Arivana held her breath. She didn’t know who—if anyone—was left standing.
The huffing continued nearly half a mark before a rasping voice called out from the darkness, “Are you all right, Arivana?”
She released her breath. “Tassariel! You’ve no idea how glad I am to hear your voice.”
“You’re unhurt?”
“Yes. And you?”
The pause nearly broke her heart. “I’ll survive.”
“What happened?”
“Stationary guards. Didn’t move. I had no idea they were here.”
Guards. Just men doing their duty. Her men. “What about them?”
“They’ll live,” Tassariel said. “But one will likely wake in the next few marks. Please . . . hurry.”
Arivana stood. “Where is it?”
Tassariel grasped her hand and guided it across the hall to a door, to a handle of a pane that slid open at her push. A whisper of air flowed through the gap into the room beyond.
She took a breath. “Claris?”
No response.
“Aunt Claris? It’s me. Your niece, Arivana. Are you there?”
She pressed her ear to the opening, and made out the faintest shuffling inside. A labored breath. Someone was in there. Were they at the right cell?
Pulling back, she intended to ask Tassariel that very question but was interrupted by a voice from inside. “Arivana?”
She choked. Rasping, slurred, strained, the voice belonged to the woman she once knew, but so deeply deformed as to defy recognition. Everything she had prepared to say leaked out of her mind before the stark madness of her aunt’s imprisonment. A sentence Arivana had herself pronounced.
“Yes, Claris. I’m here.”
“Why, child? Why the abyss would you come here?”
Arivana had been expecting anger, but the words held none of it. Instead, they were filled with pity.
I can’t let myself get distracted.
“I’m here to ask you about statute eighty-seven of the Citizens Refinement Act.”
Claris spat. “What about it?”
“We know it’s being used to snatch innocent civilians off the street. We know the consulate is helping ship them away discreetly. What we don’t know is where and why. We were hoping you could—”
Tassariel coughed.
Arivana set her jaw. “You will tell us what you know.”
“I will, will I?” Gurgling laughter erupted from the cell. “Why don’t you go ask Tior? Swallow whatever lie he decides to fool you with today. Or does he tell you anything at all? It seemed he wore the crown more than you, last time I saw you.”
“I’m trying to change that. Why do you think I had to sneak into my own dungeon!”
“Prove it, your majesty. Prove you aren’t merely a tool, like all your ancestors before you. Prove you actually want change.”
Arivana leaned her head against the cell door, gritting her teeth. “Tior told me to have you executed. I should have, after what you’d done, but I couldn’t bring myself to murder the closest thing I had to family.
“Why did you do it? Why did you try to kill me? Until you can answer that, I’m not the one who has to prove anything.”
Silence descended on the darkness, filled only by the wheezing of the unconscious guards. At last, Claris said, “Oh, child. I could never harm you. I was trying to kill Tior, so you could be free of his manipulations. But he turned everything around. Made me swear not to speak in my own defense, upon threat of the pains he would bring upon you.
“I see now that he wasn’t entirely successful. If his claws had been too deep, you’d have never come here.”
“No,” Arivana said, voice cracking. “But I was close. If Tassariel had not shown up when she did . . .”
“Who’s Tassariel?”
“Me,” Tassariel said. “A valynkar just released from my city. I speak with the voice of Elos. He brought me here to help Arivana. I’m just glad I wasn’t too late.”
“That is yet to be seen,” Claris said.
“Please,” Arivana said, “will you help us?”
Claris laughed again, but this one held the first faint trace of joy. “Of course I will, my queen. On one condition.”
“Name it.”
“That you first tell me what you’re going to do with this information.”
“Put a stop to it if we can.”
“How, exactly?”
Arivana shrugged, then giggled, feeling silly since no one could see her. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “But we’ll figure something out.”
“You must be careful. Tior is far more cunning than you realize. And more dangerous.”
“I can handle Tior. Please. Tell me what you know.”
Claris sighed. “Statute eighty-seven has long been used to get rid of undesirables among our own citizens. Dissidents. Foreign immigrants. Anyone who spoke out too loudly against the council or the crown. Times were, it only happened a few times a month. People were shipped away as slaves or worse to whoever had money and enough sense to keep their mouths shut.
“Since the war began, the enforcement of the law increased a hundredfold. And most of those taken were sent straight to the front lines. To die.”
Arivana cringed, a new wave of grief sweeping over her. “And to think I could have stopped it.”
“What, the war? Don’t be silly, child. You had no more control over it than I do of my mealtimes in here. And you never will until—”
“Someone’s coming,” hissed Tassariel. “We need to leave. Now.”
“No, wait! I won’t leave her here!”
“There’s no time. And I don’t know how to open this door short of using magic, and in this darkness, I’m not even sure if I can do that. And once I do, every guardsman in the entire tower will come crashing down on our heads.”
“But—!”
“Go, child,” Claris said. “My freedom doesn’t matter right now. You must carry on.”
Arivana hesitated.
“Go!”
Tassariel grabbed her elbow and dragged her away from the cell. She wanted to shout that she’d find a way to get Claris free, but the need for quiet stilled her lips. Besides, the sentiment was nothing more than a child’s yearning. No need to give her aunt false hope before she was sure she could deliver. And more and more, she was realizing that to be an effective leader, sometimes hard decisions had to be made.
For the time being, Claris would have to stay put.
CHAPTER 18
The forest itself seemed a thing alive as the pack surrounded him again. Mevon could hear their breaths, feel the thump of their footfalls, see their red eyes moving among the shadows.
The carcasses at his feet would soon have new company. He only hoped it wasn’t his own corpse joining them.
Mevon tensed, sensing arrows in the air.
He swung up his makeshift shield—layers of wrapped bark strapped to his forearm—just in time to intercept a trio of hissing missiles. The impact sent ripples up to his shoulder, exacerbating the wounds still lingering from the last assault. His blessings had been working ceaselessly to heal him since he’d brought Draevenus to the villagers above, and hadn’t quite had time to catch up. That, and the two days he’d spent standing guard, had taxed his reserves of energy.
Good thing there’s no lack of fresh meat.
The small fire he kept alive even now snapped and crackled with the roasting flesh of his beastly assailants, the savory aroma masking the stench of death around him. The villagers had been dropping him things to eat: nuts, mostly, with other dried fruits and vegetables.
Talk with them had been tricky. Their words were almost intelligible, but not quite. As if they’d once known how to speak but in the decades—or centuries—of their isolatio
n, their speech had devolved into only the most rudimentary form of communication. It had taken a long time to convince them that Draevenus wasn’t an enemy. Even longer to prove that Mevon wasn’t insane for wanting to defend them.
No one denied the packs their tithe. No one even tried.
Mevon was starting to see why.
Branches rustled. Mevon spun, checking for approaching threats. He’d chosen his position with care. The tree behind him was as thick as he was tall, its trunk pegged with a horizontal lattice of logs in a rudimentary ladder: the lone entrance to the elevated village. One side of him fell away to a short but effective cliff, while on the other two sides he’d erected spiked barriers, firmly entrenched and pointing their wooden teeth outwards. The pack couldn’t assault him en masse.
And he’d proven more than a match for what few they could bring at once.
Another arrow. He remained still while it snapped past his ear. As he knew it would. Mevon was ready this time. He snatched a javelin—really just a sharpened stone tied to a stick—from a pile at his side and hurled it on an opposite trajectory as the latest attack. He heard it impact wetly, and a scream sounded in the night.
Mevon smiled. As much for the accuracy of the throw as for realizing that he didn’t need to feel any shame.
Power was at work in this place: rampant, unnatural, without reason or conscience. As was so often the case, those who’d stumbled upon it did not understand what a burden it was. What a burden it should have been. Beasts were beasts, even those corrupted by a god’s errant power. But men? Men always had a choice.
These had chosen . . . poorly.
When people gave themselves over to such a foul instinct, to prey on the powerless for nothing more than their own abhorrent gains, justice need not wait on procedure. When no other law existed, Mevon now trusted that his own hand would do.
And, moreover, he didn’t have to feel guilty about enjoying it.
During the battle for Mecrithos, he’d come to realize beyond all doubt that his abilities as a void were no accident. Whatever mechanism had created magic must have known it would need an opposing force to balance it and created his kind for that purpose.
In the same manner, all men had a natural affinity for violence that could only be by design. That he embodied that truth to the most extreme measure was no coincidence. He had to believe that his captivation with blood was intentional, that it had some meaning beyond his own sordid satisfaction. If what he’d found here wasn’t proof enough, he didn’t know if anything could be. And what greater satisfaction could there be in life than finding the reason for your existence and fulfilling it?
Look, Father, I’ve finally found a purpose for my . . . predilections. I think you might even be proud.
Then again, Yandumar had never shown anything but pride for all that Mevon had become. Maybe this whole journey hadn’t been about impressing his father, or Draevenus, or Jasside, or anyone else for that matter.
Maybe it had been about proving his own worth to himself.
The brush around him thrashed with a mass of approaching bodies, a promise of menace played out in bared fangs and claws and hatchets. Black fur shimmered in the moonlight.
Mevon lifted his daggers.
Another battle approached. Many had come before, and many would again, but he didn’t have to be ashamed of that fact anymore. Draevenus needed time to heal. The people in this and other nearby villages needed someone to be their champion, to deliver them out of the hand of their brutal, hungry masters.
Mevon was done denying who he was meant to be.
It’s time to embrace it.
“Come, then,” he whispered to the angry night. “Your judgment . . . awaits.”
“Should we kill them?” Vashodia said.
“What,” Jasside said, “all of them?” She looked over the mass of people, tens of thousands strong, rushing down the valley. “That’s a tall order. Even for you.”
“But not impossible, else I’d not have bothered to ask. I do not remember including the word could in my question. Do you?”
Jasside shifted the reins to one hand, then lifted the other to shield her gaze from dawn’s scathing rays. The horse shifted beneath her, scraping the stony path with its hooves and sending pebbles cascading down the ridge on her left. They’d acquired the animals from the last convoy they’d attacked, the only four still in good enough condition to travel after the short but violent skirmish. Their prisoner sat atop the one behind her, bound and gagged. Neither of which was necessary to subdue his pitiful sorcery. She and her mistress had both just tired of his venomous babble after the first half day on the path.
The sight before her was another story altogether. “A welcome surprise,” Jasside said. “No need to spoil it with undue bloodshed.”
“They’re our enemy. Is that not cause enough for, shall we say, an aggressive stance?”
“Not when they’re fleeing. It’s considered ill form to strike a man in the back.”
“Even when they’re headed straight for us?”
Jasside shrugged. “Our fault for being behind enemy lines. Whatever part in the war they played, it’s over now.”
Vashodia remained silent for the longest time, merely watching the horde draw nearer with impassive eyes. At last she said, “Good.”
“Good? Never thought I’d see the day you passed up the chance for mass slaughter with a smile on your face.”
“I guess it’s time I grew up.” Vashodia wrenched her head around, branding Jasside with her glare. “Or maybe I’ve grown weary of trying to convince you to slit our prisoner’s throat so we can be getting on to more important work. Maybe taking time to slaughter, as you say, would be time better spent elsewhere. Maybe I’m not sure I even want these people dead.”
“Then why ask at all?”
In response, Vashodia turned away, urging her horse into motion.
Jasside groaned. Back to being cryptic again. Oh joy.
She followed after her mistress, and the other two horses, bearing both packs and prisoner, jostled down the trail behind her, tethered by ropes to her mount’s saddle. They paralleled the retreating crowd, keeping to the paths along the ridge so as to avoid confrontation.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” Jasside said.
“Yes,” Vashodia replied. “Chase is moving even faster than we anticipated.”
“Much faster. The whole northern front must have collapsed by now.”
Vashodia shook her head. “The entire coalition presence in Sceptre has. Do you not feel them? Like a tidal wave sweeping down, leaving this land bereft of life and conflict. Chase is good—maybe even a genius—but his strategies and tactics shouldn’t have been enough to cause all this. Not so soon.”
“Having doubts about the king you practically appointed?”
“He appointed himself. And yes, I have my doubts. About him. About all mankind.”
“So you feel the need to guide us to our destiny, is that it? Didn’t Yandumar teach you anything? People don’t like being manipulated. Not even for their own good.”
“They won’t mind if they don’t know. Besides, you act as if I’m some outside influence. I’m not. What I am is concerned with the bigger picture. The petty politics of nations and so-called people groups has always been beneath me.”
“Didn’t seem that way back in the Veiled Empire.”
“Then you weren’t paying close enough attention.”
Jasside practically growled in frustration. “Look, I know we’ve never quite operated on the same plane of existence—we have vastly different histories, after all—but I don’t know how to help you if you won’t, you know, fill me in from time to time. Why can’t you at least tell me why you keep me around?”
“Because,” Vashodia said, “you’ve been doing it already. If I tell
you, I’m afraid you won’t be able to anymore. I’m afraid you won’t want to.”
Jasside stared at the mierothi, realizing after a mark that she was holding her breath. She couldn’t recall a time her mistress had admitted to any kind of fear. She’d never seen Vashodia so vulnerable.
Some sick part of her wanted to exploit that. To twist a soul so long a mystery until all the secrets came tumbling out. But she didn’t. She couldn’t. What kind of person would I be if I betrayed such depthless confidence? Not the kind of person who is worthy of trust, that’s for sure. Not the me I want to be.
“Well, then,” Jasside said at last, “you keep on doing great things, and I’ll keep on keeping your greatness from burning the world.”
It was slight—almost a phantom image in her mind—but Jasside swore that Vashodia flinched at the words.
She tore her gaze away, feeling as if her mere perception was an invasion of the mierothi’s privacy. Jasside looked instead towards the crowds.
“So,” she said. “Our part in this war begins and ends the same way: with refugees.”
“Ends?” Vashodia giggled, shattering whatever supposed vulnerability Jasside thought might be there. “My dear apprentice, this war is far from over. And I’ve a feeling our role in it has only just begun.”
Tassariel sat with arms folded in her lap, watching Arivana and Flumere with a mix of disbelief and awe. They’d been going back and forth for tolls over stacks of books and scrolls, seeking any way they could find to depose Tior or get Claris free or put an end to the war once and for all. She wasn’t sure if they’d ever give it up.
The main thing hindering any possible action came down to the fact that Arivana didn’t know what power she actually possessed. Even acting within her rights by law, they weren’t sure how much she could get away with. And, when in doubt, the laws always defaulted decisions to the council. Days of this, and they seemed no closer to a solution than when they’d begun. If anything, their hope had regressed past despair and well into futility.
Tassariel leaned her head back and groaned. “Abyss take us now.”
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