Windsinger

by A. F. E. Smith

  Art just looked at him.

  ‘I promise!’ Miles repeated. ‘If I knew, I would say so. Gil did not tell me any of the details. You have to believe me.’

  ‘I don’t have to believe anything. But lucky for you, we think we know how they plan to get the children out of the country. They’re using the Windsinger.’

  Of course. It made sense. A large airship visiting Mirrorvale for fully legitimate reasons, one that had enough space for three illicit passengers …

  ‘What we need to know,’ Art added, ‘is what they’re going to do with them. Demand ransom? Use them as surety against invasion? What?’

  ‘They want the secret of the Change.’ Gripped by renewed shame, Miles mumbled the words in the direction of his own lap. ‘That is what I was sent here to find. But I failed to deliver it, and so …’ He winced, pre-emptively. ‘They believe they can discover it by … experimenting.’

  ‘Experimenting.’ It was an emotionless echo.

  ‘They do not see the children as people,’ Miles whispered. ‘They see them as subjects for testing.’

  He looked at Art, waiting for the next question; yet when Art said nothing, just returned the gaze with a grim frown that was worse than anger, more words came tumbling out.

  ‘Art, I need you to know – I tried to stop them taking the children. If I had known that was what they intended, I never would have consented to it. And the Helm … that was not my choice, either. I never thought the potion would …’ He faltered to a halt beneath the contempt in Art’s eyes. ‘I saved Tomas’s life, at least!’ he said desperately. ‘I gave him something different, something I knew was safe –’

  ‘So you draw the line at murdering your friends,’ Art said. ‘Good to know.’

  ‘That is not –’

  ‘I’m sure Tomas is very grateful you spared his life. Gives him the chance to bury his men.’

  ‘I did my best –’

  ‘Of course, he’ll probably get himself killed going after his stolen children, but that’s not your fault, right? Your hands are clean.’

  ‘No, I –’

  ‘And Mirrorvale, well, Mirrorvale will be fine! Sure, we’ll be a vassal state of Parovia now, and Ayla will live in lonely misery for years while your masters experiment on her family to discover the secrets of their blood, and once they have those secrets they’ll kill all remaining Nightshades and put their own overlord in place – but none of that matters, right? Because you didn’t mean to murder anyone!’

  Miles buried his face in his hands. ‘They threatened your life, Art! What was I supposed to do?’

  Silence. After a time, Miles risked a glance upward, but the raw shock – and, worse, fury – in Art’s face made him look away again quickly.

  ‘Are you trying to say,’ Art said in a low, fierce voice, ‘that you did all this for me?’

  Unable to find appropriate words, Miles nodded.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Miles! Didn’t you stop to think how I would feel about it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You let war and murder and invasion happen for my sake. You put me before hundreds of other people. Didn’t it occur to you that I would never, ever want my own life to be preserved at that cost?’

  ‘And if it had been my life?’ Miles whispered. ‘What would you have done?’

  Art was silent for a time. Then he said heavily, ‘Here’s a novel thought: I would have talked to you. Told you what was happening. Between us, we’d have decided the war had to be stopped, whatever it cost. And then maybe, just maybe, the two of us would have found a way to protect you from the threat of assassination, like you did for Ayla.’ He sighed. ‘We’d have made our own options. And we’d have done it together.’

  ‘But if I had told you that,’ Miles said, in an agony of regret and self-recrimination, ‘I would also have had to tell you the rest of it. Confessing to my situation would also have meant telling you I was working for Parovia, and …’ He bowed his head. ‘I did not want to lose you.’

  Art snorted. ‘Then perhaps you should have been honest in the first place.’

  ‘No. No, it is not that simple.’ Miles wasn’t sure why he was bothering to defend himself, except that this was Art. And though he knew what lay between them was dead, now – perhaps worse than dead, a twisted and bitter mockery of itself – he desperately wanted Art to understand. Not absolve him. He wasn’t that naïve. But at least be able to see why he had done what he’d done. ‘By the time we fell in love, it was already too late to tell you –’

  ‘Love?’ Art echoed. ‘Without honesty, love means nothing.’ He ran a hand over his head. ‘Not that it matters much, now, but why have you been betraying us to Parovia all these years?’

  ‘They had my sister. My brother by marriage. A nephew and another on the way.’ Miles looked pleadingly at him. ‘I did fall in love with you. All of you. But how could I let my family die?’

  Art returned the gaze, and Miles saw the mirror of his own anguish in his eyes. ‘You didn’t have to. You just had to trust us.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘As soon as you knew us well enough, you should have talked to me. To Tomas and Ayla. Told us what was happening, in secret, so that we could look into bringing your family here. We would have done everything in our power to help you. Because we loved you too, you stupid bastard. We loved you too.’

  Miles couldn’t find an answer. Tears soaked his face; he wiped them off with the back of his hand, but they kept falling. Art watched him cry.

  ‘Was it worth it?’ he asked finally. ‘The family you destroyed our whole world for – are they safe?’

  Miles shook his head. ‘They were killed before I even reached Mirrorvale.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Art said. He sounded as if he meant it. And then he stood up and walked away.

  Miles sat and stared at nothing. After an indeterminate length of time, he heard footsteps and lifted his head – heart beating with a hope he knew full well was ridiculous – but it was only Caraway. He was moving with greater ease than he had before, and some of the colour had returned to his face. A couple more lamps hung from his hands, and in the crook of his arm was one of the Helm’s medical kits.

  ‘The food helped?’ Miles said humbly. Caraway crouched beside him and began to tend to his wounds.

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’

  ‘Is Art –’

  ‘He told me everything you told him. I’m leaving him in charge of Darkhaven while we’re gone.’ Caraway glanced up. ‘He’s never going to forgive you, Miles.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nor will Ayla.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And if any of my children are harmed,’ Caraway said, busily winding a bandage around Miles’s torso, ‘you’ll wish you’d died tonight.’

  Miles nodded. None of that was any more than he deserved. He was surprised Caraway hadn’t beaten him bloody – though he supposed he shouldn’t be. He’d known Caraway for years. Long enough to know that although he was a fine swordsman and a formidable warrior, he didn’t actually enjoy violence. Not like some of them did.

  Long enough, also, to see the captain’s tight-pressed lips, his clenched jaw, and recognise that he was equal parts furious and terrified. He’ll probably get himself killed going after his stolen children, Art had said, and Miles couldn’t deny it. Whatever happened, he’d ripped a family apart. The knowledge made him heavy all over, as though guilt had transformed his bones to lead.

  ‘I really am sorry –’ he began, but Caraway glanced up again. Only for a moment, but the expression on his face was enough to stop the words unspoken in Miles’s throat.

  ‘Save it for your gods, Miles.’

  ‘Can I ask what you are going to do?’

  ‘We are going to get my children back.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘I need someone to get me on board the Windsinger,’ Caraway said. ‘The damn physician would have been better, because at least three men there know him, but since he’s knocked hi
mself out beyond hope of revival, you’ll have to do.’ Sitting back on his heels, he pinned Miles with a stare. ‘So if you mean even the smallest bit of that sorry you’re so ready to give me, this is your chance to do something about it.’

  ‘Yes. Of course. How –’

  Caraway reached into his pocket. Something flashed in his fingers, gleaming in the lamplight. The Enforcers’ token.

  ‘Tonight may have got away from you,’ he said, ‘but you knew full well what you were doing when you let Ayla go to war. So I might as well tell you, Miles: I won’t forgive you either. But you spared my life, and my children are moving further from me with every passing heartbeat, and those are reasons enough to take a gamble on trusting you now. Will you help me?’

  Miles nodded. He considered making a sacred oath, to prove he was telling the truth, but in the end he said simply, ‘I promise.’

  ‘Good,’ Caraway said. ‘Then let’s go.’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  As Zander piloted the skyboat in the direction of the Kardise border, a single thought played on his mind: This is it. The best chance I’ll ever have to win back my father’s approval.

  Of course, it was a chance that depended on betraying the people who were relying on him. Darkhaven already teetered on the edge between disaster and catastrophe; failure to deliver Caraway’s message to Ayla would push it over completely. Because without Ayla’s help, Caraway and Ree and the few Helmsmen remaining in Arkannen were unlikely to retrieve the Nightshade children – or if they did, there would be nothing to stop the Parovians coming after them. Zander was well aware of the importance of his errand.

  On the other hand, he was unlikely to get another chance to impress his father so thoroughly. Let this one slip by, and he’d almost certainly be disowned. In his father’s eyes, just carrying this message to Ayla was enough to mark him a traitor to his name and to his blood. And for what? A country that viewed him with permanent suspicion. A country whose citizens spat on him in the street.

  But most people aren’t like that, he told himself. There’s Ree, and Penn and the others. They accept me without any doubt. And Captain Caraway has been good to me.

  Though, admittedly, not so good as to trust him with a role in the Helm.

  He’s trusting me now.

  But was that merely out of necessity? If the ambassador hadn’t been killed, most likely Zander would have been sent back to Sol Kardis in acquiescence with his father’s demands. Reluctantly, perhaps, on Ayla’s part – but when it came down to it, her first loyalty was to her own country and its people. Surely Zander’s must be too.

  And there was no denying, it would be very easy. All he had to do was land on the far side of the border and deliver Caraway’s message to his own father rather than Ayla.

  I couldn’t do that to Ree. They’d been given no time for long farewells, but she had embraced him, briefly and fiercely, before he climbed into the gondola of the skyboat. She hadn’t said anything, but he’d understood it all anyway. Ree and Penn were the best friends he’d ever had. How could he betray them?

  Yet it wasn’t as if he’d ever see them again. Whether he delivered the message to Ayla or to his father, the result would be the same: he’d have to stay in Sol Kardis. Either because he’d sold Mirrorvale to the Kardise, or because his father would demand him back as proof of Ayla’s good faith. He knew that. He’d accepted it as a price worth paying. But if he was never to leave Sol Kardis again, perhaps he owed it to himself to return as a hero, and not as a reluctant sacrifice.

  Not much of a choice, he thought wryly. And as if in answer, he recalled Bryan’s words to him earlier that evening. Find a way to make your own options …

  By the time he spotted the glow of the Mirrorvalese campfires up ahead, his mind was made up. He held his ship at a steady speed, passing right over the camp and across the border to Sol Kardis.

  Some airships were tethered on the far side of the Kardise camp; his lamps picked out their curves. He gave them a wide berth, not trusting himself to avoid them in the darkness – no point meeting his end in a fiery snarl of wood and canvas. Beyond them, the grassy plain continued flat and featureless. Plenty of space for a night landing.

  He brought the skyboat down safely, albeit with a bit of a bump – he might have grown up flying, but during his time in Arkannen he’d rarely had occasion to go anywhere – and vaulted out of the gondola. As soon as his feet touched the ground, a pistol was shoved in his face. Well, he had come from the Mirrorvalese side of the border.

  ‘Put that away,’ he said irritably in his native tongue, extending a hand to display the signet ring on his finger. ‘And take me to my father.’

  The man behind the pistol frowned at the ring, but as soon as he recognised it, his expression became one of deference. ‘Your father is sleeping, Don Alezzandro. He is to begin negotiations with Mirrorvale in the morning.’

  ‘Wake him up,’ Zander said. ‘This is important.’

  The man hesitated, then nodded. He led Zander through the camp to one of the larger tents in the centre, where he indicated that Zander should wait outside, before entering himself. There was a muttered conversation. Then the same man emerged again, bowed to Zander and gestured him inside.

  ‘Alezzandro.’ It had been years since Zander last saw his father, but the man hadn’t changed one bit. His expression remained entirely neutral, even a little bored. ‘I trust you have a reason for this sudden reappearance.’

  ‘Good to see you too, Father.’

  Marco Lepont’s eyebrows lifted a fraction, but he made no reply.

  ‘Yes, it was a difficult flight in the middle of the night,’ Zander said. ‘No, I won’t have a drink, thanks for offering.’

  ‘Why are you here, Alezzandro?’

  Catching the underlying hint of impatience, Zander reined himself in. He wanted his father on his side, after all. Best not to needle him, however hard a habit it was to break.

  ‘I flew here at Captain Caraway’s behest,’ he said carefully. ‘I have urgent news to deliver to Lady Ayla.’

  ‘And yet you came to me.’ Marco Lepont’s eyes narrowed, studying Zander’s face. Then, for what was possibly the first time in a decade, he smiled at his son. ‘Then I have misjudged you, my boy. You are cleverer than I realised. All this time I thought you disobedient, and yet … This is information we can use against them, yes?’

  Yes. The word hovered on Zander’s lips. It would be so easy to say it. Say yes, give his father what he hoped for, and bask in that smile a while longer. Yet he had chosen to follow a particular path, and he had to see it through.

  ‘Father, you have to listen to me.’ He gripped Marco’s forearms and looked him straight in the eyes. ‘As soon as I give Ayla this news, she will leave. Now. Tonight.’

  ‘And leave her men undefended? Before the ceasefire is even made permanent? She wouldn’t do it. Not when she has fought so hard to end this war.’

  ‘She will do it,’ Zander insisted. ‘Her children have been taken. She will go after them.’

  ‘Taken? By who?’

  ‘Parovia. They are seeking to acquire the secret of the Change.’

  Marco’s eyes narrowed once more. ‘Then we must strike as soon as she leaves. Wipe out the Mirrorvalese force and take over the capital before Parovia can –’

  ‘No,’ Zander said quickly. ‘That’s not why I came to you. I want you to help her.’

  ‘Help her?’ Marco took a step back, his expression closing. ‘Have you really lost so much loyalty to your own people that you would –’

  ‘Father, please listen.’ Zander took a deep breath, compressing every bit of emotion he felt into a tiny, hidden ball at the heart of him. He couldn’t afford to make this personal. His father would be swayed by logic, and logic alone. ‘Sol Kardis can’t afford to let Parovia take the Nightshade children. Even if we gain Mirrorvale, we will have lost its greatest secret to the enemy. We might increase our territory, but Parovia will have something much more val
uable: three potential Changer creatures, growing up under their command! Mirrorvale may be small, but it provides a buffer between us and Parovia. You know that. If Mirrorvale falls, Sol Kardis and Parovia will tear each other apart.’

  His father shrugged. ‘Let Ayla regain her children from the Parovian force. When she returns to Darkhaven, we will be waiting for her.’

  ‘You can’t take Darkhaven,’ Zander said. ‘Not in a night. Not with the Helm defending it.’ It wasn’t a lie, not exactly – but if Marco found out that the majority of the Helm had been eliminated, there’d be no holding him back. ‘If Ayla succeeds, you will end up embroiled in the same war again, except on Mirrorvalese soil, with no hope of treaty the second time round. If Ayla fails, Parovia becomes far more powerful. Neither outcome is good for Sol Kardis.’

  ‘Then what, Zander? What do you propose?’

  ‘Sign the treaty,’ Zander said. ‘Do it tonight. Lend Ayla whatever aid she requires. And once she has her children back, Sol Kardis and Mirrorvale work together to prevent the Parovians from discovering the secret of the Change. Because the Parovian agent was the royal alchemist, Father! He has been passing them information about the Nightshade line for years. And if there is one thing none of us can afford, it is for Parovia to create their own Changers. Because the Changer power in a small country like Mirrorvale is an effective deterrent, but in a large country like Parovia it could be the weapon to subdue the world.’

  ‘We cannot let Parovia gain the secret of the Change,’ Marco agreed. ‘But I doubt the other councillors will agree to a full treaty with Mirrorvale. We have been shown some evidence, now, that Don Tolino’s murder was not Ayla’s doing. Yet if Mirrorvale is so unable to control the rogue elements within its borders –’

  ‘That’s the other thing,’ Zander said. ‘The dissident group, the one behind the murder, was set up by Parovia.’ That was how Ree had explained it to him, anyway. She and Penn had found the plans of the Windsinger in a basement owned by the man who had masterminded the entire plot. ‘They engineered this war for their own ends. They have been manipulating us all along. They are the enemy, Father. Not Mirrorvale.’