FIFTEEN: The Black Heart
I opened my eyes and saw a wooden ceiling over my head. The roof had low, heavy wooden beams, hand-carved and denuded of bark. My head felt strange, like I’d knocked it against something especially hard; it seemed too heavy, like it might roll off of my shoulders if I sat up too quickly.
I was lying in a soft, spacious bed under a thick coverlet, feeling warm and comfortable, which was a nice change of pace compared to where I’d been. I was also naked again, but that was better than being half-frozen and soaked through after nearly drowning. Sunlight was streaming in through a nearby window framed with lace-white curtains. It was a comfortable bedroom, warm and inviting, the sort of place that I’d hoped to share with—
I froze, thoughts cut off in mid-stream. I was suddenly too frightened to move, dreading what I already knew was there. Closing my eyes, I held my breath and listened…and there it was: the slow, deep breathing of someone else asleep in the bed next to me. The sound was deep, unmistakably male, breathing I recognized all too well. Hearing it made my heart melt while a voice in my head began to wail at the same time.
Turning, opening my eyes again, I saw Pyotr lying next to me, turned away while deep in slumber. He was also undressed, as though he’d just fallen asleep after making love to me in our new marriage bed. I stared at his face in profile, his soft brown hair, his mouth tucked up in one corner even while asleep. Pyotr was a man who loved laughter and smiled easily, someone who the whole farmstead had admired and liked. I’d been lucky to catch him before anyone else.
“I just can’t get away from you, can I?” I spoke softly, irrationally worried about waking him up.
For a time, I just stared at him, at the shape of his bare shoulder and arm, his coiled fingers. I stared at his face the most, wanting to carve it into my memory so that every time I closed my eyes, I could still see him. I thought about crying, but what good would that do?
Maybe I wasn’t dreaming. Maybe I was already dead.
I reached down out to touch his face. Part of me knew it was only a dream, but in that quiet moment, I was willing to believe a lie.
“I miss you,” I whispered.
My husband’s breathing changed, stuttering for just a second, as though he heard my voice. I caught my breath and finally felt the sting of tears in my eyes, the heat ready to spill over before I could stop myself.
Deathbringer had never fully explained just what the rules of the Veil were—if I controlled the dream, did I also control the people I saw while dreaming? Could I will Pyotr back to life, at least in this place? I could see him, touch him, feel him; he certainly felt real enough to me. It would’ve been so easy to lie back down, slide under the blankets with him. I wanted to do that more than I wanted anything in the world—more than revenge, more than to keep on living.
My sleeping lover stirred again, rolling over in bed to face me, but his eyes were still closed. His breathing was stronger, louder, like he was on the edge of waking up. I bent down and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek, and his warm flesh felt divine on mine.
When I pulled back, Pyotr’s eyes were open. He was staring right at me. I wasn’t sure how long we looked at each other before he spoke: “Inga.” His smile was a ray of sunshine on a wintry day. “You have to wake up, Inga.”
“…what?”
“You have to wake up,” he repeated. As he reached over for me, the blue in his eyes seemed to swallow me up, until—
—the world around me was black. As I fought through a fog of exhaustion, I also fought against a surge of anger in my dead heart and the wish that I’d just stayed asleep. It was dark all around me, similar to my first visit to the Veil, but this darkness was different: it was total and complete, regardless of whether I kept my eyes closed or open. My next immediate thought was that either Deathbringer’s boon was powerful enough to revive me from a shot to the head, or maybe I really was dead—there weren’t a lot of other options between those two.
I was naked again, but could only tell that because of the oppressive chill in the air, the way I felt gooseflesh bubbling up all over my body. I couldn’t see myself, but I felt hunched over, hands suspended up and behind me. When I tried to pull them down, I heard a rattling of thick chains and felt a twinge of pain in my shoulders and back.
“Where…” I coughed, clearing my throat. “Where am I?”
“Beneath my fortress,” said a voice. “Lights.”
Immediately, bright-steel light flooded the room. The change was so sudden and painful that I hissed and squeezed my eyes shut, then focused on blinking the spots out of my vision. The chamber I was inside was small, perhaps three meters wide on all four sides, carved or cut out of some black rock that caught and refracted the light until it felt like I was floating in the middle of some flickering void. It seemed wickedly fitting that something known as the White Fortress should have a heart as black as that place.
A door of iron was standing open on the other side of the cell. In front of the opening stood an old woman, staring at me, flanked by a pair of burly, oversized Avardi soldiers. I supposed I should’ve been embarrassed at my nakedness, but I was in no position to care about modesty.
She waved a hand. “Leave us.”
The two men stepped outside, leaving the door open. I listened to the sound of their footsteps while the old woman and I stared at one another. She wore a silver gown of some expensive material, accented with gold and bright blue brocade in a design I might’ve considered rather pretty any other time. A silver tiara was set upon her head of grey hair, crusted with blue and white gemstones.
She was a solid woman and quite tall, someone who would’ve been imposing in her younger years, but age was finally starting to catch up with her, for she stood with a slight stoop. She had a bit of pink in both of her cheeks, and while her face wasn’t heavily lined or aged, I was struck by how old she looked from the fierce, hard stare she gave me, at how deep the lines were on either side of her mouth.
She also had the deepest, purest eyes of blue that I’d ever seen. Not even Pyotr or Kale had eyes like she did. Hers were a cold, fearless blue, a shade that made me think of the hardest winters I’d ever weathered in my life, huddled against the cold winds blowing out of the north.
This was not a woman I wanted to cross.
“Who are you?” I said. “Where are my clothes? And where’s Kale?”
“I am the Matriarch Avard,” the old woman said. “You must be the nuisance I’ve been hearing so much about. What’s your name, girl?”
“‘The nuisance?’” I pushed up on my toes, trying to relieve some of the discomfort in my back. “You expect me to have a conversation like this? Let me go!”
Yenda the Elder narrowed her eyes and reached over to a lever on the wall, pushing it up. I heard a loud, metallic clicking above me, a sound like gears turning—click, click, click—and felt the tension in my chains increase. My hands began to rise, pulled up and backwards, turning the discomfort in my shoulders and back into a shiv being slowly shoved down my spine. I cried out, twisting my face up while pushing up onto my toes, which barely did anything to relieve the pressure.
“Your. Name.”
“I-Inga! Stop!” Every single centimeter that the chains rose made my vision swim and my body shudder. It felt like I was a string being pulled taut, and in a couple more moments, I was going to break.
Yenda pulled the lever down and the chains went slack, although they didn’t come completely loose. I fell forward, half-sobbing with every breath, eyes closed. The stone was cold and rough under my feet, but at least now I didn’t feel like my bones were about to break. It was hard to consider that much of an improvement, though.
“Understand this, girl,” the woman said. “I have precious little time to trouble myself with you tonight. For every question you answer properly, your bonds will remain loosened; every time you defy me, the pain will increase.”
I found the strength to look up at her again and forced myself to speak. “Why are you doing this? What do you want?”
At first, the Matriarch didn’t answer. She just stared for a long moment, leaving me with time to catch my breath. When she stepped closer to me, I fought against the urge to flinch as she reached out to me, then unfastened my barrette with her long, delicate fingers. As my hair melted back into its normal color, her eyes widened, then narrowed. “Are you of Clan Alenir, Inga?”
“You already know I am. Why else would I be here?” I glared at her. “How am I even alive? That man shot me.”
“Ah.” She clasped her hands together. “A necessary ruse: my daughter’s obsession with you and your Spellsword had to be curtailed. Ruslan’s bullet was merely a powder-load—a flash and a sound—to convince her that you were shot. I determined the lie to be a necessary evil in this case.” There was a strange tone in her voice, some mixture of annoyance and resignation.
I knew I was staring, trying to process what she was telling me. “So…what are you saying? Your son pretended to shoot me so your daughter would think I was dead?”
“Indeed.”
“Why?”
The old woman gave me a long, unflinching gaze. “With you contained and hidden away, the Spellsword will be useless to her. Once Yenda’s persistence in trying to bind herself to the Deathbringer proves to be a failure, she’ll give up her ridiculous crusade to own the Sword once and for all.”
I wasn’t sure whether to gape or start laughing. “That’s insane! So, what—you’re just going to keep me locked up here? For how long?”
Yenda never answered me. Instead, she gave me a long, thoughtful look, then pushed the lever up again. “Why did you come to Whitehold, Inga? What happened between you and my daughter?”
Click. Click. Click. When she stopped the mechanism that time, I was clenching my teeth and trying not to moan from the pain. That cell was uncomfortably cold, but I was dripping with sweat. “‘What happened?’ Your daughter happened! Nngh!” I pushed myself up again, swapping from balancing on one set of toes to the other, but it did little good to alleviate the pain. I closed my eyes tight, tried to get my panting under control, to ignore the icy beads of moisture trickling down my back.
“What happened, Inga?” Yenda repeated. “Tell me.”
“You’re her mother, shouldn’t you ask her what she did?”
I heard the lever being pushed up again.
Click. Click. Click.
“What. Happened.” Yenda’s voice became intense, even angry.
The gears stopped for one moment. Gritting my teeth, I raised my head as much as I could, staring her down. “She came…to my farm…and her men killed everyone!” I had no patience, no composure, nothing good-natured left in me. I jerked at the chains with what limited strength I had left, roaring from my anger, my pain, and my sorrow. “This snow-blasted hole in my chest? Kale Isrodel put it there because she ordered it! All the men with her killed everyone else! She’s the reason they’re all dead! My mother! My husband! My whole family! She had them all killed on my wedding day!”
Yenda’s face was blanched by the time I was done, making her blue eyes look all the more stark and cold.
“She’s the reason that I’m here at all!” I said, spittle flying from my mouth in the midst of my rage. “Your winter-blighted offspring stole something I never even wanted! And when I get my hands on her, I’m going to—!”
The Avardi Matriarch tightened her fingers around the lever on the wall and pushed it up again.
Click. I screamed, my body bending and contorting itself, trying to find relief where none existed.
Click. My feet didn’t even touch the floor anymore; I was dripping tears, mucus, sweat and worse things on the floor under my suspended toes; some part of me could smell the vomit I’d expelled from the pain. I could barely breathe, and any air I took in was expelled in whining, pitiful sobs.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Click.
CRACK.
Something in my body surrendered, unable to maintain itself any longer under the force of gravity and my own weight. I found the strength to breathe then, but only to let it go again in the wildest, loudest howl I’ve ever uttered in my entire life. My world was a white screen, a shapeless place where nothing but suffering and misery existed.
I’m not sure how long I hung there, suspended in mid-air, thrashing and writhing like a half-gutted fish. It couldn’t have been for very long, because otherwise I’m sure I would’ve blacked out from the pain. Instead, I heard the mechanism above me release and I hit the floor—I screamed again and almost fainted that time, except a set of fingers curling tight into my hair stopped me.
Yenda Avard the Elder was crouched down in front of me, her spindly fingers coiled tight against my scalp, her face blotted and ugly, anger shining in her eyes. “Listen to me,” she said, teeth bared like a wolf ready to tear out my throat. “Whatever my firstborn did to you, she was wrong to do it—that much, and only that, will I grant you.” She hesitated; I heard her take a shuddering breath. “But Yenda is still my daughter, whatever her crimes may be. Until her obsession with that evil Sword is done, I will not permit you to interfere. Without your Sword, you’re nothing.”
She dropped my head, which fell limp to the cold floor. I was shivering from the chill of the room as I soaked it in, or perhaps that was just because of my injuries; it was a marvel I understood Yenda’s words at all. I couldn’t move, could only see the hem of her dress as she stood up. Every breath was fire, sneaking into my lungs and out again in soft, pitiful whining sounds.
“You will be kept here until such a time as I decide what to do with you,” the Matriarch said. “Now I’d you’ll excuse me, I have a Jubilee to attend.” I heard footsteps cross the room, the sound of the heavy door beginning to close. “Good night, Inga Alenir.”
There was a screech of rusty hinges, the heavy boom of the cell door closing.
The lights in my cell were cut off.
I heard more footsteps outside, soft and growing fainter, as Yenda departed.
Then I was alone in the dark. Abandoned. Left there to rot, for all Yenda the Elder cared. I knew what a jubilee was, and my feverish, pain-rattled brain could still imagine what it might look like: opulence, luxury, expensive food, wine and music; rich people dancing, rich people dining on delicious things, rich people doing whatever it was that rich people did. All while I was stuck in a hole, waiting to die.
It was wrong—all of it. Clan Avard was responsible for everything wrong and evil that had come into my life. The First Daughter had committed the worst kind of atrocity against me and the only family I’d ever known, and now her mother was going to leave me locked away until everyone forgot about me?
No. To winter and blight with all of that.
I was done.
I have no idea how long I lay there in the dark, how long I shivered on the stone floor. I felt that curious tingling sensation again, the same one I’d felt when Alek split my lip, only now it crept and crawled all over my body like ants on a honey slick. I was sure that I’d never felt anything sweeter in my life. “Dea… Death…” I grimaced, managed to slide one arm under my head for a pillow—it was sublime, and I nearly fell asleep just from the feel of it.
Instead, I set my jaw, pushed up on my good arm and forced myself to speak my Sword’s name: “Deathbringer.”
I hear you, Swordbearer. He sounded relieved. I can sense your presence now. You’re very close.
“The Matriarch caught me…and she threw me in a hole somewhere.” I closed my eyes, not that it made any difference. It did feel easier to breathe, now that the Sword’s boon was working. “She plans on keeping me here until her daughter gives up on trying to bind you.”
Even with how little time we have left? Did you tell her?
“I didn’t tell her a snow-blasted thing,” I snarled. “How long was I out? Is the full moon here?”
The sun still shines, Inga Alenir. You still have time.
I let out a relieved sigh while managing to push my other arm under me, slowly rising to all fours. I was still chained to the mechanism above me, but now I was moving under my own power—that had to count for something. “Tell me,” I said, breathing slow and deep. “Tell me how my power works. Tell me about—”
“Hey!” I saw a light flashing outside my cell door. One of the two men who’d been standing in my cell when I woke up was on the other side of it. He shined the light at me and banged a stout cudgel on the bars of my door. “No talking.”
Rather than hide my nakedness or shield my eyes, I just stared back at him; it seemed to unnerve him, as if he expected me to cover myself in shame. After a moment, he shook his head, muttering the words “Crazy witch” under his voice, before he moved on again.
I waited a long moment until I couldn’t hear his footsteps any longer. “Tell me about the lights,” I whispered. “About how I can feel people die.” By that time, I was sitting upright. Kale was gone; I was on my own now, surrounded by enemies. I was going to get myself out of this hole, or I was going to die.
“Tell me how to summon the dead.”
Although he didn’t immediately answer, I had the feeling that the Spellsword approved of my decision. Living flesh is an anathema to my power, but once consciousness has left the body, I can control it. The light you see is that consciousness escaping, and my power taking over.
I pushed to my feet, hearing the steel links rattling against the hard, black stone beneath me. “How many can be controlled at one time? What are my limitations?”
My power is released through bloodletting; if you were to hold me in your hand and feed your blood to me, you might control an army ‘vast as an ocean,’ just as your mother said. She was the one who showed you how.
I remembered her sliding the Sword’s black edge across her forearm. Then, I came to a sudden realization: “But…I don’t need to do that, do I? Your power is already inside me. I’ve got all the blood you could ever need.”
Which is why you’ve already raised the dead to do your bidding, he said. Twice, even.
“Pyotr. Then Alek.”
Correct.
I closed my eyes—not that it made any difference, but it felt easier to concentrate. The darkness around me was complete again, but now, I could see the pale, golden lights in the periphery of my vision, even from behind my eyelids. When I turned on my bare feet, I could sense them ahead of me, through the stone: some were sedentary, likely other prisoners in their cells, which were laid out in a large circle, like spokes on a wheel. Another light I could see moving—the guard, most likely—walking in a slow circumference around our pens.
The sensation was equally fascinating and frightening: I was seeing souls, human essence—the thing the Sword called “consciousness” was just another word for the spirit, the mind controlling the flesh. I saw ten lights in all: nine were a bright, golden hue, but the tenth was sickly and pale in comparison, like Deathbringer’s own. I immediately fixated on that one, which inhabited a meager corpse, now more skin and bone than anything else, lying forlorn and forgotten in the black hole of his cell. Whether dying of neglect or deliberate starvation, that death hadn’t been in vain. Whatever crime had landed him in this terrible place only to die, now he had a new purpose: to serve me.
As my will took over the ragged shell, I could see him as clearly as if he’d been standing next to me on a sunny day. I now had my first soldier.
Command him, the Sword told me. He will be the first of many.
“Get up,” I said into the darkness. I heard nothing but my own voice, but I could feel the dead man obeying: the skeletal body rolled over onto all fours and skittered towards the black door of his cell like a cockroach in the dark, bony fingers and limbs scratching against the stone. After that, words weren’t necessary—the corpse moved by my will, as if he could sense my thoughts before I gave them form. A normal-sized man would’ve been stopped by the cold bars of his cell door; instead, his bones popped and cracked inside the fallow flesh as his emaciated body squeezed between them like an eel slipping through a hole in a fishing net.
The next matter was to free me of my bonds. He began to move along the dark hallway, compressing his body into the shadows just beyond my cell door.
Then he waited.
We both waited.
The only light in that place belonged to the Avardi, the same one who’d interrupted me earlier. He was approaching my cell again, carrying the bright-steel lantern in his hand. The sounds of his boots were loud in the dark, echoing through the hall. I saw him stop and stare at me again, flashing his light upon my naked body like he was enjoying the view.
I didn’t have it in me to bait him like I had Alek, just days before. I’d lost that fire, that desire for trickery—all I had left was a cold, undying rage.
The corpse leapt at the man, clinging to the guard like a hungry serpent, slithering and crawling all over him. The guard cried out once in surprise before my slave wrapped an arm around the man’s neck to choke off another shout. With his other set of fingers, he dug into the guard’s unprotected neck, shoving the jagged ends of bare finger bones through his throat. The Avardi dropped his lamp and fought against the body restraining him, but my corpse’s strength was inhuman—he wasn’t bound by human limits or restrictions any longer.
I watched the jailer’s spirit-light twinkle and burn out in less than half a minute. Then he, too, belonged to me.
My collection had doubled in just minutes. Things were looking up.
“Rise,” I told my newest soldier. The first corpse unraveled himself from the other and moved backwards on all fours. The dead Avardi pushed to his feet, fetching his dropped lantern before pulling out a ring of keys from his belt, sliding the proper one into place and opening the door, then stepping inside my cell. In another moment, he had my wrists unchained, then moved back in silence.
I could see their silhouettes by the lantern’s light, watch how they stood and waited for my command. It should’ve felt eerie, even frightening, to realize that they were both watching me, waiting for my orders. Instead, I felt strong, stronger than I had for a long time.
“Give me your coat,” I told the Avardi, who already had it half-off by the time I finished speaking. After I pulled it on, I felt warmer right away. It was long on me, reaching down past my knees, but when I buttoned and cinched it, it proved adequate enough as a covering, at least for the moment. “And your weapon,” I added—I’d lost Mistress Darya’s knife, a fact that pained me more than I cared to admit.
The dead man pulled out his saber, turned it about and offered it to me hilt-first. A saber wasn’t quite the same thing as a sword, but the fundamentals were similar enough: it had a curved edge for slicing, and a sharpened point at the end. This one had a basket-hilt made of unadorned brass, same as Kale’s.
I pushed more thoughts of Kale Isrodel aside. “You said the sun is still up?”
It still shines, for now.
“Good. Now tell me where to find you.” I exited my cell, urging my soldiers ahead of me into the dark: one, large and imposing, the other darting ahead like a vicious insect.
The White Fortress has three main levels. The First Daughter has kept me secreted away in her private chambers on the third floor, but now has me in her possession. Be cautious: anyone who sees you is likely to be your enemy now.
“They’re all my enemies,” I said, taking the dead jailer’s lantern, using it to light the way ahead of me. “If anyone gets in my way, they’re mine.”
My soldiers didn’t need lights to see in the dark. They followed the circumference of the hall to a set of stairs leading upwards into the higher bowels of the Fortress and found the other guard who’d accompanied Yenda. I heard him shout in fear at the sight of my slaves—one coated in blood, the other thin and ragged as a wraith—and then the sound of gunshots as he tried to stop them.
Fool. Bullets weren’t going to save him.
Even when one shot hit my brute in the thick meat of one shoulder, he grabbed the man’s neck in his other hand and threw him against the stone wall behind him. Once, twice, three times he slammed the man’s head against the black stone until it cracked like an egg on the edge of a hot pan. The Avardi went limp and slid to the ground like a puppet with clipped strings.
Another soul extinguished.
Another warrior for my service.
A moment later, the other jailer stood upright, heedless of the blood leaking from his mouth and dripping off the end of his chin. On my silent order, all three of them moved aside for me as I started to climb the stairs. I didn’t have to tell them to follow me: they did it because my will desired it. I was on a mission that would only end when I watched that golden light flicker and die in Yenda the Younger’s eyes.
There was light at the top of the stairs. A shadowed figure stood at the top, a hand on the wall, leaning down to peer into the dark. “Ioseb? Asimir?” It was a man’s voice, another one of the Matriarch’s strongmen. “We heard a shot—everything alright?”
I shut off my lantern, not wanting to give myself away. Then I cast my eyes over to the larger of the two dead Avardi, the one who’d been slammed into the wall. Squinting, I concentrated, forced him to take air into his useless lungs, to open his mouth and form some semblance of speech.
“All-good,” he said. The voice was flat, nearly toneless, but it would have to do. It appeared to do the trick: the nameless soldier waved a hand, turned and disappeared back into the hall above. I let go of the breath I was holding, tightened my grip on my weapon, and started climbing the stairs again, watching the backs of my warriors as they charged up ahead of me.
I reached the top just in time to hear shouting, cries of panic and alarm. Ahead of me I saw a long hallway, lined on either side by large holding cells. Most of the prisoners I spotted were men; the women were all held separately in a single cell. With Deathbringer’s power shining in my vision, I saw a multitude of twinkling golden lights, but all I cared about were the four Avardi sitting around a table near the stairs, three men and one woman. They’d been smoking bacca and tossing a pair of dice before we appeared, but any sense of rest or relaxation was gone now.
My soldiers rushed forward, silent, black eyes fixed, ready to kill for me. More shouting started as the fighting began. The noise startled or surprised some of the prisoners, who also started shouting at us or at one another, pressing against the bars to watch.
My pair of Avardi were the biggest of all of them by half a head or more, which left the others at a disadvantage. The ragged corpse moved quick as a whip’s tail, leaping forward like an acrobat, charging head-first into one of the living jailers and knocking him to the ground; I heard screaming as he began to rip and tear at the man’s face and neck.
The other two men drew their weapons and faced down my pair of charging bulls; my warriors didn’t even bother with weapons but ran forward, hands extended, as though planning to rip their prey to pieces. One of them lost a pair of fingers to a saber slice, while the other got a cut across the face that would’ve blinded a living man. But those two shrugged off injuries that would’ve crippled anyone else.
These Avardi didn’t fight like trained warriors, they fought like jailers: untried and untested, more used to beating prisoners than fighting them. When the woman ran towards me, shouting some imitation of a battle cry, I went to meet her, throwing my lantern away, raising my saber.
She raised her weapon in both hands, swinging it over her head with all her strength. I instinctively reverted to my exercises, the ones I’d practiced day after day after day: I started with a Sidestep into a Rising Strike, dodging her attack and slicing my weapon along her unprotected side, cutting through her coat and belt. When she gasped and spun around, taking a blind swipe at me, I performed a Half-guard, knocking the blade aside, took a short Reverse Dash backwards onto one foot, then immediately pushed off that same foot into an Upthrust, shoving my blade through her breast and out the other side.
Both breath and blood were expelled from her mouth in a near-silent sound of surprise, one too soft for me to hear over the ruckus. The breast of my coat was stained, and I stepped back as I pulled my blade free, letting her fall to the floor.
Her light winked out, and then she was mine. Three of the four were already mine by that time. Their bodies were bruised, beaten, torn and bloody: several had gaping holes in their throats; another was missing an eye and had raw, wicked strips of flesh hanging down the side of his face from scalp to chin; some cuts were so deep I could see bone. All of them had died in painful, terrible ways.
The sensation of seeing their lives snuffed out before binding them to me was a familiar one now, leaving me feeling cold and hardened inside. What should’ve filled me with horror or disgust wasn’t even worth a second thought—every single one would’ve cut me to pieces as if their Mistress had ordered it. All of them were her servants, and that made them my enemies.
I couldn’t afford weakness, or mercy. Not for a moment.
The last living Avardi managed to dispatch the gangly corpse, smashing it to the floor with one of the chairs and cutting it to pieces, but he faltered at the sight of his dead comrades. The man threw down his weapon and ran down the hallway in the direction of the next set of stairs, panting and wheezing as he went. I considered sending my forces to give chase, then decided against it—my time was running out. If I didn’t find Deathbringer before the sun set, it didn’t matter how many militia members I killed.
The prisoners, forced to watch the short battle, looked on at me and my undead warriors with surprise, fear and horror. None of them were shouting anymore; none of them were crowding at the bars, but pushed against the back walls of their cells, as though that could save them.
If I slew all of them, that would surely give me a small army to do my bidding…but I didn’t want an army. I didn’t have any desire to conquer this place. I wanted my Sword, and I wanted Yenda Avard. Everything else was meaningless.
Before I even opened my mouth, my newest trio of recruits began pulling keys from their belts and started opening the cell doors. As they moved down the hallway, I could feel every living eye upon me: watching, waiting. No one ran for the opened doors; no one moved or said a word.
“Leave this place,” I told them. “Leave, or die.” With a bloody saber in one hand and my unliving brutes standing around me with dead eyes and bloodstained garments, my warning had the effect I wanted: the now-freed prisoners rushed out the opened doors of their cells and ran for the stairs. Some grabbed whatever excuse for a weapon they could find: buckets, benches, pieces of broken chairs, even the chains and shackles they wore.
In moments, the prison was empty.
“The dead know what I want them to do before I even say it,” I said to Deathbringer. “How.”
They belong to you, he said. As extensions of your will, they sense your desires and follow them to the letter.
“So that’s how they know how I want them to fight.”
Correct. You are the Bearer. They do what you desire because they must—only their bodies breaking or you releasing them will end their servitude now. Katarina’s style of command was more analytical, more tactical. Yours is simple and straight-forward, but that needn’t be a disadvantage. Sometimes the simplest method is the best one.
Well, I couldn’t really argue with that.
With my borrowed coat and saber, my bare feet slapping softly against the stone floor, I made for the stairs and went looking for my birthright.
JASKA
Jaska was a solo attendee of the Matriarch Avard’s ruby jubilee party that evening—her husband had a meeting with one of his suppliers, which was as convenient an excuse as any; the White Fortress and its environs weren’t exactly accommodating to someone of Damian’s impairment. That was Jaska’s first annoyance.
The second was Bloodlust and the Saints-cursed leather belt and strap she’d been forced to wear. It was damned inconvenient, wearing a myrtle-green wrapped dress with flared sleeves and a lovely pair of tall boots she’d bought just for the occasion…and then, for sake of appearances, she had to wrap herself in enough leather to choke a bull. The belt clashed with her outfit, not to mention any amount of good taste. But since she was appearing in her capacity as Matriarch of Clan Isrodel, it was expected that her inherited Spellsword would go with her.
Bloodlust was more than a meter long, with a quillon guard that curved inwards towards the blade on both sides, more resembling the fangs of some bloodthirsty beast; they were quite sharp, and Jaska still had a pale scar on her forearm on account of her carelessness while handling it for the first time. From tip to grip, the servitor of fury bore mahogany-brown stains, as if the blade had been splattered and soaked by the blood of the fallen and never cleaned afterwards. Those stains were a permanent feature—no amount of oil or polish would banish them. But there wasn’t a speck of rust or decay on Bloodlust anywhere.
The Sword had no sheath; no Spellsword that Jaska knew of did. The spirit inhabiting hers refused to tolerate one, and when she insisted on using a sheath after her mother died, Bloodlust literally ate the thing to pieces with rust in a single night. As she hobnobbed with the other aristocrats and highborn members of Yenda Avard’s court, Jaska repressed any sense of annoyance or embarrassment as the flat of her Sword gently knocked against the side of her leg every few steps, hanging from a simple metal loop on her sword belt. For sake of necessity, she kept one hand firmly coiled about the hilt of her blade to keep it balanced while sipping something light and fruity from a slender flute in the other—Jaska adored fruit-flavored wines.
The great hall of the Fortress was decorated for the jubilee, and the decor offered a welcome touch of red glory to the usual silver-and-blue Avardi standard. The chamber itself was vast, stretching several stories up like a man-made cavern. Carpets of bright blue stretched across the white marble floor, matching the flags bearing the Avard clan crest. Northern tulips with crimson petals and frosted golden tips were set in vases on the tables, matching the thick banners and red ribbons that were draped across the tables or hanging from the wooden rafters overhead. Great ice sculptures lined both sides of the great hall: hulking bears standing on their hind legs, huge cats with mouths opened wide, faceless warriors in carved suits of armor, even a pair of coiled serpents flanking the doorway on the far end with flared heads and opened jaws. Burning braziers with tall, red and orange flames sat atop tall poles, flooding the room with flickering light.
Jaska was indulging in some small talk with the Lady Volkov and her husband—something about mercantile ships and the high cost of coal tar; the Volkovs were old money, handling the business of shipping goods between Whitehold and other trade centers further east. Damian sometimes used the Volkovs for shipping some of his pricier barrels of amber-spirits and other vintage.
Suddenly, a voice howled in Jaska’s head: MY BRETHREN. I SENSE THEM.
It took all of Jaska’s self-control not to jerk or choke on her sip of wine. At that moment, she was literally saved by the sound of a bell, which announced that dinner would be starting soon. “All pardons, Lady,” she said, “but I must find my seat.”
“Of course, Matriarch,” the other woman said. “Please give our warm regards to Lord Kalinin.” She and her husband both bowed their heads respectfully, and went to seek their own settings as well.
The young Isrodel Matriarch faked taking a sip of her wine. “How many times must I tell you not to do that?” she muttered, reminded again of just how much she loathed carrying Bloodlust around with her. It wasn’t that the infernal screeching of the Sword in her head was lessened at all by keeping it encased on her mantelpiece, but Jaska found it slightly easier to ignore those screechings when she maintained some physical distance from their source.
ENEMY NEARBY, Bloodlust answered, his voice shrieking like a siren, ignoring her complaints as he always did. BE CAUTIOUS, BEARER.
“Yes, yes,” Jaska answered under her breath. “What is the going cost of a trepanning these days?” She quaffed the remainder of her drink in two long gulps and handed off the empty glass to a passing attendant as she made for the high table—she’d be expected there. With any luck, she’d find her brother as well and his bride-to-be. Then Jaska would have to see about fixing the veritable cornucopia of a disaster that Kale and his little farm girl foundling had unleashed on everyone, assuming the two of them were still alive in the first place.
Jaska’s sources told her that Inga Alenir was dead, shot in the head by Ruslan Avard’s own hand after she’d jumped into the harbor. Somehow, Jaska doubted that Inga’s end had been so cut and dried as that, especially if the girl really was who she said she was—history was full of examples of Deathbringer’s Bearer cheating death, time and time again.
To her immense pleasure and relief, Jaska saw her brother already seated at the Avardi table. Kale was dressed in a midnight blue overcoat and neckerchief tucked into an ice-blue button-down tunic—those colors didn’t suit him at all, his twin thought. He was also sporting a black eye so swollen it was nearly sealed shut, and his lip was split in three places.
Sitting next to him, left of the Place of Honor at the head of the table, was Yenda the Younger herself. Her dress was pale blue, matching a round diamond set in a choker on her neck; her dark hair was piled high upon her head with faux icicles and dangling blue gemstones pinning it in place, like skewers stuck through a blackened wasp’s nest. That sort of imagery suited Yenda the Younger perfectly.
“First Daughter,” Jaska said, dipping her head respectfully. She did the same to Ruslan Avard, who sat on the other side of Kale, as though to make sure one of them could grab the younger man if he tried to make a break for it. “Ruslan.”
Finally, Jaska eyed her elder twin, choosing her next words carefully: “Are you well, brother?”
“Oh, he’s quite well,” Yenda answered for him, giving her wayward beau’s arm a tight squeeze in both of hers. “Aren’t you, darling?”
Kale stiffened but gave a faint smile, obviously not wanting to stretch his lips too far and risk bleeding all over his shirt. “Well enough,” he said. His eyes told another story, however.
Jaska took a breath, repressed her immediate urge to answer, and looked at Ruslan again. “Is the Matriarch not here?”
“My mother is in a meeting, at the moment,” the bristly-cheeked man answered. His tone was cautiously neutral, which immediately made the hairs on the back of Jaska’s neck want to stand up—the man knew something, and he didn’t want to say what. “I expect she’ll be joining us soon.”
CAUTION, Bloodlust barked in an unhelpful manner.
“Of course,” Jaska said—to Ruslan or the Sword, she wasn’t sure which. Her seat was across from the hopeful bride and groom; she even managed to sit down without slicing her leg open. Then she ordered another glass of refreshment and crossed both hands in her lap.
Kale stared right at Jaska, or as much as his impaired vision allowed for, anyway. But he never said another word. He stayed silent as the first course was served: red-beet soup, so thick and rich in color that it shone like blood, fresh from the vein. The soup was a northern staple, and while not Jaska’s favorite, the thick broth and heavy vegetable mix was surprisingly good.
The Matriarch appeared just as the food was beginning to be served—Bloodlust barked his usual, useless warning at the presence of Frostbite on the old woman’s hip. Yenda the Elder offered perfunctory greetings to the rest of the table but appeared to need a moment to calm herself as she sat. Jaska thought the woman looked a touch paler than usual, and the long fingers of her hand clutched at her spoon with taut, white knuckles.
“Yenda, are you well?” Jaska asked, leaning closer, sounding concerned. She was almost a third of the other woman’s age, but they were equals in terms of status and position.
“Oh yes,” the Elder replied, waving a hand. “Just…feeling the years more tonight than expected, Jaska dear.” Yenda smiled. “Think nothing of it, please.”
“Is Damian not here this evening?” Yenda the Younger asked next with a small, vapid smile. Jaska suspected she probably smiled the same way while inquiring about the weather, or the best method for skinning live puppies.
“No, alas,” Jaska said with a heavy sigh. “It is very difficult for him to be out and about most days, but I’m afraid he had other business to attend to this evening. He did insist that I wish you a heartfelt congratulations, Matriarch.”
“Thank you,” Yenda the Elder said.
“Such a pity,” the First Daughter added. “However, I was quite pleased to see that your brother decided to return home to me again.” She spoke as though the man in question wasn’t sitting next to her. “Isn’t it wonderful?” Yenda reached over, resting a hand on Kale’s arm and shoulder, smiling the same smile as before.
Jaska didn’t answer right away. Neither did her brother, not vocally, but he did pull away from her hand—his face showed just how wonderful he thought it was. The tension about the table was so thick that Jaska could’ve poured her glass out and never see a drop of it touch the ground.
THE BLADE OF RUIN IS HERE, SWORDBEARER!
Somehow, Jaska managed not to grit her teeth or lose her temper at Bloodlust’s shouting, but she’d had a lot of practice with the Sword’s bellowing over the years of being his Bearer. But then, Jaska saw an item tightly wrapped in black silk, leaning against Yenda the Younger’s chair; in all of Jaska’s worrying about her brother, she’d completely missed it.
As the soup was taken away and the appetizer course took its place—sugar-frosted dumplings—Jaska waited for an opportune moment before she struck: “Such a pity about the girl, though.” In spite of the hum of the crowd and the ringing of tableware, it seemed to Jaska that she could’ve heard a pin drop.
“Which girl?” Ruslan asked—just as Jaska had hoped.
The Avardi Matriarch’s face was void of expression, save for the cold glitter of her eyes.
“Why do you say that?” the First Daughter said, giving Jaska a guarded glance.
The young Matriarch gave as innocent of a shrug as she could while cutting a dumpling up with the edge of her spoon. “It just seems a waste, turned a criminal at such a young age.” Her eyes scanned across the faces on the other side of the table as she scooped up the bit of food and took a bite.
The Avardi Matriarch’s face was as smooth as a fresh snowdrift, but her younger son looked flustered; Ruslan was older than Jaska and Kale both, but it seemed that the man didn’t share his mother’s skill for hiding his emotions. Neither did the First Daughter, who looked smug and victorious. “I don’t see how that matters anymore.”
“Not at all, Yenda dear, not even a little bit,” Jaska said. “But she was just here, and then—poof!” She snapped her fingers. “Gone! And such a story she told, too!” Even as the eyes of Yenda the Elder narrowed, telling Jaska she was treading dangerous ground, she leaned towards the Younger, asking in a curious, conspiratorial tone: “What did she do, exactly?”
The First Daughter snorted. “Nothing worth remembering, that’s for certain. But that hardly makes any difference now.”
The appetizer plates were taken away. As the Matriarch reached out a hand towards her firstborn, the younger Yenda shook it off to give Jaska a wider smile. “What truly matters is this.” She reached around to grab the silk-wrapped item and set it atop the table between them, looking positively giddy.
THERE IT IS! Jaska didn’t need Bloodlust’s warning to guess that Yenda’s treasure was the Man-killer itself. What she found far more interesting was Yenda the Elder’s reaction, pulling her hand away and even making the sign of the sword in front of her, a superstitious gesture against evil. Ruslan and Kale looked on with some amount of curiosity, but no one paid them much attention.
“I’ve spent years searching for it,” Yenda said, sounding equal parts excited and obsessed as she unfastened the slender ribbons wrapped around the Sword. “And now it’s well and truly mine, at last.” When she pulled the silken cover away, Jaska at last beheld the blade of death, in all of its black enameled ugliness, its edge gleaming gold like it was about to stain the tablecloth with its secretions. Deathbringer was a blade with a reputation, a storied history of demise and destruction that beggared belief, and Jaska’s heart was filled with dread to see it.
“But I thought it was destroyed!” Jaska said, choosing a dubious tone. “Are you sure it’s the real thing?”
“Oh, she’s sure,” Kale said, sounding angry. “So much she was willing to kill for it.” He spat out the word kill like he’d taken a bit of something foul-tasting.
“That’s enough, Kale,” the First Daughter said.
“It’s not nearly enough,” he countered, before leaning forward to look at Yenda the Elder. “Matriarch, your daughter is guilty of so much wrongdoing just so she could get her hands on this thing that I could sit here all night and not be able to name all of it.”
“Kale—”
“No.” The mother cut her daughter off with a raised hand and a frown. “I want to hear this.”
Kale closed his eyes for a second, took a breath, then opened them again. “I was part of an armed company under the First Daughter’s command that traveled north, out of Svolyn in the frontierlands…” Facing down his betrothed’s venomous glare, Kale recited what Jaska guessed was an abbreviated version of events that had brought him and Inga Alenir together.
“Quite a tale,” Matriarch Avard finally said once it was over. She sat back in her chair, looking very troubled.
Yenda the Younger scoffed. “It’s nothing but a tale, Mother. Besides, he hasn’t got any proof.” She gave Kale a look of real displeasure, the first such look she’d shown him all evening.
“That Sword seems proof enough to me,” he countered, nodding at weapon in question. “I’ll testify to what happened before a Magistrate, the Matriarch or the Saints themselves if I have to. I—”
BEWARE, BEARER! DANGER COMES!
Whatever else Kale intended to say was cut short just as the next course was being served: angry voices and the sounds of shouting were accompanied by the trampling of hurried feet. A pair of double-doors opened as two Avardi soldiers came crashing through them, sprawling senseless on the floor. An unwashed horde of men and women dressed in rags and unkempt clothing came after them, spilling into the room—it was difficult to make out just what most of them were saying, but all of them were angry.
The hall erupted in a clamor of screaming women and shouting men. Matriarch Avard and Ruslan both went to their feet, shouting for the guards. Diners jumped up from their tables and rushed for the exits; attendants dropped their trays and dishes of food and ran; Avardi soldiers reached for their weapons; escaped prisoners attacked anyone within reach, using cutlery, chairs, anything they could grab. Lit braziers were upset and flipped over—the smell of smoke and burning tablecloths filled the air. Blood soon joined the stench as the mob began to cut down anyone too slow to escape them.
As some of the crowd approached the dais, they found more than a couple of outnumbered Avardi to stop them—Jaska was on her feet with Bloodlust in one hand, facing down the throng with as little fear as she dared to tolerate in herself. Showing fear would only enrage them more.
“Get back!” she shouted.
The mob rushed the dais. Then there was no time left to waste on warnings—a lifetime of training and martial schooling kicked in, and the Isrodel Matriarch went to meet the enemy.
Jaska swung her Sword up high, blocking a clumsy attempt of one man with a scarred face and madness in his eyes to smash a chair over her head. The chair went flying, along with one of his hands, sailing over the table; when he went to one knee while crying out in pain, she brought hers up under his chin—there was a loud crack of a noise as the man’s teeth came together before he fell stunned to the carpet. She ducked to the other side next, dodging a brazier-less pole that a grey-haired convict was carrying as she tried to impale Jaska with it. Turing with a whisper of dark green fabric and the Spellsword’s whum-whum-whum as it spun over in her hands, Jaska brought the blade under the woman’s arm, shearing her almost in half from the force of the blow. She collapsed without a sound.
KILL. SLAY. DESTROY! Bloodlust’s mindless howling for gore and violence was almost physically painful in Jaska’s head at that moment.
“Ruslan! Get them out of here!” Jaska grunted as she swung the bloodstained Sword in a wide circle over her head, hoping to scare off the crowd.
“Jaska!” It was her brother’s voice. She dared to spare a glance over one shoulder and saw Kale fighting off both of the Avardi siblings that were trying to drag him away.
“Go! That’s an order!” she shouted back at him. Another man had gotten his hands on an Avardi saber, and his clothes appeared to be stained with blood in numerous places. She deflected his clumsy strikes with her Sword in one hand, but the madness that had fallen over the great hall had possessed him as well, and he refused to back down in the face of a superior opponent. Blood, warm and wet, splashed against her face as she cut down the prisoner down. Her dress was already soiled with the stuff. Bodies were everywhere, innocent and guilty alike, staining the blue carpets black. Food was strewn about, and smoke was starting to fill the air; fire had already spread into the rafters, not to mention—
BLOOD! BLOOOOOOOOD!
“I don’t believe this,” Jaska growled.
More prisoners rushed towards her—some armed, some not, all of them with murder in their eyes. Whatever or whomever had freed them of their cells, now they refused to stop until either they or everyone else was dead.
Jaska Isrodel had officially run out of patience. Baring her teeth, glaring at her assailants, she did the one thing she strove to never do: she set Spellsword’s edge against her bare arm and fed it her own blood.
For the briefest of moments—a breath’s span; the blink of an eye; the single beat of her heart—the entire world slowed to a crawl. When Bloodlust tasted the crimson flow of his own Bearer, a change came over both the blade and the woman carrying it: the bloodstains began to weep, as though the cruor of some ancient clot had broken loose. Jaska felt her body swell, the muscles in her arms and shoulders bulge near to bursting; some detached part of her consciousness heard her dress tearing in places, unable to contain her own flesh any longer. She also noticed the angry toughs rushing her slow or even stop their approach, eyes widening, faces going pale with fear or terror at whatever they were seeing. In the glare of a fallen food tray, Jaska caught sight of herself: teeth elongating, body expanding, eyes burning with hate.
DEATH! screamed a voice—whether Spellsword or Swordbearer, it was impossible to tell any longer.
And so, death came to the great hall of the White Fortress. It came and feasted until no one was left.