Chapter 15

After we found the barn empty, Kiefan waited for us at the infirmary. I only walked past him. Surely he could augur all he needed from my face; he let me go without a word, and that was all I wanted. Brauer had little objection to my joining in the laundry. There was ever laundry to do: stained bandages, mattresses, the clothes stripped off the wounded. Few men had more than two of anything in an army, so the infirmary made an honest try of returning clean clothes to their owners.

Thank the Mother for mindless scrubbing.

In time, duty drew me back to the command longhouse. Kiefan had meant to tell me there’d been word of an old Suevi family marching to join us. They arrived in the afternoon, some two thousand men led by Galan Heathugrim.

He would have been a duke, had Arcea not abolished Suevia’s lordships in favor of governmental offices. M’lord Galan and Kiefan were second cousins: Queen Mercia’s mother had been a Heathugrim, a sister of his grandfather’s. Naturally, he favored putting his kin on Suvia’s throne. He knew of Theo Kaufmann, too, greeted him with a hand-clasp.

The men he brought were light infantry, trained in secret and loyal to the old house. More importantly, he had news of Reowan.

On the first of the Spring Moon, now eight days past, a fleet had left the southernmost Caer port, Arforddinas. Sleek, deep longboats all. Meant for war. Spring storms came often enough but even so they must now be close to Reowan and what Arceal navy docked there.

The city had been sealed after sending a few thousand soldiers toward Singréne. Word was that refugees filled the towns outside the wall and all their clamor for safety went ignored by Saint Musaad on the Empress’ orders.

“That one’s a cold fish,” m’lord said. “Last word was that the Empress took leave of the city and gave him charge of this war. Musaad’s her loyal dog and he won’t disappoint her.”

If Anders were her bound elect, how was he here? Escaped? Sent to trap… me?

I sipped my tea, Qadeem listening through me as Kiefan and Theo questioned m’lord Galan. He didn’t know exact numbers of soldiers or navy ships in Reowan, such things were not spoken of, but he could give names of sympathizers to Kiefan’s claim on the throne.

Talk of smuggling followed. I passed on Qadeem’s questions as they came but said little myself. My mind had no reason to doubt the story that Seraphine had bound Anders and named him her elect, but my heart still said she must’ve forced it on him. Stolen him against his will because he was a shifter like her. He’d been wounded, too weak to fight. Surely he was chained to her side and dreaming of home.

I could’ve healed him. I would have. But when I had turned, he was gone.

And he’d been leading me to an abandoned barn alone. Anything could’ve waited inside.

When Teleri spoke up, she caught my ear. “Shall be three elect against this Saint Musaad, yes, but fount’s a doorway for more. In truth, we won’t know how many we face ’til we stand there. The Empress herself, mayhaps.”

“The same’s true of Caercoed,” Kiefan replied.

Her shoulder twitched. “They’ve Saint Conbarre, most likely. Our sea-saint.”

“We cannot know anything for certain before we see the city walls,” Kiefan said.

M’lord Galan looked around the table at Captain Aleks, Theo, and toward the guarded door. “You haven’t the men to take Reowan, m’lord. Even with mine.”

That was when Theo said, “No, but we do have a good number of Suevi uniforms.”

Ideas spooled out from there. The afternoon grew old and despite all the evidence in its favor, I mistrusted the idea of disguising ourselves as Suevi again. Kiefan heard my doubts, and Theo’s certainty, and declined to commit fully either way. He gave orders to look into the uniforms and equipment for further discussion tomorrow. When m’lord Galan took his leave, I stood to go, too.

“Stay, Kate?” Kiefan set aside most of his maps, uncovering Parselev’s journal from the clutter on the trestle table. As the last few Guard made their way out, taking Theo with them, Kiefan held the book up. “Might we read the last few pages over dinner?”

“There’s much we should discuss,” I said. “Aside from the journal.”

Kiefan nodded as he opened it and leafed to the end. “This first, though.”

I was glad enough to put the worries of the war aside for an evening. We sat at the clear end of the table and he read aloud while Gregor and the cook’s boy brought dinner. Venison, tonight, with potatoes and spring onions and a little Suevi small beer from Temitte to wash it down.

Parselev had followed Woden and his elect, Prince Wolfgang, to Saint Ethmund’s fount on the cliffs above Rukharbor. It had always been an eyrie; atop a finger of stone split from the cliff wall, the fount’s water overflowed from a small pool shaped in the rock and fell hundreds of feet to the sea in a glittering spray. Rukhs nested around it, and Parselev had wanted to see those, study them, but instead they fought their way up. Ethmund had taken refuge there with his last elect.

The rukhs were his allies and theyfought hard.

My teacher was a gentle man, I knew, and he didn’t write of the carnage. Only the sadness. Elect Wolfgang cut the noble birds from the air — and took terrible wounds, to be sure. Both he and Woden were torn and bleeding, and only Parselev’s skill had kept them strong enough to continue.

Kiefan paused then. “The rukhs still nest around the fount,” he said. “I’d hardly wish to make the climb even as a welcome guest.”

“There won’t be any rukhs at Reowan, at least.”

“Only a vulture.”

I ate, following on my memory of the page as he read on. The last of the rukhs tore Woden’s eyes and my teacher needed some moments to mend that. Elect Wolfgang reached the summit ahead of them. A snarl had been all the warning my teacher heard before the last Englic elect pounced on him and Woden.

“It says only: I killed him. Mother forgive me, I killed and harvested him.”

My teacher had told me he’d killed two elect, in his day, because he’d had to. I could see him grimace, disappointed, over doing his duty.

Kiefan turned the page and paused to eat a few more bites of venison. I got a little ahead of him in reading and a frown gathered on my brow as I went.

Parselev saw the flash, felt the shockwave of Saint Ethmund’s death, as he and Woden reached the peak. Wolfgang stood in the fount amid the dusty cloud of Ethmund’s remains. The wind carried that away. The elect turned, shaken by the harvest of an ancient saint, to face Woden and Parselev. He fell to his knees and put out a hand. A thick coil of kir snaked up from the fount to his heart.

I leaned back against my chair, mouth pursed. I trusted my teacher’s word on it, but — “Your father said Ethmund killed Wolfgang.”

Kiefan nodded. “Father knew no more, I think. He didn’t see his brother die.”

“Parselev couldn’t have…”

“No. Woden killed Wolfgang. I read this last night,” he admitted. “I wanted your thoughts on it.”

“Read it?” I was too slow for my own impatience.

Kiefan glanced to be sure Gregor and the cook’s boy were both out fetching us tea and our sweets, and read on. Wolfgang called up the fount’s defense to stop Woden when he stepped forward; an icy, salt-rimed hedge swarmed up, slicing and crushing and freezing him in place. Our saint raged, cursed him for a traitor, and shouted for Parselev’s aid. Likely he’d meant for my teacher to attack but instead Parselev struck the ice-hedge. It cracked, Woden tore free, and he fell upon the fledgling Saint Wolfgang.

That was the word he used: fledgling. “Fragile as a butterfly fresh from its cocoon,” I murmured, remembering.

“Woden flung his body into the sea, piecemeal.” Kiefan put the journal down as Gregor brought us a platter of small honey cakes. I gladly took one and a mug of spiced tea.

The last page was Parselev’s admission that he’d been sworn to secrecy. He wrote this because the truth was more important. Saint Qadeem would agree, he wrote, and perhaps Saint Aleksandr would understand. But Shepherd help him if Woden ever learned.

He was likely right on that. Gentle Woden, as Qadeem had said.

We sipped tea and licked honey and cake crumbs from our fingers. Kiefan waited for me to speak first. “I’m sure it is the truth.” I kept my voice low. “Woden’s anger…”

“His own elect, though. My uncle, his own blood.” Kiefan shifted in his chair. “When he picked me up, after I harvested Gauvail…”

I saw Woden’s narrowed eyes, heard Kiefan’s sounding again. “You’re his faithful elect,” I said. “You gave him Temitte when all seemed lost.”

“And I didn’t ascend.”

“You didn’t try to deny him the fount. Saints kill for founts, that’s no secret.”

Kiefan rubbed his eyes. “And why would my uncle — after fighting beside Woden through all the campaign — why try to claim it?”

“What should Prince Wolfgang have done? As a saint, could he give over his fount so easily?”

Kiefan shook his head. Neither of us knew the answer to that. “I’ve never thought Woden cruel. Harsh, yes, but the need is great. We must be strong to see to our duty. This is how he answers defiance. Rogues.” He held up the closed journal.

And he meant to face Woden, if he must. “Don’t defy him for me, if —”

“He can be reasoned with.”

“You’ll reason with him? Reason to me why we’re marching to Reowan, first.”

It slipped out unbidden but I held to it when Kiefan sat back in his chair, eyes narrowing. He didn’t answer at first.

“To deny Caercoed a fount? Or revenge?” I wanted his reasons, I wanted him to lay it out in a sensible order — surely there was one. I didn’t want to doubt him in that. “You aren’t Woden, to lash out in rage. What happened in Knapptal?”

He looked down to the mug of tea in his hands. Took a deep breath. “I did what I must for the kingdom. My duty and honor are all I have. If not you.”

That twisted my heart in a knot.

“I knew you were lost to me, after… I stabbed your husband.”

“You swore off being a jealous fool,” I said.

“Yes. I’ll swear it again, whenever you ask.” He breathed a laugh.

“I trust you to keep to that.” Much as I wanted to be sure of that, my stomach still tightened and my fingers went to my necklace. Anders…

Kiefan’s eyes sharpened, watching me. Reading me. He tensed in his chair, hand falling to his sword. “Is he here?”

My voice fell. “The pony I chased. It was him, I’m sure.”

He frowned, but looked away. Smoothed his face with care before he spoke again. “He was in the camp? How?”

I spread one hand, having no answer.

“Teleri said that was a trap.”

“It may have been. I don’t believe he would hurt me —”

“I do not say this to slander him.” Kiefan leaned on the trestle table, sober and serious. “He was acclaimed as the Empress’ bound elect. Not any Arceal saint — the Empress herself. We need you here, Kate, not murdered in a barn or worse. The kingdom needs you, the saints. I need you.”

It was true but in the face of Kiefan’s bold stab at a city too big for us to take —

“And what happens if Seraphine takes you, cuts your saint’s bond, claims you as her own? If she doesn’t merely kill you? I can’t lead an army. They won’t follow Teleri gladly. And Qadeem will be alone in Temitte.”

“If we wait even a moon’s turning, she will have another ten or twenty thousand soldiers, more elect, whatever saints she can spare, here in Suevia.” Kiefan tapped the table as he counted those off. “This is her lowest ebb. Even Qadeem agrees on that.”

“But we must face Caercoed too?”

“We need only hold them off, not conquer the kingdom. When we have Reowan we will deal with them.” Kiefan’s hand clenched in a fist. I sighed, back to this thing he wouldn’t speak of, this revenge he needed. He went on, voice low. “If you’re right. About Anders. If he’s at Reowan, alive and true to Wodenberg, and even though that means — you must say no to me —” He stumbled into silence.

Kiefan’s offer to make me queen. I fought to take a deep breath without it aching. “If —”

He put up one hand to stop me, though he didn’t look up from the table. Couldn’t bear to see the truth on my face. “I will not ask. I would see you happy, whatever that must be.”

I swallowed a lump. “Do you swear you’d do nothing to hurt Anders?”

Now he looked up. “I swear it, on all I hold dear.”

Mainly me, by the weight of his gaze. “Do you trust that I love you still?”

That gave him pause. Kiefan’s voice turned rough. “Would you be my queen, even then?”

“I love him. I cannot,” and my throat knotted on it, for a moment. “I cannot choose between you. Do not ask me to. Better that I leave you both, take Rafe, and seek solitude.”

We looked at each other for long heartbeats, across the table. I tried to swallow to clear the knot from my throat and sipped my tea. Kiefan’s mail clinked, a whispery slither, and I tensed a moment but he only slid from his chair onto one knee before me. He took my hand in both of his and kissed it.

Looked up at me, his gold crown-band catching the candlelight. “I trust in your love, m’lady. I rely on it. And I will wait on your word, asking nothing of you. Or him.”

I gripped his hands with both of mine, my fears draining away. “Thank you,” I whispered. It was a small thing but it was all I could say.

My tent was in the cherry orchard near the infirmary. Kiefan had kissed me, gentle but deep, and let me go.

I walked back to the cherry orchard under the stars, my mind as aswirl with hopes and fears as on my wedding day. The picketed horses whuffed and shifted and I paused at my tent’s door flap to look. Browns, bays, Jenner’s buckskin standing out for being pale… no grey dapples. I ducked inside.

Foolish to think my heart’s wound had healed over the winter, perhaps. And now I’d torn the stitches open.

/ hurt never fades? /

I felt a hug through my bond. / slowly / patience /

/ foolish / letting Kiefan? / I sat on my camp bed, lighting a ball of kir in my hand.

I left the last thought off; my saint had felt some echo of this morning through my bond, surely. All those moons alone, then one morning’s love-making — one! — and there Anders was. I had not even a full morning to bask in the comfort.

/ what penance / balances it? /

That, I had no answer for. My fawn dress lay on my trunk, light against its dark wood. Returned, finally, from its repairing. I picked it up to check the holes the spear had made. The tailor had used kir to mend the cloth so there was no seam. No sign of the rips. A good scrubbing had gotten the blood out. I held it up by the shoulders. Like new.

Canvas rustled and I lowered it.

Anders straightened from ducking through the flap, letting it fall shut behind him.

My mouth fell open and then I dropped my dress to pull kir to my hands — here to steal me? To — ?

He fell to one knee, hands open. Empty. He wore no sword; his cote and hose were plain woolens. His hair fell across his Blessing, over a winter’s worth of fuzzy regrowth below his ridges. And his summer-sky eyes — begging my forgiveness as he looked up at me.

“I’m sorry, Kate,” he said. “I never meant to leave.”

And he was in my arms, mine around his neck, in a heartbeat. A fresh sob tore out of me, raw and jagged. “Why?” That tore out, too. “Why?”

“She stole me.” His voice caught.

“But —”

He kissed me but I needed an answer; I pushed him back. The Empress stole him, yes, and she was — I called his pattern. It swirled up. Blazing. Too dense to see. My heart leaped in terror and kir flashed to my hands — as a sharp thread of kir burrowed into my skull —

A shouted warning. Kir flared.

Kiefan was on his feet from the table, sword in hand, and two steps toward the door before it fully registered. Gregor leaped up from feeding the fire-pit. Sir Waldemar crashed headfirst through the heavy lintel, trailing blood and brains as he flew across and landed on the wooden screen. A gout of blood and an arm gone limp, sliding to the ground in the doorway, was all Kiefan saw of the kir-ram crushing Sir Readulf.

Kiefan waved Gregor behind him, opening the saint-bond to Woden. Fresh kir shot up his arm as —

Kate walked through the puddled blood in the doorway, her eyes unfocused. As if dreaming on her feet. A green collar of kir and a slender rope tied her to Anders’ wrist. Kiefan’s sword arm snapped up into a high guard.

No, not Anders. Something wearing his face.

/ she’s here /

Woden’s resolve made Kiefan’s jaw clench and the twin lines of his Blessing spark with pain.

Anders melted before his eyes, darkening, black hair twining in a braid and reaching the ground. Turning into an Arceal woman. Behind her, a glimpse of black tabards and gold stars.

“Guard, stand down!” Kiefan ordered, harsh as he could while his gut was knotting itself. If they charged in here and were slaughtered — he must ration his resources. It was Kate they should rescue, if anyone. From this brazen enemy. He lowered his sword and steeled his voice. “Saint Seraphine.”

Her chin dipped. “Elect Kiefan. Mark well.” With two flicks of her wrist, she bound Kate’s meridian to her own. The red line spun out from palm to palm.

/ she bound Kate /

/ steady / Behind that, duty threatened.

Father have mercy, let it not come to that.

“Woden. Qadeem.” The Empress looked to Kiefan, then Kate. “Now you will hear my final terms. Wodenberg falls. Wodenberg dies in flame. This mercy, you might buy: Qadeem, surrendered to my hand, and I shall spare what common folk do not resist. Woden, surrendered to my hand, for one of your blood spared. These two elect are my trophies, and shall live so far as Reowan. There you may earn what mercy you will have.”

Kiefan heard only silence through his bond when he relayed that to Woden. On his own, then. Not daring to show weakness. Heart pounding in his throat, Kiefan growled, “Why should I let you walk from here?”

Seraphine looked to the collar of kir around Kate’s neck and it tightened. Kate’s eyes flickered and her face flushed red.

“Your half-brother did tell me all, in time. What do you offer for her life?”

Damn Anders.

/ we dig in / fight to the last / Woden sent.

/ no / Kiefan gripped his sword one last time and let it fall. Kate’s face was paling, her breaths coming in shallow gasps.

The bond tingled in his palm, warning of stringence.

/ cannot let her die /

Pain caught him halfway to kneeling, gnawing up to his shoulder and twisting the arm in a rictus. Knocking him down. Kiefan clenched it to his side with his good hand, and gritted his teeth. “My life, instead of hers. Empress.”

Woden’s wordless rage burned hotter than the stringence. Agony bloomed across his head, in familiar old lines.

/ love her! / Kiefan snarled back through his bond. / haven’t you loved? /

Disgust answered, then silence.

Seraphine’s shadow made Kiefan look up from his knees. Kate, on her leash, breathed easy and stared blankly. The Empress took his hand and cut his meridian with a lash of her mind. Kiefan cast his eyes down, flinching from the intimacy of the joining. Through the bond, she tore away his kir despite his clenched will.

“Your obedience keeps your lover alive,” she told him. “For Qadeem has heard my message and I need her no more.”

A pit opened in his gut, sucking down what hope remained. Kiefan lowered his head. “I will obey.”

“We leave at once. Bring only a few retainers. Give your orders.” Seraphine nodded toward the broken, dripping doorway. “Go no further than the lintel.”

He stood. To Gregor he said, “Fill one pack.” Kiefan glanced at his sword, mind flicking to the kir that Gregor likely still had, how fast he could snatch it — and steadied his nerves. Walked to the door.

Outside, Captain Aleks and two dozen Guard crouched in wedge formations on either side. It was Teleri, though, who stepped closer to the door and saluted. Aleks had, brilliantly, put her King’s Guard tabard on the Elect.

“Captain,” he said, then lowered his voice and spoke fast. “Kate and I must go with the Empress. Gather volunteers to accompany us. Seagrace must put this camp on full defense. Look for the first chance to retreat to Temitte.”

His eyes were drawn to the walls of Singréne; there was at least one elect in there, spinning kir-fire for the trebuchets. That would be sufficient to slaughter Wodenberg’s army, if used wisely.

“’Tis likely true she’ll spare the good-folk,” Teleri murmured back, speaking for Saint Qadeem. “Less that she’ll spare Woden’s blood.”

When Kiefan passed that, Woden’s reply was sullen. “He doubts her entirely. Chose your own way but he will go fighting.”

“He knows. Kate’s mind is bound with kir-thread. Cut it and she’ll be free.”

Hope rose from the pit of despair on white wings. Behind him, Seraphine said, “Enough.”

Teleri murmured, as she stepped away, “She must live.”

Kiefan risked a tiny nod and turned back to the Empress.