by Matthew Ward
Damn Viktor anyway. He could leave her behind, but she didn’t have to stay there, like some timid wife from one of Tarlev’s farces. As for Viktor’s course? She could follow easily enough once she reached Ardva. Subtlety seldom lay in a marching army’s gift.
“Viktor? Viktor!”
Josiri’s voice beyond the walls startled Calenne from rumination. She dropped the note and ran for the bedroom. She’d barely made it when the outer door crashed back on its hinges.
“Viktor!”
“He’s not here.” The second voice belonged to the stranger from the night before. The woman whose close-cropped hair and imperious stance matched so poorly. “We couldn’t have missed him on the road.”
So Viktor hadn’t gone to join Josiri? Where was he?
Josiri growled. “There’s still the other room.”
Calenne scrambled for the window, chased by the thump of approaching footsteps. She made it halfway before hinges creaked. Breath souring, she forced the closest approximation of unconcern as a thundering heart would allow.
“Josiri…” She scrabbled for words to justify the indefensible. “Don’t blame Viktor. This was my choice. He promised freedom from Katya’s legacy, and I held him to it.”
He glanced in her direction, then took stock of the room. “He’s not here.”
Still no emotion beyond urgency. But that was all right. Calenne’s heart was full enough for them both – even if she couldn’t quite tell one emotion from another.
“No,” she replied. “I thought he’d gone to join you?”
Josiri turned away. “Erashel? I said he’s not here.”
“I’m not deaf.” The stranger crowded the doorway and held out the letter. “It was on the table.”
“Seriously? You’re ignoring me?” Calenne glared at Erashel. “Both of you?”
Josiri glanced at the note. “‘My involvement.’ In what? And as for ‘Strains the bond between us’. As if it could get any worse. What are you up to, Viktor?”
“He meant that for me!” Calenne grabbed at the note, but couldn’t pull it free. Still Josiri paid her no heed. “This isn’t funny!”
“That’s his handwriting?” said Erashel.
“I think so.”
“What do you suppose he meant by unconventional deeds?”
“Knowing Viktor, I dread to think.”
Calenne scrambled back as Josiri moved towards her. In the instant before contact, dizziness swamped her senses. The room swam. A shudder of warmth overcame her, and she collapsed.
“What is it?” asked Erashel.
Calenne gazed dully up. He’d not walked past her, but through. How was that possible?
“I don’t… It’s nothing.” Josiri shook his head like a man waking from a dream. He crossed to the wardrobe and swung it open. “He’s cleaned out. Wherever he’s gone, it’s for a while.”
“So let him,” said Erashel. “You wanted to go home and prise our people from the vranakin. Do so.”
“It’s not that simple.”
She strode to join him. Calenne gathered enough of her senses to crawl clear before they came into contact. It didn’t help. Not with awful suspicion pricking at her thoughts.
“You know he’s not been taken by the shadowthorns.” Erashel’s words were dim, distant, barely piercing the shroud wrapped tight about Calenne’s senses. “And you know he’s not in Ardva. There’s nothing more you can do. What can he do, for that matter?”
“You don’t know Viktor,” said Josiri. “Once he sets his mind to something…”
“You did say he doesn’t know how to lose.”
“You were listening, last night?”
“Some of it. I’ve spent half my life in chains, Josiri. If I’d never listened at a keyhole, I’d be dead.”
Josiri shrugged the reply away. “Where Viktor’s concerned, it isn’t a question of what he can do. It’s what it will cost the rest of us. We have to find him.”
They headed outside, leaving Calenne in a puddle of skirts and frayed thoughts.
He’d walked through her. Without slowing. Without the slightest hint of contact beyond that vile, crawling sensation beneath her skin – like sunshine, but without the contentment that came alongside. He’d not ignored her. He’d not heard because she wasn’t there. Not all the way.
A word formed in fragmented thoughts. Cyraeth. A soul not wholly there, nor wholly gone, clinging to the world out of loss.
Breath rattling in her throat, Calenne drew up and stared at her hands. They looked real. She felt real. A glance at the open wardrobe set her reeling anew. In her mind’s eye, she saw her dresses, her travelling clothes – even the remains of the leathers she’d worn at Davenwood.
But the wardrobe was empty.
The more Calenne picked at the thread, the faster the tapestry unfurled. The simple things. Eating, dressing, bathing. She knew she’d partaken, but could summon no recollection. Memories before Eskavord were… sparse. Viktor, yes. Josiri, yes. Beyond that? The details of her life were fragments, viewed from without rather than within. How had she not noticed?
What had happened to her?
The day before. The thrakker. The boy. They hadn’t seen her at all, had they? Just a masterless sword that killed without command. Their horrified gazes made sense now.
The wail began in the pit of her stomach and left her lungs rasping and sore. She doubled over, unable to contain shuddering, wracking sobs. And beneath it all, beneath the turbulent sea upon which she was suddenly adrift, a roiling, suffocating rage unlike any she’d ever known.
“Viktor,” she gasped. “What have you made of me?”
Thirty-Seven
Thunder parted the veil of sleep, the shuddering, brooding rumble scattering gummed thoughts even as they gathered. Shadowthorn drums.
Sevaka levered herself upright in the chair. Rosa lay unmoving in the bed, asleep at last. So much for the hope of it all being nightmare. Sevaka clasped her hand, the decision made on slumber’s edge coming to the fore. Strange how the hardest choice was the easiest embraced.
“Duty calls, love,” she murmured. “You understand, don’t you?”
Rosa offered no response. No sign, indeed, that she’d even heard. If there was to be a last moment, let this not be it. Wait another minute. Ten minutes. However long it took to fashion a last memory to hold close on the walls. But it was time she didn’t have.
“You gave me the strength for this, Roslava.” Sevaka laid Rosa’s hand atop the blankets and kissed her brow. “Look for me come Third Dawn. I’ll be waiting.”
She left the adjutant’s quarters, and never once looked back.
Vrasdavora’s motley garrison was already thick on the battlements, sergeants bellowing latecomers into position beneath grey skies. The tabards of four regiments and two chapterhouses. The mishmash of militia and villagers with borrowed swords and bartered courage. All gathered beneath kraikons little more useful than the statues they resembled.
“Your fortress stands ready, captain.” Paradan offered what seemed a genuine salute. The castellan had dressed for the occasion, a scarlet Prydonis sash looped about his army tabard. “Come what may, we’ll leave the shadowthorns with scars.”
Sevaka nodded. “How long do we have?”
“I’ve watchers at the bend. They’ll bring word once the Hadari start moving.”
Maybe enough time to unmake poor choices. “I need a hundred volunteers to hold the east wall. To keep the shadowthorns fixated on Vrasdavora while you make your escape.”
“Captain?”
“You were right.” Pride or duty. Her mother’s influence, or Rosa’s. In the cold watches of the night, Rosa’s had won out, as it should have from the first. “Take Lady Orova. Take the wounded. Leave me a hundred swords, and those with courage enough to wield them. Get everyone else out.”
Paradan’s lips twisted. “You’ll die.”
As if anything could stop that now. “Tell the Council that Vrasdavora did not fa
ll without a fight.” She stared again to the east. “And tell Rosa I’m sorry.”
Melanna watched in silence as havildars dragged the assault column into shape. Anticipation jangled beneath the drums. The taut expectation of men bound for battle.
The road, collapsed and uneven, would barely support a dozen men marching abreast. Rhalesh green mingled with Icansae scarlet – a column of shields, swords and ladders hurled as a thunderbolt against Vrasdavora’s walls. More than sufficient to sweep away a few hundred Tressians. Assuming Haldrane’s catspaw had done his work. But Melanna had never known the spymaster to be anything other than successful within limits he himself defined.
She lost herself in observation of the leading ranks, of willow shields locked tight. Once the assault began, the second and third ranks would hoist theirs high above the heads of the first to protect against crossbows. A flight of silver owls on emerald fields, come to claim victory for the House of Saran.
“Saranal.”
Melanna stifled a scowl and glanced back. Aeldran stood a little behind – his escort of Immortals yet twenty paces distance to offer privacy. “I’ve no civility to spare the House of Andwar today.”
“I find myself in need of your favour, all the same.”
“And you think you’ve earned that right?”
“No. But still I must ask.” He hesitated. “I regret that matters unfolded as they did.”
“You regret that your sister was revealed.”
“That Naradna treated you as a rival when you were not,” he corrected. “I don’t approve, but I refuse to judge her. You and I, we see the shape of her struggles, but cannot fully comprehend them. What she fights for, we have. Had my grandfather been more like the Emperor he sought to depose, you and she would have been as sisters. Alas, Maggad cared nothing for anyone’s desires but his own. My sister and I strive to be different, but… Alas, Andwars are not renowned for generosity of spirit, nor mercy.”
“But I must be known for both?”
“That’s for you to decide, Saranal. I can only make the request.”
“Which is?”
“Grant me command of the assault.”
Melanna blinked. She’d expected Aeldran to petition for his sister’s release, but not this. “Why should I?”
“My chieftains hold me as accomplice in Naradna’s deception. Whatever your scorn, theirs burns brighter. Better I prove myself before that fire consumes me. Better for us both, savim.”
Glory to make truth of a lie. Blood washed all sins away. All failures. As for the rest? By his words, Aeldran implied what Naradna had stated plain. If you harm him, you only weaken yourself. If Aeldran were challenged, who could say what manner of man might take his place?
“And do you beg this as a peer of the Golden Court, or as your grandfather’s assassin?”
“I am no assassin, Saranal.” A frown formed in the words.
“Naradna told me you killed Maggad.”
“I dreamt of his death, but I did not hasten it. Naradna refused to let his malice rule your fate as it had hers. For the longest time, she admired you.”
Truth, or an attempt to instil sympathy for his imprisoned sister? Reason believed the latter; instinct the former. Melanna didn’t have to ask why Naradna’s admiration had soured, or why she’d refused credit for Maggad’s death. You have done nothing other than for yourself. By inaction, Melanna had broken a faith she’d never known pledged.
“And what say you?” she asked.
“You are to be Empress, Saranal. I am your servant whether you acknowledge me or not, and it is as that servant I make my request. Name me your champion on this field, and I swear on my sister’s life that you will have no cause for regret.”
She turned at the sound of silk slipping across scale. Aeldran knelt, head bowed.
Champion. An honour bestowed on aspirant commoners for faithful service. It was unheard of for one of the Golden Court to put themselves so completely at another’s service; to abandon all personal ambition – perhaps even life – for another’s furtherment. An heir was expected to do so, of course, but this?
The possibility of deception remained. But to what end? Aeldran’s declaration was tantamount to concession, placing the House of Andwar in servitude to the throne it had always coveted. So powerful and public a pact could not be broken – or betrayed. To do so might even be the Kingdom of Icansae’s end.
Perhaps the House of Andwar had honour, despite the lies that had led to this place. In any case, who was she any longer to judge, she who’d stooped to assassination? Who’d withheld Ashana’s death? Necessity was an excuse for them both, or for neither.
A flawed champion for a flawed princessa.
“I accept your service, Prince Aeldran,” she said at last. “Open the fortress to me.”
Drums redoubled to a divine roar. The first golden shields showed through the rain, scarlet dark and muddy behind.
Gavrida stomped his heels and stared beyond the parapet. “You might at least have picked a better day for it.”
Sevaka glanced along the wall. Ragged uniforms of the 11th. Even what remained of the borderers. Senesta – their leader following Thaldvar’s death – had muttered tersely about blood debts. Sevaka wasn’t sure whether that debt was owed for Thaldvar’s betrayal, or to the shadowthorns who’d forced his treachery. But ferocity had convinced. In any case, it would all be the same in a few short hours.
Even concentrated in the east, there were barely two defenders for every pace of wall. The high rampart would hide the paucity. Or so Sevaka hoped. Otherwise the shadowthorns would simply bypass Vrasdavora and harry Paradan’s retreat. Once battle was joined, the gaps would show. Especially with fully half the fortress’ kraikons standing guard over the north and west walls, obeying Maldrath’s last command.
The Hadari column shuffled to a halt. Shields rippled; long ladders set aside. Bows were drawn and loosed. The volley fell far short of the walls, as it was meant to. A warrior’s salute.
Somewhere on the battlement, a lone voice raised in song. “Bury me deep, with sword in hand.”
Others picked up the refrain as the second volley hissed out. “Come Third Dawn, my watch I’ll stand.”
Two volleys spent. One for Ashana. One for the Emperor. One for his heir yet to come.
“You should have gone west with Paradan.” Between drums and song, Sevaka barely heard her own words.
“Saved my skin?” Gavrida shrugged. “My lot have been on borrowed time ever since Ahrad. We only made it this far because of you.”
“Because of Rosa.”
He shook his head. “Maybe after Soraved. But before? I was ready to give up. We all were. Then along comes a Psanneque – a Psanneque – and she holds it together better than any of us. Better than a knight of the blood. Can’t turn my back on that.” His voice raised to a bellow. “The 11th stands with you!”
The song dissolved into a cheer that stole Sevaka’s breath. For the first time in long months, she belonged. For perhaps the first time in her life, she had no doubts. No hesitation. Psanneque or Kiradin, this was her place.
The third volley passed, dark rain against grey skies. Drums quickened. The shadowthorn column picked up speed. Sevaka drew her cutlass and stared along the blade. So far from the deck of the Zephyr and the storm-tossed expanse of the Western Ocean, but no finer place to make an end. Rosa would understand, if she recovered. At least now she’d have the chance. A hundred lives spent to safeguard hundreds more.
Sometimes the calling was to die while others won elsewhere.
Sevaka returned Gavrida’s closed-fist salute and pushed to the centre of the rampart. The first quarrels hissed away. Trumpets sounded below. The Hadari broke into a run – a tall man in haloed helm and scarlet robes at the fore. Shields hauled high. Ladders levelled against the walls like a lance.
Clouds parted, spilling sunlight across the road. Sevaka’s upraised cutlass blazed like fire.
“Death and honour!”
“Death and honour!”
Rosa awoke in creaking, shuddering gloom, nostrils thick with the stench of mud and sweat. Axles squeaked. Boots scuffed on stone somewhere beyond sight. Every muscle screamed and yet was numb – a raging fire behind a wall of ice. Lungs ached, no more than a thimbleful of air passing her lips with each heave. Efforts to rise occasioned nothing more than palsied twitching, so she sank back into sweat and struggled with blurred memory.
A sensation of falling. A hand about hers, and a kiss on her brow.
Sevaka?
Again, she strove to rise. Again her limbs betrayed her. Precious breath hissed away as a snarl.
“Hush.” Feathered shadows gathered against canvas. The Raven loomed, hands braced atop the head of a black cane. “You’ve had a rough night, and more to come.”
“What…” Rosa swallowed to ease a burning throat. “What happened?”
“Poison.”
The face of shadowed memory took form. Thaldvar. “Where is he?”
A smile flickered beneath the domino mask. “In my keeping, courtesy of Miss Psanneque.”
“I want to see her.”
The smile faded. “You should rest.”
Numbness grew colder and heavier. “Where is she?”
The Raven sighed. Still sitting, he twitched aside the canvas at Rosa’s feet. Dark against grey clouds and shafts of reluctant sun, a broad column of men and women shuffled behind the wagon. Beyond, a handful of riders cloaked and hunched against the cold. And beyond that, two leagues distant along the pass…
There were no flames, just a thick, inky cloud of black smoke crawling away up the mountainside. Scarlet and emerald flags fluttered from Vrasdavora’s rampart. Gold gleamed on the road beneath the walls.
“No.” Rosa’s fingers shuddered and failed to form a fist. “She’s not… She isn’t…”
“You forget to whom you’re speaking.” The Keeper of the Dead let the canvas fall closed. “Six hours, she held them. Three assaults, until a man named Aeldran Andwar ended her life. The same fellow who rescued the princessa at the bridge, as it happens. I confess, I didn’t think she had it in her.”