And then the demon dragon swooped down—rawr!—and breathed its nothingness at Ormonde—oh no!—but the master of the diamonde light who would become our mighty king lifted his shining sword—heyo!—and smote the demon dragon a mighty blow—take that!—and then the demon dragon chomped off the king’s mighty arm—another oh no!
~ Transcription from children’s poppet show
I SPENT THE DAY with my father and my aunt among the wagons. At first my father tried to forbid me from spending time with nobility—“They talk too much of heroes and sacrifice but it’s our yaxen that they take”—until my aunt reminded him that I was no longer a child and he needed to trust me to make the right choices for me.
“But she’s still my child,” he protested. Then he slanted a look at me, clearly expecting to be rebuffed.
I managed a smile that must have seemed honest enough since he eased, and I said, “As I told Aunt Karligh, I can’t be sure my choices are good ones, and some of them I can’t even be sure are mine at all, but I’ll take advice if you have it.”
My aunt scoffed. “Never give him such an opening. Or we’ll be stuck listening to him opine all day and all night and into the next.”
He skewed up his face in exaggerated affront, then laughed. “Fine then, no advice. Just a memory?” When I nodded, he continued. “It was something your mother sang all the time.” We’d had some watered-down wine with lunch—anyway, mine had been watered-down—and his eyes were a little red; now they were damp as well. “Maybe you remember it too.” When he closed his eyes, twin droplet squeezed from the corners. “The road twists and turns, rises and falls, but love—”
“But love flies straight and true to carry me back to you,” I finished softly. The words hung in the air for a moment, shimmering in my memory as if some distant light was aimed my way. “The whole thing rhymed when she said it,” I recalled.
“She spoke the old tongue,” he said. “Had it from her grandfather’s side.” He let out a laugh that ended on a sigh. “I called her my lost princess.”
I sighed too. “I wish”—and as soon as I said it, I wished I hadn’t started wishing because that way was as precarious as luck and wintryberries, but it was too late so I kept going—“I wish I remembered more about her. No, I wish that she hadn’t died at all, that when I saw the wagons she would have been here with you still.” My voice cracked. “I wish I could tell her once more that I loved her.”
“Oh, Fei,” he whispered. “I wish that too, more than anything.” He held open one arm, and after the briefest hesitation, I went to him and fell into that long-forgotten embrace, the scent of strong wine and campfire smoke closing around me like another arm.
When we finally sat back, both of us wiping our eyes and my aunt doing the same, I fumbled in my boot. “I still have her ancestor’s knife,” I told them. “The Rokynd who sent the word that brought you here told me it’s an animdao blade.” I held out the knife to him. “And it may have held a heart-charm once.”
He took the haft carefully, turning the edge toward the lowering light. “For true? I always thought ‘twas but a story her brother told around the campfire,” he mused. “Maybe your mother was more than my princess after all.” He handed the knife back to me with great ceremony. “They say such blades unite more than they sever. And in the end, it has brought us back together.” Quietly, in a wavering tenor, he sang,
“At last the road goes dark and worn,
But I see a gentle light that burns.
Though the path twines and turns,
My beloved calls me home once more.”
As the day was fading, my father, my aunt, and I left the sheltering circle. We stood at the edge of the marketplace, gazing up the thoroughfare that led to the earthbone road, which arrowed across the Widening Leas to the mountain pass up to the High Keep, now home only to the horde and the auric tatters of their victims.
My aunt shook her head. “How can this end well? The dark is too strong.”
“The dawn comes again,” my father countered. “That is the balance promised us.”
I wondered what the demons had been promised.
I hugged them both, careful not to hold on too tight or too long, to not seem desperate—or despairing. I gave them my best blithe street smile as I waved and walked away.
But as the dreadmarked prince had taught me, I did not look back.
It wasn’t so late when I left my father’s wagons, but clouds had moved in while I ate and drank with my family, and now the low winter sun had dropped behind the Argonyx. Somewhere in that direction lay the demons and the dragon and our destiny, and it felt cold, colder even than the coming winter night could justify. Maybe it would snow, which would at least add to our fresh water.
That seemed like cold comfort, literally.
I hastened across the camp to the old granary but found only Zik and Nenzo with Lady Morowyn there. The two caretakers glanced up at me expectantly, and the lady looked away with a barely concealed shudder.
I gazed back at them. “Ani and Lisel haven’t returned?” I didn’t actually need that answered and I grimaced when they shook their heads. “This bodes ill—more ill,” I added, also unnecessarily.
“We heard that the lightkeeps won’t be sending fighters,” Zik said, biting his lower lip. His freckles were bright as flecks of blood on his paled cheeks. “Just like no one sent defenders to Osiroon.”
I couldn’t reassure him, not when the king had seemed equally worried although he hid it behind blusters. “Perhaps their plan is so well-planned that it’s taking extra…planning,” I said with tragic ineloquence. Which was what happened when one neglected one’s skills for dissembling.
Nenzo gestured his assessment of my reply, and I grimaced. “I said perhaps.”
“There can be no stratagem against the horde,” Morowyn murmured. “Just sacrifice. Our deaths are only delayed.”
I squelched my unreasonable irritation; she had been sacrificed and half-dead long enough that she had earned her hopelessness. But still. “Aric saved you,” I reminded her. “He could still save us all. If we all help.”
Nenzo silenced me with only a look, and I subsided. I handed over the small flask of wine that Aunt Karligh had sent with me—to my wry amusement, my family hadn’t shared all their supplies with the palace steward; at least I came by my trickery honestly—and headed back out into the night.
In just the few moments that I’d stopped at the granary, the night had turned darker and colder, the wind surging through the ruins, like it was emboldening itself for something worse than snow. I slouched back to the king’s hall, expecting to be challenged at the door and readying some quick words, but the guards were clustered off to one side and didn’t even see me as I slipped past in the shadows.
But I caught the essence of their words: “…alone…no one is coming…not enough of us…alone…”
Like a dark reflection of the gloating whispers Lady Morowyn heard in her swoon as the horde swept past; no wonder she shuddered.
Within the abandoned tavern, it was as if I’d never left. The king was pacing in angry circles. Dyania still sat elegantly in her chair, Lisel posted at her shoulder as if she would stand there for all time. The king’s advisors looked as fraught as ever. Aric…
Though no one else had looked over at me—maybe this unexpected life among the nobility had tempered my lies, but my steps were as soft as ever—his gaze sought me out even before I cleared the doorway. He didn’t smile, and his stance didn’t ease, but somehow his regard took the knife edge off the winter’s night. I tried to mirror that look back at him, to return that warmth so he would know how it felt.
“There’s no other answer,” the king was saying. “Those who can’t fight, we send to what protection they might find in Maru Deep, where they’ll have the waters at their back”—he grimaced—“if no one else.” Another irate head shake sent his golden-brown hair flying. “And I will lead our bravest and strongest back to the High Keep to seal the verge and send the demons back to hell.”
He paused in his pacing to toss a challenging glare around the room, and though no one answered him, to me it seemed there remained many questions between “return to the lightkeep” and “send them all to hell.”
Into that silence, no’Maru said quietly, “If there is a verge such as has been told, it will need a pure and powerful aura to close and seal. We have only one source for such.”
Aric swiveled his head to glare at no’Maru. “Without the dragon—”
“Not the dragon,” no’Maru interrupted. “Our king.”
Blade to bone, and I thought the night had been cold and the silence frozen before? That was nothing compared to the horrified shock that rippled through the tavern.
After the longest moment, Captain Elaf sputtered. “What? You would have him throw himself into the verge? Sacrifice himself…” He trailed off as he seemed to realize what he was saying.
Lor Berindo huffed out a contemplative breath. “That’s not so unlike how King Ormonde ended the Great Gorging,” he said thoughtfully. “Losing himself—or a part of himself anyway—to defeat the horde.” He sat back, rubbing his chin. “It would be a terrible sacrifice, of course. After all, the kingdom’s purist auric power resides in its ruler, as does of course its courageous leadership.” The lor lifted one finger as if anyone had said anything. “And yet, what is courage or even purity if the Living Lands fall? Such a sacrifice may be our only choice—”
“No,” Aric said flatly. “Ormonde still needed the dragon to end the Great Gorging. And the Living Lands need their king.”
“Silence, brother,” the king snapped, his slicing gesture even sharper than Nenzo’s. “As you’ve noted, we don’t have the dragon because you say it is lost. You’ve claimed the greatest sacrifice as your own all this time. I suppose this once you will have to share the glory.”
“Glory?” Aric growled. “It’s a madness and death, not glory.”
But the king had already turned to Lor Berindo. “I know there are talismans and chants and whatnot to purify aura,” he said, his eyes bright with a strange fervor. “I shall undertake them all.” He spun toward Dyania. “And your trick with the candle and the blood and all.” He waggled his fingers in a grasping gesture. “That too.”
“Your Illuminance,” Elaf protested as Dyania shook her head and tried to say something about her uncertainty. Even the palace steward was objecting that returning to the lightkeep and sending others to Maru Deep would split remaining resources catastrophically.
And while everyone was talking, I glanced at no’Maru and made note of the quirk to his lips.
He caught me watching him and didn’t even bother hiding his amusement. He just gave me the slightest eye roll, though I wasn’t sure if that was directed at my probably aghast expression or inviting me to join in his disdain. Both ways boded ill—even more ill.
I wanted to call him out, but… What if he wasn’t wrong? After all, our fight against the demons had always used the kingdom’s purest auras—from its Chosen Ones. How could anyone be more chosen than the king? I dropped my gaze from no’Maru’s knowing smirk.
“Enough,” the king barked. “We don’t have the dragon. We don’t have the fighters. I demanded that you all find me a new way to wage war against the horde. Perhaps this is our way.”
I said perhaps. My petulant words to Nenzo echoed in my head. I’d heard comments about the king when I’d worked at the inn and on the streets of Sevaare—that he was improvident, heedless, arrogant, none of which was exactly surprising since he was a king after all—but none had ever said that he was a coward.
“I cannot favor this,” Aric said quietly.
Mikhalthe glowered at him. “No one asked your blessing.” He gave a kingly nod in a big circle, as if even Lor Berindo wasn’t watching him with some twist of bemusement and dismay. “Willart,” he said to the steward whose name I hadn’t known. “Undertake a census of all the elders and infirm who will travel to Maru Deep. Likely it will be slow going with heavy wagons and not enough burden beasts, and supplies will be low, so arrange accordingly. Also, no guards can be spared, so assign some of the more sturdy to provide whatever security can be had.” He flashed a grin. “Conscript the dowager of Eyrepis with her forks.” He spun toward the captain. “Elaf, we depart for the High Keep two mornings hence. You are marshal now. Be ready.”
Elaf stammered again, straightened, and bowed, all in one awkward movement.
I shuttled a quick glance between no’Maru and Lisel, but in that moment they were both perfect soldiers. If either of them thought anything at all about the king’s abrupt decision, it did not show on their faces.
The king turned lastly to Lor Berindo. “You wanted to be numinlor, and so now you are,” he said with a magnanimous wave. “You and the lady make me a list of those tricks against the horde. We’ve no more time to dally.”
As if dallying had been the problem. Neither Berindo nor Dyania had a soldier’s experience with impassiveness, and they both flinched at the king’s careless command.
“Your Illuminance,” Berindo said. “That is not how the haloria—”
“The haloria exalted Kalima, so they don’t get a say this time. I have chosen.”
And he was king, after all, and our kingdom was falling, so everyone scattered to do his bidding.
Then it was only the king and his brother again.
And me, of course.
“No commands for me, brother?” Aric asked softly.
The king grimaced. “You already said you wouldn’t obey.”
Aric shook his head. “I said that this is a terrible idea, not that I wouldn’t do it.” He slanted a sidelong glance at me.
Ah, blight and spite. That had not been the lesson I meant to share with him. My bad ideas only occasionally ran the risk of ending my life, and until recently not a one of them had ever jeopardized the kingdom.
Just in case I needed the reminder that the Dragon Prince was so far above my concerns that everything he did, every choice he made had repercussions beyond anything I could imagine.
And yet I stayed lurking in the corner of this sad tavern like I had a place here. Who did I think I was? Who could Aric possibly think I was?
“You were always full of yourself, but never a fool,” he told the king. “Why are you pursuing this perverse path?”
When the king had stopped his restless circles after everyone had gone, the pause left him on the opposite side of the tavern from Aric. But even from that distance, the clench of his jaw was obvious. “When Kalima took you to the dragon, all those years ago, I told her I wanted to go with you.”
Aric’s whole body tensed like the king’s jaw. “For glory.”
But Mikhalthe shook his head. “For…my brother. For you.”
If anything, Aric stiffened even more, a blotchy outrage flushing ugly under his scarred skin. “But you didn’t. Why even tell me this when it can make no difference now?”
The king looked away. “Because I thought… Maybe it would make a difference for you to know. I never thought you were evil. Nor did Kalima. She explained to me that the fate of the kingdom balanced on two threads—light and dark. And I had to be the light.”
“Which made me the dark,” Aric snarled.
“But not bad, not damned,” Mikhalthe said. “I always knew we were both fighting for the kingdom.”
Aric’s stance did not soften. “I told you we’re not those children anymore. What I’ve done since then—”
“Wasn’t your choice,” Mikhalthe interrupted. “Was only what was asked of you.”
“Asked… Yes, let’s ask Lady Morowyn if that matters.” Aric raked both hands through his hair with a stifled oath. “None of this matters. Not in the coming battle against the horde—and against Claeve.”
“It matters,” Mikhalthe insisted. “Because this might be my only chance to tell you, to take some of that darkness—”
“I didn’t ask that of you,” Aric said in a strangled voice. “I will fight for you, because I must. But I can’t… I cannot…”
“Be my brother,” Mikhalthe whispered. “Or at least my friend, at my side come what may.”
“I cannot. Not anymore.” Aric spun on his heel and strode out, his stride so swift and erratic I thought he had finally lost the dragon’s sight—and it seemed he did not see me this time.
Certainly he did not look back.
Leaving me alone with the king of the Living Lands, which seemed to me an unlikely and hazardous situation. His mighty two-hand sword was sheathed and tucked away, but his mighty two hands were very much with him and currently clenched in murderous fists.
But unlike certain other noble scions I might mention, I knew he was too restless a heart to sit brooding for long; I’d just sneak out once he lost interest in glaring at his boots.
So it was as much a shock to me as to him when I cleared my throat.
He raised that scowl from his boots to me, and if at any time I might have lied to myself about possibly claiming a moment of glory of my own in this fight, I was disabused of the notion when I could tell he was having trouble placing me.
Finally he huffed out a breath. “Aric’s bedwarmer,” he grunted.
I tilted my head. “I didn’t bring even a blanket to our bed. Which I think makes him my bedwarmer. If we even had a bed.” That had not been at all what I intended to say.
But the king huffed out another breath, not quite a laugh. “Hoping to trade up to one of the empty rooms in this no doubt once-fine establishment?”
“I had that option back in Sevaare, and I could’ve had a mattress, with clean straw even. I left it behind.”
This time he did laugh, but it was bitter. “The lord of Sevaare—like the others—has left us to fend for ourselves. Even tried to convince my messenger to stay and join the lightkeep watch.”
“It’s a good watch,” I said. “Very dedicated. Many pikes. They and the canids are well kept.”
“Maybe I’ll apply for a spot on their wall,” he drawled. “Since it’s clear no one here respects me.”
I did not feel so free as no’Maru was to roll my eyes, but neither could I quite keep the tartness out of my voice when I replied, “Yes, you’ve been as put upon as any burden beast.”
He raised one eyebrow. “I could have you killed.”
“A pointless waste of your blade’s fine edge,” I countered.
“I was thinking drowning, like a sack of unwanted kits.” He narrowed his eyes even further.
“There’s only one functioning well. And I’m the one who helped dig it out.
He sighed. “Why are you sparring with me, child? Is my brother not biting enough for you?”
“Oh, he is too much for me, and I know that well enough. I only meant to linger until you left so I might scrounge about for the secrets here.”
He lifted both eyebrows this time. “Secrets? Will you be the one to save the kingdom then?”
I shook my head. “Nothing so glorious. I was raised in a place like this, and sometimes there’s a little hideaway where the proprietor stores the finer goods.”
“Stolen or untaxed?”
“Probably both,” I said cheerfully. “Shall we search together?”
I thought he would wave me off, but instead he shrugged. “Why not?”
We poked around in the usual spots—loose boards in the wall, hollow places beneath the floor, particularly dark rafter corners—and in the end it was the king who found it. Although it was I who had noted the subtle mismatch in the cobblestones around a floor drain, and I nudged him surreptitiously that direction.
When he prodded at the stones with his boot, he let out a surprised expletive. “Something here. Bring that whetstone to wedge underneath the grate.”
At least he hadn’t asked for the sword.
“There might be nothing left, just a hole,” I warned as we pried away the slatted metal and a few of the stones.
But we found a tile-lined pit tucked just beyond the rim of the drain. The seal was cracked and I steeled myself for the disappointment of nothing more than backwashed grime.
Mikhalthe paced impatiently as I bellied down to the cobblestones and fished my arm into the pit. Time had left the hole as dry as old bone, and I dug my hand into dirt and probably vermin carcasses. “Something,” I said with a grimace as I yanked out a narrow bottle no longer than my spread fingers.
I passed it back to him and kept rooting, coming up with two more of the meager bottles.
Crouched down on one knee, Mikhalthe was turning the bottle toward the lamplight. “Wine from Ormonde’s day will have gone utterly sour,” he muttered.
“I was hoping for something more durable. Gold, maybe, or a few nice gemstones.” When Velderrey was overrun, the demons would not have bothered with anything shiny. Though what good some coin would do against the loss of the kingdom’s treasury…
Mikhalthe swore again. He did that a lot for a king, I thought, but maybe not so much for a warrior. “This is more precious than gold.” He angled the bottle toward me, displaying the wax seal blobbed over the mouth and neck.
Finding nothing else in the hole, I rolled to a seat. “I’ve served, stolen, and drunk many a bottle,” I told him, “but this one I don’t recognize.”
He ran his thumb over a symbol stamped into the thick wax. “Honydka. I’ve read about it, never seen it. No one has. Some historians said it never truly existed, that the tale was only nonsense nostalgia for a lost time.” He laughed, a genuine sound, and when I only looked at him, he explained, “On the Widening Leas, there was a rare flower known for its incomparable essence. Like purest aura drifting on the summer breeze, they said. A master distiller here in Velderrey raised a flock of tiny brilliant birds known to feed on the flower and taught them to find the blooming plants, far and wide across the plain, and bring the nectar back to him. From that nectar, he brewed honydka.”
I reached for one of the bottles, heavy and amber. Through the obscuring glass, the meniscus of liquid tilted slowly, thick as syrup. “There was a busker who sang at the Sevaare inn, had a crowd favorite about King Ormonde preparing to ride out against the horde and sharing a drink with his fighters.” I squinted, as if that would squeeze the words out of my memory. “‘The sweet light on their tongues brightened their hearts, searing the fear and exiling the dark.’”
Mikhalthe nodded. “That’s only part of a longer song cycle that ends with…” His smile faded though his eyes glinted with the glory he’d sworn he wasn’t seeking. “This is an omen.”
Ugh, omens. Worse than vermin carcasses or mere poetry. “It’s bird spit flavored with pollen and lies.”
“Wars have been won with less.” The king plucked the bottle from me and cradled it with the other two in his big hand. “Tomorrow night, I will have Marshal Elaf gather our fighters, and Numinlor Berindo will bless us while we sip from the honydka.” He gazed at the three small bottles in his grasp. “It might not be enough to braise even one of those tiny birds of old Velderrey,” he mused. “But it’s worth another stanza in the song.”
I pursed my lips at him, as disapproving as my father. “But not for glory though, heyo?”
“They write songs to the most tragic losers too,” he noted. “I seek victory, not glory.” He clamped his free hand on my shoulder. “This will be our secret, child. The better to embolden our fighters.”
I didn’t like the hard flex of his finger but I wasn’t going to shrug off the king of the Living Lands. “I told you I served at an inn. I know how songs and spirits are interwoven.”
He gave me a smile harder than his grip. “I think I see what lures my brother to you. Not just spit and lies.”
Probably he thought that was quite the compliment. But since he still had that hand on my shoulder, I returned his smile. And after another look, he released me with just enough force to set me back a step.
“Go to Aric,” he said. “He won’t come to the blessing—he never does—so you be his honydka. Sweeten him, brighten him, remind him that as much as he hates me, he is fighting for his home.”
“And here I thought I was just a bedwarmer,” I murmured.
“A good, strong drink does that too.” He turned away from me. “Go. Tell one of the guards at the door to send for the steward.” He glanced over his shoulder and lowered his gaze to mine again. “And tell the rest that I hear their whispers. Remind them if they’ve anyone to whisper to, then they are not truly alone.”
I inclined my head and backed away. I had whispered to myself in the night many a time—sometimes cursing, sometimes crying—and I’d been very much alone.
But I passed his commands to the guards at the door, who blinked in confusion at my presence. And maybe they took me as a sign as much as they took the king’s warning to heart; after that dubious look, one marched off and the others straightened their ranks and flanked the portal as was proper.
However, I doubted I could do all the king had commanded of me. I was neither sweet nor bright, and I’d never been anyone’s home.
When I got to the old guard shack, Aric was not there, but since I could at least warm the bed, I stripped down, wrapped myself in his cloak, and waited.
Maybe I fell asleep for a moment, but I didn’t think it was long before I roused at the sensation of a brooding stare. I propped myself up on one elbow, letting the cloak sag strategically.
“There was a lad from Velderrey,” I sang under my breath,
“whose favors were widely sought,
because of the rumors far and wide regaling his mighty cock—”
“Feinan,” Aric growled.
“—erel,” I said innocently. “Cockerel. The song was a tribute to Velderrey’s status as an agrarian powerhouse back in Ormonde’s time.” I cleared my throat to continue, “And farther still across the leas,
“they spoke in awe of his mighty peeee—”
“Absolutely not.” He swooped down to silence me with a kiss.
I reveled in the ferocity of his touch, how his breath filled me, and it took me a long moment to regather myself. “Pigs,” I finished. “There’s more about the farm lad’s plains-famous pink-eyed porkers,” I said. “The next part of the song is about the pleasures of slow roasting.”
“I’ll give you more,” he whispered. “That didn’t even rhyme.”
“It does if you’re drunk.”
“This will have to be enough.”
And it was.
But afterward, as we lay entwined together, and he wrapped the cloak and ragged blanket tighter around us both, instead of falling asleep, I found myself listening to the slow thud of his heart. “What are our chances?”
He was silent for a long moment. Where his arm wrapped around my back, his grip on my shoulder even tighter than the king’s had been, but of course it felt different, caring rather than cautionary. Although maybe that wasn’t so different after all.
I waited quietly, unusual for me, but what else was there to do, until he sighed. “I’m sorry I stormed out,” he said. “I should’ve at least made sure you were behind me.”
“That’s not what I asked,” I reminded him.
“After I left the king, I went to look at the barracks and the stables. I checked the kitchen storage, such as it is. It was one thing to leave the High Keep and come here to regroup when we believed we’d just be fighting a horde. Bad enough. But knowing there is a verge, a source of endless demonic energy…” His chest hitched under my head with the force of his worry. “That is a different fight.”
After a troubled silence, I said, “Heyo, it’s not all bad. The king and I found some honydka.” I told him about the hidey hole, as if it mattered.
He let out a sound, part sigh, part laugh. “That seems very much like something that would happen to Mikhalthe. A lucky find of a rare vintage that will make his troops think the world of him even as our world is crumbling.”
I shrugged a little against his unyielding hold. “It might not be hope,” I agreed. “But maybe it’s the next best thing.”
“A sign?”
“A reminder that even here, in this benighted place, the demons didn’t get everything.”
His skeptical grunt was very like his brother’s. “To answer your question, I don’t have hope and I don’t see a chance,” he said. “But neither do I see another way. We’ll fight as we always have, except…” He tucked his face into my hair, as if he might hide in that mess. “Except now I will hurt more because I feel again, and I fear more because I have something to lose.” He tipped my chin up. “You. Because of you.”
Probably the accusation should’ve stung, but if I hadn’t been one to weave what I could out of scraps, I never would’ve survived long enough to be here.
But maybe that wasn’t quite the validation I’d intended. Maybe I should want more than scraps.
Now was not the time or place for such wishes. “Because of you, I have not stolen a hart and fled across the plains with three bottles of priceless honydka.”
I’d meant the humor to ease the tension in his pectoral under my cheek, but instead he curled his fingers at my nape, holding me fast.
“That’s what I want.”
I blinked. “You want me to steal the honydka? The king has it, but I can take it back again—”
“To leave,” he clarified. “I want you to leave.”
For a heartbeat, the whisper of the winter wind seemed to fall silent, as if even the shadows of night were aghast.
“Leave?” My voice barely carried across the scant distance between us.
“I want you to go with the others for Maru Deep. There’s nothing for you in the High Keep, only death.”
“But…” A knot of that fear and hurt he’d mentioned clogged in my throat. “You’ll be there.”
“Only death,” he repeated. “That is not what I want for you. I am not for you.”
The words were like spears, arrows, clubs, and fangs, brutal and piercing. I knew he was only being noble, but…
But hadn’t that always been the problem? He was a noble scion, even more so without the dragon to mark him as undesirable, and still so far out of my covetous reach.
I held myself taut against the onslaught of anguish. “Aric…”
He kissed me. And I knew he just wanted to silence me again, as if those sensations could eclipse my sensibilities.
And curse him to the brightest lights and deepest shadows, he was right.
When I collapsed into an exhausted slumber, part of me knew he would not be there when I awoke.
So when I opened my eyes to the wan morning light—and sure enough, alone—I held the warmth and shelter of his cloak around me just a little longer, sighed, and headed out.
After all, he could decide not to look back, but that wouldn’t change anything if I was right in front of him.
The chaos of the camp was a fair distraction while I waited to ambush him. The king’s commandments had everyone in a frantic hustle, aiming either toward the High Keep or away from it. As if the direction would matter if there was truly a verge under the mountainous spires that cast their shadow across the entirety of the kingdom.
Uncertain where my dubious talents would be of most use, I went to find Dyania. Of course I had no particular virtue to offer, and I’d already proved my failure in the scholarly pursuit of auric history, but maybe I could bring her kavé or something. But when I found her and Lor Berindo composing a blessing to go with the honydka for the king to bestow upon his fighters, I could see it wasn’t going well.
The lady’s usual poised elegance was fraying like the ends of her spectrum threads. Poor Zik was apparently wasting his clever fingers on too many other tasks. “But I explained already, my blood in the candle was a lure,” she was saying. “It wasn’t truly a weapon. The king and his fighters won’t lack for demonic presence, and without the dragon to end them—”
“King Mikhalthe asked for your trick,” Berindo said stubbornly. “And so your trick we shall give him.”
“But the bloodrune will only summon more demons down upon him.”
“It is what he wants.”
“Since I will be going with them, I can do it, if it needs done,” she said, though her voice shook.
I stiffened. “You’re going back?” I blurted. “But—”
“Fei,” she said sharply. “Unless you have a trick for closing the verge? No? Then for once be silent.”
While I knew she was frustrated and frightened—and not wrong—her dismissal, coming as it did on the heels of Aric’s abandonment, felt too punishing. I bowed silently and backed out.
If she might’ve called some sort of apology or the like, I didn’t hear it over the shouts and clanks from the yard. So I went looking for Lisel.
She at least didn’t send me away, directing me instead toward a tangle of sweat-stained straps. “The beasts will sleep in harness tonight though we won’t send the wagons until the fighters depart at first light. If the horde attacks, maybe they will focus on the greater threat and leave the noncombatants alone.”
Alone… My fingers plucked at the twisted coils of leather, maybe not as creative as Zik’s hands, but I was just laying things straight. Which, now that I thought of it, was the opposite of my usual way.
“Will it matter who runs and who fights?” I murmured. “If there is a verge…”
“The lady said something about not being dead yet.”
“At least she’s talking to you,” I muttered. “She kicked me out.”
“No, she isn’t speaking to me either,” Lisel tossed aside a heavy yoke that had cracked in two, and the broken pieces sent up a puff of dust, quickly ripped away by the wind, like an aura shredded. “I did as you suggested and told her of my admiration for her.”
I swallowed hard. “Oh.”
“Yes. Which is why she isn’t talking to me anymore.” Lisel raised her gaze to mine. “But before she turned away, she said she has made too many mistakes to be admired, and any regard is just too much.”
I grimaced. This will have to be enough, Aric had said. And I’d told him it was, that it would be. But I was lying, to him and to myself. I wanted more, so much more. Maybe I was as hungry as any demon. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s better this way. Better not to go to this fight wishing and wondering.”
But wasn’t that what hope was?
And now me inciting for more meant I’d left her with less. Without even hope, what did our intrepid little group have left?
Lisel was called away to some other task, leaving me the tangle of harness and reins which I laid straight with uncharacteristic patience even as my innards grew more messy instead. When she hadn’t returned by the time I was done, I was left at loose ends, so as a last resort, I went looking for Imbril.
I ended up having to ask one of the haloric guard, though I had to evoke Aric’s name to scare an answer out of the officious wretch. He sent me away almost as fast as my friends had, directing me to an empty lot of bare earth beyond the edges of the roiled camp.
Once, the place had been a dawn well, I guessed, back when Velderrey was a thriving lightkeep at the heart of the Living Lands. Now it was a cemetery, fresh bumps of dirt embedded with the stones that had been churned up, like secrets and sins and hopeless wishes.
Imbril was kneeling in the dirt, no pretense to Lady Dyania’s serenity and beauty. If anything, he looked defeated, and we hadn’t even fought yet.
I crouched down in the dirt next to him. “Who were they?”
He glanced sidelong at me. “Seven of the guard, one courtier, three palace staff, four folk—no, five from the bailey.” He rubbed his hands down his thighs. “These are just the ones who made it out of the High Keep. I wrote down their names. Oh, and the marshal, of course. The previous marshal, I mean.”
“It’s good they will be remembered,” I said hesitantly.
He shook his head. “Will it matter?” I flinched at the echo of my own thoughts. “I just didn’t know what else to do.”
I restrained a grimace. His thoughts were much too much like my own. And that connection with the lor wasn’t anything I’d sought.
“It matters for this moment,” I said. “A thousand years from now can take care of itself.”
“At least they weren’t demon-touched.” He sighed heavily. “Kalima always dealt with that.”
Dealt with, meaning killed them. But he knew that. “Are you going to the High Keep or Maru Deep?”
“I don’t know yet.” His hands clenched into fists in the grimy folds of his white robe. “Lor Berindo—the numinlor—hasn’t decided where our place will be.”
“Neh, anyplace would be better than here,” I said in a weak attempt at grim humor.
He swiveled his head to stare directly at me. “Or just the same.”
Oh no. When even a lor had run out of platitudes…
At my probably aghast expressions, he sighed again. “Go away, Feinan. Maybe there’s a place for you too, but it isn’t here.”
I pushed to my feet, not insulted, exactly, since the lor had never appreciated my particular charms and the feeling was mutual. Still, the rejection rankled.
I wandered off again, skirting the edge of the ruins. The dawn wall here had boasted a ring of fountains, likely fed by the same waterwork I had helped dig out, now without the pressure to revive them. Even if there’d been enough flow, the spouts were missing and the basins were cracked. It all would’ve drained away again.
Tomorrow we would leave for the High Keep. We would fight. Some die. Maybe most of us. It seemed inevitable in a way I’d never thought about before. I’d always prided myself on having a way out, by foot or by tongue. There would be no such opportunity on the morrow.
Lost in my morbid thoughts, I almost walked past the small patch of greenery on the leeward side of the remains of one fountain.
The heap of crumbling, weathered stones had a gap in which a weedy plant had found some scant shelter from the winter wind to send up a single spire of belled flowers, the petals washed in hues from blue to violet to palest pink with bright yellow stamens. If I hadn’t just seen the bottles of honydka, I might not have even registered what I was seeing. But I knew the description from song. Though I didn’t believe in omens, the sweet scent, here in the chill hopelessness, lightened my spirit.
Which in a way seemed yet another cruelty.
I left them blooming there, untouched, and headed back to camp.
Along the way, I helped replace the wheel on a wagon, carried bags from stores to the larger conveyances, broke up a fight between a guardsman and a courtier, and never saw Aric. Probably he sensed with the dragon’s cunning that I was hunting him.
It was getting dark again by the time I made my way along with the other laborers to the empty square where the palace cooks had cobbled together a kitchen. I stood in line for the thin gruel and half a chunk of flatbread, meager but perfectly blistered with small rounds of char.
The brawny-armed baker huffed when I thanked her. “Enjoy, because that’s the last of it.”
I just nodded and moved along.
The invisible side dish, as heavy as the serving was light, was the knowledge of what was to come, and the mood among the folk hunkered down with their hunks of bread was somber. Clutching my allocation in both hands as if that might make it feel more substantial, I tucked behind a barrel to eat. According to the trademark next to my ear, the barrel had held salt fish, but even the smell was gone now, along with half the staves, likely gleaned for firewood; at least I was half out of the wind.
On the other side of the barrel were two men. Their murmurs reached me through the missing staves.
“I’m not going back,” one of them said. “Why would I, just to die?”
The other clicked his tongue. “Think Maru Deep will welcome any bearing the vortix? Or will you hie all the way to fartherest Osiroon?”
The first man hissed back. “There won’t be any left to point a finger at me.” The sound of gnawing at the hard bread, like rats. “Anyway, I could go elsewhere.”
“I think there will be no place in the Living Lands not haunted,” the other said. “But maybe—”
Whatever maybe he’d been about to add was interrupted by Mikhalthe stepping out into the empty spot between two torchieres. The king jumped up onto an empty chest that had held lamp oil according to the stamp on the side. The flickering torch light turned his hair to beaten gold.
Hands on hips, he turned a slow half circle, gazing upon us—but without really looking at us. “In the morning, we return to the High Keep,” he said in a ringing voice. “To reclaim our home, to defend the Living Lands.”
His gaze swept around again, but this time he paused, making hard eye contact as he went. “I know you are afraid. You feel hopeless. But you are not alone. Together, we will seal the verge and end the horde to take back what is ours.” He paused while he finished his perusal of the square. “And I will fight with blade and flame and aura to the very edge of the demons’ hell.” His ringing voice dropped to something like a growl. “But some of you do not believe. You have doubts not even a king’s promise can assuage and so you should leave.” He flung one hand, gesturing toward…somewhere else. “We don’t need you. We don’t want you. Those who remain will go into battle united, strong in our faith and our fury.” He paused again though not as long. “If you cannot stand with us, won’t fight shoulder to shoulder, then go. Just go.”
I wanted to glance over at the bread-nibbler who’d professed his intent to leave, but I was trapped by that imperious gaze.
When no one moved, he nodded slowly. “It is as I believed. The fighters beneath the l’Thine vortix are the boldest in a thousand years.” His smile was brighter than the torchieres flanking him. “So I call you to come to me, one at a time, with that faith and fury, like the line we will hold against the horde and drink from the honydka.” He produced the three bottles, seemingly out of nowhere, with a flourish that made my clever fingers twitch in appreciation.
The murmur that swept the gathering was less at sleight-of-hand than the suggestion of honydka, and his smile widened. “Yes, in a sanctification from King Ormonde himself, these bottles came to me last night. And tonight we drink from them to take heart from the memory of his might. As Ormonde ended the Great Gorging, we will end the horde again.” He half turned to gesture at Lor Berindo. “Numinlor, speak a prayer as we drink to our victory.”
I lost track of the blessing as I snorted silently at the thought that I, with my hand in dirt and dead bugs, had been an unwitting emissary of a dead king’s benediction. Not that the particulars mattered as the smitten crowd surged forward to approach their king.
“Three bottles, three lines,” he called. “Attack from the front and two flanking.” A smattering of relieved chuckles broke some of the tension that had lingered despite his impassioned speech. “The honydka waited here, as if we were meant to come, to find it, to find the strength and purpose to end the threat of the demon horde forever.”
A cheer, ragged at first but gaining steam as the first fighters drank from the bottles. One by one, they stepped back with exclamations, their fingertips at their lips.
The king laughed heartily. “Indeed, as sweet and strong as the day it was bottled hundreds of years ago. Just a sip,” he cautioned. “It’s potent enough to still be coursing through your veins on the morrow.” He tipped the bottle at each fighters’ lips while no’Maru and Elaf flanked him on either side with the other two bottles. Again and again, the three men dispensed the draughts until I suspected that there must be some surreptitious refilling because it was impossible the old bottles could hold so much.
Someone began to hum the lay of King Ormonde, and someone else sang quietly, first in the old tongue and then one of the many verses of the endless battle. I wanted a sip, just to try it, but I didn’t want to stand in front of any of those men, not the bold king, not the smirking advisor, not the unproven marshal. Neh, I’d just have to go into this battle as I always had, not with boldness or even clarity, just my usual insolent shrug.
“I see you licking your lips,” came the quiet murmur at my shoulder.
I glanced up at Aric. “You tried it?”
“Had to make sure it wouldn’t poison all our army.” He tilted his head thoughtfully. “It’s no yombark tea.”
I snorted. “Still, I would’ve liked to taste.”
He held out a thimble, the bottom barely shimmering with the rare spirit.
A whiff of dank sweetness niggled at me like a warning, but of course there was no chance I’d ever had a taste of honydka before. I took the tiny vessel and stared down at it.
“Do you doubt me when I say it’s not bad?” He gazed at me, his scarred eyes half lidded.
I shrugged one shoulder. “It’s not that. I just wonder…” I lifted the other shoulder helplessly. “Is it silly to wonder if I’m worthy? It’s not like King Ormonde knows or cares who’s drinking his left-behind liquor.”
“The honydka doesn’t determine who’s worthy,” he said, an edge to his voice. “And neither did Ormonde. Or Mikhalthe or the haloria, for that matter. Who lives or dies isn’t dependent on their value. Not even the Chosen Ones.”
I gazed at him, wondering at the savagery in his tone. “You are worthy. You matter. To me.”
Some of the tension eased from him, or maybe that was just the honydka. Needing some of that consolation myself, I tipped down the little sip. It was sweet and strong, just as the king had said.
And maybe it had gone off a bit? I wrinkled my nose. “Ah, glorious fermented bird spit,” I muttered. “With the merest tang of old shoe?”
“It was in that cellar hole a long time,” Aric said. “I know the feeling.”
I smiled at him, my earlier annoyance at his disappearance fading. He was here now. And that was all that mattered. The soft singing and the murmurs of the fighters accepting the honydka kept going, lulling me even more. I found myself leaning into Aric, not caring who saw us.
I giggled a bit under my breath.
Aric had his arm around me and tightened his grip. “What makes you laugh?”
I gazed up at him, struggling a bit to focus because he was so close. Or was he? Maybe he seemed farther, those scarred eyes hooded, even though he was so close. But what was I even thinking? “You are so pretty,” I murmured.
He blinked, the darkness of his lashes falling across his eyes like a thorny barrier. “And that makes you laugh?”
“That makes me jealous,” I sighed. “I wish I was pretty.” I would’ve winced at that sad revelation except we would likely all die on the morrow.
“I don’t know if you’re pretty,” he said.
I snorted. “Ah, thank you for your honesty, sir.”
“—Because my eyes don’t see that way anymore. But your aura shines to me.”
I bit my lip. “My aura is not pure, it can’t shine.”
“The darkest obsidian shines. The ocean at night has a glow. The night itself shimmers with light so far away. And every night with you is brighter yet.”
I swallowed hard, the dark sweetness of the honydka less of a burn than the tears in my eyes. “I’m much prettier than any sea or star,” I whispered. “I promise, Aric…”
“Let me take you back to our little corner. It’s not much, but it’s what we have.”
“The ruins and the night and you,” I said. “That’s all I want.”
He swept me up in his arms, so strong and sweet and thrilling, as if he were honydka brought to life. He carried me through the quiet camp to the half tower we’d claimed as our own sanctuary.
“The night sky does shine,” I said hazily. “And it swirls too. So many moons… Why are they swirling?”
I was not that drunk, no matter how potent the old liquor was.
Laying me down on his cloak, he swaddled me in the heavy fabric. “Hush,” he said. “Just close your eyes. I’ll watch over you.”
“If I close my eyes, you’ll disappear,” I whispered. “You’ll leave me. Don’t leave.”
“Not tonight,” he soothed. “I’ll stay and watch over you tonight.”
“Watch over me why? No one would take me.”
“I did,” he reminded me. “I chose you.”
Struggling against the bonds of the cloak, I untangled one arm to reach for him. Under my fumbling fingertips, his dark hair was a silky tangle. “I take you too,” I murmured. “Not letting go.” But even as I said it, my tingling fingers loosened, my hand dropping limp to our makeshift bed.
He tucked me back into the cloak. “Thief,” he whispered. “As you’ve stolen my heart.”
His voice cracked like a crystal decanter that no one had protected over the years. But just as I could not keep my hands on him, I could not keep my eyes open. Through my fluttering lashes, he disappeared in and out of the darkness of my closing eyes. “What did you do to me?”
“The only thing I can. Now sleep.”
My whole body felt heavy yet floating. “Don’t leave me.”
“Not tonight,” he said again.
And I knew from the final shatter in his words that even if he looked back it would be too late.