Taellaneth Complete Series Box Set

by Vanessa Nelson

  “Are you alright?” Kester was crouching in front of her, eyes intent.

  “Yes.” She immediately gave lie to that as she tried to stand and wavered on her feet, held up by his hand under her elbow.

  “Death sickness,” Gilean commented, voice harsh. “Part of the burden of being a shadow-walker.” He gave a sort of laugh at Arrow’s expression. “No, other Erith do not feel the loss the same way you do. We mourn those we have loved, but we do not miss those we have killed.” His breathing was harsh. “But the shadows contain everything.”

  Arrow thought about that for a while. It felt right. The shadows contained every potential colour, every potential season all at once. It made sense that the loss of life would be felt in those shadows, no matter who had died.

  “You killed the Regent.” Miach was not condemning her. The sadness in his voice and face made her own eyes fill. If ever there was a warrior who had lived their duty, it was Miach. And two monarchs were dead on his watch in less than a day.

  “I had orders.” Arrow’s voice was hoarse. She glanced at her sword, clean and showing no sign of the Regent’s blood, and sheathed it before she reached into her pocket, pulled out Evellan’s orders, now tattered from so much careless handling.

  Miach read the orders, mouth tightening.

  “To seek justice for Gilean.”

  “Justice as I judged it,” Arrow pointed out. She was no lawyer, but had stood through enough of the Taellan’s meetings to know how Erith law worked. “Both Gilean and Orlis nearly lost their lives to this. And I made a promise to your lady.” Her throat closed a moment, a wave of unexpected grief reminding her of that most difficult Erith. “To find out what happened to Gilean. What happened to Teresea. And to see that it was put right. And I made a promise to the heartland.” Her voice stopped for a moment, the echo of the heartland’s grief coursing through her. “The heartland loves its monarchs.” The echoes of the promises she had made was in her voice, the thread of power reflecting a magician’s oath.

  “She told me.” Miach’s jaw clenched as though he, too, had his own moment of sorrow. He handed the parchment back to Arrow. “And I say that you have fulfilled your oaths and your orders.”

  ~

  To her surprise, his mouth then curved up in a smile. A genuine expression with no shadows in it.

  “And perhaps something good has come of this. You have been talking with the heartland.” His words made no sense, his eyes straying to the left side of her face. She remembered the heartland’s caress earlier and put her hand up to her skin instinctively, feeling nothing. “The heartland marks those it favours,” he continued, pulling, of all things, a small mirror out of one pocket and handing it to her. “It favours very, very few.”

  She turned the small piece of mirror to her face and went still at what she found. High on her cheekbone, towards the outside corner of her eye, where no one could fail to miss it, was the faintest outline of a curling leaf, the Erith’s symbol for the heartland. She touched her skin again, feeling nothing on the surface, and rubbed the mark. It did not move or fade, or redden along with the rest of her skin, remaining pale and distinct.

  “I do not understand.” Far from being favoured, she felt used. The casual marking by the heartland stung. Another loss of control of her body, something else done to her without her consent.

  “No, you would not,” Miach said, sad, taking his mirror back. He paused a moment, as though gathering his thoughts. “You did not notice the same mark on the Queen? Or Teresea?”

  “No.” Arrow’s face formed a scowl without her permission, and she glared at the warrior. She should have noticed such a distinctive mark, she realised.

  “The heartland marks those it favours,” he said again, one hand lifting to indicate her cheek. “Many Erith spend their lives seeking communication with our heartland. She is an extraordinary gift to the Erith, yet she speaks to very few. And fewer still earn her favour. To be marked by the heartland is something very special indeed.”

  “More special than being a shadow-walker?” Arrow’s tone was nasty. Spiteful. She could not help it. So many lies. So much information withheld.

  “Not quite.” There was a note in his voice that suggested he understood at least part of her anger. “A shadow-walker is something almost unique. We know of none other alive. There are, though, a few of the heartland’s favoured alive. Perhaps it would help to meet them?”

  Arrow drew a breath to answer and Gilean moved behind Miach’s shoulder. A small motion, just enough to send a ripple through his cloak and catch Arrow’s attention. And so she did not shout at the first guard. Instead she bit her lip, hard, until she could manage some courtesy, and saw by the returning shadows on Miach’s face that he knew his offer had not been appreciated.

  “I am needed elsewhere, svegraen,” she managed to say, her voice a reasonable tone.

  “We will have a relay set for you tomorrow. After …” He closed his lips together, jaw tight.

  After the Queen’s funeral rites. Which Noverian was to have presided over, a last act of a faithful Consort, before he took oath as Regent.

  “Well, at least we will not have to look at that red suit again.” Arrow heard her voice say, her unedited thought let loose without permission. Noverian’s suit for his oath taking, the work of a dozen harassed tailors.

  Miach’s lips twitched and he laughed, a fresh, welcome sound, eyes dancing.

  “Indeed. Perhaps we can burn it instead?” Gilean suggested.

  CHAPTER 22

  Memory of that red suit burning merrily in the annex fireplace was small comfort the next morning as Arrow accompanied the procession to the Erith’s graveyard. The most sacred space the Erith had, the place was a waking nightmare. Vicandula stretched as far as the eye could see, each grave plant in its own spot, often with a small plaque beside it recording the name and House, and the worthy deeds, of the Erith whose soul stone had been raised in that spot.

  Arrow’s eyes were burning as she kept the steady, even pace with everyone else. The Queen’s body was being carried far ahead of her, Miach’s cadre bearing their mistress to her final rest, no one disputing their right to do so when the full details of Noverian’s treachery had become clear.

  The difficult morning followed a seemingly endless night. Defeating Noverian, as hard at that had been, had only been the start of it. There had been no rest for anyone after that.

  There was a first round of questions for the conspirators still alive to provide answers. Queris was finding the dungeons even more uncomfortable than Arrow had imagined he would, and after so short a time. The ladies had been questioned, most set free. The one who had given poison to the Queen was dead. Miach had been in no mood to give quarter.

  Priath turned a sickly shade when Miach told him what Noverian had revealed. And yet, Priath was too cunning to admit to anything, still settled in silence. Not forgotten. Never forgotten, but set aside, now in the dungeons with Queris for company. It was its own form of punishment, for the two thoroughly disliked each other. And they were guarded, for now, by a trio of constructs. Mercat would not work on the constructs, and any attempt to interfere with the constructs’ delicate magic, now that the creatures were active, would result in a swift, painful death.

  The questions were not done. Had barely begun. And Miach was facing a hard, uncomfortable truth. Not everyone who had followed him had been coerced. There were likely to be more Erith who, like Priath, wanted more influence. The Queen had never been one for sharing power. Not even with her Consort, to whom she had apparently been quite devoted until the moment of her death.

  Evellan and Seivella still had questions to answer about their involvement with Nuallan, but so far Lord Whintnath and the remains of the Taellan had accepted the magicians’ assurances that they had never acted to harm the Erith, only to try and stop Nuallan. Restored to health, with the weight of treachery and death around them, no one could doubt either of their sincere grief and the sense of loss they sti
ll felt for the young man that Nuallan had been before the incursion so long ago.

  The Palace ward keepers had swept the entire complex overnight, no easy feat, and had found several more constructs and defences that had been tampered with and had declared those areas out of bounds to everyone apart from their number. There had been no arguments, not even from the remaining Taellan, who normally hated their freedom being constrained. It would take some time to dismantle all the harm.

  The Library remained closed. It might never re-open, Miach had told Arrow in a rare moment of candour. Too much blood had been spilled. Arrow felt sorrow at the loss of something so unique, even though she had only seen it already damaged, and could understand the outrage being expressed by a number of Houses at the loss. That outrage was met, measure for measure, by the quiet, unyielding grief of the families of those who had lost their lives.

  And so everyone who could walk, the entire Palace from the most junior servant to the highest ranked member of the nobility, were here in the Palace’s vast graveyard to bid farewell to Freyella.

  For the first time in her life, Arrow felt she was simply one of the crowd among the Erith. Everyone else was caught up in their own concerns.

  Arrow had been offered a place with Orlis and Gilean, both looking healthier even if Orlis was still furious, further ahead in the procession along with Kallish and her cadre, and had declined, preferring to stay within the crowds. Too many people knew her face already, and there were too many of House Regersfel around, many of whom were of the same mind as Seggerat and Eshan, that she should never have been allowed to live.

  As it was, she was somehow surrounded by junior White Guard, a few wearing the mark of the Queen’s own guard. Miach’s doing, along with Kallish, she suspected.

  The funeral rites passed without incident for Arrow and no one around her commented on the tears that ran freely down her face, their own tears flowing as Miach spoke the necessary words and the Queen’s body disappeared forever, her vicandula springing up, larger than the others nearby.

  There was food and drink afterwards, a custom which was apparently shared by Erith and humans alike, with solemn toasts to the Queen’s memory. There was no mention of Noverian, whose body was already interred, along with the very few Erith whose crimes were judged serious enough that their souls remained inside flesh and bone. There was no mention of any of the events of the past few days.

  ~

  Arrow stayed as long as she thought was polite. Miach had arranged for a mirror relay to be set up for her as soon as the rites were concluded. She had her satchel with her and nothing else to pack. The heartland’s grief still ran through her, wanting her to stay. Arrow was in no mind to listen. The heartland had marked her without consent. However prized such a thing was among the Erith, Arrow could not move past her anger. Not yet. Perhaps in time she would come to accept it. Perhaps not. Until then, perhaps she could find a way to conceal it. If spells would not work, the human world contained a wide array of cosmetics she could try.

  It was a petty grievance on this day, she knew. The Erith’s Queen was dead. The entire Palace mourned. The heartland mourned. The sweet scent of death was everywhere, hurting her chest and closing her throat.

  Time to be gone. Everyone she knew, everyone familiar to her, were caught up in their own concerns. She was alone among the biggest crowd of Erith she had ever seen, wandering aimlessly as the day turned to afternoon. She found herself at the edge of the crowds eventually, glad of the space. Time to leave. She slipped away, making her way along a quiet corridor.

  It was probably rude to go without saying goodbye. That did trouble her. She hesitated in her stride, wondering if she should go back. Bid farewell to those she knew. Gilean. Orlis. Kester. Kallish. Miach. The thought of going back into the crowds, with the unfamiliar faces and glittering array of finery, held her to her course. Time to go.

  “Lady Arrow.” The voice, female and unknown, startled her.

  Her wards flared for a moment as she turned, an instinctive reaction.

  One of the Queen’s former ladies stood perfectly still just outside the reach of her wards, eyes wide and flecked with pale amber as she took in the silver flare. Dressed in the traditional purple of mourning, the lady looked pale, smudges under her eyes, her hands tight around an ornate scroll held before her. One of the Queen’s ladies, released from prison after close questioning. Not a conspirator.

  “My lady,” Arrow answered, calling her defences back, “my apologies. You startled me.”

  “I did not mean to. You looked far away.”

  “What can I do for you, my lady?”

  “Frey was …” The lady’s voice choked. The shortened name and obvious grief were clear signs of genuine affection from this lady. “Well, towards the end she was often incoherent, but she insisted that I take this into keeping and pass this to you if … if she could not.”

  “Do you believe she knew what was being done to her?”

  “She knew something was wrong, certainly. But she would not have known who to trust. Not with one of us poisoning her.” The lady closed her eyes, and a bright trace of tears coursed down her cheek. “She was old, yes, and perhaps it was her time. But it was cruel.”

  “Yes.” Arrow agreed. Cruel was exactly the right word for what had been done, the Queen’s famously sharp mind eroded by drugs while the lady herself was aware that something was wrong, not knowing who to trust, knowing that someone close to her was responsible.

  “Yes.” The lady echoed, then held out the scroll. “She wanted you to have this. I believed she hoped to speak with you again before you left. Alisemea was one of her favourites. And mine.” The sorrow in the lady’s voice drew an answering ache from Arrow, even though Alisemea was simply a name, and a painted face.

  “What is this?” Arrow did not take the thing offered, staring at it with suspicion. It looked perilously like a Naming scroll, only far more elaborate than anything she had ever seen before. There had been some in the Archives, ancestries of long dead magicians whose lineage was of particular interest. With no scroll of her own, Arrow had spent time studying those scrolls, learning the importance of lineage to the Erith.

  “It is your Naming scroll.”

  “That is impossible.” Arrow dismissed the idea with a half-laugh, bitterness clear to her ears. “Seggerat told me, many times, that I was not Named.”

  The lady’s expression, sorrow and sympathy mixed together, held back more words and whatever additional bitterness and scorn Arrow had in her.

  “You never knew her, but there is no possibility in this world or the next that Alisemea vel Regersfel would allow her child into the world unNamed. She wanted a child. She wanted you, very badly. There were baby clothes made, a crib for you, and your Naming scroll prepared long before you were born, the scroll waiting only for your Name.”

  Arrow felt as though her entire body had frozen. It had never occurred to her that Seggerat had lied, she realised. Not with the scorn and disgust heaped upon her by many other Erith. Many of the Taellan in particular. Seggerat’s cronies. With the command, given almost at the start of her service under oath, to never speak of her lineage, she had never been able to ask about her family, however curious she may have been. And with the passing of years it had not occurred to her to wonder what say, if any, her birth mother might have had in whether she was Named, and, more than that, whether she was even wanted.

  The thought of a young Erith lady preparing for a birth of a mixed-breed child with hope and anticipation had never crossed Arrow’s mind. A crib. Clothes. That spoke of an expectant mother with hopes and dreams for her child. Anticipation of what the child might be.

  The great, yawning void that had opened up inside her when the Queen had told stories of her mother was abruptly less empty. She had not been an unwanted child, considered shameful by her mother.

  “I am sorry to cause you distress, but not sorry to tell you these things,” the lady added.

  Arrow becam
e aware of tears on her face and wiped them away, wiping her hands on her clothing before she carefully accepted the scroll. The magic bound into the parchment resonated against her skin. It was hers. A drop of her blood would have been bound into it, so it could be no one else’s scroll.

  “I have a Name.” The words were awkward in her mouth. The idea was momentous. To be Named was to have standing amongst the Erith. To be recognised by their laws. To be counted as something. Not an it anymore, but she.

  “Mealla vel Liathius.”

  The Name rang through her entire being, holding her still again. It was too much to comprehend. A Name. And not of the Regersfel House, either. For her paternal grandfather. A sign that, whatever else might be true, Alisemea had not been ashamed of her connection with House Liathius.

  Arrow wiped away more tears.

  “I am sorry. I do not even know your name.”

  “I am Raselle, of the House Presien. Yes, Gilean is my cousin. Distantly. And I am also, somewhat removed, your aunt.”

  “My lady,” Arrow began, but had no more words, throat closing in.

  “I would like to get to know you a little,” the lady continued. Not just a lady or any Erith. A relative. Arrow’s mind spun at the idea. A relative, of an old and respected House, who wished to claim kinship with her. It was extraordinary.

  “I …”

  “You must go, I know. The mirror relay will not be held forever. Come back, though. Soon.” The lady reached forward and touched her fingers, warm and soft, to Arrow’s wrist, a small gesture to her, but one which further unbalanced Arrow’s world. Among the Erith she could count on her fingers the number of people who had voluntarily touched her skin without intending to cause harm. Nassaran. Hustrai. Orlis. Kallish. Kester. And now Raselle.

  ~

  The Naming scroll tucked into her bag, heavily warded, her mind still struggling to pull together all the various strands, she made her way between the silent buildings, now and then catching echoes of spells at the edges of her first sight. Part of her wanted to stop and look and examine the ward masters’ craft or just marvel for a few more moments at the Palace itself. There had been so little time to simply look around since she had been here. The greater part of her, though, wanted to get to the mirror relay and be away before any more revelations could be made.