by Matthew Ward
Jack issued a rasping, buzzing laugh. {{What could you possibly offer in exchange?}}
“Only this.”
Laughter faded as Apara unwrapped the box from its covering and eased it open. {{That is mine.}}
“The sapling cares not where it flourishes,” said Ashana, “only that it does.”
Jack howled. A storm of briars and torn robes, he lunged for the box. Apara flinched. Indigo flame erupted from cracked stone and raced into the air. Jack shied away, crackling with anger.
Tzal’s hand fell back to his throne’s armrest. The fire faded. “Is dignity so far beyond you?”
Jack started forward again, then thought better of it as Tzal half-raised his hand.
{{She is a thief.}}
“So are you.”
Jack’s eyes blazed, but he gathered himself in. {{I will not relinquish my bride.}} Melanna’s gut soured as his green eyes settled on her, the grave-stench of her predecessors heavy in her nostrils though they were far away. {{She is mine! Vouchsafed by her father’s word.}}
“Did the father know his trade?” said Astor.
{{He tried to cheat me,}} Jack said sullenly. {{Everyone tries to cheat me.}}
“So he did not?”
“As if it matters!” The Nameless Lady rose to her feet, cheeks flushed and eyes bereft of mirth. “A daughter is not a possession, no matter how my own father might wish otherwise.”
Tzal’s flames flickered darker, but he said nothing.
{{That was the bargain. A bargain of kings. I will not break it. You may have the rest, but without a queen what use have I for a heart? That is the only bargain I offer.}}
Melanna felt Apara’s gaze on her, the question in her eyes obvious for all that it was unseen. Her heart stuttered and slowed, the horror of the inevitable thick in her throat. They could refuse the counter-bargain. Seek another way. But how many more would die? By all appearances, Jack had been on the brink of defeat, and the Reckoning moments away from inevitable. How could she set her own life against that? How could she cling to the imperial throne as everything died, knowing her selfishness had brought it to pass? The one solace was that her father had not meant to strike the bargain as he had. That counted for something.
“Apara—” she began.
“You will agree these terms, Jack,” said Ashana. “You will renounce your claims, and you will let all be as it was.”
{{And why would I do that?}}
She sighed. “Because then I will owe you a kindness. And because if you refuse…” Ashana’s jaw set, her tone alongside. “When the two of you leave this place, I will come with you. I will spend the last of myself to help our brother tear you apart, Reckoning or no. What use is a queen to a king who no longer is?”
Jack bristled. {{All this for her? I don’t believe you.}}
“If you deserved Melanna for your queen, you would. It’s my fault as much as yours that she’s in this position. I should share the burden of trade.” Ashana’s voice softened. “In the days of my predecessor, friendship existed between Fellhallow and Evermoon. You can have it again, or you can have nothing at all. Which is it to be?”
He tilted his head. {{What manner of kindness do you offer?}}
“We’ll discuss it. After.”
{{You’ll cheat me. I am always cheated.}}
“After pledging thus before our peers?” She shook her head. “That would be foolish.”
The place that was no place fell deathly silent save the buzzing crackle of Jack’s breath.
{{Very well,}} he said at last. {{The bargain is agreed. Melanna Saranal will be my queen only if she chooses.}}
Melanna all but gasped. Free. She was free. “She chooses otherwise.”
I will owe you a kindness. Happiness soured. She glanced at Ashana, and received no acknowledgement, nor even a smile.
Crooked fingers snatched the box from Apara’s grasp. Jack held it to his chest and shied away as if clutching a child. Apara hurriedly withdrew to the relative safety of Ashana’s side.
Melanna swallowed her doubts. The bargain with Jack was agreed, Ashana’s price alongside, and she’d her own part to play. Step by step, she made her way down to the shore of the glimmerless pool, the raven-shard held tight. The Raven’s eyes stayed on her every step of the way, threat and amusement in perfect balance. But fear remained a distant prospect, for the Raven could do no worse to her than Jack had intended.
“Lord Malgyn, Keeper of the Dead and Ruler of Otherworld. It is—”
He waved the words aside. “Yes, yes, yes. It is your wish that I remove my armies, and so on and so on. We’ve all enjoyed my sister’s little charade – particularly the last few moments – but there’s nothing that will induce me to break a bargain.”
She held out the raven-shard. “There’s this.”
“A bird? I hate to be the one to say, savim, but I’ve no shortage of such things.”
“Not like this,” said Melanna. “This one is unique. It’s from a day not yet come. From a world without a Raven.”
He paled, domino mask and goatee stark against ash-white skin. He stared past Melanna. “Sister, you take this joke too far!”
“No joke,” replied Ashana. “Even the Raven is not for ever.”
He gazed at the bird, mesmerised – though Melanna couldn’t say whether he found the prospect appalling or enticing. But his desire? It billowed thick around her. “How is such a thing possible?”
“Agree the bargain, and find out,” Melanna replied. “It’s a piece of you. The last piece. Whatever answers you seek, it holds.”
He licked his lips, the corner of his mouth twitching in thought. “Your terms?”
“The war ends. Your alliance with Tressia ends.” She glanced at Apara, whose gaze lay averted from the god to whom she’d been pledged. “And any debt owed you by Apara Rann is annulled. She’s to be free to choose her own path.”
He sighed theatrically. “The last is easily granted. Why does everyone assume I’ve any use for unwilling servants?” He smoothed his goatee. “As for the rest, I… I agree to your terms.”
Melanna allowed the raven-shard to fly free. A flicker of motion, and it was gone, absorbed into the Raven’s being as a raindrop claimed by the puddle.
After a brief glimmer of ecstasy, his face fell, his voice quiet as a whisper.
“Impossible! I…” He tapped fidgeting fingers to his lips, then closed them tight in his other hand. “I have to go. I have to think.”
Ashana started forward, hand outstretched. “No, wait!”
He was already gone, Jack also.
Thoughts aching with the strain of preceding moments, Melanna stared sightlessly up at the stars. Was it really ended? She was free of her father’s misguided promises, the divine war done and the Reckoning averted. She dared not believe, for fear it was all the whimsy of a weary mind. No, she decided, it was ended. Or at least, in part. An ephemeral war still raged, one she and Ashana had set in motion.
“Thank you.” Apara’s words shook her from reverie. “I don’t know what to say. I’ve not exactly been a pleasant companion.”
Melanna shrugged. “Someone recently pointed out that despite having every advantage, I’ve thought only of where I wanted to be, and not what I could do for others along the way.” She stared up to where Ashana was lost in conversation with the Nameless Lady. Astor looked to be asleep, his rusty mane rising and falling in time to the swell of his armoured chest. Tzal, aloof as ever, looked on from a distance. “The throne has shaped me, and I haven’t even sat in it yet. I don’t want it to.”
“I understand. At least, I think I do.” She winced, discomfited, then looked Melanna dead in the eye. “I owe you, princessa.”
“You don’t owe me anything. Be free.”
Apara nodded. “I can try. What comes next?”
“I must convince my father to end the war.”
“We’ve another problem to resolve first.” Ashana descended to the pool’s edge, the Nameless Lady a
t her side. The latter offered a shallow curtsey, the mirth returned to her blue-green eyes. “The war may be ended, but neither Jack nor the Raven agreed to reclaim their minions. One last petty act.”
“Actually,” said the Nameless Lady. “I can help you there. One is the mistress of wind and waves.”
Melanna eyed her warily. “And what will it cost us?”
She smiled, the years falling away until she was again the young woman Melanna had met on her last visit. “Nothing at all. My father hates generosity. His seething will be all the payment I require.”
So saying, she waded into the pool, its glimmerless waters dragging at her skirts. She raised her arms high and a fierce wind whipped at the waters, spiralling about the shore and up towards the distant stars.
Sixty-Five
The gale raged, plucking at cloth and limb. White hair and dark essence streaming behind, Rosa planted her feet. Uncertain cries challenged the wind’s howl, the soul-sparks of the living bright with terror. Formations broke apart and scattered. Riders plunged from panicked horses. Spectral ravens whipped to a seething funnel, drawn into a vortex of thunderous clouds.
The wind screamed to new heights. A revenant scattered into the hungry storm, streamers of black smoke sucked into the spiralling mists. The putrid flames of a strawjack’s eyes guttered to grey. Then it too was gone, thrashing stems and pitted bone, swept away into the clouds. One by one, all succumbed, black blossoms twisting on unseen currents as the winds raged faster and faster, splinters of the divine dragged from an ephemeral world.
Rosa felt pieces of herself fall away. Doubt curdled, the sensation of being stretched thin overwhelming, her feet both slipping through the mud, and already somewhere distant. Trembling with effort, she bent shoulders to the storm. Pieces of the Pale Queen vanished into wind-tossed smoke. She clung to the rest and screamed.
Winds sank and the skies cleared. Rosa fell gasping to her knees, the pieces of herself almost lost to the skies rewoven to flesh and form by unfamiliar instinct. Aching eyes beheld a field robbed of the divine, but far from empty.
The heaven-bound storm had left no trace of the godly war save desiccated branches and broken stems; silver masks gleaming beneath skies woken to sunlight. But soul-sparks yet abounded, untouched and unclaimed. Tressians and shadowthorns, cast to disarray. Infantry scrambled for the solace and safety of kinsmen. Cataphracts and vanaguards for their steeds.
The Raven’s final command pulsed through Rosa’s thoughts. Bring me my brother. Drink your fill. The one was done, but the other? It was a thirst never to be slaked. It called her. It was all she had. Pent-up anger and sorrow, distilled to its essence and bound to fragmented soul.
Rising, she lost herself to the beauty of fading lights.
The men of Rhaled had endured much. The contest of shield walls. The assault of the divine. The fury of Indrigsval, and the grasp of Viktor’s shadow. Now, with the air crackling in aftermath of storm, they broke. Banners were abandoned, heavy shields cast down. Voices that called for order drowned beneath the tremor of running feet.
Steadying his horse, Viktor reslung his claymore and stared across the milling field. Pockets of king’s blue gathered beneath arrow-plucked banners, hoisted aloft by weary arms. The first cheers rang out as embattled countrymen recognised changing fortune in golden rivers flowing east.
Not a victory, nor anything like. Even if Rhaled’s part in the battle were done, there remained spears enough to slaughter what few defenders remained. Of the troops Izack had brought to the field, perhaps two thousand remained fit to fight, and all were weary. The Dauntless was a sinking wreck, its filthy smoke blown north as the Ash Wind reasserted itself. And there were too many empty saddles among the Indrigsval host. Too many vanaguard and thrydaxes swept to Skanandra’s mirrored forge. Even with Keldrov’s force all but untouched from its fighting retreat across the valley, still the Hadari held fearsome advantage in numbers.
No, not a victory. Not yet. Maybe never.
Viktor flexed his fingers to ease aching muscles. So much to be done. The line to be formed. Keldrov’s fresh soldiers to be joined to the exhausted survivors. Physicians to be harried. Words spoken to fire blood and spirit. A miracle to be mustered, if he could rouse himself to it, but how? He’d blinded an army at Davenwood, but only for a moment. This one was vaster by far – too vast for a moment to matter. His shadow alone wasn’t enough. But what else was there?
Screams to the north broke his reverie, the battle that had fallen silent in all other quarters still raging along the Govanna-Sirovo road. Except it wasn’t a battle, but a slaughter. A pale, vaporous figure swept across the trampled meadowlands, unbound white hair and inky darkness boiling behind like an unravelling soul. Hadari fled before her. A red wake stretched behind.
Rosa had been a soldier. A warrior. What haunted the roadside was something wholly other. It gave no account of quarry unmanned by fear, nor hands aloft in surrender. All met the blade, and their killer swept on. Already the dead escaped count. With each new corpse their killer grew wilder, her keening crueller.
Viktor had glimpsed her before, at battle’s height. Lost in the struggle for survival, he’d marked only her physical deterioration. Only now did he perceive her madness, close kin to that which had claimed Calenne Akadra. Except Calenne had been a lie woven from loss. Rosa was real, but growing less so by the moment, a friend eaten away and something else rising in its place.
Thus Viktor, who knew better than most that humanity was lost more by degrees than by absolutes, forgot the cruel truths of battle to come.
Soldiers scattered from his path, warned by the onset of hooves and the bellows of warning.
“Rosa!”
His cry went unheeded, lost beneath the screams of her victims. Still she swept on, a bleak blossom more spirit than substance, eyes burning black in an ashen face.
“Rosa! Fight it!”
A part of Viktor rebelled his own intent. Rosa had tallied more dead in sparse minutes than he since his coming to the field. What if she were the miracle he sought? A reckoner of divine might, somehow escaped the cleansing winds.
All it would cost was what remained of her soul, and his alongside for letting it pass.
Still she swept on. A fleeing Hadari crumpled, throat open to the bone. Another rolled away beneath the hooves of Viktor’s steed, torn almost in two by the blow that had taken his life.
“Rosa!”
Again she ignored him. Not a flicker of hesitation, nor a backward glance. With no other options left save ride her down, Viktor flung himself from the saddle.
Over and over they rolled, until he knelt breathless atop her. Black eyes regarded him without recognition. Lips snarled anger. A pale hand flung him away.
Viktor scrambled for footing among the dead, a chill trickle at the base of his spine. Twice Rosa’s size and weighed down by plate, and still she’d flung him away. “Listen to me!”
Rosa’s sword came up. Blood hissed and spat beneath black flame. “Come not between the Pale Queen and her due.”
She sprang, vapour billowing behind.
Viktor shrugged his claymore free.
Buccinas boomed out. The column of march became a wall of shields, halberds and crossbows readied behind. Quarrels hissed out, pitching cataphracts and outriders from their saddles.
“Back!”
Aeldran’s frustration boiled up as the wings of the doomed charge peeled away, riders pulling clear of crossbow-shot and reformed beneath their chieftains’ banners.
The Icansae host, dwindled by the losses of campaign, couldn’t challenge so large and disciplined a shield wall. Not without arrows, and every quiver had been empty for hours. Not without the aid of the Corvanti, and King Raeth seemed of no inclination to send his spears forward. And the Tressians were more disciplined than any he’d known. The numeral of the 14th and the spread-winged phoenix – icons whispered of grieving families after the disaster at Davenwood. For the first time, Aeldran understood how
Emperor Saran’s summer campaign had died.
Even as the riders fell back, buccinas sounded anew. The wall dissolved. The march resumed as it had a dozen times before, the jeers of Tressian soldiers audible even at distance.
“Raven take the Corvanti!” Aeldran thrust his unblooded sword back into its scabbard and sought Aelia – strange to think of her as such after so many careful years – among the other riders. “We need—”
He matched her stare… northward, to where the meadowlands ran gold with routed warriors. No cry reached his ears, for the Ash Wind bore them north towards the river.
“The Emperor,” he breathed. “Where is the Emperor?”
Straining eyes found no sign of the imperial standard, nor those of the foremost Rhalesh chieftains. Another glance glimpsed no suggestion of Corvanti or Silsarian shields marching to rescue disaster – only kings and princes paralysed by an army set to flight and a field choked with dead.
“Aelia. This is your moment. Your chance to prove all you have sought.”
She shrugged off her helm. Eyes and voice brimmed with resignation. “They won’t follow me. Not Maggad’s granddaughter. Not Aelia the Liar. What regard I hold was granted by the House of Saran, and the House of Saran…”
She fell silent, eyes on the jagged line of emerald and gold where the road met the tavern’s bounds. Where the Emperor’s banner had last flown. Without a word, she galloped away north.
“Rosa, please!”
Fury flushed to satisfaction as the dark man’s claymore buckled beneath Rosa’s strikes. He staggered, the blade flashing up to deflect another blow.
“You’re a knight of Essamere. A shield first and a sword second. Look at what you’ve done! What would Sevaka say to see you now?”
Sevaka. The name chimed bright in her bleak heart and slid away. “Leave me alone!”
Two voices screamed the words. The Knight of Essamere and the Pale Queen.
Which was she?