It was too much to hope he’d not noticed. “Aye.”
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of. We all have them.”
But I’m not like you, remember? A fleeting anger possessed me at the thought, not at him, but at the world that had made us so different. I was too much a nakla to share the honor due a Rider, yet not enough to keep from sharing their nightmares. “I just want to forget.”
“Then let this be the last time we talk of it.”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because there’s something I want to—something I must tell you, but first you need to tell me what you saw.”
I had done it in truth; it could hardly take more courage to do it in memory. I closed my eyes and forced myself back to that gaping black crevice in the side of the Cairn. In a monotone I recounted the whole story, from my sister Mari’s assurance that the lamias knew how to survive the poison of the Great Worm, to my entrance to the coven, to my audience with the Broodmother Crone, to my miraculous escape. He listened without interrupting. When I opened my eyes, his face was grave.
“She wore a skull as a crown, didn’t she?”
I shuddered. “Yes. It was human.”
“I know.” He turned away. “I think that was my father’s skull.”
A chill settled over the room. I sat up, clutching the heartstone brooch at my shoulder. The words he’d spoken on the hill at Hunter’s Forge lay distant and buried but not yet forgotten. “This is the heartstone I cut from the Broodmother Crone of Cloven Cairn on the darkest day in my memory . . .”
“Alastair, no.”
“I told you what happened to my mother,” he said. His voice held the heaviness of years, of grief tamped down, buried, only to spring up in bitter shoots through the cracks. “That fever she’d contracted in the Fens consumed her, and my father had to watch. He said it was like losing her every day. When it was over Father blamed the lamias. He said they poisoned everything around them, that if it weren’t for them, she’d have lived. He made me promise that someday we would go to Cloven Cairn together and avenge her. I grew up with that promise. Trained for it. Looked forward to it, even. On Midsummer’s Day five years ago we flew to the Cairn and declared war on the coven.
“The coven was smaller then. It was easy at first. I thought we were winning, that we’d killed the last of them, but the old Broodmother—I didn’t see her. I should’ve. It was a mistake.” Sheets crumpled in his clenched fist. “She beheaded my father in front of me.”
I touched his arm, searching for words and finding none. What comfort was there for a memory like that?
“She paid for it with her life. I ran her through and cut that heartstone from her chest, but it didn’t matter. Father was gone.”
“Dearest—”
“I couldn’t go back for his body. I should’ve, but I couldn’t. By the time I’d killed the Broodmother the young lamias were emerging from the spawning pits, so I ran. I couldn’t face them without him.” He cleared his throat and looked away. “His dragon never forgave me for that. Kaheset wouldn’t even stay for the honor pyre.”
“You did all you could.” It was a weak sentiment, thin even to my ears, but old horrors saturated that silence and I could not bear it. I had seen Alastair unclothed; this was the first time I’d seen him naked.
“No. Not yet I haven’t. Someday I’ll go back and finish what we started. For what the lamias did to my mother, my father, and what they did to you, I’m going to make them pay. By Mikla-Protector and Thell-Unmaker I swear it.”
Alastair falling beneath a writhing mass of snakish coils, his sword broken, his heartstone shattered, blood pouring out on the foul stones . . . I closed my eyes as if that could block out the images from my nightmares. It’s not real. It will never be real. You’re safe, he’s safe, we’re all safe. Let the past be past.
A door closed somewhere downstairs. Alastair stirred as if newly woken. “It’s late. We should get some rest,” he said, and he rolled to his side before I could make any more clumsy attempts at comfort.
That night the heartstone brooch weighed on my mind like lead. Even on the nightstand it painted my dreams in strokes of crimson and gold, accented in the distance by a sharp, piercing green.
The next morning dawned bright and sunny, which made up for our breakfast of cold toast and tea dropped on our doorstep by the sag-faced Hal. Alastair did not mention his father, or the lamias, or Cloven Cairn, and I was content to leave those words locked away in the candlelit darkness of last night.
We met Akarra outside the city walls and she listened with amusement as we told her about the innkeeper’s cutthroat hospitality. “You should make sure everything in your purse is accounted for, Alastair,” she said as he slung the saddle over her shoulders. “The good gentlegnome sounds like a sticky-fingered fellow.”
“It’s all there,” he said. “I checked.”
“It helped that you slept with your dagger under your pillow,” I said.
There was a metallic snap and Alastair swore. I looked over Akarra’s shoulder. One of the pannier buckles had broken, leaving the leather pouch swinging free at her side. “You did bring spares, didn’t you?” she asked. “Tell me you didn’t forget.”
“Of course I brought them,” he grunted, as he fished in the pocket of the pannier. “They’re in—” He stopped and frowned.
“What’s wrong?” Akarra asked.
“I’m . . . not sure.” He turned to me. “Aliza, you didn’t bring any of our wedding gifts, did you?”
“Of course not,” I replied, puzzled. “Why do you ask?”
He withdrew. “Neither did I.”
In his hand was the strange silver box.
Chapter 7
The Half City
None of us knew what to do with the box. Alastair paced around the mysterious gift as if it were a wounded Tekari that hadn’t died yet.
“There was no name? Nothing at all to show who sent it?” Akarra asked.
I told her about the note. “You don’t sense anything, do you?” I asked, thinking of both Pan’s and Vheeke’s reactions to the gift.
“I’m not sure what you think I should be sensing, but no, I don’t.”
Alastair stopped pacing. “Then you’re sure it’s safe?”
“Well, I’m fairly certain it doesn’t contain a murmur of ghouls, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said. “Maybe Madam Gretna slipped it in and forgot to mention it. There are many things in the world I don’t understand and I’m not prepared to lose another few hours of flying time in worry over a box.”
In the end we packed it away again, wrapping it in one of Alastair’s spare tunics, burying it at the bottom of the pannier, and hoping it stayed there.
The day passed much as the last few had, in a flurry of wings and patchwork scenery. The wind picked up as we approached the rocky shelf that rose along the border of Dragonsmoor. Akarra soared over the edge, caught an updraft, and banked, first one way then another as we started our descent into Harborough Hatch. Below us the dun color of the highlands faded to a drab olive, then to a light green, then to the rich green as the moors fell away into the lowlands of Central Arle. Woods tinged with the rusts and ambers of autumn crept up the slopes of hills, and as evening cast a violet shadow over the land I saw the sparkle of water winding its way through the landscape. The sight made me forget my sore muscles and queasy stomach. The hills and valleys of Harborough Hatch looked almost like home.
Akarra swooped low over the river and the illusion shattered. Beyond the next hill the city of Hatch Ford came into view. Compared to Edonarle and coastal trade centers like Hallowsdean or Westhull, Hatch Ford was a small city, but much bigger than Claykeep and certainly larger than anything Hart’s Run had to offer. On the side of the city that bordered the River Hatch great mule-drawn barges inched southward, their timbers creaking and groaning under piles of uncut stone and timber. Carts clattered along cobbled streets. Vendors in the market square pointed and waved a
s we passed, but their movements were restricted to the eastern shore. The western half of the city was quiet. Where the Worm had passed through Hatch Ford only destruction remained, its path a streak of gangrene through the city. Streets were clogged not with carts but with fallen stone and brick. Buildings lay flattened or crumbling. Closer to the river the banks were broken by a wide ditch that crossed the Ford, leaving water to pool outward, sloshing through fields of rotting corn on the far side of the river and washing around broken docks on the near side. The beginnings of a dam had been built up on each bank, but it seemed to have been abandoned.
The path of the Worm continued from the place it had broken ground north of the city, gaping like a raw wound in the green of the hills. Trees lay splintered in ruts clogged with mud, and boulders the size of cottages lay tossed aside like pebbles where the monstrous creature had shoved them out of its way in its campaign south. The army of Tekari that had joined the Worm would’ve swept through Hatch Ford in its wake, killing at will. I touched my forehead, lips, and heart as Akarra descended, a helpless but heartfelt prayer for the dead.
Movement among the ruins caught my eye as I looked up. “Are there people over there?”
“The Vesh are still picking through the dead,” Alastair said through gritted teeth. “Ah-na’shaalk.”
“What?”
“Cowards,” he muttered.
I wondered at the disdain in his voice. Heartstone hounds operated somewhere in the gray space between respectable and unsavory, and most Arleans held to the unspoken agreement to look the other way where they were concerned. After all, they were responsible for providing even the most reputable lithosmiths with heartstones. A line from Selwyn’s letter floated to mind. He’d said the Vesh of Lake Meera weren’t behind the Idar murders, but how sure was he? My scalp prickled as I followed that thought to its inevitable conclusion. What would Alastair do if he found the monster haunting the lake towns was not Tekari after all, but one of our own kind? “I can’t believe they’d bother,” I said. “There wouldn’t be anything left by now.”
“Heartstones? No. They’ll have collected the last of those before the bodies were cold. But Vesh will take anything that can turn a profit. Armor, weapons, anything they can sell or smuggle.”
“You really don’t like them, do you?”
“They’re parasites who feed off the shed blood of better men and women. No, I don’t like Vesh.”
We landed a few minutes later in the courtyard of a high stone house on a hill overlooking Hatch Ford.
“Who lives here?” I asked as Alastair helped me down.
“The unmitigated enthusiasm that goes by the name Lord Hatch,” he said under his breath as a balding, potbellied man burst from the house, waving his arms and shouting “Hallo!” “You may want to brace yourself,” Alastair added.
Lord Hatch stopped in front of us, panting and beaming. “The servants—saw a dragon coming. My dear sir—what an unexpected pleasure!”
“Good to see you again, Your Lordship. Forgive us for not sending word ahead.”
“Nonsense! I said you were welcome anytime and I meant it. But who is this?” he asked, turning to me. “Not your new bride? Well! You are very welcome too, my dear. And you, noble Akarra. Thank the gods we’re meeting under better circumstances, eh? What brings you to Harborough Hatch?”
“We’re traveling to Lake Meera,” Alastair said. “I hoped we might stay the night here before we continue.”
“But of course! I wouldn’t see you lodging anywhere else in the county.” He took the luggage I carried and silenced my protests with a grandfatherly tush. “Oh, and Akarra, if you happen to fly over the east pasture, do take your selection of mutton-on-the-hoof. With my gratitude. Now,” he said as Akarra took to the sky, “if you two will follow me, we’ll see if Hatch House can’t offer suitable accommodation for the heroes of Arle.”
Our arrival coincided with the start of a feast in Lord Hatch’s Great Hall. We passed the smoke-blackened archway on our way to the guest quarters. The smell of mead wafted out, strong and sweet, mixed with the dull roar of a hundred voices all speaking at once.
“It’s become our custom every sennight since the Worm’s passing,” Lord Hatch said, waving away our apologies for taking him away from his other guests. “Viola and I open our hall to all the townsfolk in need to eat together and toast the fallen. You’re welcome to join us.” At the foot of the stairs he paused. “I know you must be tired, but it would mean a great deal to my people if they could raise their glasses tonight to flesh and blood, not to ghosts and memories.”
Alastair looked at me. I shrugged. If there was a hot meal to be had, sleep could wait.
We parted with Lord Hatch at the door to the guest chamber with directions to meet in the Great Hall in half an hour. It wasn’t time enough for what we truly needed—a long soak in a hot bath—but we made do with a quick soak in a lukewarm bath, which a stream of servants filled without so much as a word. After two days of flying without a wash, even that was heavenly. Clean, dry, and smelling less of dragon than I had for a long time, I dug through our luggage for the one dress I’d managed to squeeze next to my spare underthings. The fine cloth took up little space, but the convenience came at a price. Mama would weep to see me in such a wrinkled skirt. I smoothed out the silvery-blue material again and again as we headed down the winding steps to the Great Hall.
“Stop fussing,” Alastair said. “You look fine.”
I eyed his jerkin. “You can talk.”
“You could’ve worn the hauberk.”
“Not to dinner!”
“You’re a Daired now, khera. It’s practically expected.”
“Those clothes smelled like dragon.”
A smile flitted on the corner of his mouth, more noticeable now since he’d had a chance to shave. “I have it on good authority that some people find that smell appealing.”
“Oh, hush.”
We drew near the open doors to the Great Hall. The roar of conversation had ceased, replaced by the thrumming notes of a lute and a single voice singing a familiar song, one that made the tears start in my eyes and my blood run hot and cold all at once. Whether it was from sadness, or gladness, or perhaps even embarrassment, I couldn’t tell; my feelings when it came to the Battle of North Fields and the War of the Worm had long since been mangled beyond recognition. We stopped on the threshold to listen.
And valiant Stephan of the Iron Helm,
And Captain Ellyn on her bloodred steed,
And Robben, and Stylo, and swift Lord Colm,
Rode proud and strong against the Worm.
With shattered spears and broken bows,
Their voices raised in bitter song,
Dared desperate deeds with desperate blows.
Yet naught could stand against the Worm.
The frost of fear lay o’er the land,
Servant and master trembled and said,
“Is this our doom drawn near at hand?
For who can stand against the Worm?”
Their words still echoed in the air,
Terror clutched their beating hearts,
When forth flew brave Lord Alastair:
“I will stand against the Worm.”
On pearled wings of wind and flame,
His noble dragon bore him near,
Closer, and closer, and closer he came,
His sword raised high against the Worm.
But as his heartstone blade descended,
The beast with craft and lightning speed,
Reared, its nightmare sting extended—
And fell the man against the Worm.
From barb to flesh black poison pulsed,
No help, no healing, no hope remained,
As Arle’s defender lay convulsed,
And there in triumph stood the Worm.
Yet from the hour of Alastair’s fall,
His dragon sought o’er hill and vale
To find the maid who would dare all,
>
To turn the tides against the Worm.
Lady Aliza, clever and brave,
Hart’s Run daughter and maiden fair,
Flew leagues to reach the Broodmother’s cave
And learn the secrets of the Worm.
Through fire and blood the lady fought
Against fell creatures with word and wit,
’Til she had found what she had sought:
What’d cure the poison of the Worm.
Back from death the dragon bore
Fair Aliza to embattled Fields.
O’erlooking the scene of ruin and war,
Her heart grew cold to see the Worm.
“The brave Lord Daired need not die,”
Said she to Riders gathered near.
“His fate we still can yet defy,
If he but eats th’ heart of the Worm.”
Despair fell heavy as she spoke;
The spark of hope had nearly died,
When flame-haired Charis in war-torn cloak
Rode forth once more to face the Worm.
Lady Charis alone felt no fear,
This Rider with plaits of woven fire,
Her fellows’ lament she did not hear,
For Alastair’s sake she faced the Worm.
Her cry rang clear from hill to hill,
Resounding hoofbeats and ring of steel,
She drew with grim and unmatched skill
Her sword against the laughing Worm.
Perish she would, she knew it well,
Daughter of blood and fire and wrath;
To life and Arle she cried farewell
And struck—she struck the mighty Worm.
Its jaws encircling made her tomb,
The monster’s darkness drank her flame.
Yet in her death she wrought its doom
For with one stroke she felled the Worm.
The spell died away with the last note and the room breathed again, rapt silence melting into applause. I turned to hide the wetness on my cheeks. That Henry Brandon’s “Charissong” had spread after the battle was no surprise, but to hear our names here, in the mouths of strangers, in a place where evidence of the Worm lay like a scourge through the heart of the city and its people, stirred me deeply.
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