The Empire's Ghost

by Isabelle Steiger

  But Deinol, of course, had already upended the bag, pouring its contents onto the floor. In spite of himself, Roger peered at the lumps eagerly: he saw jewelry, good silver, and several odd little trinkets, as well as more than a few coins. “You godsforsaken idiot,” Morgan hissed. “How are we going to hide all this if someone comes in?”

  “Morgan,” Deinol said, “it’s the darkest hour of the night on one of the coldest days of the year. No honest man is going to come this way—they’re all in their beds.”

  “If only there were any honest men in Sheath, then,” Morgan replied, and Braddock barked out a laugh. “Well, Lucius?” she asked. “I suppose you’ll be wanting to show us your treasures as well.”

  He smiled gently, picking his own sack back up and fishing around inside. “It’s mostly the same as Deinol’s lot. We grabbed whatever we could get our hands on, once we’d gotten the wagons in disarray. But I did find this.” He pulled out a small figurine: a dragon with outspread wings and a pensive gaze, looking down on them as if from a lofty height. Its scales looked blue in the shade, but when Lucius turned the figure in the firelight, they glinted a perfect green. Roger stared at it, thinking on deep caverns, pathless forests—a different, stranger sort of adventure than his city’s twisting alleyways, and one he had never seen.

  “It’s beautiful,” Seth said at Deinol’s elbow, his little voice shrouded in awe.

  “Isn’t it? It seems I can’t bring myself to sell it.” Lucius’s smile turned inward as he spoke, as if he amused himself.

  “It is lovely,” Morgan agreed. “But I hope you didn’t think I could display it at the bar. A stolen trinket—there’s no way I—”

  “Oh no, I understand,” Lucius said. “It has nothing to do with the Dragon’s Head, really, except that I—well, I like dragons. Always have.”

  “I suppose it’s lucky you’re not likely to ever meet one, then,” Roger said. “I expect that would take the romance right out of it.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” Morgan said—at her words, Lucius shut his mouth, concealing whatever response he would have made—“how about we get all this safely stashed away, and I’ll serve everyone another round? I ought to charge you two double, but you did a damned good job with the roof, so I’ll let it go this time.”

  “I’ll take that bargain, Morgan,” Deinol said, and scooped his treasure back into the sack—all except one coin, which he proffered to Seth with a wink. (Morgan pretended not to notice.) Lucius passed over his own sack, and Deinol disappeared into the cellar to hide them. He left the little dragon, but Lucius promised he’d make sure it stayed hidden securely enough not to cause trouble for anyone. Deinol had just returned, and Morgan had just started her sigh of relief, when the door banged open once again, admitting a tousled, wild-eyed young man it took Roger a few seconds to place. He finally recognized Harvey Wapps, an apprentice tinker and one of Morgan’s occasional patrons.

  “It’s fallen!” he cried, before any of them could react. “The news is spreading through the city—Lanvaldis has fallen!”

  Morgan shook her head vaguely, as if she thought she disagreed. “What?”

  “How do they know that?” Roger asked at the same time. “Elgar can’t have reached Araveil already, can he?”

  “By now he might well have,” Wapps said, “though I don’t expect that news will reach us for some time. But King Eira’s army is finished, they say—crushed so decisively that it’ll never recover. If that’s so, even Araveil won’t hold out for long.”

  “We’ve won, then?” Deinol asked.

  Wapps nodded darkly. “Aye, we’ve won, all right—another kingdom, reduced to a mere jewel in Elgar’s crown. He has the whole north now, and most of the east—he has half the continent.”

  “Better a win than a loss, though, isn’t it?” Roger said, but he couldn’t grin, not with Wapps’s face so pale. “Our boys’ll come back home—your own brother, Wapps—”

  “And what of the conquered?” Lucius asked suddenly, with uncustomary harshness, his face drawn and grim. “I don’t want to think of the kind of mercy that man will extend to them.”

  That put them all to silence for a few moments, as well it might: Lucius was originally from Aurnis, the country to the far north that Elgar had crushed more than two years ago. He had said very little about how he had come from there to here, but Roger doubted that it had been a pleasant journey, or that he had been able to salvage much of what his life had been before Elgar’s forces had come. But Lanvaldis was far larger than Aurnis—it was as large as Hallarnon, mirroring the territory in the east that Hallarnon held in the west. With them both under his control, and Aurnis above them … Wapps hadn’t exaggerated. Elgar really did rule half the continent.

  Finally Morgan spoke. “There’s nothing we can do for the conquered, Lucius. And what’s Lanvaldis to us, anyway? I’m just as glad I don’t have to wonder what kind of mercy they’re going to serve me.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” Roger said, but his mouth was dry.

  “You’re welcome to a drink as well, Wapps, if you’d like,” Morgan said, but the apprentice shook his head, snow fluttering about his ears.

  “I’m spreading the word. Everyone ought to know about this.”

  “Then shut the damn door,” Morgan said, without any bite.

  After Wapps had gone, Deinol looked to Lucius, who was still casting dark looks at the empty air. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Lucius said. “Morgan’s right; I’m glad it isn’t me.”

  But something more than cold had sharpened the air, and Roger’s eyes were stinging with it. He traced the rim of his tankard with one finger, shifting uncomfortably under the weight of the deepening silence.

  * * *

  The snow was falling thick throughout Araveil, and for just a moment Shinsei let himself imagine that it was snowing everywhere, that the world was fully blanketed in white, stifled into perfect stillness. It would be beautiful, he thought—quiet and peaceful, untouched by grossness and irregularity. He would walk through the streets, and the falling snowflakes would erase his footsteps behind him, like a slow, bittersweet forgetting. That was what memory should always be like.

  But tonight his presence was stark and incisive, unyielding as a knife’s edge, brazen as a firebrand. He left a bitter trail behind him—it was the blood he scattered through the streets.

  It was unfortunate; it was not how he would wish it. But it was what his master willed.

  The streets of Araveil were beautifully formed, sprawling and yet somehow orderly, like a daydream shaped into verse. It was a shame to mar them with carnage, but his work was nearly done. King Eira’s famed army had been in ruins since the battle at Blackridge, and now even the soldiers left guarding the capital were decimated. There was but one objective remaining, and it lay here, beyond these palace doors.

  A handful of men—Shinsei counted them: seven—guarded the great hall. They were panting and frayed, nearly staggering toward him. They were too tired to hide their fear.

  Shinsei removed them quickly—it was growing late, and his master wanted the city before the sun rose—and passed into the inner chamber. It was white and silver and pale blue—it reminded him of the snow.

  “Your Grace,” he said.

  The aging man before him started back, his grimness touched with surprise. “They would send such a one as you?” he asked.

  “I am the best they have,” Shinsei informed him. “I have killed the most tonight of anyone.”

  King Eira made an expression Shinsei did not understand—eyes narrowed, lip slightly curling. “That is evident,” he said.

  Shinsei followed the king’s gaze to his own bloodstained garments, his arms darkened past the elbows—the red dripping in his footsteps, marring the marble and soft carpet at his feet. “I am sorry,” Shinsei said. “This is a beautiful chamber, and I have ruined it.”

  The man’s eyes were level and steady, his shoulders shifting slightly wit
h his breath. “This was a beautiful city, once,” he said. “I wonder you do not apologize for that.”

  “It will be beautiful again,” Shinsei told him. It would be better than it ever was, because his master would rule it.

  The king shook his head. “I do not think so. But then, I don’t suppose I will ever know.”

  “No,” Shinsei agreed. “You will not.”

  King Eira let free a soft sigh. “I have committed sins enough,” he said. “If I must die for them now, I suppose I cannot complain. But do not think”—he was already charging, his blade half free of its scabbard—“I will go without a fight—”

  Shinsei calculated the distance, took a careful sidestep. The Lanvaldian king overreached, almost stumbled, and was just whipping himself back around to try again when Shinsei’s weapon struck him through the spine. The crunch of bone boded well.

  After he freed his sword from the body of the king (unfortunately, he had to brace his foot against the man’s back to yank it out, which made an even bigger mess of the chamber), Shinsei crouched beside him, listened for his breath, heard nothing. Good.

  This was a man with excellent taste, he thought, casting one last look back at the once-immaculate room before shutting the door behind him.

  * * *

  The messenger had been covered in wet, from all the snow that melted as he rode, but he had not brought it home with him to Stonespire. It wasn’t just the area around the capital, either—he claimed that even northern Esthrades was clear, with little more than a flurry after he’d crossed the border from Lanvaldis. Well, that was something, Gravis thought. Winter hung lightly, as yet, about this land he loved, leaving only the ghost of a chill in the air, silent overnight frosts that faded after a few hours of sun. Perhaps the gods favored Esthrades still, or perhaps the cold merely lay coiled, waiting to strike.

  His feet weighed heavier than the stone they trod as he trudged back up the long steps and passed under the gate. He touched the double doors of Stonespire Hall, his hands weak against the wood, trembling like a coward’s. The doors opened at last, and he strode a silent passage to Stonespire’s great hall—still warm and lit, even in the depths of this winter’s night. There were no sconces on the walls—they were hung floor to ceiling with heavy tapestries, each depicting some triumph of one of Esthrades’s past rulers. Instead the light came from candleholders planted the length of the hall, each nearly the height of a man. They were set some distance from the walls so that the smoke would not ruin the tapestries, and formed a sort of avenue down which potential supplicants could approach the throne. But the room lay deserted, empty of servants and guards, of subjects of any kind. He raised his head, staring at the most painful absence of all: the great oaken throne of Esthrades, standing cold and empty.

  He sank to one knee—it seemed the old patterns of obeisance were too deeply etched in him to die. “My lord,” he whispered, only half aware he spoke aloud, “my lord, this is no time to be abed! Where is the strength I saw in you of old?”

  Grief, perhaps, would have mastered him then, but for a croaking voice: “Is that you, Gravis?” He leaped to his feet, but it was only Verrane, Lord Caius’s elderly nurse, shutting the tower door softly behind her. Age and care had lined her face, but they had not stooped her shoulders, had inspired no trembling in her limbs. Her pale gray eyes were intent on his. “What troubles you so? I thought you a man of action, not oratory.”

  “A weaker man than I might weep, confronted with such news as this,” he told her. “Lanvaldis has fallen.”

  Verrane’s sharp intake of breath only made Gravis realize just how deathly silent it had been in the hall. “When?” she asked, darting glances into every corner of the room, as if Gravis had said they’d been the ones invaded.

  He shook his head. “It’s difficult to say. Elgar’s men shattered their army at Blackridge some time ago—that’s when the signal fires started, when birds and horsemen began to carry messages. King Eira’s reinforcements are heading south from Helba Fortress, but they’ll never reach the capital in time. Once Elgar has taken Araveil, he can pick them off at his leisure—if they do not surrender outright.”

  “Lanvaldis is twice the size of Esthrades,” she said. Her voice was strong—she might almost have been making a casual observation, save that she was as still as stone.

  “That’s hardly the worst of it,” Gravis said. “Lanvaldis has a standing army—the best on the continent, or so Eira boasted. If Hallarnon can crush them, what chance do we have?”

  Verrane was pale, her fingers fumbling absently at the air. “But … but will Hallarnon’s army come here?”

  He shrugged hopelessly. “It’s surely only a matter of time.”

  “You can’t truly believe that.”

  “Why not? Why should Elgar stop until he’s grasped the whole continent? Esthrades is an easy target.”

  She brought her fingers together and clasped her hands as if to steady them. “What should we do?”

  “What can we do? We have not even a master to guide us.” He glanced at Verrane. “His lordship is no better?”

  She shook her head. “No better.”

  Gravis started to pace, darting another look at the empty throne. “Has he his wits about him? I can manage things in the capital well enough, but he needs a proper general to maintain the borders. If he would but name a commander to succeed him—”

  “Lord Caius has an heir,” Verrane said, a note of genuine surprise in her voice. “What other successor does he need?”

  “What he has,” Gravis retorted, “is a snake at his heels—a daughter only, and a daughter who loves him not. I wish, at the least, he’d give her a husband.”

  Verrane actually smiled. “You say that as if he had not tried.”

  “Tried?” Gravis scoffed. “The marquis is her father, and sworn lord of his realm—he had every right to make her mind. I wonder how he did not.”

  “In truth it is no wonder at all,” came the reply, and this time Gravis’s hackles were raised before he even turned, because there was no mistaking that voice.

  Though her bearing belied it, Arianrod Margraine was still young—it had been twenty-two summers since, but he could still remember the ill-fated day of her birth. Lord Caius was broad and dark-bearded, but his daughter looked like the winter that waited to engulf Esthrades: tall and fair-haired, with blue eyes fading into gray and skin that stayed ever pale—no blush of modesty, Gravis was sure, had ever darkened that face. Though she had the sleek vivacity of the young and prosperous, there was something in her slender frame and quick, searching eyes that hungered perpetually.

  “Your ladyship,” Gravis growled.

  “My father,” she continued, unperturbed, “is in love with the legacy of his blood, and there is none left to carry it but I. That is why he will name no other successor, and why, no matter how many ways I may devise to vex him, he would never harm my person or position.” She smiled. “Did you think it was out of affection for me? I am sorry to disillusion you.”

  “I wonder, then, that he never doubted the blood in your veins was his,” Gravis dared. Verrane shot him a panicked look, but his master’s daughter did not flinch.

  “Oh, I don’t doubt it,” she said carelessly. “I may not like it, but I don’t doubt it. Who could doubt my lady mother? Everyone tells me how unendurably devoted she was to him. So much the worse for her.”

  “My lady, do not speak of your poor mother so, I beg you,” Verrane said.

  The marquis’s daughter eyed Verrane with some amusement. “She is long dead. What harm can words do her now?”

  “Some would say,” Gravis said, trying for Verrane’s sake to curb his tongue at least a little, “you have no right to speak of her at all. You killed her with your birth.”

  At least the woman had enough grace not to smile openly, but the expression seemed to lurk somewhere in her eyes. “Yes, well, I am hardly the first child to have done so. I am sure I would have behaved myself better, could
I have helped it.”

  Gravis did not trust his tongue, so he said nothing.

  His expression must have revealed something, however, for she turned serious for the briefest of moments: “Come, Gravis, don’t you think I would wish the woman alive again, if wishes could help her?” But then she smiled, irreverent once more. “They tell me she never wished harm on another soul, not as long as she lived. I would have liked to see so rare a creature; I cannot claim ever to have had the good fortune to meet one.”

  “I don’t believe your ladyship would have any use for one such as your mother was,” Gravis said.

  Arianrod Margraine did not answer that; she gave a thoughtful pause instead, glancing about the empty hall. Though all else in the room was pristine, the steps to the oaken throne were covered in an unaccustomed layer of dust, a testament to how long it had been since Lord Caius had taken his seat there. “I must admit,” she said, “I did not come here to talk about my mother. Before I entered this discussion, Gravis, I heard you speak of Lanvaldis’s defeat, of Esthrades’s future. Will you not continue?”

  She was listening in, then. Of course she was. He scoffed. “I extended you no part in this discussion.”

  “Yet you would speak of strategy to Verrane? Surely you admit I know more of military matters than she, at least.”

  “You know a great deal, your ladyship, there’s no denying it,” Gravis said. “Indeed, I don’t doubt you are skilled in matters no mortal ought to think on.” He would have said more, but Verrane bit her lip, looking anxious. Gravis remembered that she, like so many women, possessed an all-enduring propensity to dote on the child she had raised, and so he fell silent.

  Yet he had not spoken out of turn. All of Stonespire, all of Esthrades whispered of it—that the marquis’s daughter was that most forbidden thing, a sorceress.

  It wasn’t just the way she seemed to know things—she’d been clever since she was born, reading before Lord Caius had even dreamed of calling a tutor for her, and flustering said tutor entirely by the age of seven. Many of her ancestors had been scholars; the Margraines had made a grand tradition of it. But Gravis had seen his share of scholars, and he knew enough to know that there was clever and there was strange. She didn’t just seek knowledge; she devoured it; she hoarded it. She sharpened it like a weapon, and who could say where she meant to aim it? Gravis had always suspected that she knew far more than books, more than the dry tomes and treatises of her father’s library. She knew things about the world that were best forgotten, and things about people she had no call to know, as if she could read every thought in their heads before they could themselves.