by Matthew Ward
Mirika regarded her in silence for a long moment. ‘Alright. It didn’t go exactly as I planned…’
‘That’s the understatement of a lifetime.’
‘… but we came through it, that’s what matters.’ The stare softened. ‘We’re a team, you and me.’ She shook her head. ‘Saved by my little sister.’
‘Do you have to say it like that?’ snapped Yelen.
‘Like what?’
‘Like it’s a surprise. A joke. And you’ll never guess what happened next…’
Mirika sighed. ‘For someone who doesn’t want to be treated like a child, you’re sure behaving like one.’
‘And flirting with Cavril Magnis is better, is it?’
She stiffened. ‘That’s not what I was doing.’
Yelen snorted. ‘You could have fooled me. I saw him making eyes at you at Markriese. I thought it was just him… But tonight…’
Mirika’s eyes narrowed. ‘What about tonight?’
‘That longing deathbed stare you gave him. Don’t think I didn’t see it.’
‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘Looked that way from where I was standing.’ Yelen grinned inwardly, glad to have her sister on the defensive for a change. ‘I was waiting for one of his goons to break into a mournful fiddle recital.’
Mirika’s warning glare dissolved in a sigh of amused exasperation. ‘You know what it’s like around here. You want to make a good living – a clean living, without getting tangled up with Flintine or the rest of that mire-feeding dross – you need a reputation. The Gilded Rose has that reputation. The easiest way for us to make ours is to keep tweaking their noses, or…’ She tailed off, her lips twisting wryly.
‘Or what?’
‘Or… maybe join them.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘And why not? Cavril’s clearly impressed with what we can do…’
Yelen scowled. ‘With what you can do, you mean.’
Mirika ignored her. ‘And he’s not bad people. How many delver bosses can you say that of? Remember that mess in the Rimewold? After we got swept away by that avalanche, he cleaned the place out, but left us a week’s rations on the altar. He knew we’d lost everything…’
‘Or he didn’t want to make space for food when he could carry gold.’
‘And you heard what Cavril said after I got stabbed…’
‘By one of his people.’ Had she forgotten that detail?
‘By one of his people, yes. But I’ll give you good odds that this Marcan of his is the worse for it right now. The Gilded Rose take their reputation seriously. Honour amongst delvers, and all that.’ She shrugged. ‘What’s the alternative? Stick with Master Torik after we deliver the reliquary?’
Yelen rubbed at her cheek, and snatched her hand away. ‘No! Gods, no.’
Mirika nodded. ‘There you are. We can’t strike out on our own. We don’t have the contacts. There’s no better recipe for becoming gnawed bones than wandering blindly around the ruins. And neither one of us wants to end up running with Flintine or Paras. You remember Crossmeet.’
She’d never forget. Not the sight of the bodies hanging from gallows posts, nor the smell of rotting meat that even the cold couldn’t disguise. Crossmeet had been the largest trading settlement in the city’s south-west reaches – until Ton Paras had taken offence at the tariffs levelled on his supply shipments and sent in his gang to… negotiate. Yelen and Mirika had arrived two days after the massacre. Long enough for the fires to have died. Long enough for the crows to have started feasting on the dead.
‘I remember. But Paras isn’t a delver,’ said Yelen. ‘He was a thug back in Karamasz. He’s a thug here.’ Even as she spoke, she knew it wasn’t true. In Karamasz, with its street wardens and courthouses, Paras was a thug. In the lawless snows of Frostgrave, he was a hedonistic monster.
Mirika leaned closer, eyes gleaming in the firelight. ‘All the more reason for us to choose our associations carefully. Cavril’s a rogue, but he has scruples. And he’s interested. He’s made an offer.’
‘You already spoke to him?’ Yelen sighed and rocked back on her haunches. ‘Don’t I get a say in this?’
‘Of course you do. I didn’t even bring it up, Cavril did. Like I said, he’s interested.’
‘Interested in you.’ The words came out more defensive than Yelen intended, but there was no taking them back.
‘In both of us. He knows we’re a package.’
Yelen snorted. ‘Like a merchant’s barge and its ballast.’
Irritation crept into Mirika’s tone. ‘That’s ridiculous, and you know it. You’ve skills. You got the vault open, didn’t you? I couldn’t have picked that lock.’
Yelen pressed a hand to her mouth, hoping that it looked like she was stifling a yawn, rather than the guilty grimace she felt creeping across her face. True, she could have picked the lock, given time and fewer interruptions. But she hadn’t. ‘I suppose.’
The corner of Mirika’s mouth twitched. She took Yelen’s gloved hand in her own. ‘We’re a team. Nothing changes that. Nothing will stop me looking out for my little sister. You wait and see. Frostgrave’s going to make us both rich and famous.’
Her eyes gleamed with excitement. That was Mirika. Always planning for the future. Always blind to now – to what was right in front of her. Yelen suspected her connection to the timeflow made it worse. Why worry about the details of the present, when you could relive them again and again if need be? Mirika envisioned her ideal outcome, and trusted to instinct to see her clear of the obstacles in her path. But life wasn’t like that, not for most people. Not for Yelen. Actions had consequences – if the tattoo was nothing else, it was reminder of that. She pulled her hand free and stared down into the fire.
‘What if I don’t want to stay here? Afterwards, I mean.’
‘Where else would we go?’ Yelen didn’t need to see Mirika’s face to picture the confusion upon it, not with that tone.
‘I don’t know. Back to Karamasz, maybe. Or further south, to the coast. I don’t know. I don’t care. I just want to be somewhere where I can feel the warmth of the sun when it shines. Where I can go for a walk without trudging through snowdrifts, or slipping on ice.’ Yelen swallowed. She knew her next words would sting, but she had to say them. She should have said them months ago. ‘Somewhere people know me as something more than Mirika Semova’s little sister.’
Neither of them spoke for what seemed an eternity. Yelen’s last words hung like the brimstone stink from the fire. Her cheeks warmed with guilt. Maybe she shouldn’t have said anything. No. She had to. The feeling had been growing for months. Better she aired it now, rather than during a quarrel. Hurtful as the words might have been, in the heat of an argument they’d have been a weapon. And gods, but she felt better. Like a weight had lifted from her shoulders. It was like coming up for air after swimming underwater.
Yelen glanced up from the flames. Mirika was staring into the fire, her expression unusually thoughtful. Or maybe it wasn’t thoughtful at all, but hurt. As if sensing Yelen’s scrutiny, she raised her head. ‘So it’s not Frostgrave you want to leave. It’s me.’ She couldn’t hide the tremor in her tone.
Yelen screwed her eyes shut. ‘Yes. No. I don’t know…’ She took a deep breath. She’d always known this would be hard. Why did it feel like a betrayal? ‘I just feel trapped. Like I can’t move. Between…’ She wrapped a hand around her wrist by way of explanation, unwilling to speak Azzanar’s name aloud. ‘And… We left Karamasz because you wanted to. Because you’d this grand idea of finding our fortune. We came here for the same reason. But I can’t keep blindly following you around, Rika. I’ll go mad. I have to do what’s right for me. Even if that means we’re not together.’
Mirika offered a small, sad smile. ‘You haven’t called me Rika for years.’
She shrugged, wondering what had provoked the slip of the tongue. ‘It’s a girl’s nickname. But we’re not girls anymore. Either of us.’
; ‘No, I suppose not. Why didn’t you tell me before?’ Mirika shook her head. ‘No, don’t answer that. It doesn’t matter.’ She twisted away, but not before Yelen spotted the tears welling up in her eyes.
The guilt did nothing to extinguish Yelen’s sense of relief. In its own way, that only made her feel worse. ‘So what do we do next?’
Mirika cleared her throat and cuffed at her eyes. ‘The plan’s still the plan. We give Master Torik his prize, he comes through with what he promised, and we’ll take it from there.’ She gazed at Yelen, and forced a wry smile. ‘I’m not angry, honestly I’m not. I just thought it’d take a little longer, that’s all.’
‘Mirika…’ Yelen began.
Her sister cut her off. ‘Get some sleep. It’ll be a hard day tomorrow, even if the weather holds. I’ll keep watch. I’ve lots to think about.’ She spread her hands, winced, and drew her injured wrist back onto her knees.
Yelen shook her head. ‘I still don’t understand why you had me splint that. Can’t you just step into the timeflow to heal it?’
‘I could, if I wanted to lop two months off my life.’ Mirika cocked her head. ‘You really do want rid of me, don’t you?’
‘What? No!’ It took Yelen a moment to notice Mirika’s broad grin. She clapped a hand over her mouth to choke back an outburst of giggles.
‘It’s that, or have an arm older than the rest of me,’ Mirika sniffed. ‘Break enough bones, and I’ll look like some patchwork crone before I’m thirty. Forget joining the Gilded Rose, I could earn good money in Rassel’s freakshow. If I didn’t aim to stay young and beautiful for as long as possible, that is.’
Unable to hold them back any longer, Yelen let the giggles have free rein. Mirika held her imperious pose a moment longer before joining in. As the laughter flowed, Yelen felt a little of her guilt bleed away. Everything would be alright, it truly would. So long as Torik came through on his promise.
* * *
Mirika stared out into the night. The wind had dropped, and the pressure with it. She welcomed the former, but the latter warned of snow to come. Another problem, and she’d collected too many on this expedition already. Hiking through a blizzard with only one good hand was sure to bring more.
Coming to a decision, Mirika plunged her injured wrist into the timeflow. Nerves jangled up and down the length of her forearm, the sensation like nothing so much as jarring an elbow. She gasped with the suddenness of it, and then it was gone, the pain with it.
‘Mirika?’ Yelen’s drowsy voice drifted across from the dying fire.
‘It’s fine,’ she replied without turning, ‘go back to sleep.’
‘’k.’ The response sounded distant, her sister already adrift on slumber’s tides. Moments later, the soft, fluttering sounds of snoring filled the room.
Shaking her head, Mirika stripped away the bandage and splint, and flexed her wrist experimentally. It didn’t feel older, but she supposed it never did. Master Torik had warned her about using the timeflow that way. He’d said it was akin to wishing away your ills and illnesses, and wishes always had a price, even when it wasn’t obvious. On the other hand – Hah! The other hand! – a month or two, more or less, wouldn’t do her any good if she fell into a crevasse the following morning.
‘You were right, little sister,’ she whispered. ‘Always the practical one.’
She dropped the filthy bandage out of the window. It spiralled lazily through the air, tossed this way and that by the gusting wind. If only all her problems were so easily disposed of, hidden costs or no. Perhaps Yelen would feel different once Master Torik had worked his miracle, separated her from the… thing… tethered to her soul. She hoped so.
Being apart, when for so long they’d been all each other had? The idea was like a punch to Mirika’s gut, every bit as bad as the memory of Marcan’s knife. Or she thought so, anyway. The moments between that first clasping of hands and the triggering of the time walk were fading. They always did. After all, they’d no longer truly happened, and the mortal mind hated trying to make sense of the contradiction. Some parts would remain – Mirika knew she’d never forget the hot-cold sensation of torn flesh – but others would dissipate like waking dreams. Possibly they already had. The very nature of forgetting made accounting for it impossible.
Mirika’s foot brushed the haversack. Stooping, she plucked the reliquary free, tracing her fingers across the whorls upon its surface. There was no crack, no obvious join in the stone. What did it contain? Master Torik hadn’t said, but then he never did. She supposed it didn’t matter, as long as he did what he’d promised.
With a sigh, Mirika leaned against the cracked windowsill. She stared out across the snow-drifted cobbles and listened to the rhythmic tremor of Yelen’s snores – the same snores she never admitted to making. What if Yelen didn’t feel different after Master Torik set her free? What then?
Mirika didn’t want to leave. She’d fallen in love with the ruined city from the very first, with the opportunities it offered and the wildness of those who’d made it their home. Back home in Karamasz, she’d never have learnt to use her talents as she had here. She’d have been a street hustler, or perhaps a thief – until they’d caught her in the act of dabbling in the timeflow, then she’d have ended in a crow’s cage. Here in Frostgrave, the possibilities were endless.
No. Not Frostgrave. What was the name Master Torik called it?
‘Felstad.’ Mirika whispered the word reverently, tasting the unfamiliar syllables as they rolled off her tongue. That was it. So much grander.
On a whim, she gazed out across a cityscape and reached out into ages past, this time not merely harnessing the memory of light, but the reflection of everything that light had touched. Ghostly images danced across the Broken Strand – in her mind’s eye broken no longer, but a glorious promenade. The spires, no longer twisted and decaying, reached skyward like arms in prayer, flickering lights and swirls of brilliant colour dancing skyward. The collapsed roadway was collapsed no more, but led a winding path up to the Temple of Draconostra, itself now crowned by a magnificent bronze dome, rather than jagged and mangled metal.
The spiralling chimneys at the temple’s rear gouted thick black smoke, stirring memories of old legends. Szarnos the Butcher. Szarnos the Mad. Szarnos the Damned. The list went on. Mirika had heard so many tales since coming to Frostgrave. Of how Szarnos had cast living servants into the fires, feasting on their life essence at the moment of death. Of the profane ceremonies, where his priests bathed in blood and slit one another’s throats at the master’s leaden command. The Charnel Feasts. The Banquet of Souls. The Hidden Court of Draconostra, of which Szarnos was but a forerunner in some stories, and the unholy master in others. Had he been a priest, or a wayward sorcerer? No two tales agreed on the details. Like all of Frostgrave’s secrets, they were whispered around campfires, multiplying like maggots as the ale flowed. The only thing on which the tales agreed, was that Szarnos’ hour had ended long ago.
Far below, dark shapes crowded the streets. A processional? Citizenry going about their daily business? Sacrifices to Szarnos’ mad dreams? It was impossible to tell. Time-light preserved the dead and the lifeless as if they were locked in ice, but the living? Their timelines were always in motion, even in the past, and cast only hazy shadows into the future. Or ordinarily so. One figure stood tall at the entrance to the temple, scarlet robes swirling about his feet. Even at that distance, the gold about his wrists and throat glimmered in the long ago sunlight and a black cube glinted in his hands. Was that…?
The skin of the reliquary blazed like fire.
‘Ahhh!’
Mirika dropped the reliquary without thinking, her grip on the light of ages past slipping away. One corner struck the stone floor with a soft chink, and then it rolled to rest like a giant die. Over by the fire, Yelen snored on.
Mirika cursed softly under her breath, alternately shaking and sucking at her fingers to relieve a pain already fading. In all their years together, Master Torik
had never raised his voice to her, but then again she’d never broken one of his precious artefacts. She squatted and stared at the cube. It didn’t look damaged. Indeed, the impact had driven a splinter from the flagstone it had struck. She sighed with relief. A close call. Yelen was right. She did need to be more…
A dull roar sounded from outside. A troll. Not too close, but too close for comfort all the same.
Leaving the reliquary where it had fallen, Mirika twisted back to the window. Dawn’s glow lit the horizon, the dark of night in full retreat before a new day. Almost directly below, at the foot of the building, a troll stood knee-deep in a snow drift, furred shoulders hunched as it lashed out. Not at another troll, but at a squat, bearded man in filthy leathers.
Marcan.
The blow connected with a dull thud. The swarthy man spun away into a snowdrift, sword falling from his hand. Mirika snorted. Serve him right.
A chill crept along her spine, spoiling the delicious schadenfreude of the moment. If Marcan was here, then the rest of the Gilded Rose wouldn’t be far behind – assuming Cavril hadn’t banished him for the almost-murder. They might even be in the building.
‘Yelen!’ she hissed. ‘Yelen! Wake up!’
The bundle of blankets stirred. A gloved hand cuffed at sleep-crusted eyes. ‘’m awake.’
‘Be more awake. It’s time to leave.’
Mirika returned her attention to the growing contest below, now lit by the first grey light of the coming morning. Dawn had arrived more quickly than she’d thought. Had she gotten lost in the images of the past? It wasn’t the first time that had happened. Marcan was on his feet again, swaying unsteadily. Then again, he was lucky to still have a head on his shoulders. He’d be lucky to keep it there. A second troll lurched into sight, a long-dead bough clutched in its hand as a makeshift club.
Marcan flickered and refracted, the dancing light coalescing into four identical images.