A Heart of Blood and Ashes

by Milla Vane

  She faced her father again. “Have you ink and pen? I will write your message.”

  “I think not to trust you with a pen,” her father said. “The girl will remember what you tell her to say—that he has not the heart of a king, and he couldn’t protect you, so you have no more use for him as a husband. And that I am relinquishing Syssia’s throne to take Rugus’s, so you also have no more use for his child.”

  Her heart froze. Never could she imagine saying such words to Maddek. They were not at all the same as what Zhalen had said before—that she didn’t want to marry or have his child. So completely different the messages were, as if designed to rip open Maddek’s heart.

  How had Zhalen known exactly what to say? The words that should be left unsaid, because they could never be forgiven?

  Her father leaned forward. “Or I can send the message with the girl’s head.”

  “No,” Yvenne whispered. “I will tell her.”

  “Good girl. But of course, it will only be part of the message. The rest will be a stain on a sheet.”

  She frowned at him in confusion.

  “He killed two of my sons. Now I will take his.” He reached for the goblet, tipped it as if to see how much remained inside. “Three full doses I put in here.”

  Doses? Yet he’d also drunk some. What would he put in there that he wouldn’t fear his own—

  Oh, Vela. No.

  In desperate horror, Yvenne gagged and gagged. Some of the sickly sweet wine came up, but not enough. Not enough.

  Zhalen began eating his soup. “You said you were not pregnant?”

  She truly didn’t know. But it didn’t matter. “If you send this message, with what he believes is his child bloodied in that sheet, he will come and kill us both.”

  “He will not find it so easy. The walls of Syssia have held back barbarians for ages.”

  They would not hold back Maddek. Desperately she tried to vomit more, but no more would come. Pain ripped through her, but it wasn’t the potion. Not yet. So little hope she’d had. So little. Yet when she’d remembered how Maddek had left her, his fierce kiss, his sweet promise—it had been a tiny hope that she’d so desperately clung to. Yet her father’s message would fit every twisted view that her would-be husband had ever had of her, and crush Yvenne’s every last hope.

  Nothing would she have of Maddek then. Nothing at all.

  Voice ragged, she told him, “Do not do this.”

  “It is done,” her father said, and slurped more soup from his spoon. “Take heart, daughter. I have never heard what happens when a man takes the half-moon milk. But I am about to find out. And at least we will be suffering together.”

  Not enough suffering for him. Too much for Yvenne.

  Oh, Vela. She was not strong enough for this.

  The first cramp ripped through her belly. Then another, tearing open her rage and pain that had been together for so long, tearing open a heart that was already battered and bloodied, tearing a scream from her lungs and throat and soul.

  And when she stopped screaming, her hope was gone.

  CHAPTER 43

  MADDEK

  Awakening as a brainless beast whose only thought was of Yvenne felt no different than any other of Maddek’s recent awakenings. Except that he still felt weak. And hungry.

  “He stirs,” Ardyl said in a hushed voice. “Take care. We can’t be certain until he speaks.”

  “Yvenne,” he rasped, his mouth and lips so dry that the word felt as if it cracked his tongue. Above him stretched a hide tent. The familiar comfort of piled furs lay beneath him.

  “They left the outpost two days past, riding hard for Syssia and surrounded by Rugusian soldiers,” Fassad answered.

  “Seri?”

  Toric told him, “The scout did not see her leave the outpost with the others, but Kelir and Nami have taken warriors to follow.”

  So would Maddek next. His head swam as he sat up. “Banek?”

  Danoh silently shook her head.

  Grief gripped his heart. “And at the hollow and the Scourge?”

  “Fifty-three warriors lost.”

  In addition to one hundred Syssian soldiers who would have been loyal to Yvenne. Voice thick, he asked, “How long has it been?”

  “You have been sleeping four days.”

  But he shouldn’t have woken at all. “How did I live?”

  “I tried to remind you,” Ardyl said, crouching beside his furs with a small pot in her hand. “Vela said that you might have need of this. We weren’t sure whether to rub it on your cock or into the poisoned wound or make you drink it. So we did all three.”

  The cockmonger’s oil. A potion that the goddess had stirred with her glowing finger, Maddek remembered.

  And he remembered what else she’d said. That Yvenne would suffer at Zhalen’s hands.

  He tossed back the furs and stood. Unsteady and weak, but only because he’d been abed so long. None of the poison’s weakness lingered. “Bring to me a horse.”

  The journey to Syssia would take a full turn of the moon. Too long. Far too long.

  “We will ride with you,” Ardyl told him. “All is prepared. But you must delay for a moment. There is something that needs doing.”

  There was nothing that needed doing except going after Yvenne. His linens and belt hung from a nearby hook. By the time Maddek dragged on his boots, he was steadier.

  He emerged from the tent into the bright sunlight and with all of Parsathe gathered before him. No longer was he at the hollow, or the camp, but where Ran Bantik had stood when he’d united the tribes. As far as he could see were Parsathean warriors, their voices lifting and lifting into a roar that was his name.

  Ran Maddek.

  “The vote was cast while you slept.” From his left came the familiar voice of Nayil, the council minister who had served as advisor to Maddek’s parents—and had tried to serve as a fine advisor to him. The old man’s eyes were bright as he came forward on his withered step. “We had already been of one voice. But your felling the Scourge sealed it.”

  “It was not the Scourge,” Maddek said, voice hoarse with emotion. “Merely a sorcerer.”

  “A monster is a monster,” the old warrior said. “Will you lead us? Will you speak for us?”

  Heart swelling, he looked out over the gathered warriors. Maddek knew not if he deserved this honor, but he would try to do right by them.

  “I will.”

  The roar of voices lifted again, accompanied by the pounding of feet, the gleam of raised swords.

  “We know you intend to ride for your bride, Ran Maddek. We will keep the ceremony and feast for when that is done,” Nayil told him. “But first the council would also speak with Parsathe’s new Ran.”

  Maddek nodded, then looked beyond him. The alliance council stood near, lacking only Bazir, whose tongue he’d torn from his mouth and whose head he’d given to Yvenne. He was glad to see Gareth among them, for it meant that there was little explanation to give. They knew what Zhalen was, what Aezil had been.

  “I would have a strong alliance,” he said to them. “But it cannot stand strong if you coddle corruption such as Zhalen’s and Aezil’s. The council will say what they wish, and I will listen, but no argument will sway me. I will storm the walls of Syssia. I will have Zhalen’s head. Not for vengeance, but for my bride and for her people.”

  Pella stepped forward, the gold at her wrists and ankles clinking. “Ran Maddek, we are not here to forbid you from marching against Syssia. Instead we would ask you to lead the alliance army against Zhalen, and to help root out any of Aezil’s remaining corruption around the Rugusian throne.”

  He looked to Rugus’s minister, not even in his bearded age, and the moonstone eyes so much like his sister’s that Maddek’s need for her crushed his heart. The boy regarded him with a wary gaze, as if facing a
drepa—perhaps because Maddek had killed two of his brothers, and next would kill his father.

  But not all of the House of Nyset were corrupt. And the boy had given Maddek no reason to view him as such. “Yvenne trusts your word. And so will I. Do you ride with us, Tyzen?”

  The boy nodded, surprise and emotion rushing over his face, ending with pride and determination. “I will.”

  “Then make ready, brother.”

  For the young man would be his. Now the boy gave him a wry glance. “Yvenne’s brother is a dangerous thing to be. It is likely safer to be yours.”

  Maddek grinned. “So it is.”

  He turned toward his Dragon, then back as a commotion stirred through the gathered warriors, as three riders sped through the crowd. His heart jolted against his ribs.

  It was Seri. The girl was flanked by two scouts, her young face pale with fatigue. She reined in her mount in front of him.

  “I have a message from my lady.”

  And held a bloodied sheet in her lap. With a dull roaring in his ears, Maddek reached up for her, helped her shivering and exhausted to the ground. His hands cupped her face, saw her tearful eyes, and steeled himself.

  He had delivered Bazir’s head to Yvenne in a bloodied jute sack. Whatever was in that sheet, he would not falter.

  “Tell me,” he said hoarsely.

  “She says she will never marry a man too weak to protect her,” she recited, voice breaking. “She said your seed took root but like any weed, she removed it.”

  Seri pressed the bloody cloth into his hands and understanding ripped through him, tore his heart in two. So hard she had hoped for a child. Not only to claim her throne but because she’d wanted to be a mother—a mother full of love and wisdom, as Queen Vyssen had been to her.

  “You are certain?” he asked from a raw throat. “This is hers?”

  Tears spilling over, Seri nodded. “I held her hand as she lay on the sheet and screamed.”

  She had screamed? Maddek’s heart bled. Only for the greatest suffering would she ever make a sound. “And then she gave this message to you?”

  “She did.” Her chin lifted. “But before we reached the outpost, she said that she would lie to save my life. Her father released me so I might deliver this message. And because she told him that you would not come for her, or risk warriors’ lives for her. That you would kill her if any warriors were lost in her rescue.”

  Deeper pain slashed through his heart. Those had not been lies, but truth. Those things he had said to her.

  Did she know that they were no longer truth? Did she know that he would come for her? Or had those words he’d said long ago destroyed her hope?

  So alone she must feel now.

  Throat choked by pain and shame and grief, he laid his forehead to Seri’s. “You looked after her well, warrior. I see your fatigue. But will you ride with us? You can share a saddle with Toric and take your rest.”

  “I will, Ran Maddek. But I need not share his saddle. I can sleep on my horse.”

  A fine warrior already. As they all were. He looked to his Dragon, then to Enox. “You are ready to ride?”

  “We are,” she said.

  “You are commander of that army now,” he said, though she had no liking of that alliance title. But he was Ran. No longer commander. “So it will be you who gives the order—”

  “Ran Maddek,” she broke in. “You misunderstand. It is not only the warriors in the alliance army who are prepared to ride. We are all prepared to ride.”

  The sweep of her arm indicated the gathering, warriors as far as could be seen. Not just the army. All of Parsathe, all the members of the seven tribes, willing to ride with him.

  Heart thundering, he stepped forward and roared, “Riders of the Burning Plains! Fly with me, and together we will raze the walls that stand between Parsathe and a daughter of the Dragon tribe, chosen by Vela to unite the western realms against the Destroyer, the woman who will be our queen!”

  Thousands of voices shook the vault of the sky in agreement. Maddek turned and looked to his Dragon, who appeared as fiercely eager to ride.

  He gathered his claws, his shield, his sword. “Let us go claim my bride.”

  CHAPTER 44

  YVENNE

  If her father would but come out farther into the courtyard, she would kill him.

  Four days, Yvenne had been back in her tower chamber. Each day she sat on the windowsill, bow and arrow across her lap, waiting for Zhalen to come within range.

  She knew not how her mother had silently waited years and years before ripping out his throat. Such patience, Yvenne would never have.

  But she had learned well from her mother. After the outpost, Zhalen had thought her weak and broken, with only strength enough to hold on as their horses raced south day after day.

  Though he had not been wrong. Not to begin. And Yvenne wondered now whether her mother’s long plan had begun the same way, truly shattered in body and heart and mind. If those first days Queen Vyssen had lain in bed, unmoving and silent, had not been pretense. And if it had been in those shattered and broken moments that she’d decided to continue in that way, and wait for her opportunity.

  For that was what Yvenne had done. Truly broken she’d been. Truly weak, barely able to cling to her horse.

  Yet it was not the first time she’d had to. Her journey with Maddek had begun in the same way. And that journey had left her stronger than she’d known. Within days, her only pretense was not sitting up straight in her saddle, instead riding as if she’d never had horses or Maddek as her mount. The pretense was hobbling about as if saddlesore, slow and aching. The pretense was always being tired, when in truth she listened and waited.

  She’d not found the opportunity she’d wanted on that ride, but she was not sorry. Because when they’d arrived in Syssia, she’d ridden through the gates of her city, and she’d finally seen her people—and they had seen her. No more could her father hide her, though he claimed now that she’d been savaged by the barbarian king and was recovering in her tower. There the Rugusian guard had carried her again, and again she’d pretended to be weak and unable to climb steps.

  That weakness and pretense might be why her father didn’t bother to check the tower chamber for weapons.

  Because it had not only been her mother and Yvenne who had waited for opportunity. Her people had, too. Word of a queen had reached Syssia before she’d returned, brought in whispers by the soldier Jeppen, and then spreading more loudly after her father and his Rugusian guard had abandoned the city and charged north. And although the guards outside her door now might search the maids as they entered, while Yvenne had been gone, no one stood watch there. So the maids had brought in anything they’d pleased, then hidden it out of easy sight.

  And as her father no longer concealed her existence, the tower windows had been unshuttered. So now Yvenne waited. Whether he came through her chamber door or merely walked through the bailey below, she would put an arrow through him.

  The sound of the lock lifting on the opposite side of the door had her concealing her bow beneath the cushion of a sofa. Precious few arrows she had, but they were much easier to hide. She lay listlessly in bed when the Rugusian soldier allowed her maids through.

  “Your braids have come loose, my lady.” Pym tsked softly. “Let us fix them.”

  Without energy, Yvenne moved to her chair and Pym settled in behind her. Brightly the maid spoke of all the clever preparations her father was making to defend them against any attack from those brute Parsatheans from the north. So safe the maid claimed to feel, knowing that the great king who’d once smote the Smiling Giant would the one who defended the city now—and she was so happy to be living in the citadel, where most of the defenses were being built.

  “And how pretty you look now!” the maid chirped, leaning forward to fiddle with a few curls around Yve
nne’s temples. On a soft breath she whispered, “Jeppen said that all is as you requested.”

  Yvenne gave a tiny nod, then glanced over as the Rugusian guard made a rough sound in the back of her throat. She no longer watched the maids and Yvenne. Instead she gazed out of the north window.

  Another of the maids caught Yvenne’s eye, then gave a quick look to the guard, making a little shoving motion with her hands. Asking whether to rush the guard and push her out the window.

  No good would it do. Two more guards still waited outside the door. Yvenne shook her head, rose to her feet, and crossed over to the window. Pym joined her.

  “That is a strange cloud,” the maid said.

  “It’s not a cloud,” Yvenne told her, heart thumping. “It is the dust raised by tens upon tens of thousands of charging horses.”

  With Maddek riding at their head, black paint on his brow, silver claws on his fingers. So beautiful he was.

  And so savagely determined he looked, as if no time at all had passed between receiving her father’s message and this moment. As if driven by rage and grief.

  As he had been in his very worst views of her.

  “Oh,” Pym breathed, clapping her hands. “Surely they will kill us all.”

  No. Maddek was not here for the maids, or her people. Only her father, and the Rugusian guards . . . and if he had believed the message Zhalen had sent, Yvenne.

  She looked to the guard. “You should run.”

  “And tell your father?”

  “Or that, too. Tell him that death has come, as silver-fingered Rani does, but it is instead a silver-clawed Ran.” Whose gaze had fixed on this tower, though he could not see her from that distance. Chest tight, she watched him come.

  Wondering if she dared to hope again.

  CHAPTER 45

  MADDEK

  During every short rest they’d taken on the journey south, Tyzen had described Syssia’s defenses. All were strong, and the great shining wall stood even taller and thicker than Ephorn’s.