by Matthew Ward
“What would I be staying for?” She made no attempt to hide her bitterness now. What was the point? “A future that will never come?”
It took every scrap of resolve to pull free of Rosa’s grip. The chamber’s heavy door was nothing by comparison. Sevaka barely felt the cold night air on her tear-stung cheeks.
“Goodbye, Rosa.”
The door slammed. The fires of the hearth sank to a dull glow, and Rosa stared at the wall. The wall demanded nothing. It didn’t call her a liar, or a coward.
Or a fool.
And so it shouldn’t, Rosa told herself, for she wasn’t a fool. She’d responsibilities beyond her own desires. Sevaka didn’t understand. Sevaka was selfish. Sevaka…
… was gone, and the room left colder and darker for her passing.
Unable to bear accusing silence any longer, Rosa dulled the firestone lantern and swept out into the night, her feet finding old patterns of patrol along the inner wall’s ramparts. The warmth of day had long since faded from Ahrad’s walls, but the wind’s kiss lingered little on the bare skin of her arms and face. Cold, like pain, seldom troubled her any longer. Just another ephemeral feeling stripped away. Only her heart ached.
Sentries – used to her walking the walls at this hour – stiffened to attention at her passing. Their expressions offered only deference, with no hint of question or mockery at unbound hair in disarray, or a stride almost at a run.
As she reached the ballistae of the northeast bastion, the skies split. Cold, heavy rain lashed the battlements. The frustration that quickened Rosa’s stride spread to fill her soul. With a strangled cry, she slewed to a halt and slammed her fist into stone.
Knuckles split. Birds scattered from the parapet, their voices thickened by corvine amusement. Further along the rampart, a pair of sentries cast curious glances towards the sound, and turned quickly away.
“Would you like me to talk to her?” said the Raven. “I can be very persuasive.”
He stood a pace distant, elbows propped atop the wall and black-goateed chin resting on his hands, to all appearances staring off into the distance. The black-feathered domino mask was familiar, as was the long-tailed coat. The hat was new. High-crowned and narrow brimmed, it lent imposing height to an already tall figure. And about him… that sensation that what she saw was but a fraction of what was. A presence. A pressure that tempted the mind to flights of bleak imagination.
Rosa glanced at her knuckles. The skin had already healed. “What I want is for you to stay well away from her.”
A dry chuckle matched gravelly tone. “Oh, that’s not going to work. Sooner or later, I’m close to everyone.”
A pair of sentries drew near. A giant kraikon lumbered on their heels, footfalls setting the wall atremble. The flesh-and-blood soldiers offered Rosa a clasped-fist salute as they passed; the foundry-born automaton ignored her. Neither party acknowledged the Raven. No one ever did. He was her burden alone.
“Would you like to continue inside?” The Raven’s tone flirted with solicitude but never wholly committed. “That gown wasn’t made for this.”
In point of fact, the dress was already sodden through, and clung to Rosa like a second skin. But she’d never asked anything of the Raven, and wasn’t about to start. “I’m fine. Don’t you have anything better to do?”
Strange to talk to a god thus, without fear – even without respect – but nothing about their relationship struck Rosa as normal. Raven-worship was the province of scoundrels – vranakin and other desperate souls who’d reason to court the Keeper of the Dead. And yet he constantly sought her out – she, who seldom prayed even to Lumestra.
“Quite possibly,” he replied, still hunched over the wall. “A stream of petitioners, plaintive and shrill. They don’t realise that in matters divine, less is definitely more. You can’t imagine what it’s like to have unwanted admirers chasing after your coat tails. I confess it was flattering to begin with, but that was such a long time ago.”
“Yes, I’ve no experience of that,” she said sourly.
Lips twitched in a wry smile. “Oh, don’t be embarrassed. All the souls you send me, and yet expect nothing in return? That’s flattering. All this other business?” He waved a hand, shooing an imaginary petitioner away across the Ravonn. “Flensing. Torture. Dismemberment. It’s so tedious. I’m the God of the Dead, not the God of Spite and Cruelty. Another wears that crown and he’s very welcome to it, let me tell you.”
“I meant you. Petitioning me.”
“Ah. So that’s how it is.” The Raven drew up to his full, ungainly height. “This really isn’t how it’s supposed to be. You’re to cower pitiably and beg indulgence, not take me to task for imagined slights.”
“Imagined? Whenever I draw a sword, you’re there, watching. Why? Why am I so important?”
“I’ve told you many times. I admire your work.”
“If death alone was all that mattered, a dozen others could satisfy you. A hundred.”
“Who says they don’t? But you’re different.” He tilted his head, lip curling in thought. His affect, usually careless, grew guarded. “I want you to be my queen.”
Rosa felt the laughter build but was powerless to contain it. Her guffaws echoed across the ramparts, incredulous and uncaring that mocking a god seldom ended well.
“This seems to be a night for inappropriate proposals.”
“Ah, but you turned her down, didn’t you?” If the Raven was offended, it lay hidden beneath his mask, along with most of his expression. “Otherwise you’d still be inside, living love’s young dream and not out in the cold with me.”
Rosa wiped rain-mingled tears from her eyes, aware that any onlooker would think her a madwoman. Was the Raven even serious? During their reluctant association, he’d proven himself the master of peculiar humour, and seldom spoke plainly. His words too often framed not the truth, but the boundaries of a road he wished her to walk.
“The Goddess of the Dead?” It sounded no less ridiculous now than before.
He wagged a finger. “Queen of the Dead. There’s certain hierarchy to be—”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Because I’m bored. Otherworld’s dreary and grey. I’ve no one to talk to but the departed – who want nothing except for themselves. There’s certainly no one to dance with. I’d leave it all behind, but someone has to keep the clock ticking. Otherworld must have its Raven. So it’s either a queen, an heir… or both. But I don’t see any need to rush into everything at once.”
He was serious, Rosa realised, or at least determined to spin out the jest. Possibly he meant to rouse her spirits, if in habitually roundabout manner. But that he even cared to do so…
“Moments ago, you offered to speak to Sevaka on my behalf.”
“Oh, I’m not the jealous type.” He shrugged. “Sevaka’s stronger than she appears, but sooner or later, she’ll be gone, the spark of happiness suffocated by endless grief. You and I will remain. Moments are simply moments. Eternity is for ever.”
Stronger than she appears. As was so often the case when the Raven spoke, Rosa glimpsed a truth among the pedantic rambling.
She’d accused Sevaka of lacking the strength to stand up to her tyrannical mother, when in fact she’d done precisely that, saving not only Rosa’s life, but many others besides. More than that, Sevaka Kiradin would never have been called upon to embrace Rosa Psanneque, because Rosa would never have had the courage to disown her own family. Sevaka had spent her whole life being told she was weak, but by her actions made those words a lie. What Rosa had taken for Sevaka’s weakness was but a mirror of her own. Her failure to fight for what was truly important.
She stared at the Raven, vainly seeking a clue to his intent. He seemed genuine – which horrified her in ways she couldn’t adequately express – but then, he always did.
“This is your idea of courtship?” she said. “It may pass for that in divine circles, but ephemerals are different. People are different.”
&n
bsp; He chuckled. “You’re not a person any longer, Rosa. My sister Ashana made sure of that when she snatched you from my grasp. Tampering with the dying never goes how you might want. You’re not ephemeral, but eternal. More than mortal – stronger, certainly – but not quite divine. To be eternal is to be driven by obsession, and haunted by loss.” He went back to staring into the night, pale fingers pattering restlessly on stone. “But still, I take your point. You’ve proved yourself to me many times over, and what have I done in return? Words are nothing without actions. I stand suitably chastened.”
His tone, both contemplative and worryingly cheerful, sent a shiver down Rosa’s spine. “What does that mean?”
“I confess I don’t know.” His eyes flashed. “I’ll think of something.”
Then he was gone, a shadow in the rain, leaving Rosa with no answers, a sense of foreboding… and one other thing besides. A fleeting truth, delivered by divine messenger, and now impossible to ignore. Actions were more important than words.
But words had their place, if chosen well.
Sevaka jerked awake at the knock on her cabin door. Ignoring it, she pinched her eyes shut against the heavy patter of rain against the stern window, and sought sleep.
The knock came again, sharper and more impatient than before.
With a growl, Sevaka rolled blearily from her cot. She padded across the deck, swearing ferociously as her knee banged into the chart table as it always did. Still limping, she pulled a coat on over her nightgown to provide semblance of authority, and eased open the door.
A bedraggled figure stood on the rain-lashed deck, pale and shivering in the light of the masthead lantern. Rosa, and soaked through. The sight awoke sailor’s stories of weeping rusalka spirits who drowned those who’d wronged them in the waters of a black, glimmerless river that flowed between worlds.
“Rosa?” Anger and concern fought for command of Sevaka’s wits. “Who let you aboard?”
“Your watchgirl. Can I come in?”
Alith. She’d have to have words with the lass. That was how they got you, by looking vulnerable and begging for shelter. And not just the rusalki. But what to do now?
“All right, but try not to drip everywhere.”
She withdrew into the cabin, leaving Rosa to follow. “Couldn’t this have waited until morning? Nothing’s changed.”
Rosa set the door closed. “Moments are only moments. They pass, and we’ve already lost so many. And something has changed. Not much, but maybe enough.” She went down on one knee, her skirts a sodden puddle on the deck. Her eyes never left Sevaka’s. “Sevaka Psanneque, you already have my heart. Will you join your family to mine, to share my life and my future?”
“I…” Sevaka swallowed. “Is this real?”
For the first time since the Zephyr had come to Ahrad, Rosa offered an unguarded smile. “As real as you want it to be.”
Seven
Only the most suspicious soul would have guessed Malachi loathed playing host. Coloured lanterns lined Abbeyfields’ long driveway, sparkling stones to guide lost children through the gardens’ dark. Others shone bright beneath the trees, beside ornamental ponds and marble statues, patches of light about which guests gathered in conversation while servants ensured no stomach bore the burden of hunger, and no throat went dry.
The world beyond the carriage window was still strange to Josiri, not least because the character of the Abbeyfields estate had changed so much so swiftly. On his first visit, the gardens had been… not exactly overgrown, but certainly unkempt.
The statues of the glades too were peculiar to him. While a few were the crude, hunched guardian statues born of superstition and said to protect against evil spirits, most were noble statesmen and martial heroes, rendered in clean, classical form. Statue-haunted dells were common enough in the Southshires, but there they were of rougher make – tributes to the divine, raised in places where old magic held sway.
Such images were hardly suitable for gatherings of quality – and oftentimes terrifying into the bargain – but Josiri missed them, all the same. Tressia was a city where the old ways were scrubbed away or hidden deep, where Lumestra held supreme sway. Radiant Lumestra, who had fashioned the world from primal Dark as a haven for ephemeral children. A goddess of infinite patience and compassion, or so it was said.
Josiri had his own reasons for doubting that. After all, how different could mother and daughter be?
[[If it transpires you dragged me from the house at sword-point merely so we could sit and stare at a different house, I shall be greatly displeased.]]
The echoes of their not-quite argument clung to Anastacia’s hollow, sing-song voice. Swords had not been involved, only words. Anastacia was impervious to the former, and unyielding to the latter.
Josiri opened the carriage door, stepped down to the gravel and extended a gloved hand. “My lady has only to command.”
With a soft, musical flutter – the approximation of a sniff from one who no longer had need to breathe – Anastacia took his hand. A flurry of brocade skirts, gold thread glinting among shimmering cream, and she stepped lightly onto the driveway.
[[If only that were so.]]
Her gaze shifted to the front door’s wide flight of stairs, where servants waited in silent attendance. And not just servants. A pair of bronze lions sat motionless at the crest. Foundry simarka – magical constructs cast in mortal metal – and, to Josiri’s certain knowledge, more watchful than they appeared.
Anastacia issued a hollow sigh. [[The things we do for love.]]
Josiri thought he heard more wryness than annoyance in her tone, but even after all their years together, she delighted in being a mystery. The smooth, gold-chased samite porcelain of her face never altered expression, save when interplay of light and shadow lent the branch-like patterns a hint of sardonicism.
The body hidden beneath the dress was the same, gilded and unyielding limbs jointed by thick leather, a doll-like form as proof from sensation as from harm. Life breathed into clay as surely as when Lumestra had created humankind in the Light of First Dawn. Beautiful, certainly, and every bit as unnerving if her gleaming black eyes dwelled too long upon yours. Even clad in the finest cloth and her white hair bound with golden ribbons, Anastacia could never have passed for human. Nor would she have wanted to, for it was no ephemeral soul bound to that body of clay and golden leaf, but that of an angelic serathi – a daughter of Lumestra.
Seldom did a day pass when Josiri went unhumbled by the knowledge that she’d chosen to share his life – which was almost certainly part of the reason she’d elected to do so.
“Who knows,” he said. “You might even enjoy it.”
[[We’ll see.]]
Josiri turned his attention to the driver. “Come along, captain.”
Kurkas made no move to clamber down from the coachman’s bench seat. “Actually, sah, reckoned I’d stay out here and watch over the horses. Been a lot of thefts and—”
“The First Councillor’s estate is as safe as anywhere in the city.”
“As you say, sah,” said Kurkas. “But I can’t, in good conscience, be so remiss in my duties as to take the chance.”
[[If I have to suffer through tonight’s platitudes, Vladama, so do you.]]
Kurkas scowled. “As you say, plant pot.”
He dropped to the driveway, leaving Josiri to once again speculate on why Anastacia – never blessed with overabundant patience – permitted Kurkas to address her so.
A pair of pages hurried forward to lead the carriage away. Kurkas still an unhappy presence somewhere to his rear, Josiri took Anastacia’s arm and made his way up the stairs, towards the strains of music and the burble of conversation. A frock-coated servant met them at the door and guided them smoothly into the grand hall.
Murmured conversation and a quartet’s lilting strings vied for dominance. At the chamber’s centre, a dozen couples whirled a waltz beneath the gilded chandelier that was the sole source of light. All with fashionab
ly pale skin, though no few owed their appearance more to powder than natural complexion. To a certain sort, bloodless skin was a mark of superiority. To Josiri, it spoke more of inbreeding and the most suspect and isolationist of ideologies.
At the chamber’s far end, a low balcony overlooked events. Malachi stood atop it, his back to the room and his head bowed in conversation with a gold-robed priest.
“Lord Josiri Trelan and Lady Anastacia Psanneque.”
Reactions to the steward’s announcement were an education in themselves. Which eyes drifted towards the door. Which stared pointedly away. And the stolen glances that pretended disdain but were really fascination. The southwealder wolf’s-head and his mistress. The traitor and the heretic. Josiri suspected half the folk in the room would have gladly led him to the gallows and Anastacia to the pyre. All the more reason to stand among them in defiance.
Kurkas, of course, didn’t rate announcement.
A servant threaded his way through the crowds, and presented a tray of crystal glasses, brimming with ruby wine. “Refreshment, my lord?”
Josiri glanced at Anastacia, and shook his head. “No, thank you.”
Anastacia glided between them and snagged a glass. [[His lordship would love refreshment. Please see to it that his glass is never empty.]]
The servant nodded and withdrew. Anastacia held out the glass with one hand, and propped the other on her hip.
“Ana…”
[[I appreciate the gesture, Josiri, really I do, but just because I can’t indulge doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.]] She offered a lopsided shrug. [[I promise not to stare.]]
Josiri took a sip, only to break off at Anastacia’s soft, keening whimper. He stared, aghast. The whimper ceased, and she cocked her head – shorthand for a mocking smile her immobile lips could no longer form, just as the rich, dark fruits of the wine were no longer hers to sample. For a creature who’d once revelled in all the pleasures life had seen fit to offer, to be trapped in a body of unfeeling clay was the coldest cut. That Anastacia so often made a joke of it little disguised her sorrow.
