by Matthew Ward
Only in the bailey’s absolute centre was there peace. The Huntsman’s spear lay untouched in a ring of smooth stones, cold and alone. When Melanna slid from her saddle and crunched across the autumn leaves, she understood why. The air within the ring was cold, in defiance of the sunshine. It crawled across her skin, neither wholesome nor entirely unpleasant. It simply… was.
Melanna knelt among the brittle leaves and closed her eyes. The Huntsman had set her on this path as surely as his mistress. He’d defied Ashana to do so. And yet Melanna realised she’d never offered thanks or prayer. Now he too was gone, and the chance was lost.
Realisation brought forth tears held too long. Brimming heart couldn’t say whether they were offered for Ashana, her Huntsman or the hundreds who joined them in death. The Tressians wouldn’t have understood. They couldn’t comprehend that a warrior’s tears were her greatest gift, save her life.
“Ashanal?”
Melanna opened her eyes. Sera stood on the ring’s edge, another lunassera waiting in close attendance – a bright, calm presence among the drab bustle. More surprising was the sight of Melanna’s own outstretched hand, fingers spread, less than a span from the spear.
“That weapon is not for you,” said Sera. Both lunassera trembled with unease, their eyes ever upon the spear. “Leave it be.”
As Melanna let her hand fall, she noticed green shoots among the russet leaves.
“Not everything is for ever,” said Sera.
Melanna stood, comforted, though she knew not exactly why. It was only then she noticed uneasily how Sera’s white robes glistened with fresh blood. “Are you hurt?”
Lips twitched beneath the silver half-mask. “No, Ashanal. The prisoners.”
Unease returned. The prisoners. Taken in battle that had come without warning. “I would see them.”
Sera offered a fluid bow. “Of course, Ashanal.”
Melanna turned to the other lunassera. “Would you go to my father, and tell him where I can be found?”
The lunassera glanced at Sera for confirmation, then bowed and withdrew.
They headed north, Sera on foot and Melanna in the saddle. As they travelled, they overtook a column of prisoners, hands bound and heads bowed as lunassera goaded them on. Crusted blood upon brow and tunic spoke to wounds taken. But none were tainted by Akadra’s curse – by the deathless Dark that hung like a cloak about those it corrupted.
The morning’s dilemma returned. Did Sera not deserve to know the Goddess’ fate? The lunassera were Ashana’s handmaidens, the keepers of her temples and her mysteries. They, more than any, deserved to know of her passing. But something held Melanna back.
Unease redoubled as they drew near to a broad, squat building tucked inside the middle wall. A truncated tower marked it as a Lumestran church, though the pedestal beside its door was empty, its statue dashed to rubble. A ring of lunassera guarded the entrance. Cold, clear song danced about the walls. Not moribund Tressian hymns, but sweet praise offered to Ashana.
As Melanna drew nearer, a wagoner lashed his grunda to motion. Melanna peered over the dray’s timber side. A corpse wagon, laden with Tressians. More than ever, Melanna felt the burden of her own, unbloodied armour.
The lunassera parted without challenge, and Melanna dismounted before the church’s door. She stumbled on the ridged and rutted mud. The corpse wagon had not been the first, just as it was unlikely to be the last. She’d seen outriders dragging Tressians back to their abandoned fortress.
The iron stench hit Melanna as she passed beyond the gateway. Death from a gushing vein, hot, rich and pungent. Subtler notes drifted above: sweet incense, and the faint perfume of burning heather. Soft, stuttered moans drifted beneath soothing song.
She crossed the vestibule, passing through the six veils of silk and one of cotton strung from archway stones to mark the lunassera’s domain. Seven steps of purity by which sins were driven out and shelter provided.
By the time Melanna reached the final veil, her throat was thick with blood, her soul weary with the sounds of dying. It reminded her too much of the stockade after the Battle of Davenwood, her father’s life ebbing away, and despair so thick she’d almost choked. But there had been kindness, too. Freedom offered at the hand of Josiri Trelan. A man bound close to Akadra, but not corrupted by him. Melanna hoped he remained so.
She parted the final veil and walked into nightmare.
The sanctum’s pews had been pushed to the chamber’s sides to clear space beneath the bell tower, the windows covered with black cloth stripped from the lunassera’s sanctum tent. What light penetrated ashen incense sprang from the guttering white flame of silver braziers set on altar and tomb. Scores of Tressian soldiers stood in uneven lines, wrists bound – their eyes glassy, unseeing. A lunassera waited behind each, a glinting, translucent shard dagger pressed at every throat. Others knelt about the perimeter, voices raised in a song that had long since lost its beauty. And bodies, so many bodies. Enough that the floor was slick with blood.
Elspeth stood halfway along the furthest line, wearing what Melanna took for a red dress, until she realised the stain went far beyond the cloth’s extent. Her skin was smeared with it, even to her lower cheek. A soldier stood before her, back arched and her hand about his throat. A silver dagger gleamed in her other – though it, like her dress, was slick with gore.
The grin of the Silsarian havildar. The disturbed ground beyond the gate that spoke to the departure of many wagons. Disgust and shame boiled free. The cotton veil slipped from Melanna’s hand, and fell closed behind.
“Stop!”
Elspeth started. The song faded. Lunassera stared, unabashed. Not one Tressian responded, their wits far afield. What sounds they made were those of sleepers lost to the darkest of dreams.
“What is this?” Melanna demanded.
Elspeth barely glanced at her. “What we came to do.”
The silver slit the Tressian’s throat.
“No!” shouted Melanna.
The soldier gurgled his last. No cry. No struggle. He simply fell forward into Elspeth’s arms. The wrinkle of his expression might have been a smile.
Elspeth held the convulsing body as the tremors faded, her grey eyes glinting as if she sought to memorise every detail. How many other such details had she witnessed? Melanna stared, numbed by the barbarity. The lunassera held their positions, daggers at Tressian throats.
“All is as it should be, Ashanal.”
Melanna spun around. Sera’s masked face was suddenly a stranger’s. “How can you say such a thing?”
“How can I not? She is the Goddess’ daughter.”
“So am I.”
The twitch of Sera’s lips spoke volumes. Ashanal wasn’t a title of equality. A daughter of Ashana’s heart was nothing to one sprung from divine essence. Cold shivered Melanna’s spine. The lunassera had followed her when no other would. In the fury of battle, she’d felt safe in their company – even loved. Now, surrounded by them in that place of slaughter, she was alone.
“I am still the Emperor’s daughter. You will obey my command. This horror ends. Now.”
Sera’s eyes twitched beneath her silver mask. “It is the old way, Ashanal.”
The old way. A bloodier time. Without mercy, and without honour. Hearts offered in tribute beneath a waxing moon. Melanna knew the stories well, but the Ashana who had revelled in those tributes was not the Goddess she’d known, but another deity whose name and trappings the successor had claimed. A deity that was not Elspeth’s mother any more than she was Melanna’s. Expediency and half-truths. Old religion roused to justify deed.
“They feel nothing. This is kindness. It is necessary.” Elspeth stepped over a seeping corpse. “All who bear the Dark must die.”
Melanna gazed at the prisoners. In her haste, had she overlooked the taint of the Dark? But no, there was nothing. No bleak and writhing halo. No abyssal mantle seen more with the soul than the eye.
“The Dark has no claim on these peopl
e,” she snarled.
Elspeth shrugged. “Why chance that you’re wrong? They are your enemies.”
“We kill on the battlefield, with honour! Not… Not this!”
Elspeth leaned close. “My mother foresaw the Republic overrun with the Dark and a populace under its sway. Have you forgotten so soon?”
Her presence swelled in unspoken demand, hidden corners of divinity scratching at the world Melanna perceived. Somehow, she met the stare without flinching. Fear shone in Elspeth’s eyes. It wasn’t alone. Outrage enough for three women, and plenty of anger alongside – even the echo of the curiosity with which she’d beheld the dying Tressian. But a child’s fear bubbled beneath, nameless and nebulous.
“Prophecy is a word by which we justify our deeds, or excuse their lack.” Sorrow rushed cold across Melanna’s anger. “Ashana feared the rise of the Dark and acted to prevent it. She wouldn’t want this. We march into death. We don’t carry it with us.”
“You dare speak for my mother?”
“Someone must.”
Elspeth’s expression set hard as granite. The fear in her eyes drowned all else. “What do you mean?”
She already knew. At least in part. Was this slaughter as much directionless grief as misguided zeal? Did it even matter, now the truth was halfway in the open?
“Our mother is dead. I held her as she passed.”
“Our mother?” Elspeth hung her head. Bitter laughter spilled free. “You’d match your loss to mine?”
She sprang, the motion so swift and savage Melanna barely caught her wrist. The dagger’s point trembled inches from her eyes. The world spun. Melanna gasped as her back struck bloody flagstones. Then Elspeth was atop her.
“You did this!” she keened. “Your weakness!”
Pale fingernails slashed Melanna’s cheek, then closed about trailing black hair and cracked her head against stone.
“Sera!”
Never in Melanna’s darkest dreams had she feared she’d die surrounded by Ashana’s handmaidens. But now?
The dagger ripped free. Through blurred vision and ringing ears, Melanna batted it aside. Silvered steel scraped across golden scale, then slid beneath to slice flesh.
Melanna rode the flash of pain – harnessed it to desperate strength and flung Elspeth clear. Armour crunching, she rose up on one knee, and drew her sword.
“Enough!”
All froze at the thunderous bellow. The lunassera, Sera among them, stared at the ground. Elspeth went still, fists at her sides, her whole body aquiver.
Melanna’s father stood beneath the sanctum arch, the grizzled Tavar Rasha leading a quartet of helmed and armoured Immortals at his back. Melanna strove to read the storm clouds in his face. Was he part of this madness? Her heart, already sore, creaked at the prospect.
“I have lived long and seen much I would rather forget,” he growled. “But this?”
Melanna bowed her head. Her voice shook with rekindled anger. “She’s killing them, my Emperor. She claims they are Droshna, steeped in the Dark, but they are not.”
His eyes took in the rows of sightless, witless Tressians. “You are sure of this?”
“As certain as of my love for you.”
“They are slighted,” Elspeth’s tongue was edged with glass, “as all in this land are slighted.”
The Emperor’s expression gathered to fury ill-concealed. Disappointment and distrust. Emotion Melanna had too often seen directed at her, but now…?
“Handmaiden?” His brooding gaze fell upon Sera. “I will have the truth.”
“I…” Sera swallowed, her eyes still fixed on the ground. “Your daughter speaks it, my Emperor.”
“This was my mother’s command!” said Elspeth. “You’ve no right—”
“The heavens are Ashana’s domain. This is mine.” He set his back to the scowling daughter of the moon and addressed Sera once more. “The prisoners. Will they recover?”
“The enchantment will pass with the memory of our song. Their wits will return.”
“Daughter?”
Melanna rose, her veins coursing with relief. “Father.”
“You will arrange shelter, and food.” He addressed the whole sanctum. “The lunassera will tend their wounds as they would our own kind, or I will dig a hole in this place and bury every last one of them within it, wrath of the Goddess, or no. Am I understood?”
Fear rippled through the assembled lunassera. All save Sera knelt, shard-daggers dissipating into wisps of moonlight.
“No!” Elspeth flew across the chamber, eyes wild and dagger yet in her hand. “How dare—?”
Melanna barely saw her father move. The strike of his fist drove Elspeth to the bloody floor. The dagger skittered away. Sera flinched. Rasha started forward, sword drawn. Melanna’s father checked him with a shake of the head.
Elspeth spat a stream of black blood and propped herself up on one hand. The other cradled a grazed cheek. Her voice shuddered with disbelief. “You… You struck me.”
Uncertainty graced the Emperor’s brow, and vanished so soon Melanna was certain no other had seen it.
“If you insist on behaving like a rabid cur, I will treat you as one. Struck you? Had another come at me with drawn blade, their head would be forfeit.” He took a deep breath. “If your mother finds fault with my actions, she need only strike me down in turn.”
“I saved your life.”
Her defiance was gone, replaced by raw, ragged hurt that yearned for sympathy. Melanna had none to offer.
“As I recall saving yours when we took this fortress,” Melanna’s father replied. “If you’ve quarrel with the trade, take up your dagger, and we’ll settle it now. But this? This is not our way. I pledged to fight this war, but I will cast aside honour only out of direst need. If you cannot respect that, Elspeth Ashanal – if you cannot serve your Emperor’s will – you have no place at my side, or with this army. You may howl all you wish, but you will do it in the wilderness, where wild things belong.”
The daughter of the moon stared down at the floor, legs curled beneath her and shoulders shuddering. A cur she’d been named. In that moment the insult fitted all too well.
Sera started forward.
“Leave her. Let her think on the path ahead.” He looked out across the prisoners’ sightless ranks. For the first time, sorrow touched his brow. “As for the rest…? Daughter, let us unmake this horror.”
Melanna rose, heart swelling. A mother was lost, but her father remained. And whatever of herself she owed Ashana, she owed to him all the more.
Kai found Melanna hours later, hunched over the empty rampart of Ahrad’s citadel. Her gaze stretched across the Ravonn and away to the forested eastern hills. Stern of feature, as Aethal had so often been in adversity. Worn down, but not yet overcome. Like mother, like child.
“Daughter. Am I intruding?”
“Of course not.” She stood straighter. “You taught me better than to worry over what I cannot change.”
Kai fought the guilt. Each year brought regrets, but the day’s tally thrust all others into shadow. “I didn’t know. Even an Emperor cannot see all within his realm.”
“Never say so within earshot of the Corvanti. It will be sad surprise for them to learn that their Emperor is no god.”
A slim, humourless smile accompanied the words. He returned one warmer. “The opinion of the Corvanti is of little account. Yours, I value more than gold. I swear I knew nothing of Elspeth’s labours. Whatever I must do to prove the truth of that, I shall.”
Melanna’s smile broadened to genuine warmth. “You already have, Father. Or should I demand the throne?”
“Do you desire it?”
“In proper time, not sooner. Let that day be long in coming.”
For all the softening of her manner, still there was reserve. So often she was a stranger, not quite the inheritor of her mother’s character, for all she’d inherited her silken black hair and watchful eyes. That Kai knew the fault to be his alone
little eased frustration. Too many years wasted trying to mould her to mistaken ideal. Too much selfish anger that Aethal had not lived to bear a son. Only when he’d mustered the strength to step outside the strictures of tradition had Kai realised their daughter was a gift greater than he deserved. Melanna had been a stranger for many of her nineteen winters, and he less than a father.
He joined her at the rampart’s edge, and stared out across the ruined walls. The inner and middle baileys were already thick with encampments, the cold air heavy with smoke from funeral pyres. Yet despite the glorious sight, Kai felt only weariness deeper than the labours of the day. A part of him indescribably adrift. Stark contrast to the vigour of the morning.
“Are the captives attended to?” he asked.
“Yes, Father. I had the north gatehouse turned into a prison.” Her voice was as bitter as pyre-sent wind. “The lunassera watch over them as they should have from the first.”
And Kai’s icularis – his “eyes” – would watch the lunassera, just as they had already forewarned much of what Melanna had said. An Emperor had more than the eyes in his own head.
“Should I send the lunassera away?” asked Kai.
“Who then will tend our wounded? They have their role, and their place.”
He grunted. “And Elspeth?”
“That’s for you to decide.”
“Indeed. But an Emperor’s wisdom often lies in minds other than his own. Where better to seek it than in a daughter who is the very best of him?” He sighed. “But I fear Elspeth is the very worst of her mother. Elise, Elene, the others… Her sisters more closely match my expectation. Perhaps the Goddess can offer a mother’s chastisement?”
“And if she can’t?” Melanna scowled and turned away. “Ashana is gone.”
Finding no reply of worth, Kai offered none. Gone. The Goddess of Evermoon. The guardian of the Hadari people since before Empire was Empire. He clasped his fists tight against sudden tremor, and was glad of the rampart’s support. He’d dared Ashana to strike him down. When the blow had failed to fall, he’d assumed her favour. How foolish that now seemed. He stared to where the ailing moon – no longer bloody, but somehow discoloured – fought the brightness of the day.