Her shoulders heaved, breath wheezing through clogged passages. “He was . . . It was unbearable.”
He held her until her sobs stilled. When she finally grew quiet, he touched the case. “May I hear it?”
Sniffling, she pulled the flute out of the leather and fitted the headjoint on the body. Filling her lungs, she blew softly across the mouthpiece. The flute answered with a whispered D. Just a single note, but one that rang pure in tone and pitch.
“I’ll never forget your father’s last performance,” Ashel said, then sang,
Forgiveness is the dream of those who love
“Will you accompany me,” he asked, “to honor Winder?”
“You want to sing ‘Wizard’s Last Embrace’? That song? About Vic and—”
“It’s just a song, one I want to sing with you, because it was the last thing Winder did, and it was brilliant. Please play it with me, so we can sing him to the trees, here in the shade of these old mothers.”
Tears streaming, she took deep breaths to clear her throat. She tongued the first notes, coughed, and tried again. After the first bars, Ashel came in, his voice an octave lower than her father’s tenor but just as full of love. High and low, the weaving melodies spun around her like the warm sea on a summer day in Alna. Her back arched; her feet left the ground. Floating above the earth, she released her father. She let go of Mane. Wrapping them in music, her one true joy, she finally laid them to rest among the trees.
The One, the Fulcrum, and the Sacrifice
Lillem entered the tent and stood at attention, his uniform neatly pressed. “The procession is starting, Highness, marshal.”
“Thank you, sergeant,” Vic said, acknowledging the new stripes on Lillem’s sleeve. “Shall we go?” Outside, she linked arms with the taller pair and drew them into the air. They swept over tents, flashed through the choking smoke ringing the camp, and joined the line of soldiers and wizards disappearing into the forest. Bethniel glanced back at the moat, where most of the dead from the last battle, human and Kragnashian, had been interred. “We buried so many in fire. I’m glad Thabean is taking Dealn back to the trees.”
“There are no cerrenils here,” Lillem muttered.
“But there is life. Elesendar will know the intent.”
At the head of the procession, a shrouded figure bobbed behind Samovael as he walked to a glade split by a slow-running brook. Thabean and Fainend came next, followed by Saelbeneth, Grunnaire, their stewards, and Thabean’s command staff and aides.
Birds called in the canopy, and a gust of wind showered blossoms over the gathering as Thabean stepped forward. “Dealn loved a good fight and fought for a good love more times than I can count.”
“That he did,” Samovael declared.
“He cherished duty,” Thabean continued, “and he died defending this Council. He died defending me. We’ve buried too many of our defenders in the weeks since the last attack—in the months since this war began in earnest.”
Gazes swung to Vic. Shoulders back and chin up, she touched her chest and extended her palm toward the men and women under Dealn’s command. The soldiers nodded solemnly, some returning the gesture.
“Dealn was my older brother—my ‘big’ brother in every sense. He was a hero to me when we were young.” An aide handed Thabean a steel-tipped spade. “He remains so now, and though I do not share his faith, I will honor it as best I can.” The blade crunched into the soil between the folded roots of a massive geilmor. The steel rang as pebbles rattled onto the grass. Thabean jammed the spade into the earth again, grunting as it struck and again as he heaved the second load aside. He worked with his hands, not the Woern, as the gathering watched. At Sashal’s funeral, Bethniel and Elekia had dug his grave with help from Timny, Cimba, and Vic. Family buried family, unless there were none to do it. Then the task fell to those closest to the dead. Vic had dug plenty of graves in the Kiareinoll.
When the trench was knee deep, Thabean laid his brother within. The mourners took turns dropping flowers on the body, but Thabean shoveled earth over the shroud alone. When it was done, Saelbeneth stepped forward. “In the Kiareinoll, we sing our departed back to the trees.” Her contralto dipped into an off-key dirge, and everyone joined her after she finished the first verse.
While the others sang, Bethniel’s gaze locked on Thabean. He stared at his brother’s grave, his hand locked round the spade handle. The princess leaned toward him, her eyes glimmering in the dappled sunlight. Vic laced her fingers into Bethniel’s, pulling her backward and softly clearing her throat. Her foster sister cast her eyes down, and they listened to the song flooding the glade.
Branches cracked a scant warning as Kragnashians erupted from the forest. Shouts and screams followed, and wizards shot upward, retainers in tow. Vic snagged Bethniel and Lillem and half Thabean’s troops; he and Samovael scooped up the rest and hurtled back to camp.
On the grass margin lining the moat, Vic tore the robe’s hem away. “Get Bethniel to safety, sergeant,” she ordered Lillem. Grabbing a pike, she flew up and churned the lava below, firing it to life as the Kragnashians emerged from the trees. They launched themselves across the molten rock. Wings buzzing, the creatures tumbled into the glowing earth, screaming as they flamed and sank. But more swarmed after, and the carcasses of the dead made a ford.
Alarms sounded, and troopers poured from the aisles between the tents, jammed their pikes into the turf and braced for the onslaught. Grunnaire flew up beside Vic, helped her stir the earth beneath the Kragnashians scrambling over their burning brethren. Gouts of fire and steam exploded, flinging Kragnashians back into the forest and into camp. But the creatures bridged the moat and plowed into the defenders. Vic gripped her pike, wrapped Woern-wrought armor round her belly, reinforced her ankle splints, and dove in among the soldiers, falling into the rhythm of killing. Dive, strike, roll, rise, dive, strike, roll, rise. More troops flooded to the line, and she glimpsed Thabean to her right, Samovael to her left, drenched in green ooze. The moat exploded again, and Kragnashian bodies sailed into the lines, crushing troopers and their fellows. Gritting her teeth, Vic dove under another carapace and rammed her pike upward. Grass-scented goo gushed over her.
She wrenched the pike free and spun, but the Kragnashian ranks ebbed toward the moat. The assault force scuttled across smoldering carcasses and disappeared into the trees, leaving wizards and troopers agape.
Grunnaire alighted next to Vic. The spinning wizard’s mouth was sour; the gemstones usually whirring beneath her ears were missing. Nelchior landed, shook out a handkerchief, and wiped sweat and soot from his face. Thabean and Samovael handed their pikes to aides and joined them.
“I did not see Meylnara among them,” Nelchior said. “An unfocused attack, without a mind to form it.”
Vic kept her lips straight, resisting the urge to return his sneer. “It was odd, and costly, to them.” She surveyed the chitinous corpses piled around them. Few human bodies lay among the arthropods. “Meylnara didn’t show during the last battle either.” Her doubts resurfaced—there were far too many Kragnashians in the area to live in the small enclave of Meylnara’s Lair.
“Odd indeed,” Saelbeneth said. “Although they breached our defenses, the moat kept their numbers down. Well done, Victoria. Thabean, do you need assistance with the remains?”
He grimaced at the carnage but shook his head. “We’ll manage, madam.”
Nodding, the Council leader shot into the air, followed by Grunnaire and Nelchior.
Samovael clapped a hand on Thabean’s shoulder. “More to mourn, my friend.”
“It is war, sir.”
“It is. Let’s get these beasts off your lawn.” The painting wizard heaved a Kragnashian into the moat. Face red, he expelled a heavy breath and hauled up another.
Woern thrumming, Vic pried open a pair of mandibles and extracted a human corpse. Blood drained from the woman’s nose and mouth as she laid her aside. She tossed the Kragnashi
an into the lava. Thabean dropped in a pair of warriors.
Samovael grunted as another fell into the burning earth. “Damn heavy, these things.”
Vic laid another trooper beside the first, this one with a crushed skull. “Look at the ratio of their dead to ours.”
“The troops have trained hard, learned well,” Thabean said.
“That, or the Kragnashians weren’t really trying to kill us.” She picked up a chitin-clad trio and pitched them away.
“How do you do that so easily?” Samovael marveled.
“Victoria is very strong.” Thabean groaned as he lifted another pair and sent them into the moat. “She is like a bull, however. No finesse.”
She chuckled. “Samovael, you paint gloriously detailed pictures with the Woern. I cannot write my own name.” She paused and looked at the sweat beading their foreheads. “Don’t overtax yourselves, sirs. I’ll help the pallbearers, if you wish to rest.”
Samovael dropped another carcass in the moat. “Come with me, Thabean, and we’ll honor your brother the way he’d honor you.”
Thabean’s mouth tilted. “Not quite—we must stay lucid.” He frowned at the human limbs tangled in the chitinous ones. “Victoria, help the men clear the field, but do not do their work for them. You must not overtax yourself either.”
The wizards left, and the pallbearers hooked grapplers round Kragnashians’ heads and tails and dragged them out of the pile. Yanked free of its deceased fellows, a creature rolled to its feet, snagged a man with its mandibles, and flung him toward the moat. The man screamed; Vic caught him as a pair of soldiers charged the creature and rammed their pikes deep into its thorax.
“Madam!” A soldier sprinted out from the tents. “Your retainer is hurt.”
“Lillem?” she asked, and the solider beckoned her to follow. They dashed past the barracks, canvas walls shredded or crushed under fallen Kragnashians. By the third row, there was no sign of the assault, and the tents stood crisp and taut. A tall, dark figure lay prone on the ground. “Sergeant!” Vic shot forward, eyes wild for Bethniel. “Is the princess safe?”
Lillem cupped the back of his head and levered up on an elbow. He blinked woozily. “Where is she?”
“Where is she? I told you to get her to safety!”
Groaning, he climbed to his knees. “Someone hit me.”
“Someone, or something?”
He sucked in a deep breath and shook himself. “Some—I’m not sure.” He looked around. “We didn’t see any Kragnashians.”
“Shrinejump! Go to her tent; I’ll check mine. Find her!”
Nodding, he staggered into a run. Elesendar, let her be safe, she prayed as she sped toward her tent.
* * *
“I wish we could share it with him,” Samovael said, draining the bottle into Thabean’s cup before raising his own. “To Dealn’s love of good wine.”
Thabean swallowed and chortled softly. “Good wine to Dealn was any that was wet.”
“That was the last of my store,” Samovael said. “Stocks are low, my friend.”
No supplies had arrived from the coast since they’d begun work on the moat. “Meylnara is blockading us.”
“No doubt. Saelbeneth asked me to take a thousand troops and clear the path to the coast.”
Thabean scowled. “She should send Nelchior with you.”
His friend chuckled. “Nelchior’s bad company for a mission, and worse after, as he’d claim all credit but no fault. I was hoping you’d come along.”
“I can’t leave,” he blurted, Bethniel’s face in his thoughts.
“Why not?”
“Sirs, I beg your pardon,” said one of Samovael’s guards. Victoria entered on his heels. Her eyes anxious, her hair flew about her face, half of it loosed from its braid. “Madam Victoria wished to speak to Sir Thabean.”
“Is there a problem?”
“There is.” Her shoulders drew back and she stood at attention, quivering like a taut bowstring.
“Could you excuse us?” he asked Samovael.
The other wizard downed his cup. “I hate to waste good wine.”
Thabean chuckled. “So did he. Thank you, my friend.”
When they were outside, Victoria grabbed his arm and drew him into the air. Her eyes were like emeralds. “Beth is missing. She isn’t anywhere in the camps. Not in her tent or mine, studying with Fainend, or the hospital.”
A vortex opened, an emptiness that spun wider and faster, shredding Thabean’s insides the way cyclones would churn across the Relman plains.
“I fear—” Victoria choked, shook herself. “Earlier today, Nelchior contrived to touch her, and she thinks he knows.”
Molten fury poured into the rifts carved by shock and doubled grief, but he held his features still. “Why do you think it was he who took her?”
“Lillem was escorting her to safety, and someone hit him on the back of the head. He didn’t see who took her. I didn’t see Nelchior on the field until after the Kragnashians retreated—did you?”
How often had Nelchior followed Bethniel with hungry eyes? “No, I did not. Come.”
As they flew, the sky glimmered like a bloodied sword as the sun sank into the canopy. The white stripes on Nelchior’s pavilion gleamed just as red. As Thabean landed, he bit his tongue, quivering with the desire to crush the guards, tear the pavilion to shreds, and burn Nelchior down to his skeleton. Yet that was an old hunger, fed by every sneer in open Council and whisper in Saelbeneth’s ear, dampened by Thabean’s position as Saelbeneth’s second. He knew she played him and Nelchior against each other—knew it, understood the reason for it, even admired how she kept them spitting at each other like cats. Because he knew she stoked his fury and resentment, he controlled it, because of her and to spite Nelchior. And I’ll yet control it, until I know Bethniel is safe, he promised himself. To the guards, he said, “Announce me.”
Gulping, one ducked inside. The other trembled as she held her spear across the door. A few moments later, Nelchior’s aide appeared and invited them inside.
He’d never been within Nelchior’s abode before. Damask draperies served as walls. Intricate tapestries carpeted the floor and covered furnishings of the finest cerrenil and drerwood, polished to a mirrored gloss. Absurd luxuries, while outside the fiend’s troops lived in dilapidated barracks. A disproportionate share of the hospital’s jungle rot came from Nelchior’s camp.
The aide led them into a den where his rival lounged on a chaise, a tumbler of wine in his hand. The commodore rose from a camp chair and bowed; the pirate from Victoria’s retinue followed suit.
“Thabean. Victoria,” Nelchior said, sipping. “What a pleasant surprise. To what do I owe this honor?”
“Do you know where Lady Bethniel is?”
Nelchior’s lips split wide. “Have you lost her?”
“I have not seen her Highness here,” Gustave replied ahead of the wizard. Victoria’s eyes narrowed, and the seaman returned a gap-toothed smile. “Do you believe she came here for . . . refuge during the battle?”
“Naturally, if she did,” Nelchior sneered, “I would send her back to you as soon as safety permitted, Thabean.”
“If you harm her, I’ll kill you,” Victoria said.
Nelchior chuckled. “There is no need for that, madam. Your woman is not in my camp.”
“She is my sister.” Victoria stepped forward, her eyes hard. “Tell us where she is.”
“If only I could! I am truly distressed to learn that someone under my dear Thabean’s protection is missing. What can I do to help?”
Cheeks blooming red, Victoria grabbed Nelchior in a vise of power and flipped him upside down. Nelchior bent his fingers, and lightning crackled round her. Face contorted, she roared, and Nelchior sputtered and choked as blue flames enveloped him.
The commodore and Gustave scrambled to Thabean’s side. “The princess is truly not here,” Gustave cried.
�
�How do you know?” Thabean barked.
“Because when we arrived, Nelchior was receiving Saelbeneth’s aid!” The pirate waved at the dueling wizards. “Can’t you stop them? Victoria cannot die here.”
Nelchior’s lightning flickered around Victoria, but neither her hair nor garments were even singed. He felt a tick of pride that she employed the shields so well. Beneath Nelchior, the carpet smoked, and the room stank of scorched wool. His rival’s face was a rictus as he tried to maintain his own shields. Victoria would not lose this duel, but the Council would take her life if she won it. Wielding a vacuum layer like a knife, Thabean sliced through the energy beams stretching between the fighting wizards.
Victoria stumbled, and he hauled her out of the pavilion and into the air above camp. “Madam, what were you doing?”
“Keeping him from harming her! Why did you stop me?”
He took a deep breath and unclenched his teeth. “Did you hear what the pirate said? Nelchior does not have your sister.”
She shuddered, her fists balled. “Then where is she?”
They scanned graying tents, dim alleys, pavilions alight with the wizards’ globes. The moat circled the camp with a lurid red glow, but roiling flames made grotesque shadow play on the forest. His gaze passed over Kragnashians’ makeshift ford, and her hand grabbed his arm.
“The Kragnashians!”
“Meylnara.” The fury he’d held in check bubbled over, and he rocketed toward the Lair.
Shouting his name, Victoria sped past him and pulled up in front, her hand on his chest, a lasso of power preventing forward motion. “Wait! Not Meylnara.”
He strained against her hold. “You said, the Kragnashians.”
“Shrinejump, don’t you see? They attacked this camp without Meylnara leading them, and they retreated after they touched Bethniel. They retreated! Then today, they sacrificed hundreds of warriors and killed only a few dozen of your men, and when they retreated again, Bethniel disappeared! I think a rival group of Kragnashians took her.”
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