by Jane Kindred
I looked at Lively to see if Vasily was making this up for some reason I couldn’t fathom.
She nodded. “The Firmament subsumed Raqia. And that’s what Aeval intends to do with the rest.”
I was astounded that knowledge passed down through nothing more than oral tradition among the Fallen was simply absent from the angelic histories. Of what else was I still ignorant about the world that had been my father’s domain? He had been the sovereign of a princedom in which a large number of its subjects had no voice at all, and now I learned those subjects should not even have been our own.
But it was one thing, however base, to invade a princedom and divide the conquered lands among its neighbors. It was quite another to claim absolute rule over an entire world. If the queen was now exercising total authority over all princedoms, it meant she had subjugated not only the Host of the Second Choir—the firespirits who, despite their greater physical power, had always served the lesser Order of Principalities—but the Third Choir as well. The Second Choir angels were presumed to serve their inferiors because their strength lay in brute force and not in mental faculties, but the Third Choir was the intellectual elite of the Heavens.
Among their Orders, the Dominions were the philosophers and scholars who’d founded the universities at the city of Araphel where all angelic nobility studied, and from the Powers came the military strategists of the Armies of Heaven. It was from this order the Grigori themselves had fallen. The Virtues I couldn’t imagine bowing to a lesser order. They were seekers of truth in all things, lending themselves to celestial investigations and contemplating the nature of the universe.
A commotion beside us jarred me from my troubled thoughts, and I looked up to see two officers swaggering toward our table—or perhaps staggering might have been a better term, as they’d clearly been imbibing for hours. I ducked my head instinctively, though no one would recognize me now.
One of the officers stepped behind me and put his hand on my shoulder, turning me about on my chair. “Don’t be coy now, madam.” He gave me a wink and an exaggerated flourish as he took an unsteady bow. “We’ve seen you looking at us.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“He’s partial to twins,” said the other with a smirk, and put his hand over Lively’s as she shrugged away from him. “What say you give us a dance?”
Vasily and Nebo pushed back their chairs and stood at once. Had the officers been slightly more sober, I’m certain they would have backed away at this, particularly when Vasily straightened his spectacles in the way he had that managed to make him look more menacing instead of less. It was like watching another man crack his knuckles or his neck.
“What’s the matter, demon?” said the officer beside me. “I always heard your kind believed in sharing. Surely your orgies can spare at least one twin.”
I shook my head in warning at Vasily as his eyes blazed red, but he was beyond exercising discretion. The officer moved his hand from my shoulder to my neck, and Vasily charged him like a bull.
The surprised man went down without a fight, while the other swung foolishly at Nebo and found himself being tossed across the bar, but their comrades at the other table came quickly to their aid. Lively and I leapt out of the way as the tavern descended into chaos.
“We’d better pack,” she whispered. I agreed. Whatever the outcome, it was certain we wouldn’t be welcome here for the night. Our belongings had already been dropped off in our room, so we hurried up the stairs and stuffed what little we’d unpacked into our bags.
Before I turned to head down, Lively stopped me and nodded at the window. “The stable is right below us.”
I shrugged. “What’s that to us?”
“The army horses. They’re bred for the ice and the snow. We could ride straight through to Aravoth.”
“You must be joking. You want to steal horses from the Queen’s Army? The soldiers would be after us in an instant.”
Lively looked at me slyly. “Not if someone were to release the rest of their horses.”
I shook my head. “What makes you think they’d go? Horses won’t just run off on their own in the snow. They know where their feed and shelter are.”
“They might if their feed and shelter were on fire.”
I stared aghast as she began to pry open the icy window. “That’s someone’s property. The innkeeper’s done nothing to us.”
Lively thrust open the sash. “You are a prim, sheltered thing, aren’t you?”
An unexpected fury took hold of me, as if she were an insolent maid and I were still a revered grand duchess in my father’s house, and I swung her by the arm to face me, but this time Lively stared me down.
“Do you want to find your child or not? There’s a revolution afoot and the inhabitants of Heaven are choosing sides. There’s no longer any place for what’s proper and what’s right. The world has changed.”
The world has changed. It was the same thing Helga had said to me the last time I’d seen her. She’d called me spoiled, and it was true. I’d been reacting to the events in Heaven as if they affected only me, as if it were a game of noughts and crosses and the other players were treating me unfairly. I was waiting for some supervising grownup to step in and make the others abide by the rules. But this wasn’t noughts and crosses; it was chess, and I was fretting over pawns.
Tossing her bag onto the roof of the stable, Lively crawled through the window and lowered herself beside it. I glanced back at the door before I gave up and followed. Lively shimmied down the side of the building and swung herself into the stable through an unshuttered window. When I jumped down beside her, a young stable hand sleeping in the hayloft scrambled to his feet and spun toward the door as if to shout for help, but Lively grabbed his hand.
“Please. Don’t turn us in. We’ve run away from our master.”
The stable hand looked doubtfully toward the exit.
“He beats us,” she pleaded. “Just make yourself scarce for an hour and we’ll be gone. No one will know.”
“I’ll be beaten myself, miss,” the youth said reluctantly. “If anything were to happen…”
Lively’s wheedling tone changed swiftly as she turned to me. “Pay him.”
“Pay him?” I exclaimed. “I haven’t any crystal!”
Lively sighed and began hitching up her skirt. “Come here, boy. Unless I miss my guess, you’ve not had a woman before.”
“No, mum.” He blushed, and I blushed with him.
I gaped as Lively rapidly unlaced the stable hand’s pants and pulled him up against her while she scuttled back onto a bale of hay.
“Come on, then. Quickly. We haven’t got all day.”
The stable hand fumbled beneath her skirt, and Lively rolled her eyes and helped him get what he was after. She wrapped her legs around his bare behind as the youth groaned and pumped frantically against her.
His wide-eyed initiation was over in a minute, and Lively pushed him off, straightening her garments as she jumped down from the hay. He staggered back, staring for a moment, damp and exposed, before turning beet red and hitching up his pants.
“You’ll keep quiet,” Lively ordered, and he nodded as he fumbled at his laces. “If you don’t, I’ll curse you and you won’t be able to use that thing again.”
He nodded more vigorously, his eyes huge.
“Go on, then.”
The stable hand scurried out the door.
Lively gave me a challenging look, but I didn’t say a word. We opened the stalls one by one and led the horses out into the yard, reserving four of the finest to saddle up for ourselves.
“Take ours out to the road and hang onto them,” she said when they were ready. “I’ll get the other horses moving and then sound the alarm after I’ve set the fire. When the innkeeper and the rest run to put it out, I’ll bring Nebo and Vasily through the front.”
I wasn’t sure how she intended to pull this off, but after what I’d seen with the stable hand, I wasn’t sure I w
anted to know.
I walked the horses to the road as she’d instructed and waited nervously. Smoke rose over the top of the inn as the fire started to burn, and then the horses in the yard began to run, as if something besides the fire had spooked them. Fortunately, Lively had sent them in the opposite direction, but it still took everything I had to calm our four and keep them from joining the rest.
Shouting erupted from the tavern as the doors flew open, and people ran in every direction from both ends of the building. In the darkness, I could see the glow of flames leaping onto the tavern roof. The wind had picked up and carried the sparks. For several agonizing seconds, there was no sign of my companions, and then Lively came tumbling out onto the tavern steps beside the lamppost as if thrown, with Vasily and Nebo close behind her.
“And if I see you here again, I’ll run you through myself!” the innkeeper shouted after them.
Lively dragged Vasily and Nebo into the dark toward me, but a pair of soldiers had come after them from the yard, and one of them gave the alarm.
“They’ve stolen the horses!”
Another pair gathering snow to put out the fire dropped their pails and joined the pursuit.
Lively reached me first and mounted one of the horses. “Come on.” She took off down the road without waiting. I was an adept rider, but I was barely able to swing up into my saddle before my horse began to run at a whistled signal from the demon girl, and the others with it.
“Wait, Lively! We can’t leave without Vasily and Nebo!”
“They’ll catch up!” she called back without slowing.
I looked over my shoulder and saw Nebo pulling ahead of our pursuers with Vasily close behind him, but there was little I could do as the horses thundered over the hard-packed snow after Lively. Whether she was a horse charmer or had used some demon trick, it didn’t matter, as they had decided to follow her lead.
We rode hard for nearly half an hour before I convinced Lively to slow to a walk. At last, Nebo appeared over the crest of a hill. A stutter of alarm raced through my heart.
I stopped and dismounted as he took one of the loose sets of reins. “Where’s Vasily?”
“They caught him. He told me to run.” Nebo paused for breath. “To protect you.”
“Protect me?” I looked toward the horizon in dismay, hoping Nebo was somehow mistaken, and silenced my fear with anger. “And just who is going to protect him?”
Lively drew her horse up beside me. “He does seem fairly capable of protecting himself.” There was another, subtle implication in her words: that I was not.
“Well, thanks to you, I suppose he’ll have to be!” I looked out over the empty lane of snow, contemplating the hint of sunrise painting a cool line of blue on the eastern horizon. We’d said our good-byes on the train from Arkhangel’sk, prepared for the probability that we wouldn’t make it out of Heaven, but I was unwilling to leave him like this. We would both see Ola again if it was the last thing we did. We’d promised each other.
I blinked away tears. This couldn’t be it. “I’m going back for him.”
Nebo put his hand on my horse’s lead as I stepped back into the stirrup. “With all due respect, you’ll only get yourself caught. What good will that do your daughter?”
Lively nodded. “The Elohim are waiting. Time is of the essence.”
I hesitated. Ola was what mattered most. Vasily had sacrificed his freedom to make sure I reached her. “You’re certain the Elohim know where Ola is.”
“That’s what they said. Virtues aren’t known for stretching the truth.”
That much I couldn’t argue with. The only thing I couldn’t be sure of was whether Lively herself could be trusted. Pushing down the ache in my gut at going on without Vasily, I mounted my horse. There was only one way to find out.
Luck was with us, and we encountered none of Aeval’s soldiers as we spent the day heading north. With the aid of the horses, we were able to cover more ground without tiring, and we reached the rolling foothills of the Mountains of Aravoth before nightfall. Unfortunately, this also marked the boundaries of the Summer Palace estate. We couldn’t afford to linger here, but the horses couldn’t be pushed much farther. The road to the palace itself was heavily guarded, and the glow of Ophanim was visible at the gates, but the private road to our mountain—the Queen’s Mountain now—was hidden from the highway by a grove of pines, deserted in the twilight. There was nothing along this road but our hunting lodge. With no one in residence at this time of year, the private road was left unprotected.
“This way.” I turned my horse into the grove where the snow-cloaked trees would hide us from the palace grounds. Ghosts seemed to walk beside us as I led the way toward my father’s hunting house, and one ghost in particular rode beside me as we went farther along the path. This was where I’d ridden with my cousin Kae on a winter’s morning and doomed us all.
It was dark by the time we reached the spot where Kae had claimed to see the wild white steed. The little grove was the best place away from the road to make camp, with winter sage still green beneath the snow for the horses to graze on, but its dark memories troubled my sleep.
…
The game had become hide-and-go-seek. I thought myself quite clever for evading Maia as I heard Tatia squeal at the collar full of snow Maia gave her upon her discovery. Warming my hands under my arms, I closed my eyes and waited, believing I was alone in the grove until I heard my sister’s voice.
“Nazkia, what are you doing up here? I told you it was too cold to go riding.” Ola regarded me reproachfully from her mount. Hoofbeats sounded on the road below and I realized I, too, was on horseback.
A white steed thundered past us into the gloomy, mist-shrouded path in the distance. It was the wild horse Kae had seen on that winter’s morning.
Ola’s expression grew grim. “I told you he was seeing someone else.” She turned her horse about in pursuit and broke into a gallop as the grove dissolved into an open plain of ice. Another rider was behind me as I raced after her, and the horse gained on me steadily until I caught the dark profile of the queen’s field marshal as he galloped past.
I tried to reach Ola, spurring my horse onward, but the field marshal caught her and swung her from her mount by the hair, tossing her to the icy ground. Ola’s horse reared up over her in a panic, and I scrambled from my mount as the steel-clad hooves descended. One hoof struck her stomach before I could drag her from its path, and blood began to spill over the pristine white of winter.
“Ola!” I cried. “The baby!”
“It’s all right.” She smiled as I cradled her head. “I’m not pregnant anymore.” Blood was trickling from the side of her mouth.
The masked field marshal looked down at us from his pale mount, his sword drawn, ready to fall upon both of us.
Ola shivered. “It’s so cold. Maybe you should light a fire.” She stared up at the sky serenely, and I realized she was no longer breathing.
In a rage, I leapt up and wrenched the sword from the field marshal’s grip with both hands. He lunged toward me in his saddle to try to take it back, but I had turned it toward him and he fell on it instead and I drove it deep. As his one eye stared at me in shock, the sword seemed to catch fire in his belly. It consumed him, though the horse remained unscathed.
…
I woke, trembling with a cold more keenly felt for the loss of Vasily, to find our small fire had gone out. It was just as well, for when I rose to rekindle it, the glow of torchlight winked through the trees on the road below us, accompanied by the pounding of hooves. I woke Lively and Nebo; there was no need to tell them why. Voices carried up to us with the jangling of metal as the riders drew closer, and we scrambled to saddle the horses and gather our gear.
“I think we should leave this one.” Nebo patted the extra horse when he’d finished saddling his own. “We don’t have time to take her. She’ll just slow us down.”
I paused over the saddle I’d picked up.
�
�If that’s the Queen’s Guard behind us,” he said, “they’ll take her along. She’ll be in good hands.”
I nodded and left the equipment where it was. There was no point in trying to take an extra horse into the rocky, frozen terrain we would have to flee over. The only way out was to keep on through the mountain and rejoin the Aravoth Pass between the sharp peaks of the range on the other side.
Unlike our pursuers, we didn’t have the advantage of torches, but we were swifter with three. We made our way carefully over ground not meant for travel in any season. The mountains surrounding Aravoth had protected her small capital in ancient times, in turn protecting the borders of the Firmament from northern invasion. But there had been peace between the neighboring princedoms since before the rule of the House of Arkhangel’sk, and the border at Aravoth was merely a formality.
Morning dawned as we made our way through the winding heights, and I could no longer hear the riders behind us. We all relaxed, thinking we’d lost them, and even indulged in a rest for the horses beside a partially frozen stream. Shortly after midday, however, we descended the far side of the Queen’s Mountain toward the northern portion of the Aravoth Pass and saw what had become of our pursuers. A small patrol of the Queen’s Army was advancing through the pass from the Firmament border and was nearly upon us.
“Go!” cried Nebo. “I’ll take the rear!”
Lively and I spurred our horses on as we reached the bank of the Gihon River at the bottom of the ravine, with Nebo at our heels. The horses had already gone several miles over the rocky mountainside without adequate rest, but they were rugged and built for war, and seemed to take to the sudden burst of action almost eagerly. Unfortunately, their compatriots in pursuit were of equal measure and hadn’t spent the last hours climbing over rocks and ice on unmarked paths. I heard them gaining on us, though I didn’t look back.
On the other side of the pass, the gates of Aravoth City sparkled in the rare winter sun, but the famous winds of the rock-walled ravine were screaming through as the passage narrowed, driving a heavy mist against us. Lively was ahead of me and had almost reached the end of the pass when her horse stumbled and she went tumbling. Trying to rein in my mount, I narrowly missed her, but Nebo shouted at me to keep going as he came up behind. Lively got to her feet, though her spooked horse barreled past me, and Nebo shouted at me again as he reached down to pull Lively onto his horse. I straightened my mount and rode hell-for-leather, while the supernal cavalry overtook them.