by Unknown
An Ilthean rammed his sword outward, a crimson arc exploding from the back of his Turasi opponent. At the same time hot blood sprayed across my chest as a Turasi scored his own Ilthean. The ilthean crumpled to the ground, opening a gap in the circle before me. No one stepped in to close it.
The Turasi soldier recognised me and, wrapping his knuckles tighter around the shaft, aimed the point of his spear towards my heart. A thin wail like rocks screaming sounded overhead and I looked up. The dead Ilthean soldier’s blood dripped down my chest as I saw the boulder arc towards my head.
Sepp jerked me back and the rock slammed down onto the Turasi’s head, driving him into the ground in a puddle of meat. Bone and brain splashed up at my face.
Sidonius was watching me. Swallowing hard, I bent and retrieved a dropped sword, its grip sticky with fresh blood.
‘Which is the best way?’ Sidonius shouted at me.
‘In the open,’ I replied, my voice distant and shaky. ‘Let’s finish this quickly.’
He hesitated, distrust in his eyes, wondering if I’d simply snapped, my sanity broken by watching a man struck down before me, by the sheer dumb luck of it all. Or perhaps he saw his death in my eyes.
‘Lead the way,’ he said, removing any chance I had of sticking him in the back. ‘Sepp, with me,’ he added.
I stepped into the lead, the blade heavy and awkward in my hands. Sepp walked to my right, Sidonius on his other side. The Ilthean to my left suddenly lunged forward, blocking my way with his shield. An arrow thunked into the solid wood, tail quivering.
Dust puffed from the main gates with every smack of the battering ram, the noise of it like a pulse. Blood pounded in my ears, in counterpoint to the ram’s rhythmic thudding. The winch and chain shivered with each blow.
Sidonius and his men charged at the gates and the Turasi protecting them, again raising the song of steel. As they streamed past me, I stood in the open, forgotten. No one grabbed at me or insisted I follow. The blade pulled at my arms, only the tacky grip keeping it from falling. Sepp stood at my side. He had found a blade, and held it with more confidence than I gripped mine. Swivelling on his heel, he was scanning the battle all around us for direct threats even as he said, ‘We should find somewhere safer …’
I didn’t answer.
Catching sight of my expression, Sepp followed my line of sight and found the reason.
Dieter stepped out of the swirl of people and stopped before me, his black uniform bloody, his knuckles ripped raw beneath their torn leather bindings. Fear pinned me where I stood and turned my muscles to water.
He smiled as if he knew the effect he had on me. ‘I should have slit your throat at Aestival.’
‘Do it now,’ I said.
His smile faded. ‘Tempting, thank you, but no. I think you should try living with what you’ve done, Ilthean.’
The gates creaked and groaned as, inch by inch, they swung open. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Sidonius and his men momentarily besieged at the mechanism, but then Iltheans poured through the gap from outside.
There wasn’t a man who saw that gap didn’t know the truth: the Turholm was lost. It belonged to Ilthea now.
‘Enjoy the fruits of your labour, Matilde. You’ll find my brother a crueller master than I,’ said Dieter.
‘You were never my master,’ I retorted, ‘And your brother won’t be, either.’
He turned away and, swinging a white cloak over his shoulders, disappeared into the swirl of Ilthean troops.
I took a step after him, one hand raised, but he was gone amid the melee.
I had no doubt, come the end of battle, he would be vanished, counted among neither the living nor the dead.
FORTY
EVEN BEFORE THE battle wound down, Sidonius had sent a detail in search of Renatas, and another in search of Dieter. Achim insisted on accompanying the latter group, despite his injury, but only after promising Sidonius he would return within the hour.
Sidonius turned to me and gestured for me to precede him.
‘It’s time, lady,’ he said.
Fighting back my nerves, I led the way.
This time the sanctuary was clean, its parquetry floor unstained, its polish unmarred, the chandelier shedding glittering light over the empty hall. This time, Sidonius and I were the ones to track in the blood.
Every step I took left a smear, and blood dripped from my hems. Sidonius’s cleated sandals dug wounds into the polish and wooden boards alike, raising a clatter and squeak. More blood ground into the holes he left in our wake.
‘General …’ I started, trailing to an uncertain halt. ‘Wouldn’t it be better to do this later? When the people, Turasi and Ilthean both, have had time to rest?’
‘No, we do it now,’ he said, gripping me by the elbow and marching me forward.
I stared at the throne. It was a simple wooden chair, for all that the back had been inlaid with apple wood like a crowning sunburst, and the arms and legs and seat were delicately carved. Just a simple wooden chair.
I had fought long and hard to unseat Dieter and regain it for myself, for the Svanaten. But I had shed more lives in my pursuit than Dieter had in his coup. And I had never imagined it would be an Ilthean frogmarching me towards it, the blood of my people still warm on my clothes.
Dieter had killed my family – and united the Turasi more thoroughly than my family had for generations. And now I walked the Iltheans into the sanctuary – not as supplicants, but as conquerors.
You don’t have what it takes, Matilde, came Dieter’s voice, echoing through me, filling me with shame.
‘Go on,’ said Sidonius, releasing my elbow and propelling me forward. ‘Take it. It’s yours, after all.’
I climbed the steps that led to the throne: the first for the thralls, second for the freeborn, third for the drightens, fourth for the Duethin. A fifth step stood behind the throne, too narrow to support the whole of a man’s foot, which was for the prester. None ruled higher than the Duethin but the ravens above, and not even the mara could know what they wanted of us.
I hesitated, turning back. ‘I’ll bloody it,’ I said.
‘It can be cleaned, lady.’
No it can’t. I couldn’t tell if the voice were Grandmother’s or my own, not anymore.
‘Take it,’ he repeated.
The seat was cold, the polished wood silken beneath my chapped fingertips when I laid my hands along the armrests as I sat, bloodied conqueror, and looked out upon my empty hall.
‘Stay there,’ Sidonius ordered, as if he were the Duethin. Then, with a wry smile, he added, ‘I hope it’s comfortable.’
Alone in the cavernous hall, I fought back my shame. This was not what I had imagined. Dieter still lived, as did Sidonius, and the slave-born general would not be satisfied with a vague and nebulous promise of aid.
The throne, however, was returned to my House. And I had driven out Dieter – I could drive out his brother, too.
First Dieter’s soldiers, then the thralls and freeborn of the Turholm, were marched into the sanctuary by the Iltheans. There were so many that I wondered if any were left to guard the walls, any left cleaning up the dead and tending the wounded. Every person still alive crammed into the room, tracking in yet more blood, staring up at me on the throne. Without exception they looked at me with hatred in their eyes.
I didn’t have the heart to force them, nor bend them to my will.
A Duethin doesn’t quail from command, child, said Grandmother.
To shy away now would betray every decision I had made since Aestival night. Whether I had the heart for it or not, I must finish what I had started. Dieter was unseated and the bonds of his arcana broken, and now was my chance to reclaim my birthright.
Though it broke my heart to compel my own people, I nodded to Sidonius. Well versed in the art of conquering, he understood my unspoken instruction, and a moment later it began. With Ilthean swords at their backs, every Turasi left alive knelt and bared their neck to me.
By the time they were done the blood from their as yet untended battle wounds pooled at the bottom of the steps, and every knee was smeared with it.
I was near to wilting with the pain of my broken rib. Every fealty offered under duress tasted sour, catching in my throat. By the last I was shaking, my hands huddled in a white knot in my lap, unshed tears burning my eyes. Thank the ravens it was over!
Now it was time to take command.
I looked to Sidonius. ‘General. Do you have a report on the whereabouts of your brother?’
Achim had slipped into the hall partway through the ceremony; the Amaeri shadow-worker now stood at the bottom of the steps, beside Sidonius and Sepp. I wished Roshi were here, not in an enemy camp surrounded by soldiers.
‘He has not been found yet,’ Answered sidonius. ‘No doubt he has fled like the cowardly dog he is.’
I bit back my response. Defending Dieter’s character was not the first of my priorities right now.
‘Then we will find him in due course,’ I said, my voice even and strong. ‘In the meantime, I think it best we dispense with the usual feasting and frivolity, and tend to our wounded. If you would send to your camp, General, and have Roshi fetched here …?’
‘Certainly, my lady,’ he replied, though he didn’t pass the command to any of his men. Instead, he glanced at Achim and, after receiving the Amaeri’s nod, climbed the steps to the throne. First, second, third – fourth.
Dread dried my mouth.
‘But first, lady,’ Sidonius said. ‘You will bend your neck to Ilthea.’
‘You are mistaken,’ I replied, my voice bouncing off the polished walls, sinking into the draperies.
‘You will acknowledge the sovereignty of Ilthea,’ He commanded, steel in his eyes and voice.
‘You won’t make me into a puppet,’ I said. ‘Ilthea has my gratitude for her aid, but I won’t hand my people over to her rule.’
‘You will,’ said Sidonius. ‘And if you do not stand of your own free will, I will force you to it.’
‘Drag me from the chair and bend my knee for me, General? It would not look well.’
‘I won’t be physically picking you up, lady. I will use your own strange power against you,’ he countered.
The colour drained from my cheeks. No.
‘You pledged whatever aid the empire deemed necessary,’ he said. ‘As the emperor’s representative in these lands, I require public acknowledgement of that pledge.’
At the bottom of the stairs Achim stepped forward, his drab brown robes stark among the white and bloodied clothing of the Turasi and Iltheans. Lifting a hand, he breathed a single word I didn’t hear.
I jerked up as if someone else had control of my limbs. A strange power surged through me, forcing me to step towards Sidonius, then my knees dropped with a thump that jarred my teeth. A weight bent my head down until I bared my neck like a humbled dog.
I clenched my teeth, choking back the words. Time. I just needed more time! But there was no time. Sepp stood huddled by Achim’s side, spent. Roshi sat in a tent she would never leave, should Sidonius die. Both their lives hung in the balance, and I had no more time or opportunity.
You do not have what it takes, Matilde.
Squeezing my eyes shut, the oath tumbled from numb lips: ‘I, Matilde of house Svanaten, Duethin of the Turasi, do pledge fealty to the Ilthean emperor,’ I said, my voice ringing through the chamber. ‘I acknowledge and accept Ilthea’s sovereignty for myself, and those sworn to me.’
Tears scalded my eyes but the pledge bound my muscles tight. I riffled through my mind for an addition, an ambiguity I could work into the vow. The words that escaped me were the exact opposite: ‘Until death release me.’
‘On behalf of Ilthea, I accept your vow,’ Sidonius intoned, touching the top of my bowed head with his hand.
It was done. My promise – or Achim – released me and I stood, legs shaking.
The Turasi in the room stared daggers at me. I might be Duethin, I read in their gaze, but without an Ilthean escort I would be dead before the day was out.
I had guided my country and her people into the snake’s pit. Until death release me.
Now I must guide them out.
Acknowledgements
One year and five days ago, I received a phone call that set in motion the process which saw me acquire an editor and an agent and a two-book deal in the space of a week. That sounds fast, but it’s been a long journey to this, my first published novel, and I owe many people a great deal.
My Clarion South classmates, tutors, and convenors – otherwise known as the voices in my head – taught me so much about writing I’m still trying to remember and sort through it all: Nathan Burrage, Mark Barnes, Nike Bourke, Emma Munroe, Anne mok, Tessa kum, Trevor stafford, Lily chrywenstrom, shane Jiraiya cummings, suzanne church, susan Wardle, Kenrick Yoshida, evan Dean, ellen klages, Alison Chan, Rjurik Davidson, Sean Williams, michael swanwick, ellen Datlow, margo Lanagan, ian irvine, Scott Westerfeld, kate eltham, Robert hoge, Heather Gent and Bob Dobson.
Many people read all or some of the manuscript in its early stages, and helped me whip the starveling threads of narrative into a story: Ben Bastian, Anne Mok, Becky Keft, Nike Bourke, Ian Irvine, Rachel Holker, Liz Adkins and Tessa Kum. I am especially grateful to Tessa for her boundless enthusiasm, and for her amazing trick of driving to the heart of the story and telling me what isn’t working in a way that always gave me the energy to tackle yet one more revision.
To Sean Williams, Nike Bourke and Ian Irvine, my thanks for guiding me through the process of garnering an agent after selling a book, instead of the other way around, and my particular thanks for pretending that my nervous panicky wibbling at the time was entirely natural behaviour.
The editorial and design team at Allen & Unwin have shepherded this book – and me – through the publishing process with aplomb. For their eagle-eyed scrutiny of every word, comma and apostrophe, I thank all my editors and proofreaders, and I’m particularly grateful for their eternally patient and tactful manner in pointing out to me that ‘This word? It doesn’t mean what you think it means.’
My invaluable agent, Tara Wynne, always knew what I needed to be doing when I didn’t, which was most of the time.
Thanks must also go to Les Petersen, for knowing what the cover needed far better than I could ever put into words, and producing the marvellous artwork adorning this book’s cover.
I was lucky to have such good editors as Angela Handley and Louise Thurtell, who both pushed this book to be the absolute best it could be, and who both included me every step of the process. My especial thanks to Louise, for instituting the Friday Pitch which saw this book picked up out of the slush pile, and for those wondrous notes she included with every revision pass.
Last but by no means least, to my family, for never once doubting.
Deborah Kalin
