by James Stone
‘I confess,’ the traitor croaked again.
‘Nurcia Vyce, you stand accused of allowing the thermal tunnels beneath the city to be held open for the Mansel to enter. Do you confess?’
‘I confess.’
‘Nurcia Vyce, you stand accused of provoking the military display headed for the Mansel stronghold, thus leaving the city vulnerable. Do you confess?’
‘I confess,’ she said and curled into a ball again.
There was silence for a moment.
‘Thank you, Miss Vyce,’ the arch-confessor finished. ‘Upon your confession, we have found you guilty of treason and—’
‘No,’ Magmaya heard herself cut in. ‘There’s one more.’
‘Yes, my chancellor?’ he asked, and she turned to him, whispering. After a moment, he began again, ‘Nurcia Vyce.’ He said, ‘You stand accused of the mutilation of Rache Vorr. Do you confess?’
She was silent.
‘Nurcia Vyce,’ he repeated. ‘You stand—’
‘I heard you,’ she spat, and Magmaya’s heart sank.
‘And are you to confess?’ the arch-confessor asked.
Nurcia’s ears pricked up. And then she shook her head.
‘No,’ Magmaya called to the air and then to the interrogators. ‘No, she did it—make her!’
The pair took a step forward and began waving their scented batons about the cell, spreading their incense, and driving their barbs into Nurcia’s cuts, but all she did was frown.
Magmaya’s heart was racing—she had done it! Nothing made sense otherwise. All these years she had blamed herself for Rache—she could plead innocent to any other crime, just not that one.
‘My chancellor,’ the interrogator turned to Magmaya. ‘It matters not of this last confession. She has already been found guilty enough to incriminate herself in the eyes of the nameless gods.’
‘I don’t care,’ she spat back. ‘Do anything you can, I need to hear it. I need her to say it.’ Her mind was racing. I confess, I confess, I confess—the words rang through Magmaya’s ears, but Nurcia did anything but open her mouth.
Eight
Siedous wasn’t much help when she returned to the boardroom. It was darker than usual as the sun set across the Sultide and then the seas beyond, though it bathed the room in a sickly orange glow. But Magmaya couldn’t help staring at the red stains on the carpets.
‘Apologies, my chancellor,’ the old knight said, ‘but if I may, you smell of… piss.’
She might have once laughed at that. Now all she could mutter was, ‘At least I’m not drinking it.’
The pair were alone again, as it felt they always were. Rallun only appeared when he needed something, and Magmaya was having a hard time to find any suitable advisors after the last few had mysteriously left. After all the deaths of the siege, a thousand opportunities for work had opened across Orianne, but no one seemed to enjoy the business of high lords.
‘And?’ he asked at last.
‘She confessed.’
‘It’s settled then.’
‘She confessed to everything but maiming Rache. So, it’s not settled, no.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ Siedous sighed.
Magmaya stayed quiet. There was nothing much else to say.
‘We decided that if she confessed, we were to ransom her off,’ he broke the silence, ‘in exchange for the prisoners the fleeing Mansel took.’
‘We?’ Magmaya spat. ‘I can hardly believe what I’m hearing.’
‘Rallun, I and the committee.’
‘Of course. A committee.’ She laughed.
‘That’s not the point.’
‘No. The point is she can’t get away with this so easily, Siedous.’ Her heart burned. ‘I forbid it.’
‘Four of our men,’ he persisted. ‘No, four of your men. It is your duty as chancellor to see they come home safely.’
‘She killed my brother!’ Magmaya shouted. ‘She killed Kaladeous. She was behind Kharon’s and Shalleous’ deaths too! My father would have never let this happen.’
‘You’re better than he was,’ he said. ‘And you will do better than he did.’
‘Perhaps I shouldn’t,’ she shot back. ‘Perhaps when someone hurts you, you might just have to hurt them back. Perhaps I should do what I know to be best, rather than what a committee tells me.’
‘Magmaya, as your friend, I’m telling you that it’s your choice to make,’ Siedous admitted. ‘But as your advisor, executing her or having her tortured, or whatever you have planned, is the wrong one.’
‘It’s not fair,’ Magmaya tugged at her hair. ‘She has to die.’
‘No, it’s not fair,’ he stammered. ‘But that is the way of the world. We need our people back.’
‘Ransom the other prisoners for them,’ she sulked. ‘You’ll see, Siedous, I’ll get that damned confession out of her. I’m finished arguing with you.’
‘This isn’t an argument, my chancellor,’ he began. ‘You know those other prisoners aren’t worth much. I understand how you feel—’
‘Do you?’ she spat. ‘Tell that to Kaladeous. How many times did she stab him?’
He was silent.
‘I will get that confession,’ Magmaya swore. ‘I’m going to see her again on the morrow. I’ll force it out of her if I have to.’
‘Be careful, my chancellor.’
‘I don’t need to be careful.’ She skulked away. ‘I need to be dangerous.’
She would see Nurcia again tomorrow, yes, but she had already decided she was having a walk about the village first. She awoke with the rising of the sun, got changed and headed out into the city.
Her footsteps carried her through snowy alleys and bony streets in search of something she didn’t want. Ice sparkled lightly under her feet, and by the time she made it to the markets, it had melted to puddles, and the blizzard had turned to rain.
As the crowds begun to muster, Magmaya hid her face behind her leathers. That was until she found the same shadowed-eyed man from a few days before, collecting some bronze piece from a nearby vendor. The chancellor stopped at the stall next to him and peered through the screaming crowds that bartered between them. She tossed a pair of her own coins on the countertop, and a hot drink was thrust into her hand. When she looked up, though, the shadowed-eyed man had gone.
Magmaya downed the drink as she ran through the alleyways that made the morning glow and under crumbling bridges and arches devoid of the streams that once had crashed and raged below. Even though she hadn’t been able to study his face for long, something about the man was alluring, like she’d seen him in a dream.
And as she ran, she saw the alley where she had left Nurcia. It felt empty now; the lack of the turncoat’s body was a strange sight as if the street had only existed to see her fall. She made note to defile the place, to burn it down after she was dealt with. Would all of Orianne feel like this now? Would each street and every room bring back a memory she couldn’t dare face?
Perhaps the shadowy man had disappeared into an aether or perhaps he had never existed at all, for a moment later, he was nowhere to be seen. Magmaya was beginning to doubt herself; it felt like every step she took was washed away like sand on a beach.
She turned a corner to what felt like a hundred-thousand people watching her. ‘Magmaya,’ they whispered in a foul tongue. ‘The chancellor of Orianne.’ ‘She killed her father.’ ‘She slew the chancellor.’
‘Leave me alone,’ Magmaya whispered under her breath, feeling it burn. ‘Leave me alone!’
She waded through an endless crowd and trampled a thousand wooden stalls, feeling herself break and squirm as her muscles sprang to life again. She had bled enough from her own womb to feed all of the city, but she feared soon there would be little left to give until her dishevelled wings were all red. She had to leave.
Stares seem to follow her every move like they were tracing her body beneath her robes. Silvery ha
ir ran lank before her eyes and gleamed in the morning light. This dominion was hers to rule over as she saw fit. The people that gazed at her were at her every command, and that included the shadowed-eyed man as well. What she controlled was not to fear, surely?
But when she looked into the eyes of her people, she felt their skin against her skin. She saw in their eyes that they too had suffered the wrath of Vargul Tul; they too had lost loved ones to his onslaught. All of a sudden, the leather that warmed her was constricting around her throat.
She broke away from the crowd and disappeared down an alleyway; there at least no man but the Silver Mountainside could judge her from above.
As she held the wall to steady herself, her fingertips met wet stone, and dampness washed through her. Magmaya brushed her hair out of her eyes and felt herself slip into the embrace of the dark. But instead of the cold, snowy ground to break her fall, there was the hardy grip of a man.
Magmaya squealed as if she were a babe and pulled herself away, ruffling her hair to disguise herself again. Her heart pounded, and the alleyway began to close in on her, tightening around her breasts. She still felt the presence of someone or something behind her, watching over her with scorn—or was it endearing? She couldn’t tell which.
‘My chancellor,’ a voice sounded, and she turned.
The shadowed-eyed man was perhaps a head taller than she’d remembered. He had deep, grey eyes and dark, lank hair that covered his face like pitch. ‘Look to the horizons,’ he spoke quickly, with a gracefulness about him. ‘Watch the stars shine and blink. Watch one move.’
‘Why are you following me?’ She ignored him.
‘You followed me.’ The man scowled. ‘A star moves. We are dying.’
‘What star?’ Magmaya spat. ‘Who is dying?’
‘A pale star, a blue star, a black star. They’re all the same.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Young child.’ He smiled deeply. ‘Kind child, I have heard your prayers.’
The shadowed-eyed man took off down an alleyway, but Magmaya felt no inclination to follow. She watched him rush along the cobblestone until he bled into the crowd.
A moment after, it was over—like the whole affair had never happened.
He’d clearly been a naysayer or a lunatic. But every naysayer she’d met before had made themselves very clear; she hadn’t an inkling of what he wanted.
She found herself back to the palace as if only seconds had passed and yet, as soon as she did, time began to slip through her fingers again. The evenings passed into nights as if they were footsteps behind her. Rallun was at her side as always, dismissing people so she didn’t have to and filling the pockets of the rich. But whether she could call it a blessing or a curse, there was no sign of the shadowed-eyed man again.
And when the clocks struck noon one day, Magmaya trembled and made her way back to the dungeons.
She instructed her guards to stay outside the cell before she stepped through into the shrill light. Nurcia was still huddled in the corner as if she hadn’t moved an inch. There were two scraps of bread beside her, uneaten, save for when a lone rat scampered out of a far-off hole and retrieved a crumb or two.
Her skin had grown muddier by the day, and the dirt and stained blood had become a black smear beneath her skin; her hair strung down her back, thick with grease and dandruff. She looked up to Magmaya, her eyes stuck together with sweat, only to crawl back into a ball a moment later.
‘Can you see me?’ Magmaya asked, her voice echoing throughout the cell.
Nurcia shook her head, her cough dry like a witch’s laugh, and said, ‘I’m afraid not, my chancellor.’
Magmaya nodded to herself, and yet, she felt a twinge of embarrassment. She had once been so radiant; was this truly how she wanted her to suffer?
Still, she needed Nurcia to be able to see her, and be in the right mind to confess—she couldn’t be dying of an infection either. That would make things far too easy. She turned to the guards outside and said, ‘Get her clean. Shave her and wash her down.’
About an hour passed before Nurcia returned; her skin was still stained with dirt, but she was unmistakably a different girl. Her eyes had been flushed open (save for where the scars ran across her face), and her back no longer twitched and arched where she’d been filled with arrows. Magmaya watched her stumble back into the cell, bound in chains, and settle into her pool of dirt where she hugged herself again.
The chancellor took a seat on one of the benches, feeling the damp crawl up her back, and looked down to her, frowning.
‘That’s better,’ she crooned, but Nurcia was silent, and so she sighed. ‘I can’t start or even pretend to understand how you did what you did.’
‘You don’t have to,’ Nurcia said. ‘I—’
‘Though I do think it starts with he said he wanted to fuck me,’ Magmaya interrupted.
Nurcia shrugged and said, ‘I told you what I told you. I never lied about having to shoo your uncle out of my chambers that night. Whatever you made of that was the fruit of your own labour.’
Magmaya scowled. It was that distraction that had caused her to abandon Shalleous in the Sultide; it was that distraction that had killed him.
‘Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter now,’ she said. ‘Shalleous is dead. But so is Vargul Tul.’
‘No,’ Nurcia replied. ‘For as long as I am alive, our conquest lives on. You didn’t know him. You didn’t know what we had planned for this world.’
‘I did know him,’ Magmaya shot back. ‘I killed him.’
She shook her head. ‘They keep saying that. They keep taunting me. But you couldn’t have. I saw how bloodied you were. You were in no state to kill a god.’
‘He was an arrogant god.’
‘You took his head off.’ She laughed a hysterical laugh. ‘That’s what they said.’
‘Then at least you know the truth of what happened to your love.’
‘Oh,’ Nurcia remarked. ‘That’s what this is about. I should have known.’
‘Just confess.’ Magmaya sighed. The day had drained all her will from her.
‘I can’t remember everything.’ She held her head. ‘Perhaps if you fetch me some Silk Tea I might be able to think clearer.’
‘Do you want Dew of the Honey in it?’ Magmaya spat.
Nurcia stayed quiet.
‘I’m glad you can understand one thing, then.’
‘My chancellor,’ Nurcia said and sprung up. ‘What if I sit here? What if I never answer any of your questions? What if I never move a muscle? Would you cry again?’
‘I would make your life hell,’ she said, and her words burned her lips. ‘You wouldn’t even have to die.’
Nurcia shook her head and said softly, ‘No, that’s not true. There are only two ways this can go. Kill me, and you’ll have to get on with it soon enough.’ She cocked her head. ‘Trade me away, and you can’t touch me. The Mansel won’t want a beaten woman—look what you’ve already done to my face! The masters will not be pleased. How long do you intend to prolong this conflict?’
Magmaya was silent.
‘You act like I don’t know this, my chancellor. But I was the north, I ran the north—I cared for this city with more of a tender touch than your father ever did. Excuse me for killing my own creation, but when something breaks, you must toss it away.’
‘Is that why you wanted us all dead?’
‘Vargul wanted you all dead because he knew you would stand in his way. Had you let us take the city peacefully, we would have. Gods! The Tyla are the only victors in all of this—look at them, taking Orianne faster than the Mansel could’ve ever dreamt of doing.’
‘We’re not here to talk about them.’
‘No?’
‘No,’ Magmaya started. ‘I’m here to figure out what I’m going to do with you.’
‘You’re not going to execute me, though, are you?’ Nurcia asked. ‘You did that before, Ma
gmaya. I was there, and believe me, I cleared up quite the scandal on your behalf. You can’t do that to all of us, though. I’m sure there will be many more to come.’
‘Us?’
‘Anyone who breaks you,’ Nurcia scorned. ‘How do you think Kharon felt? He had ten enemies for each star in the sky. Could he execute them all? Could he torture the truth from every last one?’
‘He tried.’ Magmaya grit her teeth.
‘And look where that got him.’ She made a sour face and crossed her heart. ‘So, what is it? Have you made your decision?’ She made a sort of giggle. ‘Are you going to kill me?’
‘I was there when you attacked Rache.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ She seemed frustrated. ‘Can you stop with this nonsense?’
‘I was sleeping in with him when he woke with broken legs,’ Magmaya spat. ‘Half the city accused me.’
‘I remember.’
‘I thought I smelled some hideous perfume when I awoke,’ Magmaya remarked.
‘I wasn’t aware you wore any.’
‘Don’t do this,’ she cried. ‘For the love of the gods, confess.’
‘I confessed a few times, I seem to recall.’
‘Not to what mattered.’
‘Did your false brother not matter?’ Nurcia asked. ‘Or Kaladeous? Would you prefer me to withdraw my confessions? I can always say I was a little dizzy—or perhaps you were… Besides, the girl who accuses me does have quite the tendency to drink while she’s under pressure…’
‘Enough!’ Magmaya leapt up and drove her shoe into Nurcia’s back. Her toes stung, but a rush of serenity rose through her, and she realised perhaps all she needed to do was hurt her.
But the turncoat just screamed in ecstasy, purring, ‘Kick me! You can’t trade a girl with broken ribs, no, no, no—not one beaten in the dungeons.’ She crawled like a spider into a corner, limbs flailing. ‘The price on my head is worth more than you’ll ever be to this city.’ She paused, smiling. ‘Do it again, I urge you.’
So Magmaya did. And Nurcia laughed.
The guards called for her, threw the door open and tore Magmaya away. Nurcia laughed even harder then.
