by Matthew Ward
“We don’t have time to—”
Apara clapped a hand over Melanna’s mouth and held a finger up to her own lips. “Listen.”
She heard nothing at first – at least, nothing beyond the crackle and rustle of branches that had plagued her senses since they’d left the mist gate behind. Then something louder, heavier. A rushing, intermittent creak growing steadily louder.
A heartbeat later, she saw it through the trees: a hunched, four-legged shape lumbering through the undergrowth. Its moss-draped body was like a grunda in silhouette, with a barrel-chest and a neck set low between massive shoulders. But where grundas were seldom taller than a man, this creature was the size of a house. In place of leathery grey skin, it had a strawjack’s briar-woven “flesh”; where a grunda sported a curved horn on its snout, this had a pair of antlers above its vast, deep-set eyes.
Brilliant white blossoms gleamed upon a mossy back. Petals shook free with every ponderous, reverberating step, to be fought over by the thornmaidens capering in its wake. The beast lumbered on, oblivious. Melanna had no idea what the creature was, nor whether the tussle was sport or ritual.
She eased down behind an oak as the peculiar carnival lurched closer and caught the first snatches of song on the breeze, the lilting notes interrupted as one thornmaiden snatched a petal from another, and was pounced into the ferns for the deed. The first waft of pollen reached Melanna soon after, and with it the stirring, giddy compulsion to break from concealment and join the merriment. She crushed a sleeve to her nose and mouth and glanced at Apara to offer warning. None was needed. Standing in the lee of the oak, Apara had her face buried in the crook of her elbow.
The procession headed away, branches swaying uphill to mark its passage. As the song faded, the insidious pollen with it, Melanna rose. “We should keep moving.”
Apara nodded, her eyes still on the broken trail of foliage. “Feel better?”
Melanna blinked at the question. “Yes. Why?”
“Always better to know there’s a guard than to wonder.”
It made a certain twisted sense. An ambush sprung could be fought. An ambush feared only paralysed. “They didn’t look much like guards.”
“I doubt anything down here looks much like anything it should.” Apara stared downhill, at the maze of pathways winding beneath the dying leaves. “There are two kinds of marks. The vulnerable, and those who only look it.”
Melanna stifled a grimace of distaste. “And which is this?”
“I don’t know.” For the first time, Apara smiled. “That’s what makes it fun. Try to keep up.”
They made better time now Melanna’s nebulous fears had found expression. They encountered two more of the moss rovers during the descent, one accompanied by its own carnival of thornmaidens, and another slumped motionless in a rare sun-dappled glade, so still she couldn’t tell whether it was alive or dead.
Deeper in, they sighted strawjacks too. Some shambled through the undergrowth on unknowable errands; others congregated around timeworn dolmens wreathed in black ivy, silent save for the ever-present rustling, crackling sound and swaying gently as if caught in a breeze. The more Melanna saw of the strawjacks, the more she was struck by how witless they seemed, so very unlike their thornmaiden siblings. Perhaps Jack liked his sons obedient and his daughters vicious.
They saw only one other thornmaiden, though the wind beneath the trees brought snatches of song from many more. She sat amid the roots of an ancient yew, legs tucked beneath and lithe fingers braiding the briars of her hair while luminescent flowers pulsed in time to her song.
Melanna all but stumbled into that glade, for the thornmaiden had been invisible against the yew’s creased skin and garland of mistletoe. But for Apara’s restraining hand, she would have done. The thornmaiden had shifted at the crackle of movement, revealing her clay mask against the darker weaving of her flesh.
When Melanna almost repeated the mistake with a strawjack grove a few minutes later, she was forced to a humbling reappraisal of her abilities. Skills honed walking the Tressian Southshires were wholly inadequate in Fellhallow, where a tree might not be a tree at all. That the briarkin were so often indistinguishable from the wider forest might have offered some comfort, if not for the fact that the city-raised Apara missed nothing.
“How do you do it?” said Melanna, grudging respect overcoming pride. “I swear I see nothing, but there’s something there anyway.”
Apara shrugged. “I see nothing, too. But it’s a different kind of nothing. The difference between an empty space, and a space that looks empty. I’ve always known where to find eyes in the shadows. It’s why they wanted me for a kernclaw.”
Recollection of the birch mound flashed back. Her father’s weight as they fled his assassin. “And you… You wanted to be a kernclaw?”
She winced. “Once. Or my cousins let me think I did. That’s how it works. One decision becomes the next, and the next, and before you know it, you’re doing things you never really thought you would, and you’re not sure why. And all the while, a piece of you takes the credit. Better to have damned yourself than admit it was done to you. I’ve lied to myself far more than to others.”
“That must be hard.”
Apara laughed softly. “That’s the thing. There’s nothing easier when you’ve only bad options and worse ones.”
“And which is this?”
“I don’t know. I think… I think for the first time it might be for me to decide. At least until the Raven calls in my debts. Then I’ll never choose anything else again.” She slowed to a halt. “We might be here.”
Melanna’s heart quickened as she followed Apara into the shadow of a crooked oak and peered into a glade that, at first sight, seemed little different to the others. She could have walked the boundary of fallen leaves in a minute, no more, and there was nothing to suggest that this place was a particular seat of power. No throne. No guards. No sign of any form of life, save for the dull, breathy rumble that had by now become so familiar she barely noticed it any longer.
Indeed, the only thing that marked the glade as different was the stone circle at its heart. Melanna counted seven in all, each covered in Fellhallow’s black ivy and crowned by roses. By contrast to the slab-like dolmens seen elsewhere, none were larger than a woman. The Seven Dancers of Glandotha. The Keepers of Jack’s heart. At least, so they were named in legend and promised by Ashana. It felt unreal. It also felt like she’d been there before.
“Well?” she asked.
“Seven statues, and every path leads uphill.” Apara swept back her hair, the badger’s streak of white stark against the auburn. “If your goddess speaks truly, this is Glandotha. The heart of Fellhallow.”
“She wouldn’t lie. Not about this.”
“I had the impression she was guessing more than she was certain.”
“The heart is here.” Melanna rubbed her breastbone, and realised with a start that it wasn’t her heart that had quickened, for all that the pulse throbbed in her veins. “I can… I can feel it.”
She made to enter the glade, then remembered recent close calls. “Do you see anything?”
“I’ll keep watch.”
Alert for anything out of the ordinary, Melanna broached the ferns at the glade’s edge and made for the ring of dancers. Details about the stones sang out. Most notable was that there should have been eight, not seven, the missing one having been removed from the near end of the ring at some time in the past. Closer still, and she realised that, beneath the embrace of thorn and ivy, the statues appeared pristine and unmarked by time’s passage.
It was then she realised that the dancers weren’t stone at all, but statues of polished wood, each hewn in a woman’s likeness. Two wore armour, another very little of anything at all. A fourth wore a dress more alike to Tressian styling than anything Melanna had ever donned, while a fifth’s skirts bore the lace edging of a Rhalesh bridal gown. No two had much of anything in common save the tone and texture of the wood
itself. Both of which were all too familiar to Melanna, for she’d seen herself reflected thus in the waters of the divine clockface.
Her head spun. She pressed a hand to her mouth to still a rush of nausea. These weren’t statues. They weren’t dancers. They were Jack’s brides. Queens of Fellhallow past.
Melanna peered into the eyes of the nearest, but saw no reflection of life or soul. So Jack married his queens, then rendered them thus? Unmoving, unchanging throughout all the seasons of the world. Nothing more than trophies. The woman in front of her was little more than a girl. How had she come to her throne? Had she been tricked? Traded? Seized against her will?
That a woman would consent freely to such a fate defied belief, for of all the fates Melanna had imagined for herself in the passing years, this was bleaker by far. The traditions of the Golden Court elevated to infinity. A queen as a trophy, not a ruler.
And this was the fate her father had made for her.
Melanna’s stomach spasmed and steadied. Turning from the lifeless queen, she paced to the centre of the ring, slipped her dagger free of its sheath and began to dig.
What began as calm, methodical labour quickly became frantic. Impossible to forget her bartered fate with seven regal gazes upon her, and the second heartbeat booming in her chest alongside her own. Impossible to forget Jack’s creeping, crackling presence beneath the walls of Vrasdavora, or the leer in his eyes. The empty space in the ring.
Hers.
Melanna dug faster and faster, the dagger abandoned in favour of scooping away the soft loam with her hands. Nails split and fingers bled. Still she dug. Deeper. Deeper. The first she knew of her tears was when they spattered onto the soil.
“Hush.” The voice was soft as silk. “You’ve such lovely eyes. Weeping will only spoil them.”
Melanna turned. A dark-haired woman stood before the statue she’d examined, blue eyes bright and hands folded across the black lace of her bridal gown. She was the statue, or it her. They could have been sisters. Twins. Melanna cursed herself for being crept up on.
“My mother thought me good for nothing but scandal,” said the woman. “But now I am Queen Kendrae of Fellhallow. She must feel very foolish.”
Melanna clambered upright. Apara was nowhere to be seen. “How long ago was that?”
Kendrae offered a conspiratorial smile. “It doesn’t matter. Time’s river doesn’t flow here. Not as it does out there.”
Her manner was off, kin to a drunkard’s. Jack’s doing? Was that how he controlled her? Magic aside, there were many poisons to deaden the will, and they surely all grew in Fellhallow. “Who is Emperor? What year is it?”
“Emperor?” Kendrae giggled. “You’re having a game with me.”
Melanna grabbed her wrist. “How long have you been here?”
She tilted her head. “You really do have beautiful eyes.”
“You’ll get nothing useful out of her.” The new voice came from the opposite side of the circle where a pallid Tressian woman with blonde hair and dark eyes stood before her own statue. “It must be a blessing to be so shallow. Kendrae still thinks she’s his favourite. When really, of course—”
“When of course, I’m the only true queen,” said another, this time from Melanna’s right. “As you well know, Ellian.”
“Really, Ilnore,” sniffed Ellian. “Just because you came to him out of choice—”
“And because I’ve the finest hair.” Ilnore frowned. “Still, she has beautiful hair too.”
“Yes, she does,” said Kendrae. “We’re lucky the others are asleep.”
Melanna stepped back, unease trickling to fear. “And why’s that?”
Kendrae frowned. “Because—”
“Oh, you foolish girl,” said Ellian. “Don’t you see? Our king has chosen her. She’s to be one of us.”
The frown grew distinctly unfriendly. “I don’t think I like that.”
“Nor do I,” said Ilnore. “It’s crowded enough around here as it is.”
“Then again,” said Ellian, “our king isn’t here. We could share her. He doesn’t have to know.”
The three stared at Melanna, who cast a fruitless glance beyond the glade. Where was Apara? She put a hand on her sword. Seeming not to notice, the queens drifted closer.
“So long as I get her eyes,” said Kendrae.
Ellian nodded. “Agreed, if I have her hair.”
Ilnore rubbed her cheek. “Then I claim her skin. The others can fight over the rest when they wake.”
Melanna swallowed and drew her sword.
They were mad, that much was certain. Had they always been that way, or had madness claimed them with the passage of time? The bleak depths of her father’s bargain stood clearer than ever. How long as Jack’s bride before their insanity was hers also? For the first time, Melanna understood why Ashana had been so terrified of her own reflection in the Dark.
The glade’s light flickered. Where the three women had stood, there were now three skeletal corpses in ragged garb, their bones woven together with vines and the stench of rotten leaf-spoil that set Melanna’s head spinning.
“Don’t be foolish,” said Kendrae, the sweet voice macabre. “This is kindness.”
A hand closed around a hank of Melanna’s hair and jerked back her head. Agony racing through her scalp, she thrust at Ilnore. The point passed clean through threadbare dress and bone without making contact.
“We’ll be beautiful again,” said Ilnore. “You’ll be free. That’s fair.”
Melanna pulled away, pain and torn hair a price gladly paid for freedom. Balance lost, she sprawled in the disturbed soil and scrambled away. “Apara!”
“Don’t damage her hair!” hissed Ellian.
Gasping, Melanna regained her feet. Steel didn’t hurt them, and she’d nothing else at her disposal. “Apara! Curse you, vranakin! Where are you?”
No answer came. Melanna bolted for the glade’s far side.
Somehow, Kendrae arrived first, ragged lace drifting behind. “We don’t want to hurt you. Really we don’t.”
Melanna ducked a grasping hand and struck out anew. Another hand tugged her ankle, and she fell. Ilnore landed atop her, grave-breath wet and pungent, her strength beyond contest as she forced Melanna’s arms against the fallen leaves.
Ellian drifted close, Melanna’s discarded dagger in her skeletal fingers. “Hair first. Then eyes. Then the skin. Then we’ll wake the others.”
She started forward.
Apara coughed. “Beg pardon, your majesties.”
The queens turned. Arms still pinned in place, Melanna craned her neck.
Apara stood beside Kendrae’s statue, an ornate and soil-stained wooden casket at her feet, and a small tinderbox in her taloned hand. A spark flew from the flint. The statue caught light, fire racing across its polished surface with a speed to which it had no right.
Kendrae screamed, a sound so rich with agony and madness that it jarred Melanna’s bones. “What have you done! What…”
The words bled into an ululating wail and she flung herself at Apara. Halfway there, she burst into a swirl of thick, black smoke and smouldering vines.
The remaining queens stared, frozen in horror, as the vines about Kendrae’s statue crackled and went black.
“That’s two women I’ve burned lately,” said Apara, a tightness in her voice Melanna couldn’t quite read. “Want to try for three, or four? No? Then back in the statues.”
The queens exchanged glances. Then they vanished as if they’d never been, leaving Melanna with the stench of the grave and kindling for a thousand nightmares. Eyes still on Kendrae’s burning statue, she rose on trembling legs.
“Where were you?”
“Getting this.” Gathering up the wooden box, Apara walked over and creaked open the lid. “It is what we came for. And since you had them distracted…”
Melanna peered inside. There, nestling in a lining of black silk, pulsed a heart of leaf and briar, green fire flickering through the w
eave, and its beat marking time with the alien tremor in Melanna’s own chest.
Distracted.
“Did you know?” she said, tone hard as granite. “Did you know about them?”
Apara shook her head. “I wasn’t sure whether the place was vulnerable, or just looked it. I wanted to be sure.”
“And I was bait?”
She snapped the box shut. “Why not? We had to know, and I bet you didn’t have any alchemist’s powder on your person, did you?”
Drowning in anger, disgust and lingering horror, Melanna struck her. Apara staggered, though not nearly as much as she should have. Black blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. She wiped it away with the back of her hand, brow creasing with uncertain emotion as it hissed away to nothing.
“You used me!” snapped Melanna.
“How does it feel, princessa?” She didn’t sound triumphant, only tired. “I imagine it’s a new experience.”
Melanna looked again at the statues. One burning, six cold and quiet, and the one that was hers yet to be. “Burn the others.”
“I’m out of alchemist’s powder. We should leave before they work that out.”
Still seething, Melanna turned about. There. Beyond Ilnore’s statue. A gleam of moonlight through the trees. A beacon to guide them home. “This way.”
Sixty
The last of Viktor’s doubts fell away beneath galloping hooves. Calenne. Josiri. Self and purpose. The arithmetic of numbers and distance, of weary soldiers and Hadari spears. He beheld only battle fought on a sprawling scale he’d never seen; an army beset and the redemption of the sword.
Havildars and princes screamed at their warriors to lock shields. Arrows struck deep into the vanaguards’ broad, circular shields. Thrakkian pipes screamed. The ill-made Silsarian wall shuddered. Axes bit down, and the air filled with blood.