‘I am sorry, Lady Ayla. I should have realised it would keep you from Changing entirely.’
She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Miles, your collar saved my life. If I hadn’t still been wearing it, the bullet would have killed me – whether I was quick enough to reach my other form or not.’ On impulse, she leaned across the space between them and kissed his cheek. ‘Thank you.’
The colour rose in his face, and he looked down. ‘You are welcome. I assure you, it was entirely accidental. Ah … not that I did not want to preserve your life, of course …’
‘Then you didn’t expect the collar to have that effect? Do you have any idea why it did?’
As she’d hoped, the practical question distracted him from his embarrassment. ‘It is an interesting problem. My current theory is that the elements to which you are aligned reinforce the alchemy in your blood, and so they have the effect of enhancing your strength in creature form. They amplify what is already in you, if you like. Whereas the rest … they counteract your abilities, as you found, but they do not reduce you to mere human level. Instead, ah …’
He gestured vaguely, seeking for words, then went off at an apparent tangent. ‘In alchemy, we have stable pairs and volatile pairs. When you put a volatile pair together, something happens. There is a reaction, a change. Whereas when you put a stable pair together, they become inert – unchanging – but often very strong. I believe that is what that collar does to you. It takes away the fluid aspects of your gift, but it makes you harder to break.’
She nodded. ‘Then why did I black out when the bullet hit me?’
‘The collar was only a prototype, Lady Ayla. Clearly it was not enough to protect you fully. And I also suspect its effects were weakened by the initial blow. If the assassin had been able to shoot you a second time, the bullet might have found its mark.’
‘I’m lucky Ree was there, then.’
‘Yes.’ But Miles showed little interest in anything other than the collar in his hands. He gazed at it in silence for some time before, finally, releasing his breath in a sigh.
‘Prevented you from Changing entirely,’ he murmured. ‘Remarkable that such a small thing could have such a vast effect. Why, if people knew –’
He fell silent, but too late. Ayla was already considering it, a horrible plunging sensation in her stomach. Had she merely exchanged one threat for another?
But no. Even if someone knew that steel and glass and amber together could prevent her from Changing, they wouldn’t be able to hurt her. The worst they’d be able to do was keep her locked in human form. Admittedly that would become an issue if Mirrorvale were to go to war, but her life was in no danger from this secret.
Not yet, a cynical part of her remarked. But who knows what an alchemist might be able to develop?
‘I hope it goes without saying that I will keep this to myself,’ Miles said, as if he could tell what she was thinking. ‘And in fact, I owe you another apology. You say the red-headed girl was the real assassin, not Zander after all?’
‘Saydi? Yes.’
‘In which case, I did in fact smuggle a firearm into Darkhaven,’ Miles said. ‘Saydi is the girl from whom I bought my little carved chest – the one you and I looked at together in the transformation room. The pistol must have been in there all along.’
‘Really?’ Ayla wasn’t sure how to react to that. Torn between unwilling admiration of Saydi’s planning and shock that she’d unwittingly been so close to the weapon that had nearly killed her, she didn’t realise she was staring at Miles until he cleared his throat.
‘I am sorry. Very sorry. Do you want me to leave?’
Ayla came out of her trance. ‘Leave? Of course not. It was hardly your fault.’ She hesitated, but now was as good a time as any to make the first of today’s proposals, so she added, ‘In fact, I was hoping that you and Art might consider moving into Darkhaven.’
He gaped at her. ‘Move … into Darkhaven?’
‘Yes. Tomas has been stretched too thin for years, carrying out two sets of duties at once. And I know for a fact that Art has been invaluable to Tomas these past weeks. I was hoping that Art might take over some of the training for the Helm. And as for you …’ She smiled. ‘When you’re not busy teaching, I rather thought we might continue our experiments. These collars need work, do they not? The vulnerability after the initial impact has to be addressed. And I can’t switch jewellery every time I want to Change. I need you to find a way of …’
But she stopped talking, because Miles was looking dazed. She’d been bombarding him with words. With an apologetic nod, she said, ‘Anyway, I hope you’ll consider it.’
‘I have no need to consider it, Lady Ayla.’ Suddenly and abruptly, he favoured her with a beaming smile. ‘As long as I can convince Art it is a good idea, I would be very happy to live here.’
That evening, Ayla sat in the music room and waited for Tomas to come home. Nerves made her fidgety – she had several important things to say to him – but she tried to ignore the sensation. Going over and over the possible outcomes in her head would only make things worse.
To distract herself, she looked again at the carved wooden chest. After what Miles had said, she’d brought it up to her room and, after several attempts, found the hidden compartment that must have housed the pistol. The Helm had found a similar compartment in Saydi’s trunk, containing a second pistol and a Mirrorvalese border pass stamped with the Kardise seal. Saydi’s real name was Kai Sinder, and they’d located her father in the records. The family had lived in southern Mirrorvale until the elder Sinder had been found guilty of embezzling taxes. And for that crime, he’d been summarily executed by Florentyn Nightshade.
That didn’t make Ayla forgive Saydi, exactly, but it was harder to condemn her outright. If my father had been a little less quick to dispense retribution …
Of course – no doubt as intended – the fact that Saydi was a Mirrorvalese with a grudge would have made it hard to connect her crime to Sol Kardis. Even now, the only evidence was circumstantial: the fact that she’d spent a considerable amount of time there, the fact that the chest and pistols were Kardise-made, the fact that she’d been able to identify Zander and thereby select him as a likely scapegoat. Plus there was Sorrow’s first-hand account, of course, but that alone wouldn’t be considered reliable enough to take to the Kardise government. Besides, from what the sellsword had said, the Kardise government knew nothing about any assassination attempt; it was the power behind the government that had ordered it. So all in all, though it galled Ayla to admit it, Mirrorvale wasn’t well placed to seek recompense from Sol Kardis. Still, with the knowledge of how firearms were being brought into the country, they’d be able to tighten controls at the borders and airship stations. And Ayla had to count it a victory for Mirrorvale. She was, after all, still alive.
‘There you are, love.’
Ayla turned to find Tomas in the doorway. Straight away her heart began to pound, but she forced herself to appear calm. ‘Well? Did Penn agree to stay?’
‘Yes.’ He walked over to sit beside her. ‘Are you sure you’re happy about it?’
‘I trust you,’ Ayla said. ‘If, at the end of the year, you think he’ll make a good Helmsman, I won’t contradict you.’
Of course, she still secretly hoped that Penn wouldn’t have what it took. She wasn’t sure she’d get on well with being guarded by a man who’d once tried to kidnap her nephew. But she’d made a resolution to trust Tomas’s judgement from now on, and this was a good place to start.
‘Did the others accept him?’
‘There was a lot of teasing. Some of it good-natured, much of it not. And let’s face it, he deserves it. But he’s got Ree on his side – and, funnily enough, Zander himself. I think he’ll do all right.’
‘Ree saved my life, you know,’ Ayla said. ‘If she hadn’t turned up when she did, Saydi would have had time to check my pulse and find out I was still alive. And then, from what Miles says, she would hav
e been able to stab me while my defences were weakened by the gunshot.’
Tomas frowned. ‘It doesn’t sound as if these collars of his are very reliable.’
‘They still need work,’ she agreed. ‘Miles knows that. All the same, he saved my life too. He and Ree between them. And –’
She was going to say, And it wasn’t just my life they saved. But Tomas spoke first.
‘Assuming Ree carries on the way she has so far, I think I should admit her to the Helm, don’t you? She’s one of the best in the group, quite aside from our personal debt to her. And just because there’s never been a female Helmsman before –’
‘She’ll make an excellent Helmsman,’ Ayla said drily. ‘Especially if she can get over her feelings for you.’
She watched Tomas carefully, out of the corners of her eyes, just to be sure; but the raw shock on his face was all the reassurance she needed. Not that she’d needed much. She trusted Tomas. She always had, even when she thought she didn’t.
‘Her … what?’
‘It’s perfectly natural, Tomas.’ Ayla gave him a benevolent smile. She was enjoying herself now. ‘You do cut a romantic figure, you know. Captain of the Helm, the hero who single-handedly defended my honour with a broken sword – some of the stories they tell about you in the lower rings are really quite –’
‘Fire and blood, Ayla! I don’t want them to think that way about me! In fact, I specifically told them I wasn’t a hero …’
‘Because there’s nothing like a bit of self-deprecation to completely destroy a romantic ideal,’ Ayla put in helpfully. He threw her a wild glance, then shook his head.
‘Maybe I shouldn’t allow girls into the Helm, if this sort of thing is going to happen.’
She couldn’t let him get away with that. ‘Who says it’s just the girls?’
He stared at her for a moment before, reluctantly, beginning to laugh. When he’d finished, he wiped his eyes and sighed. ‘Oh, Ayla. So you really mean to tell me that when I thought I was being honest about who and what I am, at least some of the trainee warriors I was addressing took that as a further sign of my heroism and – and –’
‘And increased the height of your pedestal,’ Ayla agreed. ‘That’s human nature for you.’
Tomas looked suddenly serious. ‘So what do I have to do to convince them to take me off it? I don’t want to end up like Owen Travers.’
‘Tomas, you could never –’
He shook his head stubbornly. ‘Just listen to me, love. Travers ruled the Helm through discipline and fear. He taught them to follow orders blindly, and we both know the result of that. But hero-worship is just another thing that stops people thinking for themselves. I don’t want my Helm thinking they have to do everything I say, just because it was me who said it! Their job isn’t to obey me, it’s to protect you.’
‘And our child,’ Ayla said softly, getting the news in at last. Then she sat back in her chair, hands folded demurely in her lap, and enjoyed the range of expressions flitting across his face.
‘You mean,’ he said. ‘I don’t. Why didn’t you. That’s. Are you …’
Apparently giving up on the formation of a coherent sentence, he dropped to his knees beside her, took her hands in his and looked up at her. The pure joy in his smile made her want to cry. ‘Really?’
‘Yes, really.’ And she kissed him.
After a time, with her head resting on his shoulder and her face pressed against his neck, she murmured, ‘In answer to your previous question: I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Travers chose his recruits for their biddability as well as their fighting skills. You’ll choose yours for their intelligence. After all, despite Ree’s feelings for you, she showed a good deal of initiative today when it came to protecting me. Isn’t that so?’
‘Yes,’ Tomas said, winding a lock of her hair around his finger. ‘I just don’t like the idea of anyone thinking I’m something I’m not. My so-called heroism was a mixture of luck and idiocy –’
‘And courage, and loyalty, and determination, and cleverness, and skill,’ Ayla murmured.
‘Do you really believe that?’ His voice was teasing, but it also held a hint of surprise. If he still doubted himself, even after all these years … She nipped at his skin with her teeth, hard enough to make him wince.
‘Yes,’ she said fiercely. ‘And you should too.’
She hesitated, trying to find her courage; but there was no easy way to say what she intended, so she just went ahead and said it.
‘I’m sorry, Tomas. I have a lot to make up for. I should have listened to you.’
‘Of course you should,’ he said, but there was a smile in his voice. ‘About what?’
Ayla bolted upright. ‘The assassin, of course! I was so afraid of being locked up in this tower again that I refused to accept your judgement over Zander.’
‘Oh, that. It doesn’t matter, love.’
‘It does,’ Ayla insisted. ‘Apart from anything else, I called off the Helm and let Lori take Marlon outside again. If I hadn’t done that, Marlon would have stayed safe and –’ She swallowed, then finished in a low voice, ‘And Lori would still be alive. I put their lives at risk through my own desire for freedom, and that’s unforgivable.’
Tomas nodded. ‘It was stupid. But I’m just as much to blame. I should have overruled you when it came to Marlon’s safety. So we both have to live with Lori’s death. But Ayla … you didn’t snatch Marlon, and you didn’t stab Lori. You may have facilitated those events, but the fundamental choices were made by others.’ His expression was warm with sympathy. ‘You know, I gave Penn a second chance. I think we deserve to do the same for each other.’
‘Yes …’ She hesitated, then said in a rush, ‘I hope Marlon will give me a second chance, too. I haven’t been any kind of mother to him. I was too wrapped up in my own grief over Myrren. But now … I just hope it’s not too late.’
‘He loves you,’ Tomas said softly. ‘You’ll gain his trust quick enough.’
‘I hope so. I hope he comes to feel part of our family before his cousin is born. He’ll be a big brother then, or as close as makes no difference.’ Glancing up, she added shyly, ‘He already thinks of you as his father.’
‘I know.’
They gazed at each other. This is it, Ayla, she told herself. This is as good a time as any.
‘Tomas, do you think –’ Now that the moment had arrived, she was suddenly blushing. ‘I mean, I should have asked you this before, but I was afraid you’d say no. I was afraid – Anyway. Never mind that. The point is, will you … would you consider … I’d be deeply honoured if …’ Fire and blood. It was her turn to be lost for words. She bit her lip, trying to ask him the question with her eyes.
Apparently Tomas understood, because he reached out and touched her face, very gently, with his fingertips. His smile was radiant.
‘Yes, Ayla,’ he told her. ‘Of course I will.’
Acknowledgements
This one’s for Tiny, without whose naps it would never have been written; and for Small, who … didn’t contribute a great deal, actually, but I love him anyway.
It’s for the Digital Shadows, the most amazing group of little-known writers in existence, whose support, encouragement and ear for a good rant are second to none.
And it’s for all of you who liked my first book enough to read this one too; who left a kind review; who passed on your recommendation to a friend. Without you, I lose my dream. So thank you.
About the Author
A.F.E. Smith is an editor of academic texts by day and a fantasy writer by night. She lives with her husband and their two young children in a house that was apparently built to be as creaky as possible. She can be found on Twitter @afesmith and online at www.afesmith.com
Also by A.F.E. Smith
The Darkhaven Novels
Darkhaven
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