Windsinger

by A. F. E. Smith

  Marco studied his son, impassively and in silence. Zander couldn’t tell what he was thinking. In the past, such an expression had been far more likely to herald a rebuke than a modicum of praise, but there had always been a chance that Zander had got it right for once. That was what made it so unbearable.

  ‘All right,’ his father said finally. ‘Take the truce flag and cross the border. I will gather the councillors. But, Alezzandro –’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You will stay in Sol Kardis after this.’

  It was not a question. Zander nodded, feeling the weight of inevitability settle on him like fallen snow. He had no place in Mirrorvale. He would return to Sol Kardis, put his own desires aside, and try to be the dutiful son his father wanted.

  ‘Yes, Father,’ he said. ‘Whatever the treaty requires.’

  Shouts awoke Ayla. She was up and out of her bedroll in an instant, running for the front line, cold air slapping her in the face. Several of her men had gathered beside the scorched hulk of the ruined fort, peering through the night in the direction of the Kardise camp.

  Surely not an attack. Not now. We’re due to begin again with the treaty in the morning –

  But then the group of soldiers opened up, letting her through, and she saw the blur of a pale flag in the darkness. That was why no shots had been fired, though several of the patrolmen had guns in their hands. Not only that, but her sharp eyes made out what theirs could not: the face of the person carrying the flag.

  ‘Stand down,’ she said sharply, gesturing at the patrolmen. ‘Let him cross.’

  ‘Lady Ayla?’ The flag-bearer stepped into the light shed by the Mirrorvalese fires. She nodded a greeting.

  ‘Zander. What –?’

  ‘Captain Caraway sent me.’ He glanced uneasily around at the gathered soldiers, then lifted his chin and spoke directly to her. ‘Urgent news from Darkhaven.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘You should know, I’ve spoken to my father and the councillors are willing to sign your treaty. Now. Tonight –’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘It’s your children,’ Zander said. ‘They’ve been kidnapped by a Parovian force. It was Parovia that arranged Don Tolino’s death. They murdered all the Helmsmen in the tower tonight and took the children to the big airship. The Windsinger. The captain believes it will take off at first light.’

  Several of the men swore; ice ran through Ayla’s veins, leaving her paralysed. Through numb lips, she managed, ‘I don’t understand. How can the entire Helm have been overcome?’

  ‘Poison.’

  ‘But who –’

  ‘Miles. I’m sorry.’

  This time, she couldn’t speak. Miles was a traitor. He must have been working for Parovia all along. Sharing her secrets and plotting her downfall, when she’d welcomed him into her heart and home …

  And her children were on the way to Parovia.

  She turned and ran, summoning the Change the instant that she was far enough away from everyone else to do no damage. Her legs tangled beneath her in her hurry, wings half unfurling for balance, but she was already preparing to launch herself into the air –

  ‘Lady Ayla!’ The boy hurried after her. The fear in his voice held her back, despite her own urgency. She turned.

  ‘Please. You can’t leave yet. Not before the treaty is signed.’

  I will not put duty above my children. Not this time.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘But you have to. I’ve convinced my father that helping you is best for Sol Kardis. That the treaty should be signed now, tonight, before you leave. If you go …’ He shrugged. ‘There will be nothing to stop the Kardise army overcoming your men and marching straight for the heart of Mirrorvale.’

  I could kill them all, she sent at him savagely. Your father. The other councillors. Anyone who dares to oppose me. What then?

  ‘Then you will find yourself fighting a war on two fronts. And you will be destroyed or you will become a tyrant, but either way you will lose.’

  He wasn’t talking about losing the war, the human heart of her realised. He was talking about losing herself.

  She wavered. Every muscle in her body strained towards flight; towards racing to her children as fast as her wings would carry her, and tearing down anything that stood in her way. That was both her instinct and her desire.

  Yet, perhaps, her will was stronger.

  She Changed back into human form, though she had to fight herself every step of the way to do it. Her legs buckled beneath her, sending her into a crumpled heap on the earth. Zander approached cautiously, holding out her robe. Behind him, the gathered warriors looked on.

  ‘The airships are waiting for your men,’ he said. ‘The councillors have gathered. You will be able to leave as soon as the treaty is signed. I swear, Lady Ayla, you will still reach them in time.’

  She didn’t reply. Her children’s faces swam before her, and still she fought herself: her fear, her instinct, her blind, driving love. Only once she had compressed them into a small, burning coal lodged under her ribcage – only once she had forced the tears back from her eyes and stopped her hands shaking – did she stand up and take the robe.

  ‘Half of you will make ready to leave,’ she ordered the warriors. ‘The rest must stay. Whatever the outcome of my discussion with the councillors, I fly to Parovia tonight.’ Then, as they sprang to obey her orders, she belted her robe tighter around herself and took a deep breath. ‘Thank you, Zander. Please take me to your father.’

  Sitting across from Don Mellor in the Kardise campaign tent, with the surviving councillors ranged behind him and several Helmsmen at her back, Ayla had to dig her nails into her palms to keep herself in the here and now. Words. Words. So many words. All she wanted to do was fly away. Yet the Kardise had agreed to peace. They’d drawn up a treaty and they were willing to sign. She couldn’t ignore that opportunity, no matter how much it hurt.

  ‘Are you satisfied, Lady Ayla?’ Mellor asked in careful Mirrorvalese. ‘Shall we sign?’

  She looked at the treaty once more. It was almost exactly what she’d discussed with Don Tolino, six weeks or a hundred years ago. Even down to –

  No, she told herself. Don’t question it. Just let them have what they want. The children –

  But she couldn’t let it go. Even now, when every single muscle in her body was screaming at her to Change, to fly as fast as she could to the rescue of her loved ones. Because it was Zander, and it wasn’t fair.

  ‘This last clause …’ She tapped the paragraph that demanded the return of Alezzandro Lepont. ‘I can’t agree to this.’

  Mellor threw a glance at Zander’s father, whose face was already sharpening into a frown. ‘But Lady Ayla, it is one of the conditions –’

  ‘Mirrorvale does not treat people like criminals unless they are criminals. The young man in question has committed no crime.’

  ‘Surely, for the sake of the treaty …’ Mellor spread his hands and tried an ingratiating smile. ‘He is not, after all, one of your citizens.’

  ‘I don’t care where the people in my country come from,’ Ayla said. ‘Only what they do when they get there. You should try it sometime.’

  At the back of her mind, she was aware that what she’d just said wasn’t strictly true – that Zander had wanted to join the Helm, but had been unable to do so precisely because of where he came from – and that she would have to remedy that particular point. But she didn’t let the knowledge show on her face, just kept looking at Mellor until he lowered his gaze.

  ‘He’s my son!’ Perhaps sensing Mellor’s weakening, Marco Lepont stepped forward. ‘I agreed to help you in the belief that the treaty would be signed as written. If that isn’t the case, then –’

  Ayla barely looked at him. ‘It is my understanding that your son is an adult. As such, I don’t see that you have any say at all in what he does.’

  ‘Certainly more than you,’ Lepont retorted. ‘Are you really going to risk you
r own children’s lives on this point?’

  She entertained a brief fantasy of taking her other form and stabbing him through the heart. Instead, she pinned him with a glare and spoke every word with ice-cold clarity.

  ‘I don’t like blackmail, Councillor Lepont. I will go through fire and death to get my children back. But if I let my care for them override my care for my people, I do not deserve to remain overlord. Your son reminded me of that, this evening. It’s why I’m here with you now. And it’s why I will not sign this treaty until it offers what is best for everyone. Including Zander.’

  ‘Alezzandro is not one of your people.’

  ‘He has lived in Arkannen for three years. Through choice, rather than birth. That makes him as much one of my people as anyone else in Mirrorvale.’

  He was silent. Seizing the opportunity, Ayla softened her tone. ‘Your son wants to be a Helmsman. He’d make a damn good one. And if our countries are allies, I will gladly welcome him into Darkhaven.’

  ‘My son is not an employee,’ Marco Lepont snapped. Ayla arched an eyebrow at him.

  ‘Most of us are someone’s employee, Don Lepont. Who pays your wages?’

  She didn’t need to mention the Brotherhood. The knowledge was there in his carefully restrained anger, in Mellor’s sideways glance. Placing both hands on the table, Ayla leaned forward.

  ‘Do I have to remind you,’ she added softly, ‘that your people tried to kill me under a banner of truce?’

  Neither man replied, but she saw the sweat on the elder Lepont’s brow. He was scared of her, she realised. They all were. It was a highly satisfying thought. She straightened up and, in one swift slashing motion, crossed through the paragraph of the treaty that mentioned Zander.

  ‘I could ask for far greater reparation,’ she said, ‘but I will accept this. Now, are we going to sign?’

  Once it was done, the Kardise seemed determined to make the best of it. They offered her airships. They offered her men. They even offered her a physician. Ayla declined both airships and men, preferring to take her own, but she accepted the physician. Her own battlefield physicians were still busy tending to the Mirrorvalese wounded, and she’d need someone knowledgeable with her in case – in case –

  But she didn’t let herself think it. Her children would be unharmed. She had to believe that, because what else could she do?

  The night sky was blushing into pinks and greys as she left the campaign tent and strode out across the plain towards her own camp. Dawn. She would have to be quick.

  Zander ran after her. ‘Lady Ayla!’

  She slowed enough for him to catch up. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Thank you. I didn’t expect –’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘It’s about time someone flung the Brotherhood in my father’s face.’

  ‘I’m glad you approve,’ Ayla said. ‘Now, get some sleep. And in the morning, you can fly Sorrow back home to Mirrorvale. She’s been grumbling about wanting to get back to the Mallory farm ever since she was shot. You can check on Corus at the same time and bring a report to me tomorrow. All right?’

  ‘Yes, Lady Ayla.’ Zander saluted. His smile told her that he knew quite well what she was doing, and he was grateful for it. Yet as she turned to go, he added quietly, ‘Good luck.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. Then she was off, running across the plain, summoning the Change as she went.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The airship landed in a field just outside Redmire as the first glimmers of dawn began to streak the horizon. It carried six occupants in total, as many as it could hold: Penn, Miles, Ree, two of the three Helmsmen she’d fetched from the fifth ring, and Caraway himself at the controls. A few other members of the Helm had begun to arrive at Darkhaven even before their little party left, so Ree had no doubt it would be well defended if anyone tried to take advantage of its current weakness. Whether she and her five companions would be enough to retrieve the Nightshade children safely was another matter. Still, there had been no time to gather a larger force – and little point, either. A direct confrontation would have far too much potential for ending badly.

  The six of them approached the small town’s airfield through the trees that bordered it on one side, but the caution turned out to be unnecessary. Even after all the days the Windsinger had already spent moored in Mirrorvale, and despite the fact that the sky was only just beginning to lighten, a crowd had gathered beside the ship. With their striped coats discarded in Darkhaven and their weapons kept to a minimum, Ree and the others would blend in with ease.

  As they got closer, the reason for the early attendance became clear. A large board stood outside the airship; a poster reading Airship Tours: Last Day Today! was plastered across it, one raggedy corner curling and uncurling in the breeze. Even as Ree watched, a man descended the gangplank and tore the paper away, wadding it into a ball, before folding the board and carrying it back onto the ship under his arm. The crew were packing up to leave. The crowd were here to watch the take-off.

  Although she’d expected it, Ree’s stomach dipped in a mixture of relief and anxiety: relief, because she and Penn had brought back accurate information; and anxiety, because that meant they were up against the entire crew of a very large airship. She scanned the field, searching for threats, and spotted a much smaller balloon tethered in the shadow of the Windsinger. Another confirmation. That must be the ship that had landed in Darkhaven’s grounds, the one that had carried the children away.

  Beside her, Caraway swore under his breath. Ree glanced at him, but he was staring at the name painted on the side of the airship.

  ‘Captain?’

  ‘The Windsinger.’ Slowly, he turned his head to look at her. ‘What killed the Kardise ambassador, Ree?’

  ‘Zephyr.’

  ‘And all those Helmsmen?’

  ‘Chanteuse …’ It hit her, then, just as it must have hit him. ‘You mean they named their ship after the tools they planned to use to destroy us?’

  A muscle twitched in his jaw. ‘And no doubt someone somewhere thought that was really fucking hilarious.’

  Ree shivered. It showed a frightening arrogance, for the Parovians to paint their intentions in such plain sight. It suggested they thought they couldn’t possibly fail. And maybe that meant they were right.

  No, they’re not, she told herself fiercely. They have no idea what they’re dealing with.

  ‘All right,’ Caraway said. ‘Miles, you’re with me. Ree and Penn round the back. Lonnie and Riba ready with a diversion. You all know what to do.’

  It wasn’t a question. They’d been through the plan on their way over. But everyone nodded anyway.

  ‘Good,’ Caraway said. He looked at each of them in turn. ‘I know I don’t have to tell you this, but the children are all that matters. We keep them safe, whatever happens. Not because they’re my children, but because they’re the future of our country. Understood?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘If any of us are caught, the rest of you keep going. Take the children back to Darkhaven. Nothing else is important. All right?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then let’s go,’ Caraway said. ‘I have every faith in you.’

  He gestured Miles to follow him, before striding off in the direction of the gangplank that led onto the Windsinger.

  As Caraway neared the gangplank, he slowed to allow Miles to catch up with him. The plan was to pretend that Miles had been retired home to Parovia with honourable injuries after losing his cover in Darkhaven, and that Caraway himself was Miles’s assistant. Which meant –

  ‘You need to go first,’ he muttered. Miles threw him a frightened glance, but stepped up readily enough to take the lead. Caraway gritted his teeth and hoped, desperately, that Miles wouldn’t lose his nerve. That he really did regret what had happened the previous night, and would do whatever it took to make it right.

  As soon as Miles set foot on the gangplank, the airship captain appeared at the top of it. Perha
ps he was coming to greet them – but as he got closer, Caraway saw his face was contorted into a scowl.

  ‘Traitor!’ he snapped at Miles in Parovian. Caraway glanced at Miles, searching for the telltale signs that he’d known this would happen all along, but Miles looked more bewildered than anything. Clearly the original plan wasn’t going to work. He needed to improvise.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he asked in the same language, stepping between Miles and the angry airship captain, knowing a moment of gratitude that his position as Ayla’s husband had required him to brush up on the languages he’d learned as a boy. The man turned a glare on him, which faded when he saw the token in Caraway’s hand. Caraway hadn’t been willing to hand it over to Miles, however penitent the man was; he’d argued that it would be natural for an aide to take care of his employer’s most important possessions. Lucky, given the turn that the conversation had just taken.

  ‘This man is a traitor,’ the airship captain said. ‘The retrieval team saw him stabbed in Darkhaven for refusing to carry out his orders.’

  ‘I’m well aware of that,’ Caraway replied brusquely. ‘But he still holds information that’s of interest to the Enforcers. My orders are to escort him back to Parovia for interrogation.’

  Where are the children? he wanted to demand. What have you done with my children? It was excruciating, playing some damn fool part when all he wanted was to run on board the ship and force the bastards to give his family back. Only the knowledge that stealth would succeed where action wouldn’t kept him focused on the conversation – and every muscle quivered with the willpower it took to hold himself in check.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the airship captain said.

  ‘Show us to a berth, please.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Go on, then,’ Caraway said roughly to Miles, playing the part, and shoved him forward up the gangplank.