Ignoring the ache in her shoulder, Rosa hefted the mallet and tapped the chisel. Friction between metal and seasoned wood flared as rich, smoky scent. Slivers of birch drifted to join the spoil at the half-carved statue’s feet. She let the mallet drop and stepped back, examining her handiwork in the light of the basement’s high-set windows and its single flickering lantern.
Still not right. The curve of statue’s brow was too sharp, for one. Her left shoulder was definitely larger than the right. And the expression? Well, the less said about that, the better. But a noticeable improvement over the one that had come before, and leagues beyond than her first attempt.
Setting tools down on a hogshead, Rosa wiped her brow on a shirtsleeve and swung her right arm back and forth, the heel of her left hand massaging the knot of scarred flesh at her shoulder. It didn’t hurt as such, not any longer, but the stiffness persisted.
A polite knock sounded at the basement door. The newcomer’s nose wrinkled at toil-laden air, though he forbore comment. Ravan Eckorov, Reeve of Tarvallion, fancied himself a man of refinement. He strove to comport himself thus, from pencil moustache and black hair oiled into place, to sombre raiment seldom in anything save perfect array.
“I hope I’m not interrupting?” As ever, his clipped pronunciation was impeccable.
Rosa shook her head. “I was just about finished.”
“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever been down here.” Arms looped behind his back, he gazed into the eyes of the unfinished statue, taking in the snarl of lip, the murderous, imperfect scowl and hair that transcended imperfect chisel-work to offer the appearance of writhing snakes. “Repulsive fiend, isn’t she? Anyone in particular?”
“Me.”
“Ah.” Eckorov cast a silk-gloved hand to the basement’s rear, where shadows concealed other works standing watch among wine barrels and crates. Half a dozen more life-size pieces. Twice as many again reached no higher than knee or waist. “And these?”
“The same.”
Venturing deeper into shadow, he peered at the nearest. The one it pleased Sevaka to call The Queen of Disappointment. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but have you considered getting a little more light down here? Or perhaps a better mirror? I’d be delighted to lend you one.” Turning, he offered a polite smile. “Then again, that’s not going to help with the horns, or the teeth, or the… Blessed Lumestra, is that a tail?”
“It was Master Tanor’s idea.” Rosa propped herself against the hogshead. “There’s a Lunastran ritual, practised by those who wrestle with the temptation of the Dark. They call it soul sculpting. You close yourself to all else and focus solely on the work. As the likeness takes shape, your flaw flows into the statue. Sealed away where it can’t bother you or anyone else. The more statues, the freer you become. At least, that’s the theory.”
“And then you burn the statues, I suppose?”
“That would only free the flaw and leave me back where I started. You’re supposed to work in clay, but it didn’t feel right.” She shrugged. “It’s just as well Lumestra had more patience, or who knows what we’d have looked like?”
Of course, Lumestra hadn’t imprisoned temptation in clay, but the souls of what had become humanity, temptation and all. Perhaps that made a difference.
“And you… chose these delightful forms?”
“The flaw chooses its own shape.” Rosa looked from one to the other, to the next. For all that they were monstrous, she always recognised her own face. But whether that was truly the flaw she chose to drive out – or her own subconscious sending unsubtle messages – she couldn’t be certain. “You surrender yourself to the work, and what happens, happens.”
“So that’s why Lunastran chapels have such horrific statues,” said Eckorov. “I did wonder. But I never saw you as a woman ruled by lust.”
She caught the joke a fraction too late to prevent a scowl. “Anger.”
“Surely not?” A courtier’s politeness. He’d seen enough of her at her worst. “Is it having the desired effect?”
Rosa returned his easy smile with something tighter. “It’s a work in progress.”
“Aren’t we all, Roslava? Aren’t we all.” He straightened, all business. “I came in search of a favour.”
She’d known as much, of course. Eckorov was a busy man, and an infrequent guest at Brackenpike Manor. For all that little more than a quarter of Tarvallion had been reclaimed – the rest lay tumbled and ruined beneath the roots of Starik Wood – the population was large enough to fill the reeve’s days with squabbles. Add to that the closeness of the uneasy border with the contested Eastshires, and Rosa wasn’t wholly sure how he found time to sleep. With Sevaka called back to Tressia, his duties had redoubled. Though war had left Tarvallion – once the jewel of the Republic – in a sorry state, the villages of the Marcher Lands still looked to its reeve for leadership and redress.
Agreeing a favour, sight unseen, carried risk. But though Rosa no longer wore a uniform or bore a title, duty remained. “What do you need?”
“Those recent rumours have made the populace restless.”
Rumours. Servants’ whispers had furnished her with some details. Zephan Tanor had spoken of others at his last visit, the day before Viktor’s summons. By no means a weak man – a grandmaster of Essamere could only ever be other – he’d shaken as he’d given account. Lost and weary souls, weeping for kin who’d not survived the journey from the Eastshires. Tales of houses burned, their tenants within. Of sons and daughters dragged away for slaves. And all of it behind a wall of Silsarian spears and the threat of war renewed.
Even thinking on it set the old fire smouldering in Rosa’s gut – the desire to pick up a sword and march. She breathed deep and glanced at the unfinished statue. Still so far to go. The gap separating justice and vengeance was narrower than most thought, but still you could lose yourself between.
“Thirava’s treating our people worse than animals,” she said. “I’d say they’ve reason to be restless.”
Eckorov scowled and tapped a knuckle against his lips. “No one’s denying that. I’ve wearied Lumestra’s ears with prayer. I’ve worn heralds ragged carrying reports to Lord Droshna, begging for more soldiers. To Grandmaster Rother, in the hope that Sartorov might consider standing with old friends.” He scowled, but there was no taking back the criticism, even if there were few safer ears on which it could fall than Rosa’s. “I understand that times are challenging all over. Already there’s too much talk of taking up arms and marching east, whether or not the army chooses to follow.”
Redsigor’s spears against old swords and lumber axes? “It’d be suicide.”
“You know that. I know that.” Eckorov stared moodily up at the basement’s windows. “But out there? There’s a whole generation come of age who think things would have been different had they been old enough to fight. Too many remember only that we won the last war. They don’t remember what it cost. I fear Tarvallion is dry as Sommertide kindling.”
“Even kindling needs flame to catch.”
“Does the name Silda Drenn mean anything to you?”
It did, though it took a moment for Rosa to chase the memory down. “A southwealder, isn’t she? A wolf’s-head who fought at Davenwood.”
“This morning she arrived in Tarvallion, blown in on the Dawn Wind. She’s preaching a tale of liberation and fury too many are ready to hear. Claims she can do for the east what the wolf’s-heads once did for the south.”
A seductive message, especially with folk looking for someone who’d take action. “She’s a wolf’s-head. Have her arrested.”
“The trifling matter of the pardon aside, I’d like nothing more. But at least fifty swords arrived with her. More will take her side if I loose the constabulary. I’ve barely enough to keep order as it is. If there’s a riot…?” Eckorov shook his head. “No, I need someone to have a quiet word with Drenn. Persuade her, if possible. Warn her off if it isn’t.”
Rosa laughed bitterly. She’d expected a request for duelling tutelage funnelled from one of Tarvallion’s wealthier families, or perhaps an undertaking to train the town’s constabulary – who were certainly sorely in need of a soldier’s lessons. But this?
“You want Josiri Trelan, not me. I didn’t reach the Southshires until after Davenwood, and even then…”
She tailed off, memory bright with the flames that had reduced Eskavord to ash. Viktor’s orders – and desperately necessary – but she’d carried them out. A woman with Drenn’s reputation would remember that.
Eckorov set his back to the windows and fixed her with a level gaze. “I can’t afford the time. A day for a herald to reach Tressia, at least? And I doubt Lord Trelan will drop everything to soothe my fears. You’ll forgive me for saying so, but these days I receive more decrees from the city that I do tangible help, and more vagueness from Lord Trelan than action.” He spread his hands. “Even if he agrees with my assessment and comes at once, that’s another day, perhaps two. More than enough time for mischief, even if it’s well intentioned.”
That was the problem, wasn’t it? For all Eckorov’s obvious worry about riots, unspoken agreement with Drenn’s goals lurked beneath his words. The reeve was too canny not to recognise that the situation with the Contested Lands would reach a head sooner rather than later. What made Silda Drenn dangerous in days of uneasy peace could make her priceless in the war of reclamation that had to be coming. She was a link to a romanticised past, proof that tyranny could not triumph for ever. That the tyranny she’d once fought had been willingly abetted by the folk of the Eastshires – as it had all Tressia north of Margard – was a detail perhaps better forgotten.
Rosa might have resented Eckorov his reluctance, had she not shared it. “I’m not exactly a diplomat.”
“Drenn’s far more likely to respect your past than she is mine – even if you no longer hold rank. And there’s always going to be the tacit suggestion that you’re acting with Governor Orova’s authority.” He shrugged and glanced meaningfully about the basement. “And if all goes poorly and the mob rouses? Well, they’ll have no difficulty burning you in effigy, will they? Frankly, Roslava, you’re the best option if lives are to be saved.”
It really was that simple, wasn’t it? “There’s little less use than a broken sword,” she murmured. “Save for a shield that shelters no more.”
Eckorov frowned. “I didn’t catch that.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Decision made, the next words came easier. “Where can I find her?”
The sound of the crowd reached Rosa long before she arrived at the marketplace, borne by the same gusting Ash Wind that grabbed the tails of her jacket and tugged at her unbound hair. Quickening her pace through the snows, she steered north.
Even at that hour, the marketplace was crowded, the brightly coloured canopies of stall and barrow a reminder of what Tarvallion had once been. Far ahead, beyond the mismatched stone and tile of the houses, the ruined towers of Tremora Gardens pierced the skeletal winter canopy of Starik Wood’s western extent. Bonfires blazed along the divide between the new city and the old, the reclaimed and the forsaken. On the forest’s cusp, where firebreaks, iron fence posts and holy writ held forest demons and creeping vines at bay, folk slept poorly, each midnight rat-tat-tat on the windowpanes a reminder that not everyone who left Tarvallion did so willingly… or through ephemeral agency.
So easy to abandon the city entirely – certainly easier than constant vigil against the thornmaidens whose cruel, sweet song drifted through the reclaimed streets when the Ice Wind blew in from the north. But Tarvallion had long been the Republic’s opaline heart, and Sevaka’s first decree as governor was that it be reclaimed.
And so it had, after a fashion, but the new city was not the old. Its buildings had been raised over the course of months, rather than decades. Flagstoned streets had yielded to silted, muddy cobbles; firestone lantern-posts to braziers and oil-soaked torches. The Tarvallion of the present could have stirred no poet to consult his muse, nor minstrel to offer song. But it was there, and that counted for something. A rock upon the Toriana Plains, banners raised high at gate and tower to remind the Hadari of one, singular truth: we are still here, and here we mean to stay.
It took a special sort to meet the challenge of restoration. Hardy. Stubborn. And the trouble with stubbornness – as Rosa well knew – was that it respected boundaries little better than a thornmaiden’s song. Defiance became a habit, and habits muffled good sense.
Case in point, the marketplace buzz was not that of greeting and barter, but an intemperate growl, conducted by a woman who stood atop a wagon’s bench seat. Her left hand propped a strung bow against the seat. A quiver of red-fletched arrows hung at her thigh.
“Is the blood of the Marcher Lands so thin?” Drenn’s voice pierced the hubbub with ease. Confident. Angry. Hard as stone. A trace of the guttural Thrakkian accent shared by so many in the south. “Less than an hour’s ride from here our kin are suffering, penned in by spears!”
Rosa threaded closer, old instincts sifting purpose and intent. Most of the crowd were Tarvallion’s citizens, or else merchants and travellers from nearby villages. The old and the very young, for much of what lay between had already been subject to conscription. A handful were riotously drunk, the day’s takings already imbibed. Finer foods might have been scarce, but ale never ran dry. Blue-tabarded constables lurked on the periphery, watchful and with hands near swords they’d never have chance to draw if affairs turned ugly.
“In the south, we stood together,” shouted Drenn. “We taught the Hadari the folly of hubris. We’ll do it again in the east.”
Halfway to the wagon, the crowd thickened, the transition from the curious to the truly interested marked by the press of bodies. Rosa resorted to shoulders and elbows to forge a path. She marked those who carried weapons – whose aspect was rougher and more weatherworn even than was normal for Tarvallion. Drenn’s folk, seeded throughout the onlookers to prevent trouble, or perhaps provoke it.
“I don’t need the reeve’s permission, or the governor’s blessing,” Drenn continued. “The Eastshires cry out for aid. That’s the only sanction any of us require.”
Now three-deep from Drenn’s makeshift pulpit, Rosa was close enough to examine the woman herself. Wiry to the point of scrawny, and with a face so weathered by a life outdoors that she seemed a good decade older than Rosa herself. A misjudgement. Bounty posters ten years back had depicted a girl, not a woman. For all the romanticism proclaimed by playwright and poet, a brigand’s life counted every year three times over. Her hair was cropped close, save for a single thin braid that snaked from beneath her hood to rest against a worn sunburst pendant.
As she opened her mouth to speak again, Rosa cut her off. “Tell them the rest, Silda. Tell them what it will cost.”
A rumble rippled across the marketplace. Rosa’s skin itched beneath unfriendly glares. Not just from Drenn’s followers, but elsewhere in the crowd. Drenn’s small gesture at waist height – easily missed, if Rosa hadn’t been watching for it – stilled the former.
“You’ve an advantage over me, northwealder.” Drenn levelled the last as a targeted insult – no easy feat amid a crowd of men and women no less northwealders than Rosa herself. Her eyes narrowed in examination no less thorough than Rosa’s own, a ghost of a sneer rising as she took in the good cloth of shirt, waistcoat and jacket. “Won’t you tell me your name?”
Was there a threat in the question? A reminder that a name made prey easier to find, especially in a denuded town like Tarvallion? If so, Drenn had severely misjudged.
“I’m Lady Roslava Orova, of Essamere and the 7th.”
While neither shrunken Essamere nor the conscript-thick 7th any longer had claim on her, both had made her as she was. She’d forged her reputation under their colours. A reputation well known.
“That right?” Drenn’s stare didn’t waver above a thin smile. A woman well pleased with the sound of her own voice, and a rare moment of power over one who was her better. “And what does the Reaper of the Ravonn want with a poor daughter of Kreska?”
Rosa’s lip twitched at the hated nickname. So Drenn did know her. “Only to talk.”
“Your wife afraid to speak for herself?”
The jibe coaxed a chuckle from the crowd. Rosa kept her face impassive, and resigned herself to another morning’s sculpture to banish reborn anger. “I’m here at my own behest. To greet a hero of Davenwood. I’ve always regretted that we never met. After all, we were so nearly allies.”
She leaned into those final words, for the first time grateful that Viktor had so muddied the events surrounding Eskavord’s burning that her own complicity was concealed even from rumour. She deplored the lie. Then, for his insistence of bearing the burden alone. The fires of Eskavord had been necessary. Every man, woman and child in the town had borne a fragment of Malatriant’s spirit – had even one survived, the Tyrant Queen would have done so alongside, and the shadowthorns would be the least of anyone’s worries. Now? Well, that was complicated, bound up in guilt and resentment. Rosa’s feelings about Viktor had complicated further in the year since they’d been at Darkmere.
But even as Rosa wrestled with old memories, a cold fist clamped tight about her gut. Malatriant had influenced Eskavord across centuries, nudging the populace to revolt and rebellion until she was strong enough to consume them, body and soul. But what if a piece of her had survived the fires? What if Drenn’s arrival in Tarvallion was more than it appeared? Her actions not entirely her own? Would she even know? So many of Malatriant’s thralls had not until it was too late.
Drenn nodded, her eyes tracking across the crowd, a woman weighing possibilities of her own. The balance of the crowd’s sympathies, perhaps. Then she offered a smile no less sharp than her tone, and jumped down from the wagon.
“Very well, Lady Orova. Let’s talk.”