The Queen of Storm and Shadow

by Jenna Rhodes

  She crossed the farmhouse, most of it rebuilt since the fire two years ago, and went to her room. The hole in the deep adobe wall opened at her touch, even though the smoke still seemed to lie curled within, wrapped about the parcel she had hidden there. She drew it out, pushing the oilcloth aside, sneezing lightly at the smoky smell the volume retained. But the book remained intact, as she knew it had, though she rarely drew it out now, with Dayne living so close to her. Someday, Warlord Bistel had asked of her, someday she was to give this to his sons, when she deemed the time had come. She hadn’t planned to for quite a while since she’d first begun to guess at Evar’s abilities. And Merri, though she wasn’t sure how much of Merri’s magic came from her Vaelinar blood and how much from her Dweller stock. Still, she had thought the book had work to do for her own children before she passed it on. That thought had given her a great deal of guilt.

  Nutmeg held the book to her chest. Who stood now for Evar and Merri? A handful of trackers scattered throughout the countryside? Everyone sent out at the beginning had faltered. Only Dayne and her father still combed the wilderness for a trail—even Lara had quit. She could not let them go. They were only children, pawns in a scheme of Vaelinar making that had been centuries in the spinning.

  Now the fate had fallen into her hands and she intended to make the most of it.

  She pulled several pieces of rag-paper from their stock and sat down with a pen. Words needed to be precise and counted, and she knew who would send it out. He would not dare to deny her wishes.

  Tressandre. Meet at the Andredia soonest and I shall state in writing, I will lie, that Jeredon is not the father of my children when you safely return them to me.

  She blotted the small paper carefully and read it over a number of times, her throat tight. Tressandre might decide other than Nutmeg hoped, but she knew full well what she was sending off this day. First, she revealed that both were hers, although if Tressandre had them, she would know from looking upon Evarton. Nutmeg had already given her something for nothing in this negotiation but hoped for a gain in return.

  A lifeline for her two children.

  She took the second piece of rag-paper and began to copy laboriously a chosen page of Bistel’s journal. His careful writing blurred once or twice, and she bent low over it to ensure that she made no errors. When she had Tressandre at hand, and her children nearby, she would do what she had to do.

  That page she sanded carefully before blotting, and put her book back into its precious hiding place. She knew little of Vaelinar magic, but this she knew. This Bistel had gifted to her in his last breaths.

  At day’s end, she returned to the bird master and he, pale of face and with a shaking hand, rolled up her message and sent it off. At the shop, her mother put her hand on her cheek and gave her a kiss to her forehead, without a word, not even one of comfort, for neither of them could think of anything to say to each other anymore. She arranged for hires to begin picking, as the nights had begun to hold the barest of chills which meant rain not far away, and the grapes needed to be in. Apples, brought in by wagon and cart, crate and barrel, would come later and could wait. She packed a spare pack, with only a second pair of shoes, a cloak, and a set of clothes for change, preparing for the days before she’d reach journey’s end. The page she stowed next to her skin, inside her blouse and corset. She penned a quick note to her father to be read later, with as much explanation as she could bear, took one of Hosmer’s city guard horses from the farmhouse stalls, and rode out.

  Tolby rode into the yard of his home late, with the slanting sun throwing heavy shadows between the farmhouse and the cider barn. He’d bypassed the main gates of the city and taken lesser traveled alleyways and dirt roads to reach his quarter of Calcort, not wanting to deal with any who might accost him. His horse blew a loud sigh as he dismounted and led it off toward the stable. No one ran out to greet him, swinging doors slapping the door frame behind as they did. No one shouted a welcome to fracture the emptiness. He paused, assessing the area. Lily would be at her shop, no doubt, and he supposed Nutmeg with her. Hosmer would be on shift with his Guard and Keldan down at the stable yard where he worked and trained. He cared for his mount quickly and left it with a pat on the neck promising more attention later. The animal rolled an eye at him before shoving its muzzle deep into a rack of hay.

  He should go and find Lily and tell her of the grievous news he carried, but he had no heart for it, knowing it would break hers to learn of Garner. He had another urgent task in mind which he vowed to accomplish before circumstances could sidetrack him. He threw open the great doors to the cider barn and entered, to find himself surrounded by the aroma of fresh-picked apples and of the mash left behind from the first crushes at the presses. Tolby stopped in his tracks, emotions torn. Someone had taken up his work. He found that both reassuring and disturbing that the world carried on without him, as he knew it must someday, just as they must carry on without Garner. He realized that the vineyard harvest would have been handled as well, with grapes waiting in the vats barn, perhaps even with the first barrels already filled there. He had trained his family for this over the years, the orchards, the vineyards, the harvest, the disposition of the crop, the fermenting, all of it. He had never foreseen the day when he would not be around to partake of it. That future now announced itself to him, not to be ignored. Tolby Farbranch had defied Time and knew that it would be catching up to him. He closed a hand.

  “I’m still standing,” he told the empty air. “And my family has done well by me.” He shook himself, like an old dog upon rising from a sleep, and crossed the cider barn to find what he’d come for.

  He found the small stack of aryn cuttings in a shadowed corner where Dayne had likely stored them. Most of the wood was not only dried but peeled, ready to become lumber and whatever else had been planned of it, scrap pieces for all of that, too precious to waste. He sank to his knees and dug through, piece by piece, with an ever-sinking heart. Then, his fingers seized upon that which he’d almost given up on finding: a limber branch of green wood, unpeeled, life still within it. This was not kindling. Prize in hand, Tolby rose up from his knees. He grabbed a small shovel leaning up by the door and returned outside. He paced the courtyard of his home first, and then turned to the well of sweet water that Rivergrace herself had cleansed, years and years ago, when they’d first come to this new home. He threw his head back and calculated the rooftops, the shadowing buildings encroaching upon the courtyard, and where the sun would and would not reach. And then, and only then, he paced off a small area and began to dig.

  When he deemed the hole deep enough, he took up the pail from the well and drew up its waters, tying and untying the rope from the bail so he could lug it back and forth, filling the hole with water. As he stood over it, praying silently for the soul of his wayward son, drops fell into the dampness as if raindrops falling, and it took a moment for him to realize he had begun crying. He did not wipe his face, for it was no shame to cry for Garner and what the Farbranches had lost with his passing. Then he lowered the aryn cutting into the hole and, with his hands scooping the soft soil, filled it in and tamped it down. With each handful of dirt, Tolby recited a moment that they’d cherished with Garner, bits unimportant and important in his years with them, and when he finished, he crouched over the aryn, frowning a bit. He scooped up a last handful of dirt, murmuring over it, “And our wishes for the souls of those yet to depart, but who most certainly will, in these uncertain days. That those who are lost and may return to us or may not, that they may know they are loved and remembered. That those who have wronged us will know the balance that comes from living life itself, and that those who loved us will feel the joy of life in its fullest.” Tolby let his handful of dirt trickle down upon the aryn to the last speck and then brushed his fingers clean.

  He straightened his trousers and vest, hands patting his pocket until he found his pipe and pouch and striker. When his pipe began to
fill the air with its soft, aromatic clouds, he turned to set off toward Lily’s shop. He did not have far to go because he spotted her running down the lane toward him, alone, and he stopped to wait for her, his pulse quickening.

  “Did you pass her? Did you see her on the road?”

  “Who? What are you talking about, Lily?”

  She threw her arms about his neck, holding tightly, breathless, her own heart beating wildly enough against his chest to make him afraid. When she pulled back, she answered the question hanging between them. “Nutmeg is gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “Left. You missed her by three days.”

  He swallowed tightly. “After the children?”

  “Of course. Weeks without word, she grew impatient. We heard nothing from you and little from Lariel and Bistane, and no one had seen the children pass by. She hatched a scheme of her own, I imagine; you know our daughter. She left word only that she headed to Larandaril. I’ve heard nothing since although I would think she has Lariel or Bistane woven into her scheme somewhere.” Lily managed a wavering smile. She noted the tears that had tracked down the side of his face and wiped them away with the ball of her thumb. “But here you are home, and early, and without Verdayne. What’s happened?”

  He tightened his hand on her waist, pulled the small bundle of Garner’s effects from his pocket, took her hand in his, and opened it up gently before placing the bundle into it. Lines deepening about her eyes and mouth, she let go of him and opened it, recognizing the amulet almost immediately, and noting the bloodstained cloth that wrapped it. She buckled. “Dark Gods.”

  He caught her, holding her up, and could feel the emotion well up from deep inside her until she began to weep: great, gasping sobs. Tears didn’t come easily to Lily. She came from family like his, which knew back-breaking work was needed to succeed, sometimes just to stay even. She had not sobbed when illness took one of their babes and miscarriage the last. She had not cried when Tressandre took Evarton and Merri, holding back sorrow in favor of hope. But this, the evidence of Garner’s death, brought the grief up like a fountain and spilling over as though she had reached her breaking point. He held her until her breathing steadied.

  “When?”

  “A few weeks ago.”

  She looked up. She’d been holding the scrap of fabric to her face and her tears had dampened the blood, wetting it and leaving a pink stain on one cheek. “How? How could he have been nearby and not sent word? Not come to see us?”

  “He probably thought he would come to see us after this job. I cannot tell you, Lily, for his mind was never easy for me to know. All I know is that he was a guard on a caravan that was ambushed. He accounted himself well, but no one survived.”

  “No one?”

  He shook his head.

  “Who knew him, then, to bring this to you?”

  “Rufus came across the wreckage.”

  “Ah.” She took a tremulous breath and lowered her face again, and then looked past him. “An aryn. You planted an aryn, here of all places. How can it grow?”

  “If there is any justice in this world, it will grow in his memory.”

  A smile tightened across her pale face. “If anyone could make it grow, you can.” She sighed. “Is this what we’ve come to? People so weak that all we can do for our children is to plant a memorial for them?”

  He growled low in his throat which made her bring up a short laugh.

  “I should have known better than to ask. Where are you off to, then?”

  “Larandaril, after Nutmeg, to find out what wild scheme she has cooked up. We should have known about the ideas that would roll about in her head—she was always so stubborn she would float upstream if she fell into the river.” He pulled his wife back toward him with a solid and unrelenting hug, so that she would know how much he missed her and how much he hated the idea of leaving her again. Her arms tightened around him in a soundless answer of the same feeling. He did not find the small missive Nutmeg had left for him.

  Chapter

  Forty-Nine

  “OUR SPIES REPORT that Tressandre ild Fallyn has left her Hold and is riding south as though her saddle is on fire.” Bistane let the small scroll of paper snap back into its rolled-up shape as he handed it to Lariel.

  The corner of her mouth twitched at his dry words and she took the missive. “Good. I don’t know what brings her this way, but we’ll waylay her original plans as best we can.” She traded a long look with him. “It’s time, isn’t it?”

  “If you’re ready, then yes, it’s time.”

  “Then I have something I must do first.” Lara paused. “You can’t come with me, and I’m likely to take most of the day.”

  “But you’ll be all right.”

  “I might . . . return with a little less of me.”

  “You’re going to the Andredia.”

  She gave a nearly imperceptible nod.

  The curve of his mouth thinned into a tight and pale line before he said, “I wish you hadn’t picked a God which demanded blood sacrifices.”

  “We don’t know that there isn’t a God on Kerith which does not demand a sacrifice.”

  “We don’t need Kerith Gods.”

  “Because many of us think we are Gods ourselves?” She touched her hand to the back of his. “We both know that’s not true. And, if there is anything good about this journey, I don’t intend to travel to the font. Just to the banks of the river, nearby, to do what I have to do.”

  “And come home to me.”

  “Yes. As often as I can, I intend to come home to you.” She replaced the brief caress of one hand to another with her lips brushing across his warm mouth, then turned away before he could respond and she melt into it, dissolving her resolve to leave.

  She had a gelding saddled; a tall, leggy tashya with a bright chestnut coat and flaxen mane and tail who’d greeted her at the fence with an eager snuffle, telling her he wanted to go for a run that day. His swinging stride took them quickly to where she guided him. She did not go to the Andredia flowing by the horse pastures and the manor house, where she had a bench set near a small cove where the water eddied with an almost languid movement during the summer months, but headed to the west, to where the Eye rested in the sky and the fields had burned with funeral pyres she’d been told were as tall as a barn. She thought she ought to remember the beginnings of those fires as she remembered the end of the battle, but she did not. She’d shut them out of her mind: the piles of horse flesh, mortal flesh and even of the vantanes, the war dog corpses, heaped high. She did remember the blood on the water, the bodies floating, the gear and equipment of battle bobbing up and down on the current, being carried away in a rush to the ocean to the far west, save that the rocky bed of the Andredia running through the Larandaril Valley seldom gave away its treasures. She knew without being told that the riches of gear and clothing had been eagerly plucked from wherever they surfaced to be repaired and sold, or in some cases, given back to Lara’s forces for a reward. The bounties of war could be many.

  She put the chestnut gelding out on a long lead so he could graze a bit and drink when he was thirsty, hiking to the grove which separated this stretch of the river from the encampment farther on. Encampment. Lara scoffed at her inner voice for that title. It was a squat, full of illegal inhabitants, ones she’d chased off beyond and who’d come creeping back when they thought her back turned or those who had come to join the movement based on stirring talks given in Hawthorne or were sent directly by the ild Fallyn themselves. Discontent with a direct inheritance of her domain, they seized it bit by bit, crumb by crumb, having failed by assassination and scheming to take it more directly.

  A low-hanging branch of an evergreen snagged at the knees of her riding leathers as she passed it by. She grabbed at the fragrant needles, crushing them in her hand. After a two-years’-long drought, the forest had come back,
green and springy, lush and promising. Lara let the bruised needles rain to the forest floor from her hand. The sound of the river sang through her blood and drew her close. Lara lowered herself onto the grassy bank, taking off her boots and letting her feet dangle in the water that held the first chill of Fall in its coldness and in the boldness that drove its current. She spoke to it as she sat there, words barely audible, not a prayer and yet not a conversation. She told it of her apology for the discord she’d allowed into the valley, and for the lives and blood that it had carried, and of the hope she held for a better tomorrow. Of fertility and promise for all that the Andredia touched and prospered. Then, slightly hoarse, she merely sat and listened to the river as it sang back. It wove a melody that sank deep into her heart, and mingled there with songs from the past—its and hers—and filled her.

  She would have to put the wards at her boundaries back up. The magic coursed through her, returned to her, as verdant promise had returned to the grove. It would keep out all enemies and allow only those she let through, unless trickery prevailed. Quendius had invaded her kingdom once, using the head of her seneschal, Tiiva, dismissed but not removed from the list of those allowed. She would have to make amends and allowances this time, but she did not want the boundary to go up until she had the Returnists dismissed from the land. If she restored her wards now, the squatters would be recognized as allowed. That she could not brook. She ran a foot through the still waters, watching a leaf as it fell and then got caught on an eddy she’d created, swirling around and around in circles.

  She’d always loved the Andredia, even after her grandfather had brought her down to the grassy bank and defiled her there, pleased that her virginal blood had stained the grasses and then washed off in the warm river waters, for Lara had been just a child and he’d been incredibly rough and tearing with her. That was her first sacrifice of blood and flesh to the sacred river. She’d never told Bistane of that event, the man who was both her grandfather and father and then defiler lay beyond whatever vengeance she might take. The last forfeit had taken her finger. She had no idea what the next might ask of her, knowing that one day the river might demand her life. As long as it was her life and hers alone, she would agree. She knew an event awaited her and could only pray that she would live to meet that destiny.