Descent

by Charlotte McConaghy

  His anxiety intensified when he realised the slumped figure on the beach was a woman. It increased beyond measure when he realised who the woman was.

  Anna looked small and weak, dwarfed among the oversized clothes she wore to hide her thinness. It took him only a moment to check that she was still breathing, and to shake her into consciousness. Her eyes were glazed and pained when she looked at him.

  ‘Oh, Luca,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry, I just got a bit dizzy...’

  ‘It’s okay sweetheart, I’m taking you home now.’

  ‘I need to get to Locktar, it’s nearly night time ... I need to start my patrol...’

  ‘You’re not going to help anybody in this state, An.’ Luca lifted her effortlessly into his arms. Her bones felt so fragile in his strong grip. ‘What were you doing all the way out here at this time of day?’

  ‘I just ... I just wanted to walk along the beach before I left again.’ Anna was limp and cold in his arms. Luca picked up his pace.

  ‘Anna,’ he murmured as he jogged, trying not to jolt her too much, ‘I’m really worried about you.’

  ‘I’m worried about you too,’ she murmured tiredly.

  Luca’s jaw clenched and he made it the rest of the way back to the palace in silence.

  Once Anna was safely in bed, after a healer had made sure she wasn’t in any immediate danger, Luca took a seat next to the window and turned his eyes to her.

  ‘Get some sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.’

  ‘I don’t want to sleep too long. I need to get away.’ Anna didn’t open her eyes to speak.

  ‘You don’t need to go anywhere. You’re not well enough, and I don’t want to argue about it. The world will be okay without you for a few weeks.’

  ‘Weeks? Luca, I—!’

  ‘I said I don’t want to argue about it.’ His tone was firm. ‘Besides,’ he added more gently, ‘I think it’s best if we both wait here to see Jack and Mia before we leave.’

  ‘We? Where are you going?’

  ‘I’m going to Cynis Witron, too. Accolon wanted someone to meet with Cornelius about the fortress of Karangul.’ He might have asked for a lift with Anna if her dragon didn’t hate Luca so much. Anna couldn’t understand why this was so, but Luca knew the dragon sensed the darkness inside him.

  ‘He knew I was going. Could he not entrust the job to me?’ Anna frowned and sank further into the bed. ‘That man has nothing but contempt for me,’ she said angrily. ‘He never shows gratitude or respect for anything I do.’

  Luca didn’t say anything.

  ‘I’m fed up with it!’ she went on. ‘He can’t keep taking me for granted. Maybe I’ll stop reporting to him and go live with Satine. She would treat me properly...’ Anna trailed off as she realised her complaints were falling on deaf ears. ‘Luca ... I can’t wait to see them.’

  He looked at her and saw that her anger had evaporated. Now all he could see in her face was excitement. Luca’s own smile was easier in coming than usual. ‘I know. Harry said they haven’t aged. They’re exactly the same. Lucky things.’

  ‘But don’t you think it’ll be strange? Being older than them?’

  Luca shrugged. ‘Two years isn’t much. Plus they always acted younger than us.’

  Anna laughed. ‘Say that to their faces.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dare,’ he said with a smile.

  Chapter 6

  ‘You spoke of revenge,’ the red-haired man called Adon said. ‘What do you seek vengeance for? Yourself?’

  It was a question he had obviously wanted to ask for some time now.

  They’d been riding for hours, and it was well and truly dark. They’d slowed their tired horses to a walk, watching the skies warily. Ria found that she couldn’t really be bothered avoiding the question.

  ‘Sabre-tooths killed my parents. I was young and foolish when I vowed revenge. I actually believed I could do it—I had no idea of the enormity of what I was vowing. But sometimes the oath keeps me going.’ She shrugged. Bayard nodded, looking upwards. He ran a hand through his hair, creating more havoc there.

  ‘Did you fight?’ she asked.

  ‘Didn’t we all?’

  ‘I nearly didn’t,’ she said.

  ‘Then thank the gods for whatever force changed your mind,’ he muttered and Ria looked away. The moons were high overhead, allowing them some light in which to keep vigil. Ria was beginning to understand how stupid she’d been to think she could ride out on her own. There was a vastness to the world in darkness that was not so frightening during the day. Looking at the thousands of stars above she felt tiny, and unsafe.

  ‘You are a soldier then,’ she said, finding that words helped her forget how vulnerable they were.

  ‘Yes. A mercenary.’

  ‘That explains why you work for such a man. I take it he pays you handsomely?’

  Bayard flashed her a sideways look. ‘Not why I work for him. I know most hate him for what he did.’

  ‘And why shouldn’t we?’

  ‘Because he has changed. He seeks to make amends for all his wrong-doings. I support what he strives for.’

  ‘And what is that?’ Ria snapped angrily.

  Bayard shook his head. ‘You don’t understand. He wants to help our country. Turn it back to what it once was.’

  ‘By overthrowing the rightful king?’

  ‘Cornelius was good once, but now his mind suffers. Cynis is a mess of poverty and destruction.’

  ‘But isn’t Vezzet involved in the slave trade?’ she pressed.

  Bayard frowned. ‘Rumours only.’

  Ria tried to swallow her anger. Vezzet had betrayed them all—he’d let his friend and colleague Tomasso take his place on the guillotine, and then he’d waited until they were on the battlefield to announce that he’d been a spy for Leostrial all along! But clearly Bayard was delusional, and wasn’t going to listen to her. Besides, part of what he was saying was true—Cynis Witron was in a bad way. She just couldn’t believe that Vezzet was trying to better their country; he was so deceptive that she didn’t trust a single thing he was involved in. And yes, it was only rumoured that he was part of the slave trade, but rumours had to come from somewhere, didn’t they?

  Sighing, she clenched her jaw. ‘I can see we are not going to agree on this matter. Whatever his intentions, I will never set foot in his fortress, not after what he did.’

  ‘I’m aware of that,’ he said. ‘It’s why we are very likely to die out here tonight.’

  She looked down at her hands guiltily.

  ‘Forgive me,’ Bayard said gently. ‘Bitterness is ugly in everyone. I think we’d best just focus on getting home.’

  Ria looked across at him. Their eyes met and she thought she saw something in his. Perhaps not tenderness, but something close? Why?

  ‘I told you I’d protect you,’ she reminded him.

  He broke into a wide grin. ‘You said you might, if you were feeling generous.’

  Ria couldn’t help but smile too. ‘Well I am, Adon. I am feeling generous.’

  ‘I’ll thank my gods with every step we take,’ he told her and she looked away to stop herself from laughing. She hadn’t laughed in what felt like years.

  ‘We’ll be there soon,’ she said after a while. ‘Then you will be on your way, I assume?’

  ‘Yes ... I would say so,’ he replied slowly. ‘But can you do one thing for me on our way?’

  She looked at him.

  ‘Call me Bayard. Only my mother calls me Adon.’

  Ria frowned. ‘No. I like Adon better.’

  Bayard chuckled. ‘I’ve never had that response before.’

  ‘You’ve never met me before.’

  Their horses were walking close together, and she glanced across at his hands where they gripped the reigns. Another pair of hands jumped unbidden to her mind, a beautiful, musical pair. The memory of them cut deep, erasing her good mood instantly.

  ‘You’ll need to rest your horse and have something to
eat,’ she said stonily. ‘You may stay at my house until you have done so.’ Without looking at him or waiting for a reply she kicked her horse hard and cantered ahead.

  They had been wrong. All of them. Lady Tzenna of Sair and Lord Willem of Amalia had not been in love. Or at least, the Lady had not been.

  She had meant it to seem so, though. She had made it look as though it had been one of the very rare love matches. It suited her greater purpose.

  His death, however, did not. Tzenna was able to show some real distress when she’d woken and found her fiancé dead next to her. That distress was almost a relief. Her life had been about acting, deceit, lies. It was a relief for her to be able to feel something.

  What no one knew, or remembered, or cared, was that Tzenna’s entire family—her mother, her father, her grandparents, her brothers, and her baby sister—had been slaughtered like animals because they had been late in paying their taxes one month.

  Slaughtered by the former King Gaddemar, and his traitorous wife Columba.

  Tzenna only managed to escape a fiery death because the soldiers sent to Sair were fond of young girls. Tzenna had been eight that summer. This brought no lack of courage, as she proved with a knife in the neck of the man who was preparing to capture her. The other had been so shocked that he’d not reacted in time, and she had been able to hide in the village rubbish dump.

  Even now she could remember that night. Crying the only tears she had cried for eight years, as small creatures crawled over her and bit her in the dark.

  The other members of the village had been happy to shelter her as she planned her vengeance.

  Then came the two deaths, one of a king and another of a queen, which had ruined the purpose of her life. Accolon was not his father or his mother. But, she decided, he would do. And so she had come to Amalia, capital of the world, and through hard work had placed herself in a position of some rank. Having a nobleman fall in love with her had surely helped.

  She had not known of his involvement with the slave trade, or else would have chosen some other nobleman, but that could not be helped. She had been elevated to a woman of stature in the court, and now she could start to lay out the finalities of her plan.

  At that moment Tzenna of Sair, daughter of a dead family, sat in the chapel of Adar with a black veil over her face and hair, listening to the priest lead the funeral rites of her dead fiancé.

  Perhaps she could have loved him, in a life where her purpose was not set wholly on one action. He had been kind to her, and she knew he had loved her. She let the tears fall in the church, the first since that night in the garbage dump so long ago. Not real tears. She didn’t know if she was capable of real tears anymore.

  The High Queen was there, glittering in the candlelight, face calm and serene like the wondrous queen she was. Beloved, they called her beyond the palace walls. Just like her late brother. Tzenna had met Elixia only a few times before, but the admiration had been there from the first. The queen was not the object of Tzenna’s hatred.

  She was very brave also, Tzenna thought suddenly—her husband was gone and she was here alone, facing a possible revolt over the death of this man.

  At the end of the service, Tzenna walked to the coffin and removed her betrothal ring, placing it on the chest of the man she had been going to marry. Then she turned and walked from the church, wrapping her cloak tighter about her in the cold winter wind.

  ‘Please accept my deepest apologies,’ came a soft voice from behind her. Tzenna turned to see the queen, and was once again confronted by her huge green eyes.

  ‘Of course, thank you,’ she replied, bowing low to the ground.

  ‘The gods are often unkind,’ the queen said, seeming truly sorry.

  Tzenna nodded, keeping her anger hidden with well-practised ease. The gods, or the king, could be unkind?

  ‘You are a strong girl though, Tzenna—you will get past this.’

  ‘Thank you, my lady, you are too kind.’

  ‘Not kind, only truthful. Now, let’s go—it is far too cold to be standing outside on a day like today. We shall talk in my litter so that my bones may not freeze under this aged skin.’

  Tzenna managed a smile—Elixia was radiant, and still extremely young. She had come to the throne when she was even younger than Tzenna was now.

  ‘The boys...’ Tzenna said, gesturing inside to where Willem’s sons were still sitting.

  ‘Have their own way home, I’m sure,’ the queen said.

  The younger woman followed the queen to her litter, wondering what had granted her the right to ride with such a woman.

  ‘Tzenna, I take it you will be living in Willem’s house with his sons?’

  ‘Yes, for now,’ she said.

  ‘Good. They are good boys,’ the queen replied absently. ‘Are they of an age?’

  ‘Yes, they are young men. Hoping to follow their father into the king’s court.’

  ‘Of an age to marry?’ the queen asked, her eyebrows raised.

  ‘Oh!’ Tzenna said, hoping her cheeks were flushed. ‘I had not thought of such a thing. Yes, one is.’

  ‘His name?’

  ‘Élan.’

  ‘His line of work?’

  ‘He has been working with the librarian to become a scholar. He wants to one day scribe his own histories.’

  ‘I’ll have him promoted, then he may work his way up, if he can. That way you may keep your status and what wealth you had, and perhaps gain some.’

  ‘Thank you, my lady,’ Tzenna replied slowly.

  ‘This does not please you? Élan would be your own age, perhaps a better match for you anyhow. She sighed suddenly. ‘What am I saying? You and Willem loved each other, didn’t you?’

  Tzenna dropped her head, letting a tear run down her cheek as she nodded. ‘Yes, but I am grateful, after his passing, to have a prospect to my life.’

  ‘It is of course up to you. But it would make things easier for you if you think you could bear it. Élan is a good choice. His father was highly thought of.’

  In truth, Tzenna didn’t care in the slightest. As long as she could stay at court, it would be all right. If she had to marry damn Élan, then she would do it. Better than some man she had never met.

  The queen was looking at her, so Tzenna smiled. Not a real smile, but something that reached back to that faraway place in her heart where she could feel.

  Elixia finally knew what to do. At last she had figured out how to find her brother. She’d been thinking about it the whole time she’d been at the funeral, and now, finally back in her bedchamber, she dismissed the El~araih and locked the door. She stood, hesitating. She had a lot to lose now. A very great deal to leave behind. But, even though her daughter didn’t have the love of her father, she had more wealth and privilege than any other child in the world. Not a fair trade, really, but at least if Elixia didn’t come back, Ruby would survive. Telling herself this was the only way she could possibly do what she was about to.

  Knowing that every moment would bring Fern closer to eternal doom, she took a long-bladed dagger from her dresser drawer. Then, with a piece of coal from the fire, she made a circle on the floor around her. Elixia closed the window shutters, doused the fire and all of the lanterns, plunging her chamber into darkness.

  It was freezing, but this was how it needed to be.

  Finally, without hesitation, Elixia del Sitadel, last necromancer of a dying race, screamed an incantation. ‘I call upon you, Odin, god of war! My blood is on your hands! My death is yours!’

  And with that she stabbed the knife into her chest, deep into her heart.

  Chapter 7

  One of Satine’s many secretaries was waiting at her door, and resumed writing a constant flow of notes as they walked down the corridor.

  ‘Inform the king’s men that I will not take one of them for a husband, and that they should not assume so much,’ Satine barked.

  The secretary blushed and tried to hide his smile. Men from both the other treat
y countries often sought her hand in marriage, knowing it would bring them power and status. Satine, however, was not interested in giving away her kingdom to a patronising nobleman.

  ‘Send a messenger to Altor and ask him to meet me for a meal in my chambers. I need to speak with him.’

  ‘Right away, your majesty.’

  The young man turned and motioned quickly for one of his own servants to run the message.

  At that moment Harry rounded the corner, and slowed to a swift walk as he saw her. ‘Satine! I came to say goodbye. We’re headed to Amalia at midday today.’

  ‘So soon?’ Satine sighed. ‘I was hoping to spend some time with the three of you—it’s not often more Strangers walk through our doors.’

  ‘We could stay a little longer if you’d like...?’

  ‘No, of course not. I’m just being selfish. It was nice to have the company, and you will be sorely missed around here, Harry.’

  Harry smiled. ‘I’ll only be gone a few weeks at most. My place is here, you know that.’

  Satine looked at him for a long moment and allowed herself the rare treat of wondering what it would be like if she accepted his advances. What would he say to her, if finally he mustered the courage to admit his feelings? What would he do? How would it feel to be in his arms?

  She didn’t want Harry in such a way, but she liked to think that she could be allowed luxuries like a new romance.

  It was in that moment—looking at the boy who had grown into one of the finest people she knew, partly because of his love for her—that Satine felt one of the most acute pains she had ever felt. These pains came when she least expected them. Sharp and wounding, caused by the sudden realisation that she was alone. Leostrial’s absences struck when she was not ready. How much she missed him. How clear it was that her life was never going to be normal again. She was never going to be allowed a new romance. Not because she was queen, but because her heart already belonged to another, and he would always be there, like a knife slicing into her to remind her of what she had lost.