Did he believe her? Margaine couldn’t tell from the set of his face or frame, and that uncertainty gnawed at her, but she thrust it ruthlessly aside. There was nothing for it but to say what needed saying, for she would win nothing with silence. “The Voice spoke to me of having been bound by blood and magic, doctor. Bonds She has now broken, and for which She now seeks Her holy retribution. I have reason to believe that there are those within this palace who would restore those bonds, and that they would sacrifice my child to do it. I need your help to take Padraiga away from here. I need to ensure her safety.”
Now Corrinides started more visibly, and many moments passed as he stared at her in outright shock; then, slowly, he finally blew out an unsteady breath. “Have you any proof of these suspicions?”
“No.” Margaine forced that single syllable out, past the lingering wisps of nightmare behind her eyes, and the specter of Ealasaid tainting each breath she took within the palace walls. “And without proof, it would serve no good purpose to tell you who I suspect. I would prefer to direct my course to the protection of my daughter.”
“Entirely understandably,” the doctor agreed, to her relief. “But surely you must know, my lady, that the Bhandreid has restricted travel through the city because of the current crisis. Even if I wanted to help you, I can’t. Her Majesty has forbidden anyone to leave the palace without explicit sanction from her.”
His voice wasn’t loud; if anything, it was warm with earnest concern, roughened along its edges by the strain upon them all. Yet his words struck her square in the breast, like a round from a well-aimed pistol. For an instant Margaine’s mind went blank, and all she could hear was the rush of her own blood in her ears. All she could think was of course she did, and that felt too calm by half when she was on the verge of screaming. But she could not, would not do any such thing. Nor would she succumb to the tremors abruptly threatening her knees.
Instead she whirled to face her daughter’s bassinet. Padraiga cooed and gurgled quietly to herself within her cocoon of white pine and lace, waving a tiny hand toward the ornaments hung just above her, brightly painted to please her infant eye. “Then I…” Margaine scowled as her voice cracked, and with an effort, she forced herself to keep her speech even and clear. “Then I must urge you, doctor, as one whose very livelihood is based upon the health of the royal family and all within it, to assist me in looking after my daughter. There are few men in royal service I can trust enough to ask for such assistance.”
“I’m honored by your confidence, Your Highness,” Corrinides said. He was closer now; he’d come up behind her. Something in his tone sounded wrong to Margaine, though, a strange tinge of regret. She spun back to face him—but not quickly enough to evade the bite of the syringe he pressed into her shoulder. He caught her as she began to struggle, and added unhappily, “And I am truly sorry that I must do this, but Her Majesty feared you might have become unbalanced in your grief for your husband. I’ve been ordered to make certain you will not be a danger to the heir. Please forgive me.”
“I’ll do nothing of the kind,” Margaine rasped. She wanted to snarl it, scream it, and curse him until the day he died. Whatever he’d put into the brass syringe left her no option but to slump in his arms, yet before she collapsed completely, she managed to meet his eye. “Watch over my daughter. If she comes to harm it will be on your head.”
It was meager comfort indeed to see him wince before the sedative pulled her under.
Camden, Kilmerry Province, Jeuchar 7, AC 1876
Khamsin Kilmerredes had known the town of Camden for nearly twenty years, and less than a week had passed since she’d seen it last. But when she and her party came through the town on their way back from Shalridan, she scarcely recognized the place. Barricades had been erected across the roads leading into the town, structures of raw-cut wood that seemed at first glance as makeshift as the uniforms of the men and women who stood watch at them. No two sentries were dressed alike; some had nothing more to mark themselves than armbands, while others sported actual military coats of faded cloth, in cuts the duchess had seen before only in centuries-old paintings in Lomhannor Hall. In the days before Nirrivy had fallen, her husband’s forebears had proudly worn the uniforms of officers of the Nirrivan army. Now, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Nirrivan soldiers were pulling uniform coats and sashes out of hiding, and wearing them with defiant pride.
The guards who cleared her carriage to enter the town looked too young to know what combat was, much less to have earned the insignia on the jackets they were wearing. Khamsin elected to ignore both of these things, and instead smiled graciously as the female of the pair waved her carriage through. “Sister Sother left us orders to expect you, Your Grace,” the girl said. “She’s waiting for you at the church.”
“Thank you, I shall find her there. May all the gods smile upon you both for your service.”
The two guards visibly straightened at her benediction. But as the carriage made its way through the gate, Yselde piped up, “Mama, why did those people smell like mothballs?”
“Because the gods call them to be warriors, little bloom, and they wear the garb of warriors who came before them. Respect them. Djashtet upholds all those who fight with honor, even if they do not fight in Her name.”
Doubt crinkled Yselde’s features, but her dark eyes grew thoughtful, and that was all to the best as far as the duchess was concerned. Her daughter needed to watch, listen and learn.
At the church of Camden, she would have a new chance to do so.
Camden’s streets were bustling, with people on foot and horse-drawn wagons heading in all directions. Khamsin noted the faces of everyone her carriage passed, and saw focused purpose everywhere she looked. At the call of her driver, those on the streets made way for their passing, and they arrived at the church in short order. There, too, change had been wrought. The four-pointed star of the Church of the Four Gods no longer graced the roof. Instead, someone had mounted a pair of flags. One bore the wheat and apple sigils of the goddess called the Allmother, in shades of red and green and gold that stood out brightly against the summer sky. The other was simpler, two broad stripes of blue and green, the long-unseen colors of the nation of Nirrivy.
The flags alone, Khamsin thought as she emerged from the carriage, her daughter at her side, were enough to bring the wrath of the Bhandreid and the armies of the realm down upon them. For the first time in two hundred years, though, the lands that had once been Nirrivy were ready to withstand them.
Even before she and Yselde could set foot inside the church, the building’s front doors opened to reveal the priestess Idrekke Sother coming out to meet her. The other woman beckoned to her urgently and called, “Please come in at once, Your Grace. Father Grenham has brought urgent news we need to discuss immediately.”
With Sother was a man that Khamsin didn’t know, wearing what looked at first glance like the robes of an abbot of the Four Gods. But like Sother, he was openly wearing a golden amulet—one that matched the Allmother’s flag now flying over the church.
“My name is Cortland Grenham, my lady,” he told her. “And I’ve come to tell you the Voice of the Gods is loose in Dareli.”
* * *
They hastened inside after that, for the duchess had no desire to discuss the Anreulag in public, even in a town she now controlled. Sister Sother led them swiftly into the church, bypassing the nave and heading straight to the office. Only therein, with the office door safely closed and Yselde ensconced on a high-backed leather chair, did Khamsin face her second-in-command and the newcomer.
“You will forgive me, I’m sure, if I forego social niceties and proceed straight to the point,” she said. “What is this word of the Anreulag?”
To his credit, Grenham showed no inclination to debate Yselde’s presence among them. He gave her only one startled look, which Yselde returned with shy interest,
before he focused entirely upon the duchess. “I was the abbot of Arlitham Abbey. I expect that name is familiar to you, my lady?”
Arlitham. The place where her husband had gone in pursuit of his runaway slave, where Faanshi and her fugitive companions had stood against him—and where his priest had called down the Anreulag. Khamsin’s jaw tightened at the reminder, yet she allowed no trace of distress to escape into her voice. Her features, obscured by the dark mourning veil she wore, were safely unreadable. “I was given the name.”
To that Grenham inclined his head, before lifting the golden amulet he wore for her inspection. “Unless you have far better spies than I’ve anticipated, you won’t have been told about this. My people were a Nirrivan sect in hiding, much as I expect Sister Sother has been in hiding all this time.”
“Were?” Sother inquired, her eyebrows going up.
“We had to flee our abbey not long after the Hawks found us and arrested Kestar Vaarsen and Celoren Valleford. We dispersed across the province, only to find the seeds of rebellion flowering all around us—and something else coming over the telegraph lines. The Hawks have tried to lock it down, but they haven’t silenced all the broadsheets. Word has come out of Dareli that the Anreulag went on a rampage three nights ago and nearly destroyed the royal palace and much of the city. The High Priest is dead.”
Sother drew in a long breath of amazement, a smile beginning to play at her mouth. Yselde said nothing, watching the adults curiously, her gaze flitting from face to face. Khamsin chose to worry later about how and what the child would learn from this news; for now, she had to see what she could learn from it herself. Anticipation shot through her.
“Then my husband’s efforts bore fruit. He had the Voice of the Gods freed from bondage, and She will rain fire down on the heads of our enemies.”
Grenham looked from the duchess to Sother and back again, before venturing, “Your Grace, have you ever seen the Anreulag yourself?”
His doubtful tone didn’t faze her. “Indeed I did—on the battlefields of Tantiulo, when the enemies of your people and mine sought to put my homeland to the sword.”
“Then you surely must understand that if the Voice is no longer bound, we cannot trust that She won’t incinerate us right along with every Hawk and every soldier who would seek to stop Nirrivy’s rebirth.”
Khamsin canted her head, studying the man, abruptly pleased by what she saw of him. A priest, and whether he burned with the same fervor as Sother, she had no way of knowing. But there was a certain steadfast determination in the set of his face, and if he had led a Nirrivan church, she could use him. “You say us in the way of a man who considers himself part of our cause, akreshi.”
“That would be because I do, my lady. If you’ll have me, and what members of my flock are still with me, we want to join you. You’re trying to bring our homeland back. And we’re tired of hiding.”
“Well said.” The duchess strode forward to offer the abbot her hand. “And I am most interested in your assistance, if you witnessed the Anreulag’s appearance firsthand. My husband’s guardsmen are of no use to me—they lack the understanding of what took place before their very eyes. But you, a priest…you could confirm for me what words were used to enact the Rite of the Calling.”
Grenham clasped her hand with appropriate deference, though his eyes widened at her words. “I will tell you all I saw, but surely you can’t mean to call the Voice of the Gods yourself. She nearly destroyed my chapel. And if the telegraph reports can be believed, She’s well on her way to destroying Dareli.”
“Then She does our work for us,” Sother said proudly, lifting her chin.
Casting a serene nod to the other woman, Khamsin said, “I will not presume to use the Rite as the Church of the Four Gods has done—to command the Anreulag’s power. But to date, the Rite is the only known means of drawing Her attention.”
“If you’ll take the counsel of one newly joined to your ranks, Your Grace,” Grenham asked in open shock, “why in the Allmother’s name would you want this?”
She hesitated not a moment as she made her reply.
“Father, I cannot pretend to comprehend what forces bound the Anreulag to the Church’s service. But I know something of subjugation, and of what it means to live under the domination of another power. Tantiu and Nirrivan, we all share that grim familiarity. And if the Anreulag shares that with us—if She will hear us when we call—then if all the gods are willing, perhaps we can convince Her that our aims are as one.
“And between all our gathered swords, the oppressors of Nirrivy will fall.”
Chapter Seven
Dolmerrath, Jeuchar 9, AC 1876
In the years he and Celoren had been riding patrol together, Kestar had seen much—much more than he’d ever imagined, once they’d discovered Faanshi. He’d turned his back on the dictates of his Order, and had faced a Cleansing and put his partner and his mother in peril. Now he was sheltering among the elves, and that mostly sat well with him, for every action he’d taken to get here had been guided by what he’d felt to be right.
Yet he’d fought with members of his own Order when escaping Shalridan with Faanshi and the rest. He’d seen Hawks fall in battle with Kirinil and Alarrah. Not until Gerren summoned him and Celoren to one of the chambers near the stable cavern, however, had he ever laid eyes on a dead Hawk up close.
The room was one of the smaller ones in Dolmerrath, barely big enough to accommodate a few shelves on which to store gear and feed bins for horses. He and Celoren had to step past several people gathered outside its curtained doorway, for there was no room beyond the curtain for them. The presence of the scouts Jannyn and Tembriel was no surprise, and neither were their identical angry expressions, since those were the looks the two elves had worn each time Kestar had seen them. Julian and Rab were also both on hand, and Rab’s glower rivaled those of the scouts for ferocity—no small wonder, if his horse had been shot. Kestar didn’t want to think about how he’d react if he got the word that someone had killed Tenthim.
But Faanshi was also there, scowling toward the curtain, and the sight of a scowl on her features was enough to stop Kestar in his tracks. Her head snapped around at his approach, and only then did her scowl waver. “They wouldn’t let me heal him, Kestar,” she said. Nothing more than that, but with the profound unhappiness in her eyes, that was enough.
“Gerren wants you to identify him if you can,” Julian said. With a curt gesture he waved Kestar forward. Of all those present the assassin’s face was the most unreadable, and only his cold blue stare gave Kestar an inkling of what he was about to see.
“May I enter?” he called quietly through the curtain, since there was no door on which to knock—one of the myriad small details of life in Dolmerrath that gave him a small mental jolt each time he encountered it, and which he made a point of ignoring now. The response that came back to him was in Elvish, curt and preoccupied-sounding. Kestar opted to take his chances, and pushed the curtain aside so that he could step through.
Within he found Alarrah kneeling on the storeroom floor and Gerren on his feet, facing her. Between them lay two bodies. One was the dead sailor who’d been riding Rab’s horse. The other was a man in a Hawk’s uniform, stained with sweat and the mud of riding, and with the blood from the bullet wound that had presumably killed him. His amulet was out, one of the simpler ones Kestar had ever seen, a circle of silver stamped with interlocking triangles. Despite the presence of two full-blooded elves—not to mention Kestar himself—the silver showed no sign of light. That, even aside from the blood, was enough to mark the Hawk as deceased.
He stopped, his hand still holding the curtain. For all his resolve to give what aid he could to Faanshi and her newfound people, his heart sank at what he saw. Not just a dead Hawk—a Hawk he knew, a familiar face now slack in death, his body lifeless and cold.
Bec
ause of me. He was just doing his duty, and he died because of me.
The realization struck Kestar hard enough to leave him breathless, conscious of nothing but guilt and more than a little desolation. “Damn it,” he rasped when he could find his voice at last. “What did you do, Bron?”
“So you do know this man,” Gerren said, while Alarrah rose.
“His name was Bron Wulsten. He was one of the patrol that arrested my mother, Celoren and me.” The two elves before him were his best allies in Dolmerrath, but now even they watched him with open wariness in their faces. Kestar couldn’t bring himself to blame them, or to look away from the figure on the floor. “I…knew him from the Hawksvale Academy. Where they train us. He was a cadet there at the same time Celoren and I were. He was the only one of Captain Amarsaed’s patrol who wasn’t entirely terrible when they arrested us.”
Neither Gerren nor Alarrah seemed moved by his words, and even to Kestar, they sounded like faint praise at best. Still, he kept his attention on Bron’s silent face, and felt a twinge of relief that someone had at least seen fit to close his eyes. It seemed disrespectful to do anything less than fully acknowledge the passing of a fellow member of the Order, even now, though he could hardly say that out loud. If the gods are still listening to me, I hope they give your spirit safe flying, Bron.
“I remember seeing him in the cathedral when we came for you,” Alarrah said. “Captain Amarsaed was the one who brought you in for the Cleansing?”
As Kestar nodded, Gerren put forth a question of his own. “Tembriel reported there was another Hawk with this one, a woman, who escaped. Would you know her as well?”
“It was probably Jekke Yerredes, Amarsaed’s other lieutenant.” Frowning, Kestar finally looked up to meet the elves’ eyes. “And if Amarsaed’s sent them here, I doubt he himself is far behind.”
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