“Well, we have an army,” Gavan says in the conference that follows. “The problem is, if we throw it against the Godson’s…well, it’s going to be messy.”
“Messy,” Donal repeats.
“We’ll be fighting against people we’re used to fighting with,” Gavan says.
Donal glances at me and drawls, “And who in the name of the great blue bull would ever want to do something like that.”
“While I’m aware that the Godson has no problem pitting countrymen against one another, particularly when he wants to acquire a new province,” I say, “I’m not very enamored of the idea myself. The fact remains, gentleman, that I don’t want to know what the Godson plans as an encore to meteor strikes. We need to cut this off before it goes any further.”
“Can we use magic, then? Have you talked to your gods?” Oweir asks.
My gods. Of all things. “We can’t expect divine intervention to solve all our problems.”
“Why not?” Oweir asks. “Divine intervention got us into this mess.”
“He has a point,” Donal says.
“I was thinking of a more straightforward operation,” I say. “For which we’ll need a few volunteers to infiltrate their army.”
“Infiltration is going to be our straightforward option?” Gavan says, ear twitching.
“It is if we enlist help from the inside,” I say, eyes hard.
They meet my gaze and I watch comprehension dawn.
“So, let’s talk about what they’re going to do when they’re in,” I say, and we get to work.
I dispatch them when we’re all clear on the plan so they can make assignments and send the men out. I’m satisfied…it’s a better idea than marching in there and doing head-to-head battle with an army I am well aware is the best on the continent.
I’ll have to do something about that. If Shraeven wants to remain free, it needs to have nothing to fear from the army next door.
“So,” Ragna says behind me—she’s so quiet during these conferences that we often forget she’s there—”now what? Rest?”
I think of lying down beside her on the bunk, of all that soft, long hair beneath one of my hands…of the peace of listening to her breathe as we fall asleep.
“Now,” I said, reaching for my boots, “I go out and survey the damage those blasted meteors did to the capital of my province.”
Ragna arches her whiskers in a grin and gets up to follow.
* * *
I tour the capital with Ragna at my tail, talking with the townsfolk, stooping to examine craters or scowl at destroyed roofs. But my anger doesn’t boil over until I see the infirmary with its victims. Either the Godson’s aim is very poor, or he grew spiteful in frustration, or both…but I hardly care. By the time I get back to the inn, I am fuming, and finding the shaman waiting does not calm me.
“Negrat,” I say. “I’m not sure I’m in the best mood for this.”
He lifts a brow.
Ragna says, “She was looking at the meteor damage.”
“Ah!” Negrat says. “I imagine you are angry.”
“Angry,” I repeat, clenching the muscles of my jaw.
“Very angry,” Negrat says.
The length of my swan’s neck feels as taut as hauled rope.
“Seethingly angry,” Negrat suggests.
All the way into my back, my muscles are wracked with strain. “Do you want me to explode?” I ask, wings quivering.
“No,” Negrat says. Then cheerfully, “At least, not yet.”
“What?”
“Come, Godkin woman,” he says, taking my elbow. “You are now in the perfect mood for this rite!”
“Are you sure I should be doing this in anger?” I say, looking down at his head.
“Crowned woman,” he says, laughing, “do you not believe in righteous wrath?”
“Fine,” I say. “Tell me what to do.”
He passes me a little knife of chipped stone, connected to a bone handle by a mound of stretched sinew. “I cannot go with you for this.” He nods up toward the ceiling. “Go, fly. Overlook your city, Crowned One. Stretch your vision out to the borders, as far as your uncanny eyes can see.”
“All right,” I say. “And then what?” I glance at the knife with one lifted brow, then back at Negrat. “What do I use this for?”
He pats my arm. “You will know.”
“Negrat!”
“Go on, Godkin woman,” he says with a grin that is more teeth than pleasure. “Your country awaits.”
With a scowl I stomp out of the inn and stare up at the night sky; the distant stars seem too small for the voice I associate with them.
Distant and small…but so many. A multitude of whispers joined makes a noise as loud as an ocean roaring, doesn’t it?
Doesn’t it?
I run down the street, cupping my wings, until the air beneath them luffs the feathers out and with a painful snap of my pinions I’m aloft, soaring unsteadily up along the capital’s main thoroughfare and cursing my still-healing injury. Instead of heading directly upward, I skim the street all the way to the courtyard where I made my speech. It’s afflicted with broken cobbles and holed roofs, as if the Godson wanted to vent his spite on the seat of the government.
I fly, and look on the damage from above, and seethe. But the cold wind blows the steam off my anger and chills it in the marrow of my bones, until it becomes something dense and hard, a core more solid than my own flesh. By the time I spiral up over the city, I feel like the point of a spear.
I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want it. I loved my country—love it still—but I cannot be faithful to it and its ruler both without betraying one of them. I don’t want to be Angharad Crowned. I miss being Mistress Commander Angharad Godkin of the Sunblood Cliffs. I resent that I will never see the Sunblood Cliffs again.
The wind is cold over me as I soar upward. The world spills beneath me, black canopy dotted with lamp-light and camp-fires. My focus expands until it encompasses everything I can see from horizon to horizon, mountains dark bulks against a blue-violet sky.
This is mine. For better or worse. This is my compensation for all that I have lost and will lose: my home; my identity; my self-determination. I know better than to think becoming the queen of Shraeven will free me, even before tangling with the gods. Nothing has been the same since this campaign. Nothing will ever be the same again.
Hatred, grief, anger…I feel so heavy. And the proximate cause of all my pain is there at the gates of the capital. I turn my gaze toward his fires.
“You,” I whisper. “You did this to me. You betrayed me.”
The wind whispers under my wings, licks a flame over my cold anger.
I know it’s wrong. I know I should be thinking of Shraeven. Of justice for its people. Of the wrong the Godson has committed by conquering them. Of the damages done to their capital, to their lands, to their freedoms. But all I can think of in this moment is myself.
“You,” I say, louder. “You didn’t deserve me.” I flush with the anger that is part embarrassment, of being forced to admit to having been fooled, played, used. My blood pounds in my temples, behind my eyes. “You don’t deserve me now. You don’t even deserve to breathe the air I breathe, or sit on the land I’ve claimed.”
I struggle with the words and yet they win free of me, barbed as iron wire: “I hate you.”
Like a flash fire, I erupt. I think I scream; I don’t remember now. It is as if all the wrath in me explodes outward at once, scorching me on the way out.
I know then that I have done what I told Negrat I wanted to do. Spent and shaking, I am afflicted with a sudden remorse. Such pettiness…I reduce myself to his level. I suppose I am mortal and fallible yet. It doesn’t comfort me as it should.
As I bank to head for the inn, though, I see some of the fires in his camp gutter and die.
I run down out of the sky, bleeding momentum all the way to the front of the inn again. Beneath my feet the earth feels different. Not the Land…the Land is still a warmth in my bones, a gentle presence. But above it, like a skin…a stinging discontent. It’s not directed at me, but I recognize it anyway. It’s just like the feeling I had when I rode into Shraeven, that sense of being unwanted, that simmering resentment of a country fighting its subjugation. That feeling that drove me to follow a shaman’s advice and climb up onto a cliff with my bare hands so that the Winds could speak to me for the first time…could call me names and accuse me of coming to conquer.
Magic can be crueler than simple steel, and so much more complex.
You wanted to play at godhead, I think in the direction of the Godson’s camp. Well here we are.
The bone-and-stone knife Negrat gave me is still in my hand. If I’d opened a vein, would I have compelled the world to swallow the whole of the Godkindred’s army?
The idea nauseates me. At least I’m still mortal enough for that.
...but I still tuck the knife into my belt before I head inside.
* * *
When I enter my room, it’s empty and dim; no one lit the lamp against the falling night. I leave it off and prepare for bed on my own, exhausted from having strained my still healing body.
Then I sit across from the egg. The nest the soldiers made for it has only become more colorful: it has feathers in it—is that one of the corvid messenger’s?—and bits of yarn and ribbon. I touch one of the latter, fingering the satin. When did they add these? I never noticed.
I don’t look at the egg much.
I’m still sitting there when Ragna enters. Her arms slide around my waist from behind. She doesn’t ask…but I know by the quality of her silence that she’s waiting for me to explain myself. And because I love my quiet pard, and because I value her stark wisdom, I do. “I’ve been avoiding it. Not because I feel shame at how it came about…but because I’m scared.” I pause, drawing in a breath. Finish, “So few eggs succeed. The winged Godkindred don’t often have viable young.”
“So you think, if you do not allow yourself to become too attached, you will not mourn it if it is stillborn,” Ragna says.
I nod.
“And yet it is far too late, yes?”
My shoulders stiffen, even as I nod again.
Someone else might have attempted false comfort. Platitudes. Someone else would have told me it would be well, or to trust fate, or the gods, or…something.
Ragna just holds me.
That’s all I need.