Ash looked down. She had wanted to be Old Merta, always, since she was a little girl. Until the Expansion Project had happened. So why was the question sitting in her stomach like one of her homemade bolts of iron?
But before she could answer, a bell chimed somewhere upstairs. Stepmother.
***
The little officious bells to summon servants had long since been sold for the silver, but Stepmother had clung to one, a last vestige of her former life that fooled no one and so she stayed in her room nearly always.
Ash paused at the top of the stairs, hearing the bell’s insistent tinkling coming from the opposite direction to the main rooms. It seemed that Vanita had temporarily captured the bell and was ringing it. A wordless tide of relief washed over Ash as she pushed open the somewhat smaller door.
Where her mother was a statement of fact, Vanita was a question mark, slouched as if constantly anticipating some invisible blow. Ash knew she should envy her - Vanita’s hair was bright as a coin where Ash’s was like coarse wheat, her face a milky white where Ash’s had seen the sun. In any other life, Ash would have been eclipsed by the wraith-like Vanita at those parties and court proceedings that had ended years ago. If the world had not ended, it would be so now. But the world had ended.
Today, Vanita lay spread-eagled on her bed, gasping. When Ash came in, her stepsister’s face opened wide with a look too familiar for a lady of the house looking at her cook’s assistant.
“Alright Miss?” Ash said, raising her voice and roughing it up a little.
Vanita remembered her place and stopped looking that way at her sister.
“Ca-an you help, please? I can’t breathe.”
Vanita had had breathing problems ever since Ash had known her as a shy six-year-old. Now, nine years on, they were still there. Apparently, Vanita had always had them. No one else seemed to notice the connection that Ash did – namely, that they had been plaguing Vanita ever since she had known her mother.
Ash moved to help her. On mornings like this, dressed in her one good nightshift, she seemed so much like a noblewoman still and that worried Ash. The noblewomen had been the first to go. Ash remembered a chilling sight she had seen near the beginning of it all when she had been in town bartering for the then-still-existent last of the Expansion food. A crow carrior had happened upon a young lady girlishly foolish enough to wear a fine dress and some family jewels. The crows were attracted to all things shiny still, even at their new gigantic size and smarter than the other carriors. Ash had slunk past in horror as the giant bird had bashed the lady’s skull to pieces with her own diamond necklace, cocking its birdlike head sideways and down at the soupy brains pooling out onto the cobbles.
“Ash?”
With a start, she came out of her reverie, to find Vanita pulling the expression she did when asking a grave question. “It was the last of the lentils yesterday, wasn’t it? And there is nothing now, again?”
“Actually, Derrick and I found something. A pumpkin! One of the Expansion ones too and it’s enormous. It’s right here –”
They were interrupted by Vanita’s door crashing open.
Ash turned in time to see the flounces and ruffles that preceded Stepmother into any room. Unlike every other person in the country, Stepmother insisted on full dress every day like a proper lady – never mind the fact that the dresses in question were now threadbare, sad old things. You would never guess it from the ramrod-straight back and aloof way she held her head.
Her green eyes flicked briefly in Ash’s direction, but she quickly turned and billowed over to Vanita instead. “I had the most peculiar dreams last night. In it, your father was alive and yours too,” she nodded to Ash absent-mindedly. “And oh, how odd it was! Seeing them again!” She shuddered delicately. “How are you, Vanita?” she asked as an afterthought.
“Fi-ine,” Vanita wheezed. Ash glared at her.
But her mother was already starting her next sentence. “It was so strange for us to be all as we were before, before Ashlynne left us to be a kitchen wench and a penniless fool.”
Vanita rolled her eyes. “Mother! Good grief, it’s only the morning!”
“No, it’s alright Vanita.” Ash straightened her apron purposefully, feeling the comforting coarseness against her palms. “We’re all penniless fools now. And I joined the real world, yes, but I didn’t ‘leave’ you. If I had actually left you, you’d already be dead.”
The anger that was never far away swelled in her chest and she had to turn away. Ash walked from the room as quickly as possible, making sure to keep her head high.
Her annoyance only subsided halfway down the grand staircase. She knew she should tell her stepmother about the pumpkin, but she always seemed to turn back into an entitled noble-brat when they had these ‘conversations’. She’ll deign to come down to the kitchens if she gets hungry enough, Ash told herself, even though she knew that this was not true.
***
Two hours later, Ash was minding her own business in the kitchen when it came. She fell over next to the hearth and stayed there on the ground as her heart beat like a thing possessed. Those eyes. The sound filling your head, that of too-large wings beating the dead air. Then, the pigeon itself: replaying what she had not been able to think on while it was happening and what could have gone wrong, always what could have gone wrong. It had been hours now, but there Ash was, gasping for air on the kitchen floor.
When it passed, she stood as fast as she could and felt foolish, just like every other time it had happened. She looked around to see if there was anyone who had witnessed it, but as always, she was alone. Chiding herself, Ash smoothed her apron. Who was supposed to be strong for Vanita while she wallowed like a maid on the floor?
She looked outside to calm herself. It was dusk. Time to pray.
The oranging horizon made it look like the whole world was slowly burning. Ash watched from the doorway for carriors before setting out for the hazelnut tree.
Everyone thought it was madness to go outside for the sake of a tree, but Ash wasn’t everyone. Something about those ghastly birds being the only ones who got to enjoy the sunsets and the night skies now rankled her. Even if it was only her, she felt it significant that one human still went outside, that it wasn’t all just for those great, flapping beasts. Besides, she always took her crossbow with.
Ash’s prayer spot was a hazelnut tree off to the north side of the servants’ quarters, close to the estate’s inner garden wall. Every time she saw the twisty form of the tree, with its paper yellow fringes of dried-up catkin seedlings, something within her lifted. The hazelnut tree was the one thing left standing in the yard that had not been chopped up for firewood. It had born nuts the latest of all the trees after the earth had been poisoned by the Project. It had also been planted by Ash’s mother. The tree was barren now, it’s branches elaborately contorted and curled as if made from wrought iron. But that didn’t mean it was dead and Ash wasted a small, girlish corner of her heart on hoping it would bloom again.
Ash knelt on the crusty earth, feeling its hot grit beneath her skirts. Her mother had always been the religious one and she was not really sure how to pray, anymore, since the world had gone mad. She knew that there was a God, could even feel that presence of something higher sometimes, but she did not understand. What sort of God would let things get like this? But now it was more about the quiet and that small bit of peace. Even if she did not understand, even if she did not approve, the fact that there was a God was one thing that had not changed. And unchanged things were precious now.
The sky was fading from orange to black. Ash began to whisper a prayer softly as she loaded her crossbow and checked it, inspecting it as she intoned the comforting words. It was going to be a clear night, she could see all the way to where the forests had been. And, in the distance, the lights of the palace.
Clearly, they didn’t have a scarcity of candles and firewood like the rest of the country. Ash got off her aching knees, her eyes still o
n those faraway lights and wondered what it was like to be in the palace and not have any problems.
Chapter Three
Mystery Girl
There was blood on the flagstones.
In the stone gloom of the courtyard, the ugly splotch looked almost black, menacing, as if it was waiting for someone to notice it. Rize looked away by habit. He knew almost all the surviving servants by name now and that blood had likely been someone he knew before it had become another mark on the floor. This place which he and his father were supposed to be protecting. The guilt threatened to swallow him for a moment, but then he would not be able to help anyone. So, he averted his gaze, as everyone else did and carried on walking.
Another day. He bit back a sigh, looking ahead at the same stone walls as every other day. He’d never thought himself an outdoorsman before and the royal library was still his favourite room in this accursed place, but he longed for sunshine like a hungry man might long for food. It twisted at him, when he walked passed a window to see those damned huge birds flying free while he was caged in here.
Pushing his black hair out his eyes, he looked behind him to ensure no one was watching and turned left. Where he was going was not the sort of place princes were expected to frequent.
This morning the stables looked clear and bright as he entered, the straw on the floor seeming to soak up the sun. Horses nickered contentedly in their wooden stalls, an array of glossy coats in rare colourings and prize builds. Rize walked past them all, stopping only once he reached the last stall on the right, where a blur of splotchy grey was making circles in the hay completely at odds with the dignified air of the rest of the horses.
Mouse was Rize’s favourite horse in the stables. He hadn’t known it before, but it was true. She was a dapple grey that didn’t have the usual, refined speckles across her coat, the way most of the royal dapples did. Instead, exuberant splotches covered her white flanks with a slightly darker one over one eye, giving her a cavalier, pirate look when she was feeling mischievous, which was often. The dapples stopped abruptly halfway down her legs, making Mouse look like she was permanently wearing white socks. Best of all, Rize had come to learn that she had this quirk of tossing her head when someone was talking, as if nodding in agreement. It was silly, he knew, but since she had first tossed her head at his rambles, Rize had come down here often to talk to someone who would just listen.
This morning Mouse was in fine form, moving in agitated small circles and tossing her head as if shaking it. Rize felt a stab of guilt again. This was his kingdom, this was his fault. Mouse was more high-energy than most and each of the horses were used to being ridden once a day, when times were simpler. Since the carriors’ favourite meals now seemed to be ponies, specifically the well-fed palace ponies, she hadn’t been outside in months now and it showed.
“I’m sorry Mouse, but what do you want me to do?”
Of the previously impressive royal stables, just ten horses were left now. Even in the palace, they were at the point now where they would have to start eating the horses. But Rize had a deal with the head of the stables that Mouse would go last. It was not a deal he liked to think about.
“Well well… If it isn’t the Crown Prince Rizend.”
Rize turned and grinned into the shadows. His cousin looked completely ridiculous, in a stable dressed in plum velvet, standing in straw. Still, Lorin’s special gift was that he managed to look comfortable anywhere – that and sneaking up on people.
“Cousin, when will you start making some kind of noise when you enter a room? And by the way, your survival deals a severe blow to the Pathfinders’ theory that only the virtuous have remained.”
But his cousin only leaned his slim hips against a stall door. “It’s duke cousin to you, your highness! Imagine how much more distressed all those sweet ladies facing the end of the world would be without me.”
“Oh yes, of course, silly me… Speaking of the end of the world, I have a date with my lord father. Would you care to walk me to his solar? You can tell me about which lady you are terrorising currently.”
“Plural, please your Highness! We all have reputations to protect. No, I’m off in another direction, but give my best to His Majesty.”
Rize nodded, then straightened his spine and squared his shoulders to the upcoming task.
The king was choosing his hair.
***
Ever since Rize had been in man’s breeches, the king’s hair had been falling out and he had amassed a diverse and rather ridiculous array of hairpieces. Coiffured out of various exotic animals’ hair and dyed with saffron, its lurid yellow tuft made him the most instantly recognisable easy-to-mock monarch the country had ever had.
The hair was, for Rize, a study in decline. A few years ago, his father had worn only the finest. But now he had not had a new hairpiece in ages, in the wake of rumours that the king was using the scalps of the dead for his own head and so the toupees had greyed, coarsened, dulled. Just like the king himself.
He was practising his next address at full bellow when Rize arrived, so Rize leaned on a pillar to catch the last part of the show. He doubted there had ever been a less dignified king. When his father had come to the throne, there had almost been an outcry. He simply didn’t seem the part, with his carefully chosen hairpieces and wild, bullish proclamations that came without warning. He had a whole team of advisors trailing behind him often, holding their heads in their hands.
“This country will be great again!” his father was yelling. “It will gr – oh. Morning.”
“Father. How are you?”
“Worried. I should have received an ocean of marriage alliance proposals by now for you, but who wishes to partner with a country with no future? An agricultural land with no agriculture left… we are in ruins.”
Rize sighed. He knew that the future did not lie in the past, no matter how his father and those his age still alive wished to look back. He knew it, but he also had no idea as to what that future might be.
“I am not the fool many suppose,” his father the king was now saying, hair affixed. “I know that plans must be made to get my son to safety before the inevitable storm of the castle.”
Rize was speechless, a rare enough feat. The guilt, the guilt. Finally, he found his voice. “Things are not yet that dire.”
“But they will be. And a happy occasion such as my son getting married, with food and a festival promised, could delay things.”
“Just because it’s the way things were done when you were my age, does not mean it is still the way things should be done,” Rize said slowly, trying for patience.
“It has always been this way. Married at eighteen. My father did the same and his father before him,” said the king without even looking up from his fussy cravat.
“And how did your father do with the carriors?” Rize snapped. “The world is different!”
Luckily, he was interrupted by a nervous-looking servant. “Your Majesty – majesties – I am sorry to intrude…a message from the Pathfinder. She expects to be attended in the cathedral.”
Rize turned upon the messenger. “So, we are summoned by her? That’s the second time this month…”
“We will come immediately,” said the king quickly and the servant’s face collapsed with relief as he turned to run back down the stairs. The king shuffled to the door to follow, appearance quite forgotten and Rize sighed as he followed him.
He appreciated pathfinders – really, he did. Their strange religion had largely been ignored before the birds. They had been a group of women who could read and write and had a moral code at the same time, which was rare enough. More specifically, they had acted as tutors to the royal family and those in favour within their circles. He remembered his old pathfinder tutor with affection, but this woman was something else. The current Royal Pathfinder, head of a whole team of them, was arrogant to the point of being ridiculous. He doubted anyone could so much as learn an alphabet from her. Still, it was what it was.
Rize tried and failed to quiet his thoughts as they reached the dust-carpeted floors that were still chequered marble in places. He had voiced concerns about meeting in the cathedral before. It was from the old Christian faith that had become unfashionable long ago and was easily one of the least maintained areas of the castle. Not to mention that a carrior had nosedived through its roof a year ago and left a massive hole open to the air. Still, the Pathfinder met with them there. She claimed she felt ‘good energy’ surrounding it and that she ‘was not worried about the birds’. Actually, he didn’t mind going to the cathedral himself. While much of the palace just looked somewhat shabbier version of its former self, the cathedral had seen carriors, it had seen ruin.
The Royal Pathfinder was sitting in one of the shattered wooden pews wedged to one side of the wall. Here was one person not in ruins, although the orange satin Pathfinder robes made her jaundiced in the afternoon light. She deigned to rise when they entered, then spread her arms wide as though they were entering her living room rather than a part of their own palace. “Welcome, your highnesses. I have had a new direction from the Path!”
So much for preamble, Rize thought.
“I saw a girl,” she intoned. “A girl the age of the prince. They danced, at a ball, in this palace and I knew that this girl would change the fate of the country, would change everything!” At this last comment, she spread her arms wide, looking up at the half-decimated ceiling. Then she looked back down, frowning and Rize half-expected he was supposed to applaud.
The pathfinder turned around to face them again, smoothing her robes. “This girl is the key,” she continued. “She is not someone I recognise from within the palace walls… In any case, she is to be the prince’s bride. Or,” at this point she did give a sidelong glance at Rize. “I may say the new king.”
The broken cathedral continued to hum with stunned silence after these words. Seemingly oblivious, the pathfinder walked out into the open space where the pews had been, sauntering as if she owned the place. Enough was enough, in Rize’s mind. He strode after her and grabbed her arm, spinning her around to face him.
Ash Rising Page 2
