As the cataphract column wound through drizzled, sullen streets, Cardivan almost heard the bells chiming for his ascension. Anticipation rippled through his veins, the ambition of a lifetime at last coming to a head. Worth the chafing of sodden armour, and more besides.
Battle still sounded to the east. No cause for worry. Inevitable consequence of his warriors reaching the Ravencourt barracks too late and finding it mobilised. Elsewhere, all was silent, Tregard’s denuded garrison overwhelmed by sheer numbers and surprise. And the populace, as predicted, cowered in their homes. Come coronation, they’d cheer him. Kings came and went. Fiefs changed hands, and life went on.
A second, smaller column cantered out of the west and joined those gathered between the stag-banner. Uncomfortable as ever in the saddle, Thirava assumed an heir’s proper place on his father’s right just as the bruised and humiliated Brackar rode on his left. Not a speck of blood adorned Thirava’s armour. As the father, so the son. A man did not need to wield the sword to claim victory by it.
“My king.” Thirava’s tone was a study in false deference. As ever. “Their ranks are broken, the palace surrounded. But I do wonder at the cost.”
Cardivan regarded his son with weary distaste. So certain of his place in the world. So much to learn. “It’s a sacrifice. An Emperor must not only be strong, but be seen to have strength.”
“I might believe that were it your own men dying, and not mine.”
“The throne will be yours soon enough, will it not? Sooner than I expect, I’m sure.” He offered Thirava a sidelong glance. “Or do you think I don’t know of your agents among my household?”
His son flinched. “I’d never—”
Cardivan waved him to silence. “It’s a family tradition. Should you get the better of me, I’ll deserve it. Dare I hope for competence elsewhere?”
Thirava scowled. “The Empress will be yours by dusk.”
Cardivan let another street pass away beneath his horse’s hooves before answering. “And our agents in the palace?”
“Loyalists hold the walls, their eyes outward. What occurs within is a mystery. I’ve given orders for the assault.”
Cardivan nodded. Even if Melanna and her daughter had escaped his suborned Immortals, the distraction was enough. Action was all, and reaction death. Perhaps, had the Empress been free to rally her warriors, things might have transpired differently – whatever contempt Cardivan held for her person, he respected her ability – but now those warriors were dead or captive. She had no one.
Well, almost no one. A few hundred Immortals within the palace walls. The odd fugitive… Brackar’s cowardice in the face of Apara Rann still rankled – and that it had been the Empress’ pet Tressian who’d humbled his champion, Cardivan didn’t doubt. One last bastion remained, and as the white boundary wall and iron gate of Mooncourt Temple came into view at the street’s end, Cardivan rode to unmake it.
It wasn’t much. A flicker of Tesni’s gaze. Barely a heartbeat of broken attention. But to Melanna, wound tight with outrage and fearing for an absent daughter, a heartbeat was a lifetime.
Bracing a foot against Tesni’s thigh, Melanna ripped free of the hand about her neck and the sword at her throat. The deed set her stumbling, the tangled skirts of her gown and impractical formal shoes offering little stability and less grip.
Melanna circled, trying to keep not only her attacker but the rest of the throne room in sight. Tesni’s sword darted, sending her back the other way, the cowering Jorcari, the throne and the two other treacherous Immortals again lost somewhere behind.
Tesni hacked down. Melanna flung herself aside, losing only the trailing edge of a sleeve to the blade. A grunt sounded behind. A scream. Then Tesni’s sword stabbed forward once again, leaving Melanna no attention for anything else. Tesni bore down with short, stabbing blows. Melanna retreated, her every attempt to break left or right thwarted by steel.
“It isn’t too late,” she gasped. “Give me your sword.”
Tesni offered no words, but Melanna read answer in her eyes. She knew that look. She’d seen it in so many faces. She’d recognised it in herself. The knowledge that bridges behind were in flames, and the only way forward was through the darkness.
Those same eyes warned Melanna of Tesni’s next swing before it arrived. Ducking beneath the blade, she broke right, angling towards the throne. The throne, and the Goddess’ moonsilver sword hanging from the armrest.
“No!” shouted Tesni.
Fifteen paces. A thunder of Tesni’s footfalls sounded behind.
Ten paces. Melanna cursed ever having laid eyes on the formal gown.
Five paces.
An Immortal veered in from Melanna’s right.
She twisted. The sword meant for her heart found empty air. Survival robbed her of balance. She fell, head, shoulder and hip cracking against tile. As she struggled to rise, the Immortal’s helm blotted out the towering statues of the gods, and the throne room’s distant roof. Slowly, deliberately, he spun his sword point downwards and grasped it in both hands.
“Tirane Aregnum.”
The Immortal collapsed, cut down from behind. A withered hand found hers.
“Empress.”
Jorcari helped Melanna rise, his manner again that of an unbending warrior. Behind him, the remaining traitor lay sprawled across the tiles, sightless eyes skyward. The old man bore not a scratch.
Planting a hand in Jorcari’s chest, Melanna shoved him aside. Tesni’s blade hissed between them. Melanna dipped and stood tall with a dead Immortal’s sword in her hand.
Tesni struck again. Melanna met the blow with steel of her own, and welcomed the shiver of impact. For all that an Empress’ duties had atrophied her bladework, her arm knew what was needed.
Swords scraped once, twice, three times. Tesni went back, the first fear in her eyes. A fourth exchange, and her sword skidded across the floor, chased along by the cry of pain from severed fingers. Her boot slipped on a smear of blood. She landed heavily, the ruin of her sword hand further slicking the tiles, the other outstretched to fend off the inevitable.
“Please…”
Melanna pursued, outrage cold as ice. “I offered you mercy. You chose this.”
One sweep of the sword struck Tesni’s warding hand away. A thrust silenced her for good.
Sick at heart, Melanna left the sword buried in the corpse. The sounds of distant battle swelled around her, much of it close enough to be elsewhere in the palace. A moment. She’d bought only a moment. How many of her household had Cardivan suborned? If he’d broken the legend of the Immortals, all were suspect. All who’d chosen to be at her side. How could she defend herself and Kaila, much less the Empire? She had a nation, and yet she was alone.
“Jasaldar Jorcari?” For all that she spoke softly, the words carried. “I owe you a debt I cannot repay, and now I must impose another. I’ve no notion of how matters lie beyond this room. It may well be that the palace offers nothing but corpses. But if your lodgemates live, would you find them, and bring them here? I need men about me I can trust.”
“There is no debt, my Empress. If they live, you shall have them.” He tilted his head, shrewdness gleaming in his eye. “But I must have your promise that you’ll still be here upon our return.”
For a moment, Jorcari was gone, and Melanna’s father stood in his place, so clearly had he read her intent.
“I will not abandon my daughter,” she replied. “I will know that she is safe even if I have to tear this palace apart with my bare hands.”
He nodded. “Of course. But a dead mother is no gift to her child. Even for an Empress, patience is all.”
Melanna scowled, but truth cared little for her worries. “Go.”
Rosa saw not a living soul, warrior or otherwise, though this in no small part was due to her determination to go unseen. A Tressian loose in the Imperial palace was a Tressian of uncertain future – especially with the thrill of freedom running dry, and aching muscles a reminder of how close she’d come to death in recent days.
Of the dead, Rosa saw plenty, though which faction held ascendance was a mystery to her. Nor, in truth, did she care. Loyalist or traitor, they were all shadowthorns, and undeserving of mercy. Little would change if Melanna Saranal was dragged from the throne, save the lingering resentment that another had ended the woman who’d so soured Rosa’s life.
Reaching the next corner, Rosa checked her pace. An open door, bodies sprawled about it, and a room beyond. The ragged, uneven breath of the dying. Sword gripped tight, she edged out into the corridor.
A helmless, grey-bearded Immortal staggered through the doorway, one hand pressed to torn scales on his right side. He looked more a slaughterhouseman than a warrior, for scarcely a scrap bore no blood. His sword came up, levelled in line with an eye crusted shut.
“Are you part of this, Lady Orova?” The voice was weary, but unyielding. “I should tell you I’ve orders to kill you, should I find you loose in these halls.”
Rosa halted, her own sword at middle guard. High would have been better, but middle was easier on tired arms. “I’ve killed no one who did not first try to kill me.” She tilted her head, trying to make sense of the shadows behind him. “Don’t join them.”
He cracked a smile. “The arrogance of Essamere. I expect nothing less.” The sword point dipped, then righted. He swallowed hard. “Is your honour equal to your arrogance? Can I—”
He sagged against the architrave, leaving a scarlet trail as he slid to the floor. His sword chimed on tile, released from a twitching hand. A small girl in a soiled dress darted from the room beyond. Careless of the blood, she flung her arms about him.
“You mustn’t die, Shar Rasha,” she wailed. “You promised to find my mother.”
Rosa drew closer, unsure why she did so. The child’s racket would only draw attention.
Rasha put his sword-arm about the girl. “The selfishness of children. This is not how a princessa behaves, is it, essavim?” She gave no answer save tears, and he turned his good eye on Rosa. “I saw you fight, years ago. You broke the wall at Zaragon to save a wounded comrade. You were remarkable. And I marked you again years later, at Govanna, where you were death without mercy. Which are you now?”
Rosa shook her head, thrown by the question. She’d forgotten about Zaragon. A squalid brawl in the borderlands, as all such skirmishes were. A shadowthorn mace had shattered her shield arm. She’d been weeks recovering.
“I don’t know. Maybe neither.”
Dry laughter caught in his throat. “You at least do not seem a woman who would kill a child, and I…” Alertness faded from his expression. A wince brought it rushing back. “I am out of options. Bring Kaila to her mother, and we will both have our answers.”
Rosa shook her head. “Why should I care what happens to the Empress’ brat?” The question set the girl wailing anew. “The sins of the kith care nothing for age. She inherits her mother’s crimes.”
“Perhaps because she stopped the last war,” breathed Rasha. “Because she gambled everything she holds dear on the hope of preventing the next. Or perhaps because a warrior’s worth is not in who she kills, but who she is prepared to die for, and why.”
Rosa glared, furious at his presumption. He comprehended nothing of the debt the House of Saran owed the Republic. Malachi Reveque slaughtered at an Emperor’s hand. The Eastshires, conquered. The dead of Govanna, Haldravord and Terevosk. Prydonis obliterated and Essamere driven to the brink. Ten thousand unmarked graves along the Ravonn, and the proud fortresses of Ahrad and Vrasdavora cast down.
But Rasha’s words echoed hints Josiri had dropped in the years since Govanna. Turns of phrase that suggested personal knowledge of an Empress who should have been no more than a loathed stranger. And Josiri was no fool.
Were Rasha’s claims true?
Voices sounded in the corridor, back the way Rosa had come.
“Choose quickly,” breathed Rasha. “While choice remains.”
Ever since Govanna, Rosa had striven to be better, and had stumbled more than she’d succeeded – her failure to confront Viktor with what he’d done to her was only part of it. Did she share that with Melanna Saranal? And even if she didn’t, what manner of monster abandoned a child to her death?
She took Kaila’s hand. To her surprise, the girl made no attempt to pull away.
Voices grew closer. The wet, rippling sound of a cut-throat silenced a pained cry.
Rasha nodded. “The corridors are not safe. But there are passageways hidden behind. She knows them all.” He brushed Kaila’s cheek. “Beneath the tears, she’s an imp of soot and secrets. But first, one last favour. Help me stand.”
After brief hesitation, Rosa laid aside her sword and seized his wrist. Between that and the wall, Rasha reached something approaching upright, hand still pressed to the scarlet ruin at his waist. Seeing wordless question in his eyes, Rosa returned to him his sword.
A deep, stuttering breath, and Rasha twisted to face the pursuit. “I will trouble them one last time. How does it go? Death and honour?”
Rosa nodded. “Death and honour.”
Death for Rasha and honour for her, and both of them his gift. For the first time in her life, Rosa found herself looking upon a shadowthorn – a Hadari – and wondered what fortune might have brought them had they met as friends. Her world grew suddenly more complicated, and her place in it far simpler. A shield, not a sword, and a girl’s life beneath her aegis.
Offering Rasha one last nod, she gathered Kaila in her arms.
Halfway down the next corridor, the air behind shook to a battle cry in an unfamiliar tongue. Screams followed, the last more defiant bellow than cry of pain. Then a wooden panel swung outward beneath Kaila’s probing fingers. In the darkness beyond there was no sound at all.
Four ranks of stag-shields and serried spears rippled apart. Brackar and Thirava at his side, Cardivan spurred forward to greet the woman who stood before the barred gate, figure-hugging white robes plastered to her skin by the rain. There would be others close by, no doubt. Concealed among the trees of the temple gardens, perhaps. Theatricality was the least of the lunassera’s skills.
“You’ve no business here, Cardivan Tirane.” Sera spoke evenly, no expression showing beneath the gentle curve of her silver half-mask. “Withdraw your spears, and the Goddess may yet forgive you.”
Cardivan leaned low over his horse’s neck, more amused than affronted. “You dare address your Emperor with insolence?”
“You do not rule here.”
“But I will. The House of Saran is done. Come midnight, you will acclaim me beneath the moon.” He stared up at the skies. A mistake, for no moon could have penetrated those clouds. Other men might have taken that as ill omen. “You are lunassera. Your service is to the throne.”
Sera’s head snapped up. “Our service is to the Goddess, and to those she claims as kin.” She raised her hand, and a spear of silvered light and jagged, planar edges coalesced in her hand. “Withdraw your spears.”
Cardivan couldn’t quite suppress a shiver. He saw fear reflected in the faces of his warriors, in the reflexive tightening of Thirava’s hand about the reins. The lunassera had a reputation that transcended healers’ gifts. But in duty, there was weakness.
Quelling his fear, Cardivan sat high in his saddle, and raised his voice to proclamation. “If the Goddess claims Melanna as her own, let her do so. Let her Huntsman summon the mists and ride out with the Court of Eventide at his back.” He stared past her to the temple, its white stone still bright, even through rain. “But if the lunassera leave this place, the wounded in your care will be left unprotected. The temple will be unprotected. I will raze it to the ground, and have the land given over to something useful. A pig farm, perhaps.”
Murmurs rippled through the assembled ranks. Whispered expectation that the Goddess Ashana would not let such words pass unchallenged. But these faded when no bolt of searing flame leapt from the heavens, when no otherworldly hunting horn shook the sky. Absence brought reminder that Ashana had been distant since the close of the Avitra Briganda.
The shard-spear faded from Sera’s hand.
Cardivan nodded, careful to keep his relief hidden. “This will all be over soon.”
“Yes,” she replied icily. “It will.”
Somehow the simple, unprepossessing words shook Cardivan more than any that had come before. More theatricality? The lunassera rejoiced in playing at prophets, but prophecy was not truth.
“To the palace!” he shouted. “A new era begins!”
As he wheeled his horse about, the wind brought new clamour from the west. Sounds that had dominated recent hours roused again to wakefulness. The growl of battle and the strike of swords. Cardivan’s confidence, battered on the rocks of Sera’s certainty, began to fray.
“What now?” he snarled.
When Jorcari returned to the throne room, he did so not just in the company of two dozen lodgemates – all time-worn, and many with bindwork limbs as proof of valiant service – but also with Ori Chakdra, a havildar of the palace gate. As trustworthy a soul as any Melanna had known… but then, trust was a coin greatly devalued that day. Blackwinders busied themselves barricading the doors with benches and tables. Jorcari escorted Chakdra forward.
The havildar dropped to his knees, head bowed. “My Empress, we failed you.” His voice shook, wrath and humiliation in the balance. “Those I trust are hunting the faithless as we speak.”
“How can I believe anything you say?” Melanna replied sourly. “For the first time, I’m glad my father is gone. To see this would have broken him.”
Chakdra slid his sword from its scabbard. Grasping it by the blade, he offered her the hilt. “If you doubt me, strike my head from my shoulders. I offer it gladly.”
Melanna took the sword, every passing moment of Kaila’s absence weightier than the one before. Her father would have accepted the sacrifice. Haldrane would have urged it. Certainty demanded it. But if there was to be any hope in coming days, there had to be trust. Blind suspicion crippled as surely as any wound.
She reversed the sword and held it out. “Rise, havildar. There’s failure enough this day. If I take your head, I must offer my own alongside. How many remain—”
Cries of alarm rang out. Blackwinders rushed towards the towering statue of Jack with scavenged weapons drawn. As Melanna joined them, she spied a half-height panel in the sculpted robes, so cleverly concealed she’d no suspicion of its existence. That she saw it now was only because it hung slightly ajar, frozen in the act of opening.
“Announce yourself!” she shouted.
A pause. Blackwinders edged closer, weapons levelled.
“Madda?”
For a moment, Melanna thought a longing heart deceived her ears. Then the panel creaked fully open. Kaila, her hair matted and filthy, her face streaked with dried blood, clambered into the room as if there were nothing unusual in the deed.
“Kaila?”
Melanna held her daughter tight. She’d no notion how long she knelt there, only that it wasn’t long enough – could never be long enough. A piece of her world returned, and she the stronger for it.
She pulled back. Fingers probed for harms, and found nothing but grazes. “Are you hurt, essavim?”
Kaila shook her head, welling tears a match for Melanna’s own. “Shar Rasha kept me safe. And her. She killed so many…”
Fresh growls of challenge dragged Melanna’s gaze back to the panel. Face unflinching, her rent and torn clothing covered in blood, Lady Orova cast a sword to the tiles. The Blackwinders closed in.
“Stop!” Melanna stood, once again little crediting the evidence of her eyes. Orova the truce-breaker, the widowmaker of Govanna Field… her daughter’s saviour? “Is it true?”
Orova staggered, a faltering hand leaving a crimson smear against the statue’s flank. “If you don’t believe your daughter,” she said in halting, accented Rhalesh, “what surety can I offer?”
“And Jasaldar Rasha?”
“He died for her.”
There was no parsing that swirl of emotion. Relief that Rasha had been true to the last. Sorrow for what it had cost him. Gratitude to the woman who’d slain more of Rhaled’s loyal warriors than any save the Droshna himself. As Melanna floundered amid their confluence, the air grew chill, a scent of stale yesterdays rising to challenge the scents of woodsmoke and stale blood.
Green-white vapour spilled from a doorway no longer bounded by stone and timber, but swirling mist. A lifeless body draped across outstretched arms, a ragged Apara Rann stumbled into the throne room and eased her burden down.
“Haldrane?” Melanna pushed Kaila to Apara’s keeping and crouched beside him.
The mists dissipating behind, Apara gave a sharp shake of the head. “I found him in the streets. He was all but gone then. I didn’t want to bring him through Otherworld – it’s stolen most of what was left – but he insisted. Cardivan’s warriors are everywhere.”
Haldrane uttered a great, wracking sigh and clutched and grabbed Melanna’s shoulder. Red-rimmed eyes burned in a greying face. “It seems… my warning has come too late.”
She laid a hand on his. “That doesn’t matter now. You need to live.”
“I have erred… this is my payment. I encouraged Cardivan, you see. Better to draw out his poison… not fester in the shadows. Force you… to deal with him in kind. But I was complacent.”
The confession should have provoked anger, but Melanna found she’d none to offer. “You old fool. You should have listened to me.”
“I should.” A laugh gurgled in Haldrane’s throat. Still prone, he craned his neck, bloodshot eyes taking in the chamber’s occupants. “I would have had you… force enemies and rivals to be resentful servants. Bound them with lies and protocol. The way of your sires. Instead, you’ve made them into allies. Your way… will serve you better than mine.”
“And what if it’s too late for that?”
Haldrane gave no reply. He’d never again offer one that side of the mists.
Laying the lifeless hand across his chest, Melanna closed his eyes and stumbled to her feet. The loss hurt more than it should. She’d never liked Haldrane overmuch, nor he her. But for all his contrition, he’d also confirmed the horrific scale of what was underway. It wasn’t just the palace. It was the city. Perhaps even the Empire. Was Aeldran already dead upon the road? Mergadir overrun? The twin thoughts squeezed every scrap of breath from her lungs.
“What are your orders, Empress?” asked Chakdra.
They were all looking to her for guidance. Not just Chakdra. Not just Jorcari and his lodgemates, but Apara… and even Orova. Kaila seemed more confused than anything else, a blessing among dire times. What did she tell them? An Empress was nothing without warriors, and hers were dead, or gone. The business of Empire would continue readily without her. Few cared who ruled, so long as someone did.
It was over. The House of Saran had fallen. Not through Haldrane’s hubris, but her own.
Jack had been right. She was alone.
“Do you hear that?” asked Jorcari.
And there was a new clamour in the streets outside. Battle renewed, and voices raised in unity, though the words were distorted.
Apara skirted Haldrane’s corpse and stood eye to eye with Melanna, her voice too quiet for any other to hear. “The streets were empty when I found Haldrane, but as I entered the mists they were filling again.” She glanced at Jorcari. “The spears of your garrisons are dead. But old warriors do not forget their loyalties. The populace has not forgotten all you’ve done since taking the throne. They’re finding their courage, and learning that it burns hot enough to kill.”
Melanna at last sifted words from the cacophony beyond the walls. Saranal Brigantim. Victory for the daughter of Saran.
Despair yielded to shame. Her Immortals were riven. Her garrison was gone – perhaps her husband and her armies too. But her people remained. And they fought for her.
She stared about the room, Haldrane’s final words taking on fresh meaning. You’ve made them into allies. Apara. Orova. Jorcari. The absent Aeldran, if he lived. His sister Aelia. Even Haldrane. Her father would have made enemies of them all. For their allegiance, for their deeds – for demanding something of the throne it was not prepared to give. Some had been her enemies also, but not at that moment. How had Josiri Trelan put it, less than a fortnight and a lifetime ago? Enemies make the finest friends. The kindness he’d twice shown had echoed through her own deeds, and now brought hope out of despair.
Because Jack had been wrong. She wasn’t alone.
“My place is with my people.” Melanna’s voice was once again something she recognised. “Those who would join me there do me the greatest honour.”
Jorcari and his lodgemates knelt, hands clasped to their chests in salute. Chakdra bowed. Apara nodded, a smile banished as soon as seen.
Orova set her back against the statue, her face pale, but her eyes steady. “I won’t fight to preserve your throne, Empress, but I will guard your daughter’s life with what remains of my own.”
Melanna nodded, the response far more than she’d hoped. Strange to trust an old foe so completely and without doubt, but that was the tenor of the day. “So be it.”
She stalked towards the throne. No fire blazed as she drew the Goddess’ sword free of its sheath. No matter. She’d plenty of her own.