Felix's brow furrowed. "I'm not sure that-"
Miranda held up one hand. "Don't say it, Felix. I don't need your permission or even your blessing. Nor do I want either. Octavia makes me happy. So long as I make her happy too, what else matters?"
Felix continued to frown. "She isn't very clever."
"Only people who think themselves far more intelligent than is actually the case judge the quality of a person's character by the scale of their intellect," Miranda replied, thinking not only of Octavia, who was the kindest and most generous person in Quirian's house, but also of Portia, who was worth ten of Princess Romana and a hundred of Helen Manzikes. "There is more of worth in the heart and soul than the head could hold. Please, Felix, stop talking about this before we begin to quarrel."
Fortunately, Felix took the hint. "She is very kind, I suppose. And she is happier than she has ever been. I am glad of that. Who am I to say what can or cannot make you happy?"
"Indeed," Miranda said.
"What do you plan to do, 'Randa?" Felix asked. "How long are you going to stay here? Forever? Or will you leave soon?"
Miranda sighed, looking up at the sky for a moment as though answers might be found there. "Honestly I have no idea. This work...I would be lying if I told you that this is how I wanted to spend my life, or that Eternal Pantheia is where I wanted to live out my days, but at the same time I cannot leave. It isn't the money, I have enough of it by now to make a go of life anywhere I wanted to; and it certainly isn't some ethereal pull of the capital, or even the desire to be close to the centre of events. Yes, I can't deny a certain sense of smugness that all of these proud patricians must deal with me as an equal, nor will I deny that there is a part of me that craves that power to continue. But I could overcome those parts of me, if I wanted to. I could leave, if that were all it took. I could break that chain, I could walk away, I could retire into provincial obscurity and become a healer again. I could. That isn't why I'm here."
"Then why?" Felix asked, his voice soft.
Miranda blinked. "Portia," she said. "She is only the second friend I've ever had, and the first friend has now become my lover. And I am Portia's only friend in turn, which bestows obligations upon me. I'm afraid for her."
"She's the Empress," Felix said.
"Indeed she is, Empress of All Pelarius, Triazica, Liandra and all the lands that lie between and may be found beyond," Miranda muttered. "An Empress of no good family, without wealth or alliances or power of her own. All she has is the love of one man, and if she does not give him a child there will be no shortage of those who will tell the Emperor to put politics over love and set her aside. Prince Antiochus wants the throne so badly I can almost see him slobbering for it. Princess Romana hides her ambition behind talk of destiny and duty, but if she does not want to rule more badly than her brother you may string me up by my heels. I do not believe that there is a single man or woman at court who would not delight to see her fall, save me. Who will protect her if I abandon her? What fate will befall her if she is left alone?"
Felix began to laugh.
Miranda scowled. "What?"
"I remember when you used to tell Michael off for trying to protect Amy from everyone and everything the way he used to," Felix said, a smile flitting across his face. "'You're doing her no favours', you'd say 'She needs to learn to stand on her own two feet.'"
Miranda chuckled. "Yes, I could be rather sententious, couldn't I?"
"And now here you are, determined to protect the Empress."
"Yes," Miranda said. "With my bad leg and my walking stick." She paused for a moment. "It depends on what Octavia wants, of course; I won't force her to stay here against her will. But, if she is amenable, then I will stay long enough to see Portia safe." And how will I know when that is? How will I make her safe?
I do not know. All I know is that I cannot abandon her.
"'Randa," Felix murmured. "Are you happy, here with us?"
"I am...comfortable, and content," Miranda replied. "That is enough for now. And you, Felix? Are you happy?"
"Sometimes I am," Felix replied. "Other times I wish that I was somewhere else, even though I don't know where that is. It isn't back home; you and Michael notwithstanding I don't remember it fondly. But I don't think that it's here, either. But since I don't know where it is, I might as well stay here until I find out.”
“You never think of leaving?"
"Not really," Felix said. "Metella's my only friend, like Portia's yours. But I'm the one who couldn't get on without her. I'm not sure if Lord Quirian would let me leave even if I wanted to."
Miranda held one arm out. "Come here, Felix."
"Why?" Felix asked.
"Because I want to give you a hug," Miranda said.
Felix blinked, his expression a mixture of surprise and confusion. But then a sort of warmth seemed to come over his face, and he knelt down and allowed himself to be enfolded in Miranda's embrace.
"I love you, Felix," Miranda whispered. "I'm glad you're back."
VI
Guilty Conscience
Gideon led the way through the spirit realm, his pace faster and more assured than it had been in the mortal plane, his stick resting lightly on his shoulder as his legs carried him along without aid. He seemed fitter here than he had been, stronger, swifter, almost restored to his old self before the injuries that the Voice had dealt him.
And yet, at the same, Michael could not help but be troubled. Every time that Gideon used spirit magic, he suffered for it. Michael could not say why - he was not injured by the power, as Gideon was - but it was unmistakably so. It had not happened yet, but since Gideon had never yet passed through this trial unaffected, Michael did not know what would cause this instance to be different.
Gideon's lips twisted upwards in a slight smile. "Nothing will be different, Michael, unless we are very fortunate."
Michael's brow furrowed. "Would it not be better to rest now, while our fortune remains?"
"No," Gideon said firmly. "We will go as far as we can today, and as far as we can tomorrow, and as far as I can go until we reach Eternal Pantheia. I will not suffer delays merely for the benefit of my health."
"There is nothing mere about your health to me, Gideon."
"And for that I thank you, Michael, but the fact remains that it is my health, not yours, and I will squander it how I wish in service to the Empire," Gideon said.
"What if our fortune does not hold?" Jason asked. His Highness was closest to Michael and Gideon, while Amy and Wyrrin brought up the rear.
"Then I am afraid that you will have to be prepared to fight, while I extricate us from this place," Gideon replied.
"You call this a place?" Jason said. Around them the spirit realm stretched, barren and shrouded in mist. Michael had had several previous visits here to get used to the lack of landmarks, the lack of definition; and considering what it was like when the denizens of this place caught your scent he had come to appreciate the solitude.
"I pray Your Highness take me at my word when I say it is better this way than any other possibility," Michael said. "Lady Silwa watch over us and protect us in this place."
"You said this was the world of dreams," Amy said. "What is there to fear from dreams?"
"I envy you your dreams if that is truly what you think," Jason said.
"It is the world of death, too," Wyrrin muttered. "All the souls of the elder races, save only naiads, will come here when they die. One day I will come here, and wander this waste."
"Not for many years yet, I trust," Michael said.
"So that's what happened when the Heavenvault fell," Amy murmured. "It was feared so, but never known for certain."
"The dead I have seen here were men, and they were quite enough," Michael said. "Pray all the gods they do not find us."
A sound of howling filled the spectral air of the spirit realm.
"You just had to say it, didn't you?" His Highness moaned.
Amy drew Magnus Al
ba, the blue blade seeming to glow in this realm of death and dreams. "They sound more like dogs than men."
"Fury hounds, unless I am mistaken, and believe me I wish I was," Gideon said. "We must make haste."
"We should leave now, is what we should do," Jason said.
"A little further," Gideon insisted, quickening his pace as best he could. "We must cover as much ground as possible."
Michael drew Duty with his right hand, and his spatha with his left. "We stand ready to defend you, Gideon."
"How can you say that when you don't even know what it is you'll have to defend him from?" Jason demanded.
"It's a pack of dogs, what does it sound like?" Amy spat. "I bet their teeth won't even be able to scratch my armour."
"You may be willing to wager your life on that, but I would rather not," Jason said, drawing his wand with one hand and gripping his shepherd's crook tightly with the other. "I'm not wearing any armour."
"Then speed will have to suffice for us," Wyrrin said, drawing his black swords. The fire drake from Arko was naked save for a loin cloth to conceal his modesty, but he was as swift a fighter as any Michael had seen in the arenas of Corona, and his scales were little marred by scars.
Michael stayed close by Gideon. He was not so well armoured as Amy, but better than Wyrrin or His Highness, wearing the drake-forged manica that Fiannuala and Cati had given him. They guarded only his arms, but it was surely better than nothing against even spectral fangs.
The howling of the dogs was getting nearer now, gaining on the company for all that they tried to escape. It was hard to tell how many there were, but Michael guessed that there were more than a dozen, perhaps a score. Nothing could be seen behind the blanket of mist that enveloped them; it seemed to shift around them, parting around Gideon as he advanced, closing around Amy as she brought up the rear, walking backwards with her blade bared. It maintained a ring around them, allowing them to see each other but nothing beyond, concealing their pursuers from sight, so that only the sound of their ferocious howling can be heard.
They sounded like bloodhounds, Michael thought, a pack of bloodhounds on their trail and getting closer.
"Come on, where are you?" Amy muttered. "Show yourselves!"
The hounds burst out of the mist. They were not bloodhounds, they were larger, their fur stuck up in spiked tufts all over their bodies, they had claws like lions and they had teeth like rows of knives embedded in their jaws. Their tails were serpents and their eyes were aglow with crimson fire. They were black, striped with red, and their tongues were the tongues of vipers.
"God preserve us," Michael whispered.
They bounded out of the mist in a great horde, twenty of them at the least, and as they did so their voices changed. They ceased to howl and began instead to shriek in anger, like the sound of a discordant harps being played at once, or else the screaming of an injured bird. Or the death cry of an innocent murdered.
Amy began to scream in turn. Not an angry scream, not a war cry rendered at a high pitch, but a cry of pain and anguish, a cry of sorrow and regrets too late, a cry of agony as she fell to her knees, leaning upon the hilt of her greatsword, falling to the ground.
"Amy!" Michael shouted, but before he could go to her the shrieking of the hounds assailed his ears and he began to howl.
He no longer saw the spirit realm around him. He no longer heard the hounds. Instead he saw the dark boatshed where he had dragged the Lursus brothers, he heard their moaning under the gags he had stuffed into their mouths, he saw the desperation in their eyes, he saw the blood, he heard their muffled cries of pain, he saw everything that had happened on that night of rage and wrongdoing.
"No," Michael murmured as he rolled upon the ground, his swords slipping from his grasp. "Forgive me, God, I beg of you."
He saw the republican agitator Michael had terrorised in the arena because he had taken offence at some remark the fellow had made, taking it for a slight. He heard the man's blubbering as Michael had toyed with him, played with him like a sadistic child tearing the wings off a fly, saw the thousand cuts he had inflicted in place of giving him a quick death. Odious as the traitor had been he had not deserved such a cruel fate.
He saw Judas, the soldier of the Crimson Rose, who had asked with his dying breath whether he was the monster or Michael was. Michael had thought himself so much the man's superior, a gentleman of honour and chivalry, yet when it came to it he had worked nothing but butchery upon his foe. And Judas had not even been guilty of the crime for which Michael hated him, the murder of little Felix, for Felix had been alive all the time.
"Forgive me," Michael whispered, tears rolling down his face as blood streamed from his ears and the shrieking of the spectral hounds continued to pierce him and tear at him. "I repent of all my sins."
"There is no repentance, only judgement," Ellyria hissed, as she and her sisters stepped out of the mist. "No forgiveness, only justice. No mercy, only punishment."
The other two furies hummed as they followed Ellyria's lead, the three furies moving through their pack of shrieking hounds towards the incapacitated company. Ellyria, with her hair of fire and eyes of red, the fury of wrath. Hamara, with her icy hair and cold blue eyes, the fury of jealousy. Tyria, whose hair was a wave of miniature spines topped with tiny moaning skulls, whose eyes were black as night, the fury of justice. Their skin was grey like a rotting corpse. Around their waists were knotted serpents. Each bore terrible weapons in their hands: a flaming sword and bloody club for Ellryia, a blade of ice and a poisoned dagger for Hamara, an axe of stone and a cruel whip for Tyria.
Of Michael's companions, only Wyrrin and Jason were still on their feet, surrounded by fury hounds as the softly humming furies advanced upon them. Gideon was flat face down upon the ground, not moving. Amy was gripping the hilt of her sword with one hand, her body shaking as though she was trying to stand but could not. It was hard to make out, over the sound of the humming of the furies and the shrieking of their hounds, but Michael thought he could hear her sobbing.
Michael tried to climb to his feet, but he could not. His arms and legs were quivering, and he could still see the faces of his victims before him. He had no strength to resist these emissaries of justice.
"Jason, Wyrrin, we have no quarrel with you," Ellyria hissed. "You have no sins upon your soul that we desire to punish. Stand aside, and let us take what is our due."
His Highness trembled with fear. "If you are truly the furies, then the laws that constrain you prevent you from harming an innocent."
"Any who would shield a sinner from justice ceases to be an innocent," Tyria snarled. "Remember that, and take caution."
"What have they done, that you should hound them so?" Wyrrin demanded.
The three sisters looked at one another, and laughed.
"You deny their guilt?" Tyria asked. "Do you imagine that we, the furies, born of the blood of Piriam, have made a mistake? Your loyalty is commendable, but your companions are far from innocent."
"I need no demigods to tell me that," Jason muttered.
They ignored him, the three furies splitting up, each one striding through their hounds, past Jason and Wyrrin, to stand over one of the three fallen sinners at their feet.
Tyria stood over Amy, her lash moving as though it had a will of its own, to wrap around Amy's wrist and pull it away from Magnus Alba to dump her unceremoniously upon the ground.
"Do you recall your crime, Ameliora, daughter of Niccolo?" Tyria asked, her voice soft and crooning, as she removed Amy's helmet from her head. She cupped Amy's chin with her hands and lifted it up so that Amy's mismatched eyes were staring into Tyria's black orbs. "Or was it so insignificant an act you have forgotten?"
Amy's face was even paler than normal, her eyes wide. Her voice, when it came, shook with fear. "The undine traveller upon the road."
"You rode him down, though he was old and unarmed," Tyria hissed.
"He was an undine," Amy spat. "A creature of the Eldest One,
an enemy of my blood."
"Is that why you killed him? For blood?"
"I killed him because Luca had just made a joke about my human softness, and I wanted to show all those squires that I was just as much a naiad as they were; as hard as they were," Amy said in a voice that started off strong and ringing but became ever softer and more childlike the more she spoke. "I wanted to fit in."
"And to fit in you slew an innocent, and offended justice to its core," Tyria replied, with venom on her tongue.
"And you, Michael," Ellyria whispered, running her long nails over his face, caressing him like a lover, stretching out his name to the utmost. "So often have you come to me, for strength, for power, for satisfaction. For a release from thought, and all the morbid curiosities that infest your mind. For the ability to strike down your enemies. And in return for my kindness you spurn me. You talk of me like I am some disease to be ashamed of. And you misuse the gifts that I have given you, striking out in your rage against the undeserving. I am so disappointed in you."
In spite of the trembling terror to which had had been reduced, Michael managed to contort his face into a snarl. "Undeserving? You call the Lursus brothers undeserving? They were traitors, supporters of the Crimson Rose."
"They killed no one."
"That's even worse," Michael shouted. "If you believe in a cause you should at least have the courage to take up the sword in its name with your own hands, not pass names to those with more stomach for the work. It was not right, what I did to those men. It wasn't right what I did to that republican in the arena. It wasn't right what I did to Judas Antaraeus. But only because of the cruelty, not because of their fate. They deserved to die, every last one of them. Not so slowly or bloodily, but they deserved to die, and don't presume to tell me different."
Spirit of the Sword: Faith and Virtue (The First Sword Chronicles Book 2) Page 10