Heir to the Raven (The Pierced Veil, #1)

by J. Wesley Bush

  “What a pleasant coincidence,” he said, joining them in the cobbled central aisle. “I’d hoped to see you once more.”

  Saafi clung resolutely to the horse bridle and raised a henna-dyed eyebrow at Helaena.

  “It is a happy surprise,” Helaena said, extending a hand.

  Addison brushed his lips over her knuckles. “They say you’re going to fight the Vyr. I wanted to give you something, for luck.” From around his neck he unwound a scarf and placed it in her hands. It was of fine, white linen and embroidered with lovely designs in black and red. “I often wrap my helmet with this when it’s hot. A trick I learned in Great Keferi. It’s always brought me luck, and hopefully will do the same for you.”

  “Thank you. You’re very thoughtful.” Draping the scarf over her shoulders, Helaena once again felt shy. “So… you’re riding for the chapterhouse then?”

  Addison pitched his voice low. “A bird arrived yesterday. The knight-commander gave me permission to investigate the situation in Belgorsk.”

  “Is the Order worried about an invasion, too?” Saafi asked, managing to slur only a little.

  “That would be the charitable interpretation. Likely they’re concerned about the breakdown in trade. Whatever the reason, I’m free to travel.”

  “And you? Do you think Leax plans to invade us?” Helaena ran a hand through Buttermilk’s mane. “And how will you enter Belgorsk without drawing attention?”

  “I fear that he does. Waldrich Swan and I will ride north together, and I’ll enter Belgorsk by way of the Swan lands. Without my colors, I can pass as a free sword – I might even join Leax’s army for a time to see what I can learn.”

  “You might need this lucky scarf more than I do.”

  “Nonsense,” he said, giving a courtly bow. It always jarred Helaena when foreign men did that; Jandari men bowed to no one except God. “I’ll let you be on your way. Still need to get Intrepid ready for our journey. Best of luck on the frontier.”

  Helaena was still watching Addison when Saafi rode by, mouthing the word “harlot”.

  Both portcullises were up by the time they left the castle, though she had to nudge the ferryman awake with her boot. He took them to shore and they set off for the frontier. By then Saafi was sober, though much the worse for wear.

  “Reyhan is a wicked, wicked man,” she moaned from the saddle. “Why did you let me drink with him?”

  “Like you’ve ever listened to me.”

  “Could we rest for a while and ride tonight? The sun is brighter than it should be.”

  Helaena tossed over a wineskin. “Best cure for snakebite is a taste of the same venom.”

  “That makes no sense at all,” Saafi said miserably, but didn’t return the wineskin.

  Helaena shrugged. “If the world made sense, men would ride sidesaddle, rather than fine Eastern ladies.” And Father would still be alive.

  That afternoon they overtook a column of troops going to reinforce Lord Dexter on the frontier. A few knights rode at the fore, followed by mounted serjeants and a long line of militia. Tradesmen in March towns were exempt from most taxes, but had to maintain a horse and crossbow, and it was times like this when they earned their exemption. Strapped to the rump of each militia horse was a tall wicker-and-leather shield.

  Falling in with the column, Helaena rode in silence, too drained for conversation. Saafi also kept quiet, giving a bleak, bloodshot stare to the one soldier who tried engaging her. Sir Eustace, the detachment commander, had orders to patrol the border until Castle Dexter, inspecting village defenses beyond the Sanguine Cliffs along the way.

  The first two settlements greeted them warmly, though they were disappointed to learn the soldiers would not be staying. Helaena and the others dug ditches around each village kraal, fortifying them with stakes smeared with night soil.

  All of it passed in a listless fog for Helaena. Even riding past Rose Lake, with its pink, briny water and beautiful columns of salt did nothing for her spirits.

  On the third day they passed a peddler’s cart, looted and burned to its wheels by the Vyr. The horses were gone, but the peddler’s bones lay skyburied in the grass. Once he was interred, they continued toward the next village, Little Astrup.

  “I’m dreading Astrup,” Saafi mused as they rode. “They made us eat bugs last time and watch their peasant dances.”

  “That was Adstron. You liked Astrup. They were so fascinated with your hair they made you queen of the planting festival.”

  “Oh, that’s right! They gave me a garland and pretended to sacrifice me. And then we ate all night. It’s my favorite village.”

  “Well, we’re almost there.”

  As the sun hovered just above the horizon, the tiny hamlet came into view. The night gate was still open, she noticed, though the grain fields were bare of people. By the time the lead riders approached the gate she was close enough to see that it was ripped away entirely.

  Her battlemate would take it hard. “Saafi—” she began, but shouts from the vanguard cut her off.

  “The village is lost! Nothing remains!”

  A few minutes later, Helaena saw how false the report had been. Much remained of the village, only none of it was alive. Outside the kraal lay stallions and bulls, quilled with arrow shafts.

  Sir Eustace met them at the fallen gate. “My ladies,” he said faintly, halting his mount to block their way, “Best you not enter.”

  “Allow us to pass,” Helaena said, continuing to ride forward. “We’re bowmaids, not milkmaids.”

  “Very well. Enjoy your visit.”

  Helaena instantly regretted her bravado. The village had been tiny, no more than a few families. Each hut was torched, along with the storehouse. The men of the village rotted where they fell, while the naked bodies of matrons and old women lay near the ashes of the storehouse. Worst was the children. They were piled like cordwood on the godthrone, the older ones with stab wounds, while the brains of the younger were simply dashed against the altar.

  Someone was vomiting. Helaena realized it was her. She hugged Buttermilk’s neck, fighting not to tumble from the saddle.

  “Where are the girls?” Saafi asked in tearful disbelief. “I remember there were girls…”

  They take the breeding stock. Helaena fought down another wave of nausea. Cows, mares, girls… They slaughter everything else. Numbly, she dismounted and pulled a blanket from her saddlebags. Eight women were arranged in a circle on the ground, throats cut or stomachs opened. Clenching her jaw to stop the tide of bile, Helaena pulled one of them away from the others to avoid the taboo number, then straightened each of them as much as death rigor would allow. Nearby, Saafi did the same. They covered the women with whatever they could find.

  The moment it was done, Saafi sat in the dust and hugged her knees. “I can’t help with the children. I just can’t.”

  Helaena sat and put an arm around her shoulders. Somehow, worrying about Saafi made things easier. “You don’t have to. The knights are preparing them.”

  “But what are we going to do? We don’t have a clark.” She blew her nose loudly on a scrap of linen. “We can’t even bury them!”

  “Take a breath. We’re only going to offer them to the savanna today. Another patrol will come and bury them, once the scavengers are done.”

  Scouts soon found the burial mound just to the east. Serjeants and knights washed the men and children, while the two bowmaids did the same for the women. Helaena was wringing the cloth free of bloody water for the hundredth time when Sir Eustace approached. “My lady, if I could have a word?”

  “Of course.”

  The two walked behind the burnt shell of a granary. “I am not gifted with words,” he began slowly, thumbs hooked through his belt. “My sword speaks for me most often. I was hoping…”

  Helaena blinked. “You want me to speak of the dead?”

  He glanced around cautiously before confiding, “I have a fear of oration.”

  “Very well, the
n. I’ll prepare a few thoughts.”

  “My lady is gracious.”

  What could she say? Helaena paced, taking out her saber and swiping half-heartedly at the hedgerow of the kraal. Words for the dead should be hopeful. They were truly meant for the living, for everyone knew that the dead were with God. But no one from the village remained to listen.

  All too soon, the bodies were arranged carefully in rows, ready for the offering. Soldiers gathered in ranks, none speaking a word. Helaena moved to Saafi’s side.

  “We don’t know who goes together,” her battlemate said between whimpers. “Couldn’t remember from last time. I really tried.”

  The village was recently-founded and the bodies on the ground outnumbered the rounded stones of older graves. Helaena looked over the two hundred men of the company and to the vast wasteland beyond and suddenly knew what to say.

  “This is not my first visit to Little Astrup. Saafi and I came here once on patrol,” she began, climbing to the top of the mound. “It was small and remote, as these places are, but it was happy. They greeted us with kindness and insisted we stay for the planting festival, even though we were twenty in number.

  “They were good and decent. But more than that — they were civilization. They created and they built. For centuries, Jandaria has been the shield of civilization. We first protected the Commonwealth and now the Covenant lands. Law does not rule on the savanna, only the arm of the strong. With Little Astrup gone, the borders of civilization have retreated and chaos has advanced.

  “This will not stand. We offer up our dead today and will always remember them. But we will also remember their murderers. We will crush the Vyr like the mace of God itself!”

  CHAPTER 19

  L arissa hunched over a book of maps in the magus’s Fieldstone Tower, fascinated by the sheer number of places she’d never known existed. Trosketh was a vast place. The blank areas of the maps were even more interesting, filled with sketches of people, beasts, and underfaie from distant lands. She recognized Magus Tancred’s handwriting, even if she couldn’t read it.

  Coming to live with him in Chimkant, in this drafty tower, was the best and most frightening thing she had ever known.

  The city itself was fascinating, if terribly strange. Chimkant meant “sunset” in Jandari, a reference to the lovely rose sandstone used for its walls and most important buildings. The city was also bewildering, with most of its people speaking a blended hotch-potch of Oberyn and Jandari in a fast, nasal accent.

  The streets were a rabbit’s warren and the customs and courtesies so complicated it was almost as if they wanted to confuse outsiders. Why should it matter if she ate with her left hand sometimes, or acknowledged the husband before the wife when introduced?

  “Time for your lessons, girl.”

  Larissa glanced up from a book of maps to find Kaan peering from the doorway. He was the only other person in the tower and had a face and personality like dried-up leather.

  She felt a shiver. He would have been eerie standing in a summer meadow, let alone in the gloomy Fieldstone Tower. “Where’s Magus Tancred?”

  Kaan crossed over and snatched the book from her fingers. “Never you mind. Just follow me.”

  He led her up the winding tower stairs, through bare, dusty levels toward the magus’s private chambers. She knew he lived at the top but had never seen them. By the time they reached an iron-bound door, Kaan wheezed like blacksmith bellows. He rapped the knocker and Magus threw open the door, smiling broadly and looking nothing like his usual self, instead dressed in robes of a fine, shiny fabric, with rings on his fingers and a silver chalice in hand. “Come in and sit at the table! I thought we might have the lessons in more comfortable surroundings today.” Kaan turned and shuffled back down the stairs.

  Larissa felt a moment’s hesitation at entering a man’s private chambers but had no real choice. Stepping inside, she saw it was comfortable indeed, with beautiful things pleasing the eye no matter where she looked: tapestries, mirrors, sculptures, antique curios, and plenty of things she had no words to describe.

  “Not what you expected?” Magus asked as she sat down on a high-backed chair worthy of a queen.

  “You let them see what you want.”

  “Precisely.” He eased into a throne across from her. “Every culture hates or fears pactmakers for the power we wield, and each has its own ways of keeping us leashed. In the Empire, pactmakers are priests, sworn to the emperor, while among the Skyfolk, they strip the tongue from the faietouched. Here in the Covenant lands, we go about in humility, as servants to all – so long as the people see us in rough-spun robes, they feel safe. Only in private can we enjoy the rewards of our labor.”

  “Then can I have some things for my room?”

  “Once you’ve completed some labors!” He clapped his hands together and grinned. “So – what question do you have for me?” It was how Magus opened the lesson each day.

  A question about why gold and silver were so important, when you couldn’t even eat them, could turn into an entire morning’s discussion. Magus was the first person since Father died who listened to her questions and truly had answers.

  “Why do Jandari lords all have Oberyn family names?”

  As he so often did, Magus answered with a question. “What’s your family name?”

  “Don’t have one.”

  “Jandari never have,” Magus explained. “Which was a problem when you first civilized and your clan leaders became nobles. How can you have a house without a name? So those nobles took the family names of their foreign wives, which is why the Yates, Lockridges, Harlowes, and others have branches both here and in the East.” He waved it off. “That was an easy question. Ask me something else.”

  Larissa raised her chin. “When do I get to speak with the faie?”

  “Where would you go to speak with the faie?”

  Sometimes he could be frustrating. “To the place with skirling lights. I’ve been there.”

  “We call it the Veil,” he answered, with annoying indulgence in his voice. “When a pactmaker reaches out to the faie, their spirits meet in the Veil. The stronger and craftier of the two creates the place of meeting. That’s called a conflux.”

  “But I didn’t reach out to her. The faie woman came to— “

  “That’s enough talking for now. My wine has grown warm. I want you to cool it for me.”

  Struggling not to scowl, Larissa nodded. It wasn’t the first time he had avoided talking about the pact she made in Far Ingarsby. She took a deep breath and searched with the inner eye, as Magus had taught. Her reservoir was nearly full and she could sense the slow, steady trickle of power her body drew from beyond the – she struggled a moment to remember the word. The Veil.

  He slid the chalice across the table and she took it in hand, holding it close to the eye to block out everything else. Her spells often fizzled as it was and there were so many pretty things there to distract her focus.

  “Cold,” she ordered the cup, imagining the power of her reservoir icing the wine. Nothing happened. Cursing softly, she instead pictured it as a breath of icy wind. Cold! This time the power flowed out with a feeling of joy and loss all at once. The chalice frosted over and the cold burned her fingers as she slid it back to him.

  The stupid spell had drained half her power. She wouldn’t be able to do anything important until he finally let her pact. Only pacts gave you real power.

  “There,” she said tartly. “Now tell me why you always change the subject when I talk about the faie woman calling out to me.” She feared the answer almost as much as not knowing it.

  “I change the subject for the same reason I don’t let you pact – to protect you. Though perhaps it is time for a hard truth.” He took a long swig of the wine. “I’ve told you faie cannot reach across the Veil, that we must come to them. That is not entirely true.”

  He paused a long moment, as if considering his words. “The outer faie did once attempt to cross the Veil.
Some of them, anyway. They rebelled and turned to evil. Refusing to serve humanity any longer, they abandoned their station and tried to break into our world through both humans and animals. We know not how. They failed, but birthed the great faie as a result: powerful, monstrous beings with a foot in each world; unnatural admixtures of beast and man.

  “The great faie should never have existed. They are sterile among themselves and must mate with humans in order to reproduce. Since that failure, the dark outer faie have focused on attracting worshipers; I believe they are gathering power through sacrifices for purposes I can only guess. Now they cannot or will not reach across the Veil, with one exception. Changelings are so strongly present in both worlds that outer faie may contact them.”

  “Changelings. Pactmakers with a great faie parent,” Larissa said, frowning in confusion. “What does that…” The sadness on his face answered her question. “Oh, shite and butter!”

  So many things became clear: Mother and Father arguing in whispers, the mean way aunties treated her for no good reason, taunts from older children that she was born seven months after Father’s return. Everyone had known she was a bastard. Had they also suspected she was unnatural?

  “Will I… change?”

  Magus paused before answering. “You have a faie form, yes. But it will only come for short periods and you will learn to control it in time. If my suspicious are correct, your father was a sinistrous panther. That seems most likely, considering the gaze attack you’ve inherited.” He waved it away. “As for pacting, changelings are the strongest of faietouched and easily become the strongest of witches if they go evil.

  “Your reservoir and power will grow quickly and one day soon they will outstrip mine, so until your wisdom equals your strength, you may not pact.”

  Larissa shrugged. What did it matter? Pacting was a silly thing to worry about now. Father had never been her father and she was a half-human freak just waiting to turn into a monster.

  CHAPTER 20

  B rother Addison regretted traveling north with Waldrich Swan before half a day had passed. Swans placed more emphasis on procreation than education, but this one was crude even by their standards. He seemed to think of nothing higher than his stomach, or perhaps even his crotch. In Addison’s view, nobles justified themselves by two things: protection of the lower orders and wise rule. Both concepts were lost on Waldrich Swan.