A Clasp for Heirs

by Morgan Rice

  He saw a quartet of soldiers gathered around the open door to the cottage, and roared a challenge as he ran forward. One of the men there turned towards him as Sebastian cut across his throat with the sword he held. Another froze in place with his sword raised, and Sebastian thrust his blade through the man’s chest, releasing it as it stuck there and throwing himself at the third. Sebastian bore him to the ground, dragging a dagger from its sheath for use at such close quarters and stabbing while he clung to the man’s wrist with the other hand. When the soldier went limp, he looked up to see the last of them looming above him, sword raised.

  Asha slammed into him from the side, blades sliding into his flesh almost too fast to follow.

  “It seems that you were right,” she said. “We need to get Princess Violet out of here.”

  Sebastian stared at her as he stood. He wasn’t sure whether Asha was exactly who he would have picked to have by his side in this moment.

  “Then you’re an idiot,” she said in answer to his thoughts. “I fight as well as anyone else here, and I will protect her with my life. Her survival is all that matters now.”

  Sebastian suspected that she was serious about that, and in any case, there was no time in which to argue. Back on the walls, he could see Vincente trying to marshal a defense, but the men and women there were losing ground step by step.

  They burst into the cottage and found another dead soldier on the floor, Cora standing over him with Violet cradled in a sling and a sword in her hand.

  “Well done,” Asha said to her, seeming impressed with her almost for the first time.

  “We need to get out of here,” she said, not seeming to care about the dead man at her feet. Violet was surprisingly quiet, chewing on a rag dipped in milk.

  “How though?” Sebastian wondered aloud as he looked out of the cottage’s window, trying to find a break in the fighting that they could run through. If they could get to horses, they could make a break out onto the moorland, but there were soldiers on every side, and Sebastian could see crows gathering above, no doubt looking for any sign of Violet.

  Worse, Sebastian saw the moment when the Master of Crows stepped up onto the walls. Stonehome’s warriors ran at him, and he cut through even them, twisting and turning, sending his crows into their faces, slicing out with his dueling blade. There were men all around him, and he always seemed to know which way to turn. Worse, with the amount of death in the air, his strength was terrifying. A man stepped into his path and was cut clean in half by a chopping blow. Another found himself kicked away, ribcage shattered.

  Vincente was there then, and the Master of Crows ducked in time to let the soldiers behind him feel the barking call of his blunderbuss. Vincente’s long butcher’s blade was not as agile as the Master of Crows’ rapier, but he kept it moving, kept him at bay. Asha looked as though she wanted to run forward to him, but instead, Sebastian saw her eyes alight on the stone circle there.

  “If we can get to there, I can give us a way out.”

  “Asha,” Emeline said. “That won’t work. The spell Endi cast-”

  “I’m not planning to stand in the circle,” she said. “We need the heartstone at its core. Just help me do this! I’ll not let Vincente die in vain.”

  She ran from the cottage, sprinting from the circle and cutting down enemies as she ran. Emeline ran with her, and Sebastian cursed silently.

  “Come on,” he said to Cora. “If Asha has a way out, we have to take it.”

  They ran out after Asha and Emeline, heading for the circle. Almost as soon as they emerged, the crows above started to caw, and Sebastian only had to glance round to see the Master of Crows’ eyes on them. The lapse of attention cost the New Army’s general a cut from Vincente’s blade, but it closed almost as soon as he made it, thanks to the power running through him. The two kept fighting, but how much longer could their duel last when there were soldiers closing in on every side?

  The answer to that was only a matter of seconds. The Master of Crows left an opening, and Vincente struck again, but his heavier blade stuck in the other man’s flesh, and the Master of Crows smiled cruelly before striking out again and again, stabbing with both his sword and a long dagger.

  “Run for the circle!” Sebastian yelled for Cora, and thankfully, amazingly, she obeyed while he turned, levelling his own sword and waiting for the Master of Crows to come for him. The other man loped forward, coat flapping in the wind like wings, his blades out like taloned hands. Sebastian knew that he couldn’t survive more than seconds against something like this, but even seconds would do something to let his child escape.

  The Master of Crows closed in on him, Sebastian raised his sword… and then the mist descended.

  It fell over the village in a thick wave that Sebastian knew only too well. In it, there was no telling one direction from another, no guessing which direction a foe might lie in. He took a step to the side, avoiding the Master of Crows’ first rush, and then they were both lost to one another, vanished in the mist.

  Sebastian hunted through it blindly, not sure if he was looking for his enemy, or for his child or something else. He thought that he saw shadows in the mist, but none came towards him. None found their way through to him.

  A hand closed over his arm and Sebastian spun, ready to kill.

  “It’s me,” Emeline said. “It’s me, Sebastian. This way!”

  She led the way through the mist to a spot where Cora and Asha already set aside two horses. Cora held Violet, while Asha seemed to be holding something clenched in her fist; something that glowed. She briefly opened her hand to reveal a perfectly spherical stone, carved with sigil after sigil, each one flickering across the surface.

  “She can’t do this,” Emeline said, awe and fear vying for control in her voice. “She can’t hold the whole mist barrier in place when the Master of Crows is pushing at it, without even the circle.”

  “Watch… me…” Asha managed from between gritted teeth. “Stones are just there to contain and focus… this is… easy!”

  It really didn’t look easy to Sebastian. If anything, it looked as though the effort of it was slowly burning up through her, devouring her from the inside out.

  “I’ll ride with Cora and cover us against being found by our thoughts,” Emeline said. “Sebastian, you’ll have to ride with Asha.”

  “Quickly…” Asha said, her eyes closed in concentration. “No time to… waste.”

  Sebastian nodded and leapt up. Out in the mist, he could still hear screams and the sounds of violence, but they seemed distant somehow, spread out and unreal.

  “I’ll pick a path through them,” Emeline said from in front. “Ride exactly where I say, and don’t stop!”

  Sebastian didn’t need the warning. In the mist, he had no hope of finding his way without running into enemies, while Emeline might be able to both find a route between the soldiers and shield them from the Master of Crows talents.

  Together, moving as quickly and quietly as their horses would let them, they set off into the mist.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Sebastian led his horse through the fog, following behind Emeline, Cora and Violet, every step the creature took echoing against the silence of it. Before, there had been the sudden, violent terror of battle, but now there was a different kind of fear pressing in on him: the fear of not knowing.

  He didn’t know where the enemies were. He didn’t know how many might be coming at them even now. Emeline was leading the way, using her powers to pick out the men of the New Army, but Sebastian had no way of knowing if some of them would slip through, attacking them from nowhere.

  “Trust her,” Asha murmured from behind him. “Emeline will get us through.”

  Sebastian could hear the strain in her voice. A glance back showed beads of sweat on her forehead, her hand clasped tight around the heart stone taken from Stonehome.

  “Are you all right?” Sebastian asked her. He wasn’t sure what would happen if Asha lost her concentration and
the fog around them slipped. If the Master of Crows saw them now…

  “I’ll hold,” Asha promised him. Sebastian didn’t even mind that she’d read his mind to do it. “To keep her safe, I’ll hold.”

  Her, Violet, his daughter. She was quiet now with Cora, gurgling a little, but not crying or reacting to the violence around them. Sebastian would do anything to keep her safe, but he had to admit that he found it surprising that someone like Asha would do the same.

  “With all that she’s destined to be?” Asha said. “I will do all that I can to protect her. I would die to see her safe.”

  Sebastian hated the thought that everyone believed his daughter to have some destiny that she had no choice in. Right now though, the fact that Asha would give so much to keep Violet safe was hard to question.

  They kept going, the fog obscuring everything around them. Sebastian could just make out Cora and Emeline ahead of his horse, but the others in Stonehome were little more than shadows in the fog, the sounds of the battle muted by it, the screams and the clatter of metal on metal reduced to something distant and unreal.

  Then it became far too real as two men stumbled close to them. Both were soldiers of the New Army, dressed in their ochre uniforms, spattered with the blood of the people they’d killed already. They stared up at him and the others, clearly trying to make sense of what they’d just stumbled upon.

  Sebastian reacted without thinking, swinging his sword at the first of them. Asha and Emeline needed to concentrate, while Cora was holding Violet. That left him. He hacked down at the closest of the men, catching him before he could raise his sword. He felt the steel cut down through the man’s flesh, breaking through his collarbone and bringing a shriek as the air rushed from his lungs. Blood sprayed, and the man fell, almost dragging Sebastian’s sword from his hand.

  The second of the men managed to lift a musket while Sebastian was dragging it clear, and Sebastian saw it levelled at him. He threw himself from the horse, hearing the boom of the weapon echoing through the fog in a way that seemed to fill the space.

  He felt the impact of the floor, and for a moment, Sebastian found his sword jarred from his hand. He rolled, and the soldier attacking him jabbed down with a bayonet. Sebastian kicked out, catching the man on the knee, then fell with him, punching and elbowing until he was able to break clear. He grabbed for the sword on the floor, and felt the soldier kick him, stopping him short.

  “The Master of Crows will reward me when I bring him all of you,” the soldier said. He lifted his musket, raising the bayonet over Sebastian. “And the best bit is that he doesn’t care if you’re alive or dead.”

  Sebastian made another lunge for the sword, and felt his hand close around the grip. He thrust upward blindly, and felt it slide in through flesh. The soldier stood there, looking down at the blade protruding from his torso, then fell back. Sebastian struggled to his feet.

  “Hurry!” Emeline called. “They’re coming closer. They must have heard the fight.”

  Sebastian dragged himself over to the horse and mounted it.

  “We’re going to have to move quickly,” Emeline said. “Stay close.”

  Sebastian saw her heel her horse forward, and now he had to ride hard to keep up with the twists and turns that she took. Emeline had the advantage of knowing where the minds of the New Army were; he could only follow her using all the riding skills that had been drilled into a royal prince since he was old enough to get on a horse at all.

  The stone wall to Stonehome lay ahead, and Sebastian saw Emeline and Cora’s horse leap it, its hooves clipping the top.

  “Hold on!” Sebastian called out to Asha, before kicking their mount into its own jump. It leapt, and Sebastian felt it knock stones from the top of the wall, then had to fight for control as it landed and scrambled for purchase in the ditch beyond. Somehow it kept its footing, and then they were out onto the moor beyond the settlement.

  “Slowly now,” Emeline called from in front of Sebastian. It took another moment or two to bring her into view. “Cora, keep Violet quiet.”

  They went from running to creeping along, and the worst part was that Sebastian couldn’t even see why. He knew that there had to be soldiers out there guarding the way, maybe even looking for them now, but he didn’t know where they were. All he could do was keep his sword ready and hope that none of the shadows they saw hints of in the mist looked towards them.

  How long did they keep going like that for? Hours, perhaps? It was impossible to tell, when the mist obscured even the passage of the sun across the sky, and the tension Sebastian felt stretched every moment out into something like a lifetime. They walked their horses through what had to be the heart of the New Army’s lines, out onto the moors, pushing forward a step at a time.

  “He’s fighting it,” Asha said behind Sebastian. “His birds are trying… to clear away… the fog.”

  She sounded like someone trying to hold a door closed against an army.

  “You have to hold on,” Sebastian said. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  Asha laughed. “Nothing… you can do. But I’ll hold… for her.”

  She didn’t say anything else as Sebastian rode with her behind him, just kept a grip on his waist with one hand, and the glowing heart stone extended in her other. When her grip on his waist started to weaken, Sebastian caught hold of her arm, keeping her in place while their horses trudged across the moor.

  After another hour, as they were working their way around a patch of peat that was too soft to hold their weight. Asha tumbled from the saddle.

  Sebastian stopped and jumped down beside her, while Emeline and Cora dismounted ahead of them, rushing back to them with Violet. Sebastian knelt beside Asha, offering her a sip of water from his water bottle. She barely responded.

  “Not… there… yet,” she murmured.

  “You’ve done more than enough,” Sebastian said. “We’re safe thanks to you.”

  “Violet… is…”

  She tailed off, and Sebastian saw the moment when the heart stone of Stonehome went dull. He felt at her neck, but there was no pulse there, while around them, the fog started to thin as the power Asha had been putting in fell away.

  “She’s dead,” Sebastian said, not quite able to summon sorrow for someone who had as much anger and hate in her as Asha, but able to feel gratitude and respect for all that she had done, at least.

  “She can’t be,” Emeline said. “Asha wouldn’t put so much of herself into the stone that it killed her. She wouldn’t give up everything for us. For anyone.”

  Sebastian looked over to his daughter and knew that wasn’t true. Asha had given everything to make sure that Violet would be safe. She’d burnt herself to an empty husk to maintain the magic needed to protect his daughter, and all for something she’d seen in a vision. Sebastian didn’t know if that was admirable or terrifying, right then.

  “She hated everyone like us,” Cora said, “but she gave her life for us.”

  “I just hope it will be enough,” Sebastian said as the fog continued to lift. They were far enough from Stonehome now that he couldn’t see any sign of the Master of Crows’ men, but he knew how little that could mean when every bird on the horizon could be reporting to him.

  “I can make sure,” Emeline said, starting to reach out for the stone. “If Asha can do it, then I-”

  Sebastian saw Cora’s hand close over her wrist. “Don’t you dare. Not if it will kill you.”

  Sebastian could only agree. “If I’d known that Asha would really keep going until this killed her, I would have stopped her too. As it is, this is too dangerous.”

  He didn’t risk picking the stone up with bare fingers. Instead, he took a pouch from his belt and scooped it inside, shutting it away from the world. It was far too powerful to leave for the Master of Crows.

  “Do we bury her?” Cora asked, in a slightly shaken voice, holding Violet to her as if to protect the baby from the sight of the body.

  “Ther
e’s no time,” Sebastian said, hating that he had to say it. He didn’t want to leave Asha for the crows. He looked over at the section of peat bog. “Emeline, give me a hand with her.”

  He heard Emeline sigh. “It doesn’t seem like a respectful end.”

  “It’s a better one than letting the Master of Crows feast on her power,” Sebastian said. “And I think right now she would want us to take the fastest way. Escaping is the best way to honor her.”

  Emeline nodded at that. “I guess so.”

  Between the two of them, they lifted Asha’s body, laying it in the soft peat, watching as her dead weight started to pull her down through it. Sebastian waited until she disappeared from sight, thinking of the times that she’d helped to save Ashton and how much he owed her for saving his daughter now.

  “We need to go,” Emeline said at last. “I’m keeping us hidden from magic at least, but that won’t do anything about crows or soldiers. We need to hurry.”

  Sebastian nodded. “To Monthys.”

  “To Monthys,” Emeline agreed.

  Sebastian wasn’t sure what they would find once they got there. He just hoped that it was something, anything that would let them survive the Master of Crows.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Sophia didn’t know what to do, what to say. All this time, she’d been searching for her parents, and in the briefest of spaces, she had both found them and lost them forever. She could see Kate and Lucas just as frozen with the shock of their deaths, neither moving, neither giving any sign that they had more of an idea of what to do than Sophia did.

  The grief came slowly, as if it took that long just for her to start to believe that any of this was happening.

  “I can’t…” Kate said beside her. “I don’t know what to do.”