A Throne of Swans

by Katharine

  I burst into tears.

  ‘Aderyn … I’m here.’ He puts his arms around me and holds me tightly until my sobs have subsided. ‘You’re safe. Just tell me what happened.’

  ‘He broke my telescope, and he wanted me to leave with him, and he hit me, so I … I …’ I drag a hand across my cheeks. ‘I didn’t know what else to do.’ Patrus is lying on his side, writhing and moaning, clutching his face. ‘Is he dying? Why’s it so cold in here?’

  ‘You’re in shock.’ Lucien drags a coverlet off the nearest sofa and wraps it around my shoulders.

  Letya appears in the doorway and gasps. ‘Oh, Aderyn –’

  ‘Letya,’ Lucien orders, ‘find the guest master. Tell him there’s been an accident and we need guards and a doctor.’

  She runs off, and I have nothing to do but wait; my arms and legs are shaking so badly I couldn’t move if I wanted to. Lucien stays next to me on the floor, even when Letya returns with the guest master, a doctor and three Dark Guards. The doctor examines Patrus, and then he and the guest master approach us.

  ‘Well?’ Lucien asks.

  ‘The eye has been damaged beyond repair and should be removed to avoid infection. However, I believe His Grace will otherwise make a full recovery.’

  ‘Lucky for him.’ Lucien beckons to the guest master. ‘Get him out of here. And if the members of Convocation have not been informed of this attack on Atratys by the time I leave this room, I will hold you personally responsible.’

  ‘Of course, my lord. May I say that I am deeply shocked that such an event could –’

  ‘Go away.’ I don’t speak loudly, but the guest master jumps, bows and almost runs to hurry the guards carrying Patrus from the room.

  ‘Your Grace …’ The doctor is kneeling in front of me. ‘May I examine you? If there is any dispute as to events here this evening –’

  ‘How can there be any dispute?’ Lucien puts his arm around me. ‘He was in her room.’

  ‘Lucien … I don’t mind.’

  He scowls at the doctor, but doesn’t say anything as he helps me up onto the sofa.

  ‘Now, I see there are cuts on your hands. I’m afraid I’ll have to remove this glass …’ I close my eyes tightly and grit my teeth as the doctor picks out the shards with a pair of tweezers. The pain seems to go on forever, but Lucien keeps holding me, and finally it does end. The doctor applies something cool and soothing and bandages my palms.

  ‘Well done, Your Grace. Are there any other injuries?’

  ‘My shoulders. He hit me, with that.’ I nod towards the stick still lying on the carpet.

  ‘If you’ll just remove the blanket …’

  I hesitate, glancing at Lucien.

  ‘Aderyn? What’s the matter?’

  ‘My back’s very scarred. I don’t like people looking at it.’

  ‘It’s only me and the doctor. And it can’t be that bad.’

  A wave of exhaustion crashes over me and I yawn; I’m simply too tired to argue. Pushing the blanket back off my shoulders, I sweep my hair forward.

  ‘Oh.’ The doctor sounds shocked. ‘I’m so sorry, Your Grace.’ He clears his throat. ‘But luckily the fresh wounds are only superficial. They should heal quickly, even over the scar tissue. I’ll clean them, then mix up a salve that can be applied twice a day.’

  ‘I can do that,’ Letya offers. The doctor draws her aside, giving instructions in a low voice, and Lucien replaces the coverlet around my shoulders. He sits down next to me on the sofa. ‘Why did you never tell me?’

  ‘You knew I was attacked when my mother was killed.’

  ‘Yes, but – I thought you’d escaped with a few scratches. I didn’t realise how much they’d hurt you. Is it still painful?’

  ‘Sometimes. If my skin gets too dry. It was agony at first, especially when I tried to transform, but now –’ I stop, before I accidently mention the potion Siegfried’s been giving me. ‘The scars further down are from talons. The ones at the top are from a beak. One of the hawks caught hold of me, then started trying to … trying to …’ I don’t know why I can’t say the words; when I close my eyes, I can still feel the talons piercing my lower back, while the beak tears strips of flesh away from my shoulders. ‘I’m lucky really. My spine could have been destroyed.’

  I look up and find Lucien watching me, a stricken expression on his face. I suddenly remember the way my father used to stand at my bedside and gaze at me when I was recovering from the attack, his face a mask of distress and grief. For weeks he was too frightened to touch me, in case it somehow made the pain worse.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that. I don’t want you to pity me. At least I’m alive.’

  He flushes. ‘I pity the child that you were, having to deal with something like this. But how could I pity you now? I already knew you were courageous, but truly …’ He lays a hand over mine. ‘No other Protector has undergone such a trial. I think that people should know how brave you are. I think you should show your scars.’

  I shake my head, clutching the blanket tighter. ‘They’ll just see that I’m damaged. Broken.’

  ‘No. They’ll see that you’re strong.’

  For the next couple of days, I keep to my rooms. The guest master informs me that Patrus has been ordered to leave court; apparently he is a man with plenty of enemies and few friends. No one seems to grieve for him. I also receive a note from the queen assuring me of her sympathy and goodwill and asking me to take supper with her once I am recovered. Aron, Odette and Lucien are all with me when this note arrives.

  ‘If I didn’t know you better, cousin,’ Aron says, twitching the letter out of my fingers and scanning it, ‘I’d almost suspect that this was a deliberate move on your part. You’ve disposed of Patrus very neatly.’

  I laugh, but Odette wags a finger at her brother. ‘Aron, how can you speak so? Imagine if Patrus had succeeded in his aim …’

  ‘But he couldn’t have,’ I observe. ‘He couldn’t make me transform just by the force of his will. And he hadn’t taken the trouble to acquire any influence. If he’d turned up here with Letya and threatened to harm her, then I would have done whatever he asked.’

  ‘What if he’d turned up with Lucien instead?’ Aron asks, glancing sideways at my clerk. As I frown and tap my chin, as if the question is difficult, Lucien and Aron both laugh. Patrus’s attack seems to have broken down the last remaining reserve between them.

  The next night, determined not to miss all of the star shower, I borrow a telescope from Aron, go to the top of the tower nearest my apartment and watch the silver light rain down from above, drawing bright threads across the Firebird’s Wake, the faint band of stars that bisects the night sky. It’s late when I finally to return to my rooms, and the corridors of the castle are empty, apart from the Dark Guards on their endless patrols. My mind is so full of the beauty of what I’ve seen that I’ve forgotten about Patrus, about Siegfried, about my continued inability to transform. The Silver Citadel itself seems almost insubstantial compared with the eternity of the heavens.

  Until someone grabs me from behind and claps a hand over my mouth.

  ‘Aderyn, it’s me. Don’t make a sound.’

  Siegfried. He lets me go.

  ‘You scared me,’ I whisper. ‘Why did you do that? And when did you get back?’

  ‘I’ll explain. But you need to come with me now.’

  I hesitate. I have no desire to be alone with Siegfried, not until I’ve made him understand that he is wrong about my feelings for him.

  ‘Surely tomorrow would be –’

  ‘This cannot wait until morning.’ He takes my arms and draws me closer. ‘I’ve found him, Aderyn. I’ve found the man who murdered your mother.’

  Eleven

  I follow Siegfried back through the silent corridors. At first, I assume we are going to his apartment. But it soon becomes clear that I’m wrong. He’s leading me downward, away from the parts of the Citadel used by nobles, towards the realm of the flightless: o
ffices, kitchens, sculleries, dungeons.

  Finally, we reach an area that seems abandoned: rooms stacked with old furniture, firewood, piles of mildewed fabric that might once have been clothes. In the jaundiced light cast by Siegfried’s candle something gleams briefly in the shadows: a round shield, embossed with an eagle. We must be walking through the remnants of the House of Aquila, the previous royal dynasty. I suppose when Cygnus I took power, the castle was cleared, the belongings of the defeated inhabitants left down here to rot.

  Siegfried hands me the candle while he unlocks a door to one side. I blink in the sudden brightness; there are lamps burning in the room we step into, and two men – guards, wearing the insignia of Olorys – are seated at a table, eating.

  They get to their feet as we enter. ‘My lord.’

  ‘Bring him up.’

  The guards pull on heavy leather gauntlets, go to a trapdoor in the corner of the room and heave it up. One takes a lamp, the other a pitchfork that is leaning against the wall, and they descend. I hear muffled voices, barked commands, swearing. The lamp-bearer reappears. Behind him, stumbling up the stairs, his arms bound behind his back and his upper torso covered with a leather cape, a grey-haired man; his face is swollen and disfigured with bruises. The second guard climbs through the trapdoor and shoves the man in the back with the pitchfork, sending him sprawling at Siegfried’s feet, where he lies groaning and twitching.

  Siegfried gestures to the man. ‘A shape-shifter, and a surviving member of a goshawk family. Someone who, according to official histories, shouldn’t exist. Another gift for you, Aderyn.’

  I peer at the man, but it doesn’t help: those who attacked my mother and me were transformed. This man could be one of them, but I can’t tell. ‘How do you know it was him?’

  ‘Tell her your name, filth.’ The man launches into a long, inarticulate string of snarls and curses, until Siegfried kicks him in the stomach. ‘Tell her your name.’

  ‘Deeks … Deeks Flayfeather.’

  The name on the slip of paper. But still, I hesitate. There’s only one way I can be certain. ‘What did my mother say to you, just before she died?’

  He ignores me. At a signal from Siegfried, one of the guards grabs him and hauls him up onto his knees; the other jabs the pitchfork against his neck.

  ‘Ask him again,’ Siegfried says.

  ‘What did my mother say to you before she died?’

  ‘What mother? My mother died.’ He begins to mumble something in a tuneless, sing-song tone.

  Siegfried grabs his face, forcing him to look up at me. ‘Tell him who you are.’

  ‘I am Aderyn of Atratys. My mother was Diandra of Atratys. She died six years ago, in an attack by two hawks.’

  Flayfeather’s left eye is swollen shut. But the sudden glare from the other, sharp and orange-irised, transfixes me.

  ‘I remember you now. My talons in your back. Red blood against white feathers.’

  ‘If you remember, tell me what my mother said to you before you killed her.’

  ‘She said, “Spare my daughter, I beg you.” And I said –’ he giggles, licking his lips – ‘I said, “Like the hawk I will fall upon them; I will rend their flesh from their bones.”’

  A quotation from the Litanies, the line that haunted my dreams for months after the attack. As he speaks the words, his voice echoes through my memory, my heart races and I stumble, steadying myself against the wall.

  ‘Where …? Where did you find him?’

  ‘In the mountains not far from Deaufleur. His family were landowners there, once upon a time. The few that survived the war returned to a place where they knew they could hide. They continued the line for a while through inbreeding. But he is the last one left, as far as my people have been able to discover.’

  I move closer to the imprisoned man and crouch in front of him.

  ‘Why? Why did you do it?’

  Flayfeather’s gaze switches to Siegfried. ‘Agarica.’ He takes a long, shuddering breath. ‘You promised me.’

  ‘Agarica?’ I ask. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A drug the flightless consume in some parts. Mildly addictive for them. Extremely addictive for our sort, it turns out.’ He turns to the man. ‘Answer her. Then we’ll see.’

  The man shrugs. ‘He offered me money. Lots of money. And he took my sister as surety to make sure I did as I was told.’ He blinks at me. ‘You should have died. Cost me five hundred gold pieces, because you didn’t die. Cost my sister an arm.’

  ‘And the second hawk?’

  ‘My brother. Went to work for someone in Brithys, two years back. Not heard from since. Poor brother’s missing. Poor brother’s dead and flown …’

  ‘And the man who paid you – did he give you a reason? Why he wanted me and my mother dead?’

  ‘Didn’t ask. Didn’t care.’

  There’s only one question left. Now it comes to it, I’m strangely unwilling to put a face to the person who ordered my mother’s murder, to have my suspicions confirmed. But I force the word out.

  ‘Who?’

  The man grins, showing a mouthful of broken teeth. ‘The king.’

  My father’s brother. The man who at one time, supposedly, loved my mother. I should be horrified. But I feel nothing apart from a dull ache beneath my ribcage.

  Siegfried is watching me. I push myself to my feet. ‘You knew?’

  ‘I suspected. As did your father.’

  Another secret he kept from me. But apparently discussed with Siegfried. ‘What did he say to you?’

  ‘He guessed the king wanted two things: revenge, for your mother having chosen your father over him, and Atratys.’

  ‘But I didn’t die. And there was no subsequent attack …’

  ‘You were kept carefully guarded. You never left Merl. You were never sent to live at court, as all noble children are.’ He shrugs. ‘His Majesty convinced himself that you could simply be set aside, when the time came.’

  The gnawing ache in my stomach grows. Why didn’t my father talk to me? Why didn’t he tell me his suspicions?

  The prisoner tries to pull away from his guards, earning a jab from the pitchfork.

  ‘What do you want done with him?’ Siegfried asks.

  I want him to die, I suppose. I’ve had it planned out for long enough: how I would kill him, if ever I found him. How I would take a knife and slice him open and let him bleed. A sacrifice to my mother’s memory. The shadows creep from the corners of the room, while my father’s ghost hovers nearby, waiting. This is why I came here after all. To destroy those that had tried to destroy me …

  But I can’t move. Can’t lift my hand to grasp the sword one of the guards has left lying on the table.

  Siegfried whispers in my ear. ‘Say the words, Aderyn. What do you want me to do?’

  The darkness edges closer.

  ‘I want … I want you to kill him for me.’

  Behind me, Siegfried sighs.

  ‘Agarica.’ Flayfeather spits the word. ‘You promised.’

  ‘I did, didn’t I? Very well then.’ Siegfried nods to the guard with the pitchfork, who puts down his weapon and drags a wooden chest from near the door to where the man is kneeling. Siegfried opens it – it seems to be filled with dried yellowish leaves – and pulls on a spare pair of gauntlets. He runs his gloved hand through the leaves, and the room fills with a woody, musty scent. ‘Unprepared agarica. Very potent, but dangerous to eat as it is.’ He picks up a leaf between his fingers. ‘The underside is covered in tiny, barbed hairs that contain an acidic poison. If it touches your skin – especially somewhere sensitive – it causes immediate and intensely painful blistering and swelling.’ All of us stare at the leaf he is holding up. ‘Wonderful, isn’t it, how something so small can be so deadly …’

  ‘No!’ The man tries to shuffle away, but both the guards are holding him now, gritting their teeth against the discomfort they must be feeling even through thick layers of leather. ‘No, you stinking swan –’ He c
lamps his mouth shut, but one of the guards covers his nose until he is forced to gasp for air. As he opens his mouth, Siegfried crams two handfuls of the leaves into it, then holds Flayfeather’s jaw shut. The man’s eyes begin to bulge, his greyish skin turns purple and he jerks and convulses in the hands of his captors –

  And I do not look away.

  Eventually Flayfeather’s eyes turn upward, showing the whites. He stops twitching. Siegfried lets go of his head, closes the lid of the chest and removes the gauntlets. The guards drop the man on the floor and stretch, rubbing their shoulders.

  ‘Get rid of that, then leave us.’

  The guards drag the body to the trapdoor, open it, and throw the corpse into the darkness below. When they’ve left the room, Siegfried turns to me.

  ‘I thought you’d be pleased, Aderyn. You don’t look pleased. Aren’t you glad he’s dead?’

  ‘Yes.’ I nod. Siegfried’s right: I should be pleased. But I feel nothing. No triumph, no sense of peace. I think about my mother, trying to stir the embers of my fury, but I cannot bring her face to mind. Siegfried is watching me, curious. ‘How did you know? About the …’ I point at the box of yellow leaves.

  ‘Oh, the dungeon master that worked here under the previous regime used to keep meticulous records. I’ve studied them at length. With the correct methods of application, they could keep people in agony for days at a time.’ He laughs. ‘Flayfeather got off lightly really. If we’d had more time, I might have tried a few experiments.’

  There’s a tone to his voice, a certain pleasurable anticipation, that reminds me of something …

  Patrus, looking forward to seeing the flightless family die.

  And suddenly I seem to be back in Deaufleur, because I can hear the agonised shrieks of the flightless man as the fire takes him, and I can smell the burning of his flesh, but I can’t see. I can’t see anything at all –

  Someone’s arms are around me. Lucien, surely? I must have had a nightmare, after the stargazing. ‘I was so scared.’

  ‘There’s nothing to be scared of, Aderyn.’

  Siegfried’s voice. I open my eyes, and I’m still in the room below the castle. It was all true.