by James Stone
Magmaya plucked it from the floor and let the chancellor’s blood lick at her fingers, filling the gaps beneath her nails. ‘Kharon Vorr.’ She shook him.
He groaned, and she sighed.
‘Speak to me,’ she said, her voice soft. ‘Why’s this here?’ She showed him the knife.
A couple of seconds passed, and then a scream rang out from beyond the balcony. And then a stampede. Time was running out, but she had done all she could’ve done. If Rache had ever a chance at escaping, it would’ve happened.
When she was sure there was going to be no reply, Magmaya slumped against the wall and sighed. ‘Damn you,’ she cursed softly and looked to the heavens with a smile. ‘Damn you,’ she whispered again, softer still.
She weighed the blade in her palm, turned back to her father and said, ‘We haven’t long. At least let me make it quick for you.’
Magmaya held it out and pressed the tip against Kharon’s chest. Her lungs raged, and she wanted to collapse, but she didn’t even have the strength left for even that anymore.
‘Do you want me to end all of this?’ she asked, louder this time. But her voice wasn’t strong anymore; it was all broken and weary, fractured and distant. So, she shouted instead, ‘Do you want me to kill you, father?’
The light of the room faded away, and even the snow turned dull. The blade in her hand turned from silver to grey and the empty chalices from gold to a sickly brown.
Kharon made the slightest of nods, and Magmaya dusted the hair out of her eyes, and then the tears. She heaved his body over and watched his blood shimmer in the candlelight like something holy and brazen, rancid and wet. His chest seemed to concave around his wound as if his entire body was drawn to where his skin was broken: his sagging chin, his flooded robes and crown of lank, white hair.
With a tender touch, Magmaya pressed her hand against her father’s breast. She felt the soft wool of his tunic against her skin and then the faint beating of some mechanical heart beyond.
And then, without a thought, she pressed the dagger through.
That’s the only way you kill a man, she decided. With his own bloody blade.
His eyes were wide but, like the clapping of butterfly wings, they closed, and at last, he slumped against the wall.
Magmaya stood, heedless to the corpses either side of her, and took the bloodied knife from the floor. She made her way to the balcony, out the doors and into the moonlight where the snow and the fighting raged beyond. And without hesitation, she raised the wretched thing and tossed it out into the clouds. She didn’t stay to watch it disappear beneath the veil of white.
Six
For what seemed years, she had dreamt of a grey house with empty halls and tumbling columns, steamed with roses and an ocean of muddy rain. She had walked invisibly amid the halls until Vargul Tul had come again, tearing portraits, and crushing oily flowers in his iron grip. His face had been bloody and deformed; black pits had waited where his eyes had once been, but she had just smiled and stood still—frozen.
Occasionally, the paintings changed to Kharon Vorr, Rache and Siedous. And as she fled from them, Moonbeam crumbled to dust, and her armour melted away. At the end of each hall, the corpse of Vargul waited still, pressing his hand to his throat in a wretched effort to speak again. But when he finally stifled a curse, her eyes opened with a fluttering. The grey house disappeared.
She opened them to find a dozen robed figures hustling around her with faces like masks, and with each giddy movement they made, a sickness came over her. Magmaya had to resist the urge to vomit. If the world had granted her life against all odds, then so be it. But it could’ve at least allowed her to wake up first.
The room blurred again, and she remembered—decapitating Vargul, killing her father, and waiting in the window as Siedous had arrived. She remembered the blood that had stained his lower-lip and the gash above his right eye as she’d fallen into his arms like she’d withered away to ash.
And as she drifted, warm snow pressed against her lips. But when she awoke, there was nothing left but cuts and dead skin. The Silk Tea had seen to that before; Ranvirus was awfully cold, and she’d woken up with broken skin a thousand times before. But this time it was in her very bones—in her very broken heart. Though Siedous had always told her that hearts would mend, she’d come to realise hers never would. It wouldn’t mend—it would change, but perhaps that would be enough.
Magmaya stretched, and her scars did too, and the world grew a little quieter. And this time, the pain washed from her before she even drifted to sleep.
It felt like only seconds had passed before she awoke again, but the light had become so scarce that it must have been hours—perhaps half a day even. The pounding in her head had begun to lift, and all that remained was an ache where it had once been.
No longer were there metals embedded beneath her skin, nor around her throat, but instead, there was only a stained ceiling, free of the incessant surgeons that plagued her. At last, she was able to stretch and breathe and live, away from the scent of roses, and away from the stench of blood and dust and sweat. And for all the parricide she had committed, it warmed her to remember it was done.
She turned, glimpsed a reflection of herself in the window and followed the dried blood and purple bruises down her cheeks. She traced a black eye to a torn gum, a broken arm to a crushed chest—and then a voice called, ‘My chancellor.’
‘Yes,’ she replied, looking out for Kharon, but a different figure stepped forward.
He was garbed with flowing tunics, and had a book slung under his arm; his face was still stricken with cuts, but now they were clean and kind and soft. Siedous gave her something pitiful she might have once called a smile and made his way over to her.
‘I brought you something to read.’ He held out the book. ‘Rache asked me to, my chancellor.’
She accepted the leather-bound tome but hardly felt it in her fingertips. ‘Just call me Magmaya. I can’t take any of these niceties, certainly not from you.’
‘Magmaya.’ He perched on a chair by her side. ‘I—I—how do you feel?’
‘Tired,’ she said. ‘I would die for a drink.’
‘You’ve come too far to do that.’ Siedous turned to a small table behind him and produced a large flagon, poured a glass, and passed it to her.
‘I didn’t mean water,’ she remarked, but downed it all the same, and though it was warm, she had never felt so avid for more. It drowned her in relief, and by the time she was done, she was spluttering and coughing and watching her body tremble.
‘I suppose you don’t remember the last we talked.’ Siedous looked to his feet. ‘After Vargul…’
‘I don’t remember speaking,’ Magmaya admitted. ‘All I can remember is the blood. Gods, that man had a lot of blood.’
Siedous nodded and said, ‘Your father, as you probably know, has passed. It seems it was indeed Vargul’s work.’
Good, she thought. Keep thinking that and I’ll only have to keep pretending until the day I die. ‘Siedous, I don’t want to hear this,’ she said, voice raised. ‘I know.’
‘I apologise.’ He nodded. ‘Though you must know, we’ve also captured four of the Mansel. They’re in the cells awaiting the confessor. Nurcia Vyce is there, too.’
‘She survived?’ Magmaya was almost relieved.
‘Just about,’ he remarked. ‘She was petered with arrows and doesn’t have much of a face left, but she’s alive.’
‘And how’s she?’ Magmaya asked, trying to mask her excitement.
‘Being fed. I don’t think she can quite understand that Vargul died.’ He paused. ‘But how she managed to orchestrate this all under our noses? Well, I hope the confessors can get that from her.’
‘I hope so too,’ she agreed. She knew why, however. And it was the simplest answer Magmaya could’ve thought of: every girl in the north wanted to go south.
‘Kaladeous passed too,’ the old knight said grav
ely. ‘He succumbed to his wounds from Nurcia shortly after the Mansel arrived. I don’t think much could’ve saved him.’
‘My blood’s boiling,’ Magmaya said. ‘I want to visit her.’
‘I was afraid you would want that.’
‘She killed Albany,’ she protested. ‘And she tried for Rache too. If anyone should be afraid, she should.’ Magmaya wished she was strong enough to walk there with a basket of salt and sprinkle it over each incision in her face, but her legs betrayed her with each toss and turn.
‘Her trial will be in a short number of days,’ Siedous said. ‘You can decide what to do with her then.’
Days? she asked herself. Was that even time enough to convict her?
‘Magmaya,’ he began again, ‘you were the one, weren’t you? To kill Vargul Tul?’
She thought for a moment—she considered making up some elaborate lie. But a moment later, she caught herself saying, ‘Perhaps. I’m quite tired, though.’ She yawned. ‘If you let me come around, I’ll be able to give you a clearer picture.’
‘I’ve been awake for hours upon hours, and I still can’t give you that,’ he said.
‘You could try.’ She was growing impatient.
‘We’re all trying to make sense of it, Magmaya. The city was all but lost,’ he said. ‘But I hazard to say we were saved.’
‘Oh?’
‘We have new company now,’ he said. ‘In the form of the Tyla.’
She was surprised. The Tyla? She’d always assumed they had no interest in the rest of the world’s affairs. But the last she remembered, the Mansel were still fighting outside—they were at the palace! It was all too late, surely?
‘A scout of theirs spotted the Mansel warhorses at the Sultide and sent for cavalry,’ Siedous explained. ‘Needless to say, we must be thankful. As you are unwell, I shall be attending council with them on your behalf this afternoon.’
‘Oh,’ Magmaya said again, her face pale. ‘I’ve so many questions now.’ She paused for a moment. ‘Can we trust them?’
‘No.’ His voice was gruff. ‘Their leaders are candid in their scheming. Likely because they want to hold Ranvirus to themselves. But we have a common enemy. I don’t think they’re yet a threat.’
‘Kharon said they were prideful.’
‘Our chancellor was right.’ Siedous nodded. ‘They will question your authority, your defeat of Vargul—your everything. But now that the wolves are all dead, and the bears are too, you can be a pretty little rose.’ He smiled and stood. ‘I’ll talk later if I can find time. Until then, rest.’
‘You tell a blind man to see.’ Magmaya sighed.
Siedous smirked and left quickly, light glimmering off his tunic like the armour she’d known so well.
From then on, the minutes passed slowly as if Magmaya was listening to the steady beat of a metronome, but surely enough, frost began to cloud the windows, and she felt herself ache for something more.
The morning after was always the hardest, she had to remind herself. It was when she would sit in a bath of boiling water and wait until it grew as cold as the snow outside. It was when she would recount the night before in her head and chant the words she should have never have spoken: I don’t know if this is all over. But it is for us. She would have taken Tul’s head any day, but her father’s…? It hurt when you hated someone who loved you.
She began to feel restless, and her feet ached to touch the floor again, to walk, to run. Before long, nimble footsteps traced the room like beads of rain on a window, and the chancellor was gone.
Magmaya plucked a rose from the crisp, white snow, mesmerised by the fountain of petals that led to its core and the icy prisms that melted on the stem the moment they were born. The last time she’d held the flower was as she’d stumbled across Albany, petals streaming from where his eyes should have been. It had been Nurcia’s work; she had entered her secret place and defiled it, but she was their hostage now, and the birds were chirping again as the first signs of spring began to arise.
Nonetheless, she sat, and breathed, and smiled, eying her own pale glimmer in the pond below; its frozen surface was grazed and cracked as white sunbeams beat down from above. It was only when her brother spoke that the world seemed to appear around her.
‘There are strange people here, Magmaya,’ Rache said, and the sun felt real again, warming her arms like it hadn’t in a thousand days.
‘Yes,’ she found herself admitting. ‘They are strange. I’ve never seen a man wear such a bright shade of blue.’
It hurt to speak and even more so to look him in the eye. Nurcia had maimed him, and she had killed his father; a man, despite everything, who loved Rache more than life. Moments came when she wished she could just let it all spill like she had as a child, but she couldn’t bring herself to share even how she felt about the purple clouds that hung above.
‘They’re marching around like this is their home,’ he said. ‘My own sister is the chancellor. If I were to go somewhere foreign, I would smile a little more.’
‘And where would that be?’ Magmaya looked to him. For all her life, her brother had only spoken of Orianne; never before had he given any inkling of wanting to leave even the palace grounds.
‘There are places I’ve heard of that I would visit if… if I could. I don’t know if they’re real or not.’
‘Tell me about them.’
‘They say the Free-Peoples make ships to travel the cold seas,’ he started. ‘They find islands and faeries and pretty girls with tails like fish who sing to them.’
Magmaya smiled and paused for a moment. ‘You don’t think about going south?’
‘The men about the palace say that the Mansel wanted to go south after they were done with us,’ Rache said. ‘Whatever place they were to go to must be hideous.’
Oh, but it is not, a voice inside told her. How could he sit idle here when he could bask in warm seas under warm suns? It need not be there, but perhaps anywhere else—anywhere but home.
‘One day you’ll see those fish-women,’ Magmaya said at last. ‘Whatever happens, I’ll assure you of that.’
‘I hope so.’ Rache nodded. ‘Is that your decision as chancellor?’
She nodded, but the voice inside insisted it would be her only decision. ‘Chancellor’ they may call me, but Siedous sits in my place, she realised. He was a knight and an honest man, and now he’s a politician. There is none better than him, but it should be me. She wasn’t made for this.
Magmaya smiled. ‘When summer comes, we’ll come here again.’ She paused. ‘No one can hurt us now, Rache. The fight against the Mansel is over.’
She knew in her heart it was far from over, though; she had slain a single warlord—not a city. There would surely be more to come. If one thing was constant, it was turmoil. But maybe when Nurcia was dealt with, all would be better. Rache needn’t know about her, though.
The pair set off, and Magmaya carried her brother to back to his room and into his crib where he began his slumber again. She crept back down to the hospice, following her swollen eyes in the windows until she stumbled back through the door.
And when she entered, she found Siedous perched on her bed.
He was dressed in a grey tunic, belted against his waist—and he was armed. He looked furious, and the second they locked eyes, he rose to meet her startled gaze.
‘Gods!’ he spat. ‘Where in the world have you been?’
‘I was seeing to Rache,’ she pleaded. ‘I was with him in his quarters.’
‘Don’t lie to me,’ he said. ‘We searched his chambers, and he was gone too. Someone came to feed you, and by the gods, we hear that our chancellor has gone missing—? We’ve already been betrayed once, Magmaya. Answer me, where were you all these hours?’
‘I took Rache to the woods,’ she confessed at last. ‘I wanted to show him the roses—the uh, the water!’
‘Damn it,’ Siedous cursed. ‘Our allies lie in a frag
ile balance. Now, they think our chancellor was playing truant and ran away to play. You’re no longer a child!’
‘You’re no longer in a position to insult me, Siedous!’ she found the strength to spit back. ‘I don’t mean to offend these Tyla, but you yourself said we can’t trust them. If I want to go to the forest with my brother, then I shall. That is why you’ve taken on my duties. Kharon Vorr would have done what he wanted.’
‘Kharon Vorr is dead, and you killed him,’ Siedous roared, and his mane blazed as if he were a terrible beast. But a moment later, he shrunk down to a mewling kitten. ‘My chancellor… I,’ he stuttered, but he was as speechless as she was becoming.
‘Why would you say such a thing?’ her voice had broken. ‘Siedous?’
‘Forgive me, my chancellor.’ He lowered his head.
‘Why?’ Tears began to form behind her eyes. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Forgive me—’
‘Siedous!’ Magmaya screamed, and he looked to her, solemn.
No longer did her brave knight stand before her; instead there was a turncoat and a coward. This was some crude man wearing his skin as a cloak.
How long has he known? she asked herself. How many people has he told of my crimes? Perhaps there was already a tall price on her head.
‘My chancellor,’ he started nimbly, ‘I served your father for many years as a knight, and not only have I seen every flesh wound, I have received every flesh wound. The puncture in Kharon’s heart was splintered and broken, not at all like the blows Vargul struck.’
Not at all? Hadn’t Kharon cut his blade to imitate Vargul’s? Perhaps that was just something else he had been poor at.
‘So you blame me?’ she asked.
‘I found a knife.’ He ignored her, ‘fashioned like Vargul’s own, but imperfect. And at the angle of the wound, there would’ve been no way for him to be able to stab himself. Magmaya, you were the only other person in the boardroom, save that dead crossbowman…’
‘You lie.’ Her lips quivered. ‘You’re trying to frame me. You’re trying to take my place…!’
