by Morgan Rice
“If it’s so easy,” Lucas said, “solve it for us.”
He tossed it to Endi, who caught it in spite of his surprise. As soon as he touched it, though, it was no more than a dull, flat circle of metal. The glowing lines were gone. Lucas held out his hand and Endi tossed it back. Lucas caught it with far more grace.
“If one of us touches it,” he said, “it glows. I used to make a game out of it when I was small, running up to touch it when Official Ko wasn’t watching, trying to get away again before he noticed the glow.”
Sophia smiled at the thought of that.
“You think that it takes more of us touching it to make it work?” she asked. “You think it will take the three of us?”
In answer, Lucas held it out to her. “Let’s find out. Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps two of us will be enough.”
Sophia reached out for it, and as soon as she touched it, she could feel the power of the thing. Whoever had made it had managed to infuse something of her family’s power into it, and even as she watched, that power started to have an effect. The concentric circles of the device started to move, grinding into place with strange clicks and whirs.
Sophia saw them start to form a picture, the lines coming together as the rings shifted. It took her a moment to make sense of them, but when she did, she saw the outlines of coasts and islands, rivers and roads snaking through them.
“It’s a map,” she said.
It was, but it was a map without a purpose. There was no mark suggesting where her parents might be, no clue to their location. It was the setting for an answer without its presence, and that was in some ways more frustrating than the unresolved puzzle had been.
Lucas seemed more optimistic.
“It is more than I have been able to do alone,” Lucas said, “but not enough to find our parents. Perhaps if one can make this glow, and two can make it move, three will reveal the truth.”
“We need Kate,” Sophia agreed. She looked around. There was still no sign of her. “Has anyone seen her?”
That just brought shrugs and head shakes from her cousins. Frig stepped forward. “Ulf and I will find her, cousin. We’ll send riders, and we’ll go ourselves. She’ll have gotten caught up hunting, no doubt.”
“No doubt,” Sophia said, although the truth was that she had at least some doubts. When Kate had been hunting in the last few days, she’d taken their cousins with her. “She’ll want to hear this.”
“And I’d like to finally meet both my sisters,” Lucas said.
Sophia wondered how Kate would react to Lucas. She hoped Kate would like him as much as she did, would feel the same instant connection. She suspected that the two would have plenty in common.
“It will, at least, give us time to talk,” her uncle, their uncle, said. “I’m sure Sophia wants to know more about your life with Official Ko. I know I do. How is the old man?”
“Older than ever,” Lucas said. He laughed. “Fatter than ever, more careful in planning than ever, and more impossible.”
“That sounds like Ko,” Lars said. He obviously caught Sophia’s questioning look, because he turned to her to explain. “Official Ko was the son of one of the Silk Lands’ prefects when your parents and I met him. He had traveled here because he thought, almost uniquely for the Silk Lands, that there were things outside it worth learning. He arrived in the middle of the war, and when he left, I thought it must be because he had grown sick of it.” He looked over at Lucas. “I should have guessed that he would have a purpose, and I am glad he did.”
That seemed to be the cue for their cousins to dive in with their own questions.
“What is it like in the Silk Lands?” Rika asked. “They tell me that they have instruments there that play more beautifully than any harp.”
“They have harpists too,” Lucas said. “And from what I have heard of you, cousin, your playing is likely to be as beautiful as any there.”
Rika flushed at that, and Sophia could pick out the pride in her thoughts, as the one cousin who couldn’t shield them well.
“They say that your warriors can be formidable,” Hans said. “Perhaps we could practice together some time.”
“I would like that,” Lucas said. There was something about the confidence with which he said it that told Sophia he didn’t anticipate losing.
Sophia had her own questions. “Tell me more about growing up with Official Ko,” she said. “What was it like?”
Lucas, her brother, paused for a moment, obviously thinking. “It was probably a strange life, looked at from outside,” he said at last. “Even when I was small, I could see that not every child had a sword master to play fight with them, or a champion of the Far Steppes to teach them to wrestle. Official Ko brought in people to teach me everything from languages to calligraphy, and he would call me to his study every night to tell him what I had learned.”
“That sounds like Ko,” Uncle Lars said. “Did he try to teach you about this Virtuous Way of his?”
“The Way of Virtue, yes,” Lucas said. He bowed his head. “I suspect that he was a better teacher than I was a student.”
“All I know is that he was always drunk a lot for a man of so much virtue,” Uncle Lars said.
Lucas smiled. “I asked him about that once. He explained to me that it was not about simple prohibitions, but about fitting in with the world, and his misfortune was that the world wanted him to drink wine.”
They all laughed at that. Sophia was a little surprised by how quickly he’d managed to fit in with her family. He seemed to have the knack of getting on with people, which reminded her more of herself than of Kate. Lucas seemed to be somewhere between the two of them in more than just age.
“Official Ko must have taught you the arts of rulership as well,” her cousin Endi said. “He must have tried to prepare you for what was expected of you.”
“He did that part himself,” Lucas said.
Sophia had to admit that she envied him that a little. When they’d told her who she was, and that it meant that she might one day be queen, it had felt as though she simply didn’t know what she was supposed to be doing.
“I might have to ask you for tips,” she said.
“I could be your advisor,” Lucas suggested, in a tone that said he was only joking a little.
“Or Sophia could be yours,” Endi said.
Sophia saw most of the others look at him in shock. Her uncle frowned.
“What do you mean, Endi?” Lars demanded. “Remember that we have sworn allegiance to your cousin.”
Sophia saw Endi raise his hands in a gesture meant to placate.
“I’m not trying to cause any trouble,” he said, “but we swore that before we knew that Lucas here was alive. Doesn’t that make things complicated?”
“How would it make things complicated?” Jan asked, moving to Sophia’s defense. “Sophia is to be queen.”
She saw Endi nod. “Of course, of course. It’s just… don’t the old laws of the kingdom, don’t our laws, say that it’s the oldest male heir who inherits? Won’t that cause problems building support?”
“Why would you try to cause a problem?” Rika asked.
Endi shook his head. “I’m not trying to cause problems, sister. I’m trying to anticipate them. What happens when our nobles start saying that Sophia should not be queen, because there is a king available? What happens when men do not fight for her banners? What happens when our forces splinter because half of them want to put Lucas on the throne?”
Sophia hadn’t thought of it that way, but as soon as her cousin said it, she could see the potential problem. If she gave people any excuse to think that she wasn’t legitimately their queen, wouldn’t that make things more difficult? She wasn’t sure what to think of that. It wasn’t as though she’d ever set out to become queen. She just wanted to find her parents.
“Oli, what do you say?” Endi asked. “You know all the laws.”
“Not all of them,” Oli said, but Sophia knew that if
anyone had been through the old law books, it would be her most studious cousin. “But in this case, I think you’re right. I’m sorry.”
He made it into an apology, but even so, it hurt. Sophia hadn’t expected this to hurt. She’d never really wanted the role of queen in waiting, but now that they were threatening to take it away from her, it felt to Sophia as if she were losing the place where she belonged. She thought of all the disruption that this might cause, all the arguments…
She knew there was only one thing she could do.
Very carefully, she got down on one knee, looking up at her brother. “If they say that you’re the one who should be king,” Sophia said, “then you should be king, Lucas. If it will keep people safe, I will swear allegiance to you. You will be king.”
And she… well, she didn’t know what she would be.
CHAPTER NINE
Kate ran from the creatures that hunted her through the shifting darkness. She sliced with her sword as one got too close, but Kate didn’t stop to try to fight it. She’d already found that some things couldn’t be killed so easily.
The darkness around her changed, becoming the House of the Unclaimed. It was alight now, smoke burning in Kate’s lungs, figures coming out of that smoke to grab for her. She recognized Sister O’Venn as the long dead masked nun swung a whip at her, the barbs of it slicing across Kate’s skin in a flash of agony. She struck again as hands grabbed Kate’s arms, dragging her toward the whipping post that sat at the center of the House’s courtyard.
“No!” Kate yelled. “This didn’t happen to me. It was Sophia you whipped!”
“Then you’re long past due your turn, aren’t you, you foolish girl?” Sister O’Venn snapped, lashing out once more with her weapon.
“This didn’t happen,” Kate said. “This isn’t real!”
The pain was real, though, even if her skin healed the moment the lash was gone, even if there was no sign of the damage that it should have done. Kate might have been grateful for that another time, but here she realized the cruelty of it. It meant that there was no way for this to end, no promise of a release into death that might save her from more of it.
She screamed as they struck at her, the blows falling again and again.
Kate tore free, kicking at the images of the nuns. They shimmered as Kate struck them, revealing hints of other things underneath, things that made her mind refuse to look at them for fear of going mad. She didn’t know whether they were fragments of her nightmares, things created by Siobhan to punish her, or simply the cruel inhabitants of whatever place her spirit occupied.
It didn’t matter right then. What mattered was that she had to run, and keep running, even as the scene around her shifted again, and again.
How many times had it shifted so far? Kate wasn’t sure that time worked the same way here as anywhere else. It felt as though she’d been here for days, suffering torment after torment, the horrors of her own mind coming at her, each with its own unique way of torturing her. Gertrude Illiard had come for her a dozen times, each with a new way to strangle or drown or smother her. The nuns followed with whips, the soldiers she’d killed with swords and knives.
Yet there were things here that tormented Kate in ways she couldn’t have begun to imagine before this. There were creatures that clawed at her, masked torturers with brands and blades… Kate had screamed so much now that she should have been hoarse with it, but she wasn’t, because even that didn’t stop. There was still no cease, no way out.
“There has to be a way out,” Kate said, pushing on through what seemed to be a jungle now, where every vine and branch had thorns to rip at her. There was the silver thread of the path out there somewhere, and if she could get back onto it, these things wouldn’t be able to touch her.
That was easier said than done. There was no sign of the path that would keep her safe, no sign of a way out of this. Even as she ran, creatures sprang from the undergrowth, tearing at her with claws and teeth, the wounds ripping through her, gone as quickly as they came.
Kate could feel tears in her eyes, welling there and falling as the pain dragged them from her. She wept as she ran now, cursing herself for her weakness, but knowing that it didn’t matter how strong she was. Without an end to the pain, the humiliation, the torture, this place would break anyone.
“You could stop fighting,” Haxa said, the rune witch stepping up beside her then. They were in the caverns beneath her home now, the walls encrusted with runes and symbols, images and signs.
For a moment, Kate thought that she’d somehow managed to break free, springing back into the real world so that everything that had happened was just a dream. Then she remembered.
“You’re dead,” she said. “Siobhan murdered you.”
“You killed me, as much as she did,” Haxa said, and now her face twisted with anger in ways that no human face would have been able to. “You killed me the moment you set me against her. You killed me with your arrogance, your need to be free!”
“No,” Kate said, backing away. “It wasn’t me.”
The runes on the walls began to twist, becoming red and angry things. Some of them reached out for her, wrapping her wrists in strands of power that held Kate as surely as any chains could have. Haxa stepped forward, and she had a knife in her hand.
“It’s time we gave you a new name,” the image of her said. Kate tried to tell herself that this wasn’t the real witch, but it made no difference as the knife touched her, cut into her. Kate screamed as this version of Haxa started to carve runes on her flesh.
“Each one of these is the word for ‘coward’ in another language,” Haxa said. “You are a coward, aren’t you, Kate?”
Kate shook her head, but she was too busy screaming to speak.
“Oh, I know you were strong for a while with borrowed power, but that’s just more cowardice. You needed what Siobhan gave you to feel safe. You abandoned your sister so you could seek it out.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Kate managed.
“You sought to hide among a free company, knowing that they’d protect you,” the twisted memory of Haxa accused as she continued to carve. “Then you ran from them when you knew the Dowager would send killers for you. You were too weak to refuse Siobhan when she wanted the merchant’s daughter dead, then too much of a coward to obey her when she wanted you to do more for her.”
“It isn’t like that,” Kate insisted. “You’re twisting things.”
The words hurt as much as any of the blades or the claws had. They tore at something deep inside of Kate, leaving her with no part of herself that she could keep safe from it all.
“You’ve twisted your whole life,” Haxa said. “You’ve twisted it into a vile, cowardly mess that means no one will ever want you.”
“Sophia,” Kate said, through the tears. “Sophia has always been there!”
“Not for much longer. The woman of the fountain wears your flesh. So careless to leave it unguarded. Would you like to see what she will do with it?”
“No,” Kate begged. “Please… no.”
It didn’t make a difference. What she wanted didn’t matter here, only the things that would hurt her the most. Those seemed to be plucked from the innermost recesses of her soul in a never-ending stream. The air around her shimmered, showing Sophia and a figure that looked like Kate.
“How might she kill her?” the image of Haxa asked, only now it wasn’t Haxa there. The face shifted from moment to moment, so that one instant it was a soldier talking, and the next it was Will. “Think of all the ways that she might slaughter your sister.”
In the image, Kate saw a knife flash out, Sophia clutching her throat. It was so real that for a moment, Kate couldn’t help herself.
“No!”
“Not that?” Now the creature in front of Kate wore her face. “How else should I do it? Let’s see…”
Murder followed murder in the minutes that followed, the image of Kate attacking Sophia in ways that seemed inconceivable.
She thrust a spear through her chest and strangled her with a cord, poisoned her drink and shot her with a musket. Each time, it felt as though Kate’s heart was being ripped out.
She had to find a way to stop it; to at least warn her sister. Maybe there was a chance of that much, if nothing else. Kate pulled her power to her, ignoring the pain of her bonds, ignoring the images in front of her, ignoring everything except the need to find the connection that had been there since her birth. That connection had always been the one thing she had been able to reach for when she needed comfort or help. It had been inconstant, because she and Sophia hadn’t always known how to use their powers, but Kate knew now.
She gathered up that power and threw it out in a simple call.
Sophia, you’re in danger! I’m not who I appear to be! I’m trapped!
She threw the words out into the dark, hoping to feel the connection as she reached Sophia’s mind. More than that, she hoped to hear words sent in response, coming back to her out of the silence she’d thrown them into.
There was nothing though. No answer, no connection, no hope.
“Oh, did you think you’d get out of here that easily?” the creature tormenting her demanded. It had claws now, and plunged them into Kate almost casually. “Defiance must be punished. Oath breakers must be punished.”
“I’m not an oath breaker!” Kate yelled. She wrenched away, and now she wrenched away from her bonds, although something told her that it was only happening because she was being allowed to do it. She was being let free by the creatures in this place the way a cat might let a mouse go. Kate hated that image. She wasn’t a mouse; she was a warrior!
“You’re a killer,” the voice said from the dark. “You’re going to kill your sister, and they’ll punish you for that. Siobhan will put you back into your body just in time to die. Would you like to see how they’ll do it? Maybe they’ll burn you like the witch you are.”
Kate was running through a village now, but she stopped as she saw what lay ahead. A pyre sat there, seemingly made of body after body. Instinctively, Kate knew that it would be all the people whose deaths she’d caused. Instinctively, she shied away from that pyre, looking for another direction in which to run.