RAKEL
Lil had never better lived up to her name to when she bore me through the battle like a demon from the stories.
We wove between skirmishes. Past horrors I’ll never truly wipe from my mind. And, finally, we made it up to the bluff, where Ash lay. Helpless. His life ebbing from him. Lil knew what I wanted, folding down on to her knees so that I could somehow get Ash on to her back.
When we finally emerged on the Losian side of the battlefield, Barden was there to greet us. “You look like a trio of ghosts,” he said.
And no wonder. The pale grey cloud now covered the sky as far as we could see, and with it came a steady fall of ash, covering the world and everyone in it in drifts, like ethereal snow, scented with the barest hint of sulphur. Soon, that was all I could smell. A strange mix of minerals and char and sun-heated rock before rainfall.
With both Iddo and Zostar dead, the larger army lost its focus. The discipline of the Aphorains and the home advantage of the Losians soon forced the others to retreat. Many surrendered in the name of the rightful heir.
It took days to gather our dead, but in the darkness beneath the ash, who could say where night ended and day began? Thanks to Asmudtag, Ash was not one of them. He would have been, if he’d been left any longer. And he almost still was, because all I could do was treat his wounds the traditional way, finally accepting that he wouldn’t want me to sacrifice myself.
Now, a great row of funeral pyres is piled high with the ingredients for sacred smoke, carried overland from the Losian serpent boats. Cypress would be the strongest scented among them all, invoking Azered to guide the souls of the fallen to the sky. But for the life of me, I can’t separate out a single note.
There’s carefully shipped krilmair oil, too, making sure there’s all the heat we need and the flames won’t stutter halfway through the ceremony. With the ash cloud now spreading to every horizon, who knows if this is going to have an effect, but we do it anyway. Maybe back when this all started I wouldn’t have cared. But now it seems important to at least try for those of the fallen who believed.
I nod at the others down the line, holding their torches. We bend and touch the flames to the pyres. They ignite in a wave that leaps to the sky with a roar. I hope for all our sakes that it’s the last battle cry of our lives.
Soon, the larger logs begin to catch. The heat intensifies and I’m forced to retreat a few steps. Along the line, I see the others do the same once, twice, three times as the fire grows hotter and hotter.
After some time, the others along the line retreat and turn away, off to make whatever final preparations they need to leave this place.
Barden stays.
We stand, shoulder to shoulder. I look up to where the light of the flames gild my oldest friend’s features.
“Do you think you’ll go back?” I don’t have to say where. We both know I’m talking about our village.
He glances back to camp. “You know what they say about home being where the heart is.”
“Or where the heart can find a princely standard of living?”
He laughs, gently shoving me with an elbow. “I offer him something, too, you know.”
I give him an appraising look. All those times I found him in quiet conversation with Nisai, I thought it was Barden’s ambition-fuelled charm that had caught the Prince’s ear. But then I think of how Barden always used to keep something aside for those who needed it most. He’d send his pay home to support his sister and her baby. Every time we’d ride into Aphorai City he’d take honeybread or dried rock figs for the poor children. When we filched oranges from Old Man Kelruk’s, he’d only eat one, and share the rest around our village.
Barden has his faults, we all do. But he’s always had two admirable qualities: loyalty and generosity.
“Will you go back?”
“No.” I smile. “I’ve got somewhere much more me in mind.”
Quiet footsteps approach from behind.
Ash still limps, and his side is bandaged. The wounds from the shadow tearing free have healed, but everything else is taking longer. It seems the cloud dampens everything about him that’s more than human.
Barden excuses himself, passing Ash with a wary look. He may have turned the tide of battle, but that doesn’t mean Barden will ever fully trust him.
“Did I hear you say you’re leaving?” he asks.
“Soon, yes.”
His expression might seem stoic, but I know him well enough to see the sadness beneath.
“You know I will face all kinds of dangers with you. We’re a team.” I take his hand. I hope it’s not for the last time. “But there’s only one person who can truly heal you. And I think we both know you need to focus on them for the time being, not on me.”
“Who?”
“You.”