Darkhaven

by A. F. E. Smith

  Grief hit him then, hard, in the back of the throat. Yet once it had receded far enough for him to breathe again, he was ashamed to find that it wasn’t so much for his father as for Ayla. He didn’t know how to mourn Florentyn, didn’t know how to reconcile the complex mixture of sorrow and guilt and, yes, relief that gripped him every time he thought of his father’s brutal passing. But Ayla was alone, exiled from home and falsely accused of murder. If Myrren gave them both room in his heart, they would overwhelm him – and his sister’s life had to take precedence over his father’s death.

  Of course, not everyone agreed with that assessment. His conversation with Captain Travers still circled in his head, leaving a dull ache of frustration in its wake. He had deliberated for almost an entire bell over whether to inform the Helm of his findings, but in the end he’d decided the evidence of Ayla’s innocence was too strong for them to ignore. If he could get them on his side then it would be possible to search Arkannen for the unknown Changer much faster and more thoroughly. Yet it hadn’t happened that way. Travers had as good as said that on this matter, he wouldn’t defer to Myrren’s authority – where Ayla was concerned, Florentyn’s word still held sway.

  Myrren might have tried to overrule him, were it not for the precarious sense he had of his own position. There was, after all, a good reason his father had wanted to disinherit him: a Nightshade overlord kept his subjects in line largely through fear, and that fear was instilled by his awe-inspiring other form. Myrren had an unpleasant suspicion that if he tried to oppose Travers without that backing, Travers would turn the Helm against him. After all, Travers had a signed warrant for Ayla’s incarceration in his possession, stamped with the Changer seal. It wouldn’t take much for him to convince his men that Myrren was betraying the Nightshade line by rejecting that warrant. Which meant Myrren and Serenna were on their own, and it was vital that the two of them find the real criminal before the fifty men of the Helm found Ayla. The urgency of it left Myrren in a state of paralysis, the sheer scale of the problem daunting him into inaction.

  If he did have an affair then he may have kept some token. He repeated Serenna’s words to himself. Never mind that every passing bell stole a fraction more of his precious time, widening the gap between him and the Helm in this fatal race they were caught up in. For now, he had to forget he was in a hurry, and concentrate on finding something in his father’s bedroom that might give them a clue.

  Unfortunately, though, what he’d told Serenna was true: Florentyn had never been a sentimental man. Nor had he been a hoarder, as popular legend held that a Firedrake should be. His room was neat and bare, and not just because they’d cleaned it after his death; he had never seen the purpose in possessions or displays of material wealth. The idea that somewhere in his bedroom might be hidden a reminder of a love more than twenty years old would have been laughable, if it hadn’t been Myrren’s only hope of solving the mystery.

  He opened the wardrobe. His throat tightened again at the sight of the shirts and coats hanging inside like the shed skins of a snake – a brief flash of memory showed him his father’s bleached face and staring eyes – but he gritted his teeth against the renewed surge of emotion and forced himself to push his hands into each empty sleeve and fold, searching. If Florentyn had kept anything important, it would most likely be in a concealed pocket … but there was nothing. At the end of the row Myrren rocked back on his heels, thinking a moment, then opened a drawer in the chest next to the wardrobe. Yet a hunt through his father’s breeches and smallclothes bore just as little fruit, as did a comprehensive search among the contents of the shaving stand.

  He turned in a slow circle, examining the room, and his gaze fell on the writing desk in the far corner. In a few strides he was there, sitting on the matching chair to fold open the front. The internal compartments revealed themselves in perfect, lifeless order: writing paper, pen and ink, the Nightshade seal. There was nowhere for anything to be hidden, but Myrren rifled through the sheets of paper anyway in case something was caught between them. The drawer underneath the desk held nothing but dust. Three books sat on the shelf above, records of lineage and genealogy: Myrren turned their pages in search of an inserted slip or a handwritten note, then took each one by the spine and gave it a shake. Still nothing. But after all, he had no reason to expect more. Florentyn hadn’t even kept a portrait of Kati, the woman he had loved most deeply, in his bedroom; why should he have kept anything to remind him of what must have been a brief and almost certainly casual affair?

  As Myrren stood up again, a faint rustling sound came from the padded seat of the chair. At any other time he would have thought nothing of it, but with all his senses set to high alert it immediately claimed his attention. Crouching down beside the chair, he examined the embroidered cushion and found that it was not – as he had thought – attached to the wood. Instead, it was a separate pad set into a recess in the seat. Scrabbling with his fingernails, he succeeded in lifting the cushion out. Beneath was a shallow cavity, and folded within it a single piece of paper.

  Myrren stared at the innocuous-looking thing, his pulse racing. All of a sudden, he didn’t want to touch it. The very fact that it was there, hidden under a cushion in the seat of a chair, showed it to be something Florentyn had wanted to keep secret. What if it wasn’t what they had come up with, he and Serenna? What if it was something far worse, something that would destroy Myrren’s opinion of his father for good? Yet he had to look. Ayla’s freedom might depend on it. So after a moment, he reached out and smoothed the piece of paper open. It held just a few words, written in Florentyn’s heavy black hand.

  45 Avenue of Rowans, Ametrine Quarter

  Myrren’s immediate anxiety faded back into the hollow ache it had been ever since Ayla’s escape and his father’s murder. The Ametrine Quarter was a residential area in the fourth ring; what he had found was an address in Arkannen. Perhaps Serenna was right, that Florentyn had carried out an affair before Myrren was even born and fathered a Changer child who’d grown up into something mad and terrible. Perhaps the mother of that child still lived there in the Avenue of Rowans. Or perhaps this address had nothing to do with Serenna’s theory, but meant something else altogether. Whatever the truth of it, Myrren knew he would have to go there and find out – and he didn’t want to go alone.

  He slipped the piece of paper into his pocket, and went to see Serenna.

  ‘What do you know about the Ametrine Quarter, Sister Serenna?’ Myrren stood in the doorway of her room, his dark gaze fixed on her face. Serenna frowned, trying to think past the mixture of panic and pleasure his unexpected appearance had called up. She’d thought her meditation had laid these feelings to rest, yet as soon as she saw him again her heart had started pounding as though she were a lovesick girl. She wasn’t sure whether it made the situation better or worse that Myrren now seemed to be completely oblivious to her; whatever had prompted his question, he was focused on it to the exclusion of all else.

  ‘It’s in the fourth ring,’ she said, gathering her scattered thoughts with an effort. ‘They call it Nightsbane in the lower rings. Members of the city watch live there, law officials, soldiers. Sellswords and bodyguards for hire. Oh, and the wives and children of your Helm.’

  ‘Really?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘It’s where Helm families live?’

  She nodded. ‘Anyone who has anything to do with law enforcement, I suppose. It must be the least burgled Quarter in the city.’

  He was diverted; the intensity of his gaze faded into a quizzical look. ‘Once again, you know an awful lot for a priestess.’

  ‘I wasn’t born in the temple, Lord Myrren.’ Funny, how everyone assumed that just because she was a priestess she must know nothing of the world outside the sixth ring. She’d wager a ranol to an ennol she knew a lot more about Arkannen than Myrren did. ‘I lived in the fourth ring, in Carnelian, for twelve years before I took my vows.’

  ‘And what do they call Carnelian in the lower rings?’ The nascent sm
ile at the corners of his mouth made her entire body jump and tighten in response. She kept her voice cool, striving for detachment.

  ‘If that is your subtle way of asking what my father does, my lord, he is a professor at the university. Carnelian is the Academics’ Quarter.’ She shrugged. ‘I was the youngest of five. My parents were relieved when I expressed my desire to serve the Altar of Flame.’

  ‘Brothers or sisters?’ Myrren asked.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘You said you were the youngest of five.’

  ‘Oh … two of each.’ She looked past him, a memory suddenly vivid in her mind: a winter day, snow on the ground, covering everything in pristine white. Before the roadsweepers came to clear the streets, she and her siblings had built a Unicorn, the elemental creature of ice. Her older brothers had lifted her onto its back, and she’d sat there proudly as the melting snow seeped through the seat of her dungarees, waving at the people who trudged to and fro. Strange … she hadn’t thought much about her family for a long time. She’d been homesick, of course, the first few years in the temple; she must have been, it was only natural. But it was ages now since she’d thought of home as anything other than the Altar of Flame.

  ‘That sounds nice,’ Myrren said, and the image vanished. She looked back at him, raising her eyebrows in disbelief.

  ‘Nice? Five noisy children crammed into a three-bedroomed house with thin walls and a roof that leaked when it rained?’

  ‘Why not?’ He sounded a little defensive now. ‘Growing up, I often wished I had a brother. It was lively enough here when Ayla’s mother was alive, but after she died …’ He sighed. ‘Ayla and I rattled around like two peas in an empty pod.’

  Lonely. He didn’t say it, but she heard it all the same. She’d only been here two days, and she already knew Darkhaven was a lonely place – even for someone who was used to solitude. She fought the urge to reach out and touch his arm; before she could succumb to it, the smile crept back to the corners of his mouth.

  ‘What’s more, Sister Serenna, I defy you to claim that your father – a professor at the university, you say – was anything like as fearsome as mine.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’ She smiled back at him. Then, because they seemed rapidly to be reaching an understanding she wasn’t sure it was safe to reach, she hurried to change the subject. ‘Anyway, Lord Myrren … why did you want to know about Ametrine?’

  ‘Because you were right.’ The focused expression returned to his face. He reached into his pocket and brought out a piece of paper. ‘I found this hidden in my father’s room.’

  She scanned the address, committing it to memory, then looked up. ‘So if there is another Changer child out there, you think the Helm may have some knowledge of it?’

  ‘Yes.’ His glance conveyed tacit approval of her swiftness. ‘It’s very possible. My father trusted the Helm implicitly. If it was a matter concerning the Nightshade bloodline, he wouldn’t have hesitated to approach them.’

  She read the uncertainty in his eyes. ‘But …?’

  ‘It could be nothing.’ He took the paper back from her, frowning at it in an abstracted way. ‘This could just be a Helmsman’s address or the contact details for a sellsword my father wanted to hire for his next trading venture. Of course, I could ask Captain Travers about it, but after what he said earlier I’m not inclined to trust him with this.’

  ‘Then I suppose you have no choice but to go and see for yourself,’ Serenna offered, and he nodded.

  ‘Exactly. It’s approaching dusk now, but I think we should aim to get there by second bell tomorrow.’

  ‘We?’ she echoed, suddenly nervous. She hadn’t been down into the fourth ring since she left it to become an acolyte, nine years ago. And being in the company of Myrren Nightshade was hardly an unobtrusive way to pay a visit.

  ‘I hope so.’ He looked grave. ‘It would be very helpful if you could join me, Serenna. I am not accustomed to navigating the streets of Arkannen alone.’

  ‘All right.’ Her heart skipped as she said it; but after all, she had made up her mind to help him, for her own sake and for Ayla’s. Cowering in Darkhaven whilst he went out into the city in search of the criminal wasn’t going to be of much use. ‘Come back here at first bell and we’ll go together.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He offered her a bow – though this time, she noticed, he didn’t venture to touch her – and strode away. Serenna retreated into Ayla’s bedroom and prepared herself for bed; she would have to be up early tomorrow. Yet once she was lying under the covers, sleep seemed a distant and unlikely prospect. And no matter how she tried to tell herself it was just her nerves sparking in anticipation of tomorrow’s intended trip to the city, she knew that in reality it was fear of an altogether different kind keeping her awake.

  TEN

  Elisse stood at the window, gazing into the street below. She wasn’t supposed to be there, but she didn’t think anyone would notice her. The window was swathed in thick lace drapes, veiling everything in a haze of white; and besides, no casual passer-by ever looked up as high as the top floor.

  She was bored. She had been provided with books and embroidery, a drawing pad and a spinet: everything a girl could want for entertainment, except company. For a few weeks she’d enjoyed the luxury of it, a life so far removed from her previous one that it might as well have belonged to a different world. She’d been able to get up when she liked, wear what she liked, do what she liked – except go outside. Yet sooner than she would have expected, the novelty of that had begun to wear off. By now, she’d looked at all the books that held any interest for her; she’d set a few crooked stitches in the tambour-frame before putting it aside; her drawing pad was full of abandoned portraits and poorly executed perspective sketches of the rooms that made up her apartment; and she had tired of the sound of her own musical fumblings. She would have swapped all the grandeur around her, the thick rugs and polished wood and scented flowers in vases, for the freedom to walk through the long grass of a meadow with a breeze in her hair. Even all those chores she’d grumbled about had begun to take on a certain nostalgic appeal.

  She was almost sure she wished Lord Florentyn had never showed up at her mother’s farm at all.

  When he’d first arrived, almost a year ago now, she’d been tending to her own little flower garden behind the house. Kneeling in the soil, humming to herself as she pulled up the weeds around a climbing rose, she didn’t notice his approach until he was almost upon her. It was the scent she became aware of initially: a hot smell, spicy but not unpleasant, like the iron stove in the kitchen when Mam was baking cinnamon bread. Then a twig cracked, and she looked up to see him striding past the flowerbeds towards her.

  ‘Excuse me.’ His voice was deep and smooth. The sun was behind him, leaving Elisse with no more than an impression of a tall figure silhouetted against sky.

  ‘Can I help ya?’

  She expected him to ask for directions or offer goods for sale, but he appeared lost for words. When he did speak, it seemed almost at random.

  ‘How old are you, girl?’

  She stood up, brushing dirt from her skirt. She could see him more clearly, now: dark hair and blue eyes similar to hers, a long aristocratic nose. Her mother’s age, or a little older. This man wouldn’t be selling anything; he would have come in a carriage or an airship, sailing on by while the rest of the world trudged. She couldn’t think what he would be doing in the isolated countryside of her mother’s farm.

  ‘I’m twenny-three,’ she said. ‘Not a girl.’

  ‘Indeed.’ His eyes searched her face as though looking for a hidden message. ‘And have you always lived out here in the wilds of Mirrorvale?’

  ‘We moved from the city when I was little.’ She wasn’t sure why she was answering his questions, except that he was so obviously interested. ‘My father died, and Mam bought the farm soon after.’

  He gave a slow nod. ‘So it’s just the two of you.’

  ‘Yeah.’
She waited, but when no further comment was forthcoming she said again, ‘Can I help ya, sir?’

  ‘What’s your name?’ he asked abruptly, as if he hadn’t heard her. She told him, and he offered her a smile. ‘Elisse. That’s pretty. Tell me, Elisse, do you look much like your mother?’

  She shook her head. ‘Mam always says I’m like my father.’

  ‘I see.’ The look he gave her was speculative; she didn’t altogether understand it. She backed away a few steps.

  ‘Would ya like me ta fetch Mam for ya, sir?’

  ‘No.’ With startling suddenness, he bowed. ‘I have to go. But I hope I will have the opportunity to pass this way again.’

  Elisse snorted. If she’d known then what she knew now, she would have understood just how disingenuous a statement that was. And indeed, over the next weeks he’d turned up several times whilst she was washing clothes in the river or gathering kindling in the south wood or leading the sheep to pasture. They’d talked – or rather, he’d asked her questions and she’d answered them – but all the while, it had felt as if he was watching for something in her to reveal itself. As if he was waiting.

  Then came the incident, the one that changed everything. After that, he’d told her the truth about who he was and what he wanted from her. It’s no longer safe for you to stay here, he’d said. Every child of Darkhaven should be under the eye of the Helm. And so she’d packed up her few belongings, despite her mother’s protestations, and travelled under armed guard to Arkannen.

  Since then, she’d been living in this set of rooms in the fourth ring with only her own thoughts for company. Florentyn had visited her regularly in the early days, spending the whole of the fourth bell with her, but gradually his visits had become shorter and less frequent. Of late, she had hardly seen him at all. Instead, like a punishment for some unspecified crime, she had to endure the visits of his Captain of the Helm.