“I’ve found someone to help us,” Iancu said, stooping over the table to speak softly. “Apparently there’s only one woman left in Valcov who can.”
They left Cahal behind to watch the horses and followed the dark-eyed woman. She didn’t offer her name or any other conversation as she led them to the far side of town. Her black braids were held back in a kerchief, but beads still rattled as she walked; her embroidered skirts rasped with her purposeful stride. She must have been years younger than Savedra, perhaps no more than twenty, but the villagers stepped aside for her in the street with hasty nods. Was she a witch like Varis’s mystery guest?
They stopped at a small house on the outskirts of town, where buildings gave way to fields. Smoke trickled from the chimney and the shutters were open to the breeze. The woman stopped in front of the open door, waving them in and saying something to Iancu that sounded like a warning. Her voice rasped, as with long disuse.
“Her grandmother may help us,” Iancu said. “We are bid be solicitous of her poor health.”
The house was a single open room, the curtained bed the only privacy it offered. A spinning wheel stood beneath one window, surrounded by brushes and baskets of uncarded wool and a fat butter-colored cat who eyed a coil of yarn. Charms hung from the rafters, strings of leaves and beads and coins that rustled and chimed in the breeze. The room smelled of herbs and wool and camphor. In a much-mended rocking chair beside the hearth sat an old woman.
She was frail and stooped, skin creased and thin over once-strong bones and cheeks sunken with missing teeth. One side of her face drooped like hot wax, and her left arm folded unmoving in her lap. A cane leaned against the wall within reach of her chair.
She studied them with one canny dark eye-the other veiled by its creased-paper lid-while Iancu asked his questions. Savedra knew enough Sarken for courtesies and bad directions, but not enough to follow his low urgent tone. When the woman replied her voice was slurred and slow and even less comprehensible. She dabbed her mouth constantly with a handkerchief to keep from drooling. They spoke for several moments, not quite an argument. The woman tried to shake her head, but it was more a feeble twitch.
“Vau roc,” Iancu said, several times. Please.
Finally the woman made an angry slashing gesture with her right hand. At first Savedra feared she was throwing them out, but then she began to speak.
“I remember,” Iancu translated softly, keeping pace with her muttered Sarken. “I remember Phaedra Darvulia, and sometimes I think remembering is what broke my body and my magic. I would trade these memories for my health, but not even gods make such bargains.”
Ashlin sank to her knees and Savedra followed, sitting cross-legged on the creaking floorboards like children.
“It was like a minstrel’s story,” Iancu continued. “A beautiful girl went riding in the woods and became lost. A handsome hunter rescued her and took her home, and they fell in love. Bells rang in the castle and the village on their wedding day, and bright ribbons flew from the battlements of Carnavas. The women wore flowers in their hair as the bride and groom rode by.
“The girl was a witch, and perhaps a little mad-prone to black moods and wild frenzies-but she and her march-lord husband loved each other, and the village loved her in turn. She often spent the winters in the south with her own people, and the mountains were all the colder without her.
“What happened next no one can say for certain. Raiders came. Some say from the north, some from the east; some say they were demons of the frozen wind. I say they came from the south, but I’m the only one who remembers it so. Wherever they came from, whatever they were, their weapons were sharp enough. When villagers came to the castle days later they found only frozen corpses. The lord lay dead in his hall, stabbed through the heart and his sword in his hand. The servants had been rounded up and slaughtered like sheep. Of the lady there was no sign, but her library and workrooms were destroyed. The villagers searched the woods and riverbanks for her but found no trace, though some claimed to have seen blood on the rocks below the castle ramparts.
“We buried the lord and his people, but the castle became home to ghosts and hungry spirits, more than the village witchwives could dispel. Demon birds circled the towers, and many thought them the lady’s pets driven mad by her death. The Sarken king sent no new lord to hold it, and the Selafaïns staked no claim, so villagers circled it with salt and wards and left it to molder in its grief.”
She fell silent, mopping her chin and frowning lopsidedly. Her chair creaked and clacked as she rocked, and wood fell in the hearth with a flurry of sparks. Dust motes danced and settled in the slanting light. After a long moment she spoke again, the words even more muffled now by the handkerchief.
“The forgetting came not long after, like a fog over the mountains. The castle stands, and everyone remembers the lord, but no one remembers the name of his wife.”
Her gaze, distant with memory, sharpened again as she squinted at Iancu. He nodded to her question, then glanced at Savedra. “She asks if we mean to go there. I assume we do.”
Visiting a haunted ruin at twilight didn’t seem the best idea, but Savedra nodded anyway. She reached for her purse, but the woman made another dismissive gesture.
“She says that she’s done us no favors,” Iancu said. “But her granddaughter will show us the trail. And that we should hurry.”
“Thank you,” Savedra said, scrambling to her feet. The woman only shook her head.
The sun hovered a finger’s width over the serrated teeth of the Varagas, already peach-red and swollen. The young witch pointed them toward the road that led to the castle and turned away when their feet were on it, vanishing back into the village.
Valcov lay on a small plateau; past the edge of town the road dropped away and valleys and ridges fell like wrinkled cloth, the tangled skirts of the mountains soaring sharp and cold to their right. Somewhere north and west the Varagas gave way to gentle hills and fields which in turn rolled toward the sea, but from this vantage there was only stone and trees and snow high on the peaks, and the wide crush of sky.
The castle Carnavas brooded on the edge of a cliff, overlooking Valcov from one side and the icy rush of the Ardos¸ from the other. It would have been a forbidding place in any light, but as dusk crawled from the roots of the mountains, it was all too easy to imagine the specters stirring in empty halls. Dark shapes wheeled against the sky, vanishing into the towers; birds home to roost for the night.
“This is as close as we go tonight,” Iancu said. Not even Ashlin argued. But they stood and stared, shivering as the evening chill chewed through layers of cloth, caught in the ruin’s spell. The last of the daylight lined the western sky with apricot.
“Tomorrow,” Savedra said. The steadiness of her voice surprised her. But they’d come this far, and they certainly weren’t about to ride back to Evharis in the dark.
With a glance between them they turned away, hurrying back to the warmth and walls of the inn.
That night Savedra and Ashlin lay back to back in their shared bed. It was a small inn, and they could forsake luxuries for a night. Iancu and Cahal shared the room across the hall.
“What do you think?” Savedra asked, the words muffled by the pillow. The bedding smelled of down must, and the pungent straw beneath the featherbed.
“It’s an interesting puzzle. Your whole family is interesting.” The last she said so dryly that Savedra elbowed her in the ribs.
“None of that,” the princess said with a laugh. “They’ll charge us extra if we have a pillow fight.”
Savedra chuckled. She’d never shared a bed with anyone but Nikos, not since she was too old to sleep with her mother or her nurse after a bad dream. Lovers, yes, but not the quiet-or in this case creaking with every shifted arm-warmth of another body. Ashlin had no sisters, and Savedra wondered if she’d ever had to share. After a drowsing moment, she asked.
“My brother used to crawl into bed with me when he was scared, in cas
e monsters snuck into the room,” said the princess. “I had more weapons at hand than our nurse.” The bed frame creaked as she rolled over and her breath brushed warm across Savedra’s shoulder. “On cold nights my riders and I would sleep like puppies, as many in the tent as would fit. Cahal, by the way, snores like a pig and steals the blankets besides. You smell nicer than any of them. And there was one season-” Her voice broke. “I had a lover.”
Savedra had known it, of course, but the words were so soft and rushed, so stripped of all Ashlin’s usual prickles and armor, that her breath caught in her throat.
“Only for the autumn. Then I was called back to Yselin, and the betrothal moved forward, and…. Well, you know the rest of that.” She sighed. “It was nice while it lasted.”
Fabric rustled and Savedra felt a gentle tug on her hair-Ashlin’s fingers twining in her braids. The sensation prickled her skin. When Savedra raised her face from the pillow she smelled her: garlic and wine from supper, herbal soap and weapon oil, and under that the sweeter musk of her skin.
“I envy you, you know. The bond, if not the man.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Bedding rustled and she imagined Ashlin’s shrug. “It’s not your fault. I could have run away and become a mercenary. It isn’t all bad-I do like Erisinian food.” She tugged gently on one braid. “How did you end up with hair like this, anyway? I’ve seen your parents.”
Savedra accepted the graceless change of subject gladly. “My mother likes to blame the Iskari on my father’s side of the family.” She smiled into the dark, remembering her mother’s quiet profanity as yet another delicate sandalwood comb broke in her hair. “My father always reminds her of her own Assari grandmother.”
They lay in silence while wind whispered around the eaves and the inn creaked and sighed softly to itself. Finally Ashlin’s breath roughened and her hands rested, still tangled in Savedra’s hair. By the time Savedra slept, the princess was curled warm against her back.
She woke the next morning huddled in a ball and stinging with gooseflesh. Ashlin stood before the open window, silhouetted against a lead-and-rose sky. She turned when Savedra stirred, grinning like a child. “Get up,” she said. “It’s snowing.”
They left for the castle at daybreak. No one warned them away or tried to stop them, though from the way the innkeeper shook his head he thought the mission was folly. He pressed charms on them as they left-cords strung with beads of wood and tarnished silver-and a small pouch that settled like sand against Savedra’s palm. Salt, from the smell, and anise or fennel. She thanked the man in mangled Sarken.
Folly or not, their mission was certainly trespass, and on foreign soil no less. Ashlin might be used to such things, but Savedra’s head was crowded with visions of Sarken warlords riding down on them and demanding explanations. The hills were empty, though, save for the usual skitter and scurry of wildlife and birds wheeling overhead.
Snow fell in slow fat flakes that melted when they hit the ground. The sky hung low against the mountains, clouds shredding on their peaks, while sunrise pink and gold cooled to grey. The snow was soft but the wind cut like a razor, mocking Savedra’s autumn clothing.
The road became overgrown the closer they rode to the castle. In better light Savedra saw grey crystals glittering amid dirt and pebbles only a few yards past where they had turned back the night before; the salt of the villagers’ wards. She touched the bag of herbs and salt in her coat pocket. Despite the fabled mystic senses of the hijra, all she felt was cloth and rasping grains. Likewise the cord around her neck felt no more powerful than the pearls she wore at court.
At the foot of the steep, tree-choked slope they found a long ruin that must have once been a stable. The roof had collapsed, and all it housed now were weeds. A rabbit burst from cover when they drew too close, vanishing into the undergrowth with a white flash of tail. In the shadows behind the building, stone steps led up the hill.
After scouting the area, they left the horses tethered in the dubious shelter of the stable, unconcernedly cropping grass. The animals’ calm was reassuring-beasts, unlike most humans, could sense ghosts or strong spirits.
The stairs were cracked and crooked, flagstones washed away and pushed aside by tree roots. Savedra lost count after seven hundred, and they were no more than halfway up. Leaves and fallen pine needles crunched and skittered with every step, sometimes obscuring broken stones and ankle-turning holes. Before long she could hardly hear the crackle of leaves beneath boots over the wheeze of her breath. Sweat soaked her back and her legs and lungs ached to burning. Even Ashlin was winded, and she took some satisfaction in that.
Near the summit, the path cleared the tangled trees, wrapping around the edge of the cliff for several yards before climbing again. To the left, only a few feet of rocks and weeds and scrubby grass separated their feet from a long drop. Far below the Ardos¸ snaked around the cliff, and pine-thick hills rose on the other side. Snowflakes swirled and spiraled and vanished into grey haze; Savedra regretted her downward glance immediately. The right-hand view was safer, but still breathtaking in its height. And ahead of them the fortress rose, a towering weight of age-stained stone. After a moment’s rest they kept walking, into its shadow.
By the time they reached the final landing, Savedra had no more strength to admire the view. Instead she sat with her back to the hulking gate, laying her head on her knees and waiting for her breath and heart to slow. Her side ached like a knife between her ribs and her racing pulse made her nauseous. Ghosts or demons were welcome to eat her, if it meant she didn’t have to get up again.
“Here.” Ashlin crouched beside her, passing a water skin and a wedge of oily cheese. “Slowly,” she cautioned as Savedra lifted the bag.
When her stomach ceased its seasick roil and the pain in her side faded, she rose to face the castle.
Carnavas was a fortress, not a palace like those in Erisín. The hulk that loomed above them was solid, heavy walls and arrow-slit windows, built for defense. Built to last for centuries, but twenty-seven years of neglect had taken their toll all the same. Moss and vines webbed the stones, and saplings pressed against the walls like an invading army.
The portcullis was raised, and unlikely to lower again. Corroded iron spikes bled rust down the narrow walls and the bird nests clogged the lattice. The ground below was crusted grey with droppings. The great ironbound double doors beyond were in no better condition, the wood dry and splintering. One side stood ajar, a handspan gap leading into shadows. The only sound was the rustle of dry leaves and the mournful sigh of the wind.
Cahal crouched to study the filthy ground. “No one has passed this way recently,” he said, voice hushed either in caution or out of respect for the stillness. “And no large animals.”
“That’s something, at least. I’d rather not walk into a bandit nest.” Ashlin adjusted her sword, and Savedra checked her own dagger hanging at her waist.
“If there is anyone inside,” Iancu said, “they’ve likely heard us coming by now.”
“Yes.” Ashlin raked a hand through her sweat-stiffened hair. “No use dithering on the doorstep.” She started forward, but Cahal intercepted her with a glare.
“Wait your turn, Captain.” His sword rasped free of its scabbard; the steel gathered pale daylight and cast a watery shimmer against the wall. He braced his free arm against the door, and Savedra held her breath.
Wood creaked and groaned, then swung inward with a shriek of rusted hinges. The sound echoed like a scream. A flock of birds burst from a nearby tree with a rattle of branches, croaking disapproval. Savedra flinched, and Ashlin grimaced. Cahal ducked and crouched behind the other half of the door, waiting for a response.
None came, and the echoes faded into the sighing wind. The birds settled in another tree, glaring indignantly at the clumsy humans.
“Well,” Cahal said at last, uncoiling from his crouch. “Now the ghosts really know we’re here.”
The old witch’s stor
y had filled Savedra’s head with visions of corpse-strewn halls, skeletons clutching rusted weapons or ghosts wailing and screaming for revenge; the ghosts in her imagination looked suspiciously like stage specters in artfully tattered shrouds and greasepaint. None of that confronted them as they stepped into the narrow courtyard.
The stones were fouled with dead weeds and leaves and bird droppings, and feathers drifted like dark snow in the corners. Vines cocooned the well and the wooden cover was broken and half fallen away. The yard smelled of stone and damp and mildew, shit and the sharper pungency of cat urine. Savedra pinched her nose against a sneeze. The ground was littered with bones-they crunched alarmingly as she stepped farther in-but they were tiny fragile things. Mice and fallen birds, not the castle’s slain guardians.
Despite the stink and ominous doors and hallways and broken-shuttered windows that stared down at them, an ache spread behind Savedra’s breastbone. It must have been a pleasant place once-empty flower boxes hung beneath windows, and rotten trellises climbed the walls, tangled with browned roses. Drifting snow and the slanting morning light lent the yard a ruined, antique beauty. Like yellowed lace, or funeral art.
Something hissed in the shadows and Savedra yelped. Eyes flashed copper-green in the gloom of a doorway and Ashlin’s hand closed on her sword hilt. A heartbeat later Cahal laughed at both of them as a scruffy striped cat bolted up a flight of stairs and vanished down a gallery. Ashlin laughed too, but touched her shoulder to Savedra’s in mutual reassurance.
They startled a few mice and feral cats as they explored the ground floor, and one sleepy owl, but found no other signs of life or unlife. Signs of the previous inhabitants were all around them, though. Beans spilled out of rotted bags in the pantries, and jars of preserves encased in dust lined the shelves. Dishes still littered the kitchen counters, and drawers held crumbling receipts and recipes and lists of stores. The altar in the narrow chapel was spotted with wax, the candles toppled and chewed by rodents. A few tarnished silver sconces still clung to the walls, while others had fallen to reveal cleaner stone beneath. The icons of whatever saints or gods the Sarkens prayed to were darkened and unrecognizable. Moth-eaten clothes and linens filled chests in the servants’ quarters, and hints of lives littered the rooms: a shelf of moldering books; a carven box filled with needles and buttons and an ivory thimble; a pair of shoes heavy with once-bright embroidery, much too fine to be worn for daily chores. Paintings hung in flaking frames, long-faded portraits or hunting scenes.
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