Windsinger

by A. F. E. Smith

  ‘Father,’ Lewis said uneasily, ‘I really don’t think you should –’

  But Derrick Tarran grasped her chin in one gloved hand, still smiling, and struck her across the face. Even through the pain that bloomed across her cheek and into the socket of one eye, she recognised the precision of it. He might be rich, but that didn’t make him soft. He knew exactly how to hurt someone efficiently.

  Wrenching her head out of Tarran’s grasp, Ree glanced at Lewis again, but he was staring at the floor. She didn’t blame him, not really. He’d grown up with this; he’d probably learned through long and bitter experience what defiance would cost him. But she saw no reason why she should put up with it.

  ‘For a businessman, your negotiation skills aren’t up to much,’ she said, trying not to wince at the renewed heat in her face. ‘If you think you can intimidate a Helmsman with physical violence, you can think again.’

  Tarran nodded at his bodyguard, who released her wrists.

  ‘That was for the insult,’ he said. ‘I have no need to intimidate you. You’ll marry my son or see your family ruined. The choice is entirely yours.’

  ‘But Lewis doesn’t want to –’

  ‘Lewis will do his duty by his bloodline.’ Tarran remained calm, even slightly amused, but the steely glance he shot at his son left Ree in no doubt as to his true feelings. She concentrated on breathing through the pain in her skull, while her thoughts tumbled over each other in search of a solution. No help would come from Lewis. And she didn’t believe her parents would accept destitution to save her from this marriage, even if her father-in-law was happy to hurt her to prove a point. Indeed, she couldn’t expect it. Derrick Tarran was a powerful man, and few merchants of her father’s stature would be willing to oppose him.

  Which meant Ree could see only one way forward, even if she didn’t like it: invoke a powerful name or two of her own.

  ‘You can’t bully me,’ she said. ‘Like I said, I’m a Helmsman. All I have to do is speak to Captain Caraway –’

  ‘You breathe a word of this to him and I’ll destroy you. Do you think I can’t? Defy me, and you’ll find yourself accused of a terrible crime and thrown out of the Helm. Your friends will turn against you, your family will be gone and you’ll end up whoring for coppers, because no decent employer would dream of taking you in after what I make it appear you’ve done.’ He snorted. ‘Your captain might think himself incorruptible, but incorruptible men are by far the easiest to goad into righteous action.’

  ‘He won’t believe it of me. Especially if I tell him what you’ve said today.’

  ‘You do that,’ Tarran said. ‘It’ll give me an excuse to bring him down with you.’

  Ree shook her head. ‘A threat to Captain Caraway is a threat to Lady Ayla. You may be powerful, but you’re not that powerful.’

  Still he smiled. ‘Ayla Nightshade isn’t here, Cheri. She’s gone to war. And in wartime, many things can happen.’

  You’re delusional. Ree opened her mouth to say it, but stopped herself before the words came out. She didn’t really believe the man could affect the course of the war, but she had no doubt he could make life very difficult for Caraway while Ayla was gone – and Caraway already had more than enough to deal with. They all did. So although she had no intention of marrying Lewis, perhaps grudging agreement was her best course for now.

  ‘All right,’ she muttered. ‘I suppose I’ll consider it.’

  In a fatherly gesture that she found utterly horrifying, he patted her bruised cheek. ‘Welcome to the family, Ree.’

  EIGHTEEN

  Caraway stood at the lookout post above the main gate, gazing south through the darkening air towards Sol Kardis. That was his habit, now. Every evening during the first two chimes of the sixth bell, while the Helm were eating together in the mess hall, he maintained a solitary vigil. Darkhaven was always secured for the night by that time, with only a handful of trusted people carrying keys to the postern, so there was little security risk. There would be plenty of warning of any invading force.

  Once, the men coming off day shift would have been allowed to leave the tower before it was locked, but war had put a stop to that. Caraway kept two-thirds of his remaining Helmsmen in Darkhaven at any one time, one shift on and one shift resting, while the third shift took time for training and family outside the tower. It was important to be ready for anything. If the war at the border went badly, he’d have to put them all on permanent duty, but not yet. He wanted everyone to spend as much time with their loved ones as possible.

  Ayla. He wished he could send his thoughts to her mind as she did in creature form, closing all that distance between them. Yet even she couldn’t speak that far. Be safe. Please be safe.

  Two notes rang out in pleasant harmony, the two smallest bells from the Temple of Time in the sixth ring. On cue, the door from the mess hall opened and the Helmsmen who were on night duty emerged to take up their posts. Tulia was to be stationed at the lookout; she exchanged salutes with Caraway, before he descended to the courtyard. A messenger had just been admitted through the postern and now waited at the foot of the steps.

  ‘Evening report, sir.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Caraway took it. This, too, had become routine. Ayla had commandeered two small, fast airships to act as couriers between Arkannen and the border, and closed off an entire docking station to all except military traffic. One courier ship left the city every morning at dawn, and returned as dusk fell; the other was stationed with the Mirrorvalese troops and did the same in reverse. That way, the army was never more than half a day away from getting anything they needed.

  Of course, a lot could happen in half a day. Especially when it came to war.

  He took the report to the transformation room, as he always did; with Ayla gone, it made a convenient temporary war room. He had maps in there, of Arkannen and its surrounding lands and the terrain between here and the border. He had plans for what he’d do if Ayla fell, or was overwhelmed enough to retreat, and the Kardise advanced on the city. With any luck, he’d never have to use any of it, but it never hurt to be prepared. And if nothing else, the room kept him awake long enough to do everything that needed to be done. One glance at the uncomfortable makeshift bed in the corner and he miraculously found enough energy to keep him going another half-bell.

  If he concentrated very hard, he could almost convince himself that the bed was there because he found it more convenient to be close at hand in case of any trouble, and not because his own bed felt unbearably lonely without Ayla to share it.

  At the desk, he scanned through the report. He always had to read them twice. The first pass, with heart racing and palms sweating, took in nothing but the answer to a single question: whether Ayla was alive and unhurt. He had every confidence in her abilities, but that didn’t stop him fearing for her. How could it? Anything could happen, in a war. The Kardise might reveal a surprise weapon that could destroy her. She might be hurt trying to protect her people. Someone could assassinate her while she slept …

  Once he’d convinced himself that no such disaster had occurred and that the report was, as usual, a dry summary of the day’s action plus a request for resources, he read it a second time with the buoyancy of relief and made a list of everything he needed to send back to the border with the dawn courier. As yet, there had been few requests for more warriors, which was good – not only because it meant limited casualties, but because it gave the reservists currently being trained in the fifth ring a little longer to prepare themselves. Mostly, the demands were from the quartermaster. Feeding an army was a costly business.

  There was also a short report that had arrived earlier that day from the Mallory farm. The train ran at night, now, as well as in the daytime – the need for coal was urgent, what with the increased output from the factories – and so Caraway was able to exchange frequent messages with the Helmsmen guarding Corus. He and Ayla had decided that it was safe enough to leave the boy and his mother where they were, for
now; if the war went badly and the Kardise crossed the border, Elisse and Corus could take the train and be in Arkannen long before the Kardise army got there. Still, a daily report reassured him that all was well – and reassured Sorrow, too. Her natural instinct had been to return to the farm when war broke out, and he’d had to convince her that she’d better serve her loved ones by staying put. With the Helm so stretched, he needed Sorrow more than ever if he were to stand any chance of finding out who was behind this war and putting a stop to it.

  Seventh bell had already rung by the time Caraway had finished sending Helmsmen out with messages to various importers and manufacturers around the city, then writing his own reports to be sent back to the border and to the Mallory farm. He’d have to be up before first bell to get down to the third ring in time to see the laden courier ship take off with the dawn. He really ought to lie down on the uncomfortable bed and get some sleep. Yet instead, he found his feet carrying him back out of the transformation room and towards the postern gate, where he exchanged a few words with the sentry before leaving Darkhaven and descending the hill to the sixth ring. A familiar itch had started at the back of his mind: the one that said you’re failing her and you’ll never be good enough and you know as well as I do what would make all this easier to bear. And except when he was with Ayla herself, or with their children, there was only one place in the city that could suppress it for a little while.

  The Changer temple was situated exactly halfway round the sixth ring from the Gate of Death, a small building made of blackstone. It had seven sides, just like Darkhaven; one held the door, another a high window, while each of the other five was carved with one of the pure Changer forms. The door itself was kept locked – yet now he was part of the family, Caraway had the key. And although maybe it was stupid, he often came here to make a private dedication of his own.

  Inside, moonlight polished the dark stone to a silver gleam. The temple was almost empty: a little bare room, holding nothing but the wide black slab of the altar beneath the window. Unlike the outside of the temple, that altar acknowledged the possibility of far more Changer creatures than just the five single-element forms so beloved by Ayla’s ancestors; it was carved with a multitude of little creatures all jumbled together, hydras with wings and firedrakes with feathers and griffins with unicorn horns. Caraway had studied it many times, finding an alicorn like Ayla and a wyvern like her brother Myrren had been, and fifty other creatures he couldn’t name besides, but now it was too dark to make out the details. He tiptoed to the altar, kneeling on the cold stone where he and Ayla had once knelt together. A dedication. My life to yours, Ayla. My life to yours, and to our children’s. Turning to the Changer temple for solace was far better than turning to a pitcher of ale. He almost thought Ayla’s ancestors might approve.

  He hadn’t known, until he married a Nightshade, that there even was a temple dedicated to Changers – but of course they were a power in the world, just as much as the sun or air or time. Yet he doubted that many people knew of its existence, for the simple reason that it was closed to the citizens of Arkannen – and unlike the other temples, it didn’t have a priestess to tend it. Not even Ayla’s mother had been admitted; Florentyn’s second wedding had taken place in Darkhaven itself, just like the few other weddings in the family history that had involved people who weren’t family. That was the single law by which the Changer temple had operated for centuries: only members of the Nightshade line were allowed to enter.

  The Nightshade line, and now him.

  Are you sure? he’d asked Ayla, when she told him of her plan to take him there. I mean, it’s not my place to –

  She’d shaken her head. Your place is with me.

  But I’m not –

  I am, she’d said. I’m the overlord of Darkhaven and the only living Changer, and I say we do this right. She’d lifted her chin defiantly. It’s only a building.

  Only a building. Maybe so. Yet all the same, he had been properly awed by it on the day of their wedding.

  Fourth bell had only just rung, but already the sun was beginning to set. Caraway had spent most of the day trying to work out what a man should wear to his own wedding, but in the end he’d settled on his captain’s uniform, which had the twin virtues of being presentable and readily available. He’d bathed and shaved and spent some time staring at himself in the mirror in bewilderment, trying to convince himself this was really happening. He’d kissed Marlon goodnight. The Helm had showered him with a mixture of good-luck herbs, good-natured insults, and good advice of a kind that would have made him blush if he hadn’t already been used to it. And now the time had come for him to get married.

  The shadows were lengthening fast as he walked through the sixth ring, turning the familiar shapes of the temples into something far more mysterious. A sensation very much like fear unfurled in Caraway’s stomach. He was about to set foot in a place that no-one but Darkhaven’s overlords had entered for hundreds of years. He was about to marry a woman whose gift was considered one of the great powers, and have his name inscribed in the book that held a record of every Nightshade birth and marriage and death since the line began. Suddenly, against all that weight of history, his love for Ayla seemed a very little thing: a candle-flame in the darkness. Her father would have laughed at it, right before he ripped Caraway apart for his presumption. Yet her mother, whose life Caraway had failed to preserve … oddly, he rather thought she would have given her blessing. She had married for love herself, after all. She would have wanted her daughter to be happy. And so it was with Kati Nightshade’s memory in mind that he walked the last few steps to the temple door.

  By tradition, Nightshade weddings were held at either midsummer or midwinter. Longest Day or Longest Night. It was said that a Changer child conceived at midwinter would have the power of ice or steel, whereas a midsummer child would be made of wind or flame. Not that it made any difference to him or Ayla; their child was already growing in the womb. But Ayla had proposed to him in the autumn, and so they’d set their wedding for Longest Night.

  The ceremony will be at sunset, Ayla had said. And we stay until dawn. Are you sure you don’t want to wait for midsummer? We could marry in the daytime, then. I hear a summer wedding is very beautiful, all flowers and sunlight –

  It sounds lovely. But I’d rather not wait.

  She’d smiled up at him. That’s what I hoped you’d say.

  Now, as he pushed open the temple door, he was met by a flickering glow. He locked the door behind him, then walked the few paces through the entryway to the single chamber beyond. And stopped. Candles lined the walls, hundreds of them, from tall white pillars in gleaming black metal stands to tiny flames in silver saucers. And among them, wound around the stems of the candle holders and spilling across the floor in perfumed curls – winter roses, their delicate creamy petals and green leaves standing out bright against the dark stone.

  Flowers and sunlight. Oh, Ayla. Caraway swallowed, hard, because he didn’t want to go to her with tears in his eyes, even if they were of happiness. He lifted his head, looking past the candles to the altar at the far end of the room. And there she was, wearing a dress that shimmered scarlet and amber and gold. The colours of candlelight. The colours of Alicorn wings. Her expression was grave, almost remote, and for a moment he couldn’t move. History pressed down on him again, the shades of a hundred Nightshade ancestors whispering his unworthiness. What made him think he could stand in this place, a place consecrated to the power that ran in her blood, and pretend himself her equal?

  But then she smiled, a tentative, tremulous smile, and Caraway forgot everything except the need to be at her side. He strode forward to meet her, catching her outstretched hands in his. Up close, the dress was even more stunning, changing and shifting as if made of the firelight that surrounded them. Yet he barely saw it. He only saw her.

  ‘Ayla. You’re beautiful. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘You looked almost frightened,’ she sai
d softly. ‘I was afraid you had changed your mind.’

  ‘I was thinking I should be here to worship you. Not marry you.’

  Her smile turned playful. ‘It’s perfectly acceptable for you to do both.’

  They gazed at each other in silence. The candlelight danced across Ayla’s face and glinted in her hair. Caraway wondered what she saw in his eyes. Whether, like him, she saw forever.

  ‘I brought you something,’ he said at last. The idea of giving it to her made him nervous, now, but he had to go through with it. He felt in his pocket until his fingertips brushed the velvet of the little bag. ‘I know it’s not a Nightshade tradition, but they’ve always been worn in my family, so I thought maybe you might …’ Words failing him, he upended the bag and tipped the ring out onto his palm. ‘Only if you want to.’

  Wordlessly, she extended her hand, and he slipped the ring onto her middle finger. The interwoven strands of metal shone against the paleness of her skin. Gold for joy, silver for passion and copper for fidelity. That was what his grandmother had always said.

  ‘Is it all right?’ he asked anxiously.

  ‘It’s perfect.’ Ayla looked down at her hand. Her smile had changed again; this one was happy and wistful at the same time. ‘I’m sorry I don’t have anything to give you.’

  ‘You gave me flowers and sunlight in the depths of winter. Isn’t that enough?’

  She glanced up. ‘You like it?’

  ‘It’s wonderful.’ Unable to resist touching her any longer, he slid a hand to the small of her back and drew her closer. The dress might look like flame, but it slipped over his skin like cool water. His other palm cupped her cheek, thumb brushing her lower lip – and then it was the natural next step to lower his head and kiss her. When they finally parted, she clutched the front of his shirt and looked up at him with mischievous eyes.