RIV
‘Water,’ Riv whispered, breath like a rasp in her throat, scraping her flesh raw. It was dark, the sound of rain, pounding and hissing against stone, a torch flaring bright, though she could just about manage to keep her eyes open now without the sensation of sharp, sliver-thin knives stabbing into the back of her brain and scraping upon the inside of her skull.
That’s progress.
Fractured memories slipped through her mind. Sparring with Kol on the weapons-field. His arm tight around her, his breath on her neck. Collapsing, a kaleidoscope of images in this room. Aphra, her mam, Kol. A whispered meeting in the dark.
There was a dark shape over her, a hand behind her head, helping her sit. Water, oh blessed, sweet, heaven-sent water, a trickle on her lips, over her swollen tongue and down her redraw throat.
‘Slowly,’ Aphra said as Riv tried to tip more water into her mouth.
‘Where am I?’ Riv croaked, looking around. The room was circular, one long window starting from the floor and ending with an arched top, tall and wide enough for a giant to walk through. Darkness, wind and rain leaked in, pressing upon the torchlight, making it swirl and hiss. Something about the way the wind whistled through the window whispered to Riv of height.
‘A tower room,’ Aphra said, ‘above our barrack.’
Never knew this was here!
‘It’s my solitude room,’ Aphra said with a sad smile. ‘How do you feel?’
Riv wasn’t sure. She felt as if her body had been put through a mangle, aching and entirely lacking in anything resembling energy. Keeping her eyes open and looking around seemed to be taxing enough.
‘Weak,’ she breathed. ‘Cold.’ She shivered, trying to shrug the woollen blanket tighter around her. She frowned at the open window.
A shutter would help.
‘Your fever is returning,’ Aphra said with a frown, her hand on Riv’s brow. ‘This is the third time. Twice I thought it had broken and you were healing.’
‘How long?’
‘Half a ten-night.’
‘What! Is that how long I’ve been . . . ?’ She didn’t know what to call it. ‘Unwell?’
‘Aye.’ Aphra nodded. ‘Since you collapsed on the weapons-field.’
Riv drank some more water, managed to blink and roll her neck without feeling as if she’d spent a morning in the shield wall. Her back ached, a dull throb of pain, pulsing out from her shoulder blades.
‘Back,’ she said, trying to roll her shoulders. She felt different, somehow. As if she’d grown. ‘It hurts.’ She shifted, feeling muscle move that hadn’t been there when last she checked.
‘Your back. Well, I’m not surprised it’s hurting.’
‘Why?’ Riv said, not liking the sound of that, or the look on Aphra’s face. Not just worry. Something more. Something far greater than worry.
Aphra held up a strip of something that looked like parchment, crinkled and opaque.
‘What’s that?’ Riv pulled a face.
‘Your skin. It’s been peeling from your back for half a ten-night.’
‘Ugh!’
‘And there’s plenty more where that came from.’
What’s happening to me? Have I caught some disease from the mission to Oriens and into Forn? Some plant spore that has infected me? I’ve heard tell of warriors breathing spores or seeds into their lungs, their stomachs, and fungus growing inside them, eating its way out!
‘Am I going to die?’
Riv found the fact that Aphra didn’t immediately discard that option deeply worrying.
‘No,’ Aphra eventually said. ‘But I think we’re going to have to get you out of Drassil.’
‘What! Why?’
‘Riv, you’re growing. You have new muscle forming—’
‘I can feel it,’ Riv said, flexing her shoulders, feeling muscle bunch between her shoulder and neck. It was an odd sensation.
‘This must be how Vald feels,’ she said.
‘You’re starting to look like him,’ Aphra agreed with a wry smile. She stroked Riv’s face. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.
‘Why?’ Riv said. ‘What for?’
‘So many things. For the way I’ve been, with you. I’ve had my own troubles, but that is no excuse. You are my blood, the most important thing to me in all the world, and I have neglected you, let you down.’ A fat tear rolled down Aphra’s cheek.
Riv looked up at her, a whole host of emotions whirling through her. She tried to find words, but they wouldn’t come, so she settled for a smile.
The latch on the door rattled. Riv jumped, twisting to look and immediately regretting that, a wave of dizziness.
A figure entered. Aphra was standing, a hand on her sword hilt, stepping between Riv and the door. She relaxed when she saw who it was.
‘Mam, you startled me.’
‘How is she?’ Riv’s mam said.
Aphra stepped out of the way.
‘Hello, Mam,’ Riv said.
‘Oh, my darling,’ Dalmae said, crouching down beside Riv, stroking her face.
‘Nice to see you,’ Riv whispered, feeling an edge of delirium starting to fog her brain again.
‘It’s nice to see you, too,’ her mam said, a half-laugh. Riv was surprised to see tears in her mam’s eyes. She wasn’t much of a crier. Riv was also surprised to see that beneath her cloak her mam was dressed in her old White-Wing uniform, a short-sword hanging from her belt.
‘What’s going on?’ Riv asked, brow wrinkling, her sense for danger tingling, a faint echo in her head.
‘The fortress is on alert,’ Aphra said, her eyes flickering to their mam. ‘Word of a possible Kadoshim attack.’
‘I’d better—’ Riv started, struggling to rise, though too quickly, a new wave of dizziness and she blinked and found herself lying in her cot again.
Try again, slower this time.
‘Garidas is downstairs, asking for you,’ her mam said to Aphra. ‘He’s not alone. A score of his hundred in the barracks. More outside.’ There was meaning in the words that Riv didn’t understand.
‘What did you tell him?’ Aphra asked.
‘That he cannot see you. That you are indisposed at present.’
‘Do you think he will settle for that?’
The sound of footsteps on a stairwell. A knock at their door. A silence.
‘There’s your answer,’ Dalmae whispered.
‘Aphra. Aphra, it is I, Garidas. If you are in there, I must speak with you.’
A shared look between Aphra and her mam.
‘Enter,’ Aphra said, her mam slipping back into the shadows behind the door as it opened.
Garidas walked in, Riv, trying to sit up again, was abruptly aware that she had little in the way of clothes on. She pulled the woollen blanket higher, saw her clothes at the bottom of the bed.
Garidas’ eyes took in Riv, a look of concern. Genuine.
Riv liked Garidas. He had always seemed straight and kind, if a little pompous. She could see that kindness in his eyes now.
‘Are you well?’ he asked Riv.
‘No,’ Riv said, feeling honesty was more appropriate than politeness, and she didn’t have the energy for any social niceties, anyway.
‘I am sorry if I am interrupting something,’ Garidas said, looking to Aphra, ‘but I need to speak with you. It is most urgent.’
‘My sister is unwell,’ Aphra said. ‘This is not a good time.’ Her eyes glanced to the dark window, looking out, beyond, though all Riv could see was the blackness of night, hear the rattle of rain on stone and the wild gusts of wind through the great tree’s branches high above.
‘I will be quick,’ Garidas said, something about him making it clear he would not leave until he had said what he came to say.
‘Go on, then,’ Aphra said, a sigh, a hint of resignation in her voice.
‘You must leave Drassil,’ Garidas said. ‘Tonight. Now.’
Aphra did not answer, just stared at him. There was clearly more to come.
‘You’re in danger.’ He opened his mouth, closed it, pinched his nose. ‘You know I think highly of you. I hoped that one day . . .’
He paused, the words seeming to stick in his throat, and took a deep breath.
‘Kol is finished. His transgressions are uncovered. I know that you have been . . . involved with him, in the past. But not for many years. I would not see you torn down and destroyed with him in his ruin.’
A long silence, emotions playing across Aphra’s face.
Kol and Aphra, like Adonai and Estel! Riv felt as if she was experiencing it all through a veil, like a secret observer. As if it were all a dream, just another of the many lurid, irrational, sometimes insane dreams she’d experienced lately.
No, I am here. It is the fever in my body making it feel like this.
‘What do you mean, finished?’ Aphra said.
‘My men have taken Kol into custody, are taking him to Israfil as we speak.’
‘Who else knows?’ Aphra asked.
‘That does not matter,’ Garidas snapped. ‘The whole sordid tale will be spilling from Kol’s lips soon. His confession is only a formality. Israfil already knows, and he will carve a confession from him, if needs be. Go, now, before it is too late. Once this is settled and over, you will be able to return—’
‘That will be impossible,’ Aphra said. ‘Lorina? Does she know?’
‘Not of Kol’s arrest, no.’ Garidas scowled. ‘She is in league with him. Did you not know?’
‘I suspected,’ Aphra said.
‘We are wasting too much time. You have to leave, now, or it will be too late. I have horses ready for you, a wain if you need it. Come.’ He held out an arm to Aphra, stood there long moments as she hesitated.
‘Please,’ Garidas said.
A creak of leather behind him, a familiar hiss, one they all knew instantly. The sound of a sword being drawn.
Garidas turned, hand on his sword hilt, drawing his blade as he moved.
A sword punched into his belly, low, beneath the line of his cuirass, and he gasped, slumped forwards onto his killer, rested his head upon her shoulder, as if she were his lover.
‘I am sorry, my sword-brother,’ Dalmae said as she pushed him away, pulling her sword free, the splash of blood on stone, and he fell backwards, clutching his gut, staring up at her. He cried out, loud, wordless betrayal, full of pain, and Riv heard an answering call below. Dalmae stepped forwards and stabbed him in the throat.