into the lid. Thud. Thud. Thud. Gasping for air, he fought to free himself, struggling against the winding sheet that bound his arms tightly to his sides – and still the pounding continued. Thud. Thud. Thud.

  With a shuddering breath, Myrren jerked awake. The bedclothes had tangled themselves around his body; he flung them off, panting, and sat up. He felt hot and prickly all over, as though his skin were a size too small.

  Thud. Thud. Thud. The noise from his dream still echoed through his head. He rubbed his eyes, disoriented, and realised someone was knocking at his door. The knowledge was like cold water to the face, dashing away the last vestiges of sleep. He swung his legs out of bed and reached for a robe, shivering as the cool breeze from the window brushed over his naked skin. For a moment he was reminded of the morning after his father’s death, when he had woken to the sound of the warning bell. He’d slept poorly that night as well, his mind too full of anxiety to switch itself off. He hoped this time it wasn’t a presentiment of disaster.

  Robe belted tightly around him, he stumbled to the door and opened it. A young Helmsman stood on the other side, his hand already raised to knock again.

  ‘Please, my lord, you have to come quickly,’ he said. ‘It’s Captain Travers.’

  Travers was lying on a stretcher in the mess hall, Darkhaven’s physician beside him; a huddle of agitated Helmsmen stood off to one side, muttering to each other. As Myrren drew nearer, he saw the vivid scarlet stains on the captain’s tattered uniform and felt sinking dread meet rising nausea somewhere at the base of his throat.

  ‘Is he – is he –’

  ‘No, my lord.’ The physician looked up with a reassuring smile, responding to the query Myrren had been unable to put into words. ‘Just unconscious.’

  The heavy doors to the hall creaked again, signalling another arrival, and Myrren turned quickly. To his relief it was Serenna, accompanied by the man he’d sent to fetch her. He started to angle himself so that her view of Travers’ bloodied form would be restricted, then remembered how little she had been affected by the sight of his father’s corpse. She might be a priestess, but her stomach for unpleasant things was far more robust than his.

  ‘His wounds are less severe than they look,’ the physician said, reclaiming Myrren’s attention. ‘By far the greater effect on his constitution will come from lying undiscovered in the night air for a bell or so after the attack. We’re lucky it’s summer, my lord, indeed we are. He’ll be able to leave his bed after a day or two.’

  Lucky wasn’t the word Myrren would have used for any of this. He forced himself to ask the question to which he was afraid he already knew the answer. ‘What exactly happened to him?’

  ‘Well, my lord …’ Suddenly the physician wasn’t looking him in the eye. ‘The shape of the wounds is consistent with having been inflicted by the teeth of some, ah, powerful animal.’

  ‘Like the wounds on my father’s body,’ Myrren said quietly, and the physician gave an uncomfortable nod.

  ‘Quite so, my lord.’

  Unable to help himself, Myrren stepped closer. One of Travers’ legs and both his forearms were already bandaged, but his torso was yet to be treated. The physician had got as far as cutting his uniform aside to reveal a wound at the join between shoulder and neck, which gleamed wet and red in the light from the windows. Even without any medical training, Myrren could tell it wasn’t in the shape of a blade. No, something had very obviously taken a bite out of the man.

  ‘May I see?’ Serenna moved nearer, to crouch down beside the physician. Definitely a stronger stomach for unpleasant things. Swallowing hard, Myrren turned to the group of Helmsmen waiting by the wall.

  ‘Which of you found him?’

  A moment’s silence; then one of the older men spoke up with a faint country burr. ‘None of us, my lord. It was two o’ the watch on their rounds. They sent a message to the fifth ring, and some o’ the Helm who were there for the night went down to see what was going on.’

  ‘We thought he’d been stabbed.’ A second man took over the narrative. ‘Thieves trying to steal his money, or a criminal with a grudge against the Helm … though as every thug in this city knows, Captain Travers is more than capable of defending himself.’

  ‘In Ametrine as well,’ a third Helmsman mumbled. ‘With all those fightin’ men around, you’d think someone woulda seen somethin’.’

  Myrren’s eyes narrowed, his attention caught. ‘Then it happened in the fourth ring?’

  ‘They found him in the Ametrine Quarter, m’lord.’ The man looked nervous beneath the intensity of Myrren’s stare. ‘Avenue of Rowans.’

  That name again. Myrren scanned the faces in front of him, looking for signs that any of them knew more than they were letting on, but the eyes that looked back at him were blank in their honesty. If he wanted any more information, he’d have to get it out of Captain Travers himself – once he came round.

  Myrren spun on his heel and walked over to the window, where he stood gazing at the central square beyond without really seeing it. There was something odd about all this, something that nagged at the edges of his mind, but he couldn’t grasp even what kind of thing it was, let alone the specifics of it.

  ‘Lord Myrren?’ Serenna’s quick footsteps crossed the tiled floor towards him. He didn’t look round as she joined him at the window.

  ‘The physician is right,’ she murmured, keeping her voice low enough that only he would be able to hear her. ‘The same creature attacked both your father and Captain Travers.’

  The harder Myrren tried to catch the elusive thought, the quicker it slipped away. With a sigh for his own incompetence, he turned and gave Serenna a nod of acknowledgement, inviting her to continue.

  ‘Surely this confirms our suspicions.’ The movement of her lips was barely visible beneath the gauzy veil. ‘There is another Changer in the city, living at the address you found. Captain Travers has fallen foul of his own secret.’

  ‘The evidence would appear to point that way.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But …’ Myrren struggled to find the appropriate words, still unsure why he was so uneasy. ‘Does it not seem rather a coincidence to you? That I should discover the address, only for an attack to take place there that very night?’

  ‘If the Avenue of Rowans truly is where the rogue Changer is hiding, and if the creature is as unstable as we believe it to be, then it was only a matter of time before an attack took place there,’ Serenna said. ‘Do you still want to go there today?’

  Myrren hesitated, then shook his head. ‘The street will be crawling with Helmsmen after last night’s attack. And if I give the slightest hint that I suspect something, they’ll lose no time in moving their charge elsewhere.’

  Serenna’s eyebrows lifted under the veil. ‘Even when their captain has just been viciously wounded by the creature?’

  ‘Even then.’ Myrren shrugged. ‘Travers made it clear to me that the Helm are still following my father’s orders, despi
te his demise. If Florentyn told them to keep his third child a secret then that’s what they’ll do.’

  That sense of something wrong, of a piece of the puzzle he hadn’t quite slotted into place, still lurked at the edge of his mind; he pushed it away.

  ‘All the same, this attack surely vindicates Ayla. Even if she wanted to hurt Travers, she’d have no way of knowing where to find him.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Serenna’s voice was apologetic. ‘Unless she caught sight of him in the lower rings and followed him for that very purpose.’

  She was right. Myrren’s shoulders slumped as he faced, once again, the possibility that Ayla was guilty. But if that were so, what was it the Helm were hiding in the Avenue of Rowans? No, he had to believe she was innocent. Otherwise he’d go mad with the knowledge that by letting her out of prison, he’d killed his own father.

  ‘You know, both the night that Florentyn died and last night, I suffered some very odd nightmares,’ he said, to convince himself as much as Serenna. ‘I can’t help wondering whether that’s what it feels like, when this unknown Changer takes his creature form. Maybe his madness makes him feel different to me from how Ayla feels.’

  ‘You sense it, then? When someone else Changes? Even though …’ She stopped, biting her lip.

  ‘Even though I can’t Change myself?’ he supplied for her. ‘Yes. That part of my heritage, at least, I received as I should.’ That sounded far too self-pitying; he forced a light-hearted note into his voice. ‘Some small consolation for Florentyn, I suppose.’

  ‘Tell me about him,’ Serenna said softly.

  ‘Who, my father? He was fully thirty feet long from nose to tail-tip. Scales like polished bronze. Vast wings tipped with spikes, and four sets of truly vicious talons –’

  ‘I meant as a person,’ she chided him, though she was smiling. Myrren lifted a shoulder. How could he explain that to him, his father was his Firedrake self? That Myrren’s personal acquaintance with those talons had made it hard to see beyond them?

  In the silence, Serenna’s smile faded. ‘I hope you don’t mind if I ask … when did you first know for sure that you hadn’t inherited the gift?’

  Myrren’s first impulse was to tell her sharply that he did mind, and that he didn’t appreciate her curiosity. That if she wanted him to keep his distance from her, he had a right to expect she would do the same for him. Yet although her voice had been soft, it held no hint of embarrassment, and in her eyes he saw only frank enquiry. Once again she offered him neither pity nor judgement, and for that he felt he owed her something.

  ‘Usually the gift manifests itself when the Changer is fourteen,’ he said, looking out of the window to avoid watching her reactions. ‘To begin with my father thought I was a late developer. He had Changed on his fourteenth birthday, but my mother was nearly fifteen before she showed her creature-self for the first time; it was possible I took after her. Yet fifteen came and went, and still I gave no sign. It frustrated Florentyn, but Kati – Ayla’s mother – used to talk him out of his anger. He’ll come to it in his own time, she’d say. You can’t punish the boy for something he can’t help.

  ‘Then, soon after my fifteenth birthday, Kati died.’ Myrren swallowed, fighting back a surge of remembered emotion. ‘Her death destroyed my father. It made him bitter. For a time, he … focused all his attention on me. He was determined to rouse the Changer gift in me, by any means necessary.’

  Myrren darted a sideways glance at Serenna, but the understanding he saw in her face nearly undid him. He couldn’t tell her about the trials his father had made him undergo: the half-drowning, the push from a window, the unexpected attack by ten men of the Helm. All trying to awaken something in him, to surprise him into revealing the gift Florentyn couldn’t believe he didn’t have. Until finally, near the end of it, his father had Changed before turning on him.

  Myrren still remembered in vivid detail the gleaming teeth, the gouts of flame, the rending claws. The description he’d given Serenna was nothing to the reality of it. He had truly thought he was going to die, that day. He’d done everything in his power to escape. But the one thing that hadn’t been in his power, no matter how he willed it, was the only thing that mattered to his father.

  After that, Florentyn’s attempts to rouse the gift in him had continued more out of dogged determination than any real hope. It was obvious to both of them that if Myrren couldn’t be spurred into Changing by the threat of an angry Firedrake, he simply didn’t have it in him. And so all those relentless trials had achieved no more for him than an impressive set of scars and an acute sense of his own failure. The old desperate longing to become what his father wanted him to be rose up in his throat, nearly choking him.

  ‘Then, when Ayla turned fourteen, she Changed for the first time,’ he said, rushing now, anxious to reach the conclusion as swiftly as possible. ‘I was sixteen by then, and it was clear I was never going to Change myself. That, coupled with Ayla’s unusual animal form, sent Florentyn into a rage that lasted for days. When he came out of it …’ Myrren shrugged. ‘It was as though he’d lost all interest in us as his children. We were just a bad situation he had to make the best of. And the way he eventually chose to do that was to make Ayla his heir instead of me.’

  ‘Until I was attacked, and she was the only possible suspect.’ Serenna’s voice was soft. ‘Then tell me, my lord: if we are able to prove Ayla’s innocence, will you stand aside and let her take the throne?’

  ‘She doesn’t want it,’ Myrren said. ‘But I think it would be best for Mirrorvale. What use is a Nightshade overlord without the power to Change?’

  Serenna’s cool hands came to rest on his, stilling them. He realised he had been turning the bloodstained scale from his pocket over and over in his fingers, displaying his inner agitation to the world. His father would have given him a dressing-down for that. With a quick, blind smile in Serenna’s direction, he slipped his hands out from under hers and returned the scale to his pocket.

  ‘Lord Myrren –’ she began, but whatever she was about to say was overridden by a call from the physician.

  ‘My lord! I believe he is coming round.’

  Leaving the window, Myrren hurried back to the physician’s side. Travers was now fully bandaged, and the physician was holding a phial of smelling salts under his nose. Even as Myrren reached them, the captain’s eyelids flickered and lifted.

  ‘Captain Travers.’ Myrren leaned down to address him. ‘How are you feeling?’

  An insubordinate gleam entered the pale blue eyes. ‘Better than dead, my lord.’

  Myrren longed to ask him straight out what he had been doing in the Avenue of Rowans, but of course he couldn’t. The Ametrine Quarter was a perfectly normal place for Travers to be, and if Myrren gave any indication that he recognised the significance of the address, he would only warn the Helm that he was on the trail of their secret.

  ‘Can you tell us what happened?’ he asked instead.

  ‘She chewed me up and spat me out.’ Travers managed a crooked smile, though his face was drawn. ‘Got a nasty temper, your half-blood sister.’

  Myrren clenched his fists, trying to prevent his rising temper from bursting out of him; it would do him no good to shout at an injured man in front of his loyal followers. ‘Please describe what you saw, Captain Travers.’

  ‘It was waiting for me in the shadows,’ Travers said, gasping. ‘It breathed fire, like Lord Florentyn’s Firedrake. Had wings, too. But the scales and tail were like a Hydra’s … the claws like a Griffin’s …’ He closed his eyes for a moment, perhaps seeking strength, then opened them again and said clearly, ‘A hybrid creature, my lord. Not one of the true Changer forms. What else could it be but Ayla?’

  You tell me. Myrren bit the words back and said, as calmly as he could, ‘The creature you have just described does not correspond to the form Ayla takes.’

  ‘With all due respect, my lord –’ Travers took in a sharp, pained breath – ‘we have only your word for t
hat.’

  ‘Captain Travers, much as it may grieve you to realise it, I am now the overlord of Darkhaven.’ Myrren’s voice came out loaded with such vehemence that even he was surprised. ‘I – not my father, and not the Helm – am in charge here. So if you want to keep the position you so evidently prize, I suggest you stop doubting my word. Immediately.’

  There was silence. Myrren looked up: the physician was hovering protectively over his patient, and beyond him the Helmsmen stood pale-faced and wordless. Serenna was still by the window; Myrren couldn’t be sure, with the veil concealing her expression, but he thought she looked approving.

  ‘Now, captain,’ he said softly, returning his attention to Travers. ‘Is there anything you’ve been keeping from me that you wish to tell me – anything at all?’

  Travers stared up at him, a vertical line between his brows as if he was trying to work something out. After a moment he shook his head, the smile returning to his face: a smile that said he knew something Myrren didn’t.

  ‘No, my lord,’ he answered. ‘There’s nothing.’

  FOURTEEN

  It was the middle of the night when Caraway woke up – he could tell by the colour of the sky outside, a smoky blue-grey charcoal lit only by the glow of the city’s lamps. For an instant he wasn’t sure what had woken him; then he turned his head and saw Ayla. She was sitting upright on the bed, her arms wrapped around her bent knees, her eyes wide in the darkness.

  ‘Lady Ayla?’ he whispered.

  ‘I had a bad dream.’ She sounded like a little girl, younger even than she’d been when he first met her. ‘I thought my father was coming to find me …’ Her voice shook, and he realised she was shivering.

  ‘You’re cold,’ he said. He tried to think of something to give her for warmth, something more than just her cloak to sleep in, but she’d already rejected the blankets. After a moment’s hesitation, he sighed and shrugged off his coat. ‘Here.’