EIGHT: A Chance to Escape
When I was growing up, it was expected that all children memorize the names of the Twelve Saints, like Nuhad, matron of birth and beginnings; Ordwin, matron of spring and all growing things; Cosme, matron of love and passion; Dontae, matron of protection and mercy. Setting my sights on Yenda Avard aligned my path with Zhenka, matron saint of vengeance…and by slaying two of the men responsible for the slaughter, I was one step closer to seeing that vengeance fulfilled.
Except, I’d let Kale Isrodel live. He’d run me through, whether he regretted it later or not. I should’ve done the same to him. It made no sense to me why, in the heat of the moment, I’d killed some and let others live.
Alek’s face was burned into my memory, his dead-as-glass eyes staring right through me, unable to even move until I wished it. It was the second time I’d watched a dead man stand up—impossible things were becoming less and less impossible with each new day. Deathbringer might be able to explain what happened, whenever I had the chance to ask. I could only guess when that might be.
I satisfied some of my frustration by pulling my arm from Kale’s grip as soon as we were out of sight of the Twin Moons. I pulled out my knife and leveled it at him. “That’s enough.”
The redhead was more than half a head taller than me, but he immediately stopped. “Ho now, no need for that,” he said, keeping both hands in sight. “Truly. It was…Inga, right? Can I call you Inga? You don’t have to—”
“I don’t want to hear you talk,” I said, cutting him off. “I need you to get me on a train out of here, and then hopefully I’ll never see your snow-blasted self ever again. Now move.” I put my knife away and grabbed his coat, spinning him around before giving a hard shove towards the direction of the howling noises I’d heard earlier.
“And what if Commander Golova catches you?” he said over one shoulder. “Yenda said that she was paying extra to whoever managed to find you; that’s what Alek was talking about. You think that Golova won’t have more Avardi stationed all along this route?”
“I’ll figure something out,” I said, hoping he couldn’t hear the bluffing in my voice. It was useful information to have, but I had absolutely no idea what to do about it. I was still processing what I’d done behind the Twin Moons, at how I hadn’t hesitated to cut those two men down when it counted. My mother had taught me to prepare myself for the shock of having to use lethal force to defend myself; I was still waiting for that shock to catch up to me. Half of me wished I could’ve made them suffer longer, somehow; the other, more-logical half knew I was trying to rationalize cold-blooded murder.
What would become of my resolve when—I refused to use the word if—I saw Yenda Avard again? I couldn’t afford to question or doubt myself. When the moment of opportunity came, I couldn’t hesitate.
“Do you really want to kill her?” he asked. “Yenda, I mean.”
“I knew who you meant,” I answered, still pushing him ahead of me.
“How in the world do you intend to accomplish that?”
“Why? Why do you care?”
“Look, I’m just trying to understand what your plan is—”
I stopped, spinning him around again. “Do you always gab on like a frost-brained farmhand that can’t hold his liquor?” The street around us was empty. Our only witnesses were the nearby pine trees, which shifted and hissed in the evening breeze.
“Are you this profane with everyone you meet?”
“Well, I beg your pardon, Your Lordship,” I said with a snort. “I only save my best profanity for winter-blighted highborn men who stab me in the chest when we first meet.”
He frowned. “I was just trying to make conversation.”
“Good to know. And…Kale, is it?”
He nodded.
“You afraid I’ll do to you what I did to your friends?”
“They were not my friends,” he said.
“Yes, you said as much before… Why not?”
Kale blinked, as if my question had surprised him. “Excuse me?”
“Why weren’t they your friends? You were close enough to all go riding together with Yenda Avard two days ago.”
“I told you,” he said, “those were orders.” Under the golden light of the lanterns, his blue and silver coat looked pale and washed out, while the one bloodstained sleeve was touched with black. His red hair turned a deep auburn. The saber at his side had a guard of polished brass that shone and reflected the yellow light—I wondered if that was the same sword he’d used to run me through.
“So why are you helping me? Are those orders too?” It seemed unlikely, but I knew he wouldn’t admit the truth, even if I was right.
As I expected, he shook his head. “It just…not every day you see a dead woman walking around.”
“Maybe you’re just bad at killing people. Or maybe I’m bad at staying dead.”
Kale flinched. “Saints, how can you be so cavalier about—”
“I think I’ve earned the right to be,” I said, staring him down.
He pressed his lips together. “I’m sorry about what happened—how many ways do you want me to say it? If I’d had another chance to do things differently—”
“Well, you didn’t,” I said, cutting him off. “You did what you did, I’m still here, and once I’m away from here, I’d just as soon not see you ever again, thank you.”
“But the Commander—”
“—is not someone I’m worried about right now.” I grabbed his arm and turned him about. “Keep moving.”
At the top of the hill we halted. A long building stood in the center of a large clearing amidst the trees; a number of tree stumps were still sticking up out of the ground on either side of the road. The structure had a wide curved roof, and smaller pointed roofs like slender black pyramids at each corner. Its sides were painted blue, now turned grey in the evening light. I saw large windows, the panes of glass reflecting the light of the moon, twinkling like starlight. The structure was wreathed in vapor and steam, and now I saw a long, black shape like a huge caterpillar in the distance, sitting poised upon a long track of steel and wood that stretched off into the forest. Slender poles stuck out of the ground on one side of that track, stretching up for six or seven meters, with black cables strung along end-to-end on each that seemed to go on forever. Figures moved like ants in the distance, or hurried down the road ahead of us.
The train depot had to be the largest building I’d ever seen in my life. I couldn’t help but stare at it for a moment, only stopping myself with a snort of annoyance; I didn’t have the luxury to marvel at new and wondrous things anymore. Yenda Avard wouldn’t have stood and gawked—she’d keep moving, letting nothing get between her and what she wanted.
“Miss, please!” Kale’s voice was another annoyance, like the buzzing of a horsefly in my ears that refused to find someone else to harass.
I opened my mouth to say something snide, but stopped myself when I saw his face, saw him staring over my shoulder. I turned and saw a pair of mounted Avardi soldiers coming, riding down the road towards us at a brisk pace.
“Halt! In the Matriarch’s name!” cried one of them.
I took a breath and tried not to start shaking. Such an irrational anger was in me at that moment. “You managed to call more of your Avardi friends?” I said, fixing the redhead a glare that should’ve burned him to ashes.
“How would I have done that?” he said, sounding bewildered at my accusation. “I tried to warn you. There’s standing orders to look for any woman traveling alone.”
I heard that low howling noise again; in the distance, I watched a thick cloud of vapor bellow from the head of the black train, with more bells ringing after it. That had to be the last train leaving town, the one Ira mentioned before he left.
I had to get on that train.
The horses were now close enough that Kale didn’t speak any further. I stowed any annoyance or anger deep, deep down, and kept my hands away from the weapons tucked into my belt.
“Ho there,” one of the riders said, an older woman with graying hair and hard, deep-set eyes. “Private Isrodel.”
Kale nodded once. “Corporal.”
“You. Woman,” the Corporal said to me next, pulling off her hat. “Identify yourself.”
“Why?” I blurted the word out before I could stop myself, and bit my cheek in frustration. I was impatient to get away, but I couldn’t afford to make a scene. “I’m sorry, I’m in a hurry. Why do you need my name?”
“I have orders to be on the lookout for any women in need of assistance, Miss.” She made it sound like she was trying to do me a favor. “Identify yourself—if you would, please.”
“My name is Inga Ivanova,” I said; it was the name I wanted to have, anyway. “Can I help you, soldier?”
“Corporal Mitiryva Ribov, Miss,” she said.
“Well, I’m in a bit of a hurry right now, Corporal—that train is leaving soon, so I don’t have time for idle chatter.”
“Is this man accompanying you, Miss?” Ribov asked me, motioning to Kale.
“And if he isn’t?”
At the same time, Kale said: “I might be.”
The second rider, a younger man still wearing his cap, did a bad job of hiding a smirk behind his gloved hand. I glared at Kale again, who blanched and forced a cough.
“Ah-ha.” Ribov pressed her lips to a thin line. “I’m afraid I need to ask you to come with me, Miss.”
“Am I under arrest for wanting to buy a train ticket?” I said. My heart felt like it was swelling up at the back of my throat.
“You’re not under arrest at all, Miss,” she said. “But your presence may be required by my commanding officer. I cannot allow you to leave.”
The bell kept ringing, punctuated by another howl. I could feel something clawing inside of my skin with every wasted second. “Then your commanding officer can come ask for my presence herself, Corporal. I have to get on that train.”
“I’m sorry, Miss,” she said, nudging her horse closer. “I’m afraid that’s not possible. I’ve been tasked with checking on any women matching your physical description and traveling alone in this town—you’ve no luggage, no companions, and no explanation as to why you’re here. I have my orders. Come with us, please.”
The train howled again, and I was out of patience. “To blight with your orders,” I spat, turning my back on the woman and hurrying down the hill for the depot.
“Hey now! Stop!” Over my shoulder, I saw the Corporal urge her horse forward. She started reaching down to grab the shoulder of my jacket, but when I turned to side-step her clutching fingers, intending to grab her wrist and throw her off the horse, my hand was knocked aside as Kale inserted himself, physically, between the two of us.
“She’s with me, Corporal,” he said, staring up at the officer; I noted he was hiding his injured arm behind his back. “I’m honor-bound to see to it that she gets on that train. We all know that’s the last one out of town tonight, and it sounds ready to leave any minute.”
The woman frowned. I watched her pucker up her mouth like she’d taken a bite out of something foul. “Private, you will stand aside—”
“She’s here on behalf of my sister, Matriarch of Clan Isrodel, and the Avardi First Daughter. I put in for personal leave months ago so I could escort her back to the capital.” He talked quickly, too quick for her to argue, and the train howling in the near-distance wasn’t helping the Corporal concentrate, either. “Now, if you want to be the person who has to explain to Commander Golova, then to her superior officer, then to Yenda Avard the Younger and my Matriarch besides about how you interfered in a Woman Citizen’s business just because you couldn’t take her word for it, well—” He winced, as if in sympathy for the woman’s eventual fate “—just don’t say I didn’t warn you ahead of time.”
Ribov hadn’t lost that foul look on her face. She looked from Kale, to me, and back again. “And what is the nature of your friend’s visit?” she said, fixing the redhead with a long stare.
“That’s personal information, Corporal. You’d have to take that up with my sister or the First Daughter, I’m afraid.”
Corporal Ribov looked more displeased by the second, like she knew she was being fooled. “I find this all a little too convenient, Private Isrodel.”
“Well, Corporal, the truth often tends to turn out that way,” Kale replied, shrugging his shoulders.
At the next round of the ringing bell, Ribov growled and pulled hard on her horse’s reins, turning the beast around towards town. She rode off without another word, leaving her companion to catch up.
“Come on, hurry!” Kale took my hand and pulled me towards the depot, practically breaking into a run as soon as his superior officer turned his back on us. As I found myself running to catch the train before it departed, I kept asking myself how events had managed to turn out this way, why I was holding onto that man’s hand while we ran, and just who Kale Isrodel actually was.
YENDA
Of all the people who once intimidated Yenda, her mother, Yenda the Elder, occupied a spot at the very top of that list. Yenda the Elder had been Clan Avard’s Matriarch since before her eldest daughter was born, and had occupied that spot for nearly four decades. Winter was more than just a long, dark season of ice and snow—it was something the younger Yenda saw in the hard stare of her mother’s cold, blue eyes. The Elder Yenda had a reputation as cold and unbending as Frostbite, the Spellsword she carried…but time, it seemed, had changed her mother, and not for the better.
For now, those blue eyes were closed. The Matriarch sat at the end of the table in her upstairs hall, her most private and innermost sanctum. The First Daughter had presented her greatest triumph, the Deathbringer—the black blade sat upon a wrap of pale velvet, since Yenda was still unable to hold the weapon herself for long, even with gloves. It seemed to drink in the light, showing a hint of yellow along one edge, as though it’d been dipped in gold.
“Well, Mother?” Yenda was excited and on-edge. “What do you think?”
The Matriarch’s face seemed to be more a mask of pain than one of triumph or satisfaction, as Yenda had hoped. When those eyes opened again, they beheld the younger woman with a look of dread, not pleasure. “Yenda…what have you done?”
“Mother?”
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” The elder Yenda moaned and passed a hand across her face. “Oh, child, no… No, no, no—this is terrible!”
Yenda blinked, frowning. “Mother, this is not what I was hoping to hear from you. Look what I’ve done, what I accomplished! This is the Deathbringer—the real thing! Aren’t you pleased?”
“Pleased? How could I be pleased?” The Matriarch laced her hands together, beholding the black sword, concern written all over her weathered face. “This weapon…the Sword of Life’s Bane is a curse, Yenda—it brings nothing but misfortune and woe to anyone who Bears it. Your grandmatron Saviah, she saw what ruin it brought upon the world with her own eyes. She told me all about what Mad Katarina did in its name.” The elder Yenda looked at Deathbringer for a moment, then threw the wrap back over the weapon, shoving it away. “It’s an evil thing, Daughter. You should not have brought it into this house without my permission!”
“Permission?!” Yenda didn’t bother trying to control her temper. “Mother, without going around your ‘permission,’ none of all my years of hard work and searching would’ve amounted to anything. Do you think I want to be a minor noblewoman in some backwater province for the rest of my life?” She swept her arm for effect. “The entire world knows what Clan Avard did during the War—how we followed Clan Alenir until it was convenient to stab them in the back—”
The Matriarch was old, but she still had enough strength to push to her feet fast enough to knock her chair backwards, banging on the carpeted floor and the stones beneath it. “Watch your tongue, girl,” she snapped, narrowing her eyes. “My mother was a hero when it mattered most, and you’ll not sully her name in this house while it’s still mine. Do you understand me?”
Yenda wanted to spit. “Oh, Saints take our ‘good name,’ Mother. What is it? It’s just a word! Gramma Saviah and our entire family were banished to the north-end of the continent, and because of what?” She gestured at the Deathbringer, pulling the wrap away again from the black blade with tender adoration. “For this, Mother. The Sword survived, and it came north for us to find and claim it. If our Clan were to control not just one Spellsword but two, the balance of power in the Empire would shift to us! Imagine what the powers in Ordradelon would do to get back into our good graces—”
“Yenda, Yenda!” The elder woman’s voice seemed more pleading than angered now. She reached out, grabbing her daughter’s hands in her own. “Don’t you understand? The Deathbringer—it’s affecting you. It rejected you as its Bearer, but still you covet its power!”
The First Daughter scowled, pulling her hands away. “Mother, I told you already: all that’s left to do is just to ensure that the Alenir girl is dead. I’d have already accomplished that if not for having to come back here first. Once I’ve eliminated her—”
“Oh, fuff—you’re more fortunate than you know. The Deathbringer is a wicked thing, Yenda! It’s already corrupting your mind, leading you to a bad end! Please, Daughter, as surely as I love you, now I am begging you—get rid of it! Before it gets even worse!”
“This is pointless,” Yenda said, straightening, forcing iron into her voice. She was angry now, but with herself—all of her hard work, her tireless searching, her dreams of a better future, all of it might as well have not even existed. “Forget I ever brought it up, Mother. You needn’t concern yourself with this matter any longer.” Setting her jaw, she picked up the Sword, turned and walked to the door. She threw it open, heedless of how loud it rattled on its hinges and slammed against the wall as she strode down the hall, not looking back.
“I want it out, Yenda!” the Matriarch called, her voice growing louder by the second. “I want it out of my house! I don’t care where, or how—out, I say! Out!”