The Shattering of the Spirit-Sword Brackish 1

by Sam Farren

  “Keeping out of trouble, Svir?” she asked, taking the horse’s reins.

  “Never,” Svir said, kissing the horse between his eyes. “Take care of him, won’t you? I’ll be back in a few days, I’m certain.”

  The woman nodded, leading the horse into the fields and closing the gate behind her.

  “Wait!” Castelle called. “Wait, please, I need help, I—”

  Svir shoved Castelle’s shoulder, marching her along.

  “It’s no good, sweetheart. I have many, many friends, on Caelfal and elsewhere. More than any Greyser. Don’t waste your breath.”

  Castelle didn’t bother blinking the tears out of her eyes. She let Svir guide her to Torshval, determined not to say anything, to feel anything, until the press of a crowd surrounded her.

  Even then, who was to say anyone would help her? How little the world cared about one person, how eager people were to overlook her in favour of gold or old loyalties. As a Princess, people had only cared for her title. Now that she was no longer one, she meant nothing to Fenroe, to those upon it.

  She should’ve gone straight to Yarrin, straight to Layla. She’d care about her. She had, once upon a time. She’d take her in her arms, if nothing else. She’d give her the pity she was searching for.

  Torshval wasn’t far. A mile, at most. The land grew choppy, south of it, all rocks and brief interludes of hills, avoided by travellers, for the most part. Svir took the uneven terrain in her stride, roads closing in around them, still too far off to hear Castelle’s voice.

  “I was surprised when I heard Eos had taken you along,” Svir said, hand between Castelle’s shoulder blades. “You are a royal, after all. Or pretending to be one, that is.”

  “Why would that surprise you?” Castelle asked.

  “It ought to be clear what royals represent to people like Eos and me. We have fought to live our lives free of tyranny and have been shaped by it. No matter what nonsense Reed fills your head with or what Eos might suggest, Eos and I are one and the same. We are kin, we are family, born of the same dirt-womb. Honestly, I am doing her a favour. Doing what she, strangely, no longer can.

  “After all, you wouldn’t be the first royal Eos has killed.”

  Castelle stopped dead.

  Svir concluded her point with a shrug and took another step forward.

  “What does that mean?” Castelle demanded.

  “Oh, it means what it means.”

  “Eos—Eos wasn’t here, when, when…”

  “Eos wasn’t here fourteen years ago, no,” Svir agreed, tugging Castelle’s wrists. “But the Greysers aren’t – weren’t – the only royals on this planet of ours.”

  Castelle’s heartbeat replaced itself between her temples. Her head pounded, demanding answers, but Svir did nothing but tug her on.

  Castelle’s foot caught on a rock. She stumbled, but Svir caught her, sighing.

  “It isn’t a big deal, sweetheart. Or it isn’t a secret, at any rate. All I mean to say is that Eos—”

  Svir’s words covered the sudden, sharp whistling of the wind, and a wet thwuck stopped her midsentence.

  She held Castelle’s gaze, dark eyes wide, and tilted her head to the side.

  They both looked down at the same moment, both turned white as ocean foam.

  “Oh, goodness,” Svir said, staring at the arrow lodged in her shoulder. “This is embarrassing.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Svir gripped her shoulder around the arrow, brow furrowed as though solving an equation.

  “Excuse me a moment,” Svir said, taking a wide step back and leaning against a tree.

  She dropped her hand and let out a heavy breath, wiping her forehead with the back of her wrist.

  The man on horseback had abandoned his horse. He darted towards them, crouched low, bow in hand. Castelle had never seen him before; he wasn’t one of her fathers’ go-to men, one of the Captain’s favoured guards. He was nondescript, in the face of the weapons he wielded and the sword hanging from his hip, the bear crest pinning the collar of his cloak together.

  “Princess Castelle,” he said with a quick, shallow bow, arrow trained on Svir’s chest.

  “There’s no sport in it if you hit me from this close,” Svir said, elbowing the tree to stand straight. “At least draw your sword.”

  The man did his utmost not to glance down at his blade and reconsider his approach.

  “Princess,” he continued, talking to Castelle without taking his eyes off Svir. “Lords Damir and Ira have sent me to bring you home. I have searched for months. We heard reports you’d been seen with a Yrician, and here you are, passed over to another one.”

  “Yes, yes, we Yricians are all the same,” Svir said. “Always kidnapping Princesses and marching them across the archipelago.”

  The bow groaned as the man pulled the arrow back another inch. If he relaxed his fingers for a second, Svir wouldn’t be so lucky as to be struck in the shoulder.

  There was the rescue Castelle had been desperate for, when she’d first been dragged through the forest and the unfamiliar dregs of Laister.

  She inched towards Svir.

  It was the only way to make the man lower his bow.

  He’d been charged with bringing her home alive.

  “My fathers sent you?” Castelle asked.

  “They did, Princess. Please, step aside. The Lords will want me to take this one into custody.”

  “You mean the Lords will pay you better if you return with someone to behead,” Svir said. Her words were sharp, but sweat rolled down her forehead, skin greying by the second. “Besides, what proof does our dear Princess have that you are working for her fathers? After all, there is quite a considerable prize on her head, and appealing to her unavoidable urge to be rescued will make her third abduction considerably easier.”

  The man’s eyes shot to Castelle, mid-way through gawking, and she raised her shoulders in a shrug. Castelle had reached the point in her life where she owed it to herself to question everything she was told. She had no reason to believe anything the man said, and his words, lies or otherwise, had been crafted for a Castelle who’d been left behind in the temple.

  “You can’t possibly agree with her,” the man scoffed. “She abducted you. Your wrists are bound, Princess.”

  “I’ve been abducted twice. I’d rather not go through it a third time,” Castelle said.

  Svir caught her eye.

  It was the right thing to do, even if it meant helping Svir by urging the man to lower his weapon. Svir had abducted her, was going to sell her, but had one thing over the man: she wasn’t going to return Castelle to her fathers.

  Svir was injured. The man wasn’t. If they could get rid of him together, it wouldn’t be difficult to escape Svir’s clutches. The arrow was three inches deep in Svir’s shoulder. She wouldn’t be rushing anywhere soon.

  “Don’t move,” the man warned Svir, lowering his bow and arrow.

  He swapped them for his sword, and with it trained on Svir’s throat, slowly reached under his cloak.

  He held out a letter, bear embossed into the wax seal on the back. On the other side, CASTELLE was penned in a too familiar hand.

  Some part of Castelle had been convinced the man was lying, or acting on behalf of her fathers without any direct orders. In her mind, they were an obstacle of her past, condemned to the forest for all time, as she’d been. Yet they’d sent this man and countless others after her.

  They’d written a letter.

  In spite of everything, in spite of all Castelle had learnt, they’d reached out to her. There’d be apologies within. Explanations. Lies. She’d seen so much of a land she’d considered hers, immutable in her absence, and they still believed they had the power to banish that with a few sides of parchment.

  For the first time, something terrible occurred to her. They could leave the forest, and may well have. They’d never been kept prisoner there.

  “This will explain everything, Princess,” the ma
n said, gesturing for her to take the letter.

  Castelle reached out, hand forbidden from shaking, and metal clashed against itself.

  Half a heartbeat. That’s all it took for Svir to draw her dagger, knock the man’s sword out of his hand, and lunge forward, blade forced beneath his ribs.

  He gasped, gurgled. It lasted a second, only a second, but it was too long. It stretched on forever, spreading across the dining room floor. Svir pressed her face close to his, searching his expression as his eyes flashed, lips parting one final time. She adjusted the angle of her blade.

  The man tensed, then fell slack, crumpled on the floor.

  Leaning over, Svir freed her dagger with a wet gasp. She snatched the letter from the man’s rigid hand and tucked it inside her shirt, wiping her dagger on the man’s cloak.

  She stood straight, blinking away all that’d happened.

  It had happened before, was happening again.

  It’d never stopped.

  “You… You killed him,” Castelle mouthed.

  “Yes,” Svir agreed. “It was remarkably easy.”

  She swayed on the spot, gripping Castelle’s shoulders.

  “And now you need to help me,” Svir said.

  “I—I need to help you?”

  She couldn’t take her eyes off the man’s body. Gods knew he couldn’t stare, anymore. He was face-down in the grass, blood pooling beneath him, remarkably neat. It had been a quick death, a clean death; Castelle had been right to pray for the same for her family. She couldn’t change what had happened to them, but the world could’ve been kind and made it sharp and precise.

  “Indeed. You owe me, Princess. You don’t wish to return to your fathers, and this man was rather intent on taking you there. Goodness. I apologise, I really do. I promise you, things like this never happen to me. I’ll give credit where it’s due—the man knew how to shoot an arrow. At least he gets to die! I have to live with this embarrassment, and…”

  Svir’s fingers dug into Castelle’s shoulders.

  “And?” Castelle asked, bleary gaze leaving the empty body.

  “I’m so sorry,” Svir said. “I believe I’m about to faint.”

  Svir’s knees buckled. Castelle couldn’t do much to lessen the impact with her wrists bound. She grabbed the collar of Svir’s shirt and lowered her to the ground, doing her utmost not to drive the arrow deeper.

  With the man dead and Svir unconscious, there’d never been a better time to run. Or hobble, at least, until Eos came to and met her halfway. Even if Svir was only out for a matter of minutes, the arrow gave her more pressing things to worry about than Castelle.

  Torshval wasn’t far. Svir could drag herself home, away from the body, the body that would be—Castelle couldn’t say for certain. It’d be discovered, eventually. They weren’t the only ones who’d ever wandered from the path. There’d be an investigation, led by the city guard, and enough to link Svir to the scuffle if people saw her stumbling through the streets with an arrow lodged in her shoulder.

  For anyone else, it’d be circumstantial, but Svir was a Yrician. For her, circumstances and coincidences often stacked up in a mockery of evidence.

  Groaning, Castelle knelt down, back to the body, and searched Svir’s only bag for a canteen. Using her mouth to open it, she lashed the water over Svir’s face.

  Nothing.

  What if she didn’t wake up in a matter of minutes? The arrow was deep, and unconsciousness was a welcome refuge from pain.

  Castelle tapped Svir’s cheek with the back of her hand and shook her shoulder. After a round of prodding and poking, she moved her bound wrists to the bloody dagger at Svir’s hip and worked the edge of the blade against the ropes.

  Her hands were shaking. There was a body behind her, the earth was drinking down its blood, and she was doing her utmost to rouse the woman who’d gone through Eos to get to her. Her hands were shaking but the rope was cut away, fibre by fibre, and the prayer on her lips was but an incoherent mumble.

  There was a body behind her, but what did that matter when Torshval was ahead? The capital had laid the foundations for her dreams every night, both inside the dining room and beyond it, and Castelle’s wasn’t ready for the way the streets would look without Greyser soldiers lining it, bears emblazoned on their armour, eyes following every citizen. How many of the former nobles’ residences had been converted into temples, or knocked down to usher in a new age?

  She wouldn’t recognise the city, but surely it would recognise her. It would know her from her footsteps, from the blood pounding in her veins. The streets would part, grinding her between the stones that had once formed her castle, knocked down to pave the way for the poor, pulled from the gutters.

  Heads would still stand on pikes. All eyes would turn to her. Cutting her hair wasn’t enough, it never could be; she needed to sever the parts that would never grow back, needed to sacrifice something of worth, needed to be more careful, she’d cut her fingers and blood was running down her palms, soaking into the rope as it fell away.

  “If you’d waited a few minutes, I would’ve done that for you,” Svir croaked, one eye on Castelle.

  Colour hadn’t yet returned to her and her face was clammy, but she didn’t show any signs of slipping back under.

  “You’re the one who bound them in the first place,” Castelle said, gripping her bloody fingers.

  “Yes, but that was a different time. We were different people,” Svir said, propping herself up with an elbow. “You were unconscious. I didn’t have an arrow in my shoulder.”

  Pressing her spliced fingers to her palm and holding them in a fist, Castelle helped Svir sit up.

  “Get my bag, would you? I ought to have some wonderous medicine in there,” Svir said, pointing with her arrow-ridden arm and wincing. “Is this what pain is all about? It must be terrible for people who are so poor at fighting.”

  Castelle tipped the bag onto the floor and rummaged through the mismatched collection of mostly useless souvenirs. She handed Svir a small vial of brown-tinted liquid. Svir uncorked it with her teeth and downed it in a single mouthful.

  “Now, I believe confusion often follows fainting spells. Let’s see. I kidnapped you from Eos, who kidnapped you from your fathers, and together, we faced off against a man who wished to kidnap you from me, that he might return you to your fathers who, by all accounts, kidnapped you in the first place. Is any of that correct?”

  Ignoring her, Castelle shoved Svir’s belongings back into her bag and stood over her, holding out a hand.

  Svir clasped it. Teeth grit, she struggled to her feet.

  “What are we going to do now? About… him? And the arrow?”

  “Well, there’s nothing to be done for this fellow. He made his bed, and so on and so forth. This is a much more pressing issue, but luckily, I have several doctors in my debt. It’s only a shame I’d likely die of an infection before reaching Llyne. Reed would absolutely love this.”

  “We’re—you’re just going to leave the body here?” Castelle asked.

  “Unless you’d like to drag it along for some reason, yes,” Svir said. “I could rather do with your support, sweetheart.”

  Svir was too blunt for her own good. She needed Castelle and they both knew it. For the first time in years, Castelle had leverage. She could bargain with herself, could demand her safety in exchange for an alibi, for getting Svir to the doctors’.

  “I’ll take you to the city,” Castelle said. “And you’ll let me return to Eos.”

  Svir took hold of Castelle’s shoulder, needing the support to break out into laughter.

  “That’s quite the deal! How about this? You get me home and I’ll give you the letter your fathers took the time to pen.”

  “I—that isn’t a fair trade! I don’t want to read it,” Castelle spluttered.

  “You don’t, but you do,” Svir said, tapping Castelle’s nose. “And I’m hardly going to die without you. Struggle, yes, but rest assured, I have been in far st
ranger, more desperate situations than this, and they all resulted in me learning not a single lesson. Now, first things first: snap the arrow shaft off.”

  “What?”

  “Snap it off,” Svir repeated. “I don’t have the dexterity required to do it cleanly. Not without jostling it around too much. I can’t very well walk through the city with an arrow sticking out of my shoulder. Imagine how people would stare! They’d start getting ideas about me. So, just grasp it and—snap. Just like that.”

  The arrow jostled through the air as Svir used her arms to talk.

  “What if I do it? What do I get?” Castelle asked, swallowing the lump in her throat.

  “Oh, I don’t know! A big thank you? Another twenty-four hours of freedom before I pass you along?”

  Castelle’s plan to escape had been located squarely within the city, and if Svir caught hold of her as she climbed from a window or darted into a crowd, Castelle had a lot of convincing things she could yell about a body outside the city limits.

  “Twenty-four hours starting after you deal with this,” Castelle said.

  She took the arrow between both hands. Svir hissed, but didn’t demand she stop. Castelle screwed her eyes shut and snapped the shaft, meeting more resistance than she expected, leaving a frayed inch of whittled wood jutting from Svir’s shoulder.

  “Wonderful,” Svir said, wrapping an arm around Castelle’s shoulder. “Friendship really can blossom anywhere.”

  Together, they headed downhill, towards Torshval. Whatever medication Svir had taken erased the bulk of her pain, though the sweat didn’t stop pouring from her face. Her breathing came in staggered pants, but she grinned through it, guiding Castelle and letting herself be dragged.

  Between them, they had three good legs and three good arms.

  They headed away from the body, the corpse, but it was still behind them. It was behind them, they hadn’t gained an inch of distance, even as the city drew closer. It was right there, staring at them—wasn’t it? Had its eyes been open? It had been face-down in the dirt, but eyes lingered on Castelle, more hollow than empty.

  Something had been carved out, its spirit with The Embracer, but not everything was lost from the world so easily. The man’s family and friends had not vanished; they would be left wondering, waiting, their dreams full of hope that soured in the light of day, no bloody floors bringing them a resolution.