In the Company of the Dead (The Sundered Oath Book 1)

by Ballintyne, Ciara

  The wine reflected a deep ruby red in the dying light. The colour captivated her, called to her, like a siren on the rocks beckoning a sailor and promising impermanent oblivion with a forked tongue.

  For whether she drank or not, tomorrow she would arise and remember that deep below the castle, the enemy sappers still tunnelled.

  The sally had failed, because they’d planted the explosives in the wrong place, or not deep enough. Men died for no gain.

  If she succumbed to the lure of the wine, tonight would be painless, but tomorrow would bring no change, except she would be an oathbreaker to boot, and one who might need to call on the forbearance of her betrayed goddess.

  Was this the lure Lyram faced after the murder of his wife? A most tempting one, it turned out. Perhaps his attempt to hide in a whisky bottle reflected less weakness than she thought; he’d sworn no oaths to a vengeful goddess.

  She stood sharply, turning her back on the decanter. The sunlight faded into darkness, stealing the colours from the room.

  Should she attempt to seal the castle against the sappers? To risk her own life and sanity in a foolhardy ploy almost doomed to failure? Lyram still wallowed under the influence of Leinahre’s philtre, and she’d no hope of a sudden restoration to relieve her of command or offer alternatives.

  The door flew open and Everard plunged in, his head turning wildly as he scoured the shadows. He clutched a huge book to his chest.

  Seeing her, he hurried down the length of the long table, dropping the book on the end closest to Ellaeva. The heavy thud of its landing rattled the goblet and decanter, threatening to tip the glass. Before it spilt, he seized it and drained the contents.

  “I found something.”

  Leaning against the now dark window, she lifted an eyebrow. “You did? I know I suggested looking there, but I didn’t really expect you to have any luck....”

  A shuttered lantern sat on the table, and he leaned over to open it. The shaft of light illuminated the room, casting strange shadows in the corners. “If you want a history of the kingdom, or a discourse on politics or philosophy, you won’t find it there, but the shelves are full of texts on theology, religion, and all aspects of magic and mysticism. By long-standing agreement, the library is kept for the benefit of the sisters, and even more texts, uncatalogued, are kept below.”

  Of course. What need had a border lord for such a huge library in this tiny castle? “Show me.”

  Now his enthusiasm drained away and he hesitated. He dropped his eyes to the book, flipping through the pages. “Hedge magic, like you said, but the kind only the most powerful can make work. There is a way to cure Lyram...”

  He turned the open book toward her wordlessly and adjusted the lantern to illuminate the page.

  With grave misgivings, she took the two steps to the table. Her eyes scanned the words:

  Seen in the illumination of true love, the shadow of induced passion is banished.

  “True love.” She stared blankly at the words, her heart beating hard and fast in her ribcage. “That’s your solution?”

  “The false obsession created by the philtre can’t stand up to the real thing.” He leaned forward across the table to earnestly tap at the page, his glasses slipping down his nose.

  She glared. “Except, of course, his wife is dead.”

  So this was yet another vulnerability Zaheva’s death had made possible; with her out of the way, Leinahre need not fear a cure for Lyram.

  Everard pushed his glasses back up with one long finger. “Ah... yes. Of this I am aware. I thought...” The words trailed off under her hard stare.

  “You thought what?”

  He cleared his throat. “I thought you... you might, um... pose as the Lady Zaheva?”

  She shoved back from the table hard and clenched her hands in the fabric of her robes. Lyram had already mistaken her for his wife once. Should she—could she—do it? If he looked at her the way he looked at his wife...

  An overwhelming urge to vomit flooded her, and her knees trembled. What if Lyram looked at her and saw Zaheva? What if she saw love in his eyes, directed at her? Or, what if she didn’t?

  It wouldn’t be me he saw anyway—only her.

  She pushed past Everard, her robes fluttering in her wake. “I can’t. I just... can’t. Find another way.”

  “Can’t tell what they’re doing.” Galdron shaded his eyes against the noonday sun as he looked out over the grass torn by the hooves of cavalry and the explosives. In the distance, the smoke of the enemy campfires rose over the ruined outer wall.

  “Waiting.” Ellaeva gripped the cold stone of the battlements. In the two days since their failed attempt to collapse the tunnels, the enemy had done nothing. Now that they knew the castle was aware of the sappers, they didn’t even need to lob stones to maintain the pretence of beating down the walls. “They don’t need to do anything but wait until they learn if they can tunnel under the moat. Is Sayella’s company known for sappers?”

  “No, but in the past she’s worked with the Company of Combat Engineers, a mercenary company dedicated entirely to siege warfare.”

  “I’ve heard of them.” They had an excellent reputation. If it was at all possible to tunnel under the moat, they’d find a way.

  “They won’t need to tunnel in here if morale keeps falling.” Galdron turned to face her, his face sombre. “The men heard rumours, and a few noticed Leinahre’s absence. Speculation has begun. If anything could hurt morale worse than the commander’s mere absence, it’s the notion he’d abandon them for a woman.”

  Ellaeva turned her back to the wall and stared into the triangular courtyard. About a third of the soldiers manned the walls while another third slept. Most of the rest drilled in the courtyard or cared for their gear near the barracks. An air of sullenness hung over the castle. The faces of those who sat sharpening their weapons had fallen into lines of worry, and their actions seemed more rote than anything. Those who drilled showed more enthusiasm.

  “What are the red strips about?” She pointed at the practising soldiers, who all wore red cloth knotted about the bicep.

  Galdron shifted his feet and half-shrugged in a jingle of mail. “Those are the men and women who rode out with you. They’re calling themselves the Company of Death and have sworn to defend you at all costs.”

  “They what?”

  “They saw what you did, to save the engineer, to save them.”

  She rubbed her forehead and closed her eyes, but she saw only the faces of the dead. She was always in the company of the dead, but more here than anywhere else she’d been. Did the soldiers really think so much of her? While gratifying, it was her job to protect them against the monsters in the dark, to be the ward against those who fought for decay. For others to dedicate themselves to her preservation..., well, it wasn’t heretical perhaps, but it smacked of paganism at least, in the same vein as hedge witchery.

  The philtre was dangerous stuff, even if less sophisticated than the friction sorcery practised in Tyrandell. There was more to it than a simple love glamour, there had to be, but she didn’t know what. The information Everard had discovered about using true love to break the spell—she’d never read that before, she was sure. And the books she had read were leagues away in the Temple. Unless detailed answers could be found in Caisteal Aingeal’s library, she was left only with Everard’s insane plan.

  “What did you say?” Ellaeva broke from her reverie to stare at Galdron.

  “I said morale among the Company is better than among the regular troops.”

  She leaned forward against the stones of the parapet, staring down at the practising soldiers, her arm pressed hard against a lump inside her robes: Malharni’s journal. The one book she did have that wouldn’t be found in the castle library. Malharni had once fought a witch, hadn’t she? There’d been no glamour involved, though.... I’d have remembered that.

  Ellaeva thrust her hand inside her robes and pulled out her journal. Galdron trailed off, staring
at her with creased brow. She ignored him, thumbing through the pages in rapid succession. Then she steadied herself and started again from the beginning, scanning each page more thoroughly before she turned it.

  Halfway through, she stopped.

  “Here,” she whispered, tapping her finger against the page. “Here she writes of the witch.”

  “Witch? What witch?”

  She shut out the sound of Galdron’s voice and scanned the words.

  We tracked the hedge witch to his lair, but it was all to no avail. Though we slew him and found the cancelling spell, we were too late. In the days we were gone from the manor tracking the witch, the new moon had come and gone. The spell had laid a latent poison into the baron’s veins, and on the night of the new moon the spell reached its full efficacy—the baron died ‘ere we even slew the witch.

  She remembered reading this before, years ago now, and thinking very little of it. It wasn’t even an account of the true work of a Battle Priestess but a footnote in Malharni’s life. But now she read it again, she saw the clue buried in the words. The spell Malharni wrote about had two stages, and only at the new moon did it reach its full potency. Priests and frictionnaires drew their power from the gods or generated energy, but hedge witchery revolved around the moon.

  What if, on the new moon, the spell changed? What if it deepened its hold on Lyram and became permanent—or killed him?

  The maid delicately touched the brush to Ellaeva’s cheekbones.

  “Are you sure about this?” Everard hovered behind the maid, his arms folded, though he maintained his usual stiff, erect posture. He bumped the table, jostling the collection of pots of paints and rouges, and the maid shot him an annoyed look.

  “No.” Ellaeva worked her jaw to moisten her dry mouth. “No, not at all.”

  The maid laid down the brush. Examining the portrait propped on the table, she selected another, smaller brush. “Could your holiness close your eyes?”

  Ellaeva closed her eyes, and a moment later the rabbit’s fur flickered over her eyelids.

  “There must be another way.” His voice cracked.

  Ellaeva’s heart fluttered, but she held herself steady under the ministrations of the maid. “This was your idea. Anyway, we’re out of time.”

  “You don’t know that for sure.”

  “You’re right—I’m not sure—but do you want to risk it? We know hedge witchery is focussed around the moon.”

  “I must ask your holiness not to talk,” the maid murmured. “But if you could part your lips?”

  Ellaeva opened her eyes and obeyed.

  Everard’s gaze unfocussed. She could almost see him mentally calculating the date of the next new moon.

  His face turned chalky. “Tomorrow night.”

  With the maid painting something cool and sticky to her lips, she dared not nod, but her eyes met his in shared understanding. They had to act now. It had already taken her three days to make this decision, and only the sense of sand running through a timer had pushed her to action. Cold, leaden fear sat deep in her belly, and her chest tightened, forcing her to breathe shallowly. Glamour witchery that meddled with the hearts of men was dangerous stuff; an attempt to break such magic in this way doubly so—even if they succeeded. How would Lyram be affected when he realised she wasn’t Zaheva? Under the power of the spell, it might be like losing her all over again. Or worse, what if he never did realise? The spell might permanently muddle his senses.

  And which possibility terrified her more?

  The maid put down the brush and picked up a hand-held mirror. “I think my lady— uh...” The maid flushed, apparently remembering her subject was no noble lady but a priestess of death. She handed over the mirror mutely.

  Ellaeva studied herself in the mirror, unsure of what she saw. It was her face, but not. Spinning the portrait on the table, she compared herself to Zaheva. In poor light, she might indeed be taken for the dead Lady Aharris.

  Or in a glamour-induced fog.

  She stood, pressing her hands to her belly to still the fluttering butterflies of nerves. “We’ll need to lure Leinahre out of the commander’s suite.”

  Everard nodded. “I’ll tell her we need her to treat some badly wounded men. She probably won’t come, but if not, I’ll threaten to break down the door and have the soldiers drag her out. I don’t think she’ll risk Lyram being harmed in such an altercation.” He moved to the door, pausing as he pulled it open. “I’ll leave you to finish getting ready.”

  The maid stepped over to touch Ellaeva’s arm as the door clicked shut behind Everard. “Your holiness will require my assistance with the buttons of the gown.”

  Unable to avoid it anymore, Ellaeva’s gaze darted to the gown hanging in Lady Dulanica’s wardrobe. With nothing else to hand, Sir Janun’s lady had generously agreed to loan something appropriate, and Everard chose something he said Zaheva would favour, in black and wine-red velvet with silver embroidery. The neckline scooped worryingly low.

  “Yes.” When the word emerged as a thin whisper, Ellaeva cleared her throat and tried again. “Yes.”

  With numb fingers, she began pulling her robes off.

  What would be worse? For Lyram to hate her for a cruel deception—or to forever love her for someone she was not?

  Ellaeva stood in the shadows over the shuttered murder holes while the last echoes of Everard’s frantic hammering faded way into stifled silence. From down the hall came the sound of muffled voices, their pitch urgent and sharp. After a long, tense moment a door banged loudly, and footsteps pattered down the stairs.

  Wasting no time, Ellaeva stole out of the narrow space above the barbican and down the three steps in the stairwell to Lyram’s suite, gripping the velvet skirts in white-knuckled hands to keep them clear of her soft-slippered feet. She hesitated before the heavy door. Though the maid had concealed the worst of her injuries behind paints and rouges, the lack of her sword left her vulnerable and exposed. If Lyram attacked her, she’d no defence save her own hands and feet. In this gown, so tight she was afraid to breathe, it would be a difficult thing.

  She cracked the door open, her belly tight and her breath stilled. When no immediate outcry arose, she pushed the panel open further and slithered into the room, kicking the bulky skirts ahead of her.

  The suite remained unchanged, and she wrinkled her nose at the disarrayed bed. Did Leinahre care at all for Lyram, or was this merely the political play of a very minor noblewoman to advance herself in status?

  Lyram, slumped over in a chair alongside the bed, head hanging, did not stir. His auburn hair straggled in lank, uncombed locks.

  Ellaeva sucked in a tiny gasp, her hand flying to her throat. The shock struck her like a fist to the stomach, followed hard by breathless nausea at the sight Lyram undone so. The proud, able commander was completely disabled by the hedge witchery. She rushed to his side, falling to her knees on the thick rugs strewn over the stone floor and clasping his lax hand in hers. “Lyram? Lyram!”

  Through a thick haze like the blanket of extreme illness, Lyram struggled to focus on the voice. His name, the voice called his name. He tried to lift eyelids weighed down by absolute exhaustion. Was he sick? He didn’t recall, but thought came to him only with great difficulty. Someone touched his hand. Leinahre? Desperate longing and a craving worse than any opium addiction crashed through him. He groped for the hand, squeezing the fingers. Someone gave a tiny, glad cry, followed by a muffled sob.

  Lyram forced his eyes open. They were too heavy, and he caught only a blurred glimpse of a dark-haired woman kneeling on the floor beside him, her face upturned to his. He blinked, tried again. Dark eyes, a porcelain face. Not Leinahre. The need for her pulled at him, but at the same time this new face captivated him. He squinted, squeezed his eyes shut hard, then blinked a few times rapidly in succession. His throat was as dry as the desert.

  “I... know you,” he croaked.

  Memory almost as compelling as his present need for Leinahre tugged at
him. A ballroom. A king’s court. No, a gala. And a woman, an ambassador from Tembra, smiling archly at him over a goblet of red wine. Night-black hair and eyes as deep and mysterious as a cave pool. Alabaster skin. No name came to him, but he ached for her, ached for the memory of her. The whirl of memory lifted him up and spun him forward like a leaf, pushing Leinahre from his mind.

  The woman clasped his hands in hers, staring at him solemnly across the red marriage ribbon twining their entangled fingers. He drank in her gaze, lost himself in her eyes. The swell of sudden emotion left him weak, and he choked, his chest constricting almost painfully, robbing him of speech. He clung to her hands, like a shipwrecked sailor clinging to his last splintering piece of driftwood. The fog lifted from his eyes, allowing him to see the untidiness of his suite before him, and the woman on her knees.

  “Zaheva.” He squeezed the word from breathless lungs. The memory shattered, and he saw the woman—the woman with the wine, the woman from the wedding, the woman who now knelt before him with tears streaming down her face—sprawled awkwardly in the snow. Her sightless eyes stared at a winter sky. Blood slashed crimson against the snow. The tightness in his chest squeezed hard, almost as though the emotion might shatter his ribcage.

  When the pressure let up, a broken sob hiccoughed from him. Zaheva was dead. The fog began to cloud his mind again. He didn’t resist it. Zaheva was dead. What point in life without her? And there was someone else now, someone else to take away the pain. What was her name? Leinahre.... Yes.

  Zaheva was dead.

  Zaheva shook him. He tried to focus on the woman standing over him, shouting words that came to him as though from somewhere very far away. Not a woman: a ghost. Zaheva was dead.

  The woman slapped him, and for a split second her face jumped into focus. He remembered now. Not Zaheva, though sometimes when he glanced at her the resemblance made him ache. But her face was different now, sculpted by powder and paint. He struggled to think of her name, but the details began to blur again, slipping out of his reach.