Windsinger

by A. F. E. Smith

  ‘Captain Caraway. Are you really telling me you desire me here?’

  ‘I desire you everywhere,’ Caraway said. He rested a hand on the gentle swell of her belly, a barely visible indication of the child growing within. ‘Is that wrong?’

  ‘No.’ She interlocked her fingers with his. ‘But it will have to wait, just a little while. We have a ceremony to perform first.’

  And so it began. They knelt together, facing each other, hands still clasped. Traditionally we face the altar, Ayla had said, but hang tradition. We’re marrying each other, not my ancestors. Caraway didn’t know the words, but it didn’t matter; Ayla said them, looking very solemnly into his eyes, and all he had to do was say them back to her. Yet that didn’t steal their meaning. They lay weighty on his tongue, the truth of every one of them burning into him like a brand.

  All that I am, I dedicate to you.

  My heart to yours.

  My body to yours.

  My life to yours.

  Now and forever.

  Blood and bone.

  Breath and life.

  ‘Blood and bone,’ Caraway echoed now, alone at the altar. ‘Breath and life.’

  He thought of them often, those words they had spoken to each other. When he and Ayla argued, when they were both short on sleep, when she said or did something that made her seem, for a moment, like a stranger again. Or it would hit him in little moments of contentment: when she caught his eye across the breakfast table and smiled. When Katya learned a new word or Wyrenne took her first steps. The memory was always there, a reminder of how much they had promised and how much they had meant it. He found it kept the little seed of wanting at bay: the urge to throw everything away so he couldn’t lose it later, to prevent his own future failure by failing now. He had dedicated himself to Ayla, and that meant he no longer had the right to choose self-destruction.

  She still wore his ring, though not on her finger. It had fallen to the ground the first time she Changed. But Miles had found a way to attach it to the front of her collar, so now it sat in the hollow of her throat, fluttering with every heartbeat. It’s only right, Ayla had said. It shows you’re part of what keeps me safe.

  Yet he hadn’t kept her safe this time, had he? He’d failed to prove her innocent of murder, and now she’d gone to war. He’d let her down in the worst possible way, and he really ought to resign his post before he could do any more damage, find an alehouse somewhere –

  Caraway let the black despair smother him for a moment, before deliberately pushing it away with another memory: the rest of his wedding night. He didn’t think about that very often, because it approached the status of something sacred in his mind – and he knew very well that turning a memory over and over caused it to tarnish and fade, like a pebble worn smooth by the sea. He didn’t want those particular moments in his life to take on the blandness of familiarity. Yet tonight, more than ever, he needed to hold on to everything that was bright and true and use it as a defence against the fear that threatened to consume him. And so he let himself remember.

  The spoken ceremony was over, the wedding was done. Caraway wasn’t sure what time it was, but he didn’t think the sixth bell had rung yet. On midwinter’s night, that meant plenty of time until dawn. He looked at his new wife, and there must have been a question in his eyes, because she smiled.

  ‘You’re wondering why we have to stay in here the whole night.’

  ‘It did cross my mind, yes.’

  In response, she lifted a hand to the back of her neck, and her flame-coloured dress fell shimmering in a pool around her feet. His mouth suddenly dry, Caraway swallowed.

  ‘Ayla –’

  ‘Usually it would be to conceive a Nightshade child,’ she said. ‘But since we’ve already taken care of that –’ her fingertips brushed her belly – ‘this will be just for us.’

  ‘And where exactly –’

  She tipped her head towards the blackstone altar. ‘What do you think that’s for?’

  Caraway opened his mouth to protest, but something stopped him. There was fear behind her smile. In this place, the weight of her ancestors must press on her as much as it did him – more, in fact. She was trying to conceal it, for his benefit, but she was afraid … of what? That he would turn and run? That he wouldn’t understand the history that was bone-deep in her?

  They had broken tradition often enough, the two of them. This time, they’d do things the Nightshade way.

  Without another word, he scooped her up in his arms and strode over to the altar. There he proceeded to worship her, with fingers and lips and tongue, until her head tipped back and his name fell from her lips in a breathless cry of delight. Even as her body clenched and shook she pulled him to her, inside her, wrapping her legs around him and urging him deeper, heedless of the bruising stone beneath her. And that was how it went for the rest of the night, until the first grey light of dawn crept through the window of the little blackstone temple, and the candles were all spent.

  Now, Caraway smiled in the darkness. They hadn’t slept at all, that night. They must have explored each other in every possible way before the daylight came. Yet it shone in his memory not for the act itself, but for the words Ayla had spoken to him. He knew she cared deeply for him. He had long since ceased to doubt that. Yet she had always been reticent with her feelings. Quick to anger, yes, but reluctant to reveal her softer emotions. Another legacy of her father’s, no doubt. But on their wedding night, she had let them all show. Words of adoration, of admiration, even of gratitude: they’d come spilling from her lips as if her last shields had finally been cast aside.

  It was the first time he could remember her telling him she loved him.

  He had responded to her with his own heartfelt words, until it had seemed the two of them were utterly open to each other. It was a strange and wonderful thing, the ability to reveal so much without fear. Most of the time people existed in layers, peeling themselves back gradually, always afraid to show the deep emotional truths at their heart. So to expose that emotion, the love and the need and the willingness to surrender … that, and not anything their bodies might do, was the greatest kind of intimacy.

  Perhaps there was alchemy at work, Caraway had thought later. Some great power in the little blackstone temple, weaving the threads of their two lives into one. Whatever the truth of it, he had known by the time they left that he would never again need to doubt Ayla’s feelings. You are my heart, she’d told him. And you unfroze me, Tomas. And all of me is yours, forever. A woman who could say those things – and plenty more besides – was not a woman who loved in half measures.

  She loved him. She trusted him. And he would never let her down.

  On the way back to Darkhaven, the niggling desire for a cup of ale lay quieted, leaving his mind calm and clear. He needed to bring the war to an end, and he could only do it by uncovering enough evidence to prove to the Kardise that Ayla hadn’t killed their ambassador. So even though the investigation had come to a standstill, he had to find a way through it. It was simply a matter of uncovering the loose thread.

  Working with Captain Larson of the Watch, he’d arrested the merchants who’d been involved with the shipments of illegal firearms that Sorrow had uncovered. Yet as she’d told him, none of them had been able to put a real name to their investor. And although he’d got a list of their crews and tracked most of them down, Sorrow hadn’t been able to identify any of them. So that had ended his hope of uncovering at least one member of the Free Arkannen group that way.

  He had also quizzed both Miles and Gil again about the possibility of an antidote to zephyr, yet each man had been adamant that no such antidote existed. The only logical conclusion was that someone in the dissident group had made a discovery about which they were keeping very quiet. He could see no obvious way of pursuing that line of enquiry further.

  So where did that leave him? He knew the group had killed the ambassador. He knew they’d used Hana to do their dirty work within Dark
haven, then killed her for it too. He knew most likely they’d done it by poisoning the bottle of taransey and supplying Ayla with an antidote that would protect her. He even knew one of the group was a wealthy investor who used the name Jack Malone to conceal himself. Yet he had no way to prove any of it.

  The only plausible course of action he could identify was questioning Mirrorvale’s elite in the hope of uncovering the traitor. But he knew, without needing to test it, that they’d close ranks against him. The wealthy investors of the city wielded an awful lot of power. If Ayla had been there, he might have been able to get something out of them. Without her, they would politely point out that he had no jurisdiction beyond Darkhaven, unless he had enough evidence to support arresting them for direct treason against their overlord. And who had the evidence he needed for that? One of them did.

  Still, it might be possible. And even if it wasn’t, he had to try. It was no more than he owed to the woman he loved.

  As the days passed, Ayla’s hope of a swift end to the war – her hope that against all the odds, Tomas would find a way to exonerate her and convince the Kardise that Mirrorvale was not to blame for their ambassador’s death – began to flicker and fade like a guttering candle. At the same time, the Kardise grew bolder. They began to make raids under cover of darkness, sending small parties to strike at the sentries and deal sudden, bloody death to the nearest handful of warriors before retreating as swiftly as they’d come. Ayla’s generals increased the number of people on lookout at any given time, but still the raids continued.

  Then, finally, there was a dawn attack. Two cohorts of Kardise riflemen, one on each flank of the army; the first drew Ayla’s attention, while the second wrought destruction. The Mirrorvalese managed to drive them off, Ayla-as-Alicorn pursuing them back across the border, but they left scores of men and women wounded or dying in their wake. After that, Ayla walked up and down the front line in her creature form for the rest of the day, all through the night and into the next day, ready to spring into action at even the slightest movement from the Kardise camp – until, unable to resist it any longer, she tripled the sentries, curled up in her bed and fell into an exhausted sleep.

  Sometime later, she awoke suddenly without knowing why. She listened, but heard no clash of weapons or voices that would indicate a raid. By the sky outside, it was not yet close to morning. So why –?

  Then she smelled it, on the air: the faintest hint of smoke.

  She ran to the small, glassless window and peered out, but the Mirrorvalese camp looked as it normally did. Few people were stirring at this time, and the fire-pits had sunk to a glimmer; only the sentries moved through their patrols. She could smell gunpowder and blood and roasted meat and the latrine pits and yes, smoke, but the latter was a different sort of smell from the one that had woken her. Sharp and resinous, not a damp, choking smoke.

  When she moved back into her room, she smelled that other smoke again – stronger now. Suddenly afraid, she flung open the door.

  ‘Lady Ayla?’ The two Helmsmen on guard outside turned to her in alarm.

  ‘Can you smell that?’

  They looked blank; no doubt her senses were more sensitive than theirs. One of them asked cautiously, ‘What is it?’

  ‘Smoke …’

  Yet even as she said it, a noise exploded below them that was surely loud enough for anyone to hear: the screaming of horses, the stamping of their feet. Ayla turned and ran, her guards hard on her heels.

  The fort was a hollow square, with sleeping quarters in the upper storey and rooms used by the border officials below. The upper floor had a covered walkway along all four edges, providing access to the bedrooms, and the only way up to that was a pair of staircases, one to each side. By the time Ayla reached the top of the nearest staircase, she could see the flames licking at the stable door.

  ‘Fire,’ she snapped at one of her guards. ‘Wake everyone up, get them out –’

  But it was too late. In a small explosion of indrawn air, the entire stable went up in flames. First one horse, then another, and then a whole group of them burst out of it, eyes rolling, flanks heaving, forelegs torn and bloody. They were on fire. Their manes and tails streamed with it. They ran, desperate and terrified, seeking only to escape the threat – yet the threat rode them. And there was no way out. The door was bolted and barred. They could only run, round and round the square, while behind them the wooden staircases and the columns that held up the walkway began to burn.

  Ayla backed away, the screams of the horses ringing in her ears. You can’t go that way now, she told herself. Even if you get down the steps, you won’t make it to the door.

  She turned and ran along the walkway, banging on the bedroom doors, trying to wake everyone else whose quarters lay inside the fort – the generals, the quartermaster, the people she relied on to lead her army. Some of them had already come out. Some of them had run back into their rooms, scrabbling desperately at windows that were too small for grown adults to fit through. Yet just like the horses, they had no way out.

  ‘Lady Ayla!’ One of her guards caught her arm. ‘You have to leave!’

  Yes. The fire was spreading along the walkway, eating into the bedrooms beyond. She was the only one who could escape this. Yet, surely, she could do better than that.

  Without another word, she leapt off the walkway towards the flames below, summoning the Change as she went. The fire licked at her hooves, but she swept her wings downward and veered away from it, rising back up to the level of the first floor.

  Jump, she told the Helmsman. I will catch you.

  He barely hesitated. It wasn’t as if he had much choice. The impact of his landing shook her, but she righted herself. And then two other people flung themselves at her. One caught her around the neck, dragging on her mane and sending her listing sideways; the other glanced off her and fell with a scream, hitting the ground below.

  No more, she warned the others. Find the most stable place you can and wait. I will come back for you.

  She managed four trips before the entire upper floor of the fort was consumed by flames and it was no longer safe to return. She’d carried ten people to safety, some of them suffering from serious injuries. Twice as many again had been trapped in the burning building or fallen to a fiery death. She’d done all she could. It wasn’t enough.

  By then the army in the camp outside had mobilised themselves, aiding the wounded and fetching water from the canal. Yet they had no way to put out such a massive fire. In the end, once they were sure they could do no more to rescue anyone from within the fort, they had to let it burn itself out.

  Back in human form, Ayla stood and stared at it. It wouldn’t have been possible to burn down the fort from the outside. The wood soaked up enough moisture from the canal, the air and the springtime rains that it resisted fire, to a certain extent. But inside … there, everything was dry. The sentries hadn’t seen anyone approach the fort, but a small boat had been abandoned on the canal that ran past one side. The Kardise party must have approached in that, creeping through the water undetected. None of the windows on the ground floor of the fort were large enough to admit a person, of course, but they didn’t need to be. All they’d required was a gap big enough to fling in their firestarters. Whatever they’d used had been swift-acting and merciless, consuming the inside of the stables and setting the horses alight before anyone on the outside saw a single flame. And then, when the horses had burst through the stable doors …

  Ayla shuddered. In her mind, the trapped animals still circled, desperate and dying, bringing destruction to everything they touched. In her mind, men and horses still screamed.

  The fire still raged. She kept staring at it. And a slow, cold anger settled over her like the first frost of winter.

  Still in human form, she stepped out onto the battlefield. Two Helmsmen – her two new guards – ran after her, but she ordered them back. She had business with the Kardise.

  They had come by canal – so as she
walked, she froze it. Tendrils of ice reached deep down and across the surface, swift and relentless, crackling as they went. Let that send a message to them. Let them know she would freeze their fire.

  But if I had my father’s power – a small thought began. She crushed it mercilessly. She had no room for doubt. She had to be cold.

  When she was halfway between the two armies, she stopped. The Kardise had already seen her; she could hear the shouts, the running feet. They knew better than to try and shoot her, by now. Their calls contained as much alarm as they did the possibility of opportunity. They wanted to see what she was going to do before they tried anything.

  She sent her senses questing ahead of her, into the wooden fort that housed the Kardise councillors. The fort very much like her own had been, before they burned it. She focused her mind at the base of the walls, and tore. Vast cracks opened in the wooden sides. Once more and it shattered, pieces of wood flying everywhere, sending men hurtling through the air. She kept going, ripping and pulling and tearing with her mind, until the enemy’s fort was nothing but jagged splinters.

  She heard the cries of the wounded men. She heard the cheers of her own army. And yet she felt nothing. Nothing at all.

  NINETEEN

  Zander had begun to avoid returning to his apartment, spending all his time in the fifth ring. There were a few spare beds in the barracks for weaponmasters and their assistants; someone always worked late enough to want to avoid the walk back to the fourth ring, or needed to make a sufficiently early start to warrant an overnight stay. Some of his students still whispered about him, and some of the other warriors looked at him askance, but enough people knew him in the fifth ring for it to feel like a sanctuary in comparison to the streets of the lower rings.

  Then, one morning, as he went through the forms alone on one of the smaller duelling floors, he heard a voice behind him.