First Lord's Fury

CHAPTER 43

Amara felt rather awkward, truth be told, about being given Bernard’s old room at Bernardholt-Isanaholt-Fredericholt, but Elder Frederic had insisted on yielding it to Count and Countess Calderon. She had only seen the chamber once, and that briefly, as Bernard had fetched her a pair of shoes that had belonged to his late wife, back during the hectic hours leading up to Second Calderon.

Her husband had lived a significant portion of his life in that room. It was hard not to feel uncomfortable here. It reminded her how much of his life she had not been present to share. He hadn’t stayed at the steadholt long, after she had come into his life.

She walked around the room, slowly. It was spacious enough, she supposed, for a small family, if they didn’t mind being close, though not nearly as large as the chambers they shared at Garrison. She tried to imagine the large fireplace in one wall, shedding the only light on a quiet winter evening, children sleeping on little mattresses in front of it, their cheeks rosy with—

Amara shook the thought away. She would never give him children, no matter how much she might wish it or fantasize about it. And in any case, the entire exercise was ridiculous. There were more important things she should be focusing on.

The vord had been driven away, and they had not reappeared in the hours of the afternoon, but they would surely not absent themselves for long. The evacuation of the easternmost half of the Valley, moving everyone behind the last redoubt at Garrison, was not yet completed. The vord would surely not wait much longer—which was why she had come to this chamber, to attempt to get some sleep in the time available to her before the enemy arrived. She hadn’t slept in days.

Amara sighed and slipped out of her armored coat. If only the Elder Frederic, now the acting Steadholder, hadn’t been the steadholt’s gargant master. The great beasts were of unsurpassed utility on a steadholt, but they stank—not unpleasantly, but enormously. They smelled very, very large. It was not the sort of addition to the décor one could readily ignore.

Unless you worked with gargants every day, she supposed.

On the other hand, Amara was exhausted. She dropped her weapons and armor next to the large simple bed and cast herself down upon it with a groan. A genuine mattress, by the furies. She hadn’t slept on anything but a bedroll or the cold ground since the fighting had resumed. But even so, she just couldn’t shake her sense of discomfort. It had, in fact, progressed to a sense of absolute unease.

Amara sat up, lifted her boot to the bed, and bent over it to unlace it. She seized the handle of the knife concealed there and called upon Cirrus to lend her arm speed as she threw it at the empty space next to the gaping fireplace, not six feet in front of her.

The dagger flickered through the air with a hissing hum, and steel met steel in a sharp chime and a shower of green sparks.

Amara flung herself over the bed without waiting to see the outcome of the throw. She grabbed her weapon belt along the way, drawing her gladius and holding the belt loosely in her still-aching left hand. The metal-fitted sheath dangling near the end of the belt, next to its heavy buckle, would make as good an improvised weapon as she was likely to find in these quarters. She gauged the distance from the bed to the door.

“Don’t bother,” said a woman’s voice calmly. “You wouldn’t reach it. And I cannot permit you to flee.” A windcrafted veil fell, revealing…

It took Amara a moment to recognize Invidia Aquitaine, and even then she only did it because she recognized the chitin-armor and the creature upon her breast. The woman’s long, dark hair was gone. So was most of her lily-white skin, replaced by mottled red burn scars. The corner of one eye sagged beneath a scar, but they were otherwise the same, and her calm, implacable gaze was chilling.

“If you leave now,” Amara said, her voice cool, “you might escape before the Placidas catch up to you.”

Invidia smiled. It did horrible things to the scars on her face. One of them cracked and bled a little. “Dear Countess, don’t be ridiculous. They do not know I am here, any more than you did. Count yourself fortunate that I have not come here to harm you.”

Amara checked the distance to the door again.

“Though I will,” Invidia said, “if you attempt anything foolish. I am sure that you are aware how little hesitation I would have should I need to kill you.”

“As little as I will have when I kill you,” Amara replied.

Invidia’s smile widened. The blood tracked over her lip and one very white tooth. “Feisty little thing. I’ll dance if you wish. But if we do, you’re a dead woman, and you know it.”

Amara clenched her teeth, seething—because crows take her, the woman was right. Out in the open, with room to maneuver, Amara had a real chance of surviving against Invidia. In this smelly chamber, surrounded by stone? She would be dead before her scream reached the nearest guard. There was nothing she could do to change that, and the knowledge terrified and infuriated her.

“Very well,” Amara said a moment later, stiffly. “I’ll bite. Why are you here?”

“To negotiate, of course,” Invidia said.

Amara stared at her for a long moment. Then she whispered, “Murdering bitch. You can go to the crows.”

Invidia laughed. It was a bitter, unsettling sound, made eerie by some strange convolution of her burn-scarred throat. “But you do not even know, Countess, what I have to offer.”

“Treachery?” Amara guessed, her voice venomously sweet. “That’s your usual service, after all.”

“Precisely,” Invidia said. “And this time it will work in your favor.”

Amara narrowed her eyes.

“What’s happening out there, Amara, is the end of everything. Unless the Queen is stopped, Alera is finished.”

“And you’re going to… what, exactly? Kill her for us?”

She bared her teeth. “I would, were it possible. I cannot. She is too powerful. By far.”

“Then I’d say you have little to offer us,” Amara replied.

“I can tell you the location of her hive,” Invidia said. “Where you can find her. Where she is most vulnerable.”

“Please do.”

Invidia settled her fingers a little more solidly on the grip of her sword. “I’m desperate, Countess. Not an idiot. I won’t give you that without guarantees.”

“Of?” Amara asked.

“My immunity,” she responded. “A full pardon for any actions leading up to and during this conflict. My estate on the northeast border of the Feverthorn. I will accept banishment to it and house arrest there for the remainder of my life.”

“And in exchange,” Amara said quietly, “you give us the location of the vord Queen.”

“And I will participate in the attack,” Invidia replied. “If every High Lord still under arms pits his strength against her, if she can be caught in her hive, and if the timing is properly arranged, it might be an even match. And that’s the best chance you’re going to have between now and the world’s end, which I estimate will be less than a week from now.”

Amara wanted to snarl her defiance and scorn at the burned traitor, but she forced herself to step back from the emotions while she drew in a slow breath. Millions of lives were at stake. She could not let her weariness, her fear, or her anger guide her actions. She was a Cursor of the Realm, by training and by service, and she owed her teachers—even Fidelias—more than to mindlessly toss out an angry reply like a furious child.

It took her more than a minute to calm her mind, to slow her breathing, to reach a state of clarity and think about the traitor’s offer.

“There’s an issue of credibility,” Amara said. “Specifically, you have none. Why shouldn’t we assume that this offer is a trap to lead our most powerful crafters to their deaths?”

“Can you afford skepticism at this point, Amara?” Invidia asked. “The Queen is no fool. She knows that you will do whatever you can to kill her. She and her kind have been playing this game for a long, long time. She has no intention of allowing you to see her, much less attack her—and even if you defeat this army, in weeks there will be another upon your doorstep. What power remains to Alera is insufficient to stop her. She already controls too much territory, and you do not have the manpower necessary to retake it. Can you afford not to trust me?”

“Absolutely,” Amara said. “I am perfectly willing to take my chances with an honest enemy rather than place the fate of the Realm in your demonstrably treacherous hands.”

Invidia tilted her head slightly, her eyes narrowing. “You want something.”

“Think of it as earnest money,” Amara said. “Show me the color of your coin, and there’s a chance we can do business.”

Invidia spread her hands. “What would you have of me?”

“The numbers and disposition of the horde, of course,” Amara said. “Add to that the time and focus of the next attack, and any information you have regarding vord troops present upon the field whom we have not yet observed.”

“Give you all of that information?” Invidia asked. “It would not take her long to realize that she had been betrayed. I would survive her wrath no better than I would the High Lords’.”

Amara shrugged. “That does not, in my view, make the plan any less attractive.”

Invidia’s eyes flashed with silent anger.

“Give me that information,” Amara said quietly. “If it is accurate, we can discuss further cooperative actions. Otherwise, go.”

“Give me your word,” Invidia said. “Your word that you bargain in good faith.”

Amara sneered at her. “You… you, Invidia, are asking me for my word? Do you see the irony inherent in that?”

“I know what your word means to you,” Invidia said quietly. “I know that you will keep it.”

“You don’t know what it means,” Amara replied. “You have no idea. You might see integrity in others, see it function, see how it guides them. But you do not know what it is, traitor.”

Invida bared her teeth. “Give me your word,” she said. “And I will give you what you ask.”

Amara narrowed her eyes for a time, then said, “Very well. Within the limits of my power and influence, I give you my word, Invidia. Deal with me honestly, and I will do what I can to make this bargain for you. Though I must caution you—I do not know what the Princeps’ reaction to your proposal is likely to be. Nor can I control it.”

Invidia stared at her intently while she spoke. Then she nodded slowly. “I do not think the Princeps is going to be of any concern to anyone for much longer.”

“You mean your ex-husband?”

Invidia’s expression twisted into mild surprise. “Is he still alive?”

Amara paused deliberately before she spoke, placing emphasis on that silence. “For now,” she said, finally. “I assume that the First Lady is still being held by the Queen?”

Invidia curled her lips in a grim little smile, pausing for the exact same length of time before she answered. “She is being held in the hive, along with Araris Valerian. You see, Countess? We can do business.”

Amara nodded slowly. “I am listening, Invidia. But not for long.”

“She was right here? In the bloody steadholt? In this bloody room?” Raucus bellowed. “Bloody crows, why didn’t you raise the alarm?”

“Perhaps because Invidia would undoubtedly have killed her?” Phrygius suggested patiently. “Which was presumably why she approached the Countess instead of one of us?”

Raucus scowled. “I mean after she left. We could have brought the bitch down before she got back to her cave or whatever.”

“Perhaps you should let the Countess speak. That way, she’ll be able to tell us,” Lord Placida said mildly.

Lady Placida frowned and moved her hand as if to restrain her husband, but dropped it back to her side again. Old Cereus sat in a chair near the door, frowning.

“Thank you, Your Grace,” Bernard said. “Love?”

“Invidia came here to try to make a deal.”

Everyone simply stared at her in shock, except for old Cereus, who snorted. “That isn’t surprising,” he said. “It’s stupid, but not surprising.”

“Why not, Your Grace?” Amara asked. She knew, but if any of the High Lords in the room hadn’t worked it out yet, it would better come from one of their own than from her.

Cereus shrugged. “Because for Invidia, life was always about pushing people around like pieces on a ludus board. In her mind, what’s going on right now isn’t that different from business as usual in Alera. More difficult, more degrading, more unpleasant, but she doesn’t understand what losing a loved one…” He cleared his throat. The old man’s sons had been killed during High Lord Kalarus’s uprising and the initial offensive of the Vord War. “What it can do to a body. How it changes things. Woman’s never loved a thing in her life but power.”

Amara nodded. “She seeks a more favorable bargaining position. To use whomever she can and abandon whomever she can’t.”

Phrygius stroked a hand over his roan red beard, musing. “I thought you said that she was trapped in the vord’s service. That big bug thing on her chest was the only thing keeping her alive.”

“Yes,” Amara says. “Which means that she knows or thinks she knows some way to overcome it.”

“What did she offer, Countess?” Placidus asked.

Amara told them about the conversation with Invidia. “She said that when we wanted to speak to her, we should send up green signal arrows from her in groups of three. She’ll contact us.”

Heavy silence followed.

“Do you think she’s serious?” Raucus asked. “Tell me you don’t think that bitch is serious.”

“I think she might be,” Lady Placida said slowly.

Phrygius shook his head. “It’s a trap.”

“Bloody expensive trap,” Lord Placida mused. “If that information she gave you is accurate, Countess, we can use it to hurt them badly.”

“You aren’t thinking like a bloody bug,” Raucus said. “She can afford to throw away a million warriors if it means she breaks the back of our heaviest furycraft.”

Lady Placida nodded. “And if we deploy our troops to take advantage of the enemy attack, and she’s lying to us, the vord will be able to take advantage of us. They’ll know where we’ll have to put them to counter the attack. If Invidia is lying, they can use that to their advantage.”

“Hah,” Lord Placida said suddenly.

“Oh,” Lord Cereus said, at the same time. “Oh, Countess. I see now. Well played.”

“Thank you, Your Grace,” Amara said quietly, nodding to each of them.

Raucous scowled, looking back and forth between them. “What?”

“Don’t try to figure it out,” Phrygius muttered. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

“You don’t know any more than I do,” Raucus shot back.

Lady Placida pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger and let out a slow, patient exhale. “Countess, please. For my benefit, please explain.”

Amara gave Lord Placida a slight bow, and said, “Your Grace, if you would?”

Lord Placida returned her bow, and said, “The Countess has established a situation in which all roads but the last will end in our favor. We can’t be sure about the confrontation with the Queen, regardless of what happens. But we can test Invidia’s honesty by watching the next vord attack.”

“And if she’s lying?” Lady Placida asked.

“If she’s lying, she’s doing it for a reason,” Cereus said. “She’s doing it because the vord need to create a weakness that they can exploit. We trump her hand by not trying to take advantage of the enemy dispositions in the next attack. We maintain the strength of our defenses as they stand and withdraw to Garrison when the evacuation is complete, just as planned. We give them no chance to exploit us. The outcome of this war is going to hinge on killing the Queen in any case, not simply slaughtering warriors.”

Lady Placida nodded slowly, one hand toying idly with the single, long braid of her scarlet-auburn hair. “If the vord come at us the way Invidia says they will, we won’t be able to hurt them for it. We’ll miss the opportunity.”

“But we’ll know she’s telling the truth about something,” Amara said. “We’ve lost nothing. And no matter what happens, we’ve gained one piece of what I judge to be reasonably reliable information.”

“We know my sister and Araris are alive,” Bernard rumbled.

Lady Placida’s eyes widened. “You think Isana is behind this?”

“I think it is one possibility,” Amara said. “But the story about Isana saving Araris from garic poisoning was widely told. If Invidia thinks that Isana could potentially save her from the poisoning as she did Araris, she might well plot to betray the vord. She is determined and very intelligent.”

“Would Isana do such a thing?” Lady Placida asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” Amara said. “All that matters is that Invidia believes she can. Whatever the truth, it would appear that Invidia thinks she may have been cast a lifeline.”

Lord Antillus managed to fit a profound portion of skepticism into his grunt.

“I know,” Amara said. “She’s a schemer. But it’s possible that she thinks she can scheme her way out of this situation the way she’s done so many other times. If that is the case—if she’s telling us the truth about the next attack,” Amara said, “then she’s probably telling us the truth about taking us to the vord Queen.”

She frowned. “And there’s one other thing. Something she may have genuinely let slip. She said that the Princeps would shortly be of no concern to anyone—and she wasn’t talking about Attis.”

The room suddenly became utterly silent. The air thrummed with brittle tension.

“I think Octavian is close,” Amara said.

“If Invidia or the Queen attacks him, he’s as good as dead,” Phrygius said. “He’s had his full abilities for what? A year at the most? With no formal training? There’s no way he could have learned enough technique to apply them. And how many others could he possibly have with him, given that he landed in Antillus… a week ago, give or take? How many Knights Aeris were in the First Aleran?”

“Twenty-six,” Placida said quietly. “And your sons, Raucus.”

Raucus said nothing, but his expression was bleak.

“He must be trying to make it through to us,” Phrygius said. “A small, fast-moving group for immediate protection, maybe flying under veils, if he’s good enough to do that. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

Placida nodded. “And if they’re talking about taking him down, then he’s probably close enough for the Queen to attack.”

“No,” Bernard said in a quiet, firm voice. “She’s close enough for him to attack her, Your Grace.”

“If the Queen is beyond Invidia, she’s beyond Octavian,” Phrygius said. “Simple as that. He’s barely more than a boy.”

“He shut down the plans of Invidia and Attis when he was a boy,” Bernard growled, his eyes on Phrygius’s. “I doubt he’s planning on facing her in a wrestling ring or a dueling hall. You’d be a fool to dismiss him, Your Grace.”

Phrygius narrowed his eyes, and his beard bristled.

Raucus put a hand on his shoulder. “Easy, Gun. Don’t make more of that than what he said. What if I’d spoken of your son that way, huh?”

Lord Phrygius was stiff for a moment more, then inclined his head toward Bernard. “He’s your blood. I didn’t think before I spoke. Please excuse me.”

Bernard nodded.

“Stay focused,” Lady Placida said. “We can’t know what to do about Octavian until we find him, or he makes contact. It’s possible that he wants it that way. We can’t know if Invidia is going to betray us at the last moment. But. Assuming that she appears to be telling us the truth… the only question is whether or not we pit ourselves against her knowing that it could be a trap, and we could be walking to our deaths. For that matter, even if she is sincere, we might still die.”

Raucus exhaled slowly. “Maybe we should bring Forcia, Attica, and Riva.”

Cereus shook his head. “They’ve never been fighters, I’m afraid. In a close-quarters fight, they’d be more dangerous to us than to the vord.”

“It’s up to us,” Lord Placida said quietly. “And I don’t think we’re going to get a better chance. I don’t think we have a choice, even if it is a trap. I’m in.”

His wife intertwined her fingers with his, silently.

Cereus rose, with either his armor or his bones creaking.

Phrygius eyed Raucus, and said, “Maybe I’ll finally get to see you get knocked on your ass.”

“When we get back, you and I are going to have a talk in which you lose your teeth,” Antillus replied. “Because I’m going to knock them out of your head. With my fists.”

“I think we all understood what you meant at the end of your first sentence, dolt.”

“Boys, boys,” Aria said, her voice warm. “It doesn’t matter unless she’s telling the truth about the next attack, in any case. Until then, we’re not changing any plans, yes?”

“Correct,” Bernard said. “We lie low and wait. We’ll meet again in Garrison and talk about the next step after we see what happens. If she’s telling the truth, we’ll know it in about three hours.”

The meeting broke up. The High Lords went back out to their positions on the wall, leaving Amara and Bernard alone in the room.

Bernard watched her with calm green eyes for several seconds before he said, “What were you holding back?”

“What makes you think I was holding anything back, love?” Amara asked.

He shrugged. “Know you too well, I suppose.” He tilted his head, frowning, then nodded slowly. “You talked a lot about the vord’s next attack. Kept their focus on it. So it’s going to happen later.” He furrowed his brow in thought. “Invidia’s going to betray us at the hive.”

“Yes,” Amara said quietly. “She is.”

Bernard inhaled slowly. “What are we going to do about it?”

The room, Amara thought, felt positively cavernous without the presence of the High Lords there. She bowed her head and closed her eyes and tried not to think too hard about what she had to do. “We,” she whispered, “are going to let her.”