Harbinger

by Philippa Ballantine

“I see . . . it is not just my charm and good looks you were after,” he replied with the faintest hint of a sigh. “Very well.” He bent down, and touched the first ring of cantrips. The snap of blue power struck his finger.

  The Young Pretender leapt back. “By the Blood!” He stared at Sorcha, and she—only just managing to conceal her smile—gestured to the next line of cantrips carved into the root of the citadel.

  With a slow shake of his head, he obediently touched the next one. It went on for another hour, as they circled the foundations, testing the lines of cantrips.

  “I think you are starting to enjoy this,” Raed grumbled in a slightly overly hurt tone.

  “Starting?” Sorcha shot back, but applied a kiss to the end of his fingertips. “I promise I will make it up to you somehow . . .”

  He stared down at her, those hazel eyes locked with hers, and the shiver that ran up her spine was not at all related to the chill in the foundations. Raed must have felt it too, because he smiled slightly before turning back to his task. “How many more to do?”

  Sorcha flicked her eyes up. “I think we should go upstairs. I don’t know how the cantrips were breached; perhaps there is something Derodak can do that we don’t know about, something not written in any book.” That idea had been haunting her thoughts since the attack.

  “Perhaps you’re right, I can think of—” Raed stopped suddenly, and squeezing past Sorcha in the tight confines of the tunnel walked to where it finished abruptly. The glimmer of the cantrips danced over his skin as he reached out to touch one that gleamed pale green. Nothing happened.

  Sorcha hurried to his side, as Raed repeatedly touched the line. Still nothing.

  They shared a look, and she dropped into a crouch to examine the cantrips more closely. “It looks like some kind of fissure opened up here,” she muttered, running her fingers over the surface of the rock, and feeling a sliver of a gap. “The cantrips here were added fairly recently to seal it, but . . .”

  She stopped, suddenly, as her touch found a dip in the rock.

  Raed swiftly joined her, leaning down on all fours to see what she had found. He brushed away a layer of gravel and rock that had been piled up along the edge between wall and floor. “Looks like a chisel has been used to knock the last few cantrips out and the damage was covered by loose earth. I would say rather recently.”

  Sorcha sank back on her heels as the realization washed over her. “Someone in the citadel is a traitor . . .”

  With everything else they had to deal with, now they had to watch their backs. She’d thought everyone she’d saved and led through endless portals to this place had shared her determination to preserve something from the shards of the Order.

  It was possible here to let her feelings out. Sorcha leaned against Raed. “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered. “We have to find Derodak and the rest of our Brothers. We don’t have the time to ferret out a traitor. Besides, if they can hide from our Sensitives, then how do we even . . .”

  “This is a distraction,” Raed replied, giving her a squeeze. “Derodak wants to harry you to a standstill. You mustn’t let him.”

  They both stared down at the disturbed earth, which signified yet another problem. Sorcha relaxed into his embrace for a moment, letting the calming sound of his heartbeat become hers.

  Then with a jerk, she got to her feet. “You’re right. Onward is the only direction we have.”

  As they turned and walked back the way they had come, she slipped her hand into his. “Just don’t tell anyone, Raed. We can’t afford to start doubting each other now.”

  “I know,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t keep an eye out.” He touched her shoulder lightly, almost a stroke. “Don’t forget I have more than one set of eyes.”

  It was a strange world indeed where an allusion to the Rossin served as comfort—yet oddly enough it did make Sorcha feel better.

  ELEVEN

  A Traitor’s Smell

  As a Prince of the Empire, the heir apparent, Raed had been taught from an early age to take care of the people of Arkaym. The fact that his own father, the Unsung Pretender, chose to lock himself away on a distant island and behave as if they didn’t exist did not factor into it. His beloved tutors and instructors had luckily been far more insightful than the man that had given him life.

  Later on he’d been given his first command and then his first ship. Raed had immediately chosen to use them as a microcosm of the Empire itself and had lavished care and worry on both of them. However, in the last year their numbers had dwindled—some had even been killed right before his eyes.

  Despite all of that, some echo from his childhood and his education still filled him with a feeling of responsibility for those around him. It was what made the devastation that was the Rossin so much harder to bear. Many times the Young Pretender had wished that he didn’t care; that way he’d be insulated from the worst that the geistlord could do. However, as he got older he finally understood he was what he was. He’d learned to live with the curse and learned to run.

  When Sorcha went back up the Great Hall to be about Order business, Raed found himself returning to the room he’d spent half his time in this last week. It might have seemed a strange place for a person of Imperial blood to work, but in this citadel of Deacons it was the only aid Raed could offer. He was certainly not going to sit idly by and become known only as Sorcha’s lover.

  The makeshift infirmary that the Brothers had created in the basement of the citadel was in fact one of the more pleasant spaces in the cursed building. Despite the fact that it was on the lowest level, it actually opened out onto a small inward-facing courtyard, which a sliver of sunlight punctuated for at least a few hours a day. Some very optimistic lay Brother had planted herbs in a container there, and the scent of lavender and mint filled Raed’s nostrils as he neared the infirmary. It made him think of his mother’s herb garden before he could stop himself. Scent triggered the memory of her down on her knees, in among the plants; nothing at all like the well-bred lady she was. In the garden she’d been the happiest, and thus it was the place he’d been too.

  The Young Pretender walked swiftly past the flowering plants and into the infirmary itself. Compared to the scant Actives and Sensitives that Sorcha had been able to find, the number of lay Brothers now in the citadel was well over double what it had been when they left Vermillion.

  The people had positively flocked to her, wherever they went. Though most of them had not the talent to become a Deacon, they had quickly offered to take on the cloak of a lay Brother.

  Certainly, looking around the infirmary he could have almost imagined that they were in a regular Priory. Brothers in the gray of their profession bustled about, taking care of the sick and injured; though there were far more of the former than of the latter. Something about losing their runes and deprivations of the trail made Actives and Sensitives more prone to illness, and many were coughing up their lungs in the infirmary.

  It was yet another worry that Raed knew had kept Sorcha from a good night’s sleep for months. The Young Pretender took up an apron that hung neatly on a row of pegs by the door and put it on without a thought to how it looked. Yesterday he had been learning how to make poultices from Brother Timeon, but he had no idea what was in store today.

  “Raed Syndar Rossin,” Madame Vashill said, appearing out of a back room, also wearing an apron, “are you back so soon?”

  One of the preeminent tinkers of her time the old lady might be, but she was also rather deaf. Raed leaned in close to her. “Can’t keep me away. I’d get bored if I stayed upstairs all the time.”

  She nodded and then thrust a mortar and pestle into his hands. “Brother Timeon said you’d be back, but I didn’t believe him.”

  The young lay Brother appeared as if summoned by the mere mention of his name. His flyaway blond hair looked as though he had been running his hands through it for hours. He probably had. “Oh, Sir . . . Your Maj—” Then he closed his mo
uth with a snap.

  The Deacons had struggled at first to find a proper form of address for him, as their connection with the current Emperor meant they had an aversion to using his family name, title or anything else that might suggest he was who he was.

  Timeon cleared his throat and bowed his head slightly. “Captain, it is good to see you again. Are you ready for another lesson?”

  “Yes, indeed,” Raed replied with a crooked smile.

  It was good to spend the rest of the late morning in the simple tasks of cutting and pounding herbs. Madame Vashill learned at his side and seemed glad to do it too. She talked wistfully about her shop back in Vermillion and the work she had been unable to bring with her. What she never discussed was her son and his treachery. Raed knew all about the faithlessness of family and how that hurt, so he did not pry.

  However, the same could not be said of Madame Vashill; she wanted all the details of his life, which he felt rather uncomfortable yelling at her in the crowded infirmary.

  “I suppose you have heard about the woman in the west claiming to be your sister,” the old lady said, shooting him a look out from under her eyebrows. “They say she is causing quite a lot of problems for the Emperor.”

  The problematic question of the person claiming to be his sister, Fraine Rossin, was one he had not yet dealt with. Raed pounded the tansy under his pestle mercilessly. “The truth of it is, there is not much I can do about her. It’s not as if I can stand up publically and denounce her for impersonating my dead kin.”

  The old woman flinched at that, and he knew she had to be thinking of her son. “Still,” she said, grasping his hand briefly, “you did hear that your father had come out in support of her?”

  It felt as though his stomach had dropped away and been replaced by a fiery pit. His father was not one for proclamations—but perhaps he thought now was a good time to slice himself off a piece of the Empire while it was in turmoil.

  “No,” he replied through gritted teeth, “I had not heard that. I am surprised though; my father has spent most of his life doing nothing at all. And he knows very well that woman is not his daughter. I sent word that Fraine had died in Vermillion.” Even saying those words hurt. In the end, Raed had not been able to save his sister. In the end, she had still despised him for the Rossin killing their mother.

  He smashed the pestle into the mortar so hard the hard stone rocked off its base, spilling the herbs onto the bench. Several lay Brothers started from their tasks at the sudden clatter, and Raed nearly swore at them too.

  Madame Vashill’s hand came down over one of his; wrinkled, warm and not very strong. It nevertheless stopped him for a moment. “You did not choose to come from your family,” she said, her voice low, as if she were speaking to herself. “You cannot be held responsible for their actions, but you can walk your own path that might make up for what evil they have done.” Their eyes locked and understanding filled Raed.

  “Sorcha always said you were an old bat.” The words popped out before he could stop them.

  Madame Vashill laughed and filled her mortar with more herbs. “I was when I was in Vermillion. Stuck in a trade my father had taught me, and when he died, a husband I despised made me continue it. I find I like this life better. When you get to my age, you learn to appreciate these little moments.” She gestured over her shoulder.

  Raed turned and saw what she meant; around Raed and the old woman was a community of people, all thrown together by conflict, but still getting on, doing things, looking after one another. Lay Brothers caring for the sick and the injured while others came in bringing them food and supplies. It was—when examined closely—a well-oiled machine.

  A machine. The Rossin’s voice bubbled to the surface. The Beast was nearer today than any day before, a consequence of breaking loose and not having fed, Raed assumed. A sharp tang caught his attention, and it was not a natural substance that burned his nostrils.

  Dropping his pestle back to the bench, Raed turned as if he were being pulled on a string. “Excuse me,” he murmured to Madame Vashill, and he began to circle the room like a dog seeking a bone.

  Lay Brothers shot looks at him—mostly annoyed that he was in their domain—but they kept out of his way. The Young Pretender ignored them all. Instead, he began to listen to the Beast inside him. The geistlord was, after all, more powerful than he and had sharper instincts. It stung him to admit that—but there it was.

  A strange place to bring her leftovers. The Rossin growled, shifting deep inside Raed, who knew at once he was speaking of Sorcha. He felt the Beast was uncomfortable too. A bastion of her greatest enemy.

  It was hard for Raed to talk to the creature without seeming like he had run mad. The lay Brothers were eagle-eyed for such things and might whip him off into a bed if he wasn’t careful.

  “The Circle had all these outposts originally,” he hissed as he made a great show of peering at the shelf of ointments and lotions. “She hardly had a choice.”

  Then she shouldn’t be surprised with what happened two nights ago. The Rossin sounded very self-satisfied.

  Ignoring the Rossin’s barbed observation, Raed nonetheless proceeded with a little more caution. The sense of unease he and the Rossin shared led him over to a rack of shelves on the far wall. At present they were stocked with the lay Brothers’ meager supply of liniments and ointments. They barely took up a corner of this vast shelf.

  Raed ran his eyes over the rack suspiciously up close and then stepped back to examine how it stood against the wall. His father’s rickety palace had been full of hidden rooms and corridors, and he wondered if it was the same in the citadel.

  He was certain that the smell and the sense of unease were coming from here. Raed shot a glance over his shoulder, to ascertain that no one was watching him, and then ran his hands over the wood.

  The shelves were beautifully carved with all manner of forms that were obviously meant to be various geists; there was the pair of staring malevolent eyes that had to be a darkling, the spinning whirlwind of a vortex, and one he knew very well, the beautiful, deadly form of a Murashev in all her painful glory.

  And everywhere on the bookshelf were the stars that were the symbol of the Ancient Native Order. Raed frowned. The fact that the lay Brothers were moving around, ignoring him and this bookcase meant that they had complete confidence in it. Sorcha and her Sensitives had carefully examined every surface of the citadel before they’d moved into it and made it their base.

  They would not have missed any kind of cantrips or runes.

  That is because they refuse to acknowledge the rest, the Rossin purred into his brain.

  “Rest?” Raed whispered under his breath.

  You saw the pitiful Sensitive become not so pitiful. You saw it and decided to ignore it. You never questioned what it meant. The Rossin dug up the memory that he had brushed aside; how Merrick had brought a whole street of people to their knees outside the Emperor’s prison.

  He rubbed the space between his eyebrows and muttered into his shoulder, “What does that have to do with this?”

  You will see. Look a little deeper. Remember who you are. Even these Deacons do not come from a lineage as great as yours.

  It was the first time he’d ever heard the Rossin call his family great—mostly the Beast just belittled them as traitors and weak. Raed let out a faint snort as he realized that most likely the Beast was talking about his own involvement with his ancestors. Literally, his blood was in the Rossin line.

  Putting that aside, Raed leaned forward and examined the shelf. He recognized most of the geists, but one that stood out to him was his own sigil. It was the one that the Dominion had sailed under—the rampant Rossin. Without thinking overly on it, Raed reached out and traced the shape of it. Under his fingers it felt sharp. It was a curious thing to see here in the remains of an old citadel of the Order—and what’s more, it looked freshly carved.

  Raed was about to turn around and inquire if anyone else had noticed this,
when the world went cloudy and gray. The hustle and bustle of the lay Brothers and their patients faded to incomplete shadows, while the sounds reached him as muted whispers.

  Move! The Rossin was like a sharp burr under his skin, but one he could not shake or rip off. Hesitantly, Raed took a step forward. He knew about the rune Voishem, but the fact that he was experiencing it firsthand—without an Active Deacon—was terrifying.

  You have his Blood, but you do not know that you are not the only one.

  He didn’t need to ask whose blood. Merrick and Sorcha had told him all about Derodak and the fact that he was the first Emperor. The knowledge settled in his stomach like a stone.

  The Rossin remained silent.

  The sensation of moving through the wall was every bit as unpleasant as Sorcha had described it to him; every particle of his being screamed to turn and race back to the real world. The image of being trapped in stone by this abrupt appearance of Voishem was foremost in his mind.

  However, the Young Pretender did not have time to panic because the stone wall behind the shelves was not thick at all. He pushed through and arrived on the other side. As he reappeared back into the normal physical world, he glanced back at the wall he had just passed through. Even though Raed knew it was true, he couldn’t help running his hand over the rough rock.

  Someone had made Voishem into the wall itself, perhaps to avoid detection from the Sensitives outside. Raed’s jaw tightened as he realized there could only be one group capable of crafting such a thing—the very people who had let in chaos the night before.

  Raed flicked his head around, realizing that a faint light was gleaming in the tunnel he now occupied. This, clearly, was how the saboteur had infiltrated the citadel.

  That lying traitor, Derodak! The great cat sounded almost as angry as Sorcha had been. The Rossin’s hatred of the Circle of Stars was embedded in more than just recent events. It was all because Derodak, their leader, had been both first Emperor and first Deacon, and it was he who the Rossin had made the deal with. Apparently being trapped in the Imperial bloodline was not what the geistlord had envisaged when he had struck the deal with the first Emperor. He still carried an intense hatred for Derodak and anything he had created.