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Dunstan Sunsorrow, King of Burasal stood before his throne, staring across the expanse of the empty room before him. The stone felt cold and unfriendly, despite its familiar grey tones. He wasn’t taking any of it in as his mind played over the same worries. Could the world have been different? Might he have seen it differently if that single night that had shaped his life had not occurred?
His gaze found the familiar scars on the beams high above him. As he closed his eyes, he could smell the smoke and see the glow of embers. They could have been replaced when the castle was rebuilt, but he had not allowed them to be removed. It was important to remember the mistakes of the past to ensure they were not repeated.
He shook his head before the image of the young woman could take hold. She smiled, her dark hair falling about her shoulders as he released it from the secure hold of the bun. She might plague his dreams, but he couldn’t allow himself to remember her in such a way. That wasn’t what she was.
He was dragged back to the reality surrounding him as a soldier ran into the throne room. The clang of his armour echoed around the space as he jogged forward and then dropped to his knees before the king.
“What is it?” Dunstan asked without looking at him.
“The Cardinal of the God is burning his way across the kingdom.”
King Dunstan dragged his focus from the distant past and looked down at the man, who was struggling for breath as though he had run across the entire breadth of Burasal.
“Convents,” he wheezed. “He is burning them to the ground.”
“What? The convents of the Goddess or the women inside?”
“Both, Your Majesty.”
Dunstan’s heart thumped, although from fear of what he wasn’t sure. “Witches,” he stammered. No matter what issue arose across the kingdom, they were behind it in some way.
“The Cardinal claims they worship evil.”
“They are sisters of his own church, women and children!” The king growled and stomped back to his throne, where he threw himself down. He wanted the witches found more than anyone else in the kingdom; he had lost more than most to the evil women. He took a deep breath, surprised at the tremor taking hold of his body. “Where is he?”
“Cutting his way across Burasal.”
Dunstan sighed.
“He leaves death and ruin and flames still burning. The people are scared. If the sisters of the Goddess are not safe, what other evils might he claim of the people of the kingdom?”
The king glared at the soldier.
“He claims this is the work of the God. That women have no place amongst them.”
“Would he destroy every woman?” Dunstan asked, his eye travelling to the portrait of his wife, lost to grief so long ago.
“He uses your soldiers to do his work.”
“I allowed him support to hunt out witches! Not to kill women of the Goddess!” He sprang up from the throne, and the soldier leant back. “The people will believe I support this. Send word—have them returned.”
“Your Majesty,” the man murmured, his focus still on the floor at his feet.
“What does he claim?”
“That he is searching out witches. They have found several within the convent walls.”
Dunstan paced back and forth before the throne. “Did the sisters not know who they were taking in?”
“It is hard to know. The cardinal is certain that the sisters protected them.”
“How many?”
“Seven convents destroyed.”
“How many witches?” he demanded.
“Four.”
“Four,” the king repeated, imagining four versions of the dark-haired girl he was just remembering standing in a line, flames burning behind them. “How many lives lost to drag out four witches?”
“Many,” the man whispered, so quietly the king had to lean forward to hear him.
“The people need to trust in me as their king. Seeing my men burn down women of the Goddess in search of witches may damage that trust. There are other ways to draw these women out.”
“We have been trying various methods over the years, Your Majesty, with little effect. The Cardinal appears to have a different way, and it has been more effective than any of ours.”
The king sighed and studied the man before him, who studied the floor just as intently.
“She may already be dead,” he whispered, and the king rubbed at his eyes.
“Tell the Cardinal I want him here.”
“He may not come.”
“I am his king!”
“He works to a higher power,” the soldier replied, and the king tried not to roll his eyes. “But I will tell him.” The man scrambled to his feet and raced from the room.
King Dunstan sat for a time, looking over the empty room, knowing it would not be long before it was filled with those wanting answers around the cardinal’s behaviour—demanding an explanation as to why the king was allowing him the freedom to destroy what he wanted of the kingdom. He wasn’t even sure how far the cardinal had made it across Burasal. Over the last twenty years, much of it had been searched. Homes, churches, village halls. If the people of the kingdom were harbouring witches, he would have found them in greater numbers.
A tall, lean man silently appeared at the far end of the room. Much of one side of his body was scarred from the fire so long ago, his left cheek in particular. General Nuris Graewyth always appeared silently and disappeared in much the same way. If he didn’t have the king’s complete trust, there might be concern as to what he did with that ability. As it stood, the king used those skills and the man for his own reasons.
“Was there any indication that she was one of those the cardinal discovered?” Graewyth asked, his low voice gravelly from the scarring on this throat.
“I search for all of them,” he muttered.
“And the cardinal?”
“Appears to do as he would wish rather than what I would require of him. I would rather he were here, screeching the prophecies and ideals of his angry God from a pulpit I could watch over.”
“Are you sympathetic to the Goddess?” the man asked with a touch of mirth in his voice, if that were possible.
The king waved him forward. “I want to be a good king to the people, ensuring their safety and comfort. How can I do that if the head of our church is razing buildings filled with women and children?”
“Are we sure they are not what you fear?”
“I do not fear them!” Dunstan growled, then took a breath. Everyone was pushing him today. “I would like you to review what is going on, General Graewyth.”
“You rarely use my title,” the man noted. A smile twisted at his lips, pulling at the scarring. “Is it because you want this witch found?”
“How long have you searched without managing to find her?” the king returned.
“Your soldier is right; she is likely dead. She was badly injured that night.” Dunstan had been told the same previously, but there was something in the look of the man before him when he said it. Something he could not read.
“Not from the fire,” the king mused. “Go. See if you can get ahead of the cardinal and find what I need before he destroys the kingdom.”
“You have asked for his return.”
“Others can deal with him. You are to find what I seek.”
“Do you want her returned alive or dead?” Was that a hesitation he heard in the general’s question?
“I don’t need her returned. I want reassurance that she is dead. That they are all dead.”
General Graewyth bowed low. Although the king wasn’t sure if it was out of respect or to further mock, he waved the man out of the room and tried again not to sigh. He was so very tired. He pushed up from the throne and through the door he had looked at longingly only moments before. How had his life become so consumed by this? There were other aspects of running a kingdom to keep the people healthy, happy, and peaceful. And yet they lived in fear of an enemy they could not see.
The queen stood at the window, still as though frozen in time, although her ash-white hair suggested otherwise. On the rare occasions he visited with her, he always found Aphera in the same position, and he wondered what she searched for in the view beyond. He came slowly to stand behind her, wanting so desperately for some acknowledgement that he was her husband. Although, if asked, he couldn’t have said what that would appear to be. She had been a distant wife from the beginning. Offered in marriage to a young prince she had never met and, despite his attempts, she would not warm to him.
The creation of their child on their wedding night was the only time she had allowed him close, and then nothing. Her refusal to allow him into her chamber again had been hard to bear. The death of the child so soon after his birth to the flames that had consumed the castle had been harder.
He looked to the corner where the crib had sat, charred and reeking of death. When he turned back, she was watching him, her cool blue eyes hard, the faint scar across her cheek the only sign of the woman who had screamed and lamented the lost child.
The day after the fire, as the kingdom reeled from the events of the night and the smoke still hung low over the castle, Dunstan had thought he would never breathe again—while she’d had dry eyes, and her heart had hardened to stone.
“Why are you here?” Aphera asked. There was nothing cruel in her voice, nothing to indicate she didn’t want him here, but nothing to indicate she did; and he felt the loss of her and their child all the more.
“The cardinal is burning convents of the Goddess.”
She looked surprised. “Why?”
“He believes they are harbouring witches.”
She laughed, the sound taking him by surprise. But there was nothing familiar in it, and nothing that indicated it was a sound of joy. “You would destroy your kingdom for a girl.”
“The cardinal is burning convents,” he repeated. “Not I.”
“You will support him if she is discovered.”
“Do you not want the murderer found?”
“Will it bring him back?” Aphera asked, her voice low. It appeared an honest question.
He shook his head. Nothing he did could ever return the child lost, the son he had barely held. He studied the woman before him, the woman still mourning the loss of that child. She had not looked happy that night; something had worried her as he’d stood beside her bed and held the child in his arms, checking over the new prince and his heir. As he thought about it now, it had felt as though she worried he might notice something she didn’t want him to know. It was his child, that much he was sure of. The moment Dunstan held him in his arms, there was no doubt he was his son.
There had always been people around her. The soldier came to mind—young, handsome, broad. Always standing guard, always watching over the princess. One of the many who had died that night. And the witch, before they knew what she was. Other than the witch, who had once been a maid he’d trusted with more than he should have, he had no doubts about anyone who may have been around his wife.
Could he have ever made her happy? His mourning queen. She didn’t dress as though in mourning, never in black, but there was something dark that hung about her.
His father had died of the shock, they said. Dunstan could do with his father’s counsel now as he watched out the window at the distant black clouds rolling in. The kingdom was vast, and she was but one woman. Only a couple of years younger than he—if she lived, but he was sure she did. Knew in his bones that the witch who had taken his child, pushed his father to his death, and destroyed what should have been happiness for him was out there somewhere, laughing at them.
“Why are you here?” Aphera asked, and he was jolted from his thoughts by her voice.
“Excuse me,” he said, bowing his head and turning from the window to the room that had been completely restored. No sign of the fire remained, and yet he could see it everywhere.
“Why do you come?”
“You are the queen,” he said. “I thought you should be informed.”
“Would your father have done the same for your mother?”
He opened his mouth and closed it. He had hoped to be a different man than his father, and yet Dunstan would be remembered as the king of a destructive time. So many women had died at his hand or by his direction as he’d searched for the little witch who had stolen his life. And yet she wasn’t among them.
“Would he?” Aphera demanded.
He shook his head. Not that he remembered his mother, but he remembered his father’s words when he’d been newlywed and disappointed in his wife wanting her distance. “It is not for us to want what the average man has,” he murmured, his father’s words.
“And what is that?” she asked. He looked up, unaware he had said them aloud.
“He thought we should be more concerned with the kingdom and its needs than anything else. A wife is just a vessel.” Anger hardened her features, and he wondered at what point he had thought her beautiful. She would be considered very beautiful, but it was only skin deep. If she had been more badly burned that night, she might have been viewed differently. “I never believed that to be the case, but I was never allowed the opportunity.”
He left then, not wanting to explain anything further, despite his vain attempts at connecting with a woman who had wanted nothing to do with him from the moment she had arrived at Sunsong Castle. When he had arrived at her door the night following their awkward wedding night, she had sent the maid to tell him there was no need.
The entire Kingdom of Burasal needed him, and yet his wife did not.
The sound of people talking startled him, and he looked over the growing crowd in the throne room. Why had he headed back to this place? The noise dropped, then started again as he took his place on the throne—and so did the questions. Ones he didn’t know how to answer.