by Anna Steffl
All of this was because of her. She’d had an affair with Lerouge. Hera Musette said so. It was why Lerouge put a knife in his back. Miss Gallivere might have insinuated about the wrong man, but she was right about the Solacian’s character. And he had thought her good, had wrestled far into too many nights with the impropriety of his feelings. They were base desire, nothing more. The temptation of the forbidden. Damn her for what she’d put him through on the ride here. For everything she had cost him. Damn her to hell.
He slammed his fist backward into the stair’s nosing.
JOINED AND ASUNDER
Lady Martise’s, Shacra Paulus, the next day
For at least the tenth time, Fassal rose from his Aunt Martise’s couch, shook his shoulders, and adjusted the cuffs of his sleeves so they just showed from his new deep plum-colored coat with cerulean buttons and fancy stitching. The Tierian waiting with him, a sullen lump of a monk with yellowed toenails, offered no diversion except his disgusting bare feet. Clearly, the monk had reservations—warranted ones for sure—about being here. Because of Prince Lerouge’s death, Jesquin’s father had refused to let the wedding proceed as scheduled, so his aunt had arranged this clandestine ceremony. Surely, she’d donated a vast sum to the Tierians, and taken on a great risk of the king’s displeasure, to give them this one joy.
“Gregory,” Aunt Martise had said yesterday, “with Sarapost heading into war, if something happens to you, I’d never be able to forgive myself if I didn’t allow you this one joy.”
Fassal needed one joy. Poor Degarius. All Fassal could do was shake his head in disbelief. What had happened still didn’t seem possible.
Finally, the sitting room door opened, and Jesquin entered under the protective arm of his aunt. Suddenly, his nervousness was gone.
“Remember,” Aunt Martise whispered to Jesquin, “not a word. Let me tell your father tomorrow.”
Jesquin wriggled free of their aunt and came to Fassal. Plucking at the skirt of her black mourning dress, she turned her already moist eyes to him. “My wedding dress wasn’t finished. It doesn’t matter, does it?”
“You are beautiful, sweetheart,” Fassal said into her ear and gazed into her eyes that for days had been awash in tears for her brother. Now they were wet with joy.
“And you’re so handsome. Look at your coat.” When she touched her forefinger to one of the buttons on his chest, he clasped her hand and kissed it.
The Tierian led them through the vows and pronounced them married.
“My dears, you have an hour,” Lady Martise said. “Upstairs, the last room on your right is at your disposal.”
Lady Martise held her smile while she listened to their rushed footsteps on the stair, and then she sank onto a couch. Dear Marslan could never return to Acadia, not after his son was accused of killing Chane. She could go to Sarapost, but what would become of Chane’s little twins? They had no father now, and Jesquin must leave. King Lerouge had no time or patience for them. What was she to do? Go to Marslan or accept the only form of motherhood left to her?
Oh, how had all this happened? Yet again, Lady Martise wondered if she could have prevented it. Gregory told her that Marslan’s son was in love with Hera Solace. She had thought to tell Gregory to warn the captain about Chane, but she decided it wasn’t her place. Anyway, if Hera Solace had turned down Chane, why would she have the captain? The dinner with Teodor seemed to confirm Hera Solace’s steadfastness to her vows. The captain had been out on the porch with her and came in looking dashed. But then, when the captain fell on the field to Chane, Hera Solace was much affected. There was something between them. Poor dears. What a struggle it must have been, and now this.
Lady Martise sighed. At least Gregory and Jesquin would be happy.
The superior’s chamber, Solace
The knock on the door would be the monks come with Nan. Arvana refolded the letter from Lady Martise to the superior and extended it across the wide desk to her.
“Do you want me to tell him?” Madra Cassandra asked as she took the letter.
Arvana shook her head. Though she dreaded telling him, felt certain of his disappointment, she felt just as certain he would understand. It had been an accident.
“Then I’ll give you a few minutes with him.” The superior rose from the desk and shuffled toward her private rooms. “Enter,” she called before leaving.
Four monks escorted Nan into the superior’s chamber. He limped, worse than usual.
“Your feet?”
He said nothing, just stopped and glanced around the chamber, as if looking for someone or something, then not finding it, scowled, and rolled his gaze to the ceiling, the floor, to anyplace but her.
Arvana didn’t think her heart could sink any lower than after she’d read the letter from Lady Martise, until she saw his utter coldness at seeing her. Did he already know, already blame her for everything he had lost?
“You may go,” Arvana said to the brothers. “We shall be fine alone.”
Nan stood straight and severe. “They said the superior wanted to see me.”
“She does. She’ll return shortly.”
He pushed up his glasses. An ugly blue bruise covered the outside of his hand. Finally deigning to look at her, he caught her wondering stare. He turned his back to her and went to the window. Good. It would be easier not having to tell him to his face, not having those blue eyes that could be so inexplicably beautiful turn cold and pass judgment. “The superior just received word from Lady Martise. It explains the redcoats. They found your Valor in Service medal on the path. It’s how they connected you with the prince’s death. It’s my fault. I must have dropped it. I’m sorry, Nan. I know the generalship means everything to you. There’s a ten thousand crown reward—”
“My medal? So that’s the explanation for that.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “I suppose I can excuse that. You didn’t intentionally leave it behind.”
“Oh, Nan.” Relief washed over Arvana. He did understand. She rose, began to go to him, but he slowly turned around and the look on his face was everything except forgiving.
“Now, tell me why Lerouge put his knife in my back in the first place.”
“Nan?”
“A man died and I’ve lost everything for no reason other than jealousy. If I’d known you were his lover, I would’ve gladly made it clear he was free to have you. Gladly. Prince Lerouge. You might have mentioned it. The damned prince of Acadia...” He trailed off in disgust.
“Nan.”
“What was I? Collateral in a game? One of us would give you a comfortable life. An enviable life. Not like this forsaken existence here.”
“Let me explain! I never loved him.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Gesturing to her ring-less hand, he said, “Now you are free to dupe some other man. What am I free to do? I regret pitying you. That’s all it was, pity. I regret it in every possible way.” The sharp, deliberate crispness in his voice was like the sound of a knife cutting an apple in halves that couldn’t be rejoined.
Arvana backed to her chair.
The superior’s chamber door creaked open and Nan looked away from Arvana, as if turning from a stranger. In the shock of his accusations, she hadn’t had time to breathe, let alone think, and now the superior was here. Arvana wilted into her chair.
The superior motioned Nan to sit beside Arvana, but he remained standing. “I haven’t detained you, spared you from the redcoats, on a whim,” the superior said to him. “I know you killed a draeden and that your sword is Assaea.”
Nan glared at Arvana, and she knew he was accusing her of yet another falsehood—sharing his secret.
“It was her duty to tell me,” the superior said. “We know The Scyon and the draeden have returned. I sent her to the Citadel to find a savior to battle them.”
“What?”
“She chose Lerouge. Now he’s dead and time runs short. She told me you think war with the Gherians will begin this winter. It takes little to dedu
ce they will use the fire draeden, which must be large and powerful by now. I am offering you the chance to take your sword against it and The Scyon.”
“I never needed you to offer me the chance to take my sword against anything.”
“Indeed.” Just as she had the morning on the 5th of Spring when she laid the initial task on Arvana, the superior opened her desk drawer and withdrew a black box. “But you need me to offer you the Blue Eye, Lord Degarius.” She lifted the lid. “The relic has been in our care since the days of the Founder. It is how we know The Scyon and the draeden are resurrected. Anyone who can use the relic can see them through it. With my own eyes, I saw a poor, pitiful girl birth the two demons. One was put in a silver bowl of water; the other they laid upon a brazier.”
“A girl?” Degarius asked. The appalling thought of a girl having to bear monsters softened his stiff defensiveness.
Arvana shuddered and touched her hand to her stomach. A girl had to lay with The Scyon, carry the evil within her, and then birth them. Perhaps as an act of mercy, the superior had never told her that. But she told Nan.
The superior continued, “With my own eyes, I have seen The Scyon, though he hides behind a black hood.”
“Black hood,” Nan said. “Alenius, the Gherian Sovereign, has taken to wearing a hood, but I guess it would be blue, and is claiming that he’s divine.”
“Color is difficult to discern in the dark. It must be him. Then you know where to find him?”
“The Forbidden Fortress,” Nan muttered, and he came to the desk and peered inside the box. “ So that’s the Blue Eye.” His eyes narrowed and shifted to Arvana. “Lerouge had that when he died. You gave it to him because he beat me in the tournament.”
“No, Prince Lerouge made that test for himself,” Arvana said. “I gave it to him because you couldn’t use it. I hoped you could, prayed you could, because I knew you could be trusted with it. But I tested you with it at Bonfire Night and you saw nothing. I even looked to see if I could make you use it—as the Judges made other Judges—but the trial would break you, ruin your body and mind. With all my heart, I wanted to give it to you.”
“Lerouge hasn’t seen a fraction in his life of what I have.”
“I know. I have wondered the same myself. But perhaps it is what you see in death.”
“Then why the hell am I here?”
The superior pushed the relic box toward Arvana. “Because Miss Nazar can use it.”
Arvana felt a stab at being called Miss Nazar. She didn’t know who Miss Nazar was. She had always been plain Ari or Hera Arvana. It hadn’t quite seemed like she renounced her vows until this moment. Though she had relinquished her ring and left behind her silver headband and veil at Lady Martise’s, she still wore her gray habit; she had nothing else. Even the kithara was no longer hers.
“Her?” Nan growled the word.
“Through the Blue Eye I saw you kill the poison draeden. I saw its spirit enter Hell. It is why I hoped so much that you could use the relic.”
“I killed it for certain?”
“For certain. I knew from the start, from when Prince Fassal mentioned why you earned the Valor in Service medal. When I saw your sword, it confirmed it.”
Nan sank into the chair. “But I can’t use the Blue Eye.”
“Prince Lerouge took her into Hell with the Blue Eye,” the superior said. “It was why you had to bring her to me...to retrieve her. She survived there longer than I would have thought possible. Her body, like none other, is hardened to the shock of having had its soul in Hell.”
“Lerouge nearly killed her with that thing,” he said.
“Prince Lerouge defeated you once, too,” Arvana said quietly.
“You propose I stroll into Gheria with her?” He addressed the superior only.
“Your grandmother promised a great help. She said you would know what it is...something you read in her journals.”
“My grandmother?”
“She is in Hell. She lingers in the light of your sword. It is truly blessed.”
“Surely there is someone else to take the Blue Eye and better counsel than that of a dead, mad woman.” Crossing his arms, he asked, “And if I refuse this lunacy?”
“Your sword still goes north, albeit in less skillful hands,” the superior replied. “You know too much. You must stay with the brothers until either the war ends or a draeden comes. Those of faith are always among their first targets.”
“You give me no choice.”
Arvana opened her hands in her lap. “I wish there was time to find another champion. I never wanted to take the Blue Eye, but have accepted it.” It didn’t seem the right time to tell him that she’d pledged to Lina that she’d help him. The last thing he’d appreciate now was any obligation she felt toward him. “What else is there to do? The fire draeden will be upon us. What if The Scyon breeds more draeden? A wasting draeden? And time runs short. Can you tell me who could be trusted with it? In the wrong hands—”
One of his nearly invisible brows arched as he turned to her. “Yours are the right ones?”
“No mortal since the Judges has used the Blue Eye more than I have.” Arvana garnered her conviction. “You hesitate because I am the last person with whom you would wish to undertake anything. I swear I will never mention our past. This is about far more than us.”
He scoffed. “I refuse because it’s a ludicrous idea. If I were a general, had an army like Lukis and Paulus, perhaps I could breach the walls of the Forbidden Fortress. Oh, then there is the fact that I have a price on my head. To avoid the main roads, we’ll have to take the Verdea Crossing, go through Cumberland to Sarapost. It is full of unmarked hants and bandits. And entering the Gherian Forbidden Fortress with only one sword and a woman—”
The sound of the superior edging her chair from the table interrupted him. “I understand you’ve decided, Lord Degarius. I’ll call the brothers to escort you to your cell.”
Nan jumped to his feet. “No monk touches my sword. I said you gave me no choice. Give me a good bowman. My shoulder is too stiff to draw.”
The superior rose, bowed to Nan, took the locket, and shuffled around the desk. “Rise, Arvana Nazar. As the Founder entrusted the relic to Paulus, I entrust it to you. Maker have mercy on the sins you must bear for our sake.”
The superior hung the locket once again around Arvana’s neck. The first time she’d done so last spring, her skin had shivered at its coldness between her breasts, and at the strange mix of trepidation, obligation, and hope with which she accepted the duty she’d secretly hoped would make her a shacra. Then, over the summer, it had grown as familiar as her novice’s ring, sitting against her skin without notice. Now, in taking it, she felt nothing except numbing resignation. What had she expected? For happiness to come from the breaking of her vows? For this terrible task to be a honeymoon?
“I wish you to leave as soon as possible,” the superior said. To Nan she added, “Make a list of what you need. Solace will provide coin and whatever is necessary.”
Nan raked his fingers through his hair. “I have to go home to Ferne Clyffe. I’ve never read my grandmother’s journals.”
BURNING
Outside of Solace, the next morning
Though Degarius’s knee was swollen and stiff and his shoulder wound throbbed, he was glad to be out of Solace. He rubbed his forehead under his Solacian monk’s gray wool cap. It itched, but did a good job of hiding his telltale hair. The morning sun was flickering through the half-bare autumnal trees that lined the secluded, rambling path along the hillsides outside of Solace. Eventually they would have to join with the road that led to Verdea Crossing, but by then, his beard would be full and a bright red. No one in Acadia, except Fassal, knew it was that color. For now, they were safe, but slow.
For disguise and the convenience of riding, Miss Nazar was dressed as a monk, too. Miss Nazar. It sounded strange, but what the hell else was he supposed to call her? She wasn’t Hera Solace anymore. How had he even
started calling her Ari? He never called Miss Gallivere Esmay. Miss Nazar sped her horse to a trot to jump a fallen tree in the path. She leaned forward and was up and over the log. He had never campaigned with a woman in tow. It was sure to be a pain, but at least she was an accomplished rider. He couldn’t fault that skill or complain that she couldn’t keep up because she was ill. Despite the dark circles under her eyes and a hollowness to her face, she rode diligently.
Degarius took his turn jumping the tree. Even though his knee ached when he rose in the saddle, the motion felt good, full of freedom after the confinement to the monk’s cell. But as he looked back to ensure that Heran Kieran, the Solacian brother following with the pack animal, made it around the log, the sense of freedom left as quickly as the exhilaration of jumping the horse. He wasn’t free. He had to abide the superior’s plan...for now. If he reached Sarapost, he could take the relic to King Fassal. The Sarapostans would find someone better than Miss Nazar to use it, and he might earn his generalship back as recompense. As Miss Nazar said, this was about more than them.
The path widened and Heran Kieran, who was assigned as their archer, came alongside. He was a young man, well made and with dark skin suited for even the strong Orlandian sun. The superior had allowed Degarius to watch a demonstration of the man’s skill before accepting him into the party. The man’s speed and accuracy were better than even Salim’s. “Your archery skill would’ve earned you a commission in the Acadian army.”
