Fourth moon, eighteenth year of the reign of King Rastoth
The road to the South Rank forts, Western Plain
‘What do you think’s happening now?’
‘Men are fighting and dying,’ Gilda said as they trudged south, their pace agonisingly slow. ‘Gods are being invoked, pleas for mercy ignored. All the things that usually happen in wars, and none of which we can influence.’ She coughed and took Rillirin’s arm to steady herself.
‘How does us running away help them?’ Rillirin asked, more to take Gilda’s mind off the pain than anything.
Gilda laughed, the sound breathy and weak. She’d aged a decade in the days since Rillirin had found her, since she’d had to tell her that both Cam and Sarilla were dead. Husband and daughter-by-marriage both. Gone.
Rillirin wondered if she’d aged too, on learning that Dom was … a Darksoul, a betrayer, everything we’ve been taught to hate … was ill and even more plagued with visions than before.
‘We’re not running away. We’re taking word of the siege to the South Rank – who I hope will sort out my arm – and then to Krike.’
Rillirin’s eyebrows rose. ‘Krike? What can Krike do for us?’
‘I had a lot of time to think when I was Lanta’s … guest, and this morning I felt the truth of Dom’s words come alive in the world. Did you feel it, feel something wake?’
Rillirin shook her head, taking a little more of Gilda’s weight. They’d need to stop again soon. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I spent all morning trying to work out if I felt pregnant.’
‘I remembered all the knowings Dom had before he left us and what they might mean. It’s Crys,’ Gilda said and Rillirin frowned. ‘The godlight Dom said lived inside him. It’s woken now and the Krikites, well, they worship the Fox God even over the Dancer. If they felt the awakening too, they’ll fight with us. I’m sure of it. You want to know what an old priestess and a fledgling warrior carrying a babe can do in this war? I’ll tell you: we can bring Crys, Dom, Lim and all the others an army of Krikites dedicated to Crys and his cause, and together we can wipe the stain of the Red Gods from Gilgoras.’
Rillirin’s mouth opened at the vehemence in Gilda’s tone. ‘So you’re saying Crys is … what are you saying Crys is?’
Gilda’s smile was slightly bemused as she wiped at the sweat on her forehead. ‘I’m saying I believe – and I think Dom believed, or at least suspected – that Crys is the Fox God Himself. The Great Trickster.’
Rillirin screwed her face up and started to giggle, then laugh. ‘Crys?’ she gasped. ‘Crys is a god?’
Gilda smiled and then stumbled, and Rillirin’s laughter dried up. ‘Remember,’ Gilda croaked, ‘He’s called the Trickster for a reason. There are tales of His shape-changing, His many disguises to defeat Gilgoras’s enemies. Why not disguise Himself as a mortal man?’
‘Bloody good disguise,’ Rillirin quipped, shaking her head.
They skirted a boggy stretch of ground, grimacing as mud sucked at their boots. ‘The ways of gods are beyond our understanding. But Dom’s knowings all point to it.’
Gilda’s voice was hoarse with fever and infection, and Rillirin wondered if it was her sickness speaking, if the poor woman was hallucinating. It wasn’t her faith in the gods that made her doubt, it was that the Fox God would choose someone like Crys to be His mortal disguise. She giggled again, unable to help herself.
Rillirin’s hand went to her belly, as it did every few minutes, it seemed. Something else she struggled to believe was that she was carrying a child, Dom’s child. After the abuses in Eagle Height and the abortions they’d forced upon her there, she hadn’t thought she’d be able to. And yet she was filled with warm certainty, a joyous knowledge. And dread.
If I’m the herald that Dom foretold, surely I should be there with him, not here, despite Gilda’s protestations. If he saw me, he wouldn’t give me up to Lanta. He wouldn’t.
She urged Gilda a little further, the old woman stumbling more frequently as her strength failed.
Is the child what I herald? Herald of the end, he called me, but how is that possible? The child is a beginning, not an end. Unless … what is it that I will birth – a monstrosity, a plague? Will its beginning be our ending?
The herald will bring death to love. And love to death.
The words echoed in her head, words she’d tried to dismiss and yet which always came back to haunt her. She coughed harshly and swallowed as a thick swell of nausea rose in her throat. Her hand dropped from her belly. Would Rillirin be destined to love an evil creature borne of fearful passion and a black-canker heart? Had Dom even then been falling, lost, his seed infected with rot?
What exactly was it that was growing inside her?
‘Gilda?’ she said when she couldn’t bear the churning of her thoughts any more. Her voice was small. ‘What if it’s … bad?’
‘I’ve borne a child myself and delivered hundreds,’ Gilda comforted her, though she didn’t look as though she could do much more than stumble along, let alone help a labouring woman. ‘I won’t let anything happen to you.’
Rillirin hesitated. ‘Not the birth. The … the child. If Dom is what you say, if he’s fallen, then the babe might be …’ She couldn’t finish the sentence, in case speaking it aloud made it true. Gilda stopped; she reached out and tucked a strand of russet hair behind Rillirin’s ear. She was pale and clammy, her eyes too bright, but the love in them shone through.
‘Dom was still true to himself and the gods when you lay together. Whatever has happened to him since, it was not there at that moment. It was just you, and him, and love. Don’t fret on the babe. All babes are innocent; it is this world that moulds us, not the circumstances of our conception. Many a babe conceived in hate or haste has been raised with love. This one was conceived in neither; she’ll be fine.’
‘She?’ Rillirin asked.
Gilda shrugged. ‘Or he. Impossible to say.’
Rillirin walked on through the lush grass at the side of the straight road leading to the forts. Was Gilda telling the truth? Dom was being visited by the Dark Lady in his dreams weeks before that night. He was already tainted.
What if She’d been there, inside him, when they made love? Had his love even been his, or just put there by Her? Gilda couldn’t know for sure that all would be well. No one would know until the thing was born.
Baby, she reminded herself viciously. It’s a baby, not a thing. Think about it like that and it’s got no hope. It’s up to me; I have to love it enough for everyone, love it into being good.
Though she was afraid, the thought strengthened her. She had a purpose now, other than just survival. She had meaning. She’d fought with the Wolves because they’d taken her in, protected her, because she owed them a blood debt.
She’d fight now, with everything she had and everything she was, to love the child in her belly and ensure it was raised in the Light. Raised to love, not death.
‘I will fight for you,’ she whispered. ‘I will always fight for you.’