by Matthew Ward
Viktor shook the thought away and focused on the moment at hand. He’d never attempted something of this kind, but his relationship with his own shadow had shifted ever since he’d returned to the Southshires, particularly since the conjuring at the battle’s climax. It wouldn’t be right to describe it as tamed, but there was a new calm between them. Perhaps that same accord allowed him to see deeper into Josiri’s core?
He released Josiri’s hand and stepped back. His shadow probed the seed in Josiri’s soul.
And just like that, it was gone. Devoured.
Josiri blinked and stood straighter than he had before.
Viktor drew back his shadow. It felt heavier. Content. How much good had he previously left undone through restraint? Something to think on.
“Forgive me,” he said. “But I must go. I will find Calenne if she’s there to be found. My tent is yours.”
He clambered into his saddle, wincing as the motion pulled on recently stitched wounds.
Calenne was still out there. She had to be.
Josiri watched until Viktor was lost to sight, and the rhythmic thump of hooves faded beneath the sound of drunken carousal. The world suddenly seemed brighter – as if pressure had lifted from behind his eyes. What was it his father had always said? A heartfelt apology is good for the soul.
Turned out it might be true.
He felt Anastacia’s eyes on him. “You’re unusually quiet.”
[[What would you have me say? That I’m proud? Or I can mock you, if you worry over a swollen head.]]
Josiri gazed out across campfires far sparser than they should have been. How many lives could he have saved by joining with Viktor from the first? “No danger of that. I’ve made too many mistakes.”
[[If you live to see two hundred years, perhaps then you’ll match my tally, but I doubt it.]] She paused. [[Viktor’s right. The past’s not for changing. But the future is what we make of it.]]
She drew closer. The tattered shawl twitched about her shoulders. Black eyes gleamed in the perfect white-gold face. A witch’s eyes, as they were so often called. How terrifying she should have seemed to him, and to the superstitious soldiery. But Josiri had no fear of her, and word had spread as evening wore on. Of the porcelain woman who’d felled a charging grunda. Whoever Anastacia had been before she’d come to Branghall, she’d made herself a legend, if only for a day.
“I love you.”
Her head twitched in irritation. [[Josiri . . .]]
“No. You’re not bound to Branghall any longer. Not now. We’re free. There’s nothing to keep us apart.”
Her fingers brushed his cheek. [[Oh, my dear heart. There’ll always be something to keep us apart. I’m a daughter of Lumestra. My light may be fading, but it’ll shine long after you’re dust.]]
“But that’s tomorrow. Or the day after. Or the day after that.” He took her smooth fingers in his, again surprised at the warmth of what should have been cold. “The moments we have together are what matter.”
[[You’re not going to give up on this, are you?]]
“I’m a Trelan. I’m stubborn.”
She offered a hollow echo of what might once have been a sigh and embraced him. [[I do love you, Josiri. Insofar as I am able.]]
Josiri felt his mouth twitch in what was surely an idiot smile. He felt no shame, only relief. “That’s all I ask.”
He closed his eyes and put his arms about her. For a long moment, he forgot Calenne; forgot the bloody horror of the day and the challenges that would come with the dawn.
“Sorry, your grace. Can’t let you in.”
The northwealder set a hand on his sword and shot a sidelong glance at his fellows, clustered around the nearby fire. A ruffianly bunch, and neither a friendly face nor a wolf-cloak to be seen. It seemed that Viktor Akadra’s promise of shared authority didn’t extend as far as the prisoners. That, or the guard didn’t care. Probably the latter.
Josiri didn’t much care either. Not with a span of broken sleep behind, and a surfeit of unresolved worries ahead. Even the clothes he wore were not his but borrowed from Viktor’s possessions – there’d been no saving his own garb. They were by no means a good fit. Even cinched in by a belt, the shirt felt like a sack.
“And I’d rather be sleeping,” he snapped. “Major Keldrov sent me. One of the prisoners requested a meeting.”
“Don’t see her with you, your grace.”
“She’s resting.”
Work parties had dug Keldrov out of the ruin of Blackridge Farm at dusk. Even stitched and bandaged up she looked more dead than alive. Josiri hadn’t found it in himself to drag her broken bones the quarter mile from the camp. Instead, he’d ordered her to sleep.
“Leaves us at an impasse, doesn’t it, your grace?”
“Not at all,” said Josiri. “One of two things is about to happen. Either you let me inside, or I send a herald to Lord Akadra. Which would you prefer?”
The guard beckoned towards the fire. “Dasari? His grace is going inside. You’re his escort. Rest of you, give me a hand with this bloody door, would you?”
The space within was thick with hunched or sleeping men, and others for whom slumber had become something deeper and irreversible. It stank of blood, sweat . . . and despair most of all. It brought to mind the desperate hours after Zanya where he and his uncle Taymor had waited for word of his mother. Just as he now awaited news of his sister.
Josiri shook the memory away. No distractions. There were no weapons in sight, but desperate men didn’t need them.
The gate slammed shut.
“You are his grace, the Duke of Eskavord?”
The speaker was an older man, with accented speech and grey hairs prominent in a dark beard. It also revealed the slightest quiver. Not of fear. Josiri would have bet long odds against that. Anger. Shame. Distrust. The speaker didn’t know what the dawn would bring. Not for himself, nor for those he served.
Josiri inclined his head. “I am.”
The watchful eyes eased. “Thank you, savir. My name is Aedrun. If you follow me, I will take you to the Lady Ashanal.”
Aedrun led Josiri around the perimeter, threading a path until they reached a wood and canvas lean-to set beneath the rampart of the palisade. It wasn’t part of the original construction, as the garrison had no need of cloistered spaces. Melanna Saranal plainly did.
A quick-fire exchange of Hadari came as the group approached the canvas curtain. A woman’s voice from within, and Aedrun’s from without. Josiri understood nothing of the melodic speech, though Aedrun’s unhappiness lurked beneath the words.
“You may go inside, savir,” Aedrun announced. “But you alone.”
Josiri passed into a blanket-strewn space barely large enough to lie down in.
“So you are Josiri Trelan.”
The voice was younger than Josiri had expected. But then only her eyes were old. He wondered how much they’d aged that day.
“And you are Melanna Saranal. Or is that Ashanal?”
“The former.” She spoke the words hurriedly, then calmed her pace. “It is as my father’s daughter that I speak to you. I believe you understand the duties of an heir.”
“Not as well as I’d like.”
“You must forgive Aedrun’s manner. For him to leave me alone with a heathen is a weighty burden – let alone to leave us within arm’s reach of one another.”
“Lady, I’m weary. My soul is stretched thin. I have kin and companions unaccounted for. If you’ve something to say, let’s have it.”
Melanna raised an eyebrow. Calm. Collected. Josiri envied her poise. He couldn’t have done the same. “My sympathies for your missing blood. A brother?”
“My sister. The Phoenix.”
“We crossed swords. She fought well . . .”
Josiri’s pulse quickened. Crossed swords. Was he even now speaking with Calenne’s murderer? “Where is she?”
Melanna’s lip hooked. White teeth gleamed. “Hear my petition, and I’ll tell what
I know.”
Josiri swallowed away his impatience. “I’m listening.”
“Why did you fight for your oppressors?”
The unexpected question took Josiri off his stride. “That’s why you asked to see me?”
“No, but I’m curious. I’ve spent many weeks in your lands. I’ve seen first-hand how your people are treated. And yet you fought for them, as Crovan always said you would. Your kin in the north will keep taking from you until you’ve nothing left worth stealing. Because they can. Because you let them. My father stood ready to give you everything you wanted.”
“Is this the same father who threatened of children enslaved and croplands sown with salt?”
“A lie!” Her eyes narrowed, making her look twice the serpent she had before. But the words were too defiant. Too rote. She believed.
Josiri shook his head, glad to have shivered her confidence. The threat had made his skin crawl when Gavamor had spoken of it. “No. Though I’d made my decision long before I learned of that.”
“Then why?”
“Because my mother’s war is fifteen years in the past. Mine’s here and now, and it’s not the same.”
He fell silent. It really was that straightforward, wasn’t it? Strange how the simplest concepts took longest to comprehend.
Melanna’s mask of unconcern slid back into place. “Never trust a shadowthorn, is that it? I know what your priests teach. That we take root in tainted soil. That we wear the corruption in our souls as proudly as heraldry.”
“An abhorrent belief. One I don’t share.”
“Enough do.”
“Those same priests preach that my folk are both rebellious and shiftless,” said Josiri. “Where we find the energy for the one if we’re the other, I don’t know.”
“Did you ever wonder what came first – the hatred, or the lies? Or perhaps we fascinate? Nothing breeds hatred like desire.”
He winced. “I’ve answered your question. Tell me about my sister.”
“Not yet.”
Tired of her games, Josiri reached for the canvas flap. “Then I’ll wish you good night.”
“No!”
For the first time, a note of desperation crept through. Josiri halted.
“I asked you here to propose a trade,” said Melanna softly. “My father took wounds in the battle. He sleeps feverishly elsewhere.”
“You want me to send a physician?”
“I want you to set him free.”
Josiri laughed. “Your father’s responsible for more deaths than I can tally. How much pity do you suppose I feel?”
“He harmed no one who didn’t oppose him under arms. That should count for something.”
“Perhaps. But not enough.”
She stared at the rutted, straw-strewn floor. “You’d have the architect of today’s battle face justice?”
“Not I. The Council.”
“And we all know Trelans always do as the Council demands.”
With iron will, Josiri kept his face expressionless. She knew too much of him, and his mood. “On this occasion, our interests align. There must be a reckoning.”
“And there will be. But I’d spare my father the humiliation of being paraded through your streets. And the indignity of the noose.”
“I doubt he’ll get the noose,” said Josiri. “They’ll probably burn him alive.”
Melanna met his gaze, her eyes afire. “And you’d call that justice?”
“It doesn’t matter what I call it. You’re heathens. Heathens get the pyre.”
She shuddered and with visible effort brought herself under control. “My father is not the architect you seek. I am.”
Josiri frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Aedrun called me Ashanal because I bear the favour of the goddess. With her blessing, I swept aside those in our path. I brought us to the cusp of victory. Let my father go.”
Josiri wasn’t sure how much to believe, or even if he should believe. Hadari womenfolk never took to the battlefield, so Melanna was already unusual. As for the rest, Josiri had woken from the arms of a serathi-turned-spirit, turned . . . well, he wasn’t sure, but it certainly encouraged him to discount little of what he heard.
“Even if what you say is true, you offer to trade with something I already possess.”
She took a deep breath, no longer the proud princessa, but something vulnerable. Josiri wasn’t sure which to believe, if either. In fact, he was starting to suspect that neither aspect held more than a portion of the true Melanna Saranal. He’d spent too long playing a role not to recognise the masquerade in another.
“Name your price. I will meet it without defiance,” she said. “There is nothing I would not do to save my father.”
Josiri took her meaning. It was impossible not to. A bride of brief moonlight, he’d heard it called. Daughters of the defeated offered as chattels. His father had called it barbaric. His mother had suggested it wasn’t all that different to the principles of arranged marriage – for was that not a trade of sons and daughters? Except arranged marriages seldom ended with a slit throat.
Makrov would have accepted, Josiri had no doubt. And when the old goat was done, Melanna would have found herself cloistered as a reluctant serene – a beatified trophy of conversion and conquest, bound by word of honour given freely. If Melanna was as devout an Ashanan as she seemed, that would have been a fate far worse than death.
Yes, Makrov would have accepted. Others too.
“I’m sorry,” Josiri murmured. “I cannot do as you ask.”
Why did he feel such regret? Not from the offer refused. Perhaps it was because he saw an echo of his own past in Melanna’s present. What would he have done had his mother been taken captive before she’d chance to take her own life? Raven’s Eyes, but Melanna was practically the same age as he’d been then, tangled in a parent’s honour.
Or perhaps it was because he knew all too well what lay at journey’s end for both Melanna and her father.
She held his gaze a moment, then looked away. “All my life, I was taught of the cruelty of Tressians, and of their greed. Now I find that the latter is a lie, but the former unswerving.”
“Your bargain would leave us both shadows of who we are now . . . whatever your father’s fate.”
She snorted. “Such fortune have I to fall into the keeping of the only honourable man in Tressia.”
“There is at least one other,” said Josiri. “Lord Akadra would give the same answer.”
Melanna’s expression darkened. “The man who bested my father?”
“The man who spared your life.”
“Be wary of him. He’s awash with shadow.”
Josiri frowned, suspecting an oddity of translation. “I don’t follow.”
“I am . . . I was . . . Ashanal. I carried the goddess’s light. He carries something else.”
The magic Viktor had used in his attempt to free Anastacia? Another path to the pyre, were that detail to reach the wrong ears. Even a week before, Josiri would have gladly delivered it himself. “He’s a good man. I’ll speak to him. I’ll see if anything can be done for you, and I’ll send physicians to your father.”
“Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps you are kinder than you are cruel.” Another pause, though a friendlier one. “I don’t know what became of your sister. Her horse bolted, but she was unharmed when last I saw her . . . I hope you find her.”
“So do I.”
Melanna offered no reply. Josiri pulled aside the canvas and entered the cold, clear night.
“Blessed Ashana, I beseech you. Guide your ephemeral daughter.”
Melanna rocked back and forth on her haunches. So much easier to focus on the words than dwell on her thoughts. On her father’s wounds. On her failure. She didn’t even know what had become of Sera.
“Blessed Ashana, I beseech you. Guide your ephemeral daughter.”
Goddess, but it had been all she could do not to break down and beg. She felt certain Josiri had se
en clean through her; had recognised the tangle of anger, despair and loathing that had racked her from the moment her father had laid down his sword. Worse than that, she found it impossible to untangle those emotions. They knotted about her throat so tightly she could barely breathe.
She knew only that this was her fault. Her failure. Her hubris.
She clenched her hands tighter until her nails gouged her palms bloody.
“Blessed Ashana . . .” She broke off, her voice swamped by emotion. She clamped her eyes shut. “I’m . . . I’m sorry.” The confession, once begun, would not abate. “You warned me. I didn’t listen. But please, if you love me at all, help my father. He deserves better.”
“Most people do.”
Melanna opened her eyes, scarcely daring to believe. The goddess sat in the opposite corner of the tiny shack, her knees tucked up to her chest and her blue eyes unblinking. One by one, the timbers of the walls peeled away like autumn leaves, laying bare the mist-wreathed trees beyond.
“Goddess . . .” Melanna breathed.
She sighed. “You’re disappointment enough without falling into old habits. Especially as I understand you’ve taken to calling yourself my daughter.”
Melanna swallowed. “Yes, lady.”
“Ashana.”
“Yes, Ashana.”
A small, sad smile. “Better. Do you know why I’m disappointed?”
“Because I ignored you. Because I sought battle, and failed.”
“No. For that, I’d be angry. Fortunately I’m a goddess, and above such things.”
“Truly?”
“No.” She shrugged. The folds of her shining dress rippled. “But I’m working on it. You’re not the only one with much to learn. For example, I need to keep a closer eye on my steward. I tell you, the men in my life are never more dangerous than when they think they’re helping.”
Melanna winced. “You’ve punished him?”
“We had a . . . conversation. I taught him several new words. Certainly I used a few he never expected of me. A Thornhill mouthful fit to wither a forest. I’ve a horrible feeling I sounded like my mother.” She shrugged. “But words only. I’m not a monster, Melanna. At least, I’m trying not to be. I’ve something of an idea how that will turn out.”
