‘Good luck, Ayla,’ he told her, and stepped out of her way. She marched past without looking in his direction, her jaw still set with fury.
When she’d put a little distance between them, he called after her, ‘You know, I could help you find out who did it …’
She came to an abrupt halt. Then, slowly, she turned on the spot. ‘What?’
‘You want to prove your innocence, don’t you?’ He was making it up as he went along, seeking anything that would keep her there beside him. ‘Find out who really killed your father? Well, I can do things you can’t – visit places where you’d be caught.’
‘True.’ She fixed him with the narrow-eyed stare of a gluemaker sizing up an old nag. ‘You’re expendable.’
‘I can give you a place to stay. Feed you. And to be honest, my lady … I’m the best you’re going to get. I’m the only person in this city who’s going to believe you didn’t do it.’
Ayla didn’t reply, but nor did she leave. Caraway kept his gaze pinned on the ground, not wanting to look her in the eye in case he antagonised her further. After a while her shoes came into view, stopping just over an arm’s length away. He looked up.
‘All right.’ She was pale and fierce, as if she had reached an uneasy compromise between morality and expediency. ‘I accept your offer. But it doesn’t mean I have to like you. And it certainly doesn’t make up for what you did.’
‘I know.’
‘Fine. Then let’s go.’ She turned on her heel again, then looked back at him, pure hatred narrowing her eyes. ‘But I’m warning you: if you ever touch me again, I’ll kill you.’
The room her mother’s murderer led her to was small, and stank of the unpleasant ingredients being used in the tanner’s yard outside. Ayla glanced around it with her nose wrinkled in disdain, noting the empty bottles stacked beneath the bed and the mould growing on the windowsill. He deserved to live in a place like this; she just wished she wasn’t forced by circumstance to share it with him, even if only for a short space of time.
She turned. He was watching her from the doorway, a hopeful expression on his face. What did he expect her to say? That it was a lovely room and she was very grateful for his hospitality? Being in his presence made her want to scream. She had only taken him up on his offer because she knew it would be difficult to discover anything on her own without being caught by the Helm. If anyone was going to be caught, let it be him. He owed her.
‘I need some water,’ she said. ‘Do you have any?’
‘There’s a pump downstairs.’ He brushed past her to fetch a rusty bucket from the corner of the room. She looked at it, then silently held out her water bottle as he came back past. He took it from her, hesitating as if he wanted to say something; then he gave a quick nod and left the room. Good. Whatever he had to say, she had no desire to hear it.
In one swift movement she stepped over to the bed and stripped the tattered blankets from it, kicking them into the corner of the room, then wiped her hands on her skirt, shuddering. The mattress was old and stained; she’d have to sleep wrapped in the cloak. It would be more comfortable than sleeping on the floor, she told herself, and tried not to think about the possibility of fleas.
Apart from the bed, the only item of furniture in the room was a battered wooden chest. With a glance over her shoulder, she knelt down and began to rifle through the contents. They didn’t amount to much: a shirt that looked just as threadbare as the one Caraway was wearing, a lamp without any oil, some worn eating utensils. At the very bottom lay something small and oval; she explored it with her fingertips, finding the cool gloss of glass and a raised rim. A picture frame. She pulled it out, tipping it face upwards. It was her mother.
Ayla sat back on her heels. She remembered the portrait: it belonged on the sideboard in the dining hall, one of a collection of miniatures. Clearly no-one in Darkhaven had noticed its absence, these five long years. Why had he taken it? Did it make him happy, to look at it and remind himself how he had rid the Nightshade line of its impurity?
A footstep sounded outside the room, and Ayla realised her jaw was clenched tight with fury. She turned as Caraway entered, carrying the full bucket and her water bottle. His hair was dripping and his shirt was damp, as though he’d stuck his head under the pump too. The smell of alcohol no longer lingered about him.
‘Why do you have this?’ she demanded, brandishing the picture frame at him. ‘Did you steal it?’
A complex expression passed across his face, half guilt, half anger.
‘You shouldn’t have gone through my things, Lady Ayla.’ He put the bucket down and stepped towards her, holding his hand out for the miniature. Reflexively her fingers closed around it.
‘You have no right to this. You have no right.’
He let his hand fall, his shoulders lifting in a weary shrug. Eyes downcast, he gathered up the blankets she’d dumped in the corner and began to lay them out on the far side of the room.
‘I think about her every day.’ His mutter was barely audible. Ayla released her breath in a bitter laugh.
‘Why? Because you’re sorry for what you did?’
It was intended sarcastically, but he nodded as if he hadn’t heard her tone of voice.
‘Of course. If I could go back and change what happened, I would. I’d willingly fling myself beneath the landslide if it would save her life.’ He looked up, his gaze meeting hers. ‘I loved your mother, Ayla. She was a ray of light in a dark place.’
How could he tell so many lies? She scrutinised his face, but found no trace of mockery or deceit. After a moment it became too much to bear; she turned her back on him, looking out of the window so she wouldn’t have to see him any longer.
‘If you’d loved her, you wouldn’t have let her die.’
He made no reply. Ayla traced a finger along the curve of her mother’s painted face, her heart contracting with a pain that felt as fresh as it had been five years ago. Outside, men moved through the yard, going home for the day.
‘Anyway,’ she flung over her shoulder, ‘what makes you so special? All the Helm despised her – and me – for not being pure-blood Nightshade. They were glad when she died. And once they’ve got me locked up they won’t have anything more to worry about.’
‘I never despised her.’ His voice was low. ‘Or you.’
The edge of the picture frame dug into Ayla’s palms. She would have believed him, once. There had been a time when she saw a difference in young Tomas Caraway, the Helmsman who looked at her with respect in his eyes. He wasn’t like the others; he had engaged her in conversation, smiled when he passed her in the corridor, attended her with eagerness instead of boredom. If she was honest, he’d been the first man she was ever attracted to. A young, brave warrior – what better subject for an adolescent’s romantic dreams?
When she’d found out he was the one to blame for Kati’s death, a part of her had died too.
‘It doesn’t matter what you say,’ she snapped. Outside, night was falling; her eyes adjusted automatically to the change in light, but she closed them against the distraction. ‘If it wasn’t for you, my mother would still be alive.’
‘True enough.’ Just two words, but they contained a world of wistful sadness. Ayla was horrified to feel a tiny stirring of pity, for him and for what his life had become. She squashed it, keeping her back resolutely turned. When at last she did look round, he was lying on the folded blankets; she couldn’t see his face.
Pulling her cloak tight around her, she lay down on the bed. She was still thirsty, but she didn’t know where the water bottle was and couldn’t bring herself to ask. Clutching her mother’s portrait to her chest, she closed her eyes and tried to find refuge in sleep; but it was a long time coming.
SEVEN
‘Captain Travers, sir!’ The Helmsmen on either side of the door saluted, straightening, as Travers approached the interrogation room. He returned each of them a nod.
‘Thank you, men. You may stand down.’
‘Nice place you got ’ere, guv’nor.’
‘You may address me as Sir or Captain.’ Travers took a seat opposite his latest informant, regarding him with bored disdain. The Helm had made no public announcement of their search for Ayla, not wanting to scare her into fleeing the city, but they had circulated the word amongst their usual network of spies, who in turn had made a few discreet enquiries in the right places. Of course, that meant there had been plenty of false leads to follow. At times like this, it seemed every common muckspreader and his dog thought he’d seen or heard something important; sifting the gems from the dross was a time-consuming process, and a frustrating one.
‘Well?’ he asked the boy. ‘What is it you want to tell me?’
‘I ’eard from an associate of mine as ’ow you was lookin’ for a girl wiv black hair an’ blue eyes,’ the urchin explained. ‘An’ I seen one.’
‘Really.’ Travers gave him a sceptical look. ‘And when did this fascinating occurrence take place?’
‘Yesterday.’ The boy shrugged. ‘I was sellin’ news-sheets at the Gate o’ Wind. She come an’ had one off of me. Just ’fore second bell, I think, or coulda been just after …’
Travers waved a hand in the air. ‘Get to it! What did she look like?’
‘I only saw ’er for a moment.’ It was a sullen mumble. ‘She was wearin’ a hood. Dark hair underneath, if not black then dark brown. Just like a Changer, ’cept for the eyes.’
Travers leaned forward. ‘What about the eyes?’
‘I dunno.’ The boy frowned. ‘They was blue, like the man said you was lookin’ for, but when she looked up and they caught the light, they was greenish.’
Travers nodded, careful not to give anything away, although his concentration had doubled. Plenty of people had come forward with information, reciting stories about black-haired, blue-eyed maidens, but none of them had mentioned the one distinguishing feature that would give the ring of truth to their words – until now.
‘You begin to interest me,’ he said. ‘What did she do, this girl?’
‘I told you.’ The urchin rolled his eyes. ‘She bought a sheet. Took it over to the wall to read. After a bit she crumpled it in ’er ’and like this –’ he clenched his fist, staring off into the distance – ‘an’ looked like she was gonna cry. But then she smoothed it out and read some more, an’ put it in ’er pocket and went off.’
‘You didn’t see where she went?’ Travers asked, and the boy shook his head.
‘Nah. Not back through the gate, though. She musta headed into the second ring.’
‘I see.’ Travers sat for a moment, deep in thought. It sounded as though the girl in question had indeed been Ayla – and now he had Helmsmen watching each gate, she wouldn’t be able to get back through without detection. So she had to be somewhere within the first two rings of Arkannen. Of course, that still left a wide area to cover, but at least he knew where to concentrate the search. Before, he’d wondered whether she might have taken sanctuary in one of the sixth-ring temples, or found a home in the fourth ring to hide in.
‘You’ve been very helpful,’ he told the boy, taking a silver donol from his pocket. ‘This is for your trouble.’
‘Thank you, sir!’ The sight of the money made the child more respectful than he had been throughout the interview. Travers flicked the coin across the table to him.
‘Good. Now be off with you.’
He banged on the door, and the two Helmsmen came in to escort the boy back down into the city. Travers remained at the table, considering his options.
He knew Myrren must have let Ayla out on the night of the murder; questioning the men on duty that night had revealed as much. The knowledge made him reluctant to keep Myrren informed of his progress with the investigation, aware that the man’s loyalty lay more with his sister than with his dead father. As far as Travers was concerned, Myrren and Ayla were as bad as each other: neither was a true Changer child. And it was to the Nightshade line that Travers had sworn his allegiance, not to any particular member of it. He would do everything he could to preserve it, even if Florentyn himself had failed to do so.
While the old Firedrake’s marriage to a common girl after his first wife died had been deplorable, it had also been unavoidable. At the time, he and Myrren had been the only Nightshades left, so Florentyn had taken the necessary steps to get a daughter. Yet when Ayla hadn’t been followed swiftly by other children, the responsible course of action would have been to set Kati aside and turn elsewhere. After all, Florentyn himself had bemoaned Darkhaven’s emptiness often enough.
How the Nightshade line has dwindled, he would say. Once there were thirty, forty, fifty Changers living in these halls. And what has it come to?
He was right, of course. He and Myrren’s mother – Florentyn’s cousin – had been the only Nightshades of their generation, just as Myrren and Ayla were of theirs. The once-flourishing family tree had withered to a single branch. Yet Florentyn had done nothing to remedy the situation. He had pinned all his slender hopes on his two children, assuming that his full-blooded son would be as powerful as he was and that his half-blooded daughter would be sufficient to bear heirs. True, he couldn’t possibly have predicted the utter failure that was Myrren – but all the same, it had been an uncharacteristically imprudent path to take, and all because he didn’t want to hurt his common little second wife.
Yes: whatever Florentyn might have claimed in the bitter aftermath of her death, love had made a fool of him.
Yet despite all that, he had been the last real Changer. And thus, whatever Myrren said, Travers would continue to follow the orders the old Firedrake had left before he died.
Ayla must be kept alive to bear children, but she can’t be trusted, Florentyn had said just a week ago. This accusation means she must be sentenced to permanent incarceration. Myrren will be my heir after all, if only in name. It pains me to think of an ungifted boy taking my seat, but we may never come to that. If their children breed truer … He’d looked up, blue eyes darkened almost to black by the intensity of his thought. Or, of course, there is always the alternative. You must keep an eye on it for me. If necessary, I may call upon you to implement it.
Of course, Florentyn hadn’t known he would be murdered just a few days after giving those instructions, but all the same Travers intended to obey them to the best of his ability. When his search for Ayla succeeded, he would have her brought back to Darkhaven and chained in the windowless room beneath the tower, next to the family vault that would be her father’s final resting place. If she struggled, he would have her drugged into submission; she didn’t need to be in her right mind in order to breed. And if, while she was locked down there alone, he happened to visit her one day and take what he’d wanted ever since she was twelve years old and began to show signs of becoming a woman, who was to know? She was a murderer. She deserved it.
Myrren himself would do perfectly well as a ruler. Unsure of his status, embarrassed by his position as a Nightshade without the gift, he would be easy to manipulate. Travers hoped it would be possible to persuade him into giving back some of the powers the Helm had once possessed, centuries ago. Back then the Helm had been a genuine fighting force, a band of elite warriors honour-sworn to protect the city of Arkannen from its foes. If the borders of Mirrorvale were to fall to one of its neighbours – the Ingal States to the west, Parovia to the east or Sol Kardis to the south – then it was the Helm’s task to defend Arkannen from the invaders. In fact, Arkannen itself had been built with that purpose in mind: its seven rings, each with just a single ingress, provided an ideal structure for defence. It would take a besieging army months, if not years, to work its way ring by ring into the heart of the city; and all the while the Helm would be menacing
them from the higher rings, and the reigning Changer in creature form would be wreaking as much havoc among them as possible.
In those early days the Helm had power throughout Arkannen, not just within the walls of Darkhaven. Yet as the threat of war lessened and was replaced with an uneasy peace, there was no longer any need for martial law. Several incidents in which the Helm overstepped their authority caused an outcry among the citizens and nearly resulted in the first civil war in Mirrorvale’s history. As a result, the Nightshade overlord of the time gave in to the people’s demands and removed the Helm from the city, leaving Arkannen subject to the same laws as the rest of the country. The Helm were reduced to a smaller force, taking on the status of bodyguards. They still had the right to come and go freely in Arkannen, to carry messages between Changers and city officials, and to apprehend anyone who was wanted by the Nightshade lords in connection with a criminal charge; but they were no longer above the precepts of the city.
Despite their diminished status, the Helm remained some of the best warriors in the world, chosen for their prowess from the elite training circles of the fifth ring. They were far more capable than the city watch, whose grip on the criminal elements within the city was feeble at best, and whose unwillingness to cooperate with the Helm had meant days had passed before Travers had gained permission to set his own men to watch the gates. Permission – when if the Helm had been in charge, Ayla would never have been able to escape into the city without being caught. Yes, Arkannen was an unruly beast in dire need of taming. But once the Helm had their authority back, they could make sure the Changers were properly feared again, as they should be. They could counteract the inevitable rot that would set in when it became widely known that the newest Nightshade lord was no more of a Changer than were his subjects.
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