Bleda sat on his horse, staring ahead at the warriors marching on foot in front of him. Three score White-Wings, all polished leather and bright steel. Colossal trees reared high on either side of the narrow road, branches looping and latticing above them. He twisted in his saddle and looked back over his shoulder, saw another two score of the black-and-silver clothed warriors marching behind. Shadows flitted across him, shapes skimming along the road they were following and, looking up, he saw Ben-Elim circling high above, yet still beneath the canopy of Forn’s great trees.
He drew in a long, slow breath, mastering the emotions that were roiling within him: anger and fear, confusion and revulsion, as well as the fatigue and sense of sorrow that he’d noticed settled over him after a battle, the knowledge that lives had been snuffed out, men and women that he had talked with, eaten with—suddenly gone. It left a hollow place within him. And of course, there was Kol and the Ben-Elim.
They say we are pardoned, welcomed back into the arms of the Faithful, but I feel more like a prisoner being marched to my execution. And no one asked me if I wanted to be welcomed back.
He had sat outside the woodsman’s hut when Riv had been hauled inside, as stunned as the rest of them by Aphra’s revelation.
Riv is Kol’s daughter.
Obviously, he had known that one of the Ben-Elim was her father, but Kol! He did not know how he felt about that.
Bleda and the others had laid down their weapons. Bleda had no heart to fight on with Riv a prisoner, fearing what Kol might do to her, and he knew that continuing to fight was futile—they were too outnumbered—so he’d chosen to save the lives of his surviving bondsmen. Only three of his ten guards still lived, and Old Ellac, who seemed immortal. The dead had been buried beneath cairns back at the woodsman’s hut, alongside over a dozen Ben-Elim and White-Wings.
Vald and Jost rode with Bleda, Ellac and his three men, which surprised Bleda a little. He’d thought they would be back marching with the White-Wings, especially as it was Aphra’s hundred, the very unit that Vald and Jost had trained with all of their lives. To see them riding alongside his men was another reminder that so much had changed, that life was abruptly, unalterably, different, and he was clearly not the only one to feel that way.
Jost had a wide bandage wrapped around his head, dried blood crusting on it. He was swaying a little in his saddle, and not just because he was a poor rider; he was still concussed from the blow to his head, a clump from the butt-end of a Ben-Elim’s spear that had bled for half a day.
When Bleda had seen Kol stride into the woodsman’s hut he had thought the end must be close, his hand finding the secret dagger hidden in his boot, though he hadn’t really known what he was going to do with it.
Save Riv, kill Kol, maybe. Or at least try. Or kill myself, rather than let Kol have the pleasure.
I am surprised that any of us are still alive.
It had been a long time later that Kol had emerged, and Bleda had been stunned to see Riv walking out into the glade with him. Riv had stood with her head down while Kol had made a speech about the time for bloodletting and vengeance being over, and as the new Lord Protector he wanted to build a new world of peace and harmony. He would start that right now, by forgiving and absolving Riv and her companions of any wrongdoing.
Bleda had almost fallen over with shock.
While Kol spoke, Bleda had looked only at Riv, tried to catch her eye. He saw that she had a wound on her shoulder, freshly stitched, and that she was clenching her right hand into a fist, blood welling from between her fingers, dripping on the ground.
When did that happen?
Only once had Riv looked at him, when Kol had been speaking of forgiveness and moving on together, and she had nodded at him, as if agreeing with Kol’s words. And urging him to agree, also.
What happened in that hut? How can she be going along with this? She was going to Drassil to kill Kol, and now she is making peace with him. Is it part of some plan, or is it because Kol is her father? Has that changed how she feels about him? He slew Dalmae, is a murderer.
He felt confused, angry, bewildered, and deeply worried for Riv.
Feeling and recognizing all these emotions now, he had come to the strange realization that for the last moon or so, he had been… happy.
Despite the shock of Kol’s coup and the flight in the dead of night into the endless twilight of Forn, despite living in a woodsman’s hut, shorn of the comfort and luxuries that being a prince, even if he was a ward of the Ben-Elim, had given him. It had been a long time since he had felt able to relax his cold-face, to allow his feelings to emerge from the depths where he kept them so well controlled and hidden. And he knew there was a reason for that.
Riv.
Somehow, she had managed to pick, chip and bore a hole through his guard, fracturing his protective shield. He felt as if he had stepped out from a dark place into the light of the sun.
And now it was over, his cold-face shifting back into place, but beneath it emotions boiled, foremost of all worry for his friend.
Where is Riv?
He searched the skies, looked front and back again, but could not see her.
And now they were going back to Drassil, five or six days’ travel through Forn before they would see the giant walls of the Banished Lands’ greatest fortress. It was not a sight that Bleda was looking forward to.
A horn blast rang out. Aphra was standing at the head of their column, a fist raised, the signal to make camp for the night. They rippled to a halt and then two winged shapes flew over Bleda and his companions: Kol and Riv. They alighted in a swirl of leaves beside Aphra.
Riv did not so much as glance at Bleda or her friends.
Darkness, as thick and dense as a wall, loomed about Bleda. He was sitting beside a fire with Ellac, as well as his three guards: a man named Tuld, taller than was common amongst the Sirak, and two women, Ruga and Mirim, sisters whom Bleda struggled to tell apart. All had injuries from the fight at the hut, but most of them were superficial, only Mirim having a deeper wound in her thigh. Ruga was checking on it now, cleaning it with boiled water that had been left to cool. All three of them were shaven-haired, apart from the long braids that marked them as Sirak warriors.
Bleda was tending to his bow, for a moment lost in the memory of its making, so long ago; his brother had helped him craft the weapon. It was one of his most treasured memories, recalling a time when the world seemed stable and solid, and also exciting, with so much promise for his future, and he had been sure of his place within it. He remembered his brother’s voice, teaching him to sand the sturgeon glue with rough shark skin, his brother’s arm around his shoulders, the both of them laughing.
But now he is dead.
Now, all was in flux.
He could not just go back to Drassil and resume the life he had been leading; it felt impossible. His eyes searched out Kol, sitting at a campfire with a handful of his Ben-Elim and some of Aphra’s White-Wings. Kol was drinking from a skin, laughing.
He is king, now, the Lord Protector of the Banished Lands. The man who slew my brother and sister, and shamed my mother. He has slain Israfil, slain Riv’s kin, and yet he sits there drinking and laughing.
“What do you think has happened to the rest of my honour guard?” Bleda asked.
Ellac had led one hundred Sirak warriors from Arcona to Drassil as Bleda’s personal honour guard, and only ten of them had been about him on the chaotic night that he had saved Riv from the madness of Kol’s coup. It was those ten warriors who had accompanied him into Forn Forest, and now seven of them were dead.
Your sacrifice will not be forgotten.
“Who can say what Kol has done with them?” Ellac shrugged.
Bleda felt a dark mood settling upon him, struggled to stop it from showing. He mourned the loss of his guards, felt the weight of responsibility for their deaths.
“Ellac, Ruga, Tuld, Mirim,” he said, and they all looked at him.
“My thanks,” Bleda said.
“For what?” Ruga asked, frowning.
“For keeping your oaths, for standing with me.”
Ellac snorted. The other three were looking at Bleda with quizzical looks.
“You are our prince, and we are oathsworn to you,” Tuld said, as if that explained everything.
“Aye, and Erdene would take our right hands if we failed you,” Ruga said, a fleeting smile wrinkling her cold-face.
She probably would.
“You are brave and loyal,” Bleda said, “and I will not forget it.”
Footsteps. Bleda, looking up, fire-blind for a moment, saw two forms approaching, both tall, one thin, one broad.
“Mind if we join you?” Vald said.
Bleda looked up at them. “Of course not,” he said, shuffling to make room for them around the fire.
“Why are you not with your people?” Ellac asked.
“Doesn’t feel right,” Jost said. “We’ve been trained as White-Wings, but today was the first real battle we’ve seen, fought in, and we stood with you, not them. You stood with us, against them. That should mean something, not be forgotten.”
“Kol your Lord Protector said that enmity was all behind us,” Ellac said. Bleda saw he was staring keenly at the two young men.
“A world of difference between saying something and it being real,” Vald muttered.
“There is,” Ellac said flatly.
A shifting in the air, an unseen wind, and then dark shapes were descending, solid shadows dropping out of the night, taking form.
Kol, a few Ben-Elim with him, and Riv. Bleda felt a lurch in his chest at the sight of her. They alighted at the edge of Bleda’s firelight, shadow and flame casting them in hues of red and black.
Riv stood a step behind Kol, her eyes taking in Vald and Jost with Bleda and his guard, meeting Bleda’s gaze for a lingering moment, then looking away.
“A token to prove that I mean what I say,” Kol said. He gestured a hand, and one of the Ben-Elim stepped forwards, carrying a heavy bundle in his arms, wrapped in a wool cloak. He dropped it on the ground before Bleda, and weapons spilt out—the curved swords of the Sirak, knives, quivers of arrows, spears. Vald and Jost’s short-swords were there, too. The weapons that had been confiscated after the fight at the cabin.
“Take them back, wear them freely,” Kol said. “A sign both of my forgiveness for your past deeds, and of the trust I am giving you, for the future.” His eyes flitted to Riv, then back to Bleda and his companions.
Is this for Riv’s benefit? I do not trust him.
Nevertheless, Bleda stepped forwards and picked out his quiver and arrows, his weapons-belt with scabbarded sword and knife, and slung them over his shoulder. The others followed Bleda’s lead, apart from Mirim, who sat with her wounded leg stretched out straight before her.
“My thanks,” Bleda said. Six years living and surviving amongst the Ben-Elim at Drassil had taught him to keep his emotions closely guarded, and always to be polite, never to give cause for offence or to betray his thoughts.
Ellac sat and silently drew his sword, lay it across his lap and, fetching whetstone, scouring pad and oil from his belt pouch, set to cleaning black patches from his blade, the blood of Ben-Elim, no doubt. Ruga and Tuld did the same, Ruga passing sword and quiver to Mirim.
Kol watched in silence, firelight shining red in his eyes. When the weapons had all been reclaimed he nodded, looked at Bleda.
“Remember the kindness I am showing you, and the faith I am putting in you,” the Ben-Elim said.
“I will,” Bleda said.
I will remember this, and all else that you have done.
“I will, Lord Protector,” Kol said.
A moment’s silence, stretching. Bleda felt his companions’ eyes on him.
“I will, Lord Protector,” Bleda said quietly.
“I like the sound of that.” Kol grinned and leaped into the air, white wings snapping wide, his guard following. Riv paused, knees bent. Her wings beat, lifting her.
“Riv,” Bleda called out, and she hovered, looking down at him.
He just stared at her, felt his cold-face slip as he gazed into her eyes, so many things that he wanted to say, questions to ask.
Riv must have read them upon his face, but she did not land and talk to him, as he’d hoped. She looked down at him, her expression shifting. Grief, sorrow, shame, anger—always anger with Riv—all finally washed away by some kind of stony resolve that was not too different from Bleda’s own cold-face.
“It is for the greater good,” she said, and then with a pulse of her wings she disappeared into the darkness.
Bleda sat with the others, a subdued silence settling over them all, just the rasp of whetstones and crackle of fire as they tended to their weapons.
All except Ellac were sleeping when Bleda unrolled his sleeping blanket and lay down upon it. The old warrior was sitting and gazing into the fire like some oak-carved statue.
“What is it?” Bleda said to him, leaning up on an elbow.
Does he think me weak, for not standing up to Kol, for calling him lord?
Ellac looked at him, but said nothing, then looked back to the fire. With a sigh, Bleda lay down, rolling over with his back to Ellac. Sleep took a long time to come, despite the soporific crackle and pop of the fire as it slowly faded. He reached inside his cloak, found what he was looking for and pulled it out carefully, opening his palm in the dying fire-glow.
A large feather, dapple grey, and, folded within it, a purple flower of mountain thyme. He lay there looking at it, thinking, until sleep claimed him.
Drassil was ahead of them; tall and foreboding, banners snapping in the breeze from towers and walls, the silhouettes of Ben-Elim circling lazily above it. Six days of riding it had taken them to reach the ancient fortress, and Bleda felt his breath coming faster, a tension in his shoulders as he rode through the huge field of cairns that spread across the plain before the western gates.
Kol ordered horns blown as they crossed the field of cairns, and horn blasts echoed out from the gate tower in response.
All cannot go back to how it was—it must not. The world is changing.
“My mother must know of what is happening here,” he whispered to Ellac, leaning close to the old warrior, who was riding beside him.
Ellac looked at him, his heavy-lidded eyes unreadable, though Bleda had the distinct impression that Bleda was appraising him.
“I sent word to her the day we took Riv from Drassil,” Ellac said. “My Prince,” he added.
Over a moon ago, closer to two. Then word should have reached her in Arcona by now, or soon will. Did Ellac do it to help me, or report on me? Is he my mother’s spy?
“Good,” he said to Ellac.
With a heavy creak and grinding, Drassil’s gates opened. Kol and some of his Ben-Elim flew over the gatehouse, more horns echoing out from the vast walls. Aphra led her White-Wings marching through the gate tunnel. Bleda followed, the clip of his horse’s hooves echoing on the stone, and then they were in the courtyard, a small host arrayed to greet them: Ben-Elim and White-Wings, all manner of stablehands and servants. And then Bleda saw others, dark-skinned warriors with shaved heads and long warrior braids, for a moment thought they were the remnants of his warrior-guard that had not accompanied him into Forn Forest. But then he saw their deel tunics were blue, not grey, and realized that they were of the Cheren Clan, not the Sirak.
And he saw a young woman standing at their head, dark-haired, straight-backed and strong-shouldered, her features fine and sharp.
Jin.
A weight like a lead ball fell in the pit of Bleda’s stomach as he remembered.
I have not thought of her for over a moon.
Jin strode forwards, two of her warrior-guard at her shoulder. She stopped before Bleda, looked up at him as he dismounted.
“Welcome back to Drassil, my betrothed,” she said.