A Time of War and Demons

by S E Wendel

  It took a moment for her to hear, over her struggling and the men’s shouting and Larn’s laughing, the great rumble shaking the ground, vibrating up her legs and hitting her ears in a din. The gates of Rising flew open and soldiers in orderly lines began to stream out, headed by a contingent of horsemen with Kierum at their center.

  They rode hard and fast for the two groups. In the face of more opponents, Ennis felt the Midlanders shuffled backwards behind her. Larn cursed under his breath.

  Kierum only reined in his horse when he stood almost between the two groups, and the two riders on either side of him aimed nocked arrows at the Midland group. The Midlanders stood their ground, including Larn, though he angled her in a way that she shielded him from some of the line of fire.

  “Is this how you conduct negotiations?” asked Kierum from his mount. Sitting up so high on a beastly Lowland warhorse, his mangled leg didn’t matter; he sat straight in the saddle, his hands easily holding the reins and his eyes surveying everything. Ennis glimpsed the warlord he’d once been, the one who earned the Lowlands’ loyalty and trust, the one who inspired his son to want even more.

  “Far be it from me to waste an opportunity,” Larn replied.

  “Indeed,” said Kierum, brow lifted in a significant arch. “Your time is up. Release the girl and go back to camp.”

  “Your son’s obviously freed her. His life is forfeit to me by law, and so is hers.”

  “You’re not in the Midlands,” said Kierum. “Now get on your horse and go.”

  “I don’t fancy being shot in the back.”

  “Leave the girl where she is, head back to camp, and you won’t be harmed. I’m a man of my word, unlike you.”

  “Look at you on that high horse,” laughed Larn. “All right, old man. I’ll leave this for tomorrow.”

  With a quick flick of his hand, Larn sent his men into a careful retreat to their horses and shoved Ennis away from him into the empty space.

  She staggered and stumbled, just catching herself from falling, before arms, different arms, welcome arms were around her.

  Ennis collapsed against Manek’s chest, holding back a sob as he quickly pulled the ropes from around her.

  “You’re all right, I have you, you’re all right,” he soothed, for her or himself she wasn’t sure, but she soaked up the comfort. She wanted to bury herself in him, sink into him until she wasn’t sure where one started and the other ended so she’d never have to let him go again.

  His hands ran over her, at first in frantic butterfly touches, here and there and then gone again to another spot, checking her desperately for injury, but then eased into soothing strokes up and down her back and arms while a hand delved into her hair.

  From behind her, she heard the whinnying of a horse, and Manek stiffened in her arms. She held him tighter, refusing to let go.

  She looked up when she heard Larn sigh, saw that he’d mounted and looked on at them with a sneer. “All this for a woman, Manek? I thought you were smarter than that.”

  “It’s not just for her. It’s for all my people. You should know, better than anyone, wanting to make a better life. You made the Midlands what it is today. I want the same for the Lowlands, even if I have to go through you to do it.”

  He smiled nastily. “I hope for your sake whatever’s between her legs is worth dying for.”

  “Go,” Kierum urged.

  With one last hateful look, Larn wheeled his horse about and led the charge from the meadow back to the relative safety of camp. No Lowlander moved, not until the Midlanders were so far away that man was indistinguishable from horse and the sound of pounding hooves was lost to the wind.

  Only then did shoulders slump in relief. Manek and Kierum exchanged nods over Ennis’s head.

  In the quiet aftermath, Ennis felt herself begin to shake. Not from the ground quaking with men marching but something internal, something that twisted her insides and made her choke. Before she could stop it, large tears began rolling down her face.

  She was able to haltingly tell him what had happened, how Adena had come to warn her and died in her arms.

  “She saved me,” Manek murmured. “You both did. If she hadn’t…if you…”

  Her chest felt hollowed out, bottomless. Manek held her to him, murmuring in her ear. She could barely hear the words over her sobs, but she clung to the sound of his voice, his hands warm and solid and anchoring on her back.

  “L-Lora?” she asked frantically.

  “She’s all right, she’s just over there.”

  “Adena…”

  Manek directed a few men to help Lora and bring Adena into Rising then picked Ennis up, cradling her against his chest, and took long strides back towards the gate. “Now we must do right by her. Send her to Mithria.” His words, heavy, swollen with grief, were those of one who’d already sent a sister to Mithria.

  The breath she drew in cracked and wobbled, and Manek kissed her hair.

  He walked the rest of the way in silence, only setting her down when they were within sight of the Haven. Ennis numbly watched Lora enter behind the man who carried Adena.

  He held her while Ennis waited for anger to flush through her, to warm her blood and strengthen her resolve. But it didn’t come. Damn it all, why wouldn’t it come? She grasped at it, begged for it, but all she had was an ache that she’d hoped never to feel again after watching her city burn.

  Manek wiped a tear away with his thumb, but another was there to take its place.

  “Lay your sister to rest. There’ll be time enough for everything else.” He leaned in, and she sighed, welcoming his warm kiss. It was comfort and understanding in one act, and she let it go on for as long as she could.

  “Manek.”

  They looked up to see Kierum close by, still on his horse, waiting for Manek to join him and a group of men.

  With a pained look, he nodded at his father and sighed, then held her head against his chest and buried his face in her hair. “I have to talk with them, but I don’t want to leave you.”

  “I’m supposed to be at that meeting with you.”

  Lifting her chin with a knuckle, he pressed a kiss to her forehead. “It can wait. Do what you can for her. I’ll find you after.”

  “I’d rather go with you,” she said, feeling more tears coming.

  “I know, love. I’d rather you come, too. But your sister needs you for now.”

  Yes. She would do this for Adena. She would cross those delicate hands that had possessed such a gift to create. She would comb the golden hair that had always smelled like honeysuckle. She would wash the face that had laughed, wept, grimaced, but most of all smiled. She would send Adena to Mithria as she was. Gentle. Loving. A Courtnay, and her sister.

  “Ennis…” Manek took her hand and kissed the palm. “Thank you for what you did. You saved me, probably Rising too. Thank your sister for me.”

  She swallowed hard and nodded. It took a strength she wasn’t sure she had to walk away from Manek and into the Haven. She wanted nothing more than to throw herself into their cause, to lose herself in work. But he was right—her sister needed her now.

  She followed the sound of Lora’s low voice to one of the front examining rooms.

  Adena had been laid out on a table. The filthy man’s clothes had been cut away. Her wan, bony form stole the breath from Ennis’s lungs.

  At the choked sound, Lora looked over her shoulder from where she stood at Adena’s side. There were others in the room, but it took Ennis’s beleaguered mind several moments to see them. Renata stood on the other side of the small room, looking at her through her lashes. And on Adena’s other side was Irina.

  When she saw her, Irina wiped the glittering tears from her face. Slowly, she extended a hand towards Ennis.

  The hollow place where her heart should’ve been said not to take it. She’d lost Irina already. Today she lost Adena, too. She didn’t know if she could bear to have Irina again for only today, to lose her with the new sun. But Irina
was alive, and she was grateful for it.

  Ennis took Irina’s hand and let her help her with all the things she’d promised herself she would do. They washed Adena. They coaxed away the cakes of blood. They combed her hair and crossed her cold hands over her chest.

  The feel of Adena’s knobby hands in her own nearly made Ennis’s heart break all over again.

  Before Adena was sewn into a white shroud, Irina slipped her into a nightgown. “So she won’t get cold,” Irina murmured as she buttoned her up to the neck. Soon, she was ready for her last sleep, and in the soft candlelight, Adena looked peaceful, her shorn hair clean, the lines smoothed from her face.

  When Adena was blessed, the rites said, and Ennis finally found the end of her tears, an end that brought a numbness she was grateful for, she turned to Lora and whispered, “There’s something I must do. Will you help me?”

  Fifty-Two

  Though Ceralia could never fully forgive or understand Themin for turning to his first love, she found comfort in the only other soul who understood her. In the long hours of morning, Ceralia sat with Mithria as they watched the world grow, the lands flushed by spring rain. “We all have our parts in this world, hard as they may be to bear,” Ceralia would say. “Yes,” Mithria would reply. “And I’m happy I have a sister to share it with.”

  —Mother Earth and Mother Rain

  Lora walked with Ennis back to her cottage, a light fog from the river settling over Rising. An owl hooted from the nearby forest, and their boots crunched the frozen grass and dirt of the path. The blue-hued night left long, cold shadows across Lora’s face, and her breath came in little puffs.

  Though she hoped there would be salvageable coals in the hearth, Lora knew the cold suited her mood. Her heart felt swollen in her chest, too full of sorrow to beat properly.

  Of all the Courtnay sisters, Lora had known Adena the least, but that didn’t take away the years of watching her grow, watching her fill a room with her quiet grace. Lora shuddered to think of Adena’s life this last year, of what she’d endured.

  Ennis walked silently beside her. Her eyes had dried, and she walked with purpose. Lora wanted to say something, wanted to offer some sort of comfort. She could feel the pain radiating from her like an errant pulse.

  Yet there was something else in Ennis’s face too. The gears of her mind were beginning to work again. But her eyes betrayed nothing, so Lora contented herself to wait, not sure if she could trust her own voice yet.

  The dark cottage greeted them sleepily, the floorboards cold. It seemed like it’d been days ago that they’d left with Kenna to the gate. In the hearth lay a bed of coals, which Lora set to work on with a small bellow, eager for something to occupy her hands.

  She heard Ennis moving across the room, the sound of paper and fabric rustling, but Lora kept her eyes on the growing fire.

  The fire crackled again after a few minutes of nursing, and before standing to stretch her cramped back, Lora added two logs. Pulling off her cloak, she looked over her shoulder.

  Ennis had lain out something on the table, brown paper and string cast aside. The blue silk of a gown gleamed in the firelight, and Lora realized what it was. For days and days before the northern farmers came, Ennis had snuck away to work on a special project with Manek’s mother. Neither would say what it was, but Lora now ran appreciative eyes over their creation.

  Ennis lifted her gaze from her wedding dress to finally look at Lora. Her lips rose into something like, but not quite, a smile.

  “I doubt I’ll be getting a wedding after all. So I’d like to wear it now. Will you help me?”

  “Of course.”

  Lora drew Ennis close to the fire before working on the buttons of the green wool dress she’d brought with her from Kasia. Lora wore a very similar dress; it seemed green had been Anneka’s favorite color. However odd it was with a battle looming, she needed to walk up to the great house and thank Kasia herself for the three dresses she’d given Lora, precious artifacts of a daughter long gone. She hadn’t taken as much delight as Ennis in watching her Sisterly attire burn in the hearth, but she’d burned it nonetheless.

  Ennis stepped out of the wool dress and into the gown, pooled at her feet. She slipped into it with efficient movements, pulling her hair over one shoulder so Lora could begin buttoning. It was quite a task, little buttons running from the small of Ennis’s back all the way up to the nape of her neck.

  As she worked, Lora couldn’t help wondering how many times she and Ennis had done this for each other in the past. For balls, parties, outings, tournaments, presentations. She knew her friend’s body almost as well as her own, knew how her curls frizzed in the rain while Ennis’s fell limp, knew the splotchy red birthmark between Ennis’s shoulder blades.

  “Do you remember Adena’s presentation day?” The words were out before she could think, and she immediately wished them back.

  But to her relief, Ennis looked over her shoulder and smiled. “Yes. I remember Father having a fit when we were almost an hour late because Essa hid all my jewelry.”

  “Didn’t we find them in a barrel of potatoes?”

  “Exactly,” Ennis laughed. “The wildling stashed them there because she’s had Cook wrapped around her finger since she was three.”

  “Your gown that day looked much like this one.”

  “Yes.” The laughter ebbed, and Ennis’s shoulders sagged a little.

  When Lora finished with the buttons and stepped to her side, she found Ennis’s face contorted, trying to hold in a sob.

  “Ennis,” she said, rubbing her back, “you don’t have to do this.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “No, you don’t. Manek understands.”

  “This isn’t about Manek.”

  Yes. Lora knew that. But it didn’t mean she couldn’t wish Ennis would give herself the time, the space to grieve.

  Lora watched as Ennis drew all the pain and grief into herself, watched it harden and coalesce into a mask of calm resolve. It was unsettling, but strangely relieving. Ennis never gave in to grief; not with her father dead, her city taken. She’d kept Lora going on the long march to Rising, had coaxed her along, bitten at her heels when needed. Lora knew that if Ennis could square her shoulders and lift her chin as she did now, it was a good thing. It meant Ennis, at her core, would survive this.

  “Should I do something with your hair?”

  “Yes, thank you. But something quick. I’ve probably already missed most of the meeting.”

  Ennis sat in a chair while Lora got to work, pulling and coiling her hair into a simple coif. “So you’re wearing this fine dress for his captains?” she asked.

  She snorted. “Of course not. They just happen to be there. For now.”

  “Ah. I see. So I shouldn’t expect you back tonight?”

  Ennis sat up straighter, and her ears looked a little red. “Mostly likely not.” She shifted so she could look over her shoulder, but a disgruntled noise from Lora made her still. “Could you do something for me tomorrow morning?”

  “Name it.”

  “Could you go to Kenna’s and have her bring up my father’s breastplate and the bracelets?”

  Lora’s fingers stilled. “Your father’s what?”

  “Breastplate,” Ennis said, as if that explained anything. Lora poked her skull, wanting an explanation. “I may have spirited it away from the armory. Taryn agreed to modify it, and he gave the excess metal to Beon, who’s shaping it into two bracelets. To replace the ones I lost.”

  “And one will go to Manek at the wedding?”

  Ennis smiled. “Yes.”

  Lora could only shake her head. “My, you’ve been busy with all your projects.”

  “I’ve kept everything secret, especially from Manek.” She tilted her chin up to grin at her. “Will you help me tomorrow?”

  “Consider it done,” Lora said, twisting the final strands of hair into place.

  Running gentle fingers over the coif, Ennis stood and turned to
face her.

  “Do you think you’ll really fight?” Lora asked before she lost her nerve.

  “I don’t know. Perhaps, if it comes to it.” She threw her arms around Lora’s shoulders, holding her tight. “And I’ll need you with me.”

  “I’ll do everything I can tomorrow.”

  “I know you will.” She pulled back and smiled. “You always do. And that’s why you, Lora Finnley, are the best of women and best of friends.” Ennis squeezed her hands, and Lora saw she struggled to maintain her smile as she said, “Thank you for being with me and Adena today. I don’t think I could’ve…”

  Lora pulled her back into a fierce hug, wishing she could do more. Wishing Ennis found more comfort in others than in work. But that was who Ennis was, and though she forever found new ways to exasperate Lora, she wouldn’t change her for anything.

  Ennis stepped away after a long moment, taking a fortifying breath, but Lora didn’t miss how it warbled. All she could do was watch as Ennis drew herself up, putting everything, her anger, her resolve, her strength, into place.

  “Well, I’ll be off. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a dramatic entrance and I’m quite looking forward to it.”

  “You always were one for dramatic entrances.”

  “I’ve a flair for them, I admit.”

  Lora rolled her eyes as Ennis, laughing, donned her cloak.

  “Careful about the train,” Lora said. “I hear silk’s a nightmare to launder.”

  Ennis stuck her tongue out in mock disgust, smiled affectionately, and then strode out into the night.

  She left a cold space in her wake where her body had been, poised before the threshold. Lora found herself staring at it long after she left, the hiss of the fire finally pulling her back into herself.

  Lora built up the fire and prepared for bed. She propped open the door to her room so some of the hearth’s warmth would seep in while she slept. By the time she reached her bed, the only thing she had the energy left to do was kick off her boots.

  She shivered pulling the cold blankets around her, the hem of her dress still wet and muddy from the day. But sleep found her quickly, for she was under her own blankets, in her own bed, warmed by her own hearth in her own home. This place, this life was hers, and it bolstered her heart just enough to keep the despair that slunk in the shadows at bay.