by Giles Carwyn
Shoving aside all resistance, she grabbed the creature’s mind. He scuttled over the wall, his panting breath hissing through his teeth like a cornered cat’s.
Pushing her lank hair out of her eyes, she turned back to the mockery of her son, who sat innocently on the arm of the throne, his eyes twinkling.
“A feeble attempt,” she breathed, determined not to let him see how scared she was, how close she had come to losing everything. “You seem to have forgotten who is the master here and who is the servant.”
He shrugged. “Forgive me if I grow impatient, Mother. That stone is the key to my salvation.”
“You have no salvation,” she said. “The stone is mine, and it will always be mine.”
“But, Mother, surely—”
“Be gone!” she snapped. Victeris disappeared like a popped soap bubble. “I am master here,” she affirmed quietly to herself. Closing her eyes, she breathed long and carefully, calming her racing heart, forging her rage into power.
Now, she thought. I have business elsewhere.
She turned her attention back to her slaves, reaching out for their minds in the distance. She found them standing in the middle of a street along the canal. Forcing her hand back into the cold mud, she made their limbs her own, and they leapt to action once more.
“This time they will kill her,” Issefyn muttered to herself. “They will bring me her head.”
Of course they will, Mother, Victeris whispered in her mind. Of course they will.
Chapter 3
Shara fought the filthy girl thrashing in her arms. She couldn’t believe the child’s strength and had to keep the Floani energy coursing through her body just to keep her restrained. Her vicious little nails tore into her skin as those impossibly skinny arms reached for Shara’s neck. She sent a flood of calming energy into the frantic child, but it had no effect. The girl’s heart pounded beneath her fragile ribs.
“Enough!” Shara shouted, shaking the girl.
And then she saw her face. Her eyes were jet black. Stripes of black tears stained her cheeks, continually leaking from her obsidian eyes. “By the Seasons,” Shara breathed as she recognized the little filth-crusted face. “Oh no, Baedellin!” Shara whispered, sinking to the ground. “No, not you.”
Shara sent her awareness deep into the girl, looking for the foul magic that possessed her. But there was nothing. No life force, no ani, nothing. Her spirit was simply…gone, leaving behind an empty shell, a dead lifeless thing that wouldn’t hold still.
Shara adjusted her grip on Baedellin, pinning the flailing, blood-slicked arms to her sides. The girl stank of black emmeria, but she wasn’t corrupted. At least not in any way Shara had known. There had been no transformation, no altering of the girl’s body except for the constant stream of black emmeria from her eyes. The foul magic wasn’t in her; it was all around her, flowing into her from the very air itself, like ani that flowed through Shara when she used her magic.
“What did they do to you?” Shara whispered, delving deeper, looking as closely as she could. “What have you become?”
Pounding footsteps drew closer, and a handful of Lightning Swords rushed into the alley, weapons raised.
“Wait!” Shara shouted, and they did, stunned by the power she wove into her voice. Baedellin nearly slipped from her grasp, and Shara had to roll on top of her to keep her still. “Hold your swords, I’m not corrupted,” Shara said, trying to ease their fear.
“Shara! Is that you?” A small solder pushed to the front of the crowd and pulled off her helmet, revealing a bandaged forehead and clumsily cropped blond hair. Her Zelani silks had been traded for soft leather breeches and hard leather plates. Bits of steel protected her shoulders, her forearms.
“Galliana!” Shara shouted, flooding with relief at the sight of her niece. Shara jerked as Baedellin thrashed against her implacable grip, but kept her in hand.
“Where have you been?” the girl whispered. “Do you have any idea what happened? Any idea what we’ve been through?”
Shara winced at the pain written on her niece’s face.
“Set it down, Shara-lani,” said one of the Lightning Swords. Shara recognized the man’s craggy face, but couldn’t recall his name. She also recognized the sword in the man’s hand. It was one of the ani blades she and Ossamyr had created so long ago. “We need to kill the weeper and then get out of here.”
The soldiers drew nearer, raising their weapons. Shara pulled Baedellin’s trembling body closer to her.
“Just set it down. We’ll do the rest,” the grim-eyed leader of the Lightning Swords said.
Shara rose to her feet. “No.” She shook her head. “They’ll be no more killing.”
“That thing killed Maelen and—”
The veteran held up a hand for silence. Shara looked at the Lightning Swords with their slumped shoulders and red-rimmed eyes, white knuckles tight against their weapons, spearheads pointed at her face.
“Back away, Shara-lani. It’s not a request.”
“I’m sorry,” Shara said. “But I will not give up this child.”
“We can’t linger here, Shara,” Galliana said. “There will be more soon. There is no point in trying to save it. It’s not even really alive anymore. It’s a thing.”
“No,” Shara said. “Look. Don’t you recognize her?”
Galliana leaned closer as Shara forced Baedellin’s face upward. Recognition lit in Galliana’s face, and then she closed her eyes, shook her head. “It’s Faedellin’s daughter,” she murmured.
The grizzled leader hissed through clenched teeth. “Then it’s better we kill it now. The commander doesn’t need to see this.”
Shara was about to protest when a cry went up from the long-limbed Lightning Sword watching the street behind them. “They’re coming! In numbers!”
“Run!” the commander shouted, his weary face suddenly transformed by fear. “Back to the tunnel!”
The soldiers rushed past Shara and down the alley. Galliana’s magic flared, suffusing the soldiers with energy.
“No! No! It’s a dead end,” Shara shouted.
The commander skidded to a stop on the dusty cobblestones. “Form a circle!” he shouted. With the speed of long practice, the Lightning Swords reversed direction and formed ranks around Shara and Baedellin. It was barely quick enough.
The creatures rushed into the alley. The men and women ran together in a feral pack, each of their faces stained black. The weeping ones leapt upon them. Two had short swords. The others were armed with knives, cleavers, clubs, and hatchets. Two of the Lightning Swords were knocked to the ground, fighting blades poised at their throats. The Ohndariens fought back, forming a wall with their shields, but their weapons simply bounced off the attackers.
Shara sent her magic to bolster the defenders, but it would never be enough. There were almost a dozen of the creatures and fewer than half that many ’Swords. Shara pushed her attention into the nearest attacker and found the same thing she had with Baedellin, a hollow shell drawing endless black emmeria from some outside source. She tried grabbing hold of the weeping one’s mind, tried to bend it to her will, but there was nothing there. No personality. No mind to grasp.
One of the defenders stumbled to his knees, and the entire formation collapsed. The attackers broke through. One of them leapt on Galliana, slashing at her neck.
“No!” Shara shouted, throwing raw magic into the blank-eyed old woman clutching a kitchen knife in each hand. The old woman’s strikes wobbled, barely missing Galliana, who threw herself to the side. The attacker stood there for a moment, mouth hanging open, as if she’d forgotten why she was there. Shara had pushed the emmeria out of her body, forced it away like pouring sand into a full cup of water.
The effect only lasted for a moment before the old woman reanimated, scrambling back to her feet. Shara drew a deep breath and shouted again, knocking her back to the ground. She shouted again and again, throwing raw magic into one attacker after the other, stunnin
g them.
The Lightning Swords attacked them where they fell, but their weapons seemed to have no effect. They could knock them down, but they could not hurt them. Only the commander’s ani sword struck true. He swung the blade with deadly efficiency, decapitating the creatures the others had knocked down, spattering the cobblestones with their dark red blood.
It was over in less than a minute. Three wounded Lightning Swords and their attackers lay side by side, filling the alley with dead bodies.
“Shara, are you all right?” Galliana said breathlessly as she made her way over the corpses. “How did you do that? How did you stop them?”
Shara shook her head to clear it. She was weak, dizzy, and sick to her stomach from her exertions. Baedellin still struggled desperately in her arms. “I stunned them.” She paused, groping for a term that made sense. “I tangled their puppet strings.”
“Puppet stings?” Galliana asked.
“Someone’s controlling them,” Shara answered. She felt the tendrils of the black emmeria flowing through Baedellin’s pounding heart. She had to find the source, find the mage that had created this abomination.
“Who?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out,” she said, looking into the blackened eyes of the old woman she’d helped kill.
Chapter 4
Arefaine dipped the cloth into the washbasin. Pink tendrils of blood stained the steaming water. She turned back to the emperor’s corpse, gently washing the dried blood from his pale skin. In the half-light of the imperial bedchamber, His Eternal Wisdom looked more like a boy than a man. His long slender limbs and smooth, hairless skin looked like a child’s. His body retained some heat even though he’d been dead more than an hour.
Arefaine stared at his unmoving face. Her brow furrowed, and she pressed her lips together to keep them from quivering. She had never felt like this. It was like a great stone was crushing her from the inside out. How could she feel so much numbness and so much pain at the same time?
She soaked the rag again and dabbed at the gaping wound in the emperor’s side. The sword thrust had broken ribs and cut deep into his internal organs. The wound would have to be sewn up before the body could be wrapped for burial. Looking through her supplies, she found a needle and thread. Taking a shuddering breath, she pinched the sides of his wound together and forced the needle through the lifeless flesh.
The emperor’s words from a few days ago kept running through her mind. How far would you go to fulfill your dream? Would you really have killed me to do so? Would she really have done this? Could she have swung the blade, could she have cut him so deep?
Arefaine finished sewing up the wound and picked up a roll of silk bandages. As news of the emperor’s death spread, a crowd of women had come to dress his body. Arefaine had sent them away, insisting upon completing the task herself. Preparing the body for burial had always been a sacred duty for Ohohhim women and the tradition had continued in Efften. She didn’t know why it had always been a woman’s task, but it made her feel better to do it.
The emperor had been killed by a stray sword knocked from one of the Ohndariens’ hands. It was a simple accident, a whim of chance. But it was not fate that had killed the emperor.
Oh has shown me the time and place of my demise. It is nearly upon me.
The emperor had chosen this death. He knew it was coming and stood patiently as it descended upon him. He did it for her.
I admit that death is a very difficult thing to face with faith and decorum. But my passing is a critical turning point in Oh’s struggle against the darkness.
Arefaine had fought with the man, insulted him when he told her what would soon happen. She told herself it was all a lie, a manipulation, and put it out of her mind.
Oh has shown me all possible futures. The only path that leads out of the darkness begins with my death and ends with your decision.
Was he a fool? A madman? Was he truly the incarnation of god on earth?
If you choose unwisely, you will start down a road from which you would never return.
Arefaine put the emperor’s feet together and gently began to wrap them in silk. He would be brought back to Ohohhom and placed in the Cave of Oh beside all of the emperors that came before him. He would rot and disappear, wiped away forever…For what? To make a point? To give her yet another vague and manipulative lesson in morality?
There is no victory against the darkness. All we can do is follow Oh’s example, by turning our backs to temptation and giving our lives in service of the light.
There was no way to serve the light in death. People had to live and learn, fight and strive, create and love if they wanted to do good in this world. Fearing the darkness was not the same as loving the light. Why couldn’t he see that?
Arefaine wiped away her tears and continued wrapping the man who should have been her friend, encasing him in yet another flawless white Ohohhim mask.
When I die, she decided, I want to be burned. I want the flames to soar into the sky and the smoke to carry me up to the heavens.
Arefaine woke with a gentle hand on her shoulder. She turned and saw Brophy kneeling beside the bed. His face was battered, cut and swollen from his fight with his cousin, but he managed to give her a gentle smile.
Arefaine blinked at the morning sun. “It’s too bright,” she said, looking at the silk cocoon around the emperor’s body. She had fallen asleep at his side.
Brophy nodded and crossed to the windows at the back of the room. He pulled the heavy curtains closed, creating a little peace for the dead. He came back and sat down next to her. The Sword of Autumn hung by his side. Its dusky red pommel looked right on him. She reached out and took his hand.
“I can’t stop crying,” she murmured, squeezing his hand so hard it hurt. “It feels like it’s all my fault.”
He looked at her, and his stern features softened a little. “That’s the way everybody feels. I felt that way when my aunt died. I still feel that way. It never goes away, not completely.”
“I hated him,” she said, looking at the emperor’s body. “I thought I hated him.” She tried to swallow. “I would have killed him to reach Efften.”
He put a hand on her shoulder, and she looked back at his bruised face. His brows were slightly furrowed. “I don’t believe you would have done that.”
“Then you don’t know me very well.”
Brophy reached up and touched the wet corner of her eye. “Your tears tell a different story.”
Arefaine turned away. “I don’t know what to do now. Are they waiting for me out there? Waiting for an empress with a face of perfect white?”
“Yes, they are. But they can wait a little longer.”
“Then what? I don’t know how to run an empire. Will they even accept me as regent? A woman? A foreigner? A—”
Brophy took her into his arms, pressed her head against his chest. “You don’t have to do anything. Not right now.”
His arms were warm and solid, and she could hear the steady beating of his heart in his chest. He smelled good, like salt and stone dust from the quarry. She looked up into his green eyes, one of them half hidden by the swelling of his battered face.
She leaned forward and kissed him. His gentle lips pressed softly against hers for a moment and then they were gone. Again he pulled her close, pressing her cheek against his heart.
“Don’t worry,” he whispered. “You’re not alone. We’ll decide together what to do next. But not yet, not right now.”
Arefaine closed her eyes and let him hold her. Her mind fogged over, and she felt nothing but his closeness for a long, long time.
A knock sounded at the door. Arefaine felt a surge of fear and rose from Brophy’s arms. She straightened her dress and looked to the door.
“Yes?” she called, her voice even and steady. The door opened and one of her handmaids entered the room. The girl descended to her knees and pressed her head to the floor.
“Rise, Delilah,” Arefaine s
aid.
“Mother Regent,” the young woman said, raising, but still keeping her gaze respectfully on Arefaine’s feet. She had never before said a word to Arefaine.
“Speak freely.”
“The Ohndarien assassins are being lined up to be executed.”
“What?” Brophy said, leaping to his feet. “When?”
The girl flinched away from him. “Right now,” she whispered, staring at the floor. “The Carriers have lined them up on the quay.”
Brophy charged to the door, dodging around the cowering handmaiden. Arefaine sprinted after him. “You will be rewarded,” she murmured to Delilah as she passed.
Arefaine followed Brophy down the corridor, up the stairs, and onto the deck. He crossed the ship and vaulted over the side, landing on the dock at a full run. Breathing into the Floani form, Arefaine charged her legs and followed him. She leapt overboard onto the stone wharf, spinning gracefully into a sprint.
They raced along the dock. Through the shifting mists, she could see the gathering. One of the Carriers of the Opal Fire forced a struggling Ohndarien to his knees at the edge of the quay. An entire line of the Lightning Swords was hunched on their knees, their wrists bound tightly behind their backs and tied to their ankles so that they couldn’t stand. Astor, the boy she’d kissed in the Hall of Windows so long ago, was the first in the line. He looked at her, his eyes filled with dread. Five Carriers stood guard behind them with drawn swords. A crowd of courtiers, sailors, and pilgrims had gathered around the Carriers and their victims. None of them moved to stop this treason.
“Stop!” Arefaine called, adding a little ani to her voice so that half the crowd flinched.
Brophy skidded to a stop in front of the would-be executioners. Two of the Carriers moved closer, hands on their weapons. Brophy clenched his fists, but didn’t draw the Sword of Autumn.
Arefaine slowed to a walk and strode forward to stand next to Brophy. She felt naked without her makeup, exposed by the tracks of her tears down her face. “Who ordered this!” she demanded, in a cold voice.