by Matthew Ward
“Diminished?”
“The mists slipped away even as he laid waste your warriors. Without them, his creatures cannot walk this world.”
“Do you know why?”
“I know only that I cannot do again what I did today.”
“We cannot fight both the Tressians and the Raven!”
“Ghostfire holds his creatures at bay. Your sword can kill them.”
The sword that had already betrayed him. That stole away his life and hastened his descent into the mists? “That’s not enough!”
“It will have to be! I…”
Elspeth froze, motionless save for a shudder of anger. Or was it fear?
For a heartbeat, Kai thought she meant to flee his presence. Then she drew close, bare feet silent on the thick rugs of the tent floor, and set a spread hand to his chest. White light danced about her fingers, hot and cold through armour and silk. It lent strength to spent, unsteady limbs; drove back the burdens of a long and sorrowful day. She leaned into him, grey eyes earnest and pleading.
“I will give you all that I can, short of my life. But I will not perish to prove that which I already know. Challenging my uncle will be my end, and yours also.”
She withdrew her hand. The glow faded. Weariness returned.
“Are my warleaders assembled?” asked Kai.
Elspeth offered a sly smile. “Even now, they argue who should command after your passing. The Raven falls distant second to ambition.”
Kai laid his hands on her shoulders. “Then we should disappoint them. Go. I’ll follow soon.”
She bobbed her head. “Yes, my Emperor.”
She withdrew without looking back, her posture straighter than before. However alike Elspeth was to her mother in character, she put Kai more and more in mind of a cat. Whatever affection she felt for him – whatever duty held her close – she would always be an observer to his life more than part of it.
His life. Whatever remained. If indeed he could truly be counted among the living.
The Goddess’ sword blazed as he lifted it, though the flames were dimmer than before. The House of Saran had to go on, so it wasn’t enough to hold the Raven at bay. He had to be beaten, as the Tressians had to be beaten.
Whatever it cost.
The air in the tent changed as Kai reached his decision, musty canvas yielding to damp soil and leaf rot. Shadows lengthened to crawling thorns.
You need only call my name.
He sheathed the sword.
“Jack, Lord of Fellhallow.” He faltered, feeling ridiculous for addressing emptiness even though instinct warned he wasn’t alone. “I accept your bargain. Vanquish the Raven – save my present – and my future is yours.”
Had Jack not heard? Or did he recognise the worthlessness of the bargain he’d once proposed? Of what worth was a dead man’s future?
“Jack, do you hear me?”
The air grew close and bitter, filled with the rustle and creak of brittle thorns. Hairs bristled along Kai’s neck at the sense of something standing at his shoulder.
{{Yes,}} buzzed Jack. {{The bargain is agreed.}}
Forty
Word reached Three Pillars an hour before the motley army of constables and hearthguards. A flock of rassophores had spread their wings across shrouded skies, summoning those who owed fealty or favour. Grey-garbed bodies gathered thick on slate, the roofs a roost for vranakin of all ranks and ages. Four storeys below, yet more gathered at the mouth of alleyway and yard. They cawed defiance as uniforms descended into the plaza, swords drawn, crossbows ready and heraldry muted by mist.
Apara’s raven cloak kept her cousins distant, leery of a kernclaw’s fickle mood. Not Athariss. The pontiff stood at the townhouse gable, a leering, grey-draped gargoyle.
“A show of strength?” he cackled. “Lord Reveque is bold. Foolish, but bold. We’ll peel them apart. Every last one.”
Far below, the quartered yellow-and-black of the Karov hearthguard threaded shiftless etravia to join a line already broader and deeper than the vranakin mob it sought to contest.
“We forced him to this,” said Apara.
“Do I hear criticism, cousin?” asked Athariss.
Apara flinched, her flesh crawling. “No, Crowfather.”
This wasn’t the Crowmarket she’d grown into. That Crowmarket had been cruel, as life was cruel, eking out survival on society’s edge. It had stolen to eat. Killed to live another day. What mustered at Three Pillars was different. Hungry. Malevolent.
As the Silver Owl, she’d dallied on the edge of the mists. Stolen for challenge, or to put food in the mouths of hungry cousins. Easy to turn a blind eye when you saw so little. But as a kernclaw? She’d seen too much. Blood ritual at Westernport. The creeping horror concealed beneath an elder cousin’s robes. The stolen children. One thing to become vranakin through choice; another entirely to be ripped from your kin. The Silver Owl could never have been part of that. Alas, she was gone, wrapped in the Raven’s feathers and bound by the Parliament’s promise to set her free from Akadra’s shadow.
“We were forgotten,” cackled Athariss. “Wrapped in tales of beggardom and decay. Something tolerated underfoot. But now the Raven’s blessing flows, and a lesson must be taught. One they will not soon forget.”
The words implied regret. Might even have convinced, but for the desire beneath. Apara’s raven cloak cawed delight at the slaughter to come even as the shadow on her heart screamed.
“Yes, Crowfather.”
The air shifted. Mist curled back from the streets, as if drawn thus by the breath of some vast, slumbering beast. The dry scent of yesterdays slipped away. Buildings shimmered and resettled as time-lost structures yielded to those of the present. Apara felt the streets reknit as the Living Realm reasserted itself.
“Crowfather? What is it?”
Athariss craned his head this way and that. Bony fingers formed to fists. “It will pass.”
The mists flowed back through retangling streets. But the tension in Athariss’ shoulders – his soft intake of breath – only reinforced suspicion. Athariss – arrogant, callous Athariss – had been afraid. For only a moment, perhaps, but a moment was enough.
Why?
In the plaza below, Captain Darrow clambered heavily onto a statue’s pedestal with as much dignity as girth allowed. Lumestra’s graven frown staring out over her shoulder, she unfolded a letter.
“By order of the Council…” With theatrical sigh, Darrow tucked the letter away. “We all know what it says. Come peaceably, you’ll be treated well. Those who bring information leading to the return of the taken will be freed. The offer lasts until I draw my sword. After that? Lumestra help you all, because no one else will.”
Darrow folded her arms and surveyed the rooftops. Apara envied her certainty, misplaced though it was. That surety went unshared by many in the captain’s ranks. Hurried glances. Hands shaped to the sign of the sun. Lips moving in prayer. The mists had to be bad enough. But to see etravia drifting through the streets? To hear the wails of starving prizraks on the breeze? Nightmare made real.
The vranakin mob stared back. Unblinking and unmoving, save for the twitch of an elder cousin’s robes or a kernclaw’s feathered cloak.
Darrow dropped from the plinth and retook her place.
“If that’s how you want it.” She drew her sword. “Take back my streets!”
The line surged. The vranakin broke across the rooftops, bled away into streets and alleys. With a roar of triumph, Darrow’s army pursued.
Athariss chuckled. “It begins.”
The shriek of crows reached fever pitch. The first screams rang out close behind.
Sergeant Brass’ hopes of a quiet evening evaporated with the doorbell’s toll. Setting aside a bottle of Torianan red purloined from Stonecrest’s cellar, he stomped from the kitchen. The bell tolled again as he worked the front door’s latch.
“Hang on,” said Brass. “Have a little patience, will you?”
Lady Reve
que swept into the atrium in a swirl of black skirts and halted beneath the chandelier. Her veil did nothing to blunt a stare heightened by parallel scars part-hidden beneath.
“I want to speak to the Demon,” she said icily.
Brass glanced at the Reveque carriage on the gravel drive. The carriage, and six hearthguard in the same livery. He swallowed. “If you mean Miss Psanneque…”
“I mean the Demon. Will you summon her, or must I have this house torn apart?”
The last thing Brass wanted to do was traipse around looking for Anastacia, who took perverse delight in employing servant’s passages to stay one step ahead of her seekers. She’d been worse the last few days, her mischief more energetic to match the golden blush suffusing her porcelain skin. Then again, Lady Reveque had a reputation. The act of tearing apart the house would likely begin with him.
Hide-and-seek it was.
“If you’ll just—”
Anastacia appeared at the head of the stairs. An ivory velvet dress offered perfect counterpoint to porcelain features and a wig’s white curls.
[[Don’t trouble yourself, Adbert. Only a rude demon would refuse audience to a serene.]] She descended the steps with measured tread. [[I must think of my reputation, mustn’t I?]]
“I’m not a serene,” snapped Lady Reveque.
[[But you always dress like a religious drab. Surely it’s for a reason?]]
“Where is my daughter?”
Alabaster hands clasped to frozen lips in mock horror. [[A daughter? You have been a naughty serene, haven’t you? So much for chastity.]]
She ghosted into the drawing room, Lady Reveque on her heels. Brass lumbered to the shelter of the far corner and strove to be forgotten.
“Where is she?” Lady Reveque ground out.
[[Lilyana, please. Am I a shepherd of wayward children?]] Anastacia plucked a decanter from the mantelpiece. [[May I offer you a drink? It’s from Icasia. Very sweet. You could use a little of that.]]
“You’ve been sneaking into Abbeyfields behind my back.”
Anastacia hesitated mid-pour. [[I don’t sneak anywhere. Who told you?]]
“Hawkin. And now Sidara is missing.”
[[I haven’t seen her since yesterday.]]
“Hawkin says different.”
Anastacia set the decanter down. The first glimmer of anger showed in her tone. [[Hawkin is mistaken.]]
“She’s out of her mind with worry.”
[[I don’t doubt that she’s out of her mind.]]
“So you haven’t encouraged Sidara’s fancies?” snapped Lady Reveque. “Whispered poison in her ear? My daughter is not your toy!”
[[Your daughter has a gift.]]
“Is she here?” Lady Reveque sagged. “Please. I just want her back. To be safe. Can’t you understand that? Must I beg?”
Anastacia hung her head and uttered a low, hollow growl. [[Adbert, would you fetch Altiris? Maybe he can enlighten us.]]
Brass winced. “He’s not been back since he left for Abbeyfields.”
[[Vladama, then.]]
“No sign of him all day, lady. The lad went to Abbeyfields alone.” But that wasn’t all of it, was it? Brass, seeker of a quiet life and stranger to undue thought, nonetheless cared little for where those thoughts now led.
Anastacia cocked her head. [[Then I think perhaps the mystery is solved.]]
Lady Reveque scowled. “And what do you mean by that?”
Somehow, her frozen face contrived to leer. [[Your Sidara is such a pretty thing.]]
“Please. That boy flinches whenever he sees her.”
[[Maybe she likes that. I do.]] Anastacia shook her head. [[When you cage a bird, Lilyana, you shouldn’t be surprised at what happens if the door springs open.]]
Brass cleared his throat. Furious stares converged. All told, he’d rather be back at Davenwood, surrounded by bloodthirsty shadowthorns. He’d have known how to handle that.
“Altiris. This morning, he wanted me to go looking for Captain Kurkas in Dregmeet, but I was too… tired… from last night. Might be the boy didn’t go to Abbeyfields.”
“No, he was there. Sergeant Heren told me.” Lady Reveque paled. The mother knew very much what the daughter might do when presented with an open door. “That doesn’t mean he didn’t head for Dregmeet after.”
[[Or alone?]]
Lady Reveque left the room at a flat run. “I must speak to my husband.”
[[Thank you for a gracious apology!]] Anastacia called after, with only a hint of mockery.
Her only reply was the creak of hinges and the slam of the front door. Beyond the walls, carriage wheels crunched on gravel and rumbled away.
[[Ephemerals. Why I should ever want any for friends, I’ll never know.]] Anastacia poured the contents of the untouched glass back into the decanter. [[Nothing more guaranteed to make me miss liquor. Serve her right if the vranakin pick her daughter clean.]]
Perching on the arm of a chair, she clicked her fingers. Brass gaped as golden light sparked to life in her palm, weaving a young woman’s likeness. The flickering figure pirouetted once – a touch unsteadily – then burst into smoke. Anastacia’s head dipped, then rose, her chin tilted higher than before.
[[Adbert, my dear, close-tongued reprobate. Would there by any chance be an axe on the premises?]]
Forty-One
Vranakin hurtled past the alley’s end, constables on their heels. One crow-born fled too slow. A woman in king’s blue tackled him to the cobbles. Shrieking figures dropped from the rooftops. Screams split the darkness, the scent of blood close behind.
In moments, it was over. Vranakin seeped away into the misty streets, leaving the dead behind.
“At least we know why Father wanted the hearthguard,” said Sidara.
Altiris glanced about. The mists were empty. Cacophony remained. A bellow of pain. Boots on cobbles. Screeching birds. The liquid, distorted toll of a church bell. Screams and the wet sound of steel on flesh. “We have to go back.”
Sidara shook her head. “No. We came to find Captain Kurkas.”
“And how do we do that?” snapped Altiris. With the mists rising, striking out for Dregmeet had always been a fool’s errand – even with swords “borrowed” from the Reveque armoury. Seduced by Sidara’s claims of noble cause, the prospect of her approval – even her smile – he’d been that fool. “We’ve been walking for an hour. That’s Pannister Street. We’re back where we started!”
“It’s not my fault you’re lost.”
“My fault? You said you knew the way.”
“I do!” Eyes flickered gold and dimmed to blue. “The streets are wrong. Everything’s wrong. It’s all Dregmeet now. All jumbled.”
She sank against the wall, aristocratic reserve cracking.
“Lady Reveque, please…” The bells fell silent. Seven chimes. They’d left the Reveque estate at noon. An hour ago. More than the streets were askew. “Did you hear that? The clock’s broken.”
Sidara shook her head. “No. It’s the mists. They’re distorting everything. Can’t you feel it?”
He didn’t want to think about what she meant by that. Better to cling to the idea of a broken clock. “We should go back.”
Sidara nodded, last resistance gone. “You win. Which way?”
Pannister Street. In theory, Three Pillars and the mists’ extent were only a brisk walk – Abbeyfields a few minutes beyond that. But in theory it was afternoon, not evening as bells proclaimed.
Altiris picked his way through the two-score corpses at the alley’s end. Most wore constabulary blue, a handful the mismatched garb of vranakin. Three the fox blazon and burgundy tabards of a highblood’s hearthguard. One of the latter drew Altiris’ eye, in defiance of his determination not to look. Withered skin and sunken eyes awoke memories of his last journey into the mists. Of green eyes blazing beneath a tattered grey hood, and insects scuttling across skin.
The colour faded from Sidara’s cheeks. “Queen’s Ashes. What did that?”
Grey shapes gathered further down the street. So much for reaching Three Pillars.
“Come on!”
They fled. A motionless kraikon passed away behind. A church’s spire loomed against the darkening sky. The mists parted. A dark, feathered shape hunched over a dying constable, steel talons at his throat. Altiris froze, hand on his sword, transfixed by blazing green eyes. The scar on his belly ached. The kernclaw dissolved into a cloud of screeching, rushing wings.
“Altiris!”
Sidara slammed into him. They fell, she atop, he below. The seething flock boiled overhead. It coalesced at the head of the vranakin pursuit and staggered as a crossbow bolt hissed out of the carnage at the street’s end.
King’s blue uniforms thundered past. Grime spattered Altiris’ face. Sidara hauled him upright and shoved him towards the churchyard. Boots scrambling on brick, he clambered over a wall and dropped onto grass. Sidara landed beside him, hair in wispy disarray and cheeks smeared with mud. She flinched at fresh screams.
Legs shaking, Altiris sank against the wall. “Thank you.”
She shook her head. “We need to keep moving.”
He followed through yew trees rendered macabre by enfolding mist. Sidara strode with purpose, never once looking back.
“Where—” He started as a branch brushed his sleeve. “Where are we headed?”
“I’m just trying to keep going. I’m afraid that if we stop, I’ll curl up into a ball and that will be it.” She twitched at a low, sonorous tolling. Not a church bell – deeper, and laden with baleful promise. “The mists have to end somewhere. Or maybe we’ll find some of Father’s hearthguard.”
For the first time, Altiris saw his own fear reflected in Sidara’s eyes. More than that, he had the sense that she wanted – maybe even needed – a voice beyond her own assuring her that all would be well.
“Lead on, milady.”
Sidara’s left eyelid flickered in suspicion of mockery. Then she nodded, and started along the lychpath. A wailing cry sounded beyond.
Maridov’s scream stuttered as the robed figure drew him close. Carapaced shapes scuttled across withering, bloodless flesh and rusting armour. Captain Vona Darrow swallowed her horror and beckoned frantically to the constables at her back.