by Sarah Dalton
“Is the world spinning, or is it my head?” Reva said with a soft laugh.
“We will have to sleep here, my lady,” Ammie said, not returning the laugh. “You are too weak to keep riding. Get some rest and I will keep watch.”
Reva opened her mouth to protest, but was too tired to speak. Her eyes drooped low, and the blue silk sky turned into nothingness.
She woke, surprised to have dreamt of nothing. Her nightmare came when she opened her eyes and remembered everything that had happened since she left Unna Castle. She thought of the man with the red beard being cut down by her guard, and the ale splashing on the tavern floor. Ale and blood flowed through the Olive Grove now. Eight guards had stayed to protect them, and none of them came out alive. All because of her. But the sleep had been healing. There was little pain in her lower body today. She smiled down at a sleeping Ammie, before opening the basket to eat a small breakfast of cheese and salted beef.
Ammie, however, did not wake in such a positive state. She sat bolt upright and called out her brother’s name. Reva brushed tears from her friend’s cheeks and cradled her shoulders.
“I think I might need to cry into the Lake of Tears after all,” Ammie said. “Oh, Reva, I dreamt of them all. I saw them drowning beneath the dirt. I felt it. My chest was being crushed by the weight and I couldn’t pull myself out. It was terrible, Reva. And it was all true. That was how they died and nothing I do will ever change that.”
“I am so sorry. This is all because of me—”
“No.” Ammie wiped tears from her eyes with the sleeve of her dress. “Lord Unna made the decision, not you. It was him, and I hate him for it. I know he is dead, but I hate him.”
“I spent a long time hating Francis,” Reva said. “It did not do me much good.”
Ammie’s sobs subsided slowly. “Yes, you are probably right. But I think I will hate him for a little while longer, at least to stop myself from blubbing like a babe.”
“You can blub as much as you like around me,” Reva replied.
Ammie finally cracked a smile. But the relative calm was broken by the distant sound of voices. Reva got to her feet and strained to hear.
“What is it?” Ammie asked.
“Singing. Women singing.”
“We must get the horses,” Ammie said.
“But where would we go? We cannot ride along the Market Road. We cannot go south towards the Lanti. The forest could be teeming with wolves for all we know.” Reva stared dubiously through the copse of trees. They had stayed on the outskirts, but the further in, the darker it got, and Reva did not like to think about what was lurking amongst those trees. Reva did not know enough about the geography of the north to know where they were. She knew they had headed west from Ilkta Markets, but where they were now was a mystery to her. The world outside the castles she had known was a hard, dangerous place, but despite the cold sensation of fear working its way up her spine, Reva was prepared. She wanted to survive.
“We will hide and wait for them to pass,” Ammie said. “Then we will get the horses and ride towards the coast, making our way around the woods.”
Reva nodded her agreement. They collected their belongings, and the horses, and made their way into the woods. The crisp grass crunched beneath their feet. The morning was cool, and her breath came out as steam as she breathed. Reva’s grey mare plodded along beside her, whickering softly into Reva’s palm looking for oats. Reva shushed the horse and directed them through the trees. Her skin tingled as she heard the voices coming closer. There were dozens of them singing in a high pitch. Women, she thought. What are women doing out here? Alongside the voices was the sound of jingling, like bells. Who could they be? Why would so many women be travelling through Lantha, singing as they went? She did not understand.
When they were far enough into the woods, Reva and Ammie stood with their horses, waiting. She had thought that the voices would be making their way along the market road, but they seemed too close for that. Her heart beat quickly, tap-tap-tapping against her chest like an impatient visitor. The song was pretty enough but it filled her with dread all the same. Why are they coming so close? Are they heading for the wood? She glanced at Ammie and wondered whether they should leap atop their horses right now and ride as fast as they could through the woods. But they were women. Surely women posed no threat to them. Anyone can be dangerous if they think coin is involved, Reva thought.
The voices were loud now, and Reva felt itchy all over. This was not good. Her mare backed up, excited by the sudden noise. Reva stroked the horse’s nose to calm her.
“Be still,” she whispered.
But the horse was spooked. Her mare began to paw the ground restlessly as the jingling of bells came closer. Reva backed the horse up, taking her further into the woods, hoping that the party were singing so loud that they had not heard the mare.
Louder and louder the voices came, until Reva felt they were practically singing in her ear. Her grey mare disliked the noise so much that she reared up and whinnied. Reva struggled to keep the horse in check. Ammie even rushed to help her, but there was nothing to be done. The horse bolted through the trees.
And then the singing stopped.
Please, please keep moving, Reva thought. Please. She wanted her bad luck to be over. She wanted to be safe, and be able to keep her handmaiden safe. She wanted those singing women to keep going, to walk all the way to the Market Road and never bother them again. Take the horse, she thought. Take her and thank God for your good fortune, and then leave us be.
The silence was worse than the singing. Reva longed to hear their voices again, along with the jingling of the bells. Ammie pulled her back into the woods. They left Ammie’s bay gelding and hurried back. As they ran through the trees, the strange jingling resumed, only now Reva thought that it was not the ringing of bells, but more like the dragging of chains.
The woods rustled behind them. Reva searched for a place to hide, a bush, a rock, an upturned tree. There was nothing. She tried to remain surefooted as they hurried through the woods, and she tried to put the thought of wolves from her mind. Her heart beat hard against her ribs.
And then her stomach sank. In the middle of the dense wood, the forest opened up into a large clearing. It stretched for yards, as big as a generous paddock. There was nothing here apart from a meadow filled with pretty blue flowers. It was beautiful, though to Reva that beauty was cold and hard, because it betrayed them. The early morning sun made the dew shine on each blue flower, as bright as diamonds. She stopped running.
“There is nowhere to go,” she said.
Ammie pulled at her sleeve. “There is always somewhere to go.”
“We left the horse,” Reva said sadly. They had panicked. They had not thought ahead. They had thought there would be somewhere to hide. “We left the horse.”
Reva spun on her heel to come face to face with a tall woman in blue robes emerging from the woods. The woman was older, but quick on her feet, broad-shouldered and thick-armed. She wore the light blue robes of the Enlightened with a leather belt around her waist.
“Why are you running away, child?” the woman asked with a gentle smile. Her hair was pulled back away from her face, which made her appear severe. But her smile was warm enough.
Reva had come across the Brothers and Sisters of the Enlightened before. They were often Governors and Governesses to the noble families of Estala. They could be strict, but they taught the children how to read, write, the history of Estala, and about the world beyond the Sea of Kings.
“Sister, thank God,” Reva said. “We thought you might do us harm. We are in trouble and in need of help.”
The Sister lifted her hand and reached out to Reva. “Then you must come with me. I am Sister Valeria.”
“R… Raina,” Reva said. “And this is Emilia.”
“Come, we can clothe and feed you.” Sister Valeria waved them towards her.
Reva thought about it for a moment and did not see what other choi
ce she had. There was only one place to run, and that was into the dark forest beyond the pretty meadow. Sister Valeria was part of the religious order of the Enlightened. She believed in education and peace. She had to put her trust in this woman. She had to believe that she was here for a good purpose. So she stepped forward.
But Ammie hung back. “I do not know about this. Can we trust her?”
“The Sisters of the Enlightened are good. They will help us.”
They followed Sister Valeria through the forest, leaving the beautiful meadow of diamond dew drops behind them. Valeria set a swift pace, forcing Reva and Ammie to hurry to keep up. Reva’s wounds were much less painful since she had used the tincture, but she still ached enough for the pace to be difficult. They ducked under branches and hopped over roots while she winced and touched her belly. The forest floor was muddied and covered in mulch, and the trees mossy. Reva was slightly out of breath by the time she spotted Ammie’s bay gelding up ahead, and she grimaced against the pain in her lower body. As she touched her stomach gently, she thought about Unna Castle, where her children had been born but never lived. I will never see it again, she thought.
Her grey mare was waiting for her when they finally emerged from the woods. The horse whinnied before shifting its weight, agitated by the presence of the unknown people. He was held by another woman in blue robes. Despite the relief of seeing her horse, Reva barely glanced at the mare. Her eyes were fixated on the long line of women standing before her.
Gaunt and dirty, tall and short, old and young, they stood in rags with their ankles shackled. They gazed at her with empty eyes. Reva’s throat went dry as she turned towards Sister Valeria, whose gentle smile had been replaced by a smirk.
“What is this?” Reva asked.
Some of the women were younger than her. Many of them did not own shoes. All of them were chained around the neck and linked together. This was wrong, all wrong. The Sisters of the Enlightened did not enslave people, did they?
Valeria took a step forward, but Ammie blocked her path. The handmaiden pulled a dirk from her belt. “Turn around and leave us alone.” Ammie did not sound like the girl Reva knew, she sounded menacing; menacing enough to give Valeria pause.
But there were half a dozen more of them. The Sisters all took daggers and dirks from their belts. Sister Valeria even held a bizarre metal whip made up of tiny chain links.
“You are coming with us,” Valeria said. “This can be done the easy way, or the hard way.”
It all happened so fast that when Reva thought of it later, she saw little more than a blur. She called out Ammie’s name as her friend lurched forward. She shouted No, but it was no use. Ammie sliced at a Sister, her dirk cutting into the soft flesh of the Sister’s upper arm. But it was Valeria who drove the dagger into Ammie’s chest.
Red hot rage coursed through Reva. She was the gentle lady no more. She flew towards Ammie’s limp body, and touched the warm blood flowing from the deep wound. Ammie dropped to the ground like a broken doll and closed her eyes, drawing out a few ragged breaths before she stopped breathing forever.
Reva faced the Sisters of the Enlightened. She faced them and she hated them and she had never known such rage as she did in that moment. The rage turned into another feeling: a need. A need to be someone else. It was her body that reacted, not her mind. It changed.
She heard herself scream as though it were coming from another body, another person. She felt the seams rip on her dress and she saw the strange scales erupt along her arms. Her body hunched over as her spine changed. She clutched at her face to try to feel what was going on. It all happened in the space of a few seconds. Her body was trying desperately to become something else, but Reva did not know what it wanted to become.
There was the sensation of air moving near her ear, and a sharp slap of pain on her wrist. The chained whip wrapped around her and pulled her to the muddy ground. The changes stopped. Sister Valeria pushed her into the mud, while the other Sisters chained her hands and feet.
“Wait, no! Don’t leave her there!” Reva shouted as they dragged her onto her feet. She stared at her friend lying bleeding on the ground. “Help her!”
“We cannot help the dead,” Sister Valeria said in a monotone voice.
Stefan
Drip-drip-drip. It was driving him crazy. Why did the Order of Insight insist on meeting inside these dank caves? Today, they met in a cave down on the coast near the Sea of Kings. It was dark apart from the circle of light filtering in from its mouth, like light hitting a silver coin. Stefan paced back and forth in front of the sunlight, his stomach roiling from the constant salt-and-fish smell of the coast.
“They are coming,” Brother Mikkel said, moving away from the entrance to the cave.
The Order of Insight performed all special duties either out in the open, or tucked away in caves. They did not hold trials in halls, castles, or anywhere with four walls and a door. It always had to be somewhere Anios could get a good look at them from wherever he lurked. Stefan liked to think of Anios forever hiding in the shadows, like Stefan himself.
Perhaps that was why Stefan felt such a strong connection with Anios. Their Lord was not the same God the rest of the Enlightened prayed to. No, Anios was the younger brother. He was the Prince of Truth, born to stop sorcery from spreading through the world. Stefan shared those same principles with Anios. Sometimes he wondered if he was the mortal form of the God. Brother Mikkel certainly thought so.
Two Brothers dragged the ragged old man into the cave before Prince Stefan. The old man was thrown to the cave floor in a lumpy heap.
“This one saw your brother, Your Highness,” said one of the Brothers. He was young, perhaps nineteen or twenty, the same age as Stefan’s brother Matias before Luca murdered him. The Brother was so thin that his robes constantly fell from one shoulder or the other, prompting him to always be fiddling with his outfit. Stefan had forgotten the Brother’s name. He was not good with remembering names for unimportant people.
Drip-drip-drip.
“Stand him up,” Stefan commanded. “I want to know what he has to say for himself.”
The old man made a whimpering noise as the Brothers lifted him onto his feet. “What’s this about, Yer Highness? I swear I’ll help as much as yer need. I swear it. We’ll be bringin’ in fresh oysters in tomorra’s shipment. Or how about silks from the Golden Bay?”
“Quiet,” Stefan ordered. “You are the captain of Seawalker, are you not?”
The old man nodded. “Aye. For nigh on thirty year. I took over from Nathan Goodeye when he lost a battle with a shark on the Xanti coast. In thirty years I’ve never once smuggled so much as a cockle into Estala, yer can ’ave my word on that.”
Stefan paced in front of the man with his arms held behind his back to puff out his chest. “You are not here for any petty smuggling. You are here for treason! You gave board to the boy who killed Prince Matias.”
“What? But I never…” The old captain trailed off. He stared at his feet.
Drip-drip-drip.
“What say you?” Prince Stefan demanded. “Did you or did you not give board to my younger brother?”
Stefan watched the man and clenched his jaw. This needed to be true. He had already investigated several disappointing leads across Reyalon. Tavern keeps had reported seeing the boy supping on ale in the dark corners of their taverns, but then other commoners reported seeing Prince Luca riding out of the city gates on a pure white horse. There had even been a report of someone matching Luca’s description sleeping on the beaches outside Reyalon. It was all twaddle. None of them had seen his brother, only urchins and orphans and other degenerates. He needed real information to take to his father to prove that he was worthy. The king was losing his patience. It had been almost a fortnight since Matias was killed. The funeral had been and gone. He tried not to think of his sisters’ tears or the pale face of his father as they put Matias’s body in the mausoleum.
Drip-drip-drip.
&nbs
p; “There was someone,” the captain admitted.
Stefan leaned in, interested. “Go on.”
“Two Brothers. Of the Enlightened, not related. They asked for board to Xantos. One was younger, about your age, Yer Highness. He had hazel eyes and brown hair. The other Brother was older with dark skin and bright blue eyes, but I told all this to yer man here. They kept to themselves in the cabin. The younger one cut his hair on the way there. They paid me in silver sofias and departed at the Golden Bay.”
Stefan felt a prickling sensation spread over his skin. None of the others had described Brother Axil so well. “Tell me again what they looked like. Exactly.”
“If it please Yer Highness.” The sea captain nodded. “They both wore those blue robes, like the ones of your men here. The older one was around forty and had dark skin and unusual blue eyes. He looked like a Xanti, if you ask me. The younger one seemed upset. The boy was pale and red around the eyes. He clung to the older one as though the man was propping him up. Truth be told, he looked ill. I wasn’t sure he was goin’ to make the journey. Is that all you need to know, Yer Highness? I need to take my leave now. I have ships coming in with goods—”
“You may not leave,” Stefan barked. He ran a finger over the pommel of his sword. He traced the outline of the lightning bolt carved there.
“He gave perfect descriptions of your brother and the Governor, Your Highness.” Brother Mikkel almost floated across the cave floor. His robes trailed behind him, collecting sand and dirt. “It would seem that Brother Axil took the lead. The man is more capable than we thought. Do you not think that perhaps he was prepared for this outcome? Having the robes and coin ready for travel?”
“The man is cleverer than we thought,” Stefan mused aloud. “And my brother is still ill. He was on his deathbed before the death of Matias.”
“But well enough to escape the keep, Your Highness,” Mikkel added. “That speaks to me of sorcery.”
