by Matthew Ward
Thrusting the shovel into the sod, he wiped his brow on his shirtsleeve and stared up at the ruins of Branghall, shrouded in mist, as they’d been ever since fires had driven Malatriant to the Raven’s care seven years before. The soft fragrance of churned soil mingled with the scent of yesterdays. The three days spent recuperating in Ardva felt as though they’d never happened.
“I feel like I should say something,” he murmured, “but I can’t find the words.”
Sidara, the ruins of her Drazina uniform replaced with a simple gown, slipped her hands about his waist and drew him close. Blue eyes glimmered gold above a sad smile. She’d held respectful distance throughout his labours, close enough for comfort, but understanding his need for solitude.
“Then say nothing,” she said. “Just be. They’d understand.”
Altiris nodded, though it wasn’t so simple.
Pulling away, he stared towards the estate’s gate, where the surviving members of the Stonecrest hearthguard – his hearthguard – kept watch in order to ensure a moment of privacy. Blue-white ghostfires burned beneath the crumbling gateway, the purity of fleenroot and silver holding unquiet spirits at bay. Eskavord retained its share of those. Indeed, the numbers had grown in recent days.
Of the knights who’d fought that final battle against Lord Droshna, fewer than half yet lived. Of the Drazina who’d followed their master to Eskavord, even fewer. Of the 14th, massacred in battle and its survivors broken to the Dark, no more than a dozen remained, and they were haunted by terrible dreams. As for the Phoenixes? Kelver had died in the darkness, saving Viara’s life from an Ocranza’s axe. Jarrock, from his wounds two days prior. Brass had lost a finger – his favourite finger, whatever that meant – but Viara and Beckon had come through almost unscathed.
Unscathed, but keeping poor watch. At least, so the three figures climbing the shallow slope suggested. Then again, Altiris wouldn’t have wanted to be the one to bar their way. Some battles couldn’t be won.
He found he didn’t mind. Solitude carried a body only so far, and every moment in the mists bore the burden of years.
“You didn’t think we’d leave you to do it all alone, did you, Lord Trelan?”
Altiris winced. Even swathed in bandages and bruised where he was not, Kurkas conspired to infuriating manner. “Don’t call me that, Vladama.”
Kurkas mustered the distant parade-ground stare Altiris suspected he’d be seeing a great deal more often, but his good eye twinkled. “Right you are, my lord.”
Rosa – yet another personal name Altiris was learning to use, however uncomfortable it made him – gave Kurkas a wicked nudge with her elbow. “Behave.”
Kurkas adopted an expression of wounded innocence and received a scowl in return.
Sevaka offered Altiris a sympathetic smile. “You didn’t have to do any of it alone.”
“Josiri gave me everything, and for so little in return. This was the least I could do.” Turning, Altiris stared at the modest grave. “The Council wanted him for the Hayadra Grove’s catacombs, did you know that? A grand ceremony beneath the Shaddra, with fanfare and speeches. In life, they never knew quite what to do with him. In death, they acclaim Josiri Trelan a hero. But he never belonged to them. He belongs to the Southshires. He should rest here. He earned it.”
He fell silent, the words that had escaped him in solitude coaxed free in company.
“But why here?” said Rosa. “Why not the cathedral at Kreska?”
“A tomb next to Konor Belenzo?” Kurkas grunted. “Oh, that would’ve been a thing to see.”
“Because this was his home, and because…” Altiris tailed off, fearing his hopes would sound foolish. After all, they were founded on so little. A dying promise, half-heard in the rain on the clifftop at Duskvigil Church. “It doesn’t matter.”
One by one, they knelt before Josiri’s grave – a hallowed farewell, for all it lacked the ceremony of incense and golden death masks. Kurkas knelt the longest – he more than any other had two farewells to offer. When it came to Rosa’s turn, she laid her sword atop the bare earth. The hilt at the headstone and the blade pointing east. Her shield, with its Essamere crest, she retained.
“Has there been any word of Constans?” asked Sevaka.
Sidara’s brow creased with hurt. “I saw him in Ardva yesterday, watching me from the shadows. When I called out, he fled into the night. You should have seen his face. You can see the guilt eating at him.”
Kurkas grunted. “Bloody well should feel guilty.”
Altiris’ own feelings about Constans were harder to parse. The awkward boy who loved showmanship and poetry, and was so desperate to be liked. The cold-hearted killer, twisted by Hawkin’s betrayal, who’d driven his own sister into the Dark out of envy. Even now, Altiris couldn’t swear to which was real, and which was the mask. Possibly Constans didn’t know himself. Sidara certainly didn’t. But her brother he remained.
“Just be glad he’s alive,” said Sevaka. “The rest will attend to itself.”
“Speaking of which, what happens now…” Kurkas let the words hang just long enough to offer hope that he’d not end them with the dread title. “… my lord?”
Altiris closed his eyes, trepidation returning. The archimandrite’s letter had contained more than polite expectation concerning Josiri’s interment. “Tomorrow, we ride north. Lord Trelan and the Lady Reveque are called to take their seats on the Council.” He paused, overcome by dread. “They’re going to eat me alive.”
Sidara kissed him on the cheek. “You’ll do fine.” Reassuring tone turned apprehensive. “It’s not you they’ll want to set on a pedestal.”
False smile concealed the truth of intervening days. Rumours had reached Ardva ahead of their weary convoy. Whispers of Phoenixes and sunlit miracles amid the mists. Crowds had greeted them, drawn to behold the Lady of Light who had banished the Dark. The first petitioners had arrived at noon the following day, begging for Lumestra’s blessing. Sidara had hidden herself in the convent’s hospice soon after, lost in the business of healing Eskavord’s wounded, Ardva’s only two beaten-up simarka standing jealous guard at the door. But hour by hour, the crowds had swollen, a portent of what surely awaited in Tressia itself.
“Might be it’s for the best,” said Kurkas. “Hard to ignore the Phoenix of Prophecy, especially when she’s got a scowl like yours. Might be you can change things for the better.”
Sidara favoured him with that very scowl. “That’s what Viktor thought.”
Altiris stifled a sympathetic grimace. The Phoenix of Prophecy. So many had claimed that title. Now it, in turn, had claimed Sidara. She’d spent three sleepless nights in his arms, staring into a future drowning in a legacy of light, terrified what it portended: to be for ever alone in a crowd, acknowledged, but never truly seen beneath its radiance.
“Viktor was different,” said Sevaka.
“Because of the Dark?” Sidara shook her head violently. “The Dark was the means, not the motive. It compounded his mistakes, but they remain his mistakes. What if the light does the same for me? It’s come close already, so many times.”
She stared off into the mists. Altiris wondered what she saw. The carnage at Silverway Dock? At Argatha Bridge? Something else? She’d spoken so little about what she’d done in the clutches of Lord Droshna’s shadow, and he knew better than to force the topic.
“Viktor was different because he always stood alone, even when he claimed otherwise,” Sevaka replied. “Once he’d settled on an answer, he never stopped to consider if it was the right answer. For him, strength was always the sword, and never the shield. In that, he was more like my mother than either would ever admit. Josiri knew better. Your parents knew better. You know better.”
“And if I forget?”
Rosa laid a hand on her shoulder. “Then we’ll remind you. You’re never alone unless you want to be. I wish Viktor had recognised that. He saved me from myself so many times. I wish I could have saved him just the once, but he
never would have let me.” She scowled, lost in memory, then rallied to something approaching cheer. “Trust me, you’ll find friends in the strangest of places, if you only allow yourself to look.”
Sidara seemed to find comfort in the words, a little of the tension bleeding from her shoulders. Altiris wondered if she was thinking, as he was, of the impoverished faces at Seacaller’s Church at Midwintertide. Of the others like them who’d never had anyone to speak for them on the Council, but did now. At least, if he found courage enough to do so.
In that moment, Altiris promised himself he would, however hard the road ahead. There was no better way to honour the Trelan name, and not all stubbornness was sin. What would Kasvin have made of that? He found himself hoping that she too had found a measure of peace.
“Will we see you in Tressia?” he asked.
“In time. There’s work to be done in the Eastshires, and it’s as good a place as any to rebuild Essamere – if indeed I’m the right person to do so.” Rosa shared a glance with Sevaka. “But first I’ve—”
“We’ve…” corrected Sevaka.
“We’ve respects to pay further east,” Rosa offered a wry smile. “It might be better if you kept that part to yourselves. Today, there’s peace. Tomorrow…?”
“Tomorrow there will also be peace,” said Sidara firmly. “Or we’ve learned nothing.”
And with that, hands were shaken and embraces exchanged. One by one, they began the walk to Branghall’s gate. Altiris hung back, instincts prickling. Halfway down the slope, he glanced back towards the ruins. For a moment, he glimpsed a shimmering figure at the graveside, an after-image of daylight, wings spread beneath grey skies, hand aloft in farewell.
Sidara pressed a hand to her lips, eyes shining with wonder.
“Ana always said there was a piece of her still bound here,” murmured Altiris. “She tried to tell me again at the end. I never really understood what she meant, but I hoped.”
“That’s why you didn’t want him buried at Kreska?” said Sidara.
He nodded. “I thought it worth the chance. I hope they find one another again in the mists.”
The mists shifted, the golden figure lost to sight as if she’d never been.
“They will,” said Sidara. “Rosa’s right. We’re none of us alone unless we want to be.”
His last sorrow borne away by miracle, Altiris kissed her, and lost himself in the warmth and wonder of a life yet to come. Hand in hand, they left Branghall’s ghosts behind, and passed into a future bereft of shadow.
Calenne watched Altiris and Sidara from atop the blackened remnant of Branghall’s gatehouse, far enough from the ghostfires’ poisonous light to suffer only the mildest discomfort. Little by little, they were lost to sight, voices muted by the mists. The Raven sat beside her, heels kicking above the empty gate and hat propped on the stones between them.
“You didn’t want to talk to them?”
She shook her head. “I thought I did, but life’ll be complicated enough without an undead aunt lurking in the wings.”
He snorted. “If you ask me, that only makes the idea more appealing.” He cocked his head, goatee twitching in thought. “So what will you do next?”
“It’s up to me?”
“Let’s say it is.”
Feeling steadily more unreal – no easy feat in current circumstances – Calenne stared at him. In all their conversations, the Raven had been annoyed, arrogant, affronted… but never friendly. This felt almost like an apology.
“This is a trap, isn’t it? Some reprisal for annoying you.”
A gravelly laugh rippled through the mists. “Not in the least. You upheld your bargain. As far as you and I are concerned, all is settled.” He cast a hand beyond the ghostfire-light, encompassing the drifting etravia. “I’m not sure you belong among these listless souls. Otherworld is for a very particular kind of dead. One way or another, you’re something else. But by all means, continue lurking. It’ll be refreshing to have someone to talk to while we wait for darling Lumestra to pull herself back together and usher in Third Dawn.”
“Even if you’ve no power over me?”
He shrugged. “Perhaps that’s part of the appeal. When every day’s the same, any change is for the better.”
Calenne dropped down from the gatehouse and stared back at Branghall. Her home for more years than she remembered, and all that time she’d wanted nothing more than to be free of it.
“In the clocktower,” she said slowly, feeling out the thought as she went, “you told me there were a dozen worlds beyond this one.”
The Raven jammed his hat on his head and smiled down. “Oh, there are. Realms of grey stone and iron skies, where steel serpents rumble through the darkness. Shining worlds where magic is lifeblood, and others where it’s derided as myth. Lands forged by giants. Ruled by serathi. Where silver knights fight an eternal battle against sullen shadows and bitter flames. Everything in between. You could journey a lifetime and never tread them all.”
A frisson of excitement quickened at the possibility. “I think I’d like to try. Can I?”
The mists thickened. Branghall grew dark and thence became nothing at all.
“That’s not for me to say,” said the Raven, though Calenne could no longer see him. “The mists run where the mists run, but the first step is up to you.”
A dozen worlds. In life, she’d never even made it as far as Thrakkia. Was it possible to stray further still in death?
There was only one way to find out.
Taking the memory of a breath, Calenne Trelan closed her eyes and set out.
Acknowledgements
Whew. We’re here. At the end of Book 3. Did you ever think we’d get here? I’ll be honest – I’m still getting used to the idea.
I’m writing this roughly two and a half years after I started writing Legacy of Ash, but I’ve known how Viktor and Josiri’s story would end for upwards of twenty. Of course, plenty’s changed along the way. New characters and conflicts have found their way into the tale. The world of Aradane is far richer than I could ever have imagined it becoming, but… twenty years, man.
I think it’ll be at least another twenty before it really sinks in.
So what happens next? At time of writing, I don’t actually know. A trilogy ends, and with it an era, but the Empire and Republic go on, marching remorselessly into the Light of Third Dawn. Fresh legacies, burdens and conflicts await. Maybe we’ll get to explore them together – I’d certainly like to – we’ll have wait and see.
But that’s the future. Let’s stop and enjoy the moment. I mean, if you’re actually reading this bit, I’m guessing you enjoyed a few other moments up to this point, right? And while we’re doing that, there are a few folk I’d like to thank.
As ever, deepest and most heartfelt thanks go to my wife Lisa for her patience, support, beta reading, and general tolerance of the fact that my brain’s never, ever what you might call off, and I’m extraordinarily grateful for all the times I’ve turned a car journey or vacation into an impromptu plotting session. She’s not yet developed a twitch when she hears the words “I think I’ve worked out what happens next in this bit…” or “So, I’ve had another idea…” No mean feat.
Beyond that, a tip of the hat to my agent John Jarrold – a man who’s learning that there is no level of detail I won’t fret about when the mood takes me, but is never less than a rock. Another to my editor at Orbit, James Long, for ensuring that not only this book, but the whole trilogy, makes at least a lick of sense.
Thanks also to Joanna Kramer and her team; Suzannah Runnacles and Andy Hawes for saving me from the worst of my abstract grammar and typing failures; Viv Mullett for a very shiny (and increasingly densely populated) map; the team at M Rules for making the book’s innards so nice; and the dynamic duo of Larry Rostant and Charlotte Stroomer for yet another knockout cover. As ever, my endless gratitude to Nazia Khatun and Angela Man for making sure I show up, answer questions and otherwise do a passa
ble impression of a human being when it’s time to promote the books.
And last but not least, I’d like to thank you, dear reader. You just finished a book I never thought would see print, and if you’re reading this, you probably liked it. So you’re awesome. Don’t forget it.
Now, put the book down, and go show the world how awesome you are.
You’ve earned it.
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extras
meet the author
Photo Credit: Photo Nottingham
MATTHEW WARD is a writer, cat-servant and owner of more musical instruments than he can actually play (and considerably more than he can play well). He’s afflicted with an obsession for old places – castles, historic cities and the London Underground chief among them – and should probably cultivate more interests to help expand out his author biography.
After a decade serving as a principal architect for Games Workshop’s Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 properties, Matthew embarked on an adventure to tell stories set in worlds of his own design. He lives near Nottingham with his extremely patient wife – as well as a pride of attention-seeking cats – and writes to entertain anyone who feels there’s not enough magic in the world.
Follow him on Twitter @TheTowerofStars.
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