Arms wrapped around my knees, I sit and watch the burning tower from beneath the scant protection of the nearby treeline. The power behind the conflagration has gone, Luthan says; as the rain becomes heavier, the flames will slowly die. After that, maybe she and the others will be able to retrieve any surviving belongings.
She and Toralé are near me now, sheltering under a broad-leaved plant, talking in low voices. As for Fabithe and Oriana, I don’t know where they went. Oriana is sleeping, I think; when I tried reaching out for her thoughts, they were soft like dreams. Fabithe was awake. Brooding. Guarding her. But all I could see through his eyes was the darkness of the night. Then I realised that I was reminding myself of Ifor – when he spied on Oriana through the mirror and tried to figure out her whereabouts using the clues he could glean from her surroundings. And after that, I couldn’t bring myself to look any more.
It never used to feel like me versus them, with these people. Even when I first arrived in Endarion and everything was strange. But now …
I must have fallen asleep, because when I open my eyes again it’s daylight and the tower is charred and cold. Toralé and Luthan have gone from beside me. They’ve left me behind. Sore-eyed and frozen stiff, I drag myself to my feet. No … they’re here. Oriana too. Standing near the steps that lead to the tower entrance. Even as I start towards them, Fabithe emerges from the blackened doorway with an armful of things: several knives, Oriana’s dagger, a few other bits and pieces that escaped the destruction.
“We need to move on,” he says, kicking at a burnt piece of wood on the ground. His expression is one of controlled anger. “Separately or together.”
He shoots a glare at me from beneath heavy dark brows. He doesn’t trust me an inch. He’d leave me behind if he could. I don’t respond. Don’t show him how much it hurts. But I can’t help thinking … I abandoned Pete, for this. And Becca. The friends I was beginning to make. The life I’d started to build. It isn’t like last time, when I had nothing to lose. This time, I’ll have upset people by disappearing. It needs to be worth it.
You’re the one who brought Ifor back, I remind myself. They don’t owe you anything. But it doesn’t lessen my resentment.
“Most of it’s burnt,” Fabithe adds. “The bedrolls. The bags. We’re down to little more than the clothes on our backs.”
“Then we should return to Othitali,” Luthan says. It’s imperative that we stay together now, she doesn’t add, but I know she’s thinking it. “It’s the easiest and safest place to get supplies.”
Fabithe shrugs. “Maybe for you.”
“I don’t see that any of us have much choice. Behind us are only the Duskmire and the cliffs. And we can’t stay here. It’s return to Castellany, or turn south and head for the Ithalian desert.”
He nods slowly. I can’t quite recall whether Luthan has got the geography right, but since he isn’t arguing with her, it seems likely.
“But together? All of us?” Once again, his gaze cuts in my direction. “Even her?”
“I will stay with Alyssia until my debt is repaid,” Toralé says quietly.
“And if you don’t trust her,” Luthan adds, “maybe it’s better to keep her where you can see her.”
Fun. Now they’re talking about me as if I’m not here. My impassive expression almost starts to slip, but I’ve had a lot of practice.
Fabithe turns to speak softly to Oriana, and I don’t even try not to eavesdrop. In fact, I extend my senses down the bonds I share with both of them, and catch the gist of their conversation.
You’re happy with this?
I cannot return to the Citadel. Not now that he is back.
I could find somewhere else to take you, if you wanted. Somewhere safe. You don’t have to feel trapped into staying with her.
No, Fabithe. I will not put that burden on you. I liked Othitali, before. And I do not want to abandon Toralé while he is still healing.
What about Alyssia?
Like it or not, we cannot leave her behind.
The weary disgust in that last statement hurts me more than anything. Oriana is the closest friend I’ve ever had. I want her to be happy. And she hates me.
Like worrying a sore tooth with my tongue, I probe the silver bond I have with Ifor in my mind, then jump away before I can actually make a connection. Why did you do this to me? I long to scream at him. You said you wanted to protect me, but you must have known this would tear me apart. Yet I can’t. Communication with the people in my head is only ever one way. Though their emotions pour into me, day and night, I can never reply.
“All right,” Fabithe says. “No point hanging around here any longer.”
With a sweeping one-armed gesture, he indicates that I should precede him. It’s almost as if he’s being polite … no. The fury seething down our bond puts paid to that idea. He’s making sure I don’t get the chance to stab him in the back.
Fabulous.
I’m already exhausted. And so cold – my jacket is better than nothing, but not exactly proof against a night in the open. Part of me wants to lie down in the mud and stay there. The rest of me takes control, marching me past Fabithe with my head held high as if I don’t care what he thinks. You have pride, I remind myself. And determination. And you don’t take any shit.
I never thought I’d be clinging to Peter’s words to hold back my tears, but I’ll take whatever encouragement I can get.
I hear a murmur between Luthan and Toralé that I don’t bother to eavesdrop on – if they’re saying something nasty, too, I might really start crying. But then they fall into step with me, his arm linked through hers for guidance, and I have to wipe my eyes after all. I’m too pathetically grateful to ask them why they’re walking with me. I concentrate on setting one foot in front of the other, and not shivering too much, and exerting every bit of my willpower not to listen to what Fabithe and Oriana are talking about, behind us.
It feels like we’ve already been walking forever by the time I finally have enough control of myself to speak. I glance over my shoulder, making sure there’s enough distance between us that Fabithe won’t overhear anything I say.
“Luthan?” I ask in an undertone. “Do you know anything about me? That is, the Darklight version of me?”
She seems to understand. “You mean Ariamé?”
Ariamé. Yes. That’s what Ifor calls me. I repeat it over and over to myself, silently, until it becomes a string of meaningless syllables: A-ree-AH-may. I can’t find even the smallest connection to it, the faintest resonance of memory. It’s just a word. It isn’t me.
“What happened to her?” I ask Luthan. Again, she seems to understand.
“When Ariamé Darklight was ten years old, she came down with a fever that turned into something more serious. It kept her in bed for months. She recovered from it, but she was … changed. They say her mind was addled by the long illness. She grew into a young woman, but in speech and ability she remains a child. The Darklights keep her in seclusion.”
“But – ” I can’t make sense of any of it. I must be her, I know I must, but all the same … “My memory of the real – my – the other world starts at age twelve. So if Ifor somehow … took me? Spirited me away under cover of my illness and left another girl in my place, then … where did I go, for that missing year?” What did he do to me?
“I don’t know,” Luthan says. “I’m sorry.”
Where you go there affects where you come out here. The memory is edged with impatience, as if part of me is frustrated by the slowness of the rest, but it brings a glimmer of understanding. When I pulled Ifor through the mirror beneath the Castle Retreat, I came out at the site of the accident. The same place I arrived when, as it turns out, I was sent away from Endarion the first time. And if I arrived in the same place twice, I must have left the same place twice. Which means …
“I was in the Castle Retreat,” I whisper. “That’s where he sent me away from.” Not only that, but … You cross to the nearest reflective surface on the other side. Most recently, it was a puddle, but the first time, who knows? Maybe it had rained that night, too, and I appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the road. Maybe I came through one of the mirrors belonging to the car itself. Either way, it was probably my sudden materialisation that caused the accident. In which case, I killed my parents. No, not my parents. They were only assumed to be my parents because I was found near the burning wreck of their vehicle. But I killed them, all the same.
“How do you know?” Luthan asks, and I find myself pouring out the whole thing. What Ifor told me about how the key works. What I’ve realised as a result. She and Toralé listen intently. At the end – defensively, to cover up a lump in my throat that won’t go away – I conclude, “So really, I don’t get why you’re still talking to me.”
I need you, is the immediate response that Luthan is unable to suppress in thought. But when Toralé murmurs, “None of it was your fault, tek’adar,” she nods in agreement.
“You can hardly be held responsible for the actions of your siblings.”
“Tell that to Fabithe,” I mutter. “He thinks I’ve been hiding out plotting with Ifor all this time, instead of voluntarily putting myself in exile.”
“Perhaps he finds it a more plausible explanation than the existence of another world.”
Not you too. I swing round to face her, but she looks mildly interested rather than accusing. Of course: nothing matters more than a good academic discussion.
“Look at this,” I say, stabbing a finger towards my own chest. “Have you ever seen an animal like this before?”
“No … but I don’t know what kind of strange animals they have in the north. So I’m not sure that proves anything.”
“The writing, then. Can you read this writing?” Have you ever, ever seen anyone in Endarion wearing a turquoise T-shirt with a picture of a sloth on it and Not Today written underneath in pink?
“No,” she says again. “But I never learned the northern character system, either.”
“You might not have,” I mutter. “But I bet Oriana did. Fabithe, too, since for all his dislike of rich people he had a royal upbringing – ”
“What language do they speak?” Luthan interrupts my burgeoning rant.
“Sorry?”
“In the other world. What language do they speak?”
“It depends …” My voice tails off as the point of her question stabs me in the throat. Because she said, when I first talked to her after my return, that I was speaking in the northern tongue. Not only that, but I’ve moved between worlds a few times now, and I’ve never once been aware of a language difference. Which implies that either there is no difference or my brain doesn’t hear any difference, both of which seem impossible. I have to take a few panicky breaths before asking, “What language are we speaking now?”
“Plain Castellian.”
“Plain?”
“As opposed to High.”
“All right.” I’m not going to investigate that rabbit hole any further. “But that isn’t what I would have spoken when I was a child, right? What Ariamé would have spoken?”
“You’d have spoken Nûnian,” Luthan agrees. “The language of Northfell and Iridene. Though as you said, a royal upbringing means learning other languages. So you’d have known some Castellian, and some of the Western tongue, and maybe even a bit of whatever they speak in the Isles …”
“Parnese,” Toralé puts in. “But when we trade with Northfell, we use Castellian. That’s what they spoke to me in the Retreat.”
Why Castellian, if it isn’t the first language of either country? But that’s another rabbit hole I don’t want to go down. The important point is that there’s a reason I understand what they’re saying, and a reason I could understand Ifor when he spoke to me in his own language. Yet it doesn’t answer the more fundamental question of what happens when I move between worlds.
“It feels,” I say slowly, “like the language I’m speaking now is the same as the language I speak in the other world. But I can’t be sure.”
“Try an experiment,” Luthan suggests. “Say, ‘My name is Ariamé’.”
“My name is Alyssia.”
“And in Nûnian?”
“Noma Alyssia,” I say promptly, then stop dead. Listening back to it, I can tell the words are different. Until yesterday, I didn’t even realise that I spoke Nûnian. I suppose I haven’t been hearing it from inside my friends’ heads all these years, not like Castellian. But even though I don’t remember the first twelve years of my life, it seems that some things remain.
“And in the language of the other world?” Luthan asks.
“I … I don’t know!” Frustrated, I nearly trip over my own feet. “When I try to translate, I draw a blank – and I can’t figure out whether that’s because there’s nothing to translate, or for some other reason. It isn’t as if I forget it while I’m here. I can use words you haven’t heard of. Chocolate. Electricity. But I just can’t tell if the rest of it is the same.”
“So that proves nothing,” she muses. “The other world might be real. It might be a magical construct. Or you might be making the whole thing up. But without any proof, I can see why they doubt you.”
“Thanks.”
“For what it’s worth, I believe you. But then, I’m used to believing what others don’t.”
I sigh. “As many as six impossible things before breakfast, right?”
“Sorry?”
“Never mind.” Sometimes I think I’m doomed to flit between two worlds and only ever make references that people from the one I’m not in would understand.
We keep walking. In the privacy of my head, I bounce random words around, trying to sneak up on my own brain and catch it translating between languages. It’s only when Luthan stops suddenly that I realise how long it’s been since I last spoke.
“What’s wrong?” I ask her.
“Look.”
I follow the direction of her pointing finger: a little group of horsemen, riding across the plains. And they’re headed straight in our direction.
I spin on my heel, but there’s nowhere to take cover now we’re away from the Duskmire. Besides, the horsemen must already have seen us, just as we can see them. I swear under my breath. Only a couple of weeks away, and I’m already out of practice at being a fugitive. I’d forgotten that although Ifor might not be actively pursuing us, there could be others we need to watch out for. Or rather, given that I’m in the company of a mage, an escaped prisoner, an absconded Lady of the Sapphire and a man who’s offended the rich and powerful in at least half the towns of Castellany, we need to watch out for everyone.
I look at Luthan: her birthstone illusion is in place, her sleeves rolled down to hide the scars. Good. I look at Fabithe: he’s got a knife in each hand. Maybe good?
“They’re coming from Sapphire territory,” he tells Oriana. “Which means they might recognise you, but if we conceal your face …”
He scans the group, hunting for inspiration. But no one’s wearing a cloak with a hood, and none of us have any blankets. Our lack of possessions leaves us all exposed.
“I will walk at the back with Toralé,” Oriana ventures. “The rest of you stay just ahead of us. Perhaps they will only glance our way.”
Reluctantly, Fabithe nods. Clearly he wants to find a better way to hide her, but just as clearly, there isn’t one. We arrange ourselves as she suggested. Then, because it would be suspicious to do otherwise, we keep walking. With any luck, these people aren’t looking for us and will pass by without ever noticing Oriana’s presence.
That hope is soon dashed. When they’re almost upon us, the man leading them raises a hand and they rein in their horses, so we have no choice but to stop too. For a moment that stretches far longer than is comfortable, we all stare at each other. The leader is wearing an embroidered blue coat, a ruffled shirt and fancy boots without a single scuff on them. A nobleman, then, or a successful mercator. The ten men with him – and they are all men – are dressed in a variety of clothing, from coats nearly as fine as their leader’s to a simple tunic and leggings, but each is armed with a short sword or dagger. They’d hardly need the weapons. With them on horseback and us on foot, they could simply mow us down.
Suddenly, Oriana pushes between me and Fabithe to walk towards the newcomers. The nobleman’s eyes widen, and he dismounts in a hurry. Fabithe starts forward with a muffled exclamation, but I catch his elbow. The determination radiating from Oriana is almost tangible. She recognises this man. And if she knows him, and wants to speak to him, we shouldn’t interfere.
“Most high lady. May your story continue.” He sweeps into a bow, respect and confusion warring on his face. One hand gestures behind him for his men to sheathe their weapons.
“Lord Oceantree of Stonesands,” Oriana says, presumably for our benefit. “What are you doing here?”
“We saw the beacon-fire.” He looks slightly embarrassed. “The old town laws state that if the fire is lit, a party of volunteers must ride to the Sapphire’s defence. So, here we are.”
She inclines her head. Her thoughts and emotions tumble down our bond, too fast to catch more than flashes. At last, she says calmly, “I am grateful for your aid.”
“Aid, my lady?”
“Yes,” Oriana says. “You came to the defence of the Sapphire, did you not? I am your Highest Lady. The power of the Sapphire runs through my veins. I am the one who summoned you.”
He bows again, but I don’t need any special powers whatsoever to be able to tell that he’s uncomfortable.
“You have a question,” Oriana says. “Ask it.”
He hesitates, then goes at it in a rush. “Forgive me, most high lady, but it is said among the people of the town that you broke your goddess-sworn oath to your husband on your very wedding night, and ran away with …” His gaze passes over each of us in turn, before settling on Fabithe. “Another man.”
Oriana’s expression remains grave, almost remote, but I feel panic spike through her before she fights it back down. What can I tell them? If I touch on any matters concerning Ifor, they will not hear the truth. Not if his magic still holds.
“She didn’t leave with a man.” Moving to her side, I speak before I know what I’m going to say. “She left with me.”
Slowly, Oceantree scans me from toes to head: boots, jeans, T-shirt and scruffy leather jacket. By the time he reaches my face, I can only describe his expression as arctic. “And you are …?”
“Ariamé Darklight,” I say. I don’t turn to see how my friends are reacting; their various strong feelings on the matter are hammering me through our bonds. But I want Oceantree to take me seriously – and besides, it’s about time she returned to the world. She’s been erased for too long. “Oriana’s sister by marriage.”
He bows, hastily, but he still appears confused. I lean forward, fixing him with a significant look. I need to speak the way Ifor speaks: with the confidence of absolute certainty that I’ll be listened to.
“Lord Oceantree. If my brother and Highest Lord Cinemand wish to conceal the true purpose of our journey, I cannot think it your place to argue.”
“Purpose?”
“Let’s just say it is a matter of supreme diplomatic importance.”
Alarmed, he turns back to Oriana. “But surely, most high lady, it is not safe for you to be travelling without a company of Sapphire Blades to protect you.”
“That would hardly be conducive to secrecy,” Oriana says. Her fear has vanished altogether, now, to be replaced with a mixture of other emotions: alarm at my apparent facility for untruth and determination to use it anyway, all underlain with a little reluctant amusement. “But I am not without protection, as you can see.”
She gestures over her shoulder in the direction of Fabithe, Luthan and Toralé. There’s silence as Oceantree and his men size them up, and no doubt vice versa. It’s easy to tell from the men’s faces that they don’t think much of their Highest Lady’s protection. I can only imagine what kind of looks Fabithe is giving them in return.
“My lady,” Oceantree says at last. He appears to be trying to be tactful, but the curl of his lip gives him away. “I really do not think – ”
“If they are good enough for my father, Sammal, they must be good enough for you.”
“Of course.” His expression is still doubtful, but clearly he knows when to turn the subject. “Most high lady, you said you summoned us for aid. What aid do you require?”
“Food and supplies, to start with.”
“Would it not be best for me to escort you home to the Citadel?”
“My dear Lord Oceantree.” Oriana gives him a rather brittle smile. “That would defeat the point entirely.”
“Then can I ask your destination?”
What should I tell him? Her dilemma is clear. It doesn’t seem wise to tell anyone where we’re going – yet if she doesn’t want him to haul us all back to the Citadel, she has to offer at least the semblance of a purpose. Finally, she says, “Into Emerald territory, to begin with. And perhaps now you can see why discretion is required.”
His bemused expression says no, he doesn’t – hardly surprising, since she’s making all this up out of gossamer strands of half-truth and outright lies – but he is too polite to contradict his Highest Lady.
“Then we will of course give you all the aid you require.” He grimaces. “But if you need provisions for a journey, I fear we have little with us that would be of use. Might I suggest that you return to Stonesands with us? My home is at your disposal. And once you have everything you need, we can escort you to the border.”
“Little of use?” I echo. “I thought you rode out here in defence of the Sapphire. Surely you brought appropriate supplies for the job.”
The dirty look he gives me conveys exactly how much he appreciates my intervention. I don’t know if he and his men rode out here, guns blazing, without even stopping to think about the logistics of it all – an adventure rooted in legend, following an ancient dictum they only half believed – or whether he has plenty of supplies and his own reasons for wanting us to accompany him to his home town. One option makes him a fool, the other a liar; either way, he’d rather I didn’t point it out.
“Horses,” he says with a fixed smile. “A change of clothing. Enough food for several days. I can give you all these things, if you return with us to Stonesands.”
I’m not at all sure I trust him, but I’m also not sure we have much choice. It seems Oriana agrees, because she inclines her head graciously. “Thank you, Sammal. That would be most kind.”
Immediately, Oceantree turns to fire an order at his men. Two of them dismount, then lead their horses to me and Oriana. Shit. I’ll give myself away as soon as I fail to get on the damn thing’s back.
“Are you happy for your maid to ride with you, my lady?” Oceantree asks Oriana, gesturing at Luthan, and she nods. Probably grateful she doesn’t have to share a horse with me, this time round. “Your bodyguard can walk with my displaced men, but what about the last member of your party?”
He casts a supercilious glance in Toralé’s direction. Clearly he thinks he’s pegged Luthan and Fabithe, but Toralé’s role remains a mystery to him. I catch a fleeting thought from Fabithe – smug bloody bastard – and it makes me feel more in charity with him than I have all day.
“Toralé will ride with me,” I say firmly. Then, as Oceantree addresses another remark to Oriana, I scoot over to Toralé and say in an undertone, “I need your help. I’m terrible at this.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“You can ride, right?”
“I used to be able to, yes.”
“Great. Then you drive and I’ll navigate. Deal?”
“If you say so, eminalithé.”
I turn to Fabithe, giving him a meaningful look. Out of sight of Oceantree and the others, he glares at me – but he still steps forward to offer me his cupped hands, murmuring My lady in the most ironic way possible as he boosts me into the saddle. Then he gives me a mocking bow, before helping Toralé up behind me.
We go through an awkward period of not knowing where to put all our limbs before Toralé’s arms wrap around my waist and his good hand finds the reins. It feels more intimate, somehow, than when Oriana and I shared a horse during our escape from the Citadel. His chest is pressed against my back. His breath tickles my ear every time he exhales. It should be weird. Uncomfortable. Intrusive. Yet somehow, I find it comforting. At least Toralé is willing to be around me, even if that willingness is driven by duty.
Beside us, Fabithe offers a step for Oriana to mount her own horse, exactly as he did for me. Yet he doesn’t bow afterwards. He meets her gaze, as she settles into the saddle, and something unspoken passes between them. Like me, they’re remembering the night we left the Citadel, and it’s set an emotion I can’t quite identify resonating between them. He lingers at her stirrup, half-formed phrases tumbling through his head as if he wants to say something but doesn’t, himself, have any idea what it might be.
I killed him. The thought drops into my head out of nowhere, accompanied by gut-wrenching anguish. I shake my head, but I can’t break its grip. The words keep flowing whether I like it or not. Holy One, was this truly justice? My brother’s blood on my hands?
This isn’t a good time to –
It should have been me.
But I have no choice.
Kneeling on the hard flagstones of the Holy Chamber with head bowed, the cold seeping into his bones, Rys Kingswood prays. No doubt he looks devout, from a distance – as pious as the people of Kingstower believe him to be. They cannot know that his prayers are not simple thanksgiving or requests for guidance, but a relentless, desperate questioning.
Did you really want his life? Really? Or have I told myself that only to cover my own sins? They say it was your will. That it could not fail to be so, under the covenant of trial by combat. But when I remember his face …
There is no answer. Of course there is no answer. The room around him is dim and quiet and empty. The neat, worn rows of benches either side of the central aisle hold no congregation. Beyond them, shadows lurk between the striped pillars holding up the low ceiling; ahead, the altar gleams with candlelight. A faint, familiar haze of incense remains from the morning’s service. And on the flagstone in front of him …
Rys reaches out to trace the shape of an old bloodstain. Strange, how a death can weigh so heavily on the world that it pulls everything else down with it, like a stone in a cloth bag. Death should be light; by its nature, it is absence. Nothingness. Yet Morani’s death sits across Rys’s shoulders with suffocating pressure.
Eyes marked with purple shadows like bruises. Dried blood at the corner of his mouth. His sword wavered in his grasp, the point drooping towards the floor. He defended himself against my first attack, but it was clumsy. Automatic. Something inside him was broken. And I could have stopped it, if only –
Blinking away the flash of insistent recollection, Rys breathes the scents of herbs and wax and ancient stone deep into his lungs. He really ought to stop hiding in here. It has been close to five years; the memories, and the guilt, should have faded by now. Yet instead, they have only grown stronger with time, until there are days when he can think of nothing else – despite all his duties, and his wife Nelle’s demands, and his father’s increasing need for him.
Stumbling. Exhausted. His movements slow and heavy, weighed down by guilt. Or so I told myself. But then he looked up, across the combat ground, past me, and anger sparked in his eyes. When his grip shifted on the hilt of the sword, I knew I did not stand a chance. He was going to kill me.
“There you are!” Footsteps ring out against the flagstones, quick and light. A hand falls on his shoulder. Rys lifts his head to find Rion smiling down at him. His brother’s coat is lavish with silk, and jewels wink on his hands. Rys might be known as the Pious Prince, down in the town, but Rion’s epithet is far less complimentary. “I have been looking for you.”
Rys does his best to return the smile. “Have you?”
“I wanted to talk to you about the tournament.”
“What tournament?”
“Come on, Rys!” Rion squeezes his shoulder. “I have been badgering Father about it for an age. A grand tournament for the glory of the One, like our grandfather used to hold when Father and Uncle Dorus were boys. Father says there is no money for it, but I really think with a small rise in taxation … I have it all worked out, if you want to hear it.”
Rys nods vaguely. Then, realising how the gesture might be interpreted, he hastens to add, “Some other – ”
But it is too late. Encouraged by the small show of interest, Rion keeps talking. And as the words flow on, Rys lets his mind drift backwards again in search of … what? A different outcome, perhaps. Or a previously unnoticed sign that he did the right thing. Though he knows he will not find either, he cannot help looking.
On my back in the dirt, a sword blade at my throat. Waiting to die. His gaze fierce on my face; an instant that lasted forever. Then he shook his head. His mouth set in a resolute line, he stepped back and drove his sword into the earth at his feet. Once again he looked up, past me, and his expression was challenging. If I had found only a little of his courage –
Rion has stopped talking. His face is expectant, as if he has just asked a question. Rys closes his eyes, searching his memory for the subject, but he cannot hazard even the slightest guess. His memories of Morani’s death are almost soundless, yet their silence drowns out everything else. Even now, he can feel it tugging at him.
“I am tired,” he says. “Can we talk about this another day?”
Rion stares at him, mouth askew. Then he shuts it with an audible clack of teeth and backs away a step, letting his hand fall from Rys’s shoulder.
“Another day.” His voice darkens to bitterness. “It is always another day, with you.”
“What do you – ”
“You mourn a dead brother,” Rion says, with a glittering smile that is all surface; the glint of sunlight on water, concealing what lies beneath. “But a living brother stands in front of you.”
He is right, of course. Five years is more than long enough to mourn. Rys should have spent that time building a better relationship with the brother he has left.
“Morani was tried by his god and his king, and found wanting by both,” Rion goes on with bare patience. “You should feel no shame. The One guided your hand that day.”
Scrambling to my feet. Groping for my weapon. The tilt of his head proud. Scorn in his eyes. He was always better than me. Even on trial for the most heinous of crimes, he was better. I lifted my sword. And for one searing moment, as it flashed through the air, everything made sense.
“Envy guided my hand,” Rys whispers. He is shaking. “Envy and fear. He spared me – ”
“He realised the error of his ways,” Rion says. “He redeemed himself with his death. He submitted to the One’s will, and you were merely its enforcer.” Once more, he puts his hand on Rys’s shoulder. “You need to stop indulging in regret and place your trust in the One, Rys. Else how will you ever lead us, when the time comes?”
He turns and walks down the aisle, his boot-heels striking echoes from the stone. Rys stares at the bloodstain and listens until they have died away to nothing.
“He’s right, you know.” A new voice breaks the silence. Rys jerks his head upright to find an elderly woman standing between two of the pillars, half in and half out of shadow. Her sharp old face could be made from the same red-brown stone as her surroundings.
“I beg your pardon?”
She nods as if that is no more than her due. “Regret is a form of self-indulgence.”
Rys surges to his feet. Gripping the back of the wooden bench beside him, he takes an equally tight hold on his emotions before countering, in a voice that barely seems to belong to him, “Who in the name of the blessed One are you?”
“You don’t know me.” The old woman’s tone suggests a personal failing on his part. “Donalle. Town healer and midwife.”
“Then how did you get in here?”
Her smile mocks him as she quotes the words carved over the entrance to the Holy Chamber, an archway without gate or door. “The One is always open to our prayers.”
Rys meant to ask how she had gained access to Kingstower in the first place. Long gone are the days when anyone could walk into the royal seat and demand an audience. The King’s Guard keep a tight watch on the gate; except when Petros is sitting in session, only those with official business are permitted to enter. An old healer from Kingsleigh should not be able to walk in without challenge.
“The guards know me,” she says, as if reading his mind. “You might say I’m a friend of the family.”
Yet I have never seen you before in my life. Rys shakes his head. “If you want money, I am afraid – ”
“Money?” Her face twists in disgust. “I’m here for justice. Justice, for a murdered boy.”
Unable to support himself any longer, Rys sinks onto the nearest bench. Some small, hysterical part of him wonders if he has conjured up this accusatory old woman out of his own cloud of guilt.
“What justice?” he asks hoarsely, clinging to a sliver of hope that she is talking about something else. Donalle takes a step closer.
“Almost nineteen years ago, a woman turned up on my doorstep one night. All over blood. An accent I didn’t recognise. She’d been stabbed so many times I was surprised she wasn’t already dead. But the baby inside her was untouched.”
Rys frowns. “Why are you telling me this?”
“She didn’t have the strength to birth him. So I gave her a draught to dull the pain and help her sleep, and then I cut her open. After, she lived just long enough to beg me to take care of her son.
“Later that day, I was called to attend your mother in her birthing. But though all went smoothly, when the baby arrived it was stillborn.”
No. There was never a dead child. There was only ever me, Rion … and Morani. A lump forms in Rys’s throat as he starts to see the shape of what she is telling him.
“Your parents took in the orphaned baby,” Donalle says. “For fourteen years, they raised him as if he were their own. And then – ”
“And then I killed him,” Rys whispers. The world has changed around him, like a dream; he does not know how to feel. “Who else knew this?”
The old woman emerges fully from the shadows to take a seat opposite him. Her expression has softened a fraction, though that still leaves plenty of sharpness to go round. “Only them and me – and Morani himself, at the end.”
“Morani knew? Who would have – ” Yet Rys’s gaze is drawn back, inexorably, to the bloodstain on the floor. “The northern ambassador. Somehow he must have learned the truth and confronted Morani with it. That is why Morani attacked him here.”
“Attacked. Was provoked. Perhaps not quite the same thing.”
“But the ambassador claimed he had uncovered Morani’s treasonous plans, and that was why Morani attacked him. I have doubted it for some time, and yet … Petros believed it. There was evidence.”
“Your father loved Morani,” Donalle says. “Yet a child not of the blood – ”
“That would not have weighed with him,” Rys says quickly. “If anything, Morani was his favourite! Surely he would not have …”
His voice tails into silence. Donalle says nothing. Finally, Rys rubs a hand over his face and meets her gaze.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing.”
What? “You said you were here for justice.”
She shrugs. “Perhaps, when you’re king, you’ll find a way to clear his name.”
“What use is that?” Rys asks with some violence. “It will not bring him back.”
Donalle does not reply straight away. She is getting to her feet, gazing in the direction of the adjoining chapel where people come to pray for healing – or, in those cases where healing is no longer of use, a safe journey for the departed soul.
“That’s where I put him, you know,” she says softly. “I knew Petros would visit to make an offering for the dead child. And when he did …” She shrugs. “That altar’s made of takian. Treasurewood. They say it grants your heart’s desire, if you’re strong enough for it.”
Strong enough. A strange way to phrase it. Rys is not sure why it requires strength, to be given what you want most. Surely it takes more strength to accept it can never be.
“And what is your heart’s desire, Ryskari?” the old woman asks with a certain amount of malice. His voice emerges as a whisper.
“That I had never killed my brother.”
She gives him a sceptical glance, before turning away. Her last words float back to him over her shoulder. “I doubt you are strong enough for that.”
“What do you mean? Donalle, wait – ”
Rys scrambles to his feet, stumbling in his haste to extricate himself from between the benches, but the old woman is surprisingly swift. She disappears into the passageway that connects the chamber with the outside world before he is halfway there.
He begins to swear, then cuts it off as he remembers where he is. In the lingering silence that follows his brief expletive, Rion’s laughter falls like a shower of ice. Rys turns to see his brother emerging from the shadows.
“I thought you had gone,” he says helplessly.
Rion ignores him. His expression is a mixture of bitter amusement and … something else. Elation? Fury? Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference between a grin and a baring of teeth.
“I was never good enough for you,” he says. “Never good enough for any of you, next to Morani. And he was not even really a Kingswood. He was not anyone.”
“He was our brother.”
Rion’s smile fades. “Rys … this changes everything. You can finally put aside your guilt and accept that the world is as it should be.”
Is that what she meant? That I must be strong enough to understand I already have my heart’s desire? But Rys cannot accept it. Perhaps it is true, in a sense: he never killed his brother after all, only a foundling child who had no business being part of the royal family in the first place. Yet that only conceals an ocean of feeling. He and Morani grew up together. They teased each other, shared each other’s secrets, kept each other safe.
“It makes no difference what she says,” he tells Rion. “You cannot throw away fourteen years of brotherhood for an accident of birth.”
“Fourteen years! He has been dead nearly five! Let him go, Rys. His life meant nothing and his death even less – ”
Rion stops, eyes widening, and Rys realises he has started towards his brother with a raised fist. He lowers his arm, forcing himself to relax, and begins to apologise; yet Rion is already speaking again.
“Go ahead, Rys. Follow in his footsteps. Apparently sacrilege means little enough to you.” His lip curls. “And once the One has judged us both, we will see who is left standing.”
I shiver at the venom in that threat – only it wasn’t directed at me. It was aimed at Rys. Fabithe’s brother. Who obviously still loves him, despite having tried to murder him. I’m not sure if Fabithe would want to know that or not, but based on the glare he’s currently giving me, I’m going to say not. He knows what it looks like when I’m farseeing, and he isn’t happy about it.
He turns to boost Luthan up behind Oriana; I look away, only to find Oceantree watching me too. Great. He must have seen me zone out. What conclusions did he draw from it? What is he thinking? I’m used to being able to read my friends – even Fabithe’s controlled privacy. Oceantree is like a stone in comparison, dull and unreflective, giving nothing away. It makes me antsy. He’s doing his utmost to present himself as a loyal servant of the Sapphire, but there’s something in the way he leans close to the man next to him, murmuring; the way a hint of his earlier confusion still lingers in the creases around his eyes …
I don’t fit his model of what a high-born lady should be. That much is clear. But looking again at Oriana, I think it’s more than that. Because she isn’t riding side-saddle, the way she used to. The elaborate dress that Oceantree expects to see has been replaced with a man’s shirt and a pair of old trousers. Her hair isn’t pinned into a fall of elegant waves, but scraped back into a messy plait. And if Oriana is no longer a proper high-born lady, either, it’s possible that these men – despite their allegiance to her bloodline – might view that as a threat.
Oceantree gives the command to set off, and for a while I’m kept busy whispering to Toralé about what lies ahead of us and where we are in relation to other riders. But once the company settles to a constant pace, there isn’t much I need to say. Toralé’s one hand is far steadier on the reins than my two have ever been; he’s perfectly capable of keeping the horse under control, so my only job now is to look out for unexpected dangers and sharp changes of direction or speed.
Around what I’d tentatively guess is midday, we stop to rest and eat. Oceantree’s rescue party might not have left with enough provisions for a prolonged journey, but what they have makes a reasonable meal. I guide Toralé over to join Oriana and Luthan for some food, but I can feel Oriana’s hostility like a palpable force. It isn’t long before I have to mumble a few words about having forgotten something, then retreat to hide behind the tethered horses and gather my composure.
As I wipe my eyes and sniff as silently as possible, I hear voices: Oceantree and another man, fetching supplies from one of the saddlebags. They don’t know I’m here. I’m about to announce myself when one of them mentions the Darklight girl. They’re talking about me. About Ariamé. And now nothing short of murder could make me reveal my presence.
“I heard she was a half-wit,” Oceantree’s companion mutters. “They say she has not left her chambers in years. Yet all along, it was only a ruse.”
Oceantree snorts. “She may not be a half-wit, but she is most definitely odd. Besides, who trains a woman as a spy?”
“They have some bizarre practices, in the barbarian north,” the other man agrees darkly. “And it seems we are beginning to adopt some of them ourselves.”
Both of them glance at Oriana.
“It is strange, though, Sammal,” the second man goes on, lowering his voice still further. “At the last grand council, Cinemand was adamant that we should do more to find his daughter. And yet here she is, gallivanting around the countryside by herself, apparently with his full knowledge!”
“Not by herself,” Oceantree says. “She has her maid, and a blind boy.”
“And the half-wit.” They both chuckle.
Try laying a finger on her, I want to say. See how far you get. I have no doubt that Fabithe and Luthan between them could drive off a dozen hastily assembled soldiers. Yet getting one over on these horrible people isn’t what matters. What matters is that they still have suspicions, and we need to allay them. Otherwise Oceantree will go running back to Cinemand with his knowledge of Oriana’s whereabouts, and it won’t be long before we have armies after us. Again.
Lifting my chin, I stride out from behind the horses as though I wasn’t skulking there but had perfectly legitimate equine business to attend to. I’ll use his first name. That’ll annoy him.
“Ah, Sammal,” I say, ignoring their furtive expressions as they realise they might have been overheard. “I take it my brother has not yet returned to the Citadel.”
“Not as far as I know, my lady. But I was last there for the grand council, eleven days ago.”
I smile. Lucky I happened to glimpse Cinemand’s conversation with the Sapphire lords when I was talking to Dr Whyte. “Of course. You were discussing whether the Emerald or the Diamond could possibly be behind Oriana’s kidnap.”
His eyes bulge. “You – you know –?”
“Cinemand is Oriana’s father. Ifor is my brother. Do you suppose they keep anything secret from us?”
Wearing an expression of utter confusion, Oceantree stammers, “F-forgive me, my lady, but why in the name of the goddess would Highest Lord Cinemand consider accusing our neighbours, and risk provoking war, if he knows that Highest Lady Oriana is safe?”
Good question. The story that Oriana and I have set up is flimsy enough to collapse in the slightest breath of wind. All I have with which to defend it are the random snippets of information I’ve gleaned from Cinemand’s head, and I’m pretty sure they’ve already run out.
“He has his reasons,” I say vaguely. “And if he chooses to share them only with a trusted few …” I wave a hand to encompass myself and Oriana, and give Oceantree a look that says sorry, this is classified.
“Yes. Of course. But may I ask – ”
I shake my head. “I’ve already said too much.”
“Of course.”
As we all remount our horses, setting off once more in the direction of Stonesands, I dwell with some surprise on the fact that I just essentially told a Sapphire lord to butt out of my business. Amazing, really, what you can get away with if you have the right name and the attitude to go with it.
Maybe I could grow to like being a Darklight after all.